Posted on 10/25/2001 11:13:31 AM PDT by Helms
ISLAM'S WAR AGAINST THE WEST
by Howard Bloom
To hear and read the words used weekly to inflame the Arab citizens of Jerusalem go to www.al-aqsa.com
"Man's greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding (and) use the bodies of his women as a nightshirt and support." Genghis Khan
"He butchered three of them with an ax and decapitated them. In other words, instead of using a gun to kill them he took a hatchet to chop their heads off. He struggled face to face with one of them, and throwing down his ax managed to break his neck and devour his flesh in front of his comrades. ...I ...award him the Medal of the Republic." General Mustafa Tlas, Syria's Minister of Defense praising a hero of the 1973 war with Israel before the Syrian National Assembly
"Appeasing of governments which revel in slaughter is an invitation to worldwide catastrophe." Fang Lizhi
for news on the Islamic world from the Islamic point of view click the site above
Two thousand three hundred years ago a Greek who even his fellow Greeks called a barbarian conquered the entire Persian Empire. His name was Alexander the Great.
The whole thing was as unlikely as the Vietnamese turning around and conquering the U.S. But it happened. In fact, in history it happens over and over again.
It happened in 1870 when the French were forced to fight a country which just a few years earlier had been a disorganized clutter of rag-tag mini-states ruled by comic opera princes. The land of Napoleon was rated by every armchair general as the mightiest military force on the Continent. But France lost. Its army was chopped up like ground round. Its glorious capital, Paris, faced the humiliation of a foreign army marching down its streets. The upstart nation that had brought France to its knees was... Germany.
An equally surprising fate occurred to England when it trained its guns on the superpowers of its day in two world wars. When the smoke had cleared, two backward nations of Johnny-come-latelies ended up dominating the world. These countries, whose inhabitants had usually been regarded as just one small step above the primitive, were The United States and Russia.
The moral is simple. Never forget the pecking order's surprises. Today's superpower is tomorrow's conquered state. Yesterday's overlooked mob is often the ruler of tomorrow. Never underestimate the third world. Never be complacent about barbarians.
Some readers will be outraged by my presumption. How dare I regard any group as barbaric. What appalling ethnocentrism! There are no barbarians. There are simply cultures we haven't taken the time to understand. Cultures to whom we haven't given sufficient aid. Cultures in need of development. Beneath the skin, all men and women are the same. They have the same needs, the same emotions, and the same ideals. If you simply took those folks you speak of so contemptuously out for a cup of coffee, you would discover that they are just like you and me.
But there are barbarians--people whose cultures glorify the act of murder, and elevate violence to a holy deed. These cultures portray the extinction of other human beings as a validation of manliness, a heroic gesture in the name of truth, or simply a good way to get ahead in the world.
Certain Islamic societies tend to be high on this list. On November 28, 1943, Franklin Roosevelt met secretly with Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill in Iran. When Roosevelt returned home, he sent a telegram to the Shah thanking the Iranian ruler for his hospitality. The President explained that he'd noticed the hills in Iran were bare. American agronomists had learned to prevent soil erosion and enrich the landscape by planting trees on slopes like these. Roosevelt suggested an experimental tree-planting program.
The Iranian leader thanked FDR. But privately the young potentate was highly insulted: According to Moslem standards, the gift demeaned his virility. Stalin was far more understanding of Mohammedan culture. He offered the Shah tanks and planes.
Hafez al-Assad, father of the current leader of Syria, worked hard to solidify his position as the country's undisputed ruler. He didn't do it by selling Syria's citizens on the values of his political platform. Instead, he slaughtered 20,000 Moslem Fundamentalists who opposed him.
According to The New York Times, in 1980 Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, had a Lebanese imam (a holy man roughly equivalent to a pastor) shot in the head for refusing to preach the propaganda of the PLO. Then Arafat visited the imam's Lebanese home, took his ten-year-old son aside, explained to the little boy that his father had been murdered by the Israelis, handed the lad a gun, and said, "When you grow up, use this to take revenge." Arafat wanted the boy to be a killer.
Holiness, righteousness, and even day-to-day propriety in Islamic cultures are based on the example of Mohammed. Though Islamic literature praises Mohammed as a man of peace, he was also a military leader. In 624 AD, The Prophet announced the concept of the Jihad--the holy war. He said in the blessed book, The Koran, "I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them. ...And slay them wherever ye catch them...." In the next nine years, the man of peace ordered a minimum of 27 military campaigns. He personally led nine of them.
It is not surprising that Moslem jurists would later declare that there are two worlds: the world of Islam--Dar al-Islam--and the non-Islamic world--Dar al-Harb. These two territorial spheres, explained the Moslem scholars, are in a state of perpetual war. According to some Koranic interpreters, any leader who fails to "make wide slaughter" in the land of the infidel is committing a sin. A statesman is only allowed the temporary expedient of peace if his forces are not yet strong enough to win.
This may explain why Elias Canetti, in his Nobel Prize-winning book Crowds and Power, calls Islam a killer religion, literally "a Religion of War."
In reality, Islam, like most other religions, has both its positive and its negative sides. It imposes a host of admirable responsibilities on its adherents: for example, zakat, the presentation of regular, substantial contributions to the poor. Allah also demands that his followers "give glad tidings to those who believe and work righteousness," "cover not Truth with falsehood nor conceal the Truth when ye know (what it is)," and "treat with kindness your parents and kindred and orphans and those in need."
However, Allah issues many a darker order as well. And the percentage of modern Islamic adherents who have focused on Allah's calls to combat is dismaying. Today, the descendants of the Persians who fought the Greeks in 480 BC are devout Moslems. In the '30s, one of them labored diligently to become an Islamic scholar. He pored over the Koran for years. As he demonstrated his superior knowledge of Allah's pronouncements, he rose in the ranks of Iranian holy men. Finally he achieved the penultimate title--ayatollah (roughly equivalent to a Catholic cardinal).
His name was Ruhollah Khomeini, and he wrote books, pamphlets, and even taped and distributed his speeches to inspire the citizens of Iran with sacred virtue. The ayatollah's words roused Iranians to overthrow the shah and usher in a government based on strict Islamic doctrine. What did the ayatollah's pronouncements say- Among other things, that infidels are like dogs. Their existence is an affront to Allah.
Here's how the ayatollah himself put it: "...Moslems have no alternative... to an armed holy war against profane governments. ...Holy war means the conquest of all non-Moslem territories. ...It will ...be the duty of every able-bodied adult male to volunteer for this war of conquest, the final aim of which is to put Koranic law in power from one end of the earth to the other. "The leaders of the USSR and of England and the president of the United States are ...infidels.... ...Every part of the body of a non-Moslem individual is impure, even the hair on his head and his body hair, his nails, and all the secretions of his body. Any man or woman who denies the existence of God, or believes in His partners [the Christian Trinity], or else does not believe in His Prophet Mohammed, is impure (in the same way as are excrement, urine, dog, and wine)[sic]."
Concluded the Ayatollah, "Islam does not allow peace between... a Moslem and an infidel." Though many of us imagine that the promotion of harmony is a prime objective of every major world faith, the ayatollah disagreed. "The leaders of our religion were all soldiers, commanders and warriors," he wrote, "...they killed and they were killed."
The concept of a peaceful prophet was so alien to the ayatollah that he was convinced Christ's message had been deliberately distorted by Westerners. Said Khomeini, "This idea of turning the other cheek has been wrongly attributed to Jesus (peace be unto him); it is those barbaric imperialists that have attributed it to him. Jesus was a prophet, and no prophet can be so illogical."
Khomeini's dicta may seem irrelevant now that he has long been dead, but his words have actually gained in influence since his demise. Early in the '90s, Iraq's humiliation in the Gulf War undermined the credibility of the secular Moslem regimes, leaving a power vacuum into which Fundamentalism leaped. There are currently roughly one 100,000,000 Islamic fundamentalists (rechristened "Islamic revivalists" by some scholars ).
Activists among them, employing the slogan "Africa for Islam," are making diligent--and often violent--efforts to seize power in numerous sub-Saharan states. They have gained sufficient favor with South Africa's ANC that Nelson Mandela, in a 1992 visit to Teheran, told the Iranians that Africa must be reshaped along the lines of the Iranian revolution. (Ironically, when South African leader Bishop Desmond Tutu gave a speech to a Palestinian crowd in 1989 lauding Palestinian interests, he failed to realize that the Arabic banners carried by his listeners read "On Saturday We Will Kill the Jews, on Sunday We Will Kill the Christians!")
Khomeini-style fundamentalists have become vigorous political forces in areas like China's Sinkiang region (where as of 1994, Beijing officials were seriously concerned that the area's inhabitants, influenced by propaganda from Iran, would attempt to break away and found a fundamentalist Islamic republic).
Islamic fundamentalists have been involved in the Indian state of Kashmir's vicious civil war. They've been active in Malaysia, Thailand (where Moslem guerilla forces were fighting in 1993), and the Sudan (where an Iranian-backed fundamentalist regime is engaged in a campaign to subjugate, exterminate or--according to the United Nations International Labor Organization--literally enslave the black Christians and animists in the southern region of the country).
Followers of Khomeini have been moving aggressively in Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan (where by 1992 posters and portraits of the ayatollah had become a particularly strong sales item in local stores), France, and, according to Greek Defense Minister Ioannis Varitsiotes and the University of Belgrade's Dragoljub R. Zivojinovic, Czechoslovakia, Albania and Yugoslavia.
In many of these cases, fundamentalists are sweeping elections, manipulating generals, funding insurrections, sponsoring terrorism, or actually taking control. Islamic fundamentalists have poured money into America's black communities in an effort that has brought more than a million U.S. African Americans over to the one true faith.
While most of these converts remain peaceful, Al-Fuqra, a predominantly African-American Islamic group under the leadership of Pakistani Sheikh Mubarak Ali Jilani Hashemi, has declared a jihad in North America, and, according to law enforcement agencies, has been involved in bombings, murders and other forms of bloodshed in Colorado, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Canada.
It has been reported that Al-Fuqra also had a hand in the 1993 effort to blow up New York's United Nations building, the city's FBI headquarters, and its Holland and Lincoln Tunnels. When the Iranians declared a death-sentence on British author Salman Rushdie, black American imams everywhere from Brooklyn to Los Angeles enthusiastically supported the move. (So did the Moslem head of UCLA's Middle Eastern Studies Department.)
Even a loyal African-American Gulf War veteran, won over to Allah in 1991, stated after his change in faith that "soon it [Islam] will take over all of America, then the world."
The U.S. African-American community is only a beachhead. Islamic forces have been attempting to gain control of U.S. media outlets in the hope of using them as propaganda tools for the Moslem point of view. The Saudis and America's Christian fundamentalists battled in the early '90s for the right to purchase America's second largest wire service, UPI. Ultimately, the Arabs won.
In addition, Amal Adam, the former head of Saudi Arabia's equivalent of the CIA, was the primary backer of a British-based firm called Capcom, whose chief officers were the heads of TCI (Telecommunications Incorporated), America's largest player in the cable television game. In 1993, TCI made headlines when it came within a hair's breadth of merging with Bell/Atlantic. Had the effort succeeded, it would have formed what financial analysts universally heralded as one of the giants of the coming interactive media revolution, giving the Saudis additional leverage for American media manipulation.
The ground is ripe for worldwide Islamic fundamentalist expansion. Mohammedanism is currently the fastest-growing religion on the planet. There are a billion Moslems--as many as Jews and Christians combined--and that number is increasing daily. According to Cairo University's Professor Ali Dessouki , 50 countries are now Islamic.
What's more, there are massive Mohammedan populations everywhere from Nigeria to Mongolia, the former Soviet Central Asian republics, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines. The countries with the world's largest Islamic bodies of citizenry are not even parts of the Arab world--they are Indonesia and China.
To top it off, Islamic public opinion, if the Arabs, Iranians and Pakistanis are an accurate barometer, is virulently anti-American.
Today's Islam extremism is the perfect example of a meme grown ravenous. Saddam Hussein, in his 1990 drive for expansion, claimed to be following Allah's message. The late General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, former head of Pakistan, who masterminded the fundamentalist-led Afghan resistance efforts using U.S. funds, kept a map in his office with all Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Soviet Central Asia marked in green. It was the symbol of his ultimate ambition--unified Moslem rule extending through every green-marked territory.
In 1990, one enthusiastic Turkish official, minister of state Ercument Konukman, noted the substantial Turkish populations in the former Soviet Union and China, and looked forward to uniting them "under the colors of the Turkish flag."
A fundamentalist clergyman in Lebanon says, "Don't believe that we want an Islamic republic in Lebanon. ...What Hezbollah wants is a world Islamic republic."
Cairo constitutional lawyer Dr. A.K. Aboulmagd adds, "I even venture sometimes to say that Islam was not meant to serve the early days of Islam, when life was primitive and when social institutions were still stable and working. It was...meant to be put in a freezer and to be taken out when it will be really needed. And I believe that the time has come. ...The mission of Islam lies not in the past, but in the future."
Dr. Abd El Sabour Shahin of Cairo goes a step further and warns that Western civilization makes a big mistake when it "thinks it will endlessly remain dominant."
tour this site to see how modern Islam is using cyberspace to convert the West
Even secular Moslem intellectuals teaching in the top universities of the United States and Europe have joined the expansionist bandwagon, calling for a leader who will pull world Islam together into an unstoppable force. "Islam will... take over the world," said an Egyptian in Cairo in the late '80s to a crew from Britain's Granada tv.
No isolated, gray-haired zealot, he was one of a new breed of young university graduates, members of the middle class, and professionals, often among the highest achievers in their region. These religious devotees do not have a happy fate in store for those of us in the west. Explained the young Egyptian, "Islam is a tree that feeds on blood and grows on severed limbs."
In the early and mid-nineties, a spate of books and articles appeared proclaiming that, despite such rhetoric, Islam poses no geopolitical danger. Abul Aziz Said, of the School of International Service at American University, said point blank that "Islamic fundamentalism is not the enemy of the west." "Islamic fundamentalism," he declared, "is a defensive social and political movement, a reaction to westernization and modernization." It is, he insisted, "an attempt to restore an old civilization, not create a new empire."
Yet, later in his article, Said said that ancient imperial triumphs were at the heart of the "world influence" fundamentalists were legitimately attempting to "regain." And the veil slipped a bit from his true feelings when, zeroing in on his conclusion, he declared that "imitative responses of Muslims to the challenge of the West...evince...identification with the 'enemy.'"
John L. Esposito, former president of the Middle East Studies Association, criticized "the creation of an imagined monolithic Islam" and contended that those apprehensive about fundamentalism "fail to account for the diversity of Muslim practice." Palestinian-born Columbia University scholar Edward Said echoed the assertion that diversity renders the notion of an Islamic threat, in Said's word, "phony."
However, diversity within a cultural community does not necessarily halt its expansionist drive. The European West spread its often brutal control over every continent while so divided and "diverse" that it was engaged in an almost nonstop series of internecine wars. And early Islam conquered a territory almost equally vast while its leaders squabbled and fought, and its religious sects were rent by schism.
Esposito, like many other writers on the topic, justifies the ferocity of anti-western Islamic sentiments by reminding us that "many in the Arab and Muslim world view the history of Islam and of the Muslim world's dealings with the West as one of victimization and oppression at the hands of an expansive imperial power."
There's no question he is right. However the Islamic world held the upper hand in the struggle between the Occident and the Levant for over 1,100 years. The West managed to turn the tables briefly when the Crusaders established a short-lived middle eastern toehold.
The Crusader states were not planted on undisputed Moslem land. The heartland of the Islamic empire, the section bordering the Mediterranean rim, was a deeply Christian area, a vital spiritual and economic core of a "Western" imperium which, for over six hundred years before Mohammed's birth, had included the non-Arab provinces of Turkey (known then as Asia, Galatia, Bithynia, Pontus and Cappadocia--where St. Paul established many of the first churches), Syria (whose city of Damascus was one of the earliest major Christian centers), Israel (homeland to the Jews since roughly 1,200 B.C., and, despite Roman efforts to expel the native population, still dotted with Hebrew villages when the Moslems arrived sword in hand), Egypt (populated at the time by rabidly Christian descendants of the pyramid-builders, along with significant numbers of Greeks and Jews), Libya (the former Cyrenaica), Tunisia (Carthage and its environs, where St. Augustine was born and eventually became bishop of Hippo), and Northern Algeria and Morocco (then called Mauritania).
These were the countries that had produced the Bible, the Christian monastic movement (born in Egypt), St. Jerome's conversion (in what is now Turkey), St. John of Damascus, the famed early church historian Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, Origen, Saint Athanasius, the Aryan heresy, a significant number of fathers of the Roman Catholic faith and the Eastern Orthodox creed. The knights of the cross did not retain their reconquered kingdoms long. They took Jerusalem in 1099 and were expelled by 1187.
Nonetheless, according to historian Amin Maalouf, the author of The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, modern Arabs tend to see today's world events as a continuation of the Crusades.
For 600 years after the fall of the Crusader states, Islamic forces returned to the attack, capturing Greece and chunks of Eastern Europe, raiding towns in Sicily and the Italian coasts for goods and slaves, preying on Mediterranean shipping, chaining Europeans like Miguel Cervantes to the oars of their galleys, and until 1826 forcing the Christian citizens of Yugoslavia and Albania to give up their children to Moslem overlords (who brought up the males on the Koran, then turned them into soldiers known as Janissaries).
It wasn't until 1798 that Napoleon began to shift the balance between East and West again when he briefly invaded Egypt, from which he was ignominiously expelled by the British and the Turks. But the heavy-handed fertile crescent "imperialism" so resented by the Arabs didn't begin until after the First World War, and it lasted less than 40 years.
Southern Spain remained under the Moslem yoke for 781 years, Greece for 381, and pieces of longtime Christian terrain like St. Augustine's North African homeland and the religious and secular capital that eventually eclipsed Rome in power and splendor--Byzantium--are still in Moslem hands today.
Syria, on the other hand, was only under western control for 21 years, Egypt for 67, and Iraq a mere 15.
If one accepts Esposito's reasoning, Westerners--who were bludgeoned by "an expansive imperial" Islam for well over a millennium--have more right to fear an Islamic revival than Moslems have to hate the West. More to the point, Phebe Marr, of the National Defense University's Institute for Strategic Studies, contends that militant extremist groups dedicated to violence and an absolute rejection of the West are small. In addition, she claims, "The radicals do not have a broad base of popular support. ...Even in Lebanon, however, where such groups flourish, a poll of university students taken in 1987 indicated that more than 90% disapproved of...assassinations, hostage taking, and sabotage of government installations."
On the other hand, Marr admits that "there may be only a thin line between the open, mainstream movements and their clandestine [violent] counterparts." She concludes that "the Islamic revival is not only here to stay but is likely to be a leading domestic political force shaping the Mediterranean region during the coming decades. Despite political vicissitudes, the various movements loosely collected under the rubric of 'Islamic Fundamentalism' have shown a staying power that indicates they have achieved both breadth and depth in their indigenous societies."
Like Marr, Abbas Hamdani, professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Wisconsin, asserts that "to propose a monolithic view of Islam and then equate it with fundamentalism would be wrong.... Except for mass followings in Algeria and Tunisia, fundamentalists represent a small segment, although a popular, vocal, and highly motivated one, of the total population. [Hamdani overlooks the Sudan and Afghanistan, both of which, at this writing, were in fundamentalist hands.] Even in Iran, which appears to be totally convulsed in fundamentalism, it is a small minority that has monopolized power." As the case of Iran demonstrates, it only takes a minority to seize control of a country, especially if that minority is enthusiastic about using violence.
In Germany's July, 1932, elections, 63% of the voters cast their ballots against the Nazis. By the November elections, the anti-Nazi vote was even larger. Yet Adolf Hitler was able to achieve dictatorial power only four months later on March 23, 1933, in part because his storm troopers--like the militant gangs controlled by the fundamentalists--were willing to murder their opponents.
Khomeini's works advocate vigorously converting or murdering all those who do not embrace Allah's holy meme. Then they urge a holy war on the nations of the West.
The ayatollah wrote, "Any nonreligious [i.e. non-Islamic] power, whatever form or shape, is necessarily an atheistic power, the tool of Satan; it is part of our duty to stand in its path and to struggle against its effects. Such Satanic power can engender nothing but corruption on earth, the supreme evil which must be pitilessly fought and rooted out. To achieve that end, we have no recourse other than to overthrow all governments that do not rest on pure Islamic principles, and are thus corrupt and corrupting, and to tear down the traitorous, rotten, unjust, and tyrannical administrative systems that serve them.... If Islamic civilization had governed the West, we would no longer have to put up with these barbaric goings-on unworthy even of wild animals....[Western governments are] using inhuman laws and inhuman political methods... Misdeeds must be punished by the law of retaliation: cut off the hands of the thief; kill the murderer instead of putting him in prison; flog the adulterous woman or man. Your concerns, your 'humanitarian' scruples, are more childish than reasonable."
Khomeini had a prescription for such problems: "All of humanity must strike these troublemakers [the governments of the West] with an iron hand.... Islam has obliterated many tribes because they were sources of corruption [i.e. sources of non-Islamic influence]...." Judging from the Ayatollah's rhetoric, the next tribes he would have liked to see obliterated were those in Europe and America.
Allah is rapidly providing Khomeini's followers with a sword to carry out their master's wishes. He has offered Islam the fire in which the Koran says those who follow false faiths are destined to burn: nuclear weaponry. He has also provided the long range missiles needed to use it. According to the late imam's logic, there may be only one just and righteous thing to do: employ this technology to wipe out recalcitrant heathens like you and me.
The modern growth of Islam is the coalescence of a superorganism drawn together by the magnetic attraction of a meme. But this meme has an advantage: The social body it is trying to pull together has existed as a unified social beast in the past. The old reflexes of solidarity are still there, waiting to be aroused.
The meme of the new Islam is not laboring to generate a small and fragile embryo. It is simply attempting to awaken a sleeping giant.
a chapter from The Lucifer Principle A Scientific Expedition Into The Forces Of History
Turning Bahgdad into a radioactive wasteland would be a valuble object lesson. They will never love us, they will always hate us. Pax Britanica was based on fear. Pax America in the 21th century needs to be as well.
It's either that or we stay at home and only defend our borders (not that bad an idea).
So true. But it is a war fought with 12th century concepts against a civilization who has forgotten how to do it.
Unfortunately, Mr. Kindly-religious-person, our bombs killed you and your camels on Friday. Sorry to interfere with your weekend plans.
THERE IS NO REASON TO STAY BACK!
Please don't think I'm being proud or arrogant in anyway,...but when I read any email about someone who calls himself a Muslim and says: that we should organize and strengthen ourselves before we go to war...", IT MAKES ME SICK. I know all sorts of MUNAFIQEEN who disbelieve in Jihaad Fi Sabeelillah because they say that we Muslims need to be united and have a strong army,..etc....BS.... If I recall, when the Sahaba armies who were insignificant next to the massive armies of Rome and Persia, marched out, they weren't thinking, "oh man. we are like totally out manned and outgunned...how are we going to win against Rome or Persia..?" No. All they said was hasbunallaahu wa'na'mal wakeel and they WENT. To compare, imagine a small country like Kuwait or Yemen, if, it had in the 1980's or even now, decided to take on USA and USSR at the SAME TIME. man you'd have the whole world laughing their heads off at that small country, and 99.99% of the world would have surely thought that such a small country fighting against the two Superpowers must be suicidal. But that's exactly what the world thought 1400 years ago as they looked [down] upon the scraggly Muslim armies crawling out of teh desert with armed with little more than kitchen knives. UH GEE. GUESS WHO WON.
It happened again many times thereafter,...small army of Believers up against a massive horde of Kuffar. It happened at 'Ayn Jalut when SayfudDeen Qutuz went against the might of the Mongol barbarians, it happened again when Commander Alp Arsalan led a mujahid force of only 15,000 [who were just returning exhausted from a previous battle], up against a fresh army of 600,000 Romans who in all their arrogance thought that the sheer ration of 40 kuffar to 1 Muslim would surely crush Alp Arsalan and his rag-tag army. yea yea yea...guess who won....
It happenned again in Afghanistan when the mujahideen, lightly armed, went up against the might of the Soviet Empire. It happenned again when Commander basayev led a force of only 1,500 Mujahideen and surrounded Grozny + defeated a much larger and better equipped federal force of 10,000 Russian soldiers back in the 94-96 Chechen War. One thing Muslims have to break free from is the poisonous thinking that "OH MAN! We Muslims have nothing! How are we going to go up against USA, Israel, India, Russia,..[kuffar are STILL kuffar by any other name] when we Muslims have nobody and no weapons and they have everything!!..." I become angry, for the sake of Allah, when someone says such a thing and still claims to be a Muslim. On the situation of Israel, the Israelis are always gloating over their past "victories" over the "Muslims" and the "six arab armies"....man get a grip. Those "Muslims" who fought against the illegal state of israel from 1947-to present weren't fighting for Allah's sake. They were fighting for nationalism. That's why Shk. Azzam al-Philistini who was fighting alongside other Palestinians against the Israelis in the 1960's, left that fight, when he saw it was clearly about nationalism. Two things led him to this conclusion, two very clear proofs:
1) he asked a Philistini guerilla: "Where is the religion in this fight?" The Philistini man laughed and said there is no religion in this fight.
2) Shk. Azzam recalled that in the Philistini front-line camp, out of so many fighters, he could count on his hand the number of fighters that used to pray the five prayers regularly.
This is to tell all my true Mu'min akh wal ukht fe kulli makan, that the Mujahideen fight with their biggest weapon, which is Iman. thereby they are able to overcome ANY obstacle and put fear into the hearts of the Disbelievers. Thus, when the Emperor of Iran asked the Chinese Emperor for reinforcements and help against the advancing Sahaba armies, the Chinese Emperor replied: "How can i help you against a people who could move the mountains if they wanted to." And thus the Chinese Emperor made a wise decision and did not tangle with the Sahaba mujahideen, else they might have overran the Chinese Empire itself. And Allah knows best. This is to tell my true mu'min brothers and sisters that if you have real Iman, and want to prove yourself to ALLAH, and not just anyone else, you will get up and go. Go to Sheeshaan. Or kashmir, Phillipines, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Ogaden, Eritrea, Philistine, or even Bosnia-Kosova area [yes they are STILL fighting over there]. Do not give me some lousy excuse like "Oh I have to finish University, or I have to support my family or I have to run my business, or I don't wanna lose my job!" these excuses might fool people but they cannot fool Allah. In Surah at Taubah, ayah 24, Allah has clearly said that IF you place priority on your parents, your families, your homes, and your businesses OVER Allah + Rasul + Jihad , then you are a fasiq [evil-doer]. Allah says in Surah At-taubah again that: "...those who Believe in Allah and yaum al-Qiyamah would never seek ANY excuse to stay back from fighting. Only those who deisbelieve or those who doubt would ask an excuse. And so in their doubts they sway to and fro."
If you tell me you are in University so you can get a good education so you can get a good job OR so that you can use your skills better to serve the Ummah, then let it be known that Allah has said: "O ye who Believe, shall i guide ye to a BUSINESS [tijarah] that shall save ye from a painful torment? That you believe in Allah and His rasul and fight in the way of Allah with your wealth and your lives. THAT IS BETTER FOR YE, IF YE BUT KNEW." Thus Allah has laid out which type of business is best. If you are someone who believes in that weak Hadith of jihad an-nafs supposedly being superior to Jihad -Al-Qital, then you should know that this hadith is most certainly false, as it contradicts the Quran and Saheeh Hadith. Example: Allah says in Surah an-Nisa:95-96 that "...those who fight with their wealth and their lives out on the battlefield are higher in rank than those believers who sit at home. Unto both group He has promised a good reward, but a higher rank to those who fight.." Notice Allah is not talking about the munafiqeen here, who sit at home anyways. He s talking about those Believers who are at home, managing their affairs. Also, the Rasul was asked which type of Jihad was best, and he replied: "..In that in which your blood is spilt and your horses legs are cut." There are many more ayat and hadith which state the superiority of Jihad al-Qatal over all else.
You brothers and sisters should also know that Allah has revealed the ayah in Surah at-taubah that: "March forth whether light or heavy." The Sahaba clearly understood this ayah to mean that you go whether you are young or old, rich or poor, weak or strong, etc. Such that Abu Talha told his sons to help him with his armor in preparation for battle. His sons replied: "Allah have Mercy on ye! You fought alongside the Rasulallah, then ye fought under the khalifat of Abu Bakr, and then under Umar. Now let us fight for ye, as you are very old." Upon hearing this, Abu Talha recited the ayah from Surah At-taubah: "March forth whether light or heavy." And so he went. Shk. Azzam recorded ten different meanings of this ayah [all meanings were covered by this comprehensive and short ayah], and amongst those meanings was: "Poor or Rich, Young or Old, married or unmarried, mounted or un-mounted, near or far..." and many more. In short, Allah has given no excuse for us to stay back, except those who truly are too poor. In today's time, living here in North America, I doubt there is even a SINGLE able-bodied muslim who is unable to work for a few months to save up for the airline ticket and other expenses. Man, lemme tell you, if you are here in North America, there is no way you can claim you are too poor to march out. No way. If you say that you are here in this land to make Dawah to non-muslims, then let me ask ye: "How long will you keep doing "Dawah"? Until they accept Islam? Your responsibility is to prepare to leave for Jihad, and while you are doing that, simply tell the non-Muslims about Islam. Who says you have to spend "x" amount of years spreading dawah? Do you think these people have never heard about Islam? Sure they have. they all watch the news, listen to the radio or read the newspapers or magazines. They KNOW that Islam is A religion. After that, its their responsibility to investigate further. Sure, we Muslims must also help by giving them correct information, but we do not make it our life-long duty.
If you are amongst those that say: "the time is not right for fighting! the Rasul himself spent 13 years giving dawah before being given the order to fight...", then you brothers should know that the Rasul spent those years spreading dawah before Allah ALLOWED him and the Muslims to fight back. that was BEFORE Islam was revealed in its totality. You cannot apply that same example today for surely Islam has been totally revealed AND Allah has als stated that Jihad is fard on us, just the same way that Saum or Salah are fard on us. See surah al-Baqarah:216 where Allah says : "Kutayba 'alaykumul Qital..." This means clearly that "Fighting has been written for you.." These are the VERY SAME words that Allah uses to describe the farai'id of salah or saum, as he has said :"...kutayba alaykumus'siyaam.." O ye Muslims, go look in the Quran for yourselves. It is there to be read and UNDERSTOOD with a firm heart, and NOT to be used as mere shelf decoration. If you are amongst those that say that "My parents won't give me permission." and then you cite that all-too famous incident where the Sahabi who wanted to go for Jihad was turned back the Rasulallah and told to go serve his parents... then my brothers, you should know that the 'ulama have stated that Jihad at that point was Fard el'Kifayah. When Jihad became fard'al'Ayn, there was another incident which the muslims ignore, where a Sahabi went to tell the rasul he was going for Jihad. The rasul told him to go serve his parents. the Sahabi thereby refused the Rasulallah right to his face and said: "NO. By Him who has sent you with the Truth, i will fight for the sake of Allah and leave my parents." The Rasulallah did not disapprove, and further said: "You know best." This was when Jihad became fard el-'ayn on the muslims, like it is now. And what's more, is that Allah has clearly said that if ye place your "abna-akum", meaning your fathers, which also signifies your parents, if ye place them above Jihad, then you are a fasiq. Just as the Rasulallah said: "None of ye truly believes until Allah and His Messenger are dearer to him then all else [including your parents]."
Furthermore, let me ask ye: If you are an able swimmer and one day you and your parents were walking along a riverside or on the beach, and out in the water you saw a Muslim brother with his child and they were drowning. What would ye do? Any sensible Muslim would immediately swim to the rescue of his Muslim brother. But what if your parents said "No do not go to save him." Would you obey your parents then, and let them take a hand in the death of your own Muslim brother and his child? Surely if you did not go into the water to save your Muslim brother then you have a disease in your heart and yaum-al-Qiyamah you will be severely questioned about your failure to act. Anybody can go and get training on how to pick up a gun and shoot. And if you can shoot a kafir who is oppressing your brethren in the Muslim lands, then may Allah bless ye, and accept ye from amongst the Shuhadah. And as Allah has said in 4:69- "The prophets, the martyrs, the righteous ones...what an excellent company are they!" If you say that you need to improve ourselves first before we go out to fight, then you should know that this reasoning too, is false and from Shaytan. During fath-e-Makkah, the Rasul conquered the city with 10,000 Sahabi, all without bloodshed. Within three days, that number had swelled to 12,000 by the large influx of kuffar who reverted to Islam. Then, the Rasul immediately marched out for Hunayn with this force of 12,000 men. Amongst those 2,000 new Muslims, some had been Muslims for only a few hours when they joined the march. These new Muslims didnt even have time to learn all the basics of Islam, or to make taharah, or to straighten their prayer lines, or even to get rid of old jahiliyyah habits. Yet the Rasulallah ordered them to march out along with all the other Muslims.
Now tell me this: Did these new Muslims have the time to "improve" themselves to the "point of inner perfection" before they went for Jihad? No they didn't. By the way, anyone who truly goes for Jihad with full belief in Allah, and does NOT turn his back on the battlefield when the bullets are raining down all around him, then such a person has successfully fought the TRUE Jihad-al-Nafs. For its very easy to fight the so called Jihad an-nafs at home, when you feel secure. But what will you do on the battlefield when the war flames are raging fierce, when death is coming at ye from all directions, when the Angels are storming through the enemy ranks, when your beloved brother who fought by your side is killed in a hail of bullets, what will you do when the door in the sky opens up to jannatul Firdaus and all the souls of the Shuhadaa walk through it? What will you do then? In the end, each and every soul is responsible for him or herself. What answer do ye have to those oppressed Muslim men and women and children who cry out to Allah. they ask themselves, where are the Muslims? Why doesn't anyone care? What will ye tell them, that "...we're all busy spending time with our families, or we're studying at Universities for "the benefit of the Ummah"...or that we are doing Jihad al-nafs?" Put yourself in their place. But you cannot. Not until you've seen your home destroyed, seen your mothers or sisters or wives being raped, or see your father shot to death in front of his baby children. Not until you live your life in confusion, surrounded by war, not knowing if you will have anything to eat tomorrow morning, or if you will be caught and killed tonight. Until then you, nor I, will never know what the oppressed ones of this Ummah feel.
Take a good long hard look at the Ummah and where you stand. You have a responsibility to yourself and to your family to save yourselves from Jahannam. As Allah has said in the Quran: "Oh ye who Believe! Save yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is men and stones..." The Mujahid who gets dirty with the dust of jihad in the way of Allah cannot have any of his body enter the fire. But do not be like that "mujahid" who fought for the sake of peoples' honor and thus was killed and then on yaum al Qiyamah will be thrown into Hell. And surely there are the Shuhadah, may Allah accept them, who have the honor of all sins except debt, forgiven at the first drop of their blood. A blood, the smell of which is better that any perfume in this world. And on Yaum al Qiyamah, each of these Shuhadaa will have the honor of interceding for up to 70 [SEVENTY] of their family members. On the Day of Judgment, Allah will not question ye as to why you didn't go to university, or why you didn't land that nice $80,000 job at Microsoft or IBM or whatever. But he WILL ask ye about how you spent your youth. He will ask ye why you didn't go for Jihad. As the Rasulallah said: "Anyone who dies without having fought or without having the sincere intention to fight, will die on a branch on munafiqaat." Do not fool yourselves brothers, by always putting off leaving for Jihad, thinking you have the sincere desire to go fight, but Allah knows best, you may die in a car accident or something, before you ever get to materialize your intention. It is not necessary to finish studying for that Bachelors or masters, etc. The Shariah age for fighting is 15. FIFTEEN. I'm sure you are all WAY past the age of 15. May Allah forgive me for anything I have said that was wrong, and all good is from Him. Allahummansur al-Mujahideen fe kulli makan. Ameen.
WaAlaikumAssalam warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
Ibn Mardhiyah.
Freepers, such an mind as wrote this letter cannot be reasoned with to avoid war. The only thing that will protect US from such as this fanatical mind is deportation and annihilation in battle. You cannot co-exist with people such as this barbarian and his ilk. They do not want to co-exist, they want only to rule over you and serve their satanic mentor.
Personally, i'm very pessimistic about the future. This country is so far down the PC rathole that we can't even acknowledge an enemy for fear of being insensitive.
This country is still fast asleep... perhaps brain dead.
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