“Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, then I have declared war against him.” This is one of the Hadith Qudsi — the holy hadith, in which Muhammad quotes Allah saying something that is not in the Qur’an. They are considered on par with the Qur’an itself. In any case, clearly this verse refers to being an enemy to those who are supposedly fighting the Muslims — that is, U.S. military personnel.
“Tennessee suspect texted friend link to Islamic verse before attack,” by Richard Valdmanis, Reuters, July 18, 2015:
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (Reuters) – Hours before the Tennessee shooting that killed five U.S. servicemen, the suspected gunman texted his close friend a link to a long Islamic verse that included the line: “Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, then I have declared war against him.”
The friend, who requested anonymity, showed the text message to Reuters on Saturday. He said he thought nothing of the message at the time, but now wonders if it was a hint at Thursday’s attack in Chattanooga.
The suspect, Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, a 24-year-old Kuwaiti-born naturalized U.S. citizen, was killed in a gunfight with police. The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism, but said it was premature to speculate on the gunman’s motive.
The rampage has re-ignited concerns about the radicalization of young Muslim men. Abdulazeez’s friends said he returned from a trip to Jordan in 2014 concerned about conflicts in the Middle East and the reluctance of the United States and other countries to intervene.
After the trip, he purchased three assault rifles on an online marketplace and used them for target practice, the friends said.
“He expressed that he was upset about (the Middle East). But I can’t imagine it drove him to this,” said the friend who received the text message….
Abdulazeez’s friends, who asked not to be identified for fear of a backlash, said he was upset about the 2014 Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza and the civil war in Syria.
“He felt Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia were not doing enough to help, and that they were heavily influenced by the United States,” said the friend who received the text message.
Another friend said, “He had always talked about it, but I’d say his level of understanding and awareness really rose after he came back.”
Abdulazeez, an engineer, had occasionally smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, and struggled to reconcile that with his faith in Islam, the friends said. At one point, in 2012 or 2013, he received therapy for his drugs and alcohol use, they said.
“He used it to de-stress, when things were difficult at home, or whatever,” the first friend said, adding that tensions between Abdulazeez and his Palestinian parents had upset him. His parents nearly got divorced in 2009, according to court records.
Abdulazeez also had problems with local youths that sometimes took on a religious and racial tone, the friend said.
“There were rednecks, ignorant people, who sometimes would cause problems. Mo never fought, but he used to get worked up and yell and stuff,” he said. “Afterwards he would calm down, and just say it doesn’t matter.”
Abdulazeez went to the Middle East in 2010 and visited several countries, according to the friend. He then went to Jordan in 2014 to work for his uncle, and lived with his uncle and his grandparents there, the friend said….
Abdulazeez had purchased three guns on armslist.com after returning from Jordan, including an AK-74, an AR-15, and a Saiga 12, his friends said. They said he also owned a 9mm and a .22 caliber hand guns….
“He was always interested in guns, since he was young. He started with a BB gun and paintball, and went on from there. We would go out shooting quite often,” said the friend who received the text message….
The night before the attack, just after 10 p.m., the friend received a text from Abdulazeez with this link to a Hadith, or Islamic teaching: http://sunnah.com/nawawi40/3.
For jihadists and ultraconservative Salafist Sunni Muslims, the Hadith “is usually understood within the context of al-wala wa-l-bara (or) love for Islam and hatred for its enemies,” said David Cook, an associate professor who specializes in Islam in the department of religion at Rice University in Texas….