I dedicate this to Janus, the two faced god of beginnings.

After well more than a decade, the war still rages on with no end visible on the horizon. Three American presidents have now sat in that seat of power, and nothing changed nor does it look likely to be improving anytime soon.

The first man in office to address the subject of Islam in the public sphere after a national atrocity was committed in the name of Islam was George Bush. I personally don't believe Bush was capable of forming a sophist opinion, I believe he was just engaged in wishful thinking.

"Islam is Peace" Says President Remarks by the President at Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html

Bush served two terms, he fought two major conflicts with an enemy defined as "terrorists" "evil doers" a poorly descriptive terminology to properly identify the combatants we were engaged in warfare with. They called themselves mujahideen or holy warriors. They were in their own minds, jihadists struggling in the way of allah (jihad fi sabilillah)

The second man in the seat of power during this generational conflict also served two terms. Obama was, in my opinion, a "sophist" in classic Greek terminology.

HOWARD DEAN: I think that's right. I think actually that's the problem. The problem here is not the president. It’s the media. The media doesn't know how to deal with a more sophisticated foreign policy.

Source Real clear politics  The media doesn't know how to deal with a more sophisticated foreign policy

That is just a claim by Howard Dean, however, a real sophisticate was also a   cosmopolitanism or a citizen of the world. His allegiance was to humanity, a cosmopolitan claimed no nation, state or city of his own. The last people you want with you if you find yourself with a sudden and pressing need to defend hearth and home.

Nevertheless, the speech left the sense that Obama was not speaking merely metaphorically when he described himself as a "citizen" of the world.

source real clear politics Obama a citizen of the world.

That American President did seem to share some ideological similarities with the classic sophisticate world view.

soph·ist·ry

 : the use of reasoning or arguments that sound correct but are actually false

: a reason or argument that sounds correct but is actually false

Full Definition of SOPHISTRY

1 :   subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sophistry

So I begin this narrative with the Sophist Protagoras of Abdera. Who's life gave birth to the word "protagonist". A member of the Greek Sophist movement. Who exhibited the very bad habit of rejecting reality outright when it conflicted with its dogmas. This became more apparent as the Peloponnesian War progressed into its second and third decades. Then with Sparta joining an alliance with Persia , it was too much for many of them, and the insanity affected their philosophy greatly. Bringing great discredit to the school of the sophisticate Philosophers of old.

A key figure in the emergence of this new type of sophist was Protagoras of Abdera

 source Stanford University 

An excerpt from Plato's Protagoras.

By the gods, I said, and are you not ashamed at having to appear before the Hellenes in the character of a Sophist?

Indeed, Socrates, to confess the truth, I am. But you should not assume, Hippocrates, that the instruction of Protagoras is of this nature: may you not learn of him in the same way that you learned the arts of the grammarian, musician, or trainer, not with the view of making any of them a profession, but only as a part of education, and because a private gentleman and freeman ought to know them?

Just so, he said; and that, in my opinion, is a far truer account of the teaching of Protagoras.

I said: I wonder whether you know what you are doing? And what am I doing? You are going to commit your soul to the care of a man whom you call a Sophist. And yet I hardly think that you know what a Sophist is; and if not, then you do not even know to whom you are committing your soul and whether the thing to which you commit yourself be good or evil.

I certainly think that I do know, he replied. Then tell me, what do you imagine that he is? I take him to be one who knows wise things, he replied, as his name implies.

And might you not, I said, affirm this of the painter and of the carpenter also: Do not they, too, know wise things? But suppose a person were to ask us: In what are the painters wise? We should answer: In what relates to the making of likenesses, and similarly of other things. And if he were further to ask: What is the wisdom of the Sophist, and what is the manufacture over which he presides?-how should we answer him?

How should we answer him, Socrates? What other answer could there be but that he presides over the art which makes men eloquent?

Yes, I replied, that is very likely true, but not enough; for in the answer a further question is involved: Of what does the Sophist make a man talk eloquently? The player on the lyre may be supposed to make a man talk eloquently about that which he makes him understand, that is about playing the lyre. Is not that true?

Yes. Then about what does the Sophist make him eloquent? Must not he make him eloquent in that which he understands?

Yes, that may be assumed. And what is that which the Sophist knows and makes his disciple know?

Indeed, he said, I cannot tell. Then I proceeded to say: Well, but are you aware of the danger which you are incurring? If you were going to commit your body to some one, who might do good or harm to it, would you not carefully consider and ask the opinion of your friends and kindred, and deliberate many days as to whether you should give him the care of your body? But when the soul is in question, which you hold to be of far more value than the body, and upon the good or evil of which depends the well-being of your all,- about this never consulted either with your father or with your brother or with any one of us who are your companions. But no sooner does this foreigner appear, than you instantly commit your soul to his keeping. In the evening, as you say, you hear of him, and in the morning you go to him, never deliberating or taking the opinion of any one as to whether you ought to intrust yourself to him or not;-you have quite made up your mind that you will at all hazards be a pupil of Protagoras, and are prepared to expend all the property of yourself and of your friends in carrying out at any price this determination, although, as you admit, you do not know him, and have never spoken with him: and you call him a Sophist, but are manifestly ignorant of what a Sophist is; and yet you are going to commit yourself to his keeping.

When he heard me say this, he replied: No other inference, Socrates, can be drawn from your words.

I proceeded: Is not a Sophist, Hippocrates, one who deals wholesale or retail in the food of the soul? To me that appears to be his nature.

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul; and we must take care, my friend, that the Sophist does not deceive us when he praises what he sells, like the dealers wholesale or retail who sell the food of the body; for they praise indiscriminately all their goods, without knowing what are really beneficial or hurtful : neither do their customers know, with the exception of any trainer or physician who may happen to buy of them. In like manner those who carry about the wares of knowledge, and make the round of the cities, and sell or retail them to any customer who is in want of them, praise them all alike; though I should not wonder, O my friend, if many of them were really ignorant of their effect upon the soul; and their customers equally ignorant, unless he who buys of them happens to be a physician of the soul. If, therefore, you have understanding of what is good and evil, you may safely buy knowledge of Protagoras or of any one; but if not, then , O my friend, pause, and do not hazard your dearest interests at a game of chance. For there is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/protagoras.html

In the modern world, the word "Protagonist" is taken from the living human Protagoras of Abdera

See word synonyms, antonyms, related words and near antonyms so you  "get"  the words religious connotations. It's only the more irrational memes of man (religion) that can produce such delusion in an otherwise intelligent human.

Protagoras quote.

No intelligent man believes that anybody ever willingly errs or willingly does base and evil deeds; they are well aware that all who do base and evil things do them unwillingly.

source brainy quotes

By usage of strident rhetoric, a nonsensical unsupportable dogma is advanced.

Paraphrasing Protagoras for the modern age.

No intelligent human (liberal/progressive) believes that any Muslim ever willingly errs or willingly does base and evil deeds according to beliefs; they are well aware that all who do base and evil things do them unwillingly.

This linked dogma is nonsense of course. Man is well capable of using human self-motivated reasoning to accomplish "evil" deeds and acts. Most all of human history (murders, rapes, slavery, genocide,) is confirmation of this simple fact.   Only those who were, and are today,  sophisticated (indoctrinated by political correctness in this modern case) will find a reason to believe it.   

"Sophisticated opinion".... Detailed and comprehensive instruction on said "evil" and 'base deeds' can not be found on page 618 of an imaginary book. That for all we know for sure, may, or may not even exist. We just don't know, we can neither prove nor disprove this so called "book" has an alleged earthly existence......... https://ia800602.us.archive.org/15/items/RelianceOfTheTraveller1/Reliance%20of%20the%20traveller1.pdf

Many place Zeno in the Stoic philosophical school, his contemporaries did not limit him, so neither do I. 

Should we then think of Zeno as a sophist? Certainly Isocrates, the rhetorician and contemporary of Plato, did not hesitate to lump Gorgias, Zeno, and Melissus together as among the other “sophists” flourishing in the era of Protagoras and all producing tedious treatises advocating the most outrageous claims (Isoc. Hel . [ Orat. 10] 2–3). While there are difficulties in giving precise definition to the term “sophist,” one feature common to those normally classed as such that Zeno lacks is an interest in the interrogation of cultural norms and values. Zeno's influence, however, on the great sophists who were his contemporaries and, more generally, on the techniques of argumentation promulgated among the sophists seems undeniable.

source Stanford University Zeno Elea

The intrusion of reality into the modern sophisticated leftist delusion has yet to truly manifest itself in any meaningful way. But we are very near its full fruition   I will fill the role of the antagonist in this narrative of reality.  The slow motion intrusion of reality into the sophisticated leftist delusion is happening now.  

Sophisticated, more nuanced they love to say is their view of the world today.

Thucydides, on the other hand, was a "realist" philosopher who said and believed that.

 "we can rest satisfied with having proceed upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be expected" ( Thucydides 1.21.1 ). Some of the data we receive may be flawed, Thucydides says, but by evaluating and analyzing the data, the truth can be found.

source  Tufts University .

1.1.1 General Features of Realism in International Relations

International relations realists emphasize the constraints imposed on politics by the nature of human beings, whom they consider egoistic, and by the absence of international government. Together these factors contribute to a conflict-based paradigm of international relations, in which the key actors are states, in which power and security become the main issues, and in which there is little place for morality. The set of premises concerning state actors, egoism, anarchy, power, security, and morality that define the realist tradition are all present in Thucydides.

source Stanford University

 Thucydides Conclusions about Human Nature

The conclusions Thucydides reaches about human nature from his analysis of the revolt at Corcyra are not very positive. He begins by saying "Death thus raged in every shape; ( kpr37 link) and, as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go" ( Thucydides 3.81.5 ) and then goes on to describe in particular how people's actions and opinions changed. He says that "Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them " ( Thucydides 3. 82.4 )

source  Tufts University .

After more than a decade, the war still rages on, with no end in sight. "Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them "

It exposed the flaws in their philosophy for all to see and many to critique viciously. Many modern progressives advance the same delusional methods of the sophists, still today, despite the obvious faults in their theories of arguments.

Some words in twenty-first century America are now still under assault after more than a decade of conflict. Words that can not mean what they do, otherwise a deeply held, very sophisticated progressive delusion literally falls apart

  Jihad: a war fought by Muslims to defend or spread their beliefs

Full Definition of JIHAD

1 :   a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty; also :   a personal struggle in devotion to Islam especially involving spiritual discipline

 source https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jihad

Fundamentalism :   a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles

source https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fundamentalism

Radical: very new and different from what is traditional or ordinary

source https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/radical

Using the "logic" of that line of reasoning (sophistry ) what group would Yusuf al-Qaradawi be in, as opposed to say, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha. Who is the radical?

 If words do not describe reality, they describe nonsense!

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/09/11/the-moderate-martyr

https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/yusuf-al-qaradawi-0

For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.

- Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart

The sophist wishes to forget or chooses not to remember just how long this conflict is proving to be.

From John Adams."We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever."

Your favour of the 11th, instant I have recd. There are great and weighty Considerations urged \in it/ in favour of arming against the Algerines, and I confess, if our States could be brought to agree, in the Measure, I Should be very willing to resolve upon eternal War with them. But in such a Case We ought to conduct the War with Vigour, and protect our Trade and People. The Resolution to fight them would raise the Spirits and Courage of our Countrymen immediately, and We might obtain the Glory of finally breaking up these nests of Banditts. But Congress will never, or at least not for years, take any Such Resolution, and in the meantime our Trade and Honour suffers beyond Calculation.— We ought not to fight them at all, unless We determine to fight them forever.

http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/FOEA-03-01-02-0745

Adams was commenting on the Barbary war.

Jefferson, together with his contemporary, John Adams, who was then serving as the Ambassador to England, met with the Ambassador from Tripoli, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, in an attempt to understand why American ships were being attacked and Americans being taken hostage. In a report to the then Secretary of State John Jay, Jefferson cites the Ambassador as saying:

"It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once. ^x"

Scholars recognize the ambassador's paraphrasing of the "Sword Verse" ( Surah 9:5 ), as the Qur'anic passage sometimes used to justify jihad is popularly known. The document is an excellent summation of the pirate's motivations. It may also be read as an eerie foreshadowing of the rationale claimed by some terrorists today.

http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/Public/focus/essay1009_jefferson.html

Osama Bin Laden quoted 9:5 in his 1996 fatwa ( http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/960823binladen.html )   or his Islamic justification for the course of action he was about to undertake, directly leading to the attack targeting New York City on September the 11 2001. This was published worldwide, and as well as notification of his intent, it was also a call to join him and his "struggle" or jihad.

It is a duty now on every tribe in the Arab Peninsula to fight, Jihad, in the cause of Allah and to cleanse the land from those occupiers. Allah knows that there blood is permitted (to be spilled) and their wealth is a booty; their wealth is a booty to those who kill them. The most Exalted said in the verse of As-Sayef, The Sword: “so when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters where ever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush” (At-Tauba; 9:5).

Two years later he cited verse 9:5 a second time https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm

Let us examine the verse of the sword. This verse has been cited as the reason for conflict from the founding of our nation, to the present time. I will link the surrounding verses as well so we see it in its natural context.

009.002 PICKTHAL: Travel freely in the land four months, and know that ye cannot escape Allah and that Allah will confound the disbelievers (in His Guidance).

http://www.islamawakened.com/quran/9/2/default.htm

009.003 PICKTHAL: And a proclamation from Allah and His messenger to all men on the day of the Greater Pilgrimage that Allah is free from obligation to the idolaters, and (so is) His messenger. So, if ye repent, it will be better for you; but if ye are averse, then know that ye cannot escape Allah. Give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom to those who disbelieve,

http://islamawakened.com/quran/9/3/

009.004 PICKTHAL: Excepting those of the idolaters with whom ye (Muslims) have a treaty, and who have since abated nothing of your right nor have supported anyone against you. (As for these), fulfil their treaty to them till their term. Lo! Allah loveth those who keep their duty (unto Him).

http://islamawakened.com/quran/9/4/

009.005 PICKTHAL: Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

http://islamawakened.com/quran/9/5/

009.006 PICKTHAL: And if anyone of the idolaters seeketh thy protection (O Muhammad), then protect him so that he may hear the Word of Allah, and afterward convey him to his place of safety. That is because they are

http://islamawakened.com/quran/9/6/

I only used Pickthal's as he is the most widely known English translation.

Did not the classical scholars such as Ibn Abbas ( http://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=2&tTafsirNo=73&tSoraNo=9&tAyahNo=5&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2 ) or Imam Ibn Kathir of the Shafi school of Islamic jurisprudence have the proper understanding of these Qur'anic verses ( http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2581&Itemid=64)

Let's start at the beginning of the linked tafsir. It starts here, Ibn Kathir links verses 9:2 through 9:6 in his commentary on the verse of the sword.

Here is the corresponding tafsir of Ibn Kathir

This is the ayah of the sword

[فَسِيحُواْ فِى الاٌّرْضِ أَرْبَعَةَ أَشْهُرٍ]

Mujahid, `Amr bin Shu`ayb, Muhammad bin Ishaq, Qatadah, As-Suddi and `Abdur-Rahman bin Zayd bin Aslam said that the four months mentioned in this Ayah are the four-month grace period mentioned in the earlier Ayah,

(So travel freely for four months throughout the land.) Allah said next,

[فَإِذَا انسَلَخَ الأَشْهُرُ الْحُرُمُ]

(So when the Sacred Months have passed...), meaning, `Upon the end of the four months during which

the four months in question passed, about 1400 years ago

We prohibited you from fighting the idolators,

Idolaters.... people not yet Muslim

and which is the grace period We gave them, then fight and kill the idolators wherever you may find them.' Allah's statement next,

[فَاقْتُلُواْ الْمُشْرِكِينَ حَيْثُ وَجَدتُّمُوهُمْ]

(then fight the Mushrikin wherever you find them), means, on the earth in general, except for the Sacred Area, for Allah said,

fight them everywhere on this earth, but Mecca

[وَلاَ تُقَـتِلُوهُمْ عِندَ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ حَتَّى يُقَـتِلُوكُمْ فِيهِ فَإِن قَـتَلُوكُمْ فَاقْتُلُوهُمْ]

(And fight not with them at Al-Masjid Al-Haram, unless they fight you there. But if they attack you, then fight them. )[2:191] Allah said here,

But if you must fight in Mecca, it's Ok

[وَخُذُوهُمْ]

(and capture them), executing some and keeping some as prisoners,

[وَاحْصُرُوهُمْ وَاقْعُدُواْ لَهُمْ كُلَّ مَرْصَدٍ]

( and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush),

do not wait until you find them.

Don't sit a home... go out and look for them

Rather, seek and besiege them in their areas and forts, gather intelligence about them in the various roads and fairways so that what is made wide looks ever smaller to them.

Search them out, use all means at you disposal

This way, they will have no choice, but to die or embrace Islam,

This seems rather unequivocal, and certain in its intent.

As I am a Goddess worshiping pagan and am quite happy in my faith. This, the above verse, may generate great animosity from the remaining members of humanity who freely choose to disbelieve in the prophethood of a murderous pedophile. I also put forth the proposition, that this is in fact, a violation of my human rights, and a hate crime.

[فَإِن تَابُواْ وَأَقَامُواْ الصَّلَوةَ وَءاتَوُاْ الزَّكَوةَ فَخَلُّواْ سَبِيلَهُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ]

(But if they repent and perform the Salah,

If they convert to Islam'

and give the Zakah,then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.)

Abu Bakr As-Siddiq used this and other honorable Ayat as proof for fighting those who refrained from paying the Zakah.

These Ayat allowed fighting people unless, and until, they embrace Islam and implement its rulings and obligations.

One more time, I state clearly. I do not wish to become a Muslim !!!!!

Allah mentioned the most important aspects of Islam here, including what is less important. Surely, the highest elements of Islam after the Two Testimonials, are the prayer, which is the right of Allah, the Exalted and Ever High, then the Zakah, which benefits the poor and needy. These are the most honorable acts that creatures perform, and this is why Allah often mentions the prayer and Zakah together. In the Two Sahihs, it is recorded that Ibn `Umar said that the Messenger of Allah said,

«أُمِرْتُ أَنْ أُقَاتِلَ النَّاسَ حَتَّى يَشْهَدُوا أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ وَأَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ اللهِ وَيُقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَيُؤْتُوا الزَّكَاة»

( I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establish the prayer and pay the Zakah.)

I think this is pretty much self-explanatory...is it not?

This honorable Ayah (9:5) was called the Ayah of the Sword , about which Ad-Dahhak bin Muzahim said,

" It abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolator, every treaty, and every term .''

this ABROGATED all peaceful Qur'anic verses that came before

Al-`Awfi said that Ibn `Abbas commented:

"No idolator had any more treaty or promise of safety ever since Surah Bara'ah was revealed. The four months, in addition to, all peace treaties conducted before Bara'ah was revealed and announced had ended by the tenth of the month of Rabi` Al-Akhir.''

[وَإِنْ أَحَدٌ مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ اسْتَجَارَكَ فَأَجِرْهُ حَتَّى يَسْمَعَ كَلاَمَ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ أَبْلِغْهُ مَأْمَنَهُ ذَلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قَوْمٌ لاَّ يَعْلَمُونَ ]

(6. And if anyone of the Mushrikin seeks your protection then grant him protection so that he may hear the Word of Allah (the Qur'an) and then escort him to where he can be secure, that is because they are men who know not.)

so that he may hear the Word of Allah and naturally, become a Muslim.

But what if he does not accept Islam?

After all, you have just read. Why would the CLEAR MESSAGE of the verse need to be repeated?

( I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah

http://www.tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=9&tid=20750

Truth is often self-evident.

Note to the third man to sit in the chair of power, Donald Trump.....

  History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. 

Karl Marx