Islam and fascism (split from IS thread)

[El_Machinae]

Well, it's a stereotype on my part, but I think of wnd as the place slack jaws go to have their confirmation biases fulfilled. A reasonable position can easily be validated using other sources, so (to avoid knee jerk bias from your reader (like I did)) it's just better to use those other sources. It just speeds communication

 

[abradley]

Well, it's a stereotype on my part, but I think of wnd as the place slack jaws go to have their confirmation biases fulfilled. A reasonable position can easily be validated using other sources, so (to avoid knee jerk bias from your reader (like I did)) it's just better to use those other sources. It just speeds communication

No facts to back up your "but I think of wnd as the place slack jaws go to have their confirmation biases fulfilled."

Hmmmmm.

 

[Ajidica]

I don't see how there's a question of legal equality, at all. There's simply the oldest moral rule in the book - don't hurt people who don't deserve it! Soldiers choose to be in harm's way; civilians don't. Soldiers have a duty to use the least force possible to carry out whatever mission they have, because that's the method which causes the fewest dead innocent people. I think you've managed to let some quite abstract philosophy get in the way of the incredibly simple. You're thinking of people in collective and pretty vague ways, whereas when these decisions are actually being made it's a question of killing people's parents and children, bombing people out of their homes, blowing up hospitals and leaving sick people to die - and so on. If you start thinking of those as just another statistic, you go mad, and you open the door to evil.

Out of curiosity, when you were in the British Army how were you trained to approach potential civilian casualties? Is there some sort of percentage (if we are 70% likely to cause civilian casualties, let's not attack that building) or is it simply left up to discretion by the officers?

 

[r16]

That's utopia.

not an attack on the poster but a mere comment on a post that deals with what a former soldier said . Who was involved in a shooting war , as far as ı get from his posts , with Argentinians who did their damnedest to kill him and his pals and stuff . And there were still thousands of POWs taken . Why it is so difficult or something that soldiers do not have to be bloody murderers ?

 

[abradley]

not an attack on the poster but a mere comment on a post that deals with what a former soldier said . Who was involved in a shooting war , as far as ı get from his posts , with Argentinians who did their damnedest to kill him and his pals and stuff . And there were still thousands of POWs taken . Why it is so difficult or something that soldiers do not have to be bloody murderers ?

Depends on the enemy, if they play dead and then strike, the next enemy is dead.

During the Pacific War where the Japs were notorious for shamming, a Gen told his troops just before the invasion of some island (Paraphrased) 'I don't want any of you getting killed trying to help some Jap.'

Excuse the term Jap, it's easier for posting not meant to be derogatory.

If they want to call me an Ami, fine.

 

[r16]

the seperatists regularly booby-trap their dead ; there was this case of a wounded guy trapping himself while attacking a police station and no way for him to run . His trembling hands caused the grenade go off , in view of dozens of people recording it on cell phones . Just two months back . OK , survival needs care . Let's gut a rope on this dead seperatist and use the APC to pull him away 5 meters so that all the tripwires go off ? Cool idea ? When they did it in the 1990s they put the rope around the guy's neck and it was a PR disaster . In contrast to the idea of conveying that the "enemy" will be treated like carcass and roadkill by allowing photography ... It's entirely feasible to smash the enemy into tiny bits and keep the option for a little bit of humanity available ...

 

[Flying Pig]

Out of curiosity, when you were in the British Army how were you trained to approach potential civilian casualties? Is there some sort of percentage (if we are 70% likely to cause civilian casualties, let's not attack that building) or is it simply left up to discretion by the officers?

To be honest with you, I don't know if such a percentage existed, because I was never at the operational level (battalion-level staff officers and above) that would have dealt with one. I expect there was, formally or informally. I remember that after the assault on Goose Green our CO threatened to bombard the town and hold the enemy responsible for the civilian deaths, but I always took that as a bluff. It worked, though.

At platoon level, which is where I spent my whole career, you can't think like that - the information simply isn't there. We were taught to avoid civilian casualties if at all possible. Obviously, there are cases where you have to take greater risks than others - you might see a man about to fire into a crowd of civilians standing next to a civilian, and in that case I'd probably have shot him and taken the risk of hitting the man next to him. Some officers would have told me that I was wrong to do that, because seeing a British soldier shoot a civilian will generate far more terrorists. That's ultimately the point of the exercise.

In more tactical terms, I would never have given the order to pour heavy fire on a building that I knew to have civilians inside. At least in a rifle assault you have the chance to differentiate friend from foe, but a mortar or artillery shell doesn't. I never wanted that on my conscience. Admittedly, some people took an attitude more like Tovergeiter's, particularly in a place like Ireland where we knew that the civilians mostly hated us and were actively trying to help the people trying to kill us - and often kept a balaklava and an armalite in the wardrobe at home. Plenty of those went mad.

Usually, civilian casualties happen not because of 'collateral damage' in the real sense (I had to hit Jack the Civvy to have a chance of hitting Jim the Terrorist) but because of mistaken identity - you're on patrol and see a man holding something, somebody thinks it's a rifle and fires, and you soon see that it was an umbrella. That's a stupid example but precisely how Bloody Sunday happened. My attitude - especially after that, though my battalion wasn't party to it - was that we have to take a few risks and be willing to wait until we're absolutely certain before we start killing people. The other situation in which it happens is civilians being violent - throwing stones, petrol bombs and the like - and somebody panics, and starts shooting out of fear. Soldiers - just like policemen - can deal with those situations without firepower, and have a moral duty to do so - but try telling that to people holding a thin green line against hundreds or thousands of angry, murderous people. I can understand why the lads from the 1st Bn opened fire that day, and find it difficult to condemn them out of hand. You can't lightly ask somebody to risk their life and the lives of their brothers for people who, even if not currently armed, are actively trying to get them killed, especially when situations like that happen almost every day. Take an extra 1% of risk for a hundred days and that's another letter to somebody's mother. However, Bloody Sunday turned untold numbers of people to violence and hatred against us - shooting civilians to save soldiers' lives is a false economy.

My attitude is that when you stop treating civilians as people and start treating them as 'just a crowd of bloody Micks' or anything like that, you lose any moral sense about them. That's when war crimes happen - not because of hatred in itself, but because of indifference, because men refuse to accept that these people count as people. Usually, the whole point of having the soldiers in a country in the first place is to protect them!

 

[abradley]

Agree.

 

[HannibalBarka]

Leader-worship lies at the core of Islam, not just radical Islam. Mohammed is considered the best person who ever lived by an overwhelming majority of Muslims, even by moderate Muslims. He is considered the perfect role-model who all Muslims should strive to live up to. That is why just drawing him is considered an act of blasphemy which must be punished by death.
The problem is that this was a man who did truly horrible deeds. He was a conquering warlord, and would be indistinguishable from the most ruthless dictators of our time if he lived today. For example, he is said to have personally beheaded 800 Jews in Medina when they refused to convert to Islam. After he had returned to Mecca and conquered the city, he eradicated all the different religious sects, destroying every religous symbol he deemed non-Islamic and persecuting and killing those unwilling to submit. This is all based on the original Islamic texts. There are countless passages in the Koran and the hadith in which Mohammed orders Muslims to fight against the unbelievers.

Muslims think of Mohammad less than what Christians think of Jesus though
Than again he is indeed the inventor of the religion !! Buddist think alike of Budda and I am sure most Taoist have a proufound respect of Lao Tse, I really don't see why should Muslim think different of their Prophet.
Now you are giving a controvertial and anachronic description of him. Most of what you said is historically debatable. Muhammad, if we want to make an anachronic argument again, did also give many new rights to women. Will you than celebrate him as a feminist?

I also don't know why we should apply anachronic judgement to religious figures and not political ones. Why are french still celebrating a mass murderer like Napoleon? and why do American still put slavers on their dollars?

 

[Tahuti]

Muslims think of Mohammad less than what Christians think of Jesus though
Than again he is indeed the inventor of the religion !!

I agree Muhammad was a shrewd political operator, though the traditional Muslim perspective says he was divinely inspired. Of course that's still more modest a claim than saying that Jesus was literally both son of god and god himself at the same time!

 

[HannibalBarka]

Thank you for your questions. You chose what is perhaps the most consequential bad idea in Islam. The promotion of violence is deeply imbedded in Islamic scripture and is an integral part of the holy texts. The first thing to note about the koran is, as abradley correctly pointed out, that it is seen as the direct word of god (unlike the bible, which most Christians think is the word of God written down through the hand of men and is therefore more open to interpretation). There are fewer tools available for Muslims to theologically defend a less literal take on the koran. As I pointed out at the bottom of page 5 in this thread, the koran itself forbids Muslims to change the meaning of what Allah allegedly revealed to Mohammed. Furthermore, its commands are much more open-ended. Whereas the bible contains stories and parabels which can be contextualised more easily and are largely viewed as refering to the specific circumstances of the time they were written, the literary style of the koran is that of an instruction manual, giving advice and orders to Muslims for all times.

while I agree with most of what you write here, I think you are exagerating it. You'll find very few christians saying the Bible is maybe half true or referring to it in other term than "The word of God" and you will also find many Muslims who are not literalist even if they think the Koran is God's work. Most importantly, most of the Sharia is derived from the Sunna and not the Koran, ie from what Mohammad said or did, and that part is definetly not the "direct word of God".

So what does the koran says about violence? Violence itself is of course a wide field and is advocated in many different contexts. The most obvious context is violence against unbelievers. The koran contains over one hundred verses which order Muslims to fight against the infidels. Jihad is a central message of the book. These are not lines which are open to interpretation; they are clear commands, such as "kill them [the unbelievers] wherever you find them" (2:191), "fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness" (9:123), or "strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them" (66:9). For a larger overview, check this page.

The verb stem "qtl", "to kill", appears 187 times in the koran. The stem "db", "to punish", appears over 400 times.

You'll also find in the Koran hundreds of time the word "peace", misericordia" and other "positive" things. You'll aslo find in the Koran a verse saying "no complusory belief" and another telling the prophet to just invite people to convert and nothing more as only Allah can show them the true path etc. The Koran is really a book where you'll find any thing you want and you can back up with it Sufism and Wahhabism at the same time depending on you and not on the book itself. Quite frankly, it's just lots of general principle.

That is not going into the over 7,000 hadith, which like the koran are viewed as divine revelation and confirm the messages found in the koran, including the advocating of violence.

That is not true. Most if not all Muslims think the Koran is the true word of God. Hadith are however just what the Prophet said or did, and though most Muslim would think the Prophet won't do wrong things (till a certain degree though), they also know that Hadith have been reported by the Prophet's friends or his friend's friends etc and therefore have been subject to humans and therefore are not "sacred" and definetly not the Word of God. There are even Islamic scholars who think Hadith shouldn't be taken into account.
And than again, Muhammad have been quoted saying "kill" hundreds of times, but he also have been quoted saying "don't kill" an equal number of times, and is again subject to the kind of interpretation you want

It is important to mention the concept of abrogation in this context. This is the theological precept that in the case of contradictions in the koran, later verses override the earlier ones. I commented on this in an earlier thread:

It's not that simple. Some scholars accept the concept of abrogation others don't because they think the Koran is like Allah, since it's the word of Allah, ATEMPORAL and therefore cannot be taken chronologically

Moreover, violence is not only commanded against unbelievers. The punishments for violation of the rules of sharia often include the death penalty or other physical mistreatments. The most undisputed law in the Muslim world is that apostacy is to be punished by death. There has never been a major school of thought opposed to this punishment, and even many Muslims who are viewed as moderate consider this to be the only just sentence. But also other "crimes", such as blasphemy, adultery (including women who were raped), or homosexuality (which are all "hudud", "crimes against God") lead to the death penalty. And the death penalty in Islam not conducted by a lethal injection, but by public stoning or, in the case of homosexuals, hurling the "offenders" from roof tops. In many Islamic countries "lesser" crimes, such as theft, are punished by chopping off hands or public flogging.

Some of those punishments were harsher before Islam though. Seen from today's world, they are indeed horrible, but so is the 1st US constitution. and that is why it is again a matter of interpretation: some Mulims will tell you that we should apply to today's world the rules of the 7th century, and some will tell you that no, the Koran should be read in today's context and therefore should be interpreted accordingly. Who is right? who is wrong? both are

All the attempts to reform and modernise the religion over the course of its history have been rejected and combatted by the religous establishment. Medieval Arab philosophers such as Ibn Khaldun or Ibn Sina were prosecuted, as are reformers today, who are brandmarked as heretics for their effort to contextualise the barbarism in the Islamic holy texts. While there have been quite a few outspoken Muslim critics of Islam in the past decades, their voices remain marginal compared to Islamic orthodoxy, which, led by the Al Azhar University of Cairo, the intellectual center of the Muslim world, continues to reject any re-interpretation of the koran and the hadith. That is why it is so noteworthy that Egypt's president Al-Sisi claimed early this year that it was "inconceivable, that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!" Words like these are rare from political or religious authorities, and several incitements to kill the man were immediately issued on public television.

Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Sina were prosecuted and honored depending mostly on who was in power and not because of what they said. Now that being said, I agree many reformers were fought by the fundamentalists, but most of the fight was peaceful until the late decades (notably between Al Ghazaly and Ibn Rushd), and violence did not necessarily come from the establishement (quite the contrary actually, the Establishement in many cases sided with the State against the fundies) but from individuals.

The results of the tradition of violence can be seen around the world today. Every month thousands of innocent people are killed by violence in the name of Islam. Just being a non-Muslim is a dangerous thing in many Islamic countries. Being a Jew, a homosexual or an atheist will get you killed instantly in places from Pakistan and Bangladesh over Saudi Arabia and Iran to Somalia. However, most victims of Islamic violence are other Muslims, many of who too openly expressed free thought or confessed to hold beliefs divergent from Islamic tradition. Others fall victim to the Sunni Shia divide. And many of them are women and girls who commited the "crimes" of seeking education or not covering themselves up properly. The sheer number of killings in the name of Islam should make it obvious that these are not isolated cases. Furthermore, over the last decade there have been hundreds of polls on the connection between Islam and violence and the relationship of Muslims towards terrorism. Depending on what questions are asked, we often find majorities or at least large minorities of the population in Muslim countries who support the use of violence. While not all of the, say, 86 percent of Jordanian Muslims who support the death penalty for leaving Islam would actually go out and kill apostates, it should be clear that numbers like these are terrifying.
Anyway, I could go on, but I think this should be enough for a first overview.
Thank you, Tigranes. I believe that whatever opinions we hold, a civil and open conversation should always be the medium by which we engage with each other and exchange our ideas.

You say “Every month thousands of innocent people are killed by violence in the name of Islam” OK. But thousands of Muslims are also fighting againt this interpretation of Islam. What I don’t get is what makes you think the first are the one having it right (in terms of what is Islam) and not the second?

 

[HannibalBarka]

It seems to me that the belief in jihad as a divine command, coupled with the belief in martyrdom and paradise, is a very effective incentive to participate in the violent spread of Islam.

the spread of Islam as a religion was not that violent, the spread of "Islam" as a political entity was indeed. But "Islam" as a political entity does not mean much in our discussion about the religion.

While there is obviously no "nation" of Muslims in the terrestrial sense of the word, the umma certainly features some crucial elements of nations, like its exclusiveness or the solidiarity of Muslims to one another, who in conflict will often side with other Muslims for the sole reason that they are Muslims.

but that is not nation or nationalism at all. Soccer supporter will also side with each other

While this is a crucial difference, there are many more. Most notably the concepts of holy war and martyrdom, which do not exist in the bible, and the relation towards violence, which I touched on two pages ago.

That what surprised me most in this post. I don't know if I need to tell you about Roman/Lions/Early Christians, Crusades, Masada etc

US foreign policy has nothing to do with Christianity. And while they can be criticised for several of their missteps, the US and Israel do not intentionally kill civilians. This is not on their agenda. In fact, they usually try to avoid killing innocent people if possible. Compare that with Muslims terrorism, which in most cases has the sole purpose of killing civilians. It is not hard to see who has the moral highground here, regardless of their differing levels of military power.

I don't really think this is the core of our discussion but I truly doubt most of Islamic terrorism is about killing civilian or just politics by other means. You don't see much islamic terrorism against Costa Rica or Bhutan, do you?

 

[Gucumatz]

Terrorism is a political tool just like any other (although far more reprehensible), if hardcore Islamists thought they could persuade individuals via other means they probably would (and do when possible). But since the fact is extremism, is well extreme - the usage of fear and therefore trying to recruit other crazies who are attracted by said creation of fear via killing civilians is a strategy that specifically targets the outliers of society.

Islamic terrorism wants to impose a way of life and a general retribution against those who don't believe in said ideals - killing civilians I wouldn't say is their primary goal, but a means to their theoretical end because their positions are so extreme they don't really have other feasible avenues available to them

 

[HannibalBarka]

I have the suspicion that we are talking past each other. While I am talking about people having the same moral responsibility for their actions regardless of the power they hold, you seem to be refering to specific rules of warfare that apply to soldiers and their interactions with civilians. I also suspect that we are in agreement on both issues.
Turning back to the topic of the thread, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the 1920s and 1930s, Haj Amin al-Husseini, among the most important Muslim leaders of the time, is well-known to have openly collaborated with the Nazis and spoke to Hitler personally about their shared interests in 1941.
He expressed his views on the relationship between Islam and National Socialism in 1944, and mentioned following similarities:
1. Monotheism - unity under one leader, "Führerprinzip"
2. Obedience and discipline
3. Value of military struggle and the honor to die in combat
4. Value of the community, and placing common interests over individual interests
5. Esteem for the role of women as mothers
6. The need to eradicate the Jews
7. Glorification of labor, regardless of what purpose it serves
The collaboration and mutual respect of both these figures towards another was centered around the goal to eradicate the Jews, but was also born out of the affinity towards each other's ideological convictions. While this liaison between National Socialism and Islam (which by the way wasn't limited to al-Husseini but included the support of other Islamic organisations, like the Muslim Brotherhood) could be written off as a historical issue, neither Hitler nor al-Husseini have ever been denounced or even openly criticized by the Islamic orthodoxy. Quite the contrary, "Mein Kampf" is a best-seller in many Islamic countries, including the comparatively secular Turkey. The fascist elements that al-Husseini listed for both ideologies are still strongly virulent among Muslims today. Even in Germany, where the condemnation of National Socialism is ubiquitous in schools and in the media, Hitler is viewed as an outstanding and inspiring leader by 25 percent of Muslims. This video in the German city of Essen shows Muslim protesters shouting for the death of Jews and chanting "Adolf Hitler". Similar scenes have meanwhile been seen in countless other European cities.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of these hideous events has been that in Germany and Austria, where it is illegal to spread National Socialist propaganda and glorify Hitler or the holocaust, the Muslims who participated in this behaviour were largely acquitted. Earlier this year, a Muslim who publicly praised Hitler for the killing of Jews in the Austrian city of Linz was discharged by the judge, who claimed that these words uttered by a Turkish man were to be seen as voicing his legitimate opinion. And 45 of the 49 Muslims who were arrested in Frankfurt for screaming that Jews should be gassed while doing the Nazi salute were likewise acquitted. It is difficult to fathom how our courts are openly accepting this new rise of antisemitism and enthusiasm towards National Socialism. That this is happening again, here, in the country responsible for the holocaust, is more than outrageous. Yet those who criticise this behaviour are often still labeled as rascists or even as Nazis. I hope this shows the utter absurdity and moral reprehensibleness of wanting to silence critique of Islam.

And Jabotinsky, the leader of the right wing Zionist, the "grand father " of modern Likud and Jewish right wing was an admirer of the Duce, are you now going to tell us zionism is fachism ???

I really think if there is one single conflict, seen as being between Islam and the West (or Liberalism or democracy, etc) that you should put aside it's this one because it's really barely about Islam.
Even the Mufti you mention, he is nothing close to "most important Muslim leaders of the time". He is known now solely because of the conflict.
Last, must I remind you that in the same circumstunces, the West allied with another guy with a mustache, barely friendlier that AH, because of common interests not common values

 

[El_Machinae]

No facts to back up your "but I think of wnd as the place slack jaws go to have their confirmation biases fulfilled."

Yup, no facts. It's just feedback. There's a cohort of reasonable people who hold a contempt for wnd. Sure, you can post wnd articles and then trumpet how the people dismissing it (without spending the effort to double-check wnd themselves) don't have 'open minds' or are 'lazy'. But then no real communication happens.

If it's a reasonable position, then there are sources other than wnd that one can use to back up their point. This circumvents the uphill battle of your audience overcoming their bias, and allows them to most easily consider the point you're actually trying to make.

It's basically the same reason you dress nicely for a job interview. Surely you're being interviewed in order to determine your fit with the company and the skillset you bring. But if you bias the interviewer against you right away, it's a needless uphill battle.

 

[HannibalBarka]

Muslims currently make up only 0.8 percent of the American population, yet there have already been several terror attacks, jihadist recrutings, Muslims demanding privileges in the name of "religious freedom", and first attempts to implement sharia. This is just the beginning. The Muslim population will grow, and problems will increase, as everywhere where Muslims appear.

At the moment it seems that many Americans are unable to appreciate the extent of the problems, since they by and large don't experience them in their daily lives. Even here in this forum, most Europeans seem to be way more critical of Islam than the Americans. People from Europe know what it's like to live in cities with 5%, 10%, 20% of Muslims. They have experienced how once nice towns or city districts, like Bradford or Luton in England, both 25% Muslim, Berlin Neu-Kölln (20%), Malmö (20%) and many more have been taken over and ruined. It is not safe for non-Muslims to enter the Muslim areas there anymore, let alone for Jews. In many of these places the Muslims have formed parallel societies, and are living under the rules of sharia with all the detrimental consequences, especially for women. Crime rates have skyrocketed, especially the amount of rapes. In Norway, virtually all rapes are committed by Muslims. In Sweden and England it is also an large majority. Women are increasingly becoming targets of harrassment. Muslims are ridiculously over-represented in the prison populations of Western Europe. At the same time, unemployment among Muslims is extremely high - in Germany it's 33% - which is a huge burden for our social welfare system.
This might all sound over-dramatic for the American ear, but it's just true. You can look everything up. I'd be very happy if someone could point out that what I listed is exaggerated.

And just to pre-emptively avoid the always recurring strawman, I'm not refering to ALL Muslims. Many Muslims live normal lives, are perfectly integrated, and pose no problem whatsoever. The only thing they are to blame for is that they don't speak out louder against the Islamic orthodoxy and try to promote a more modern and benign version of the faith. And when I'm refering to the conservative Muslims, I'm not criticising them as people, I criticize the bad ideas they hold based on their religion.

With immigration and exorbitant birth rates of Muslims women, the numbers will continue to increase swiftly in the next years. Despite our islamophile politicians and media downplaying the problems nonstop, in most Western European countries the majority of people think Islam is a threat to their society, and Western Europe is about as tolerant as you can get.
One advantage that the US may have is a numerically strong right, which already strongly opposes Islam at this early stage. As most of you know by now, I stand on the left and think it is a ludicrous situation that by and large only the right has acknowledged the threat of Islam. I even agree with friggin Bill O'Reilly on this issue, a man I otherwise disagree with on everything. But when it comes to Islam, he is mostly correct in his assessments.

Anyway, Americans will face their problems soon enough. I hope that they will get their sh*t together in time - I have an American passport and the US are my escape route when things get too obnoxious over here.

Hummm, so your problem is with muslim immigrants not really Islam per si

Your post reminds me about news articles talking about Italian immigrants in France in the late 19th and early 20th century: violence, crimes, rabbit breeding, backward, religion (yes, french bigots thought Italians were too catholic to be good for France ), rapist, jobless, etc.
and than it was about Polish, Eastern Jews, Portugese, Arabs (before 911, the "bad" immigrant was the Arab, but racism is not "trendy" any more, anti-religion is OK), eastern european, Muslims and Africans are the "bad guy" of the day now

 

[Funky]

@HannibalBarka:

Thank you for your extensive replies. I am delighted to see someone thoughtfully challenging the concerns I have raised. You seem to know something about Islam (you're from Europe, afterall ), and while I naturally disagree with many of your objections, I will try to go into the points you made and hope that a good conversation will arise. However, you really wrote a lot, and I have limited time, especially during the week. So I will have to ask you to be a little patient. And I probably won't manage to tackle more than one of your posts at a time, so you needn't worry about an endless wall of text.

 

[Tahuti]

And Jabotinsky, the leader of the right wing Zionist, the "grand father " of modern Likud and Jewish right wing was an admirer of the Duce, are you now going to tell us zionism is fachism ???

Jabotinsky and the revisionist Zionist movement in general were actually inspired by Irish republicanism, not Italian Fascism. Yitzhak Shamir (not to be confused with Rabin) was actually nicknamed Michael Collins after one of the leaders of the Irish war of independence. There were movements who were supportive of Italian Fascism and even supported the Nazis, though these were regarded as fringe and were deeply hated.

I really think if there is one single conflict, seen as being between Islam and the West (or Liberalism or democracy, etc) that you should put aside it's this one because it's really barely about Islam.
Even the Mufti you mention, he is nothing close to "most important Muslim leaders of the time". He is known now solely because of the conflict.
Last, must I remind you that in the same circumstunces, the West allied with another guy with a mustache, barely friendlier that AH, because of common interests not common values

Britain and France were quite close to allying with Mussolini against Hitler, until the Stresa front broke down.

 

[Formaldehyde]

the spread of Islam as a religion was not that violent, the spread of "Islam" as a political entity was indeed. But "Islam" as a political entity does not mean much in our discussion about the religion.

It does to those who deliberately conflate the two to try to smear the beliefs of over 1.6 billion practitioners, the vast majority of whom are completely peaceful in regard to their religious beliefs.

 

[Ajidica]

Britain and France were quite close to allying with Mussolini against Hitler, until the Stresa front broke down.

I'm not sure I would characterize an attempt to keep the Treaty of Locarno lurching along (which in any case completely broke down after Italy invaded Ethiopia later in the year) constitutes "close to allying with Mussolini against Hitler".
I mean, that the USSR and US initially supported the UN Peacekeeping mission during the Congo Crisis doesn't make them "close to allying against Belgium".