All right, which one of you venomous Islamophobes said that Allah loves people to die and kill in his path? Don’t you people realize that that is just the kind of talk that creates a climate of hate, and leads to backlash against patriotic, innocent Muslims?
What’s that? It wasn’t an Islamophobe who said it, but a Muslim? A chappie named Umar Islam? Why, then, he must be a Misunderstander of Islam, twisting the peaceful teachings of his tolerant, broad-minded faith into a noxious amalgam of Nazism and Christian Fundamentalism!
What’s that? Allah guarantees Paradise in the Qur’an (9:111) to those who “kill and are killed” for him, and Umar Islam’s statement seems to be fairly closely patterned on that and other statements from the Qur’an and Hadith exhorting Muslims to wage war against unbelievers?
Well, you have to understand, you see, that a religious text is one thing but how believers regard it is another. There is no indication that any Muslim today takes Qur’an 9:111 as some sort of justification to…kill and be killed. What’s that? It seems as if Umar Islam sees it in just that way? Well, all right, possibly, but he is just one of a Tiny Minority of Extremists. The Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims regard 9:111 as, at best, a relic of the past, not applicable to our own day, or else as a poorly translated and even more poorly understood exhortation to hug and be hugged.
What’s that? What is the Vast Majority doing to convince Muslims like Umar Islam that they’re Misunderstanding Islam, and to instruct them in its true, peaceful teachings?
What kind of a question is that? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?
“Airline plot suspect vowed jihad in video,” from CNN (thanks to The Angel Whisperer Downunder):
LONDON, England (AP) — Jurors saw video Thursday of a man accused of plotting to blow up trans-Atlantic aircraft praising Osama bin Laden and vowing to wage a holy war against nonbelievers.
Umar Islam, 29, made the comments in a video found in the trunk of a car belonging to another suspect. Prosecutors say it was a suicide video intended to be viewed after his death.
Islam and seven others are charged with plotting to detonate bombs aboard airliners bound from London to the United States and Canada using explosives concealed in soft drink bottles. Prosecutors say they were close to carrying out their plan when they were arrested in August 2006. The men deny the charges.
Islam’s 19-minute video was shown to the jury at Woolwich Crown Court for the first time Thursday. Clips of it and other alleged “martyrdom” videos made by several other suspects were played in court last week.
In his video, Islam — formerly known as Brian Young — says there is “an obligation on me as a Muslim to wage jihad against the Kuffar,” or nonbeliever.
“This is revenge for the actions of the USA in the Muslim lands and their accomplices such as the British and the Jews,” he says.
Speaking in front of a black flag covered in Arabic writing, Islam says Allah “loves us to die and kill in his path.”
“To (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar and Sheikh Osama and the brothers, keep on going, keep on remaining firm, but truly you have inspired many of the Muslims and you have inspired me personally to follow the true path of the prophet,” he says.
Islam; Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27; Assad Sarwar, 27; Tanvir Hussain, 27; Mohammed Gulzar, 26; Ibrahim Savant, 27; Arafat Waheed Khan, 26; and Waheed Zaman, 23, are accused of conspiracy to murder and endangering the safety of an aircraft. Both charges carry maximum sentences of life imprisonment….