The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (8 page)

Just Like Today: Using the Qur’an to justify terrorism

I
n a sermon broadcast on official Palestinian Authority television in 2000, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, a member of the Palestinian Authority’s Fatwa Council, declared: “Allah the almighty has called upon us not to ally with the Jews or the Christians, not to like them, not to become their partners, not to support them, and not to sign agreements with them. And he who does that is one of them, as Allah said: ‘O you who believe, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies, for they are allies of one another. Who from among you takes them as allies will indeed be one of them.’…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.”

In this Abu Halabiya was quoting Qur’an 5:51 (“O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them”) and 9:5 (“slay the idolaters wherever ye find them”). He applied these words to the contemporary political situation: “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 the crusaders, hanging over the necks of the monotheists, the Muslims in these lands.”
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By contrast, Osama bin Laden, who is only the most visible exponent of a terror network that extends from Indonesia to Nigeria and into Western Europe and the Americas, quotes the Qur’an copiously in his communiqués. In his 1996 “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” he quotes suras 3:145; 47:4–6; 2:154; 9:14; 47:19; 8:72; and of course the notorious “Verse of the Sword,” sura 9:5.
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In 2003, on the first day of the Muslim holy celebration Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, he began a sermon: “Praise be to Allah who revealed the verse of the Sword to his servant and messenger [the Prophet Muhammad], in order to establish truth and abolish falsehood.”
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A Book You’re Not Supposed to Read

Don’t believe what I am saying about the Qur’an? Read it for yourself. The clearest and most accurate English translation is that of N. J. Dawood,
The Koran
(Penguin), but Muslims tend to dislike it because Dawood was not a Muslim. The two most accurate English translations by Muslims are those by Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, both of which are available in multiple editions under various titles. Both are marred by a pseudo-King James Bible English, which makes them irritating to read.

Of course, the devil can quote Scripture for his own purpose, but Osama’s use of these and other passages in his messages is consistent (as we shall see) with traditional Islamic understanding of the Qur’an. When modern-day Jews and Christians read their Bibles, they simply don’t interpret the passages cited as exhorting them to violent actions against unbelievers. This is due to the influence of centuries of interpretative traditions that have moved away from literalism regarding these passages. But in Islam, there is no comparable interpretative tradition. The jihad passages in the Qur’an are anything but a dead letter. In Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and elsewhere, a key recruiting ground for jihad terrorist groups is the Islamic school: The students learn that they must wage jihad warfare, and then these groups give them the opportunity.

Chapter 3

ISLAM: RELIGION OF WAR

T
he Qur’an is clear enough about the warfare that Muslims must wage against unbelievers, but it lacks overall clarity. In its entirety, the Qur’an is a monologue: Allah is the only speaker (with a few notable exceptions), and with no particular concern for narrative continuity, he speaks with Muhammad about various events in the Prophet’s life and about the earlier Muslim prophets (most notably, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus). That makes reading the Qur’an somewhat like walking in on a private conversation between two unknown people: It’s confusing, disorienting, and ultimately incomprehensible.

Guess what?

• Muhammad taught his followers that there was nothing better (or holier) than jihad warfare.
  
• Muhammad told his men to offer non-Muslims only three choices: conversion, subjugation, or death.
  
• These teachings are not marginal doctrines or historical relics—they are still taught in mainstream Islam.
  

That’s where the Hadith, the traditions of Muhammad, enter. The Hadith are volumes upon volumes of stories of Muhammad in which he (and sometimes his followers) explains how and in what situations various verses of the Qur’an came to him, pronounces on disputed questions, and leads by example. In a very small number of ahadith (the plural of hadith), Muhammad quotes words of Allah that do not appear in the Qur’an; these are known as the
hadith qudsi
, or holy hadith, and Muslims consider them to be just as much the revealed Word of Allah as the Qur’an itself. Other ahadith that Muslims consider authentic are second in authority only to the Qur’an itself—and often the Qur’anic text is simply incomprehensible without them.

The focus of many ahadith, not surprisingly, is war.

PC Myth: Islam’s war teachings are only a tiny element of the religion

Okay, even if the Qur’an does contain some verses about war, that doesn’t mean Muslims agree with them, right? After all, there are a lot of Christians who don’t take every aspect of Christian doctrine seriously, aren’t there?

Of course; however, there is no mistaking the centrality of violent jihad in Islam. In fact, the Prophet of Islam repeatedly emphasized that there was nothing better his followers could do than engage in jihad warfare. When a Muslim asked him to name the “best deed” one could do, besides the act of becoming a Muslim, the Prophet responded, “To participate in Jihad (holy fighting) in Allah’s Cause.”
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He explained that “to guard Muslims from infidels in Allah’s Cause for one day is better than the world and whatever is on its surface.”
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For “a journey undertaken for jihad in the evening or morning merits a reward better than the world and all that is in it.”
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Muhammad also warned that Muslims who did not engage in jihad would be punished: “Muhammad was firm about the necessity of jihad not only for himself personally, but for every Muslim. He warned believers that ‘he who does not join the warlike expedition (jihad), or equip, or looks well after a warrior’s family when he is away, will be smitten by Allah with a sudden calamity.’”
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Those who fought in jihads would enjoy a level of Paradise higher than that enjoyed by others:

It has been narrated on the authority of Abu Sa’id Khudri that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said (to him): Abu Sa’id, whoever cheerfully accepts Allah as his Lord, Islam as his religion and Muhammad as his Apostle is necessarily entitled to enter Paradise. He (Abu Sa’id) wondered at it and said: Messenger of Allah, repeat it for me. He (the Messenger of Allah) did that and said: There is another act which elevates the position of a man in Paradise to a grade one hundred (higher), and the elevation between one grade and the other is equal to the height of the heaven from the earth. He (Abu Sa’id) said: What is that act? He replied: Jihad in the way of Allah! Jihad in the way of Allah!
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On another occasion “a man came to Allah’s Apostle and said, ‘Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).’ He replied, ‘I do not find such a deed.’”
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Muhammad vs. Jesus

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”

Jesus (Matthew 5:11)

“And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter.”

Qur’an 2:191

Three choices

In one key hadith, Muhammad delineates three choices that Muslims are to offer to non-Muslims:

It has been reported from Sulaiman b. Buraid through his father that when the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) appointed anyone as leader of an army or detachment he would especially exhort him to fear Allah and to be good to the Muslims who were with him. He would say: Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…. When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to accept Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them…. If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.
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Just Like Today: Osama invites America to Islam

F
ollowing the example of the Prophet, Osama bin Laden called Americans to Islam in his November 2002 “letter to the American people”:

What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam….

It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme.
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“Allah’s Word and religion” may only “reign Supreme” in this view when the fullness of Islamic law is imposed and enforced in society. Jihadist theorists and groups have declared their intention to unify the Islamic nations of the world under a single ruler: the caliph. Historically, the caliph was the successor of the Prophet as the spiritual and political leader of the Muslims, or at least the Sunnis. The caliphate was abolished in 1924; many contemporary jihadists date the woes of the Islamic world from this event. They want to restore the caliphate, unite the Islamic world behind it, and reimpose Islamic law (the Sharia) on Islamic countries. Apart from Saudi Arabia and Iran, Sharia is today only partially enforced, if at all. Modern Islamic warriors seek to carry Sharia to non-Muslim states by force, under the banner of jihad.

The choices for unbelievers are:

1. Accept Islam.
   
2. Pay the jizya, the poll-tax on non-Muslims, which (as we shall see) is the cornerstone of an entire system of humiliating regulations that institutionalize inferior status for non-Muslims in Islamic law.
   
3. War with Muslims.