And if all that doesn’t turn your head, remember: Allah will punish you if you don’t join up. A reminder of the fundamental religious appeal that draws men to the jihad — from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Saifullah was tired of his exhausting job as a blacksmith in a Pakistani village when a friend suggested he join the jihad, or holy war, against United States troops in Afghanistan.
The 20-year-old, who shared a simple mud-brick house with his father, mother and a brother, told Agence France-Presse he wasn’t sure whether to accept the call to fight in the country of his forefathers or to continue with his hammer and anvil.
“If you kill one American soldier, then you can keep his money, his gun, boots and clothes,” he recalled his friend saying.
“And if I die?” Saifullah said he asked of the young man, himself a recruit of Taliban commander Mullah Samad who is said to be close to the fugitive leader of the ousted extremist Taliban regime, Mullah Omar.
“If you die, you will get seven virgin ‘houris’ in paradise,” the man said, referring to the virgin angels the Muslim holy book, the Qur’an, says awaits good Muslims, especially martyrs, when they die.
“I accepted,” Saifullah said on Tuesday from his hospital bed in the dusty Afghan border town of Spin Boldak hours after being shot in the legs in a clash with Afghan tribesmen.
He and nine other Taliban recruits — all descendants of Afghan refugees in Pakistan — were attacked late on Monday by the chief of Loy Kariz village, about 50km from Spin Boldak, and his men.
They had been in the village under the command of Mullah Samad to look for and kill US troops and their “spies”. They had also set up roadblocks to interrogate clean-shaven men and confiscate cassettes, in line with the Taliban’s doctrine that shaving and listening to music are “un-Islamic”….
Mullah Samad had even been allowed to use a loudspeaker atop the Loya Kariz mosque to call people to jihad. He remembered the message as: “Join us in jihad. If you don’t join us, God will punish you.”
This is the point where the learned analysts will chime in and say: “See? This is the naive superstition of an uneducated villager. A mature and educated Muslim will know to reject such an appeal.”
Unfortunately, however, a pious Muslim who is familiar with the Qur’an will know that Allah will indeed punish those who refuse to go on jihad. See, for example, the Qur’an’s words to those who did not accompany the Prophet on his last military expedition:
Those who were left behind (in the Tabuk expedition) rejoiced in their inaction behind the back of the Messenger of Allah: they hated to strive and fight, with their goods and their persons, in the cause of Allah: they said, “Go not forth in the heat.” Say, “The fire of Hell is fiercer in heat.” If only they could understand! Let them laugh a little: much will they weep: a recompense for the (evil) that they do. (9:81-82)
And:
The (true) believers are those only who believe in Allah and His messenger and afterward doubt not, but strive with their wealth and their lives for the cause of Allah. Such are the sincere. (49:15)
How to strive with your live for the cause of Allah? Risk death by waging jihad.
And:
Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not. (2:216)
There are many others. But it would be reasonable for a believer in the Qur’an to read these alone and come to the conclusion that to avoid jihad is to court hypocrisy and damnation. This must be acknowledged, and confronted.