It’s all about the Saudi Wahhabis, you say? Other Muslim groups teach peace? Consider this: here is a Washington, D.C. Muslim community that is at odds with the Saudis, and has had several bitter confrontations with them. Details here. But the leader of the anti-Saudi group, Imam Mohammad al-“˜Asi, doesn’t seem to have any disagreements with them regarding what ought to be done with infidels. He excoriates them for making deals with the kuffar — unbelievers. In “The Unknown Prophet: Forgotten Dimensions of the Seerah,” he writes:
Our first priority should be to rediscover and relearn how our commanding Prophet approached the issue of power: how he set about dislodging the power of kufr [unbelief] and consolidating the power of Muslims. This should be the burning issue for every Muslim who no longer tolerates a continuation of generations and centuries that have been spent on explaining matters of personal hygiene, night prayers, and a terrifying argument about the exact minute if not the exact second when a Muslim should break his fast (in other words, does night begin with sunset or with nightfall?)! The millions of Muslims who are lost to hunger, illiteracy, malnutrition, refugeehood, and warfare every year do not allow us the ivory-tower and slow-motion “˜da’wah approach’ (favored and sponsored by those arch-enemies of the Prophet’s Sunnah and Seerah, the usurpers of the Haramain) [that is, the Saudis] that are responsible for our sad state of affairs from Morocco to Makkah as well as from Mongolia to Madinah. We should not be studying hair-splitting fiqhi issues in halaqat (study sessions and circles); we should be learning how to consolidate our social will-power and how to form active and status-quo-challenging units throughout our African and Asian lands to reclaim them for Islam.
In other words, we must work to reestablish Sharia in Muslim lands. Will he stop with Muslim lands? I doubt it. To do so would be to transgress Muhammad’s command.
His conclusion is that Muhammad’s example should become the basis for a revolutionary movement, just as Maududi, Qutb, and other contemporary jihad theorists have emphasized:
Imagine if there were Muslims who took Islam as seriously as the Prophet did, and at this level of understanding, would we be where we are today? Billions of dollars that are spent of individualizing and secularizing Islam would become the concern of the Islamic movement that draws its inspiration from the way the Prophet of Allah set about on his 23 year mission of destroying the injustices that come from wealth and power accumulations and excesses. This much-needed reconsideration of Muhammad (saw) is the rapturous issue of our time; the past several generations have proven that as long as the Prophet is unidentified as a model for radical ideological change the Muslims will continue to limp from one setback to another.
In the Lecture at the bottom of this page, he lionizes Khomeini, the man who said: “Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them, put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]”¦. Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur’anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”
And in the Q&A below that, he justifies suicide bombing.
(Thanks to Bobby for the heads-up.)
UPDATE: Dr. Rusty Shackleford notes that Al-‘Asi is also a Holocaust denier.
SECOND UPDATE: Here (thanks again to Bobby) is video of this imam discussing the Holocaust.