Posted on 09/15/2006 1:30:02 PM PDT by hipaatwo
Introduction
Islamism, also called "radical Islam" or "fundamentalist Islam," sets Jihad - holy war against infidels – as the single most important religious duty of Islam. It differs from mainstream Islam in its understanding of th obligation of Jihad and of how it should be carried out.
Mainstream Islam restricts the religious duty of Jihad in various ways. First, according to mainstream Islam, not all infidels are to be fought against or killed. Infidels who live under Muslim rule as dhimmi, that is, who have accepted the protection of Islam and the conditions imposed upon them by Islamic law, are not to be killed. Further, most mainstream Muslim jurists maintain that even when Jihad is being fought, some infidels within the enemy camp, such as women, children, the elderly, and the disabled, should be spared. According to most Muslim jurists, certain types of arms or methods of warfare must not be used – for example, poisoned arrows and poisoning the enemy's wells – which could be construed as a basis for prohibiting chemical and biological warfare.
Second, in mainstream Islam, Jihad is usually construed as the collective duty of the Muslim community as a whole (fard kifaya ), rather than as an individual duty. That is, the Muslim ruler determines when and how to engage in it or to desist from it. It is not an individual religious duty, such as prayer or fasting, to be discharged by every Muslim (fard 'ayn). Only when the infidels invade the lands of Islam does Jihad become an individual religious duty.
Contemporary Islamism, however, holds that Islam is now under attack, and therefore Jihad is now a war of defense, and as such has become not only a collective duty but an individual duty without restrictions or limitations. That is, to the Islamists, Jihad is a total, all-encompassing duty to be carried out by all Muslims – men and women, young and old. All infidels, without exception, are to be fought and annihilated, and no weapons or types of warfare are barred. Furthermore, according to them, current Muslim rulers allied with the West are considered apostates and infidels.
One major ideological influence in Islamist thought was Sayyid Qutb. Qutb, an Egyptian, was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. He was convicted of treason for plotting to assassinate Egyptian president Gamal Abd Al-Nasser and was executed in 1966. He wrote extensively on a wide range of Islamic issues. According to Qutb, "There are two parties in all the world: the Party of Allah and the Party of Satan – the Party of Allah which stands under the banner of Allah and bears his insignia, and the Party of Satan, which includes every community, group, race, and individual that does not stand under the banner of Allah." [1]
This article will examine contemporary Islamist sources advocating this approach to non-Muslims. [2]
I. Defining the West as The Enemy of Islam
The perception of the West as the enemy of Islam is widely expressed in Islamist circles. According to the Islamists, the U.S. and its allies declared war on Islam, which makes Jihad against them a personal duty for every Muslim. The people of the West, as enemies of Islam, necessarily deserve to be annihilated.
A. Crusaders, Jews, Shi'ites, and Leaders of Muslim Countries Threaten Islam
Al-Neda, a website affiliated with Al-Qa'ida, [3] published a series of articles about the war in Iraq. The 11th article in the series addressed the dangers facing Sunni Islamists in the region, stating them as follows:
"The Crusaders Threat: This danger will be manifested primarily in the expected missionary activities in Iraq, in addition to the military activities that aim at 'uprooting Islam.'
"The Jewish Threat: This threat has two aspects: The first is a Jewish plan, based on religious motives, to control Iraq. The second has to do with ending the Iraqi threat to Israel's existence."
"The Threat to Islam From the Muslims Themselves:" According to the article, "the believers," (i.e. Sunni Islamists) face popular as well as institutionalized hatred, and "this hatred is no less [intense] than the hatred from Jews and Christians. Sometimes it is a hundred times worse than the hatred of the enemies of the nation, the Jews and the Christians." The article stated that this threat emanates from the leaders of Islamic countries and the clerics who serve them.
"The Secular Threat:" "There is no doubt," the article stated, "that one of the greatest threats to the hegemony of Islam and the dominance of Shari'a [Islamic law] is the American secularism that will be imposed forcefully on the region… The Islamic world will change from dictatorship to democracy, which means subhuman degradation in all walks of life."
"The Threat of Those Who Abandoned the Islamic Tradition:"The article maintained that "since a large segment of Muslims" will oppose secularism, the "Zionist-Crusader coalition" is encouraging large spiritual groups such as the Sufis, "who are mostly infidels" and believe in monism, pantheism, and re-incarnation and observe laws that "appeared in night-dreams, wishful thinking, conscience, inspiration, and other endless falsehoods." Orders such as the Sufis "oppose Jihad and do not oppose the infidels."
"The Threat of the Rational School:"The article asserted that British imperialism planted this "deadly seedling that maintains that Islam is not opposed to atheism, and that Islam must get close to the infidel and coexist with him. This school of thought, which was established by Muhammad 'Abdu [in the early 20th century] and maintains that logic takes precedence over [the] text [of the Qur'an], may become the first stepping stone to secularizing the region, because it is a mixture of secularism and Islam."
"The Shi'ite Threat:" The article paid particular attention to the issue of the Shi'a: "The danger of the Shi'a to the region is no less than that posed by the Jews and the Christians. Throughout Islamic history, the Shi'a helped the Christians and the polytheists in their battles against Muslim countries. The seemingly anti-Jewish and anti-Christian Shi'a hatred is nothing but slogans used to export the Khomeini revolution…
"…The threat posed by the Shi'a to the [Islamic] nation is equal to the threat posed by the Jews and the Christians. They harbor the same ill will against the nation, which needs to protect itself from them and from being deceived by them… They pose a danger not only to Iraq, but to the whole region. If the Shi'a have influence over Iraq, or if they obtain some kind of autonomy in southern Iraq, they will be so much closer to extending their influence. After all, they exist in considerable numbers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain. If these Shi'a get organized and if their initiatives get support from countries that sponsor them – Iran, Syria, and Lebanon – it will mean that they have reached advanced stages in their 50-year plan…
"The Muslims should be careful, because the Shi'a do not hesitate to cooperate with the Crusaders and the Jewish enemies [of] the Sunna. The Shi'a believe that the threat of the Sunna and their unbelief is greater than the threat posed by the Jews and the Christians. Whoever follows history knows that the Shi'a assisted the enemies of the nation who stabbed it in the back. It is bad enough that the Shi'a defiled the sanctity of Allah's house and stole the Black Stone [the Ka'ba] for 20 years, before it was restored to its place. Those who are familiar with the beliefs of the Shi'a can hardly fathom the depth of their evil and hatred. Beware [of] them, Oh Muslims.
"We also caution against those who advocate befriending the Shi'a. Such [an] approach can only cause further harm to the nation. To get close to the Shi'a is more dangerous than getting close to the Jews, because the animosity of the Jews is well known, while the Shi'a pretend [to be friendly] and deceive the nation…How can we approach those who believe that we should curse the followers of the Prophet Muhammad and accuse them of unbelief? They, who curse the Prophet's wives and accuse [the Prophet's wife] 'Aisha of prostitution?... If you advocate getting closer to people with such beliefs, then getting closer to Christians is not as bad… [Not] everyone who maintains that he is Muslim is indeed a Muslim, if his deeds completely nullify Islam…" [4]
B. The Christians and the Jews are 'Enemies of Allah'
While mainstream Islam considers both Jews and Christians to be "People of the Book" – i.e., non-Muslims who may be offered the choice of living under Muslim rule as dhimmis while retaining their religion – the Islamists tend to accuse Jews and Christians of being no better than idolaters. In his Qur'an commentary Fi Zilal Al-Qur'an, Sayyid Qutb states that the Jews and Christians claim that Allah has offspring, which makes them not only infidels but polytheists. Friday sermons across the Arab world are rife with references to Christians and Jews as enemies of Allah.
A preacher at the Ka'ba Mosque in Al-Madina, Sheikh Abd Al-'Aziz Qari, delivered a sermon saying: "Two groups – the Jews and the Christians – are the main elements constituting the Camp of Kufr [unbelief] and will continue to be its two foundations until Allah allows their downfall and annihilation at the end of days...
"When the Prophet Muhammad was sent out, the Camp of Kufr declared war on his message. At the center of this war were these groups, particularly the Jews. These two groups will continue to serve as the grindstones of the conflict and the war between belief and Kufr until eternity comes… The conflict will end when Jesus the son of Mary, peace be upon him, arrives to break the cross, and wipes it off the face of the earth, and kills the blind [false] Messiah, the leader of the Jews and the tyrant whom they await. Until that day, the conflict between us, the Muslims, and the Jews and Christians will continue, and it will ebb and flow, one day ours, another day theirs…
"The Jews are the objects of Allah's [promised] wrath, while the Christians deviate from the path of righteousness… The Qur'an described the Jews as a nation cursed by Allah, a nation at which he was angry – some of whom he turned into apes and pigs…" [5]
In a sermon at a Mecca mosque, preacher Sheikh Adnan Ahmad Siyami told worshippers, "[Islam] believes that only Islam and the Camp of Kufr exist, and that there is no way to reach Paradise and be delivered from Hell except by walking in the path of our Prophet Muhammad and joining Islam. Any other way leads to Hell… In light of this, my believing brethren, how can it be claimed that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all paths leading to Allah?!…
"Several years ago, a sinful call arose, which unfortunately garnered support from some clerics and preachers of this religion, Islam… [a call] for the unification of the monotheistic religions. They flaunted an empty and false motto of 'religious harmony,' Christian-Islamic friendship, and uniting the three religions into a global religion'…
"The call for the unification of the religions is a call for the abolition of religious differences among people: No more Muslim and infidel. All will come under the unity of human harmony… This accursed call has ramifications that most certainly will shake Islam in the hearts of its people, leading them to the lowest of the levels of Hell. This call will lead… to presenting the infidels' schools of thought as correct, and to silence regarding them; to permitting conversion to Judaism and Christianity with no shame whatsoever; to the abolition of the vast difference between the Muslims and others – a difference underpinning the conflict between truth and falsehood; to the transformation of the religion of Islam into a religion like the other, false religions, into a religion that has no advantage over the other religions…; to refraining from calling [people] to join Islam, because if the Muslim wants to do so, he must tell the truth about the infidels… This will also facilitate the conversion to Christianity in Muslim lands...
"[This is] … a call to dismantle the pact among Muslims in all the corners of the Islamic world and to replace it with an accursed alternative harmony - the 'Harmony of the Jews and Christians.' This is, in truth, a call to Muslims to stop accusing Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims of being infidels…
"There can be neither an agreement nor a meeting point between the people of Islam and the Jewish and Christian People of the Book… How can we permit the Catholic Pope's talk of a need to find meeting points and agreement between Islam and Christianity, so that there will be peaceful coexistence between the two religions and harmony between the two communities? Is it conceivable that there should be agreement and a meeting point with those who fabricate terrible falsehoods about Allah … claiming that Jesus, peace be upon him, is his son?!…" [6]
In a sermon at the Manar Al-Islam mosque in Mecca, preacher Sheikh 'Ali Muhammad Al-Baroum stated: "The idea of intertwining religions and the claim that the Jews and the Christians believe in religions of truth … are sinful claims and deceitful ideas unacceptable to the religion [of Islam]… It is forbidden to bring together Islam and the infidels, monotheism and polytheism… Allah's path of righteousness and Satan's path of Kufr." [7]
At Al-Rahmah mosque in Mecca, preacher Sheikh Marzouq Salem Al-Ghamdi said: "The Jews and Christians are infidels, enemies of Allah, his Messenger, and the believers. They deny and curse Allah and his Messenger… How can we draw near to these infidels …? They deny even the messengers sent to them. They do not believe in Moses, they do not believe in Jesus – because if they really believed in them, they would join Islam, because every prophet heralded to his nation the coming of the Prophet Muhammad and the need to believe in him…
"Some may say: 'How can the inventor of electricity be placed in Hell – he illuminated the world for us.' Others may say, 'How can we be hostile to the Jews and Christians when they invented and manufactured even the items we use in our mosques?' Still others may say, 'The messenger of Allah left his shield with a Jew and went to visit his sick Jewish neighbor. Why do you preach to us to do differently?' The truth is that this is an inversion of the facts, and deception. The Jew whom the Prophet considered a citizen had accepted the agreement [that the Prophet Muhammad had concluded with the Jews of Al-Madina] … and when his people violated that pact, and supported the polytheists instead of the Muslims, their punishment was death, captivity, and the expropriation of their assets.
"If the infidels live among the Muslims, in accordance with the conditions set out by the Prophet – there is nothing wrong with it provided they pay Jizya [8] to the Islamic treasury. Other conditions are … that they do not renovate a church or a monastery [and] do not rebuild ones that were destroyed, that they feed for three days any Muslim who passes by their homes … that they rise when a Muslim wishes to sit, that they do not imitate Muslims in dress and speech, nor ride horses, nor own swords, nor arm themselves with any kind of weapon; that they do not sell wine, do not show the cross, do not ring church bells, do not raise their voices during prayer, that they shave their hair in front so as to make them easily identifiable, do not incite anyone against the Muslims, and do not strike a Muslim… If they violate these conditions, they have no protection." [9]
In a Friday sermon in the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Aal Nahyan mosque in Gaza, broadcast live on official Palestinian Authority television, Sheikh Ahmad Abu Halabiya, member of the PA-appointed Fatwa Council and former acting rector of the Islamic University in Gaza, said:
"Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them – and those who stand by them – they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims – because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it to be the outpost of their civilization – and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and of the Crusaders, hanging over the necks of the monotheists, the Muslims in these lands. They wanted the Jews to be their spearhead… Allah, deal with the Jews, your enemies and the enemies of Islam. Deal with the crusaders, and America, and Europe behind them, O Lord of the worlds…" [10]
A Fatwa issued by Saudi Sheikh Muhammad Saleh Al-Athimein (d. 2000) stated: "Allah stated in his book [i.e. the Qur'an] that the Jews and Christians are infidels. Allah said: 'The Jews say Uzair is Allah's son; and the Christians say: The Messiah is Allah's son; these are but their verbal assertions, whereby they imitate the sayings of those who disbelieved before them. Allah ruin them, how are they turned away from the truth! They have taken their divines and their monks for lords beside Allah, and also the Messiah son of Mary. They had only been commanded to worship the One God. There is no god but He. Holy is He above that which they associate with Him' [Qur'an 9:30-31]. This proves that they worship other gods… Anyone who claims that Allah will agree to the existence of another religion besides Islam in this land is an infidel, and there is no doubt of his unbelief." [11]
In addition to the view that the Jews and Christians are infidels and enemies of Islam, some Islamist clerics go further and say that America is the leader of these infidels. In a September 21, 2001 essay on the events of September 11, 2001, the Saudi Sheikh Ali Khudeir wrote: "It is known that the infidel West, led by the Americans, is the greatest warrior against Allah, Allah's Messenger, and the Muslims during this time. Moreover, they fight against Allah, his Messenger, and the believers even more than Pharaoh and his people, [who fought against] Moses, because Pharaoh's struggle against Allah and [His Prophet] Moses took place within the borders of Egypt, while the war of the West, and particularly that of America, is against Islam everywhere, and the West is behind every war against the Muslims and supports every government, group, or tribe in their war against Islam." [12]
C. All Who Believe in Democracy, The Religion of Godlessness, Are Infidels
Some Islamist writings portray democracy as a religion – one that contradicts and competes with true faith – and thus refer to all those who believe in democracy as infidels. The book 'Democracy Is a Religion ' was written by Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, a pseudonym for Asem Al-Burqawi. Al-Burqawi, Palestinian in origin, belongs to the Salafi movement. He lived in Kuwait but was expelled to Jordan after the first Gulf War, and in November 2001 was arrested by the Jordanian authorities. The following are excerpts from his book:
"[Democracy is] denying Allah the Almighty, associating [other deities] with [Allah,] the Sovereign of heaven and earth, and is contrary to the religion of unity [i.e. Islam] and the religion of the prophets, for many reasons, among them:
"First, [democracy] is legislated by the masses or the regime of tyrants, and it is not the rule of Allah the Exalted. Allah commanded his Prophet to act according to the law that Allah sent down to him, and forbade him from following the desires of the nation or the masses and warned him that they would divert him from part of the [precepts] sent down by Allah: 'Judge between them by that which Allah has sent down, and do not follow their wishes to deviate from it' [Qur'an 5:49]. This [appears] in the religion of unity and of Islam
It's a very long read, I'm not done yet but so far it's very informative..and downright scary.
BOOKMARK.
More at link you say? :)
Thanks hip....I bookmarked it for later read...
Are you feeling any better today??
I am NOT---I loved the President's speech...but, since then, all I hear is how HAPPY the dems are about how this group of 4 reps are going to "do their job" and take down President Bush for them.
Enemy # 1...McCain, #2, Powell...#3 Graham, #4 Warner...
I can't count Collins too high..she is a ninny.
After reading the first few paragraphs, I would have to agree. I will tell my little story here. After 9/11, I was lunching with a few of my partners and asked the question whether there was anything in Islam that could have something to do with this. They verbally jumped all over me, no way, what a ridiculous question, etc. (Very liberal, very PC bunch.) Well, it's been 5 years, and unlike them, I wanted to know enough to be able to answer that question intelligently. I had no opinion of Islam and I was NOT on a quest to prove any religion bad or wrong.
Well, now I know lots. Islam is the problem. I hope we are finding our way to the solution.
For some reason the page is so wide I had to copy and paste it to wordpad to be able to read it. It's unbelievable. So far they think Israel wants to take over Iraq, that's why they are fighting.
Tex..I'm still pissed but the President made me feel better
I'm only 1/4 of the way through the article and so far as I can see none of us has a chance with these people. Ever. McCain can go to hades after reading this.
BS --- that's just an excuse. They have always hated Jews and Catholics. It is important to remember that ALL Christians were Catholic for 15 centuries.
It gets worse as you read. I had to stop for a while. It's alot to take in.
Gee thanks...lol. I have just connected to the link.
I bet I know where you stopped reading. I will come back to it too. I am not about to post any of it, not even to make a point or to expose their vile lunacy. This is sick stuff.
In Islam, the Arabic word sunnah has come to denote the way Prophet Muhammad (saas), the Messenger of Allah, lived his life. The Sunnah is the second source of Islamic jurisprudence, the first being the Qur'an. Both sources are indispensable; one cannot practice Islam without consulting both of them. The Arabic word hadith (pl. ahadith) is very similar to Sunnah, but not identical. A hadith is a narration about the life of the Prophet (saas) or what he approved - as opposed to his life itself, which is the Sunnah as already mentioned.I urge each freeper to read the chapter on Jihaad
I stopped here-All Who Believe in Democracy, The Religion of Godlessness, Are Infidels
I'll be back in time for Levin..:) Going to go lay down for a bit
Sad but true
In other words, Islam must kill us, since we are not islamic.
I would say that is it fairly well summed up in the first sentence...
Your post reminded me of a similar situation.
Two years ago at a social gathering I made a statement that we were in a religious war with Islam. People practically screamed at me, telling me how I was wrong and that I was intolerant of other religions.
I wonder if they're beginning to get the picture yet.
I simple get tired trying to digest the rantings of complete lunatics.
I think there is some hope.
Bump for later read.
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