Modern Islam, or “Islam 2.0,” is a civilized evolution of Islamic supremacism or “Islam 1.0,” i.e. Islam as invented by Mohammed. Evolution means improvement. While most people acknowledge that our very distant ancestors were knuckle-dragging apes, no one acknowledges a pre-human primate as the equal of a modern human being. A modern Muslim is similarly to Mohammed what a modern human is to a knuckle-dragging ape. We must admit that Mohammed laid a foundation from which evolution could begin, and that the Koran contains many benevolent parts about how people, especially members of the Muslim umma or community, should behave toward one another. It also contains hate speech against Jews and Christians, and it also sanctions violence like stoning, cutting off body parts, crucifixion, and so on. The evolution of Islam involved the elimination of the evil parts of the Koran, and the retention of the good ones. Unfortunately, the knuckle-draggers in the Middle East, and even in the United States and Canada (Council on American Islamic Relations, Canadian Islamic Congress, Islamic Thinkers Society, Muslim Student Association) still practice Islam 1.0: a version that, to paraphrase Mark Steyn, is totally incompatible with civilized behavior or common decency.

Since Mohammed was a monster by today’s standards, how could he have possibly laid the foundation for “Islam 2.0,” a decent framework for human behavior? The reason is that it is rare for a pure villain–unless he inherits a position of power–to become more than a common criminal unless he also serves his followers, or at least gives the appearance of serving. Mohammed, like any bandit chief or pirate captain, had to deliver some kind of benefits to his followers to get them to empower him. The unifying concept of the umma or community that would accept anyone who became a Muslim served to unite quarreling tribes under a single banner, and a code of laws that suppressed divisive blood feuds among those tribes also was beneficial.

Mohammed is therefore no different than other historical figures who, while delivering enormous benefits to their followers, also had very serious personal faults (at the least) or who also committed evil on a massive scale. Consider for example:

* King David of Israel: While revered as one of Israel’s greatest kings, and also for the heroic slaying of Goliath, David sent a subordinate (Uriah) into battle to get him killed so David could sleep with Uriah’s wife.

* Alexander the Great: When his soldiers were short on food and water, he did without these things himself. He also took whatever physical risks he wanted his men to take. However, he also killed at least one close friend (Cleitus) in a drunken rage.

* Attila the Hun: The name still conjures up images of rampaging hordes who leave little but blood and ashes in their wake, but “Attila” is a common and respected name in Hungary. One side’s villain is often the other side’s hero, and Attila defeated Roman legions while enriching his followers.

* Genghis Khan: Like Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan has left a mental picture of rampaging Mongol hordes, especially in Eastern Europe. In Mongolia, however, Genghis (and his descendent Kublai) Khan are revered.

* Napoleon Bonaparte: To the English-speaking world, and perhaps even to Americans whose country was nominally on his side, Napoleon was a megalomaniac who perpetrated a world war that killed millions of people. The French did not make him their Emperor for being a megalomaniac, though. They made him Emperor because he delivered many genuine benefits to the French people, and created an egalitarian citizen army from whose ranks any worthy soldier could rise. (English aristocrats, in contrast, looked down on the few officers who had risen from the ranks.) Napoleon also created a code of law that is still in use today (Louisiana in the United States), and his armies played a major role in destroying the Spanish Inquisition.

* Adolf Hitler: Hitler rose to power by serving the German people. He built autobahns, as well as a war industry that lifted Germany out of its postwar depression. If he had stopped after taking over the Rhineland instead of perpetrating a world war while murdering millions of innocent people, he would probably have gone down in history as Germany’s Franklin Roosevelt, as opposed to one of the most evil dictators who ever lived. The key point is that, had he not rendered genuine service to Germany, he would never have been in a position to start a world war and murder millions of innocent people. Mohammed had to similarly serve his followers, or at least appear to serve them, before he could lead them on murderous rampages against his neighbors.

* Franklin Roosevelt: Threatened to destroy a branch of government (by packing the U.S. Supreme Court), sent Jewish refugees back to Nazi Germany, put Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps, and sold out Eastern Europe at Yalta. The Poles, for example, do not think very highly of Saint Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

* Martin Luther: Like Mohammed, Luther had numerous faults. These included rabid anti-Semitism and misogyny. Luther said that it didn’t matter if women died in child birth, because that was what God had made them for. Needless to say, modern Protestantism does not embrace either of these positions.

* King Henry VIII: The founder of the Church of England divorced and executed wives who failed to please him, ostensibly because he needed a male heir. (The fact that he may have acquired syphillis from adulterous relationships suggests, however, that the need for a son was far from his only motive.) Not only did he behead two wives on what were probably false charges of adultery, he also chopped off Sir Thomas More’s head when More refused to support his breakaway from the Catholic Church. Since he was a good king for the English people as a whole, however, they called him “Good King Harry” even after his death.

In any event, it should now be clear that a person who does good deeds and even great deeds can also have serious character flaws, and can even become a mass murderer. In fact, unless the person inherits a position of power (e.g. Caligula, Nero), he cannot commit mass murder or start a world war unless he first renders genuine service to those whom he expects to follow him. Napoleon and Hitler are outstanding examples of individuals who, by rendering extraordinary service to their countries, rose to positions from which they could cause extraordinary damage.

The same observation applies to the founders of religions. Henry VIII and Martin Luther were monsters by today’s standards, but they laid the foundations for the Church of England and Protestantism respectively. Mohammed was a murderous bandit and reputed pedophile, but he obviously served his followers in some manner or history would have never remembered him.

Note also that medieval “Christians” were every bit as bad as Islamic supremacists. Not only did they persecute and kill Jews along with the wrong “kinds” of Christians, they also had practices like selling indulgences for people’s sins. The Inquisition seemed to thrive on fabricated accusations of heresy, witchcraft, and so on so the Inquisitors could seize the property of the accused while raping any attractive women who caught their eye. (The women cooperated because, if they didn’t, they would be condemned as witches or heretics.) Religion was a convenient excuse for war, mass murder, robbery, and pogroms not only against Jews but also Huguenauts and other so-called heretics. After the Thirty Years War killed about a third of Central Europe’s population, however, European Christians figured out that violence in Jesus’ name was not a very good idea. In other words, medieval “Christianity” as practiced in most parts of Europe–Poland was a notable exception–was a religion for superstitions and illiterate peasants, as well as equally illiterate nobles. No modern Christian acknowledges such practices or behavior as anything in which he or she believes. No modern Jew acknowledges Old Testament behavior like “smiting” entire populations as anything he or she can possibly condone. Only Islamic supremacists embrace this kind of pre-medieval savagery in the twenty-first century.

Islam 1.0 (as invented by Mohammed) is similarly a religion for dirt-ignorant pre-medieval savages that no modern Muslim can possibly acknowledge. Its values and practices include knuckle-dragging ape behavioral choices like:

* Sentencing a Saudi gang rape victim to 90 lashes, and then increasing her sentence to 200 lashes upon appeal, for the “crime” of being alone with men (the rapists) to whom she was not related.
* Sentencing an Iranian woman to death for knifing a man who was trying to rape her
* Sentencing a Saudi teacher to 700 lashes for praising Jews and Christians
* Death fatwas against Muslim “apostates”
* Blowing up the mosques of the wrong “kinds” of Muslims
* Saudi Arabia holding female American citizens in white slavery
* Enslavement and genocide of Christians in the Sudan
* Imprisoning a teacher for allowing her students to name a teddy bear “Mohammed”
* The Mahdi (slave trader Mohammed Ahmed)
* Suicide bombing
* 9/11
* Proclaiming that Islam will rule the United States and Canada, and demands for Sharia law in civilized nations
* Killing gay people (Palestinian Authority)
* Cutting the heads off helpless captives
* “Honor killing” of female relatives for adultery, which includes being raped, or for not wearing a burqa
* Saudi religious police refusing to let school girls out of a burning school because their faces were uncovered
* Female genital mutilation (”cutting the clitoris off women” to use Michael Savage’s terminology)
* Cutting Theo van Gogh’s throat

Unfortunately, Islam 1.0 is common in much of the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Palestinians), Central Asia (Iran, Pakistan), Africa (Sudan), and to a much lesser degree North America (Islamic Thinkers Society, plus enablers like CAIR, Canadian Islamic Congress, and Muslim Student Association). Islam 1.0, also known as Islamofascism or Islamic supremacy, is totally incompatible with civilization, common decency, or anything else that should not be walled off and quarantined for the protection of innocent and productive human beings. Neither it nor its practitioners are worthy of the respect that a decent person shows another person’s religion, even if he or she does not share it. Islam 1.0 is a scam, fraud, superstition, cheap excuse for violence, and crime against civilized humanity. It is the institutional equivalent of a knuckle-dragging ape, from which Islam 2.0 evolved into human form with the aid of intelligent and progressive Muslims. It is time for the Canadian Islamic Congress, Council on American Islamic Relations, and Muslim Student Associations to decide whether they represent the knuckle-dragging apes or the human beings.