In The American Thinker, Andrew Bostom, the editor and compiler of the superb, essential collections The Legacy of Jihad and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, tells truths that the mainstream media won't tell you (many links in the original):
Sixty hours of jihadist terror depredations throughout India's financial capital, Mumbai -- during which nearly 200 innocent victims were murdered, and 300 wounded -- apparently ceased this Saturday, November 29, when Indian commandos slew the last three gunmen inside a luxury hotel, while it was still ablaze. Mainstream media coverage of these rampaging, cold-blooded murderous acts of jihad terrorism -- perpetrated by a self-professed "mujahideen" organization (i.e., "The Deccan Mujahideen") -- consistently ignored the clear ideological linkage to Islam. Simply put, "mujahideen" are Muslim jihadists, "holy warriors," because there is just one historically relevant meaning of jihad, despite present day apologetics.The root of the word jihad appears 40 times in the Koran and in subsequent Islamic understanding to both Muslim luminaries -- from the greatest jurists and scholars of classical Islam, to ordinary people -- meant and means "he fought, warred or waged war against unbelievers and the like." As described by the seminal mid-19th century Arabic lexicographer E.W Lane, "Jihad came to be used by the Muslims to signify wag[ing] war, against unbelievers." A contemporary definition, relevant to both modern jihadism and its shock troop "mujahideen" was provided at the Fourth International Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research at Al Azhar University, Cairo -- Islam's most important religious educational institution -- in 1968, by Muhammad al-Sobki:
...the words Al Jihad, Al Mojahadah, or even "striving against enemies" are equivalents and they do not mean especially fighting with the atheists...they mean fighting in the general sense...Contemporary validation of the central principle of jihad terrorism -- rooted in the Koran -- (for example, verses 8:12, 8:60, and 33:26), i.e., to terrorize the enemies of the Muslims as a prelude to their conquest, has been provided in the mainstream Pakistani text on jihad warfare by Brigadier S.K. Malik, originally published in Lahore, in 1979. Malik's treatise was endorsed in a laudatory Foreword to the book by his patron, then Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq, as well as a more extended Preface by Allah Buksh K. Brohi, a former Advocate-General of Pakistan. This text -- widely studied in Islamic countries, and available in English, Urdu, and Arabic -- has been recovered from the bodies of slain jihadists in Kashmir. Brigadier Malik emphasizes how instilling terror is essential to waging successful jihad campaigns:
Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy (sic); it is the decision we wish to impose upon him..."Jihad," the Koranic concept of total strategy...[d]emands the preparation and application of total national power and military instrument is one of its elements. As a component of the total strategy, the military strategy aims at striking terror into the hearts of the enemy from the preparatory stage of war...Under ideal conditions, Jihad can produce a direct decision and force its will upon the enemy. Where that does not happen, military strategy should take over and aim at producing the decision from the military stage. Should that chance be missed, terror should be struck into the enemy during the actual fighting.
...the Book [Koran] does not visualize war being waged with "kid gloves." It gives us a distinctive concept of total war. It wants both, the nation and the individual, to be at war "in toto," that is, with all their spiritual, moral, and physical resources. The Holy Koran lays the highest emphasis on the preparation for war. It wants us to prepare ourselves for war to the utmost. The test of utmost preparation lies in our capability to instill terror into the hearts of the enemies.
The Islamic correctness of most mainstream media outlets -- which refused to consider such ideological motivations, rooted in jihad -- did not apply, however to Hindus, or Jews-targeted infidel victims of the attacks. Blithely ignoring obvious Islamic and Muslim connections -- credit taken for the attacks by a mujahideen organization; or testimony from a Turkish Muslim couple briefly apprehended, and then released unharmed by the jihadists because, "...[w]hen the (Muezzinoglus) said they were Muslims, their captors told them that they would not be harmed" -- some media (at Fox; NPR) even voiced their own "speculations" about the possible culpability of "Hindu extremists," an absurd calumny, stated in full paranoid transference mode by the Muslim Brotherhood:
A photograph published in Urdu Times, Mumbai, clearly shows that Mossad and ex-Mossad men came to India and met Sadhus and other pro-Hindutva elements recently. A conspiracy was clearly hatched.Yet these same media offered no speculation about Islamic Jew-hatred as an obvious potential motivation for the transparently selective attack on Mumbai's Chabad House -- a focal point symbol of the miniscule Jewish community of 5000 (or 0.03%) in a city of some 15 million inhabitants. More egregiously, this neglect of any hateful Islamic motivations for the targeted murder of such innocent Jews -- including a young Lubavitcher Rabbi and his wife -- was accompanied by consistently dehumanizing and demeaning references to these victims as "Ultra-Orthodox," and their entirely false characterization as "missionaries."
This current Jewish tragedy within a much larger non-Muslim, primarily Hindu tragedy, reminded me of the Indian Sufi "inspiration" for The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, Ahmad Sirhindi. Nearing completion of my first book compendium, The Legacy of Jihad, in early 2005, specifically the section about jihad on the Indian subcontinent, I came across a remarkable comment by the Indian Sufi theologian Sirhindi (d. 1624). Typical of the mainstream Muslim clerics of his era, Sirhindi was viscerally opposed to the reforms which characterized the latter ecumenical phase of Akbar's 16th century reign (when Akbar became almost a Muslim-Hindu syncretist), particularly the abolition of the humiliating jizya (Koranic poll tax, as per Koran 9:29) upon the subjugated infidel Hindus. In the midst of an anti-Hindu tract Sirhindi wrote, motivated by Akbar's pro-Hindu reforms, Sirhindi observes,
Whenever a Jew is killed, it is for the benefit of Islam.
There is much more. Read it all.
How do you convince people when you talk with them that Islam condones the killing of Jews?
My boss, an Indian said to me today, "it looks like the Mumbai terrorists were Palestinians as they specifically targeted Jews". I tried to explain that the common thread was Islam but he would not accept my argument.
Instead he handed me a book on religion and asked me to read three pages. The gist was about how people used their religion not to do right but rather as a focus on rituals and a means to get power.
After reading I smiled and said “Yes nearly got it haven’t yer”.
You guys should also read Bostom's aticle from 2005, 'The Legacy of Jihad in India:' http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/07/the_legacy_of_jihad_in_india.html
Excellent as always.
Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan was a commando from India's National Security Guards, who was killed during a firefight in Mumbai's Oberoi Hotel.
His family lives in the nearby state of Kerala.
The media were interviewing his Dad at their home when suddenly the local communist leader shows up at the door, to do the whole photo-op thing, expressing condolences, etc. Here's how Dad reacted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfhhQRvSqss
Dad(to media): Run the camera! Run the camera!
Commie chief: Hi--
Dad: You mangy dog! Get lost! (Various unprintable comments)
SLAM!
Haha! The communist chief got pwned! I've no sympathy for him.
The Left in India are always running down the army and the security forces. They tend to politically align with the Islamists, just like everywhere else in the world.
Poor Dad, he's really upset over the loss of his son. :(
Haha!
Good one, sanman!
sanman
thank you for sharing here the name of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, killed in the line of duty.
Perhaps you could undertake to discover the names of the other Indian security guards, police officers and commandos who were similarly killed in battle in Mumbai, and post them in one of the discussion threads dealing with the events in Mumbai, so that they may be remembered with honour.
Those of us who have family members or friends in the armed forces, police force, and emergency services of our respective non-Muslim countries, or whose friend or family member works as a security guard, should (if we have not already done so) hurry up to provide such people with copies of Mr Spencer's 'Onward Muslim Soldiers', so that they may know what is coming down the pike.
In addition, one's military or police force family member could be given second hand copies of books such as 'The Great Siege' (about Malta, 1565), or Churchill's 'Malakand Field Force'; enthusiasts for old movies could go in search of copies of 'Khartoum', and of Chauvel's 'Forty Thousand Horsemen' (the saga of the light horse in Palestine in the first world war), to give as gifts and as inspiration.
Final thought: may the example of Orde Wingate (look him up - he trained the Jews in eretz Israel in no-nonsense self-defence in the 1930s, and had he not been killed in Burma during the War, it is likely Israel would have hired him for their army) inspire both the Israeli and the Indian armed forces and police as they face an ever-rising tide of Muslim aggression and subversion, violence and deceit.
Should anything terrible befall the Jews, the British press has blood on their hands. They have done everything they can to demonize an entire people, feed the worst stereotypes and promote every crackpot accusation as worthy of repetition.
In a brief article on the rescue of the Rabbi's son, the Times Online chose to close the story with this quote:
"T. K. Bhat, who lives close to the Chabad house, said: 'It could be that the attitudes of the Chabad, which gives the sense of an elite club for Jews alone, is part of what provoked the terrorists to target them for the attack.'"
I am regularly angered by what I read in the press, but this is the worst. I feel like throwing up.
They could have chosen from among many quotes about the good feelings of Indian citizens toward their Jewish neighbors. Instead, they went with one that gives the impression that the mere presence of religious Jews is so offensive and objectionable that it could cause people to commit such terrible atrocities.
Solomonia's blog pointed me to this story. Here is the link to the Times Online article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5248330.ece
Minor correction: Major Unnikrishnan was killed in the operation at the Taj, not the Oberoi.
Note also that the sympathies of the TV media were with the politicians. This is not at all surprising. (The left liberal Islamist axis in India has a hammerlock on the English-speaking TV space. One finds much better coverage, as well as diversity of views, in the vernacular channels.)
However, the media, instead of discussing the sort of job he did, was busy discussing the political compulsions that led to his departure.
One thing about the YouTube clip of the Kerela Chief Minister being scorned - this was more of a blanket condemnation of politicians, rather than a specific denunciation of pandering to Mohammedans. That's what all people are saying - few are condemning Mohammedans by name even after all this. And the same obsession with just Pakistan, without factoring in that so many of the attacks have been done by SIMI, which is an Indian Mohammedan outfit, not Pakistani.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX_hOsV2utA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cVHL1g9tMo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fCrBlIuAiY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reoQhqpZ_b4
Bill Kristol defends the concept of patriotism, which seems to have become a dirty word in the 21st century:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion/01kristol.html
pravasi, sanman
please stick around, and keep jihadwatchers informed about what is being said in the vernacular (i.e. non-English) news in India.
The more we know about what the Mohammedans are up to in India, the better.
pravasi
There was/is a website called hinduunity.com, and it hosted the views of the sangh parivar. Unfortunately, that website seems to have been down the last few months, and their blog was run by incompetents - there was no way one could join.
However, there, they did demonstrate that they get what jihad is: at the bottom of the page was a citation of Surah 9:5, which is the most applicable jihad verse as far as Hindus go. The site did a good job of highlighting Mohammedan atrocities against Hindus - both past and present, and tying it up with current jihadi activity worldwide. They also had a section listing Israeli and Jewish groups fighting against Jihad. Granted, they don't discuss Islamic texts, but lets face it - at a certain level, it is a boring task, particularly if the goal is to fire up Hindus willing to defend themselves from the ravages of jihad.
Whether their views are representative of the Sangh Parivar, I'm not sure, but if they are, they very much get what it is.