Three jihadists are on trial now in Indonesia, accused of beheading three Christian high school girls. These benighted misunderstanders of Islam were evidently foolish enough to think that when the Qur’an says to “strike the necks” of unbelievers (47:4; cf. also 8:12), that it actually means “strike the necks” of the unbelievers. The fools! They’ve probably been listening to Islamophobic rhetoric coming from the likes of me — as Jihad Watch reader James informs me that blogger Dean Esmay has accused me of “enabling the Jihadists…and…encouraging young Muslims to think the Jihadists must be right.”
Of course, Dean. All the jihadists are here at Jihad Watch, learning jihad from me (Beheading the Infidels class starts in 15 minutes; anyone without a sharpened knife will get a detention, and no excuses.) These Indonesian jihadists evidently don’t realize that the Qur’an is a document of staggering complexity, and that it can only be properly understood by Saudi-funded American professors who spend years in concentrated study, enabling them to determine that “strike the necks” actually means “hug the necks.”
You have to read it in the original Arabic, you see, unless when you do that you still notice passages such as 47:4, and the fact that jihadists are acting on them while the so-called “moderates” are much more concerned about “Islamophobia” than about actually coming up with some refutation of or at least challenge to the jihadists. In that case, use your secret Qur’anic decoder ring, which likewise renders “beat her” (Qur’an 4:34) as “tell her how much you love her.”
Esmay, by the way, also says: “This is why the Robert Spencers of the world are so dishonest and so destructive: all they do is the same thing the Jihadists do, take the worst and most destructive (and usually most-simple minded) interpretation, and declare that to be the “inescapable” truth.” He seems to imagine that there are numerous widely accepted benign interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunnah out there competing with the jihadists for Muslim hearts and minds, and that I am wickedly discounting them and holding up the jihadist’s arm and declaring him to be the world champeen. If only it were true. In fact, as I have pointed out to him before, all the orthodox sects and schools of jurisprudence within Islam teach warfare against unbelievers. The best and most undestructive interpretations are tiny things with little or no influence in the Islamic world, or patent deceptions that Mr. Esmay seems eager to swallow. If there really were a large-scale moderate and peaceful movement within Islam, no one would be happier than I, and no one would give it more attention. But instead, we have men who think that beheading schoolgirls during Ramadan is serving Allah, and no Muslims are challenging them in any effective way. And no, Dean Esmay, I am not going to shut up about it, no matter how much abuse you send my way.
By Stephen Fitzpatrick in The Australian, :
THREE Christian high school girls were beheaded as a Ramadan “trophy” by Indonesian militants who conceived the idea after a visit to Philippines jihadists, a court heard yesterday.
The girls’ severed heads were dumped in plastic bags in their village in Indonesia’s strife-torn Central Sulawesi province, along with a handwritten note threatening more such attacks.
The note read: “Wanted: 100 more Christian heads, teenaged or adult, male or female; blood shall be answered with blood, soul with soul, head with head.”
Javanese trader Hasanuddin appeared in Jakarta Central Court yesterday charged with planning and directing the murders in October last year. He faces a death sentence if found guilty under anti-terrorism legislation.
Hasanuddin allegedly returned from a visit to members of Philippines Islamist group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front with tales of how that organisation regularly staged bombings to coincide with Lebaran, the festival that ends the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He later spoke with a preacher in Poso, Central Sulawesi, about whether such a plan could work in Indonesia, but expressed doubt about whether it was appropriate.
However, after further discussion with friends, he decided that beheading Christians could qualify as an act of Muslim charity.
Conscripting several accomplices at a local pesantren, or Islamic school, he directed one of them, Lilik Purnomo, to seek out “the head of a Christian”, prosecutors alleged.
“It would be a great Lebaran trophy if we got a Christian. Go search for the best place for us to find one,” Hasanuddin allegedly ordered his companion.
Lilik returned to say he had found an “excellent” target – a group of schoolgirls who travelled to and from class by foot in the Central Sulawesi village of Gebong Rejo. The village is in the district of Poso, where hundreds of people have died in sectarian violence in recent years.