Imagine: someone as prominent as Al-Baghdadi misunderstanding Islam, and thinking that jihad is anything but a spiritual struggle! I trust that Ibrahim Hooper is winging his way to Iraq right now to clue him in to the true, peaceful, moderate Islam.
“Iraqi Ayatollah Ahmad Al-Baghdadi Talks about the Annihilation of America, Muslim Conquest of the World, and Declares His Support of Nuclear Bombs in the Hands of Muslim and Arab Countries,” from MEMRITV, with thanks to all who sent this in:
Following are excerpts from speeches and interviews with Iraqi Ayatollah Ahmad Husseini Al-Baghdadi, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on May 5, 2006, on Syrian TV on May 3, 2006, and on ANB TV on April 14, 2006.
Ayatollah Ahmad Husseini Al-Baghdadi: Jihad in Islam, from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence, is of two types: Jihad initiated by the Muslims, which means raiding the world in order to spread the word that “there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah” throughout the world. But this raid will not materialize in our era – the era of barbaric American capitalistic globalism -unless the Infallible, peace be upon him, is present.
But there are jurisprudents, both Sunnis and Twelver Shiites, who said the presence of the Infallible is not a prerequisite. If the objective and subjective circumstances materialize, and there are soldiers, weapons, and money – even if this means using biological, chemical, and bacterial weapons – we will conquer the world, so that “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah” will be triumphant over the domes of Moscow, Washington, and Paris.
[…]
But as for defensive Jihad – it is not conditional upon turning to a Sunni or Shiite jurisprudent, to a source of authority, any Islamic school of thought, or Islamic party, because this type of Jihad is an individual duty. Everyone must fight – children, women, the elderly, the youth in order to liberate man, to liberate mankind, in order to liberate Palestine in its entirety, in order to liberate Iraq from the American-Zionist-British presence.
Read it all.
It never ceases to amaze me, really. In Onward Muslim Soldiers I explained this concept of jihad and showed its roots in the Qur’an and Sunnah. Some of this is also in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). And Islamic apologists have dismissed me as “ignorant” of Islam, despite my care to rely solely on Islamic sources to detail the concept of jihad. But the emptiness of this charge, however potent it may be as a rhetorical tactic, is made vividly manifest by the fact that the Ayatollah Baghdadi, like so many other Islamic authorities, has explained Islam in exactly the way I have explained it. (And this is no surprise, since all I actually do is report on jihadist usage.) Do Ibrahim Hooper, Stephen Schwartz, Khaleel Mohammed and the rest rush to condemn Al-Baghdadi for his “ignorance”?
Why not, exactly?