Clinton’s Jihad Ignorance [Bill]

Bill Clinton recently demonstrated the tenacity of those liberal/leftist/materialist paradigms that have all but blinded the West to reality. According to the Associated Press:

Former U.S. President [and current spouse of the U.S. Secretary of State] Bill Clinton warned Monday that the rampant poverty that plagues oil-rich Nigeria—felt most acutely in its Muslim north—is fueling the religious violence now tearing at the nation. A radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram claimed Monday it killed 12 soldiers and beheaded three government informants in its bloody wave of sectarian violence against Nigeria’s weak central government [the report later adds that Boko Haram has so far killed 286 people this year alone, that is, in just the last six weeks]. While Clinton never named the sect in a speech Monday night in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, he admitted he remained “really worried” about the security challenges in Africa’s most populous nation.”You can’t just have this level of inequality persist. That’s what’s fueling all this stuff,” said Clinton… New government statistics released Monday showed that in Nigeria’s northwest and northeast, regions besieged by Islamic insurgents, about 75 percent of the people live in poverty [emphasis added].

The remainder of the article tells of how “analysts” agree with the poverty-fuels-jihad thesis, and how “Clinton called for Nigerians to embrace their similarities,” arguing that “It is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with violence.”

Thus, Clinton, analysts—even the New York Times—all offer a perfectly palatable reason for the violence plaguing Nigeria, one that accords well with the materialist worldview, and one that, as usual, defies reality. Consider some simple facts:

First, Islamists of the north, led by Boko Haram, began their violent jihad in earnest, not because they realized they were financially impoverished, but because a Christian won what was described as Nigeria’s freest and fairest elections. After all, as Islamic law clearly teaches, a non-Muslim is not permitted to govern Muslims—not because he is bad for the economy, but because he is an infidel.The full name of Boko Haram is “Sunnis for [Islamic] Propagation and Jihad”; “Boko Haram,” their nickname, means “Western Education is a Sin” (not “We Kill Because We’re Poor”). Their stated goal is the establishment of a pure Sharia state in Nigeria. In other words, they are like all the other Islamists around the world, many of whom are financially well of, beginning with the leader of the pack, Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s wealthiest nations, and also the nation most responsible for fueling the jihad of groups like Boko Haram (just as the rich Saudi Osama bin Laden had supported the Islamist regime of Sudan, any number of wealthy donors, Saudi and otherwise, support jihadi groups like Boko Haram as part of their zakat).

Then there is the fact that, whenever and wherever a society begins to enforce Sharia, impoverishment soon follows—unless, of course, that society has natural resources to glut on. Indeed, consider the poverty-inducing consequences of Boko Haram’s jihad: most recently, after reading about how “Allahu Akbar” screaming Muslims killed and wrought havoc in the Nigerian city of Kano, we discover that Kano is “the economic heart of Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north.”

Who, then, is really creating poverty in northern Nigeria? As we saw, the Associated Press report states that “in Nigeria’s northwest and northeast, regions besieged by Islamic insurgents, about 75 percent of the people live in poverty.” The implication is that poverty creates frustrated jihadis; the reality is that jihadis frustrate the economy.

The inability to accept these straightforward facts; the inability to factor ideological or existential motives, seeing only material motives (money, land, etc); the almost instinctive conclusion that Muslim violence is proof positive of legitimate grievance—all of these are so ingrained in the predominant paradigm, from the mainstream media, to mainstream politicians, and all of these are poisoning Western civilization from within, eroding its influence and capacity to act from without.

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Fueling the jihad of groups like Boko Haram (just as the rich Saudi Osama bin Laden had supported the Islamist regime of Sudan, any number of wealthy donors, Saudi and otherwise, support jihadi groups like Boko Haram as part of their zakat).”

More on zakat:

The Dark Side of Zakat
Muslim “Charity” in Context 15AUG09

From what American schoolchildren are being taught by their teachers to what Americans are being told by their presidents, concepts unique to Islam are nowadays almost always “Westernized.” Whether the product of naivety, arrogance, or downright disingenuousness, this phenomenon has resulted in epistemic (and thus endemic) failures, crippling Americans from objectively understanding some of Islam’s more troublesome doctrines.

A typical seventh-grade textbook, for instance, teaches that “jihad represents the human struggle to overcome difficulties and do things that are pleasing to God. Muslims strive to respond positively to personal difficulties as well as worldly challenges. For instance, they might work to be better people, reform society, or correct injustice.”

Strictly speaking, this is by and large true. However, by not explaining what it means to be “better people, reform society, or correct injustice” — from a distinctly Islamic, as opposed to Western, perspective — the textbook abandons students to fall back on their own (misleading) interpretations.

Yet the facts remain: In Islam, killing certain “evil-doers,” such as apostates or homosexuals, is a way of “correcting injustice”; overthrowing manmade constitutional orders (such as the United States) and replacing them with Sharia mandates, and subjugating women and non-Muslims, are ways of “reforming society.” Those enforcing all this are, in fact, “better people” — indeed, according to the Koran, they are “the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong [3:110],” that is, ruling according to Sharia law.

So it is with the Muslim concept of zakat, a word often rendered into English as “charity.” But is that all zakat is — mere Muslim benevolence by way of feeding and clothing the destitute of the world, as the word “charity” all too often connotes?

U.S. president Barack Hussein Obama seems to think so — or, given his background, is at least banking that others do — based on his recent proclamation to the Muslim world that “in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.”

Thus does Obama conflate a decidedly Islamic concept, zakat, with the generic notion of charity. Is this justified? As with all things Islamic, one must first examine the legal aspects of zakat to truly appreciate its purport. Etymologically related to the notion of “purity,” zakat — paying a portion of one’s wealth to specifically designated recipients — is a way of purifying oneself, on par with prayers (see Koran 9:103).

The problem, however, has to do with who is eligible for this mandatory “charity.” Most schools of Muslim jurisprudence are agreed to eight possible categories of recipients — one of these being those fighting “in the path of Allah,” that is, jihadis, also known as “terrorists.”

In fact, financially supporting jihadis is a recognized form of jihad — jihad al-mal; even the vast majority of militant verses in the Koran (e.g., 9:20, 9:41, 49:15, 61:10-11) prioritize the need to fund the jihad over merely fighting in it, as fighting with one’s wealth often precedes fighting with one’s self. Well-known Islamists — from international jihadi Osama bin Laden to authoritative cleric Sheikh Qaradawi — are well aware of this and regularly exhort Muslims to fund the jihad via zakat.

More revealing of the peculiarly Islamic nature of zakat is the fact that Muslims are actually forbidden from bestowing this “charity” onto non-Muslims (e.g., the vast majority of American infidels). “Charitable” Muslim organizations operating on American soil are therefore no mere equivalents to, say, the Salvation Army, a Christian charity organization whose “ministry extends to all, regardless of ages, sex, color, or creed.” In Islam, creed is a major criterion for receiving “charity” — not to mention for receiving social equality.

From here, one can better understand Obama’s lament that “in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation,” a statement that unwittingly implies that American zakat has, in fact, been used to fund the jihad. After all, these irksome “rules” to which Obama alludes appear to be a reference to the presumably “excessive” scrutiny American Muslim “charities” are subject to by law enforcement. Yet this scrutiny is itself a direct byproduct of the fact that American Muslim “charities” have, indeed, been funding the jihad, both at home and abroad.

In light of all this, what truly remains to be seen is how, precisely, Obama plans on “working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.”

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