The Global Islamic Media Front, an advocacy group for al-Qaeda, has issued yet another discourse concerning the proper psyche a Muslim must possess in order to pursue jihad. From the SITE Institute:
Jihad, described in the document as the “strongest of the religion’s imperative duties,” is considered most beneficial to a mujahid when he is able to see beyond the “visible struggle,” remain pure and devoted to Allah, and “is the one whose heart was devoted to these degrees and no one stopped his eagerness to please Allah and be allowed into paradise.”To achieve the elevated state of being in jihad, the text highlights seven degrees, or stages, that a Muslim must ascend mentally. The initial degrees entail faith in Allah alone, following Prophet Mohammad and avoiding the ways of the “people of desire,” determination to be righteous and absolving one’s self of sin, and accepting piety. Further, a mujahid must be “convinced that the assignment of the umma to jihad is a way to glory,” find solace in the promise of paradise, and physically prepare for jihad. The final degree, should the enemy not be consumed, calls for the mujahid to continue jihad until “consolidation or until it goes over to the next generation as a pursuit of the faith and keeping to the heritage of the prophecy.”
Golly jee willakers Grandpaw!, These jihadis shure do have a good tiemin. Here you are UAC, straight from the horses mouth.
33.23. Among the believers are men who have been true to their covenant with Allâh [i.e. they have gone out for Jihâd (holy fighting), and showed not their backs to the disbelievers], of them some have fulfilled their obligations (i.e. have been martyred), and some of them are still waiting, but they have never changed [i.e.they never proved treacherous to their covenant which they concluded with Allâh] in the least.
'Seven Stages to Jihad'. Why seven? Why not eleven, or thirteen, or 42?
There's a management book somewhere, and life is too short to google it, called 'Seven Habits of Effective Managers' or something like that. Then there's Porter's Five Forces, the Five Pillars of Islam, the Seven Deadly Sins and so on.
Generally speaking, people can't remember lists of more than seven points, that's why they make it seven. It's completely arbitrary.
The Ten Commandments generally fox people. Most nominally religious or irreligious people can remember seven. All but the really devout forget one.
Seven Types of Ambiguity. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The Seven Deadlies -- oops, you already mentioned that, Interested, didn't you.. The Seven Wonders of the World, both those of Antiquity and those other Seven of the Middle Ages (the seventh is sometimes described, in reference books, as "The Mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople"). The Seven Sages of Greece (this dates me). The Seven Champions of Christendom (so does this). The SevenSisters, the kind that once supplied husbands, by graduation, to the males of the Ivy League, and now those graduates, their starter marriages out of the way, are among those limited few permitted to attend those singles-again mixers advertised so hopefully at the back of the toniest alumni magazines.
But then there is Yuval Ne'eman and Murray Gell-Mann's Eight-Fold Path, and to end on a red-white-and-blue note, let's not forget to return to the wonderful days of yesteryear, with its ever-recurring Princess Summerfallwinterspring, and Wonder Bread, which Builds Strong Bodies Eight Ways.
Take out the assurance of 'seventy virgins' waiting for the jehadists in the heaven and one will find a steep decline in the religious fervour of sex-starved jehadists. Why does not the West bombard these jehadists with the explicit sex literature and objects? Moreover, intriguing is the silence about the 'promised thing' in the heaven for woman jehadists while virgins are reserved for men jehadists. Secondly only seventy virgins for so many jehadists including the latest cult of suicide bombers!
Surely there must be an eigthe(sic?) quality required of a good Jihadi beside stupidity and and an evil tendency; perhaps it would be a suicidal self hatred as part of the hatred of others, which a poor kuffar could count on, that the bastard will reliably kill either himself, if not others, and will not die in bed.
Nbr 8: Do not coveth thy neighbors camel