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Robert Spencer in Aleteia: Did Boko Haram Just Win?

May 29, 2014 10:02 am By Robert Spencer

Boko HaramOver at Aleteia today I discuss the latest developments in the abduction of the Nigerian schoolgirls by the jihad group Boko Haram:

Nigerian Air Marshal Alex Badeh announced Monday that the Nigerian military had discovered the location of the nearly 300 girls abducted by the jihadist group Boko Haram.

However, he said there were no plans to rescue them, because Boko Haram would certainly kill them all should any such attempt be made: “we can’t go and kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back.” Negotiations to trade them for imprisoned Boko Haram members, meanwhile, have broken down. So, at this point the girls and their families have little hope — even these options of killing or ransoming them are delineated by the Koran and Islamic law.

Islam’s holy book directs Muslims to wage war against unbelievers, killing them by beheading and taking captives who may be freed or ransomed: “Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens” (47:4). It also refers to slave women belonging to the Islamic prophet Muhammad as spoils of war: “O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war” (33:50).

Islamic law has elaborated from these passages four options for the treatment of captives: “As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first, to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, ‘When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [Islam] then strike [their] necks’ (Qur’an sura 47, verse 4)” (Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, The Laws of Islamic Governance).

The first of these options, putting captives to death, is such a live possibility that it is stymieing a rescue operation; as for exchanging them, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau offered to exchange the girls who have refused to convert to Islam (90% of the abducted girls were Christians) in return for Boko Haram prisoners held by the Nigerian government. Regarding enslaving them, Shekau has gloated in a video: “I abducted your girls. I will sell them on the market, by Allah…There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell.” That is in line with the option of enslaving captives. It has also been reported that they were sold off to Boko Haram members for $12.45 each, and then forcibly married to them — in accord with the Qur’an’s allowance of the sexual enslavement of “what your right hands own” who were taken as spoils of war:

If you fear that you will not act justly towards the orphans, marry such women as seem good to you, two, three, four; but if you fear you will not be equitable, then only one, or what your right hands own; so it is likelier you will not be partial. (Koran 4:3)

Read the rest here.

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Filed Under: Boko Haram, Jihad doctrine Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Jay Boo says

    May 29, 2014 at 11:07 am

    Obama (nation building) from a 5 Billion dollar piggy bank fund using borrowed money from China should solve everything by enabling offshoots of soon to be new and improved Boko Haram sugar-coated front groups to achieve their “Self-Determination” and thereby bring forth a pipedream full of LASTING PEACE.

  2. ApostateOfWesternism says

    May 29, 2014 at 11:17 am

    Unfortunately, the historical patterns are clear: whichever society decides to allow education for its women, is a society in which birthrates plummet and which will inevitably decline into oblivion. In this at least, Boko Haram are right, although perhaps it would be wise to use less heavy-handed methods to achieve these goals.

    • dumbledoresarmy says

      May 29, 2014 at 5:40 pm

      Assuming that you are not already a mohammedan I’m surprised, given your views on women, that you haven’t trotted off to the mosque yet to recite the shahada.

      The idea that women should be universally illiterate is STUPID.

      Do you really want a wife who can’t even read the label on a medicine bottle when her baby is sick?

    • Kepha says

      May 29, 2014 at 8:19 pm

      I am also a critic of the so-called enlightenment and “modern” sensibility. Apart from the equal pay for equal work part, I despise modern feminism.

      It’s the kind of education women (and men) receive, not education itself that can be a problem. The right kind of education for women and men is a good and positive thing.

      However, the Scriptures enjoin us men to honor our wives as joint heirs of the grace of life. They must therefore know how to read the Bible no less than we. A woman of character is praised by King Solomon, who notes that she is a businesswoman as well as a wife and mother. The first to accept Jesus as Messiah on the continent of Europe, as far as we know, was a woman who dealt in purple goods named Lydia.

      To me, the Boko Haram people are criminals, pure and simple. All their talk about the “oppression” they’ve suffered when they themselves are kidnappers and human traffickers disgusts me, and makes me strongly consider that the best end for Boko Haram’s members is to be choked on liquified pork fat, then fed to rats.

      I understand some communities in northern Nigeria are forming their own militias to guard against and fight back against such cruel depredations as this. These are the people I respect.

      And if Islam believes that abduction (and probably rape) are appropriate ways to deal with girls whose parents wish to educate them, then I say Islam is no message of God, but Hellish blasphemy.

      I further say that the wrong kind of education which our Western women (and men) have received is also the very thing that makes them ready to listen to the Hellish blasphemy that is Islam.

  3. Jay Boo says

    May 29, 2014 at 11:41 am

    Michele Obama’s sign should have read
    (Boko Haram) Bring back our Girls

    When the Left has to backtrack and admit that yes, Boko Haram is in fact a terrorist organization, it then needs to divert all attention from Boko Haram by criticizing the Nigerian government instead.

  4. tpellow says

    May 29, 2014 at 3:19 pm

    “Boko Haram kills 32 in Nigeria-Cameroon border”

    http://en.apa.az/news/212039?

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