MURDERING MUSLIMS - THEIR CULT OF HATE, MURDER AND RAPE

Despite ISIS Fall and Coronavirus, First Week of Ramadan Deadlier than 2019

AP Photo/Rahmat Gal

EDWIN MORA

5 May 2020749

15:08

Islamic terrorists, mainly the Taliban, were responsible for 185 fatalities and 188 injuries during the first week of Ramadan, a time when extremists believe martyrdom and jihad are exceptionally rewarded in paradise, a Breitbart News tally revealed.

That means, on average, terrorists killed about 26 people each day during the first full seven days of the holiest week for Muslims — April 24 to 30. During that same period, there were 60 terrorist attacks that took place in 13 countries, resulting in a total of 373 casualties, including fatalities and injuries.

That translates to over 50 casualties each day during the holiest month for Islam adherents.

As it has done in the last three years, Breitbart News will provide regular updates on the carnage during Ramadan, which began at sunset on April 23 in most countries and will last through sundown on May 23.

The first full day of fasting fell on April 24, the first day Breitbart News began its count.

While several countries and regions have put their citizens on some form of lockdown, including Kabul, the coronavirus pandemic plaguing the globe has not slowed the war in Afghanistan.

So far, the deadliest group during the ongoing month of Ramadan is the Afghan Taliban, responsible for 130 deaths, or nearly 70 percent of all fatalities during the first week. Afghan Taliban jihadis are also behind over 75 percent (144) of all injuries.

As a result of the Taliban’s relentless attacks, Afghanistan is so far the deadliest country of the holy month, home to 40, or about two-thirds, of all 60 documented assaults during the first week of Ramadan.

The Taliban rejected a U.S.-backed Ramadan truce offered by Afghanistan, reportedly saying a ceasefire is “not rational” as they ramp up attacks on the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and civilians.

At the end of February, the United States and the Taliban narco-jihadis signed an agreement calling for the conditions-based withdrawal of American and foreign military forces.

Even as the Taliban ramps up attacks, the first phase of the withdrawal of foreign forces is already underway, a U.S. reconstruction watchdog noted last week. America is reportedly working on bringing the number of American troops in the war and pandemic-ravaged country to well below 10,000. American troops invaded Afghanistan in October 2001.

Despite the demise of its so-called caliphate in March 2019, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and its affiliates continue to wreak havoc, responsible for 36 deaths and five injuries during the first days of Ramadan, primarily in Iraq.

“The terrorist activities of Daesh [Islamic State] have increased during Ramadan [Muslims’ holy month],” Nihad Mohammed, a spokesperson for the police in Iraq’s Diyala province, declared.

The jihadi group continues to operate outside the Middle East. On April 27, an ISIS-linked man in France rammed his car into two police motorcyclists, seriously injuring them.

There was also one ISIS-linked attack each in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Although to a much lesser extent, other jihadi groups have also been carrying out attacks during Ramadan, including Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Iran-allied Shiite Houthis in Yemen, and the al-Qaeda-linked Hayyat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).

Even with the fall of the ISIS caliphate in 2019, the first week of Ramadan this year is deadlier than in 2019. Jihadists killed at least 165 people and injured another 145 in the first week of that year.

Jihadist groups and other Islamists are known to urge their members and supporters to engage in jihad on Ramadan, believing that martyrs will get extra rewards in paradise. Despite these attempts, the vast majority of Muslims solely abide by Ramadan’s fasting tradition: abstaining from eating, drinking, smoking, having sex, and other physical needs each day, starting from before the break of dawn until sunset.

Breitbart News primarily gleans its tally from the Religion of Peace website in coordination with news and government reports.

Given that news outlets and governments fail to report many of the terrorist attacks in real-time, the casualty total for the first week is subject to change.

Government officials may also update some of the casualty totals as some of the injured victims succumb to their injuries.

All the terrorist attacks so far during Ramadan 2020, as documented by Breitbart News, include:

April 24 — Badghis, Afghanistan — Taliban kills 13 local policemen and takes eight other prisoners in the village of Laman in Qala-e-Naw City.

April 24 — Ghor, Afghanistan — Taliban kills one civilian in the village of Teghah-e-Timor in Firoz Koh.

April 24 — Diyala, Iraq — Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) kills at least two members of the pro-government Sunni militia forces Al-Hashd Al- Shayari.

April 24 — Borno, Nigeria — Suspected Boko Haram jihadists kill five, including three policemen, and wound “several others” in the state capital of Maiduguri.

April 24 — Faryab/Ghazni, Afghanistan — Taliban kills three civilians in northern Faryab province, one other in eastern Ghazni, wounds a total of 25 others, including women and children.

April 24 — Deir Ezzor, Syria — ISIS kills official in charge of fuel and his nephew in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria.

April 25 — Badghis, Afghanistan — Taliban mortar kills a woman, wounds a child in the village of Kamengi Oliya in Qadis District.

April 25 — Jowzjan, Afghanistan — Taliban kills two pro-government militia members and wounds four others in the Hyderabad village of Faizabad District.

April 25 — Faryab, Afghanistan — Taliban kills a 70-year-old man in the village of Sufi Qala located in the Qaisar district.

April 25 — Faryab, Afghanistan — Taliban improvised explosive device, or IED, kills a child and injures an adult civilian in Almar district.

April 25 — Faryab, Afghanistan — Taliban kills one and wounds ten civilians, including women and children, in Kohi village of Qaisar district.

April 25 — Uruzgan, Afghanistan — Taliban kills four policemen and wounds three others.

April 25 — Dhalea, Yemen — Iran-backed Houthi rebels kill five pro-government forces, wound 11 others in the al-Husha district.

April 25 — North Waziristan, Pakistan — Unknown jihadis kill two soldiers who reportedly “embraced martyrdom,” wound five in Khaisura and Dossali

April 25 — Logar, Afghanistan — Taliban kills 7 members of the Afghan National Defense Security Forces (ANDSF), and kidnaps four others in Barak-e-Barak district. The ANDSF includes police and army units.

April 26 — Parwan, Afghanistan — Taliban kills police officer in the Matak area of Charikar District.

April 26 — Herat, Afghanistan — Taliban kills two police officers, wounds another in the village of Qasr-e-Naser in Pashtun-Zarghun District.

April 26 — Faryab, Afghanistan — Taliban kills one soldier and is linked to killing one civilian and wounding three others in Shirin Tagab district.

April 26 — Logar, Afghanistan — Taliban kills five police officers and takes four other prisoners in Baraki Barak district.

April 26 — Uruzgan, Afghanistan — Taliban kills three police officers, wounds two in the Nachin area of Tarin Kot.

April 26 — Mogadishu, Somalia — Al-Qaeda-affiliate al-Shabaab kills four and wounds three in the Halane base that houses American and European troops.

April 26 — Takhar, Afghanistan — Taliban kills seven, wounds three government-backed militiamen in Khwaja Bahauddin district.

April 26 — North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — Fighters from the ISIS-linked Armed Democratic Force (ADF) kill six, including one woman, in the town of Malambo.

April 26 — Al Anbar, Iraq — ISIS kills Walid district councilman, kidnaps his son, wounds two other family members.

April 26 — Mogadishu, Somalia — Al-Shabaab assassinates a businessman.

April 27 — Diyala, Iraq — ISIS wound two policemen.

April 27 — Jowzjan, Afghanistan — Taliban kills two soldiers, wounds three in Mingajik District.

April 27 — Takhar, Afghanistan — Taliban Red Unit kills four pro-government militia members, wounds two others in Laala Gozar village of Yangi Qala District.

April 27 — Badghis, Afghanistan — Taliban marksman kills two police officers and wounds another as they were bringing water from a well in the village of Mirza-Ali in Qadis District.

April 27 — Kunduz, Afghanistan — Taliban kills two soldiers, wounds another in Seh Chinara area of Chardara District.

April 27 — Kunduz, Afghanistan — Taliban kills one police officer, wounds another in the Aqi Bai village of Imam Sahib District.

April 27 — Herat, Afghanistan — Taliban jihadis on motorcycle kill one member of the primary intelligence agency in Afghanistan, the National Security Directorate (NDS) in Golran District.

April 27 — Paktia, Afghanistan — Taliban kills four police officers in Gardez City.

April 27 — Faryab, Afghanistan — Taliban abducts and kills three civilians in Maimana City.

April 27 — Colombes, France — ISIS-linked man rammed his car into two police motorcyclists, seriously injuring them.

April 28 — Herat, Afghanistan — Taliban kills one soldier, wounds another in the village of Noorzayeha in Koshk-e-Kohneh District.

April 28 — Kirkuk, Iraq — ISIS suicide attack wounds three security forces.

April 29 — Central District, Israel — Palestinian teen stabs 62-year-old Israeli woman in the town of Kfar Saba in what authorities described as a terror attack.

April 29 — South Cotabato, Philippines — Jihadis from the ISIS-linked Ansar Al-Khilafah kill two police officers in an outskirt village in Polomolok.

April 29 — Kabul, Afghanistan —Taliban kills three civilians and wounds 15 others in the Reshkhor area of Char Asyab district.

April 29 — Kunduz, Afghanistan — Taliban kills three soldiers, wounds another, and kidnaps an additional soldier in the Zakhil-e-Qadim area of Kunduz city.

April 29 — Logar, Afghanistan — Taliban kills two soldiers, wounds another in Kharwar District.

April 29 — Badghis, Afghanistan — Taliban kills one pro-government militiaman, wounds another in the village of Kharistan in Moqor District.

April 29 — Faryab, Afghanistan — Taliban kills two police officers in the Hadbakhshi area of Khan Charbagh District.

April 29 — Faryab, Afghanistan — Taliban kills one soldier, one civilian woman, wounds 15 civilians, one soldier in Shirin Tagab district.

April 29 — Herat, Afghanistan — Taliban kills two soldiers in the village of Khawja-Jir in Koshk-e-Robatsangi District.

April 29 — Herat, Afghanistan — Taliban kills two soldiers in the village of Chah-Rig in Ghoryan District.

April 29 — Samangan, Afghanistan — Taliban kills nine pro-government militiamen and wounds nine others.

April 29 — Kunduz, Afghanistan — Taliban kills four police officers and wounds three others in the Aqi Bai and Naw Abad villages of Imam Sahib District.

April 29 — Badakhshan, Afghanistan — Taliban kills three police officers, one pro-government militiaman, two members of territorial army, and wounds eight others.

April 30 — Ghazni, Afghanistan — Taliban roadside bomb kills two men, two women, one child in the Nazar Khan area of Andar District.

April 30 — Kunduz, Afghanistan — Taliban Red Unit kills three police officers, wounds seven on the highway connecting Khan Abad District to Kunduz City.

April 30 — Takhar, Afghanistan — Taliban Red Unit kills five pro-government militiamen, wounds five others in the Laala Gozar village of Yangi Qala District.

April 30 — Sinai, Egypt — An ISIS improvised explosive device (IED) kills up to ten soldiers near the southern city of Bir al-Abd.

April 30 — Diyala, Iraq — ISIS snipers wound two policemen.

April 30 — Dhaka, Bangladesh — Unknown terrorists target house of Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami leader, killing a child and wounding 11.

April 30 — Helmand, Afghanistan — Taliban IED kills the head of the intelligence office of Nawa district and his bodyguard.

April 30 — Deir Ezzor, Syria — ISIS IED strikes a bus carrying Syrian soldiers, killing six Syrian soldiers.

April 30 — Aleppo, Syria — Al-Qaeda-linked Hayyat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) kills a civilian, injures five others.

April 30 — Idlib, Syria — HTS kills a Kurdish civilian.

Muslim Deceit and the Burden of Proof

By Raymond Ibrahim

In his recent defense of the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya (dismantled here), Usama Hasan of the UK think tank Quilliam made the following admission:

It is true that hardened islamist terrorists, such as the Al-Qaeda & ISIS supporter Usman Khan who murdered two people at Fishmongers’ Hall [after pretending to have been “rehabilitated”], do misuse the principle of taqiyyah in order to further their cause. However, the charge that all Muslims are generally religiously obligated to lie, and do so routinely, is both dangerous and untrue.

However true this may be, it is also irrelevant.  After all, how is the infidel to know which Muslim is and isn’t “misusing the principle of taqiyyah”?  Moreover, why should the burden of proof be on the non-Muslim -- who stands to (and often does) suffer and even die from ignoring the role of deceit in Islam -- and not on the Muslim, whose religion allows deception in the first place? This is particularly so since more than a few “hardened islamist terrorists” are convinced that their creed allows them to dissimulate to their heart’s content -- so long as doing so can be seen as helping further the cause of Islam.

In this, as in virtually all things Islamic, Muslims have their prophet’s example -- two that are especially poignant -- to turn to. 

First is the assassination of Ka‘b ibn Ashraf (d. 624), an elderly Jew.  Because he dared mock Muhammad, the latter exclaimed, “Who will kill this man who has hurt Allah and his messenger?” A young Muslim named Ibn Maslama volunteered on condition that to get close enough to Ka‘b to murder him, he needed permission to lie to the Jew. 

Allah’s messenger agreed. So Ibn Maslama traveled to Ka‘b and began to complain about Muhammad until his disaffection became so convincing that Ka‘b eventually dropped his guard and befriended him.

After behaving as his friend for some time, Ibn Maslama eventually appeared with another Muslim, also pretending to have apostatized.  Then, while a trusting Ka‘b’s guard was down, they attacked and slaughtered him, bringing his head to Muhammad to the usual triumphant cries of “Allahu Akbar!”

In another account, after Muhammad and his followers had attacked, plundered, and massacred a number of non-Muslim Arabs and Jews, the latter assembled and were poised to defeat the Muslims (at the Battle of the Trench, 627).   But then Naim bin Mas‘ud, one of the leaders of these non-Muslim “confederates,” as they came to be known in history, secretly went to Muhammad and converted to Islam. The prophet asked him to return to his tribesmen and allies -- without revealing that he had joined the Muslim camp -- and to try to get them to abandon the siege.  “For,” Muhammad assured him, “war is deceit.”

Mas‘ud returned, pretending to be loyal to his former kinsmen and allies, all while giving them bad advice. He also subtly instigated quarrels between the various tribes until, no longer trusting each other, they disbanded -- thereby becoming a celebrated hero in Islamic tradition.

In the two well-known examples above, Muslims deceived non-Muslims not because they were being persecuted for being Muslim but as a tactic to empower Islam.  (Even the Battle of the Trench was precipitated precisely because Muhammad and his followers had first attacked the confederates at the Battle of Badr and massacred hundreds of them on other occasions.)

Despite these stories being part of the Sunna to which Sunnis adhere, UCLA’s Abou El Fadl -- the primary expert the Washington Post once quoted to show that Islam does not promote deceit -- claims that “there is no concept that would encourage a Muslim to lie to pursue a goal. That is a complete invention.”

Tell that to Ka‘b ibn Ashraf, whose head was cut off for believing Muslim lies.  The prophet of Islam allowed his followers to deceive the Jew to slaughter him -- even though Ka‘b posed no threat to any Muslim’s life.

Especially revealing is that, in Dr. Sami Makerem’s seminal book on the topic, Al-Taqiyya fi’l Islam (Taqiyya in Islam), he cites the two aforementioned examples from the prophet’s biography as prime examples of taqiyya.

It comes to this: even if  one were to accept the limited definition of taqiyya as permitting deception only under life-threatening circumstances (as Usama Hasan and any number of apologists insist), the fact remains: Islam also permits lies and deception in order to empower itself.  Accordingly, and considering that Islam considers itself in a constant state of war with non-Islam (typified by the classical formulation of Dar al-Islam vs. Dar al-Harb) any Muslim who feels this or that piece of deception over the infidel is somehow benefiting Islam will believe that he has a blank check to lie. 

That’s the inconvenient fact -- passingly admitted to by Usama Hasan -- that needs addressing; and that’s why the burden of proof belongs on Muslims, not non-Muslims.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Sword and Scimitar, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center; a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute; and a Judith Friedman Rosen Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

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'Hating and Loving' for Islam

Understanding the roots of terror.

January 17, 2020 

Raymond Ibrahim

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

During a New Year’s Eve Islamic terror attack that took place in Russia minutes before the clock struck midnight, two Muslim men—Akhmed Imagozhev, 22 and Mikail Miziyev, 18—drove their car into and stabbed to death two police officers, one a married father of four.  Other officers subsequently shot one of the jihadis dead, while hospitalizing the other.

An image of the two Muslim men posing with knives was later found on social media.  Beneath it appeared the words, “love and hatred based on Tawhid!”  This is hardly the first time this ostensibly oxymoronic phrase appears in connection with Islamic acts of terror.  After launching a successful terror attack that killed two policemen in the Kashmir Valley, the militant commander of Kashmir’s Hizb al-Mujahidin—“the Party of Jihadis”—justified the murders by saying,  “We love and hate for the sake of Allah.”

Interestingly, in this otherwise cryptic motto lie the roots of Islam’s conflict with the rest of the world.  “Loving and hating” is one of several translations of the Islamic doctrine of al-wala’ wa’l-bara’ (which since 2006 I have generally translated as “Loyalty and Enmity”).

The wala’ portion—“love,” “loyalty,” etc.—requires Muslims always to aid and support fellow Muslims (including jihadis, for example through funds or zakat).  As one medieval Muslim authority explained, the believer “is obligated to befriend a believer—even if he is oppressive and violent toward you — while he must be hostile to the infidel—even if he is liberal and kind to you” (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 64 ).   This is a clear reflection of Koran 48:29: “Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; and those with him are forceful against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves.”

But it is the bara’—the “hate,” the “enmity”—that manifests itself so regularly that even those in the West who are not necessarily acquainted with the particulars of Muslim doctrine sense it.  For instance, in November 2015, after a series of deadly Islamic terror strikes in the West, then presidential candidate Donald Trump said, “I think Islam hates us.  There’s something there that — there’s a tremendous hatred there. There’s a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There’s an unbelievable hatred of us.”

This “tremendous” and “unbelievable hatred” is not a product of grievances, political factors, or even an “extremist” interpretation of Islam; rather, it is a direct byproduct of mainstream Islamic teaching.  Koran 60:4 is the cornerstone verse of this doctrine and speaks for itself.  As Osama bin Laden once wrote:

As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by the Most High’s Word: “We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us—till you believe in Allah alone” [Koran 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility—that is, battle—ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [i.e., a dhimmi], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy!… Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the Muslim to the infidel—is the foundation of our religion.  (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 43).

Similarly, the Islamic State confessed to the West in the context of Koran 60: 4 that “We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers.”  As for any and all political “grievances,” these are “secondary” reasons for the jihad, ISIS said:

The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizyah and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you.

Koran 58:22 goes as far as to praise Muslims who kill their own non-Muslim family members: “You shall find none who believe in Allah and the Last Day on friendly terms with those who oppose Allah and His Messenger—even if they be their fathers, their sons, their brothers, or their nearest kindred.”

According to Ibn Kathir’s mainstream commentary on the Koran, this verse refers to a number of Muslims who slaughtered their own non-Muslim kin (one slew his non-Muslim father, another his non-Muslim brother, a third—Abu Bakr, the first revered caliph of Islamic history—tried to slay his non-Muslim son, and Omar, the second righteous caliph, slaughtered his relatives).   Ibn Kathir adds that Allah was immensely pleased by their unwavering zeal for his cause and rewarded them with paradise. (The Al Qaeda Reader, 75-76).

In fact, verses that support the divisive doctrine of al-wala’ wa’l-bara’ permeate the Koran (see also 4:89, 4:144, 5:51, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23, and 60:1).  There is one caveat, captured by Koran 3:28: when Muslims are in a position of weakness, they may pretend to befriend non-Muslims, as long as the hate carries on in their hearts (such is taqiyya; see here, here, and here for examples; for other Islamic sanctioned forms of deception, read about tawriya, and taysir).

Little wonder, then, that America’s supposed best Muslim friends and allies—such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar—are on record calling on all Muslims to hate.  According to a Saudi governmental run website,  Muslims must “oppose and hate whomever Allah commands us to oppose and hate, including the Jews, the Christians, and other mushrikin [non-Muslims], until they believe in Allah alone and abide by his laws, which he sent down to his Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him.”

Indeed, because enmity for non-Muslims is so ironclad in the Koran, mainstream Islamic teaching holds that Muslim men must even hate—and show that they hate—their non-Muslim wives, for no other reason than that they are “infidels.”

If Muslims must hate those closest to them—including fathers, sons, brothers, and wives—simply because they are non-Muslims, is there any surprise that so many Muslims hate foreign “infidels” who live oceans away—such as Americans, who are further portrayed throughout the Islamic world as trying to undermine Islam?

In short, jihad—or terrorism, war on non-Muslims for no less a reason than that they are non-Muslims—is simply the physical realization of an overlooked concept that precedes it: Islam’s unequivocal command for Muslims to hate non-Muslims.

THE KORAN

BIBLE OF THE MUSLIM TERRORIST:

“The Wahhabis finance thousands of madrassahs throughout the world where young boys are brainwashed into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers for the petrodollar-flush Saudis and other emirs of the Persian Gulf.” AMIL IMANI

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/08/new-novel-blasphemes-fornicating-dog.html

Koran 2:191 "slay the unbelievers wherever you find them"
Koran 3:21 "Muslims must not take the infidels as friends"
Koran 5:33 "Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam"
Koran 8:12 "Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Koran"
Koran 8:60 " Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels"
Koran 8:65 "The unbelievers are stupid, urge all Muslims to fight them"
Koran 9:5 "When the opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you find them"
Koran 9:123 "Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood"
Koran 22:19 "Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water, melt their skin and bellies"
Koran 47:4 "Do not hanker for peace with the infidels, behead them when you catch them".

DID DIRTY MUSLIM SAUDIS MONEY FINANCE THE BUSH, CLINTON AND OBAMA LIBRARIES?

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/09/amil-imani-myth-of-moderate-muslim-once.html

“The tentacles of the Islamist hydra have deeply penetrated the world. The Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood poses a clear threat in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood also wages its deadly campaign through its dozens of well-established and functioning branches all over the world.”

“The Wahhabis finance thousands of madrassahs throughout the world where young boys are brainwashed into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers for the petrodollar-flush Saudis and other emirs of the Persian Gulf.” AMIL IMANI

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11/2001, said:

* We will take advantage of their immigration policy to infiltrate them.

* We will use their own welfare system to provide us with food, housing, schooling, and health care, while we out breed them and plot against them. We will Caliphate on their dime.

* We will use political correctness as a weapon. Anyone who criticizes us, we will take the opportunity to grandstand and curry favor from the media and Democrats and loudly accuse our critics of being an Islamophobe.

* We will use their own discrimination laws against them and slowly introduce Sharia Law into their culture..

 

Duping Americans on Sharia

A detailed look at how Islamic apologist extraordinaire John Esposito whitewashes Islamic terror.

January 14, 2020 

Raymond Ibrahim

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Does Islam itself promote hostility for and violence against non-Muslims, or are all the difficulties between the West and Islam based on secondary factors—from “radical” interpretations of Islam, to economics and grievances?

This is the fundamental question.

Obviously, if “anti-infidel” hostility is inherent to Islam itself, then the conflict becomes existential—a true clash of civilizations, with no easy fixes and lots of ugly implications along the horizon.

Because of this truism, those whose job it is to whitewash Islam’s image in the West insist on the opposite—that all difficulties are temporal and not rooted to innate Islamic teachings.

Enter Shariah: What Everyone Needs to Know, co-authored by John Esposito and Natana J. Delong-Bas.  The authors’ goal is to exonerate Shariah, which they portray as enshrining “the common good (maslahah), human dignity, social justice, and the centrality of the community” from Western criticism or fear, which they say is based solely on “myth” and “sensationalism.”

In their introductory chapters they define Shariah as being built upon the words of the Koran and the Sunna (or example) of the Muslim prophet Muhammad as contained in sahih (canonical) hadiths.  They add: “Shariah and Islamic law are not the same thing.  The distinction between divine law (Shariah) and its human interpretation, application, and development (Islamic law) is important to keep in mind throughout this book…. Whereas Shariah is immutable and infallible, Islamic law (fiqh) is fallible and changeable.”

Next the authors highlight how important Shariah is to a majority of Muslims.  They cite a 2013 Pew Poll which found that  69% of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa, 73% in South Asia, and 55% in Central Asia believe that “Shariah is God’s [Allah’s] divine revelation.”

Even larger numbers “favored the establishment of Shariah as official law”: 99% in Afghanistan, 84% in South Asia, 74% in the Middle East and North Africa, and 64% in sub-Saharan Africa.

So far so good.  The authors’ introductory claims (that Shariah is fundamental to Islam) and statistics (that hundreds of millions of Muslims revere and wish to see it implemented) are correct.

But they also beg the aforementioned question: is Shariah itself behind the intolerance, misogyny, violence, and terrorism committed in the name of Islam?

Here, the hitherto objective authors shift gears and take on the mantle of apologists. Their thesis is simple: Any and all negative activities Muslims engage in are to be pinned on anything and everything—so long as it’s not Shariah.

In order to support this otherwise unsupportable position, and as might be expected, the remainder of the book consists of obfuscation, dissembling, and lots and lots of contextual omissions and historical distortions.

A small sampling follows:

Shariah on Women

The authors quote and discuss at length many Koran verses about women that seem positive (Koran 30:21, 3:195, and 2:187), without alluding to counter verses that permit husbands to beat their wives (4:34) and treat them as “fields” to be “plowed however you wish” (2:223).  Nor do they deal with Muhammad’s assertions that women are “lacking in intelligence” and will form the bulk of hell’s denizens, as recounted in a canonical hadith.

They partially quote Koran 4:3: “…marry those that please you of other women, two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then marry only one.”  This suits the authors’ purpose, which is to present the Koran as implicitly recommending only one wife, since it acknowledges the near impossibility for a man to treat all wives equally.  Yet the authors deliberately cut off the continuation of that verse—which permits Muslim men to copulate with an unlimited amount of sex slaves (ma malakat aymanukum) even if they are married.

They also dissemble about child marriage, saying “classical Islamic law” permits it, but only when “the child reaches a mature age.”   Yet they make no mention that, based on Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha—that is, based on his Sunna, which is immutable and part of Shariah—nine is considered a “mature age.”

Freedom of Religion and Non-Muslims

The authors claim that “There are more than 100 Quranic verses that … affirm freedom of religion and conscience.”  They quote many at length and assert that “The guiding Shariah principle … underscored by Quran 3:28, 29:46, and 60:89, is that believers should treat unbelievers decently and equitably as long as the unbelievers do not behave aggressively.”

Yet they fail to mention or sideline the many contradictory verses that call for relentless war on non-Muslims—who are further likened to dumb cattle in Koran 25:44 —until they surrender, one way or another, to Islam (e.g., 8:39, 9:5, 9:29).

They fail to quote the verses that form the highly divisive doctrine of al-wala’ w’al bara’ (“Loyalty and Enmity”), including Koran 5:51, which forbids Muslims from befriending Jews and Christians, and Koran 60:4, which commands Muslims to harbor only “hate” for non-Muslims, until they “believe in Allah alone.”

Needless to say, they ignore Koran 3:28, which permits Muslims to feign friendship for non-Muslims, whenever the former are under the latter’s authority (such is the doctrine of taqiyya; see here, here, here, here, and here for examples).

It is, incidentally, because of all these divisive Koran verses—because of Shariah—that the Islamic State forthrightly explained, “We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers.”

The closest the authors get to address these issues is in a section titled, “Can Muslims in the West be Loyal Citizens.”  They respond with a yes—but the evidence they cite are polls (based on wishful interpretations), which of course tells the reader little about the topic they purport to “de-mythologize”: Shariah.

Jihad

As might be expected, when the authors reach the topic of jihad, their dissembling reaches a new level.  They repeatedly insist that jihad, as enshrined in Shariah, is simply the Muslim counterpart of Western Just War theory, which teaches that war and aggression are permissible, but only in defense or to recover one’s territory from occupiers:  “The lesser or outer jihad involves defending Islam and the Muslim community.”   As usual, they spend much time quoting and elaborating on Koran verses that comport with this position, while ignoring or sidelining the many contradictory verses.  In reality, mainstream Islam holds that the Koran’s “Sword Verses” (especially 9:5 and 9:29) have abrogated all the peaceful ones, thereby making warfare on non-Muslims—for no less a reason than that they are non-Muslims—obligatory.

Consider Koran 9:29:  “Fight those who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth [Islam] from the People of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.”

What, exactly, is “defensive” about this verse?

Similarly, they claim that dar al-harb, or “abode of war”—Islam’s designation for all those non-Muslim territories (such as Europe) that Muslims were historically in a permanent state of war with—“applied to other parties with whom Muslims were in conflict.” Again, they fail to mention that the primary reason Muslims were “in conflict” with them was because they were non-Muslim, and that all non-Muslim territories were by default part of the “abode of war,” except when treaties advantageous to Islam were drawn.

Instead, the authors say, “The territories classified as the abode of war were those that refused to provide such protection to Muslims and their clients”—thereby implying Muslims were hostile to, say, Europe, because Europe was first hostile to Muslims.  (Reality, as chronicled in Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, was the exact opposite.)

Miscellaneous Subterfuge

One can go on and on; the authors engage in other forms of subterfuge to exonerate Shariah.  They frequently project a Western veneer to Islamic terms and concepts, saying for example that Shariah is ultimately about “promoting good and preventing evil”—which sounds admirable—without pointing out that, based on the Koran and Sunna (that is, Shariah), conquering non-Muslim territories is about “promoting good” and keeping women under wraps and indoors, beating them as required, is about “preventing vice.”

While admitting that Christians and other non-Muslim minorities are currently being persecuted, not only do the authors insist that this has nothing to do with Shariah, but they invoke relativistic thinking: “Just as Muslims living in non-Muslim countries are often concerned with their rights and civil liberties as minorities,” they say, “so some consider the rights and status of non-Muslim minorities living in Muslim countries to be a parallel issue.” In other words, because some Americans view Muslims in their midst with suspicion, the ongoing enslavement and slaughter of Christians—more than 6,000 in Nigeria alone since January 2018—and ban on or destruction of churches is a sort of tit for tat, a “parallel issue” that can only be solved when the West becomes less critical about Islam.

Relativism is also invoked during the authors’ brief treatment of apostasy in Islam: “Historically, apostasy was sometimes punishable by death in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”  They claim that apostasy is still a major issue in Islam due to “radical” interpretations or politics—bolstering their position by again quoting the same Koran verses that seem to support freedom of religion—without mentioning, say, the canonical hadith (meaning part of Shariah) where Muhammad said, “Whoever leaves his religion [Islam], kill him.”

Such is how Islam’s skilled apologists dupe the West: they admit to some of the more controversial aspects that many other apologists shy away from—namely that Shariah is indeed foundational to Islam and that hundreds of millions of Muslims revere and wish to see it implemented—but then, having established trust with the reader, they slip back into the “game,” portraying all the intolerance, misogyny, violence, and terrorism daily committed in the name of Islam as products of anything and everything—fallible Muslim interpretations, self-serving clerics and terrorists, socio-economic pressures, Western criticism or encroachments—never Shariah itself.

Contrary to its subtitle, then, John Esposito’s  and Natana J. Delong-Bas’s Shariah is not “what everyone needs to know”; rather, it is what non-Muslims need to believe in order to give Shariah—which is fundamentally hostile to all persons and things un-Islamic—a free pass.