What is unfolding in Iran today is faithful to the Quran. The present regime represents the mature expression of political Islam as articulated through Quranic command, prophetic precedent, and juridical enforcement.
The Iranian theocracy emerged in the 1979 revolution, although that event itself drew from far older currents shaped by the early caliphates, the Safavid consolidation of Shiite authority, and a regional memory in which governance by divine will remains the highest political aspiration, especially when articulated through clerical rule, which fused mosque, court, and sword into a single apparatus of control.
The regimes of the Middle East, whether Persian, Arab, or Ottoman, historically oscillated between tribal despotism and sacral absolutism. Islam provided the unifying grammar through which conquest, taxation, obedience, and submission received divine sanction. From the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates through the Ottoman sultanate, rule functioned through enforced conformity, suppression of dissent, and expansion through warfare, all of which drew direct justification from the Quran and the hadith, rather than from philosophical reasoning or natural law reflection. Consequently, when modern observers attempt to isolate violence as a distortion of Islam, they commit a category error, since the religion’s canonical texts repeatedly bind faith, law, and force into an indivisible whole.
The Quran itself presents governance through domination as a religious mandate, as seen in Surah 2:191, which instructs believers to “kill them wherever you encounter them,” and Surah 9:29, which commands Muslims to fight those who disbelieve until they submit and pay the jizya in humiliation. Surah 4:34 establishes dominant male authority over women and sanctions physical discipline upon wives and women, thereby restricting female liberty through divine decree. These passages function alongside the hadith literature, which records Muhammad approving assassinations, conducting raids, and enforcing obedience through fear, all of which shape Islamic jurisprudence and render political violence an act of fidelity to the Quranic call.
In this context, the recent Iranian state video depicting Donald Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania shooting, accompanied by the caption stating that “this time the bullet will not miss,” is a calculated theological signal and provocation, since Islamic regimes understand the performative power of threats issued under divine justification. There is a theological history here for Iranians. The language of threat draws upon the well-established Islamic designation of the United States as the Great Satan, a term popularized during the Iranian Revolution by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, rooted in the Quranic conception of satanic forces opposing Allah’s sovereignty over the world. The Great Satan represents more than geopolitical rivalry, since it embodies a civilizational enemy whose moral freedom, religious pluralism, and political liberty constitute rebellion against the governance system that the Quran calls for: divine submission.
Islamic commentators describe America as the Great Satan precisely because its existence contradicts Quranic anthropology, which frames Allah as the absolute master and humanity as slaves whose highest virtue consists in thoughtless submission rather than freedom, conscience, or dissent. Western commitments to free speech, rights, women’s dignity, religious liberty, and representative governance stand as existential affronts to Quranic order, warranting eradication rather than negotiation. Within this framework, calls for assassination, whether directed at presidents or civilians, align seamlessly with the doctrine of jihad, which sanctifies violence whenever it advances Islamic dominance or weakens the land of war.
Additionally, the wider regional picture matters because Iran operates inside a political ecosystem where every faction reads theology as strategy, and therefore its threats function as messaging to allies, rivals, and its own street. Intimidation is a currency that pays immediate dividends in regimes built on sacred coercion. Moreover, as the Quran teaches, the world is divided into the ‘land of peace’ (Dar El Islam) and the ‘land of war’ (Dar El Hare), and that conceptual map turns diplomacy into a temporary tactic rather than a moral commitment, since the ultimate goal remains expansion of rule rather than mutual recognition.
There is a well-known Middle Eastern parable that helps to demonstrate the deeply differing anthropologies faced right now. The fox and the scorpion came to a riverbank. Both wished to cross the river. The fox could swim, but the scorpion could not. The scorpion asked the fox to give him a ride, offering a reward if he would. The fox inquires, “How do I know you would not sting me on the way?” “Impossible,” the scorpion said, “I would also drown if I did that.” The fox agreed because the scorpion’s answer was logical. Halfway across, though, the scorpion stung the fox. As the fox slowly stopped swimming and began dying, gasping beneath the waves, he exclaimed, “Why did you sting me? You will die as well!” The scorpion replied as he himself was drowning, “What did you expect? This is my nature!”
Accordingly, the notion that an Islamic regime might inspire Muslims residing within the United States to act against its leadership remains entirely consistent with Quranic logic, particularly when reinforced by the doctrine of taqiyya, which permits deception in service of Islam. Historical precedent confirms this pattern across regions where Islamic authority expands, since loyalty to the ummah supersedes national allegiance, and obedience to Allah eclipses civic duty, rendering pluralistic coexistence perpetually fragile.
The current unrest within Iran also reveals a deeper truth about human nature, since populations subjected to comprehensive religious coercion eventually revolt against systems that deny dignity, conscience, and interior freedom. The Islamic Republic’s intention to publicly execute a young protester serves as ritualized pedagogy, demonstrating Quranic rule through fear while reaffirming the ruler’s authority over life and death. When Allah is defined as master and the believer as slave, the political ruler becomes executor of divine will and tolerates no dissent, since resistance implies apostasy rather than disagreement.
This dynamic explains why societies governed through strict Quranic enforcement repeatedly collapse into cycles of repression and revolt, despite claims of moral superiority or divine favor. Human beings possess an innate desire for freedom, moral agency, and truth. Any system that denies these elements through sacralized violence ultimately provokes resistance. Iranian protests testify less to Western interference than to the internal contradiction between human dignity and enforced submission.
Islamic nations that achieve relative stability and prosperity, such as Turkey, do so through partial adoption of Western democratic principles, market structures, and legal protections, even while attempting theological harmonization with Islamic teaching. These arrangements persist temporarily through tension management rather than resolution, since Quranic absolutism resists permanent compromise with pluralism, freedom of conscience, or equal citizenship. Over time, such experiments encounter increasing strain as religious authority reasserts supremacy over civic order.
The present Iranian crisis and its overt targeting of Trump represent continuity rather than deviation, since Quranic Islam consistently frames the West as an enemy whose defeat constitutes religious duty. Christians thus bear responsibility to observe these developments with clarity, prayer, and prudence, recognizing that theological commitments shape political behavior more decisively than diplomatic language. Peaceful coexistence remains possible only within systems that restrain religious absolutism through law and virtue, rather than sentiment or denial.
Preservation of Western civilization depends upon reclamation of Christian virtue, moral courage, and disciplined prudence. Societies lose coherence when they abandon the theological foundations that once safeguarded human dignity, freedom, and ordered liberty. The Iranian moment serves as a reminder that religious systems denying the humanity of their adherents eventually consume both ruler and ruled, thereby revealing the enduring truth that only faith aligned with human nature can sustain civilization across generations.
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I can’t help but think Islam really isn’t all that much different than the religions that were int he ME before the Jewish people were led from Egypt into the Promised Land
But Pope Francis told us repeatedly that Islam is a religion of peace.
Yeah and Georgie Bush said “GREAT religion of peace”.
Here’s just one example from the Quran: “I created you into diverse nations and tribes that you may come to know one another.”
Thank you for the article. Should be required reading for all Christians.
Excellent piece. I could never understand why, after 9/11, people didn’t study Islam. I was not surprised by 9/11 because Fr. Neuhaus in First Things had been beating the drum of warning since the 1993 WTC bombing.
Know thyself and know thy enemy!
It’s difficult to “study Islam” for several reasons:
It has multiple branches; Sunni, Shia and Sufism. They may be more divergent than Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants.
It is incredibly syncretic, drawing on Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism.
It is not internally coherent. If you read the Koran, it recognizes the Virgin Birth of Christ, but subordinates him to Mohammed and rejects Christ’s divinity. In some parts it demands respect for “people of the book” and other places,
Sura 2:191
“Kill them wherever you come upon them1 and drive them out of the places from which they have driven you out. For persecution is far worse than killing. And do not fight them at the Sacred Mosque unless they attack you there. If they do so, then fight them—that is the reward of the disbelievers.”
Finally, no religion can be judged solely by its sacred texts-instead one must take into account the practices of its adherents. There have been, are and will be decent and indecent in all groups of people. However, when Christians get really serious, they build hospitals, schools and cemeteries; other groups seem to favor bombing the schools and bombing or filling the hospitals and filling the cemeteries.
Mr. Putin identifies with being a Christian. He bombs hospitals, and the like. Five days after he visited the Cathedral of Our Savior in Moscow, in order to kiss the reliquary of St. Nicholas, the bomber/Christian’s city of Moscow experienced the worst storm in more than one hundred years.
A lucid explanation why the term “interfaith” should not be used interchangeably with “interreligious.”
Faith is uniquely associated with the redemptive person of Jesus Christ—the self-revelation of the Triune One into the history of fallen souls in a fallen world. A culturally and even psychiatrically divided world where uniform access to Consumerism (another estranged idolatry from the true God) is not a universal solvent.
Islam has something to say about civil authority, and what it doesn’t say is that the (non-Muslim) constituted authorities enjoy the mandate of divine providence and that submission to them is due for the sake of God.
That makes Islam seditious per se, and blasphemously so.
[Preservation of Western civilization depends upon reclamation of Christian virtue, moral courage, and disciplined prudence.]
OK, but keep in mind that Christians should not be using violent means to overcome evil.
“Resist not evil. Rather, overcome evil with good.”
william Horan: Should this have been the case when we went to war against Hitler’s Germany?
Not every ‘enemy’ is Hitler or need be an enemy at all. Christianity does not mean literal pacifism, but beware the military-industrial complex and its lying (or deluded) propaganda. If you must read it, read also alternative (respectable) news sources like the ones linked to by antiwar.com. Diplomacy is key, and try not to bomb during negotiations as ‘our’ side has done several times of late. We don’t need World War III or even another regional war with all the thousands of deaths (and maimings and bereavements) that entails.
Shouldn’t that word for Land of War be Dar El Harb?
But an excellent analysis. The word “Islam” means “submission,” not “peace,” however many times we hear the opposite from authorities. Europe will slowly discover its mistake in allowing mass migration of Muslims but it’s already too late. Someday St. Peter’s will be a mosque, just like Hagia Sophia.
The Vatican is already annexed to a madrassa (an Islamic religious school)—as when a Muslim prayer rug was permitted to center itself within the Vatican Library (October 2025). Reportedly, the permission was given by the librarian, yet another demonstration of the ineptness of Western rationalistic bureaucracy.
I completely agree.
Amen Sandra Miesel. It is already too late for Europe.
Thank you, Dr. Marcus! – You presented us with an excellent expose on the Islamic mindset.
Islam will collapse at a time chosen by God the Father, when its adherents see that their collective attempts to subjugate the world after some 1500 years have not fulfilled Muhammad’s vision. They will continue to cause much bloodshed, in the meantime, until Muhammad is exposed as the charlatan the he always was.
This is an excellent analysis of Islam. Islam is similar to Christianity in the sense that Christianity is made up of Catholics and Protestants, while Islam is made-up of fundamental Islamists and liberal Islamists. Fundamental Islam ( Quranic Islam) as handed down from Mohammed is a religion of hate and violence with a goal of ‘convert or die.’ This is the religion represented by the rulers of Iran and other Middle East organizations, such as Hamas. The only way they can be stopped is through their complete defeat. Thus, peace can only be obtained in Iran by the complete removal of the Iotola and his supporters.
If the government falls, who will fill the vacuum? Should we intervene? Do we have a right to?
Likely Reza Pahlavi, the Shaw in exile. A Shaw is not an ideal government, but does not present a threat to world peace, as does an Islamic government.
Iran is why church and state must be separate. When I hear US politicians, such as Lauren Boebert trash separation of church and state, implying that an established religion, namely Evangelical Christianity, should partner with the state, I say, no. Look at Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. Church and state must be separate and have an arms length relationship.
I understand the concern, and Iran is a warning. But it actually warns against bad theology fused with unchecked power, not against God or moral accountability in public life.
We have to remember that Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” was never meant to remove God from government. The phrase comes from an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, where he explains that the First Amendment prevents the federal government from establishing or controlling a church. It was designed to protect religious liberty and the Church from state interference, not to protect the government from religion. In fact, Jefferson supported public prayer, federal chaplains, and grounded rights in a Creator.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are Islamic theocratic despotisms. Their theology views God primarily as slavedriver and people as slaves that always leads to authoritarian rule. Christianity teaches God as Father and human dignity as inherent, which historically produced constitutional limits on power and rule of law in the West.
Additionally, a government with no accountability to God or objective moral law always elevates something else, usually the state and the governing elite themselves. That leads to humanist or materialist despotism, where absolute power defines truth and individual conscience is subordinated to political rule.
That’s why the real issue is accountability to God. Separation of church and state was meant to prevent coercion of the state on religion, not to remove God from public governance. If a government is accountable only to itself, it is far more dangerous than one restrained by Christian transcendent moral law.
Very well explained. The “wall of separation” was between the Garden (represented by the Church), and the wild (the purgatory assigned to the fallen). Divine Right monarchy sought the same control through religion that hard core Islamic leaders seek. Social Darwinism is an attempt to promote social solutions that lack a soul — that know not God. Without the acknowledgement of Divine Revelation in order to establish what is true, society leans into relativism and trends toward chaos.
Thank you for this article. It was very informative. But I cannot understand how our Church hierarchy, including our Pope, can continue to speak about Islam in such complimentary ways. I’m not advocating confrontation or condemnation but their spoken views are so positive, it’s hard to reconcile them with reality.
“The word ‘Islam’ means ‘submission’ not ‘peace’; however, many times we hear the opposite from authorities”. (Sandra Miesel above, 9:18 a.m.)
No kidding. Meanwhile, the MSM blather on about “Islamophobia”.
No wonder the average person thinks everything will be all right if we all try a little harder to “just get along”.
We’re Catholics here, not Muslims, and take issue with the Islamic religion even in its more peaceful forms. Precisely as Catholics, though, we need to be careful not to believe everything we hear about Muslims, millions of whom in fact live perfectly peacefully with those of other faiths. There’s a lot of misinformation out there from Deep State types keen to push the US into bloody and costly interventions. Recent protests in Iran apparently began as peaceful protests on economic issues and stayed that way for two days but then went violent due to foreign actors bringing guns onto the streets, killing hundreds of police/security people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7_Z7lmL7j0 This kind of interference to try and topple other countries’ governments needs to stop. It only creates violent chaos and (not unnaturally) fuels resentment towards the countries that do this kind of thing. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/we-want-change-not-destruction-iranian-protesters-reject-us-israeli-interference
The difference between the Koran and the Gospel re: faith-backed up violence is that nowhere you will find Jesus Christ or apostles saying “go and kill them” while in Koran it is said clearly. I mean that while Gospels condemn killing the “infidels”, Koran orders it. It is proper to kill an infidel if he refuses to convert to Islam. This is in fact a paradigm of spreading Islam, of so-called “area of Islam” and “area of infidels”, the first must progressively obliterate the second, using any means. It is not me who is saying that – it is the Koran. (Noteworthy, initially Mohammed was positive about Jews and Christians. Later he changed his mind.)
In the past Christians had converted various tribes of pagans by a brutal force – so Christians also had engaged in that sort of thing. However, they could not back up their actions by the words of Christ.
And so, we have two books, one orders a forceful conversion of an infidel (and his death if he refuses) and another orders “go and teach” and “shake the dust of your sandals if they refuse and then leave”. It is important to remember that. Christians can claim that they are not commanded to kill infidels while Muslims cannot. Muslims can say “We will not” and it is commendable but it is in the Koran; if they say “we will not” they in effect disobey the Koran. If a Christian kills an infidel, he commits a sin according to his religion; if a Muslim kills an infidel, he does not commit a sin according to his religion.
It’s difficult to “study Islam” for several reasons:
It has multiple branches; Sunni, Shia and Sufism. They may be more divergent than Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants.
It is incredibly syncretic, drawing on Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism.
It is not internally coherent. If you read the Koran, it recognizes the Virgin Birth of Christ, but subordinates him to Mohammed and rejects Christ’s divinity. In some parts it demands respect for “people of the book” and other places,
Sura 2:191
“Kill them wherever you come upon them1 and drive them out of the places from which they have driven you out. For persecution is far worse than killing. And do not fight them at the Sacred Mosque unless they attack you there. If they do so, then fight them—that is the reward of the disbelievers.”
Finally, no religion can be judged solely by its sacred texts-instead one must take into account the practices of its adherents. There have been, are and will be decent and indecent in all groups of people. However, when Christians get really serious, they build hospitals, schools and cemeteries; other groups seem to favor bombing the schools and bombing or filling the hospitals and filling the cemeteries.
After reading this brilliant essay, one has to ask oneself, why are we bringing them over here in droves? Why are our governments cowing to them and putting them in very high places. Ignorance is not bliss. Islam is in our country to take it over. Why are we denying it? The writing is on the wall.We do so at our own peril, which is nearby. It’s no religion at peace. Let there be no doubt about it. It must be stopped.
There are various reasons, but one is that both the Democratic Party and much of Islam are death cults. They rub each other’s backs, in part because they both hate the U.S., the West, traditional Western beliefs, Christianity, etc. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
I applaud your characterizing the Democrat Party as a “death cult” whch any honest person would admit. They spread hate of a most virulent type.
Amen, brother Carl.
Thank you CWR for courageously publishing this truth telling article by Dr. Peter. The silence of the progressive media and influencers on the killings of thousands of protesters in Iran is deafening, as is the silence of the Pope on the matter. For a synopsis of the Christian oppression and enslavement by the religion of peace see the work of historian R. Ibrahim and this interview (“Christian Slavery under Islam”) by CWR Fr. Connolly:
https://thepostil.com/author/dario-fernandez-morera/
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/
I know Christians who don’t delve very deeply into the study of Scripture, and thus lack the philosophical reasoning required to comprehend the doctrines of Divine Revelation and Divine Providence. Thus, they don’t perceive the presence of God Who dwells among us. Thus, they can’t solve problems in the absence of the mysticism that people like Albert Sweitzer promoted.
The Democrats are a death cult? Well, you can make a case that the enthusiastic support of abortion certainly fits the bill, but there are Democrats, such as myself who do not support this. There are also individual Muslims who are peaceful. I do not hate the West or its values. Nor do most Democrats that I know. A but of exaggeration perhaps? I remember you attacking the Mormon Church. Again, I know many Mormons who are good people. Is this perhaps a generalization?
Perhaps, William, you can answer for all those Democrats who gloated over the murder of Charlie Kirk. And all those Democrats who were on a raging frenzy destroying Tesla cars because they were associated with Musk. Or pethaps all the Democrats who applauded the assassination attempts of candidate Trump. And all those Minnesoata Democrats who use their cars to main and kill law enforcement officers. But, denial is a perverse defense that Democrats will use to say that none of this hate was from Democrats. But the sane among us know the Truth.
For the record, I never vandalized a Tesla. I rather like them, but they are expensive. I might buy a used Tesla, but not a new one. Elon is rich enough.
Also there are many nice Communists, although Communism has the record for millions of murders in China and Russia and elsewhere; also, there were nice National Socialists (“Nazis” as the generalized euphemism calls them to cover up that they were socialists: National Socialist Workers Party).
All large groups are made up of individuals. You may indeed find shades of variation in belief or commitment among those individuals. But in the main, we belong to a group because it reflects our predominant values. Values we support. Maybe not every bitter one, but most. Or else why belong, or why vote for that group? The Dems have been the great purveyors of violence and hate for the last decade or two. They used to have the interest of the country at heart. They now only think about remaining in power at any cost, much like communists do. Third trimester abortion, transgender issues, attacks on the Congressional baseball team, weaponization of govt agencies against Americans simply because they were Trump supporters, multiple assassination attempts on the president. The Russia hoax. Trumped up impeachments. The support of the George Floyd riots, the exaggeration of a J6 demonstration into an “insurrection”. Support of DEI vs. traditional American values of merit. Allowing 20 Million unvetted illegals into the country to kill and rape our own citizens, refusing to stop it and LYING about what was happening because of it. Support of reparation payments, though slavery is 160 years in the rear-view mirror. Opposing voting security measures, even taking the matter to court. They are in the pocket of the unions and now it would appear supported the fleecing of the American taxpayers in Minnesota.
Suffice it to say I would not vote for a democrat for a million dollars and with a gun to my head. Some of us may not like Trumps ongoing bluster. But the measure of a President is RESULTS, not personality. There is NO DOUBT AT ALL that his interest is in helping and protecting the American people. If many in the world (and some of our own citizens) are used to American Presidents who toothlessly wring their hands over problems and do nothing but hand out cash, the actions of Donald Trump will indeed come as a shock. Now, ain’t that just too bad?
Also there are many nice Communists, although Communism has the record for millions of murders in China and Russia and elsewhere; also, there were nice National Socialists (“Nazis” as the generalized euphemism calls them to cover up that they were socialists: National Socialist Workers Party).
It’s Islam that’s the problem, not individual Muslim people.
The rush by the left/secularists/the MSM to decry “Islamophobia” conflates the two and serves to shut down discussion and understanding of Islam.
“By their fruits ye shall know them.” Does anyone know anything POSITVE these people have done lately? Murder and criminal activity seems to be a big part of their method of operation. It would be smart if we stopped importing them into the country. Enough said.