Thornton: Jihad Is Knocking

Another Episode in the War between Christendom and Islam. Here's Bruce Thornton in Victor Hanson's Private Papers, with thanks to all who sent this in.

The slaughter in London is another grisly wake-up call that likely will go as unheeded as earlier ones. Already the standard narrative is being trotted out: evildoers created by what the New York Times predictably called the “root causes of terrorism”: autocracy, or economic stagnation, or Palestinian suffering, or globalization's dislocations, or Western historical sins, or the war in Iraq (the cause will depend on the political prejudices of the pundit) have “hijacked” Islam and distorted its peaceful message. And now they are using Islam to justify murder in order to further their own ambitions or dysfunctional psychic needs. Given this explanation, so the story goes, we must be careful not to demonize all Muslims and assure them that we respect their religion and culture. The tale is then wrapped up with fierce threats against the terrorists and protestations of admiration for Islam.

Believing this delusion requires that one ignores fourteen centuries of Islamic jihad against the West, a war of conquest and colonization ratified by centuries of Islamic theology and jurisprudence. Indeed, what we call Islamic radicals are in fact Islamic traditionalists; it is the so-called “moderates” — those wanting to compromise Islam so it can coexist with Western ideas such as secular government, separation of church and state, and human rights — who are the radicals and innovators. The terrorists are simply fulfilling the traditional and orthodox command of their religion to battle the infidels who resist the revelation of Mohammed and the global socio-political order mandated by Islam.

Listen to one of the most respected and influential of Muslim clerics, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, on the legitimacy of jihad: “It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar Al-Harb [the Domain of Disbelief where the battle for the domination of Islam should be waged] is not protected. Because they fight against and are hostile towards the Muslims, they annulled the protection of his blood and his property." (See Andrew Bostom:).This interpretation is entirely consistent with fourteen centuries of Islamic theology and jurisprudence, which in turn is based on the Koran's injunction to “slay them [infidels] wherever you catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter . . . . Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.” And this jihad is to continue “until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah.”...

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