In the thirteenth century the Ismaili Shi’ite Hashishin (Øشّاشين), or Assassins, got their name from their practice of using hashish before setting out on jihad missions to assassinate Sunni leaders. They went into their missions knowing that death was virtually certain, and energized by the promise of Paradise that had been made vivid for them in an artful scenario that was used as a recruitment tool: the prospective assassin would be given hashish and then taken into a garden full of beautiful women, and told that he was enjoying a taste of Islamic Paradise. Then to return to that Paradise, he was told that he had to go out and kill his victim, and be killed in the process.
These guys don’t seem to be as clever. They’re just using the marijuana as a hook for their dawah.
“Pot peddlers ‘forced teens to become Muslim,'” from The Local, November 29 (thanks to Benedict):
Police have arrested members of a gang of Eastern European immigrants who used violence, intimidation and the promotion of Islam to control marijuana trafficking operations in the Neuchâtel mountains, cantonal justice authorities said on Thursday.
Three members were detained for questioning following the arrest of another ringleader in March, who remains in jail, the public prosecutor’s office said, while issuing an appeal to the public for more information to help permanently disband the group.
The gang, which calls itself the Jamahat, forced other young people to become Muslims as part of its operations, said officials.
The group peddled pot to adolescents from disadvantaged families in the cities of Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds, traditional watch-making centres,the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The group is made up of young Muslim men originally from such places as Chechnya, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia who recently stepped up their criminal activities, authorities said.
The group “is attempting to radicalize its activities by seeking to impose “” by physical and psychological violence “” a monopoly on the sale of marijuana in our region.”…
On top of this, victims were made to convert to Islam, often without knowing anything about the religion and in “blind submission” to the wishes of the Jamahat group, authorities said….