It would be illuminating to see one of the Muslim spokesmen in the West who claim that only “Islamophobes” think that Islam and democracy are incompatible reply to this with a case for democracy argued on Islamic grounds. But this will not happen. “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant calls on Egyptians to wage ‘jihad’ against army,” by David Barnett for Long War Journal, August 31:
In an audio message released to jihadist forums on Aug. 30, a spokesman from al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) called on Egyptians to take up arms and fight the Egyptian army. The spokesman, Abu Muhammad al ‘Adnani al Shami, also denounced the Muslim Brotherhood and called on the Islamist group to repent “and turn back from the religion of democracy,” according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.
In the message, titled “Peacefulness is the Religion of Whom?,” al Shami began by saying: “This is a message to the Sunnis in general and to our people in Egypt in particular. We incite them to fight in the cause of Allah.” The ISIL went on to argue that the Islamic nation “today lives in slavery and humiliation” and that many of those who partook in the protests in the so-called Arab Spring have yet to find the “medicine” to their problems.
“They thought that salvation came in regime change and the replacement of rulers, and they thought that the best way to remove injustice and gain dignity was in peaceful protests,” al Shami contended. But, according to al Shami, “our disease is not the ruling regimes, but it is the polytheistic laws with which they rule.”
Thus, al Shami argued that “if we wish to remove injustice and gain dignity, we must shun the earthly, polytheistic laws and empower the Shariah of Allah, and there is no path to this except through jihad in the cause of Allah.” The ISIL spokesman further contended that “[g]aining dignity and liberation from injustice and breaking the shackles of humiliation only comes through the swords, spilling blood and sacrificing one’s self, and it is never through peaceful calls or parliamentary elections.”
Al Shami then denounced the armies of Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia as “armies of apostasy and disbelief.” “These armies were only created to protect the tyrants, defend them and steady their thrones,” al Shami continued. The ISIL spokesman specifically denounced the Egyptian army for defending “the usury banks and the whorehouses” as well as “the Jews, the Copts and the Christians,” among other offenses.
Al Shami also asked whether “any sane person [can] say that it is not permissible to fight this army, even if it were seen as Muslim?”
With regard to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, al Shami said the group was simply “a secular party with an Islamic garb, and they are more evil and cunning than the secularists.” Al Shami further slammed the Muslim Brotherhood for being “a party that, if gaining the throne required kneeling before Satan, they would do it without hesitation.”
After denouncing the Muslim Brotherhood for failing to implement sharia law in Egypt, al Shami urged Egyptians and Iraqis “to shun the peaceful calls, and to bear arms and do jihad in the cause of Allah in order to push away the invader from among the Egyptian army and the Safavid army.” In addition, al Shami called on members of the Egyptian army to defect….