The pro-jihad website Jihad Unspun is running a “never before published” interview with the late Zarqawi, in which the jihadist explains his activity as imitation of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. In the excerpt below he stresses one hadith in which Muhammad says: “I have been sent with the sword, between the hands of the hour, until Allah is worshipped alone.”
It would be refreshing to see a moderate Muslim (Ibrahim? Stephen? Ali?) formulate an Islamic response to this, showing how Zarqawi is misusing the Islamic texts. Only by engaging in such exercises will moderates ever begin making headway against jihadist recruitment in the Islamic community. But instead, what we mostly get is denial: the indignant and unsupported assertion that the Islamic texts, properly understood, teach peace. Zarqawi, unfortunately, was not convinced, and there are many, many other Muslims like him in the world today.
“PART TWO: Al-Furqan Foundation’s Interview ‘Dialogue With Sheikh Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi,” by Umm Saeed at Jihad Unspun:
An interview titled “Dialogue With Sheikh Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a never before published document, has been released by Al-Furqan Foundation for Media Production, the official publisher of media for the Islamic State of Iraq.
This in-depth interview with Sheikh Zarqawi, some 33 pages in Arabic, was conducted over a year ago by Abu Al-Baghdadi on behalf of the media committee for Al-Qaeda in Iraq and covers Zarqawi’s journey to Tawheed, his experience in Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet withdrawal and the situation at the time in Iraq.
[…]
Baghdadi:As a counter to the debaters, how do you answer the questions they are asking about what your belief (manhaj) is? And what is your political agenda? And what do you aim to achieve?
Zarqawi:As for our political agenda as some people call it, so we find it summarized richly in the saying of the Prophet (peace be upon him), “I have been sent with the sword, between the hands of the hour, until Allah is worshipped alone”. It is necessary to point out that we do not believe in politics in the way familiar with some groups that are directed by their sect, who raise Islam as a slogan. You find them in the parliaments, participating with the disobeyers in engaging the seats that rule against the law of Allah. Some of these groups have political agenda’s containing a lot of confusion and many wrong things. They also carry out some practices that are very deviant from the manhaj of the religion; we ask Allah refuge from them.
Our political agenda, like I said before is that of the saying of the Prophet peace be upon him, “I have been sent with the sword, between the hands of the hour, until Allah is worshipped alone”, and like the Prophet (peace be upon him) words that he had been sent with the sword until Allah is worshipped alone, this is what determines our political goal.
We fight in the way of Allah, until the law of Allah is implemented, and the first step is to expel the enemy, then establish the Islamic state, then we set forth to conquer the lands of Muslims to return them back to us, then after that, we fight the kuffar (disbelievers) until they accept one of the three.
“I have been sent with the sword, between the hands of the hour”; this is our political agenda.
And by Allah if it wasn’t that the Americans were fighting us, and they did not attack our homes, they and the Jews, it is better for Muslims not to sit back from jihad in the way of Allah until the law of Allah is implemented on this basis and Islam would spread everywhere. This is what the Prophet (peace be upon him) did when he traveled from Makkah to Madinah.
For after the establishment of an Islamic nation, he started moving to spread Islam in the east and the west and the north and the south. Our political agenda now is to expel the imposing enemy, this is the beginning, and our agenda after it is to establish the Shariah of Allah on earth.
This is our political agenda, “I have been sent with the sword, between the hands of the hour, until Allah is worshipped alone”
And in the sentence, this Hadith from its beginning to its end determines the basis to our path. For those who mean by political agenda in the modern way (mustalah al haadith), that is against the Shariah of Allah.