“The principal goal, she said, was to produce ‘true Muslim girls.'” Here again we see the jihadists proclaiming themselves to be “true” Muslims. This is a theological claim that they back up, as we have seen again and again, with copious citations from Qur’an and Sunnah. In response, self-proclaimed moderate Islamic spokesmen only issue vague condemnations of “terrorism” or of attacks on “innocent civilians,” without ever explaining who an “innocent civilian” actually is — an all-important question if they hope to blunt the force of the jihadist assertion that Americans, Israelis, etc., are not innocent civilians. And they do not respond to the jihadist use of Qur’an and Sunnah with their own theological arguments.
That is why the jihadists continue to portray themselves as “true Muslims.” Those who think true Islam is other than how they characterize it continue to mount no effective response.
By Jane Perlez in the IHT (thanks to Kemaste):
ISLAMABAD: Dressed head-to-toe in an all-enveloping black burka, Ume Okasha joined a pack of students from her militant Islamic school and at midnight drove to a local massage parlor here in the Pakistani capital and rang the bell.
“There were about 25 Chinese women, dressed only in underpants and bras,” recalled Okasha, 24, a muscular high school badminton champion. “They scattered but we managed to grab five.”
The vigilantes shoved the skimpily clad Chinese masseuses – six, according to most accounts – into a car Saturday night, gave them shawls for modesty and hauled them back to the school as hostages, she said.
Under pressure from the Pakistani government concerned about the future of their friendly relations with China, the school released the women less than 24 hours later.
This was just the latest and most brazen escapade in a campaign by Jamia Hafsa, a sprawling Islamic boarding school, to embarrass the government of General Pervez Musharraf, who is considered a key ally by Washington in its war against terror.
The clerics who run the madrasa admire the Taliban and say they are friendly with Al Qaeda. They regularly denounce the Musharraf government as secular, corrupt and a lackey of the United States.
Such pronouncements are not unusual from Islamists in Pakistan, but the school, a complex of shabbily white-painted buildings almost cheek by jowl with the Parliament building, is right under the nose of the military-led government.
In efforts to taunt the authorities, the school leaders have organized a sit-in by the burka-clad female students at a children’s library. Government security officers called in to disperse the sit-in were thwarted.…
At the wing for female students next door, the principal, Hassan, 38, a large woman of soft voice but firm views, said she presided over about 4,500 students aged from 7 to their early 20s. The principal goal, she said, was to produce “true Muslim girls.”…
Read it all.