After every attack by Muslim terrorists, Muslims, and many non-Muslim apologists for Islam, insist that “these attacks cannot possibly have anything to do with Islam.” But now, after the attack in Medina, a new mantra is being chanted, which is that these attacks have something to do with Islam because they constitute “an attack on Islam.”
The U.N. human rights chief, for example, a member of the Jordanian royal family, called the suicide bombing outside the Prophet Mohammad’s Mosque in the Saudi city of Medina “an attack on Islam itself.” He was echoed by others, including the tireless Muslim propagandist Haroon Moghul, who wrote that the “Medina attack is an assault on Islam itself.” Still others have lumped the Saudi attacks in with those in Baghdad and Dhaka, claiming that in these attacks of the last few weeks “Muslims have been the main victims.” (In a purely arithmetical sense, given the 200 killed in Baghdad, that may be – misleadingly – true). My, how quick so many of us are to sow or reap confusion.
Let’s try to keep clear and distinct what each of these attacks was targeting.
The first thing to do is not to allow ourselves to forget what the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka was all about. Beyond any confusion or doubt, it was an attack solely on non-Muslims. These were selected, by their killers, through the administration of a macabre quiz about the Qur’an. Those who, among the patrons and staff, showed sufficient knowledge of the Qur’an, were spared, and were even treated solicitously by the attackers, who made sure they were fed, while those who could not pass it were identified as non-Muslims, and tortured and killed.
Indeed, the attackers appear to have suggested to those they had spared that they should try to be just like themselves, they who had been busily torturing and killing 20 men and women, as the very models of “good Muslims” that others should emulate:
“When they realised that troops might storm the building, they came to our room one last time and told us not to tarnish the name of Islam, be a good Muslim and uphold the pride of Islam. They said they had no intention of hurting us as we were Muslims.”
Whatever place it may have attained in the annals of grotesque cruelty, what happened at the Holey Artisan restaurant did not constitute an “attack on Muslims.”
After Dhaka, it was bombs away in Baghdad, set off in the mainly Shi’a Karada neighborhood, killing nearly 200 people. Was this an “attack on Islam,” as some Western apologists for Islam have claimed? (Sunni Muslims are noticeably silent on the attacks aimed at Shi’a, and are careful not to claim that such attacks are an “attack on Islam itself.”) No, those bombs were targeted at Karada precisely because the Shi’a, in the view of the energetic takfiris of ISIS, are not real Muslims at all. And it is not just the Sunnis of ISIS, but other Sunnis, too, who share that view.
We must not forget that according to these Sunnis, the Shi’a are “Rafidite dogs” (from “rafida” – “rejectionists”), so called because they reject the legitimacy of three of the caliphs — Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman — who followed Muhammad, insisting instead that the only legitimate successor to Muhammad was Ali. This is the main, but not the only difference between Shi’a and Sunnis. The most extreme Sunnis regard the Shi’a as even worse than Christians and Jews. An ISIS spokesman put it this way in 2015: “The greatest answer to this question [are the Shi’a worse than Christians and Jews] is in the Qur’an, where Allah speaks about the nearby enemy – those Muslims who have become infidels – as they are more dangerous than those which were already infidels.” ISIS has been ferocious in its nonstop denunciation of the Shi’a. In the 13th edition of the ISIS magazine Dabiq, for example, the main article is entitled The Rafidah: From Ibn Saba’ to the Dajjal; this article contains “pages of violent rhetoric directed against Shiites,” who it claims are “more severely dangerous and more murderous…than the Americans.” The article justifies the killing of Shia Muslims, whom ISIS insists are not Muslims at all but apostates, and apostasy in Islam is punishable by death.
What about the three simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia? Surely these were, as the egregious Haroon Moghul assures us, “attacks on Islam itself”?
Let’s take those attacks one by one.
The first was the attack in Qatif, in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, where almost all of the Shi’a live. The bombs in Qatif went off outside a Shi’a mosque, and were meant to kill only Shi’a, who are despised in the Wahhabi kingdom, called “Rafida,” just as they are by Sunnis in ISIS. In Qatif, there was neither an attack “on Islam” nor on Muslims, but on the Shi’a, regarded – see the excerpt from Dabiq above — by their uber-Sunni attackers as apostates from Islam.
The second attack was in Jeddah, with an attacker blowing himself up near the American consulate, but not piercing its perimeter. This was clearly meant to be an attack on American Infidels. Again, not an “attack on Islam.”
The third attack was in Medina, and here is where the “attack on Islam” description might, one may think, be justified. But is it? The attack appears to have hit its intended target, not the mosque itself, but the Saudi security forces stationed near the Prophet’s Mosque. It was an attack, that is, on the Saudi state, attempting to show that the Saudi rulers’ main claim to legitimacy, as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, was hollow. For if the Saudi security forces could be hit even at the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, how could the Al-Saud present themselves as effective guardians (that is, protectors) of the two holy mosques? ISIS regards the Saudi rulers as not real Muslims, even though ISIS and the Saudis share the same Wahhabi brand of Islam. For it is not doctrinal matters, as with the Shia, that makes ISIS regard the Al-Saud as enemies and infidels. It is, rather, because of the way the Al-Saud lead their lives. That over-the-top decadence of all those princes and princelings and princelettes, their pocketing of so much of the national wealth, their spending of much of that wealth on themselves, their mega-yachts in the Mediterranean, their shopping sprees in Paris, their gambling in London and Las Vegas, their gamboling in southern Spain and southern France, their buying up of fabulous pleasure palaces all over the Western world, their incessant whoring – this has earned the fury of ISIS, and of other Muslims too. That was what the bombs in Medina were about: a successful attack on the Al-Saud in their official role as protectors of the two holy places would weaken their claim to rule. For ISIS the Al-Saud are “tyrants” who have “corrupted the faith” in order to hold onto power, and despite their claims of being observant Wahhabis, deserve to be considered as apostates, as infidels.
We mustn’t allow ourselves to be confused by the seeming variety of targets ISIS has chosen, and overlook what links them in our eagerness to believe that “Islam is under attack” and that as a result, perhaps, now all those “moderate Muslims” (yet another forlorn hope we cling to) will join forces with us, the world’s Infidels, against the “extremists.” In Dhaka, it was clearly non-Muslims who were the target. In Baghdad, it was “apostate” Shi’a, who for ISIS are even worse infidels than Christians and Jews. In Saudi Arabia, the targets were three varieties of Infidels: Americans in Jeddah, “apostate” Shi’a in Qatif, and the Al-Saud in Medina (as represented by their surrogates, the security services), whose decadence ISIS describes as equivalent to apostasy. Despite the Haroon Moghuls of this world, it is not Islam that is “under attack,” but whomever the Islamic State defines, to its own murderous satisfaction, as Infidels. That’s the unhappy moral of Dhaka, Baghdad, Qatif, Jeddah, and Medina. Only that, and nothing more.

Angry Aussie says
Please wake me when the Qibla is blown up. It’s the landmark I am most interested in. Islam may well implode if they can’t play ring-a-ring-a-rosey around it seven times a year.
Westman says
Take a look at how junky it was back in time. If any piece the black stone survived, they would simply build another Kaaba. The main point of the pilgrimage is a similitude of the Hijrah. I doubt much of the original Kaaba exists. It was even deeply flooded back in 1941.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oboudi2001/sets/72157625225980221/
EYESOPEN says
“The main point of the pilgrimage is a similitude of the Hijrah.”
Westman, I think you must have meant the “hajj”, not the “hijrah”. The “hijrah” – or “immigration jihad” – is happening all over the Western world as we speak.
Westman says
I guess I should have said the Hajj pilgrimage is a kind of reactment of the final triumphal journey from Medina to Mecca.
jewdog says
Nice explanation, thanks Hugh.
It highlights the fact that ISIS is actually a very well organized outfit with a coherent ideology and world view. If we hope to defeat it, one tool would be to offer an alternative world view would be more compelling than the ISIS version. We could then constructively criticize ISIS, and kill them, while still offering a positive vision.
sog says
We Americans should have converted them to be pious Scientologists when we had the chance.
jewdog says
Tom Cruise is bad enough.
WorkingClassPost says
So the targets are clear, and the timing too, given that IS have previously said how they intended to celebrate ramadamn.
This death fest is just about as islamic as it gets.
Angemon says
Great article.
Jay Boo says
Strange
When infidels attack ISIS, Muslims worldwide consider it an attack on Islam.
Who is right?
——————————————————————————————
Nothing to do with Islam — whenever an attack is by Muslim terrorists.
Yet,
Considered an attack on Islam — whenever infidels attack the same Muslim terrorists.
isabella van der westhuizen says
It is all pretty confusing
I never really knew much about Islam as it did not interest me in the slightest
It is all extremely complex
If they don’t like you you get killed
umbra says
No, not complex at all. Only three choices, it wants to convert, subjugate or kill you.
EYESOPEN says
That about sums it up.
ECAW says
Elegantly explained as always by Hugh Fitzgerald but I am under the impression that there is a doctrinal issue between ISIS and the House of Saud. As well as disapproving of the Saudis’ way of life I believe they deny the right of earthly kings to stand between the Ummah and the almighty, ie a monarchy as opposed to a thorough going theocracy.
From a blogpost on the subject:
“In 1975 King Faisal was shot dead by his nephew, angered by the encroachment of western beliefs and innovation into Wahhabist society. More serious was the seizure in 1979 of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by a revived Ikhwan [not to be confused with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan] under Juhayman al-Otaybi. Among other doctrines they believed that it was necessary for “the Muslims to overthrow their present corrupt rulers who are forced upon them and lack Islamic attributes since the Quran recognizes no king or dynasty”. After three weeks al-Otaybi and his forces were flushed out and subsequently beheaded.
The Saudis’ response was to channel the volatile Ikhwani current away from home by exporting its tenets. Since the seventies the Saudis have spent $100 billion promoting Wahhabism around the world through mosques, Imams, Islamic centres, schools, literature, scholarships, academics, journalists and prison conversion programmes.
Until now the Saudis have been able to suppress Wahhabist zealotry within their own borders while encouraging it abroad. Now they find themselves facing an army not far from their borders which does not recognise any temporal power other than the mosque and which actively disseminates the writings of their spiritual predecessor Juhayman al-Otaybi. The Islamic State, like the Ikhwan, is Wahhabism without the concession to temporal power granted to the House of Saud.”
umbra says
Well, if a large enough proportion of the saudi population goes full-wasabi, then the house of saud may end. Compounding this is that there is also internal rivalry within the different branches of the family. Perhaps one side of the family is supporting unrest and insurgency within the kingdom, hoping that such instability would lead to the political removal of the current line of ruler. Specifically, the replacement of the present crown prince.
ECAW says
Agreed. I read somewhere that the reason Saudi, Jordan and others won’t attack ISIS is because half their toops would defect.
umbra says
Well, if these people have been fed wasabi since birth, it is only natural that they choose wasabi the over al saudi. If these wasabis gain sufficient strength, they probably would challenge al saud directly. Given the state of the saudi economy (downturn along with cuts in subsidies), many may well be flocking to the wasabi banner.
Wellington says
Fine article and demonstrative of the twists and turns that mental aberration I call Muslimthink can take. Anything is possible with Muslimthink, even, as mortimer mentioned here some time ago at JW, that Islam has nothing to do with Islam. And, of course, good and obedient dhimmis can partake in Muslimthink too. Yes indeed, Muslimthink welcomes anyone, Muslim and infidel alike, and thus huge numbers of people partake in Muslimthink, thus demonstrating that it is really is possible to essentially forego all elements of ratiocination if one really works at it.
Westman says
Nice term, Wellington. Orwell would be pleased to have coined such an oxymoron as “Muslimthink”
Applying doublethink, the Medina atrack was an assault by Islam, itself.
Bobby Jones IV says
Very nice article Hugh. Yes there are two wings of Islam. Actually its a multi winged
Deviant Parasite. But you have ISIS waging war with Weapons made in the West or in
Russia. They make nothing! It’s hard to win a war with 19th century weapons. But the
goal of Bin Laden was to bankrupt the USA. The Glutiny and Decadence of the West is there
for all to see. But the KSA is about spreading violence and hate and buying off Western
Govts in particular the USA. Hillary is infested with the Muslim Brotherhood along with the
usual band of Leftist Anarchists/Greedy Scum.
From the first moment I started studying Islam (Fascism) I said we must isolate them. Of course
“they” then elected Obama, a man born with a dirty Muslim Father, to replace the Bushes who had
close connections to the Wahabbi Trash. You cannot make this up. What happened to our great
patriotic country of 30 years ago??
The other thing that Huge does not mention is that Muslims spent most of their time fighting each
other for hundreds of years. Persian vs Pakistani (who at that time was Hindu), Mongels vs Turks,
Arabic Muslims vs everyone (who were then subjugated by the Turks for what 500 years) Africa
was devastated by the Slave Trade and Jihads!
And the USA is right in the middle of things again??? With $ 20 Trillion dollars of debt.
Lenin and Muhammad must both be sporting a smile from Hell about that (if they can must
a smile that is) !
mortimer says
Islamthink is disinformation, wrapped in taqiyya, hidden inside layers of kitman, muruna, and muda’arat…but perhaps there is a key. That key is Islamic supremacism.
What is it that a supremacist wants? What will he do to get it? Whom will he bribe to get it?
Who in the West receives the biggest bribes from the Saudis?
mortimer says
Saudi school texts tell Sunnite students to hate all kafirs for the sake of Allah. Shi’ites, they are told, are also kafirs. Saudi students must hate Shi’ites, even if they happen to be Shi’ites.
The official denomination of Islam in Saudi Arabia has been called ‘Salafism’. We are told that there are two kinds of Salafism: 1) the Saudi version, where you ‘hate’ but don’t necessarily act on it and 2) the ISIS version of Salafism, where you ‘hate’ for the sake of Allah AND ACT ON IT!
So, once again, we see that SALAFISM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SALAFISM.
Dum Spiro says
Most people in the US it seems don’t know or even care to know salafi from salami, wahabi from wasabi, sunnah from tuna or Muhammad from molasses.
Jihad Watch et al. (and your didactic comments) at least can help enlighten the ignorant…
— Spero
Vrar says
As far as Moghul is concerned, he may be off-base, but what do you guys think about this article by him?
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/opinions/orlando-shooting-moghul/index.html
eduardo odraude says
Another factor: even though most of the jihadists on 9/11/01 were Saudis, the Saudis are sometimes perceived as allies of the evil U.S. and thus as apostates from Islam.
jewdog says
I read that the attack on the mosque was because it was being used as a shrine and therefore distracting from a pure, human-free form of worship…unless I’m confusing this with Mohammed’s tomb…there are so many attacks it’s hard to keep up…
Champ says
After every attack by Muslim terrorists, Muslims, and many non-Muslim apologists for Islam, insist that “these attacks cannot possibly have anything to do with Islam.” But now, after the attack in Medina, a new mantra is being chanted, which is that these attacks have something to do with Islam because they constitute “an attack on Islam.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are never in short supply of false narratives that serve to paint islam as a “religion of peace”, are we?
“these attacks cannot possibly have anything to do with Islam.”
And …
“an attack on Islam.”
All just smoke ‘n mirrors!
islam is an attack on humanity!! ..and it’s *wholly* evil, too.
EYESOPEN says
You hit the nail on the head there Champ!
Baconator says
Were the 4th of July firecrackers an attack on American democracy?
JP says
Proves my point that when there are no Jews they attack Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Secular Humanists and those unavailable, other Moslems. Vile animals.