Churchill, Mein Kampf and the Koran
I watched a television interview which mentioned Churchill’s comparing Hitler’s Mein Kampf to the Koran. I have searched and searched. Was the reporter telling the truth? (Who knows these days.) Thank-you for your time. —C.C.
You are referring to Fox News on 24 February 2009, wherein Glenn Beck interviewed Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker facing possible jail for anti-Islamic remarks. Wilders has since come out for banning the Koran in Holland as a “fascist book.”
BECK: I just have to give you this quote and get your thoughts…. “The fact that in Mohammedan Law, every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property either as a child, a wife, or concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.” Pretty outrageous stuff.
WILDERS: Yes.
BECK: You didn’t say that, though.
WILDERS: I didn’t say that, no.
BECK: No. Winston Churchill said that.
WILDERS: Yes. And Winston Churchill, as a matter of fact, in a book in the Fifties, also made a comparison, like Oriana Fallaci in Italy but also Winston Churchill, the comparison between Mein Kampf and the Koran. One of the reasons that I’m being prosecuted. I don’t remember Winston Churchill, who got a Nobel Prize for this book, [being] prosecuted.
Some Confusions
Beck was accurate in his Churchill quotation (“The fact that in Mohammedan law…”), but the transcript suggests it was a recent remark. Actually it is from Churchill’s The River War (London: Longmans Green, 2 vols., 1899), II: 248-50. It was among the many deleted passages for the one-volume abridged text, published in 1901 and in print ever since.
On Churchill’s comparison of Mein Kampf to the Koran, Wilders may have read a concurrent review in The Washington Times of my book, Churchill by Himself. The reviewer was quoting from page 55 of Churchill by Himself, under “Mein Kampf and the Koran.” Churchill wrote of Mein Kampf:
All was there—the programme of German resurrection, the technique of party propaganda; the plan for combating Marxism; the concept of a National-Socialist State; the rightful position of Germany at the summit of the world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message. —Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1, The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), 43.
Wilders had the date wrong (it was 1948, not the Fifties), and of course the quote takes on added significance in the light of 9/11. Also, Churchill received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 for the totality of his historical and biographical writings and speeches—not for his war memoirs, which were not complete when he received the Prize.
Addendum, 2019
In the first version of this post ten years ago, I said Churchill was “referring to Mein Kampf as an article of faith, like the Koran, but he could as easily have said the Bible.” In the light of Mr. Trott’s comment below and further research, I think I was mistaken. When Churchill called Mein Kampf a “new Koran of faith and war” he chose his words precisely.
Google <Mein Kampf and the Koran> and you will find several articles asserting that the latter influenced the author of the former. The scholar IQ al-Rassooli notes a direct reference by Hitler to his architect, Albrecht Speer, in a 2018 article, “Kuran & Mein Kampf.” Hitler, Speer wrote, thought Islam more suited to he “Germanic temperament than the Jewish filth and priestly twaddle of Christianity”…
Hitler would say: “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” [1]
This does not however mean that Churchill ever compared Nazis to Muslims, and Wilders’ implication that he did was inaccurate.
Footnote
[1] Albrecht Speer, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard Winston, Clara Winston, Eugene Davidson (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 143; Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 96.
11 thoughts on “Churchill, Mein Kampf and the Koran”
On reflection I think you are right, and have modified my post accordingly.
The reality is that Hitler wanted a much more aggressive model than Christianity to inspire his takeover agenda. This he found in the Koran. The similarities are obvious.
I had not thought to point that out. Thanks.
In reply to first reader’s comment, 19 January 2011, “your women” implies ownership and adding “committed helpers” implies submissive servitude. So, the writer’s own “defense of Islam” shows that Islam encourages ownership of women, slavery and submission.
“Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.”
He seems to be implying that MK is a text of faith and war, which is how he seems to perceive the Koran. Remember he also said “Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step.”
Speaking of obfuscation, it’s not clear what your point is. Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote.
Geert Wilders was using Churchill to equate the Koran with Mein Kampf. Whether Wilders was right is irrelevant. Churchill never said that. He did not equate Muslims with Nazis. And by the way, it’s LAngworth.
“…but he could as easily have said the Bible.”
But Churchill did not say Bible or Torah and he DID say the Koran. Perhaps he meant to be a little bit “politically correct”, less direct. Churchill was a journalist and a master communicator. He knew exactly what he was saying.
The question is: Why are you, Mr. Longworth, trying to obfuscate? Are you perhaps a bit uncomfortable with the truth?
“Articles of faith” have been used to support violence since there were Articles. Violence in the name of Christianity peaked 1300-1400 years after the founding of the religion, ironically the same age as Islam is today. It’s not what is written, it’s the use people make of it. In this respect Churchill’s comparison was apt.
Mein Kampf passages support world conquest through violence — the Nazi master race will control all, one way or another. Koran passages support world conquest through violence. Bible passages do not support world conquest through violence. The ancient Jewish nation had a national border and lived within it — no one was forced to live there. So-called Christians in the past have used violence, but they could not find Bible passages that would support that violence.
Hold on there. The purpose of my post is to correct various misstatements made about Churchill by Glenn Beck and Geert Wilders, not to state my opinion. (It was Wilders who stated Churchill’s comparison with Mein Kampf.) But if you’re asking my opinion, it is that by “Mohammedan law” Churchill was referring to what he saw among Mohammedans where he was at the time, and remember, he was writing in 1898. However, I also have eyes to observe, for example, how woman are treated in certain places right now. And I beg to register my disapproval.
Hello. First of all, there is nothing like “Mohammedan Law” in the universe. The laws that are given in Koran are the laws of the creator, Allah.
Secondly, Winston Churchill’s saying is absolutely wrong. There is nothing like “every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property either as a child, a wife, or concubine” in the Koran. The truth is Islam has always encouraged the extinction of slavery and protected to laws of women. Let me give you an example.
In his final sermon, the last prophet said, “Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers.”
Please do more research on Islam if you want to learn its immense vision of life.