Brits launch hunt for Moroccan suspect

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Mohammed Ghandi?

Uh, some people aren't gonna like that. Good editorial by Moore.

Robert, does this qualify as an answer to the question posed by you and then Charles Moore?

Have we finally found an understander of Islam?

The most devout Muslims, naturally enough, tend to be the most straightforward in their revulsion. To someone who believes in God, the perpetrators of Thursday's infamy have condemned themselves to Hell. "The actions of each man are bound about his neck", says the Koran (17:13). "On the Day of Resurrection he shall be confronted with a scroll spread wide open".

In the coming days, we shall hear a good deal, especially from Christian churchmen, about how Islam is "a religion of peace". This is not, strictly speaking, true. Neither the Koran nor the Hadiths have much to say about peace; but they do have a good deal to say about justice: "Whoever kills a human being, except in retaliation for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all mankind" says the Koran (5:32) - as fine a vindication of human rights as you will find.

So what is it that drives a minority of British Muslims to repudiate both their faith and their nation and turn to the bomb? What drives boys from Wanstead and Tipton to fight against their countrymen in Iraq and Afghanistan? No one can ever know precisely what is going on in the head of a fanatic, of course. But it is hard to dismiss the sense that such people draw on at least some sympathy from their communities. Fish, as Mao Tse-tung said, need water to swim in.

All of us feel an irrational sense of identity with "our" people, even when their actions repel us. It is what psychologists call "in-group identification". It makes us support "our" sports teams, whatever the qualities of their players. It makes a number of church-going Irish Catholics hold back from total condemnation of republican terrorists. And, until now, it has made some British Muslims want to temper their repudiation of the bombers with understanding.

This time, though, the fanatics have over-reached themselves. After years of slaughtering Muslim civilians in Algeria and Iraq, they have brought their horrors to us, leaving Muslim Londoners in no doubt as to who their "in-group" is. "No bearer of a burden can bear the burden of another" (6:164). The bombers are on their own.

I'm not doing any Muslim theology before some Irish coffee and leprechauns.

I have a feeling this authorless article without support from the ulema isn't compelling compared to the mandatory jihad verses and the supporting hadith and sira. Not to mention the news coming from around the world.

I'm glad someone's giving it a swing, if a miss. Just a bit outside. The theological arguments are a plea for help more than persuasive.

Eyes wide open now??? One hopes so.

An article in our paper today wrote about the pure insanity of the UK's asylum laws. The UK will not send that vermin back to countries that have the death penalty or where they cannot be assured of getting a fair trial. Hence, they have all sorts of murderers and criminals living in the UK, including the scum who was the leader of the group responsible for assassinating Sadat. They have similar ilk from Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. So maybe this Gerbouzi is safe in the UK because Morocco would justifiably snuff him out, or not give him a trial in the style of the UK.

It's insane that you provide asylum to criminals. I thought giving asylum was for people escaping persecution, not justice. If I were to commit murder here in Australia, I would not be able to claim asylum in the UK. Yet if I killed someone in Egypt, I would be able to, and live off the taxpayer. It's completely nuts.

"...except in retaliation ... for other villany..."

The writer doesn't appear to understand that you can drive a whole convoy of jihadists through that Koranic loophole for terror, mayhem and mass murder.

Mealy-mouthed and ineffectual.

And I see the Brits slumping more than standing tall.

Excusing more than excoriating.

And commenting too often: "Well, we were expecting it..."

As if to say:

"Well, if those damned Yanks hadn't gotten Tony Blair to go along with their warmongering, we'd be in crumpets and clotted cream instead of blown up trains and clotting blood."

To Al-Qaeda in Europe I say:

"You didn't kill enough infidels. They're still sleeping. Try harder. I want people to rouse from their 'tolerant' naps and destroy you, so please, take off the gloves and let's get to the real battle."

(A pity that delusional "Religion of Appeasement" Westerners require more corpses in their cities to get over their self-gelding guilt and act, but 50 or so dead is just an insufficient prick to goad their survival response.)

Feralee, You are completely right.

Our Asylum system is apalling.

I hope these atrocities will serve to tighten it up.

I work amongst refugees and am constantly appalled at the obvious scammers who are allowed in and then on the other hand the genuine cases (usually Iranians) who have left Islam, face imminent death as a result, but are forced to return.

I despair.

One expects better of Charles Moore. He fails to recognize the source for the idea that to kill one man is...to kill all mankind, but more importantly, he fails to realize that the clause that it can be done in "retaliation" for "villainy in the land" and the most villanous thing of all is in any way to oppose the spread of Islam, and that means even the mildest of measures undertaken to preverve one's one legal, social, political understandings and assumptions can be considered "villainy in the land." Banning the hijab, or being a voter who supports those who would ban the hijab, or being someone who would not support, let us say, allowing Muslims to "swear on the Qur'an" -- these and ten thousand other little things could be considered "villainy in the land" that puts an obstacle in the way of Islam, and could condemn someone, therefore, to death.

Moore seems not to understand this. He also believes -- on what evidence? -- that the "vast majority, blah blah" of Muslims are horrified by these killings. I don't think they are. I don't think it is accidental that after 9/11 the favorite name for boys all over the Arab and Muslim world became -- Osama. I don't think the cheering in Beirut, Cairo, Riyadh, Jiddah, Damascus, and of course all over Gaza and the West Bank (for whose inhabitants the Infidels at the G-8 conference have just decided to raise $3 billion a year for each of the next 3 years, or $9 billion in all), everywhere in the Muslim world except among those, in Tehran, who have lived under, and are now thoroughly repelled by, not only "the Islamic Republic" but also the belief-system for which it stands.

Most disturbing that he has not managed to move a bit farther along than this article indicates. Why is it so difficult? What psychologist can help to explain this inability to see things that are clear, obvious, not terribly difficult to relate to certain texts and to find confirmed in a long history? What? Why? Youth wants to know.

Sorry Hugh. I wasn't very clear.

The link "Mohammed Gandhi" is the Moore piece entitled Where is the Gandhi of Islam.

The other untitled piece is a halfhearted stab at Islam is peace with four suras.