Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Harvard prof and Kerry adviser explains how Islamic State “distorts traditional teachings” of Islam

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CesariHere we go again: yet another mainstream media attempt to ensure that Americans don’t think that the Islamic State’s atrocities have anything to do with Islam. 20,000 Muslims from all over the world have joined the jihad in Syria, but the mainstream media and academics like Jocelyne Cesari make no attempt to explain how what they insist is a misunderstanding of Islam has come to be so widely held in the Islamic world. “How does Islamic State justify its atrocities in name of Islam?,” by Hannah Allam, McClatchy, February 6, 2015 (thanks to Herman):

WASHINGTON — Muslims across the globe have condemned the Islamic State’s blood lust, calling the extremist group’s tactics forbidden under Islam and an affront to humanity. So how do zealots claiming to represent a pure and true Islam square their actions with traditional Islamic law?

They cherry-pick Quranic verses out of context,

No example given, or proper context provided.

apply the most rigid interpretations of jurisprudence and excuse just about any brutality by saying they’re waging a defensive jihad on behalf of aggrieved Muslims worldwide, according to Jocelyne Cesari, a renowned

By whom? Where?

scholar of Islam who’s part of Secretary of State John Kerry’s working group on faith and foreign policy.

This is one reason why Kerry is so relentlessly clueless about Islam and jihad: he is listening to people like Jocelyne Cesari. Anyway, she doesn’t mention that “just about any brutality” can be excused by this Qur’an verse, if the case can be made that the enemies of Islam are doing the same thing: “So whoever has assaulted you, then assault him in the same way that he has assaulted you” (2:194).

Cesari directs the “ Islam in the West” program at Harvard University and leads the Berkley Center’s Islam and World Politics program at Georgetown University. Here, in remarks that have been edited for clarity or space, she explains how the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, distorts traditional teachings to justify actions that have shocked the world.

Q: Are the Islamic State’s brutal tactics permitted in Islam?

A: In the traditional Islamic theory of war, there were clear limits. The ruler had to declare jihad and you had to follow certain protocols as far as notifying your enemy and giving ultimatums. And when you waged war, there were limits to the violence: No women, no children, no priests could be attacked. It was forbidden to attack priests because you couldn’t set out to defeat an entire faith.

The “ruler” who has the responsibility of declaring jihad is the caliph, and of course the Islamic State considers itself to be the caliphate, and its caliph Ibrahim has indeed declared jihad, notified his enemies, and given ultimatums. As for killing women and children, the hadith, as is so often the case, contains contradictory information — since the hadith literature was fabricated by rival factions inventing sayings of Muhammad to justify their own positions, this is to be expected. But it allows people like Cesari to claim that what the Islamic State is doing is un-Islamic while ignoring the passages that the Islamic State uses to establish its activities as precisely Islamic. One hadith Cesari doesn’t mention has Muhammad waving away the killing of women and children: “It is reported on the authority of Sa’b b. Jaththama that the Prophet of Allah (may peace be upon him), when asked about the women and children of the polytheists being killed during the night raid, said: They are from them.” (Muslim 4321) And as for it being “forbidden to attack priests because you couldn’t set out to defeat an entire faith,” this is outright fantasy. In reality, the Qur’an commands Muslims to fight against and subjugate the “People of the Book” — that is, primarily Jews and Christians: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29) Muslims must continue to fight until “the religion, all of it, is for Allah” (Qur’an 8:39). But Muslims not “defeat an entire faith”? That’s exactly what the Qur’an commands them to do in these and other passages.

And you couldn’t destroy the land, so not even the eradication of trees was allowed.

What does that have to do anything? No one is accusing the Islamic State of illegitimately eradicating trees.

Q: So what changed?

A: There are two main reasons for the decline of traditional Islam: the nationalization of Islam after the fall of the Ottoman empire, and the globalization of what had been nationalist jihadist projects.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, state rulers built nations and absorbed religious entities, turning Islam into a state institution. And when you receive your khutba (Friday sermon) by fax or, now, by email from the state, the young people won’t listen. That’s when ISIS can say: “We are not the state. We are different.”

Cesari teaches at Harvard? The Ottoman Empire didn’t fall in the 19th century. The sultanate was abolished on November 1, 1922, and caliphate on March 3, 1924. That’s, uh, the 20th century. Also, her claim that the Islamic State arose because it was able to distinguish itself from the state Islam that controlled the contents of the Friday sermons by fax or email applies only to Turkey, which is the only place that dictated the contents of sermons. Yet the Islamic State has drawn jihadis from all over the world — Muslims who never heard a sermon dictated by the state. She offers no explanation for that, and doesn’t mention at all the appeal of the concept of the caliphate. She alludes to it indirectly in saying that traditional Islam went into decline after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, but never explains that the “globalization of what had been nationalist jihadist projects” was undertaken with the specific goal of restoring the caliphate — which the Islamic State claims to have done. Thus the Islamic State represents not the decline of traditional Islam, but the culmination of a 90-year effort to restore traditional Islam; but Jocelyne Cesari will never admit that.

Afghanistan was also a turning point, because fighters globalized jihad and broadened the targets from political powers to anyone the fighters considered a tool of or obedient to an un-Islamic system. They consider jihad a duty for all Muslims – they don’t believe in waiting for a ruler to declare it – and there is no mercy for those who don’t participate.

Cesari, despite being “a renowned scholar of Islam,” appears unaware of the distinction in Islamic law between offensive and defensive jihad. In Sunni Islam, only the caliph can declare offensive jihad, and that jihad is an obligation on the community as a whole (fard kifaya); an individual is released from it if others are taking it up. But all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that when a non-Muslim force enters a Muslim land, defensive jihad becomes the individual obligation of every Muslim (fard ‘ayn) rather than a collective obligation of the entire umma, and need not be declared by anyone. Bulghah al-Salik li-Aqrab al-Masalik fi madhhab al-Imam Malik (“The Sufficiency of the Traveller on the Best Path in the School of Imam Malik,”) says this: “Jihad in the Path of Allah, to raise the word of Allah, is fard kifayah [obligatory on the community] once a year, so that if some perform it, the obligation falls from the rest. It becomes fard `ayn [obligatory on every Muslim individually], like salah and fasting, if the legitimate Muslim Imam declares it so, or if there is an attack by the enemy on an area of people.” The Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi’i schools of Sunni jurisprudence further declare that jihad, once it is fard ‘ayn, is no different from prayer and fasting — in other words, to engage in warfare with non-Muslims in that case is a religious devotion that cannot lawfully be evaded. Hashiyah Ibn `Abidin, an authoritative text of the Hanafi school, says that jihad is “fard ‘ayn if the enemy has attacked part of the Islamic homeland. It thus becomes an obligation like salah [prayer] and fasting which cannot be abandoned.” The Afghan jihadis are working from these principles when they say that jihad is a “duty for all Muslims,” basing their claim to be waging defensive jihad on the military presence first of the Soviets and then of the Americans.

Al Qaida’s response to news that Muslims died in the 9/11 attacks was: “Tough luck. They were there and not fighting so they were legitimate targets.”

Actually they considered them collateral damage. The intention was not to kill Muslims, and doing so was unavoidable, and hence justified by the justice of the cause.

Q: What religious grounding does the Islamic State give for its atrocities?

A: They say they’re in survival mode. They believe that conditions for Muslims today are a danger to your soul as a Muslim. They don’t see their jihad as an attack; they see it as defensive jihad.

ISIS is a totalitarian project – like the Nazis or the Communists – where everyone must think the same, dress the same, act the same. If you want to understand it, don’t look at Islam. Look at totalitarian regimes.

Funny how she mentions defensive jihad here but suggested that it was Islamically illegitimate in reference to Afghanistan. In any case, these flat and unsupported assertions ignore the fact that beheading is called for in the Qur’an (“when you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks” 47:4), as is the sexual slavery of infidel women (“captives of the right hand,” 4:3; 4:24; 23:1-6; 33:50).

Q: We’ve seen medieval punishments – beheadings, stonings – still used in some Muslim theocracies. But how does the Islamic State justify burning alive the captive Jordanian pilot?

A: A burning is like a sacrifice. It’s about more than killing the enemy; it’s about destroying them, reducing them to ashes. And I think the fact that he was Muslim had something to do with it. They were going to send a message.

Because they don’t see him as Muslim, his body couldn’t even remain as a Muslim body and be buried because, in their vision, he has to be completely destroyed.

Pure and baseless speculation. In reality, if the pilot was believed to have dropped incendiary bombs on the Islamic State, then they could burn him with Qur’anic justification: “So whoever has assaulted you, then assault him in the same way that he has assaulted you” (2:194).

Q: How does the Islamic State get around Islam’s prohibitions on fornication when fighters take Yazidi and other women captives as sex slaves?

A: They pick and choose references, but mainly they get around it by declaring these women “spoils of war.” They are possessions; they aren’t suitable for wives. But they don’t consider it fornication. It’s just continuing their project, giving relief to the fighters and producing children for the caliphate. The body of a woman becomes a weapon.

Here are the references they pick and choose. Can Cesari produce any to show that how they’re interpreting this material is illegitimate from an Islamic standpoint? According to Islamic law, Muslim men can take “captives of the right hand” (Qur’an 4:3, 4:24, 33:50). The Qur’an says: “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). 4:3 and 4:24 extend this privilege to Muslim men in general, as does this passage. “Certainly will the believers have succeeded: They who are during their prayer humbly submissive, and they who turn away from ill speech, and they who are observant of zakah, and they who guard their private parts except from their wives or those their right hands possess, for indeed, they will not be blamed” (Qur’an 23:1-6). The rape of captive women is also sanctioned in Islamic tradition: “Abu Sirma said to Abu Sa’id al Khadri (Allah he pleased with him): 0 Abu Sa’id, did you hear Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) mentioning al-’azl? He said: Yes, and added: We went out with Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) on the expedition to the Bi’l-Mustaliq and took captive some excellent Arab women; and we desired them, for we were suffering from the absence of our wives, (but at the same time) we also desired ransom for them. So we decided to have sexual intercourse with them but by observing ‘azl (Withdrawing the male sexual organ before emission of semen to avoid conception). But we said: We are doing an act whereas Allah’s Messenger is amongst us; why not ask him? So we asked Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him), and he said: It does not matter if you do not do it, for every soul that is to be born up to the Day of Resurrection will be born.” (Muslim 3371) Notice that the controversy is not over whether the Muslims can rape the captives but only over coitus interruptus. The rape is taken for granted.

That Jocelyne Cesari teaches at Harvard, advises John Kerry, and is hailed as a “renowned scholar of Islam” by the McClatchy News Service, while being either abysmally ignorant or utterly dishonest about Islam, is yet another indication of how in our day people rise to the top not because they are competent, but because they reflect the line that the elites want propagated.

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Filed Under: academia, Featured, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Jihad doctrine, journalistic bias, Useful idiots, willful ignorance Tagged With:


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Comments

  2. Islam forgets one thing. You can’t threaten a Christian with death. They can cut off my head, but I will die with Jesus in my heart.
    I WILL NOT go without a fight though. Even after I run out of ammo.

    • WILL YOU EVER F–K OFF!

      WHAT IF THEY CUT OFF YOUR WILLY & LET YOU RUNNING AROUND WITH NONE?

      “Islam forgets one thing. You can’t threaten a Christian with death. They can cut off my head, but I will die with Jesus in my heart.
      I WILL NOT go without a fight though. Even after I run out of ammo”.

      YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM SCHIZOPHRENIA!

      • Such language Larry, my my my.
        Guess what; you didn’t even get me angry.
        Whats a matter, did I touch a nerve?
        SOOOOO SOORRRRRRY

  4. Cesari makes me want to recycle numerous Bill Paxton quotes from Aliens. I will pick one: “Why don’t you put her (him, Spencer) in charge?!”

    It is dire how bad our leaders are, and not funny, but I have to laugh.

  5. As written in the earlier piece on this academic dolt….

    February 7, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    This is the intellectual dishonesty (bought and paid for by the $audis) one now finds at Harvard:

    Expansion of Islamic Civilization

    “It was only after several centuries of Muslim rule that the majority of the people in these lands became Muslims, for conversion to Islam is by choice and not compulsion.”

    http://pluralism.org/religion/islam/introduction/expansion

    Clearly, Islam is historically the religion most misunderstood by its own adherents because even Muhammad forced people (e.g., Arabian polytheists, and Muslim apostates) to convert or be murdered and didn’t get Harvard’s memo.

  6. Cesari is representative of a major plague of our time, i.e., a very foolish and superficially informed person with a doctorate. That’s why I created a new acronym to describe such underwhelming people. That acronym is DWD, which stands for Dodo With a Doctorate.

    DWDs are all over the place, for instance at the small college where I taught for some thirty years. There certainly are these fools aplenty at the elite universities (like Harvard) in huge numbers. Really, I don’t think nearly enough people, including mucho amounts of parents shelling out their life savings to send a child of theirs to college, quite understand how Sixties liberalism, an idiocy if ever there were one, has almost completely taken over colleges and universities in America.

    Want pure idiotic leftism (excuse the redundancy as with the term “radical Islam)? Then look no further than almost every American institution of higher learning (talk about a misnomer) that now exists. I mean this as no joke or even an embellishment. Almost all liberal arts, humanities and education departments that exist at sundry American colleges and universties have become so awful that they have managed to become parodies of themselves. Not an any easy thing to do. Jocelyne Cesari could be the poster girl (oh, is this sexist?) for what I have contended.

    I submit to all that so-called higher education in the West has become a total farce outside of engineering, business and science disciplines, and even these have begun to be compromised because of political correctness and multiculturalism. AGW is a case in point.

    Ah, what a useless and unnecessary tragedy all this is. Not surprising though that Islam is taking advantage of the rot in modern higher education in the West. After all, Islam is superb in parasite mode, now isn’t it? Medieval Islam, I submit, is a case in point.

    • According to Leo Rosten, some of the older, Yiddish-speaking Jews used to speak of “Pehudniks”–A pehudnik is a nudnik with a Ph.D.

    • Good points as always, Wellington.

      If we could trade every active Islamic studies prof for three middling Orientalists from 1900 we would be stealing.

  8. That was… devastating. I’d pay to see Miss Cesari’s face while reading Mr. Spencer’s rebuttal.

    • I’d pay too, Angemon. After all, fools in hysterics is a first-class spectator sport.

  9. Just more frustration because we are talking among ourselves.

    We have leaders in Congress who can bring this to the People. We can initiate Constitutional debate and drag the People to the polling booths so that they are informed.

    We have fabulous websites and researchers who have done amazing groundwork in pointing out the danger of the Koran.

    All we need to do is to use this research as productively as we can.

  10. And how much has Haaaaaahvaaaahd (along with other famous universities) distorted the Christian faith?

  11. Quran 9:29 is referring to hostilities having been waged by Jews, Christians etc who previously had signed a peace pact. Shortly after the pact they joined those oppressing Muslims and attacked Muslims so Muhammad was at war with them. Also the first contact with the Romans was when Muhammad sent a diplomat and he was tortured and beheaded.

    All these verses have an historical background of some hostility being instigated first against the Muslims and then Muhammad ordering them to defend themselves.

    At first glance of a lot of these passages without knowing the history one can easily be led to assume they are offensive when they are not but as a result of Muhammad and His followers being constantly pursued and attacked.

    Muhammad was always attacked FIRST before ordering any war.those who betrayed a peace pact were to be brought to submission. It was as a RESULT of breaking a peace pact and attacking Muhammad again and again previously that 9:29 came about yet the ignorance of this is so pervasive here that most will only countenance the view that Muhammad was a criminal and are too closed and narrow minded to entertain or hear the truth as if they couldn’t bear to imagine that the bandwagon they have been pushing all along is dead wrong and complete nonsense and falsehood.

    It takes character to admit one is wrong and to search for truth openly but the object here is just to condemn never to accept that it might not be what it seems and that Muhammad might have been attacked numerous times before finally issuing a command to get these treacherous betrayers of peace pacts to submit to peace.

    There are so many verses like this where Muhammad and His followers were first attacked but the verse only states to go out and attack. Without knowing the history behind the verse it’s imposssible to know it’s real meaning.

    At a guess ISIS and such groups are filled with people who don’t know the history behind these verses or it is deliberately being kept from them and as well un authenticated Hadiths being used to create a criminal organisation and justify it using these people’s ignorance of the true meaning of Islam and the Quran.

    Naive and gullible people have been conned. I’ve not been conned into believing ISIS or the false interpretations coming out of Jihad Watch which are both based on pure ignorance and fantasy of the Revelation of Muhammad.

    Muhammad and His followers were never aggressors but the oppressed. They only attacked in self defense. All. verses talking about attacking are as a RESULT of peace treaties broken and constant attacks against Muhammad and His followers. Without knowing this the interpretation of Jihad Watch is the same as ISIS interpretation based on complete ignorance and leaving out important facts deliberately to promote an agenda.

    Muhammad was a Prophet of God and the Quran is the Word of God and 1.6 billion Muslims are GOOD PEOPLE. Unfortunately the trap that Jihad Watch has apparently fallen into by believing the Wuran preaches violence when it clearly doesn’t is the exact same trap ISIS members have fallen into.

    We Baha’is have NOT fallen into that trap as we are well informed about the Revelation of Muhammad and know it was purely defensive. Which is why you see no Bahai suicide bombers, no Baha’i terrorist or members of ISIS or extreme groups and we would give our life for both Muhammad and the Quran and have accepted over 160 years of constant persecution without retaliation.

    If your object be to find the truth you will find it but if your object is just to oppose you will remain blinded by your own agenda and prejudice and never know the real truth about Muhammad.

    • Your post, David, tends to make me think that Bahais live in a little dream world of their own creation. BTW, care to address Mohammed lusting for his own daugher-in-law, Zaynab, and eventually “getting” her? How about Mo having sexual intercourse with a nine-year old, Aisha? In fact, could you tell me of one sexual desire the great Mo had that was denied him by Allah? And, while you’re at it, did Mo, per Ibn Ishaq (515), truly build a fire on a man’s chest to find out where remaining treasure was? I know you’re not a “fan” of hadiths, guess not the sira too, but perhaps you could explain such passages in the Koran as 98:6 which refers to Christians and Jews as “the vilest of creatures.” How about Sura 5:33? What about Sura 47:4? And let’s not forget those cuddly verses in Sura 8, namely 39 and 60. Or am I ignorant because I’m not ready to treat with these verses “in context?”

      Have I given you enough, David? Or would you like more? Frankly, if the Bahais think of Mohammed in the positive, which apparently they do, I’m afraid I’ll have to chalk them up as just another collection of confused human beings because I think Mohammed exhibited the characteristics of a psychopath, a narcissist and a pedophile, not to mention lesser faults like being a bandit and an overall fraud. But, hey, I appreciate that Bahais like yourself, contra mucho numbers of Muslims, don’t want to kill me for asserting that Mohammed was one profoundly sick human being. Yeah, thanks for that.

      • @Wellington

        The Bahai faith grew out of Persian-speaking Ithna’ashariyya Shi’ite Islam, and counts Muhammad, Ali, Hassan, and Hussein among its heroes and saints; albeit syncretized a bit with just about every other literate religious tradition, too. Perhaps it’s a bit what Arnold Toynbee hoped would be the religion of the future, only grown in Islamic rather than Christian soil.

    • “They only attacked in self defense”

      Excellent!

      Within his lifetime Mohammed came to control the whole Arabian peninsula through self defence.

      And the onslaught of Mohammed’s immediate successors which saw them in control from Spain to India within 100 years was the most spectacular and sustained defensive campaign in history.

      • In all seriousness David raises what seems to me the most important question of all – Were Mohammed’s calls to spread Islam by war indeed limited to his local difficulties or were they intended for all time and the whole world?

        IMHO the Koranic verses can plausibly be interpreted either way according to taste but the 3 things which convince me of the latter interpretation are:

        1. Mohammed’s actions as opposed to his his/Allah’s words. There are plenty of examples of forced conversions by Mohammed which definitely weren’t responses to attacks. Examples here:

        http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Invitations_to_Islam_Prior_to_Violence

        2. The actions of Mohammed’s immediate successors. Mohammed was planning his first move out of Arabia on his death bed (an attack on Byzantine Syria). I am unaware of any hadith in which he says to his companions “OK boys, call it a day after Syria. That’s all Allah wants”.

        3. The scholars, Islamic tradition and the sharia. You can find any number of quotes from these sources supporting the idea of “jihad without limit of time or space” for instance:

        Ibn Khaldun, mediaeval historian:
        “In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force”.

        and

        “The Reliance of the Traveller” the authoritative 14th century Shafi’i manual of religious law:
        “Among the things that entail apostasy from Islam are…to deny that Allah intended the Prophet’s message (Allah bless him and give him peace) to be the religion followed by the entire world”

        I often produce these and others in discussions and challenge my opponents to produce similarly authoritative quotes to the contrary. So far they’ve all just disappeared at that point. Perhaps David can produce one. I would be much obliged if he can.

    • David posted:

      “Quran 9:29 is referring to hostilities having been waged by Jews, Christians etc who previously had signed a peace pact. Shortly after the pact they joined those oppressing Muslims and attacked Muslims so Muhammad was at war with them. Also the first contact with the Romans was when Muhammad sent a diplomat and he was tortured and beheaded.”

      Where is that stated in the quran?

      “All these verses have an historical background of some hostility being instigated first against the Muslims and then Muhammad ordering them to defend themselves.”

      And where is this “historical background” in the quran?

      “At first glance of a lot of these passages without knowing the history one can easily be led to assume they are offensive when they are not but as a result of Muhammad and His followers being constantly pursued and attacked.”

      And where is this “history” in the quran?

      The reason I’ve asked you the same question 3 times is because you, on another topic, claimed the ahadith to be worthless. So where is your knowledge of the “historical background” coming from?

      And muhammad was the one who started the hostilities. He insulted the gods and ancestors of the meccans and that lead to him having to move to Medina. While in Medina, he started attacking the caravans of the meccans. If the meccans really wanted to kill muhammad they should have pressed on after the battle of Uhud.

      “Muhammad was always attacked FIRST before ordering any war”

      Nope, see above.

      “those who betrayed a peace pact were to be brought to submission. It was as a RESULT of breaking a peace pact and attacking Muhammad again and again previously that 9:29 came about yet the ignorance of this is so pervasive here that most will only countenance the view that Muhammad was a criminal and are too closed and narrow minded to entertain or hear the truth as if they couldn’t bear to imagine that the bandwagon they have been pushing all along is dead wrong and complete nonsense and falsehood.”

      Huh, muhammad WAS a criminal. What would you call someone who:

      – Molests a six-year-old Baby Aisha child

      – Has sex with a nine-year-old child

      – Captured and raped women

      – Kept women as sex slaves

      – Ordered POW to be killed

      – Forcibly expelled Christians and Jews from Saudi Arabia.

      – Ordered the assassination of people for insulting him or islam.

      – Ordered the extermination of non-muslims

      – Captured, owned and sold slaves.

      – Forbid the befriending of Jews and Christians

      – Oppressed women

      – Allowed prostitution.

      – Allowed the beating of one’s wives.

      – Beat his child-wife

      – Encouraged suicide attacks.

      – Had apostates executed

      – Allowed honor killings

      – Had adulterers stoned to death

      – Ordered the chopping of hands/feet from thieves.

      – Tortured a man out of greed.

      – Attacked trade caravans

      – Preached hate against people of other religions.

      – Extorted money from people of other religions

      “It takes character to admit one is wrong and to search for truth openly but the object here is just to condemn never to accept that it might not be what it seems and that Muhammad might have been attacked numerous times before finally issuing a command to get these treacherous betrayers of peace pacts to submit to peace.”

      You’re right – it takes character to admit one’s wrong. You, however, are not interested in searching for the truth. You claimed that the ahadith are worthless fabrications, so where is your knowledge of “historical background” is supposed to come from? Because the ahadith don’t back your claim that muhammad was always attacked first.

      “There are so many verses like this where Muhammad and His followers were first attacked but the verse only states to go out and attack. Without knowing the history behind the verse it’s imposssible to know it’s real meaning.”

      Repetition, repetition, repetition. Is that all you got? Do you plan on keep repeating the same lie over and over again, without offering any sort of proof to back your claim?

      “At a guess ISIS and such groups are filled with people who don’t know the history behind these verses or it is deliberately being kept from them and as well un authenticated Hadiths being used to create a criminal organisation and justify it using these people’s ignorance of the true meaning of Islam and the Quran.”

      And yet, muslim imams worldwide have pledged their allegiance to the islamic state – do these imams know not the history behind the quran?

      “Naive and gullible people have been conned. I’ve not been conned into believing ISIS or the false interpretations coming out of Jihad Watch which are both based on pure ignorance and fantasy of the Revelation of Muhammad.”

      That’s an echo of what you said on another topic. Remember how that turned out for you? You were unable to give any evidence to prove that ahadith are fabrications and you ended up admitting you knew very well that most muslims worldwide believe the ahadith and the “false interpretation” (by which you mean “accurate explanation of what muslims believe”) of Jihad Watch.

      “Muhammad and His followers were never aggressors but the oppressed. They only attacked in self defense.”

      Once again, see above – not only you don’t give any sort of proof to back your claim, but believing what you’re saying also requires us to throw away the islamic sources in which muslims believe. It’s not us that you have to convince, it’s the majority of muslims worldwide.

      “All. verses talking about attacking are as a RESULT of peace treaties broken and constant attacks against Muhammad and His followers.”

      Too bad that’s not what muslims believe since the invention of islam…

      “Without knowing this the interpretation of Jihad Watch is the same as ISIS interpretation based on complete ignorance and leaving out important facts deliberately to promote an agenda.”

      As I pointed out above, JihadWatch merely reports on what muslims say and believe – it’s not that JW and the IS interpret islam the same way, it’s that the IS says one thing and JW says “IS said such and such”. Just the standard “you’re just empowering the terrorists” accusation – as if muslims come to JW for matters of islamic interpretation.

      “Muhammad was a Prophet of God”

      No, he was a narcissistic highway-robber with a god complex.

      “and the Quran is the Word of God and 1.6 billion Muslims are GOOD PEOPLE. Unfortunately the trap that Jihad Watch has apparently fallen into by believing the Wuran preaches violence when it clearly doesn’t is the exact same trap ISIS members have fallen into.”

      Once again, again: JW reports on what muslims do and say.

      “We Baha’is have NOT fallen into that trap as we are well informed about the Revelation of Muhammad and know it was purely defensive.”

      How do you know that when you throw away the ahadith explaining the circumstances of the “revelations” of the quranic verses?

      “Which is why you see no Bahai suicide bombers, no Baha’i terrorist or members of ISIS or extreme groups and we would give our life for both Muhammad and the Quran and have accepted over 160 years of constant persecution without retaliation.”

      Huh, the quran isn’t the only sacred text to the baha’i, is it?

      “If your object be to find the truth you will find it but if your object is just to oppose you will remain blinded by your own agenda and prejudice and never know the real truth about Muhammad.”

      What “real truth” would that be? Your fairytale vision or the narrative which the majority of muslims worldwide believe in?

    • (Quran 8:67) “Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. BUT ALLAH DESIRES KILLING THEM TO MANIFEST THE RELIGION”

      You, oh taqiyya merchant, must be reading the expurgated koran…

  12. Defeatist. I personally think that you are grossly exaggerating the situation. It’s difficult, granted, but I simply do not see the USA, or any other part of ‘the West’, as a lost cause. If *you* think so, then why the hell do you bother posting *anything* here?

    You do realize that you are telling – indeed, arrogantly *ordering* – ordinary decent Americans and other westerners, many of whom post and lurk here – to give in to Despair, Despair which is one of the seven deadly sins? Which is hardly what one would expect of someone who claims to be a Christian.

    Sometimes I wonder whether you aren’t a mohammedan in a mask, a “Tokyo Rose”, playing a little ‘split the camp” (since you present as an eastern European or perhaps Russian, with a major ‘hate’ going against the West *as such*, not just the modern West), posting with the aim of demoralising and therefore immobilising those many, many many intelligent and decent Westerners (not only Americans) who lob in here every day and find out the truth about Islam.

    If you’re *not* a mohammedan in a mask playing Tokyo Rose, then I’d advise you to spend the next forty days of Lent praying. Pray for God’s blessing on Mr Spencer and on Brigitte Gabriel and ACT for America and **pray that they may prevail and that America (and the rest of ‘the West’, which is *not* a monolithic bloc, every country in it is different) will wake up**.

    • Okay, I have my answer. It looks like you will be spending Lent praying and hoping that the Muslims will kill us all and the sooner the better? How many of us do you want dead? ALL of us?

      Me, the people at my church, Mr Spencer, every single perfectly ordinary decent man and woman who posts here at this forum, and all the others that we know. The West is NOT as 100 percent black as you keep on claiming. And yet you want us all dead, dead, dead, it seems. Dead or enslaved, and everything beautiful and good that our forebears have ever built or created, smashed to bits or burnt to ashes. Nothing less will satisfy you?

      Yes our various nations – and we are not and never have been one monolithic bloc, by the way – have done evil and stupid things in the past; **who hasn’t?** But to claim that we have *only* ever been evil, and nothing else, is gross exaggeration. And to speak as if you think we – *all* the nations and *all* the people of ‘the West’ – are wholly beyond redemption, incapable of change, incapable of doing anything other than our current crop of foolish leaders are doing is, I think, entirely unwarranted.

      But are *you* and *your* nation totally innocent, pure and holy, without sin? Is Russia, is Serbia – you are a Serb? – totally 100 percent pure and innocent, is there *no* blood on *your* hands, no sins and follies and outright ghastly mistakes and bad leaders in *your* history?

      I do not believe that *any* sane Infidel should desire the jihadist annihilation of *any* other non-Muslim person or society.

      *I* certainly don’t.

      *I* do not desire nor would I ever pray for the destruction, by Muslims, of *any* non-Muslim nation or group of nations.

      Is it not possible for a Christian in the east to forgive and *pray* for the Christians in the West, and vice versa? Whatever happened to our Lord’s saying about ‘seventy times seven’??

    • I really am starting to worry about this discussion forum in the last few months. It’s getting very angry.

  13. Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day nor hold that forbidden which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger nor acknowledge the religion of truth (Islam) from among the People of the Book…9:29 does not say fight those attacking you, fight in self-defense, it says fight (and kill, qital) people because of their BELIEFS.

    If this verse was limited to a particular time and place (and to self-defense) why did it become the basis for the institutions of dhimmitude and jihad? Convert, pay the jizya and be subjugated, or die, were the only three choices Muhammad and his successors gave anybody. Muhammad made jihad, aggressive warfare to remove the obstacles to the authority of Islam, obligatory until the Day of Judgment. No self-defense anywhere in sight. Why is it the Mujahid who engages in jihad fighting is far above the mere Muslim, higher still the ghazi who slays the unbelievers, higher still the shahid martyr who gets killed in jihad and can now go straight to Paradise, unlike the mere Muslim who has no such guarantee? Here is how 9:29 was understood and implemented by real Muslims, including those closest to Muhammad after his death:

    “This command (9:29) is still incumbent upon Muslims, whose duty it still is to compel Jews and Christians either to become Muslims or to be reduced to a condition worse than that of slaves. As we shall now show, the early Muslims recognized this obligation, and therefore conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Persia, and other lands. Doubtless the chief reason with many of them for engaging in such conquests was the love of war and the desire of plunder and female slaves: but all this was sanctioned and encouraged by their religion. Hence the professed object of each war was the spread of Islam, and thus it was proclaimed a Jihad. We have seen that Abu Bakr called the invasion of Syria by this name…Historians openly apply the same title to each of these wars of conquest. And the terms offered to the inhabitants of these countries, being those laid down in Surah ix. 29, show that the Muslim generals fully recognized this…

    the Katibu’l Waqidi relates 6 that Abu Musa’ was sent by Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas to the Persian general Rustam before the battle of Qadisiyyah to say: “We summon you to bear witness: and, if ye refuse Islam, then pay the jizyah-tax; and, if ye refuse, then the sword is a very reliable witness.” It is evident that, in thus compelling Christians and Zoroastrians to choose between (1) becoming Muslims against their will, (2) paying the jizyah-tax and being bitterly humiliated, and (3) being put to death, the Arab generals were obeying the Qur’an (Surah ix. 29).

    Those who live or have travelled in Muslim lands well know how miserable is the condition of the Dhimmis (whether Jews, Christians, or Zoroastrians) there. They cannot even give evidence in a court of justice, they cannot defend themselves from wrong and violence, they are liable at any moment to be massacred by the Muslims,—as at Adana recently, in Armenia and in Bulgaria only a few years ago. For many generations the children of Christians were often taken away by force, made Muslims by violence, and compelled to serve as Janissaries.

    When the reviser of these pages was in Persia, near Isfahan, he had a Muslim acquaintance there who dwelt in a neighbouring village. This Persian said to him: “When I was a little boy some fifty years ago, my parents and I and all the people in our village were Zoroastrians. One day the chief Mujtahid of the city of Isfahan issued a decree, commanding us all to embrace Islam. We petitioned the Prince-Governor of the province, we refused to change our religion, we offered bribes to leading Muslim nobles and ‘Ulama. They took our money, but did not help us at all. The Mujtahid gave us until midday on the following Friday to be converted, declaring that we should all be put to death if we did not at that time at latest become Muslims. That morning all the lowest ruffians from the city surrounded our village, each with some deadly weapon in his hand, awaiting the appointed hour to permit him to begin the work of plunder and murder. We waited in vain until it was almost midday, hoping that our enemy would relent. As he did not, just before noon we all accepted Islam, and thus saved our lives.”

    In the same country until quite recently there was still in force the law that, if any single member of a Christian family, even the youngest son could be induced to embrace Islam, all the property of the family was at once handed over to him; his father, mother, brothers and sisters being turned out of their home and left destitute. When we consider the cruelty and oppression which for about 1,300 years has been the lot of Dhimmis in all Muslim lands, the marvel is that any of them have been able to resist the inducements and the pressure brought upon them to become hypocrites.”
    THE MIZANU’L HAQQ (Balance of Power) W. St. Clair Tisdall from tr. C. G. Pfander 1910

    Muhammad, Abu Bakr, Khalid bin al_Walid, they’d all feel right at home with ISIS.

  14. Just think, if we were all “trees” we would be safe from these savages. If they keep it up they may end-up being glass.

  15. Do you think so? One or two more attacks and the tide of the public opinion may turn again. If you read the comments session on any news paper in Britain, even the leftist, the attacks on Islam are non stop, there are a lot of people who are studying Islam with a critical eye.

  16. Guys, when you see a link like this one, you comment here, but please comment there as well. Let’s bash them.

  17. I must say that the more I hear of Harvard the more I think that it must be morally and intellectually bankrupt. A little like Cambridge University UK. So many of our career politicians (those who’ve never had a proper job), and particularly the marxist ones, have attended Cambridge and claim to have also attended Harvard, or taught at Harvard. Miliband is one such and Lammy is another. There will be many more. Their common features are to be ” a little odd” on a personal level; to lack the ability of logical argument; to be lacking in honesty; to be extreme left in their views whilst following a champagne lifestyle; to be completely unaware of what life is like outside their private bubble. Cesari sounds as though she might fit that mould. Kerry is certainly odd but he attended Yale and may have actually had a career outside of politics or academia. Or am I reaching the wrong conclusions about these centres of excellence and their alumni.

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