In his recent book “Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State,” Roy argues that about 70 percent of these young people have scant knowledge of Islam, and suggests they are “radical” before even choosing Islam. He dubs them “born again Muslims” who lead libertine lives before their sudden conversion to violent fundamentalism. — Haaretz
It’s hard to know where to begin with this. Who decides what constitutes “scant knowledge of Islam”? One would like to see what questions were asked to determine this. Were those interviewing the “young people” (a cohort, one assumes, consisting of those who had gone to join the Islamic State and returned) Muslims themselves, who might have a stake in downplaying the “Islamic” knowledge of those they question? Were these ignorant Muslims unaware of the 109 Jihad verses? Some of them? All of them? And what constitutes leading “libertine lives”? Drinking alcohol? Having premarital sex? Smoking marijuana? Would indulging in only one of those Western vices, like Salman Abedi with his occasional cannabis, be enough for someone to feel the need to atone by becoming a shahid? And when Roy says these Islamic terrorists were “radical” before “even choosing Islam,” why was it, does he think, that Islam was chosen, why did Islam turn out to be the perfect fit, the right vehicle, for those “radicals” who were hellbent on aggression and destruction, if Islam, so we are often told, preaches peace and tolerance?
As for leading “libertine lives,” it is true that some Muslim terrorists, before “returning to Islam,” seem to have been inattentive to its rules, and indulged in Western “decadence” by drinking alcohol, or having premarital sex, or smoking marijuana. As has been well documented, some of those who re-embrace Islam after having fallen away may do so with a fanaticism that can be explained as a kind of atonement for ever having violated the rules on Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong. But not all Muslim terrorists follow Olivier Roy’s own “narrative”; many had always been unbending in their faith, and were not atoning for anything when they acted on their beliefs and became Jihadists. They were simply carrying out what the Qur’an commanded. And Salman Abedi had always been one of the latter: a devout Muslim, from a very devout family, and a hafiz to boot.
“It’s the Islamification of radicalism that we need to investigate, not the radicalization of Islam,” Roy says, begging the question of why radical youths would choose violent fundamentalist Islam over other destructive creeds to engage in terrorism.
Islam does not need to be “radicalized” nor radicals “Islamized” for Muslims to become terrorists. The Qur’an, hadith, and sira supply all the “radicalization” — that is, the inculcated violence and aggression toward Infidels — that “radicals” require. But there is not a mainstream Islam and another, quite different, “radicalized” Islam. The same texts and teachings are to be found in mainstream mosques and madrasas as in those some describe as preaching, or teaching, a “radicalized” Islam. There may be differences in emphasis and tone in an imam’s khutba, but not in the essence of the message, which is to be found in the same Qur’an, in same Hadith and sira, that all Muslims read. The Muslim terrorist is not violating, but following, the commands, and the great example, of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
These “new radicals” embrace the Islamic State’s narrative as it’s the only radical narrative available in the “global market of fundamentalist ideologies,” Roy says. “In the past they would have been drawn, for example, to far-left political extremism.” Half of violent jihadis in France, Germany and the United States also have criminal records for petty crime, just like Abedi, who appears to have been radicalized without the involvement of the local mosque or religious community, an element that mirrors patterns in the rest of Europe.
According to Olivier Roy, these young Muslims choose the Islamic State’s “narrative” just because it’s the only radical one available. In the past, he says they might have been drawn to “far-left extremism.” Well, there is an Islamic past, some 1400 years of it, easily available for study, and Roy might discover that numerous Muslims during all those centuries behaved very much like the “Islamized” radicals today, conducting Jihad through whatever means, including especially violence, proved most effective, and determined to continue that Jihad until Infidels were subjugated, and were converted, or killed, or agreed to pay the Jizyah. Muslims were always required to conduct Jihad, a duty which does not end until Islam everywhere dominates, and Muslims rule, everywhere. For a long time Muslims were successful in their conquests, but Europe eventually surpassed them in military technology and strength. The European counterattack lasted for roughly the last two centuries (since Napoleon entered Egypt in 1798), and led, among other developments deemed disastrous by Muslims, to the end of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924. But in recent decades, several factors have made possible a renewed campaign against the West by aggressive Jihadists.
The first factor is that Muslim countries became immensely rich from the sale of oil. They have been the recipients of over $25 trillion dollars in oil revenues since 1973 alone, money which has helped fund the worldwide building of mosques and madrassas, of Islamic community centers, and of subsidies to an army of Muslim missionaries, as well as paying for apologists and propagandists for Islam, by no means all of them Muslim. And that money has also come in useful for the bribing of political figures, diplomats, representatives at the U.N., who have helped distract attention from what has been rightly labeled, by Robert Spencer, the Stealth Jihad.
The second factor has been the large-scale immigration of Muslims to the West, that is, of people who have been inculcated to be permanently hostile to their Infidel hosts. There are now close to 50 million Muslims in Europe, behind borders that they have always been taught to regard as enemy lines. Very few are integrating into their host societies. Very many are now a permanent threat to those whose lands they have so thoughtlessly been allowed to share.
The third factor is technology — the advances, from cell phones to the Internet, from satellite television to YouTube videos, that have made spreading the full message of Islam all over the world much easier. By now no Muslim can claim ignorance of his duties, both of Jihad and of What Is Commanded and What Is Forbidden. The Internet presents Muslims with the same access everywhere to materials — not just the main texts of Qur’an, hadith, and sira, but also the works of the historians of Islam, the commentators on the Qur’an, the most authoritative hadith scholars, those who today, like Yusuf al-Qaradawi, provide counsel and answer the questions of Believers — all that once to be found only in good-sized mosques and madrasas and libraries, but now only requires a click or two on the Internet. The effect of money, migrants, and technology helps explain why non-Muslims in the West have been insufficiently alarmed about Islam (all those well-paid apologists and propagandists have successfully silenced or misrepresented thoughtful critics as “Islamophobes”), why campaigns of conversions, now so well-funded, meet with success among non-Muslims, of the kind who desperately need, and find that Islam provides, an Instant Bruvverhood, and a Complete Regulation of Life.
Finally, the tens of thousands of mosques and madrasas that have been built in the West with oil money help explain why those young Muslims who may indulge in an interlude of Western decadence return, with a vengeance, to Islam. But let’s be clear: not all terrorists are ex-libertines atoning for their libertinage. Some, like Abedi himself, do not fit Olivier Roy’s template at all — which has not prevented him from claiming otherwise. Abedi was always a devout Muslim, and had nothing, from an Islamic point of view, save possibly for a few intermittent puffs of cannabis, to atone for.
According to Roy, while ultraconservative Salafi Islam is certainly a problem − its followers object to the basic values underpinning a tolerant and secular Western society − it shouldn’t be conflated with violent extremism. And when evaluating the origins of young men like Abedi, one shouldn’t overstate the role of Muslim revanchism in the developing world, a political strand feeding on the West’s colonial legacy and interventionism in the Middle East.
It is not “Salafi” Islam alone whose “followers object to the basic values underpinning a tolerant and secular Western society,” but rather, the followers of mainstream Islam itself. Islam is not tolerant, Islam does not admit of any equivalent to “post-Christian” secularism. In what Islamic country are the rights to full equality of non-Muslims, women, homosexuals recognized? In what Muslim — not just “Salafi” — country, is there anything like freedom of religion and of speech, the “basic values underpinning a tolerant and secular Western society”?
In one respect Roy is certainly right, however, in wanting to deemphasize Muslim resentment over the West’s “colonial legacy” as a cause of terrorism. He knows, as a Frenchman, how little of a “colonial legacy” there was to be resented by Muslim Arabs, for only in Algeria was there a “colony” in the accepted sense of that word. The four Arab territories that were previously guided by European mandatory authorities to statehood — Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria — were never colonies. Nowhere on the Arabian peninsula was there a single European colony. In Egypt, Lord Cromer’s men ran the civil service from 1882 to 1922, but Egypt was not a British colony. In North Africa, there was no wholesale transfer of French “colons” (colonists) into Morocco and Tunisia, as occurred in Algeria. Olivier Roy minimizes the “colonial legacy” correctly, but for the wrong reason. It is because he seeks his explanation for Muslim terrorism neither in the ideology of Islam, nor in the history of Muslim encounters with, and resentment against, the West, but in the psychology of individual Muslims who, according to Roy, have been “radicalized” and now seek to give their “radicalization” an Islamic cover and coherence.
“Had he been concerned about acts of Western imperialism, he would have mentioned the British attack in Libya in 2012, making his act political in one way or another,” Roy says.
Abedi was very much part of the British youth culture he attacked, “he killed himself as part of that society,” Roy says from his office in Florence, where he’s a professor at the European University Institute. “Had he been imbued with Islamic culture and bent toward the ambition of establishing an Islamic state in the Middle East, he would have probably not have known about pop singer Ariana Grande,” Roy notes, adding that “he would have traveled to Syria or Libya instead.”
Roy is wrong. Abedi was not, as Roy claims, “very much part of the British youth culture he attacked.” Nor was he confused, betwixt and between Islam and Western secularism. He was indeed “imbued with Islamic culture.” He was a hafiz, that is, someone who had memorized the entire Qur’an. He was by all accounts devout, never tempted to indulge in Western “decadence” other than a bit of marijuana. He was a loyal son in a family whose paterfamilias had been involved, back in Libya, with a group that had links to Al-Qaeda. He chose to attack the Manchester concert because it was both an easy and a high-value target, with more than ten thousand Infidels (the venue could hold 21,000) gathered conveniently in one place. Roy thinks that “if he were imbued with Islamic culture,” then he “would have travelled to Syria or Libya instead.” Nonsense. Abedi knew that his attack on that high-value target in Manchester would and did receive far more attention than any attack in the Middle East would have been given. In Syria or Libya, he would have been just one more Islamic State fighter, at a time when those ISIS fighters are on the run, under withering attack in Syria and Iraq and Libya, faced with massive defections of fighters. Abedi’s attack in Manchester was an atrocity, but it was also, from his point of view, a success, which Olivier Roy refuses to concede (he says it was “of little strategic value”): it did indeed “strike terror” in the hearts of Infidels. And Abedi did not “kill himself,” but died a shahid, a martyr for Islam.
If comments by French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb are confirmed, Abedi will join the long list of returning jihadis who have struck in Europe after fighting in Syria. But Roy also notes some positive news: Hundreds of foreign fighters from Europe are seeking a safe return to Europe by turning themselves in to their embassies in Turkey, according to the Italian press.
“This means they don’t have the suicidal instincts characterizing terrorists like Abedi,” Roy says, though he warns that the “hegemony of secularism” and the rejection of “all forms of religiosity” in the West have created a spiritual vacuum that can be a breeding ground for fundamentalism.
Hundreds of Muslims who left Europe to join the Islamic State are now trying to return to the European countries they left. They are fleeing in fear both of attacks by Infidel bombs, and even more, of being killed by the most fanatical members of IS fanatics, who have been killing their own fighters for not fighting fiercely enough, or in some cases not fighting at all. Roy seems to believe that these returnees will be no threat once back in Europe. But in fleeing the Islamic State, have they ceased to believe in violent Jihad? Isn’t it possible that, if let back into the European countries they left, they might now wish to atone for their previous “cowardice” in fleeing the Islamic State, and possibly engage in terrorist acts at home? Or are we expected to believe that in fleeing from the Islamic State they have also abandoned, and forever, their Islamic faith, and their desire to kill Infidels? They may no longer be willing to die as shahids, but that doesn’t mean they are no longer dangerous. Their return to Europe is not, pace Olivier Roy, “positive news.” They can still attack Infidels in the countries to which they are allowed to return, can still encourage other Muslims to fight the Infidels in Europe, while dissuading them from going off to join the Islamic State whose prospects in the Middle East are now so grim. These are all unpleasant possibilities, but perfectly plausible. Plausible to all of us, that is, except for Olivier Roy.
Peter Buckley says
As Sam Harris correctly points out, it isn’t “fundamental Islam” that is the problem, but simply the fundamentals of Islam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzdeGZZdbm4
If Islam really were a Religion of Peace, then “extremist muslims” wquld be “extremely peaceful”. When a muslim criticizes other muslims as being “extremists”, they are tacitly (without being aware of the fact) admitting that Islam has bad/violent tenets, otherwise they would call them “unIslamic”.
QED.
Mike says
As long as you are in the Sam Harris cult, I support everything you say ;).
Ace-of-Clubs says
Anyone returning to a European country having fought for ISIS in Syria or Iraq should be locked up for the rest of their life and have their passport confiscated. I would prefer the death penalty but we don’t have that in Europe anymore.
David M says
I would stop them coming back into the country, & take their passports off them when they tried to return.
gravenimage says
Yes–don’t let them return.
TH says
That is the sensible solution. Why should a country keep those in jail for life, and pay a huge amount of taxpayer money for that? Let them stay in Syria. That should have been done once they left.
dumbledoresarmy says
Seconded.
Note – In the past few days, at “The Australian” newspaper, in the wake of the Manchester mass-murder by a mohammedan human bomb, there have been a series of very interesting articles, by different authors, that are far more truthful about the danger presented by the Mohammedan Fifth Column, than anything I have seen, for the most part, in our media.
And all were open to Comments.
And the Comments… well, let’s just say that they ran into the *hundreds* – between the low 300s and nearly cracking 1000 – and that the *majority* were comments that would not be out of place here at jihadwatch. They were from a *lot* of different people, men and women. And whenever an Islamophile turned up, trying to fudge, or moral equivalence, or pretend that things like the Manchester attack are not significant or are not really about Islam, that Islamophile would NOT be allowed to get away with it. Further note: the Islamowary commenters – all of them grimly Islamoinformed, some from having used their commonsense whilst working in parts of the dar al Islam and observing the behavioiur of its denizens towards one another and towards non-Muslims of assorted kinds – were making their points without using bad language or name-calling. Reason and facts, reason and facts, reason and facts.
Quite often, in these comments, the subject of returning infidel-country-passport-holding mohammedans, who have been on an Excellent Jihad Adventure tour in Syria and Iraq, was raised; and the general consensus was – let them go!… and DON’T let them back in.
gravenimage says
Great to hear, DDA.
David M says
I would stop them coming back into the country, & take their passports off them when they returned. Send them back to the Middle East, no returns.
Richard says
Absolutely, Ace. The last part of this article is the most chilling. Guilt is the most powerful of all emotions. Unlike fear or anger, it lasts and grows. It is a strong reason for those who, for one reason or another, left the battlefield, to attempt to rectify themselves before their god, who is satan.
Walter Sieruk says
On the topic of the nation of France and the many dangers posed to the citizens of that country by Muslims terrorists who engage in the murderous violence of the jihad for the advancement of Islam. First and foremost, the French police and other law enforcement agencies of the nation of France do have very right to monitor ,in surveillance , different jihadist /Muslims and their jihad cells as well as use strong force to come down hard on jihadists who have been activated in the murderous violence of Islam’s jihad against the people of France. For the job and duty of any good government is to protect to safety and lives of is citizens. This is a truism by common sense and a basic understanding of the difference between right and wrong. All this is upheld by the Bible which teaches that God had ordained civil and law enforcement authorities and also the law courts to stop arrest and punish evil doers, in found in Romans 13:1-4.
Moreover, this is ,somewhat , of a is a reminder of those heinous and murderous Muslim terrorists jihad massacres in Paris France on November 13, 2015 it should be make clear that those brutal and cruel Islamic murders happened ,in part, because of those jihad-minded Muslim males who are so extremely deluded and irrational because they really believed in the nonsensical , strange and far –fetched doctrine contained in the Koran, of sex-filled paradise with black eye- houris, virgins, in it for the male Muslim who dies as a “martyr” for the cause of Islam fighting in the jihad. As, this bizarre Islamic doctrine of a houris -filled place is found in the Koran in, for example, 4:54. 55:56. 78:31. So this odd and outlandish Koranic doctrine inspired many young Muslims males to commit many horrendous, ruthless, heartless and murderous actions of jihad violence. Those vicious jihadists massacres that occurred during the night of November 13, 2015 was most wicked and hideous. That extreme deadly evil caused by those jihadist/Muslims with their firm but blind unquestioning belief in the weird and false doctrine from the Koran of such a houris, filled paradise that had the outcome of mass murder and chaos in the city of Paris France, is a strong reminder of the wise statement written by the French philosopher, Voltaire, who wrote “As long as men continue to believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.”
Primitive man says
France, the biggest terrosit country on the world. But they are talking about muslim terrorists, can you believe that lol
gravenimage says
It seems that “Primitive man” here is well named. What an idiot.
Primitive man says
gravenimage Haha, that is what i expected from an terorist supporter. Really ? Am i idiot ? Vendee,Burundi,Syria, Haiti,Algeria,Rwanda,Vietnam, Morocco genocides by France, Famous human zoo’s in France, http://www.messynessychic.com/2012/03/02/the-haunting-human-zoo-of-paris/ Was it fun when you were watching them in the cages like an animal ? Was it good when you were living confortable with their natural sources ? French colonial tax still enforce for Africa http://www.globalresearch.ca/frances-colonial-tax-still-enforced-for-africa-bleeding-africa-and-feeding-france/5547512 Am i idiot you damn terorist, Here its, French ppl laughing and dancing after people are dead in ISTANBUL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl7Ke-DLzV8&feature=share But when a terroist attack occured in Paris, All French ppl cried like a baby & changed the flags on twitter & facebook but when its in Turkey,they r happy, laughing & dancing I swear to god, if there is a terrorist attack in France, i will have a good laugh. Who is idiot ?
don vito says
you
gravenimage says
Primitive man wrote:
gravenimage Haha, that is what i expected from an terorist (sic) supporter. Really ? Am i (sic) idiot ?
……………………
Is “Primitive Man” doing the usual–claiming that opposing Jihad terror is–somehow–terrorism? *Ugh*.
More:
Vendee,Burundi,Syria, Haiti,Algeria,Rwanda,Vietnam, Morocco genocides by France, Famous human zoo’s in France, http://www.messynessychic.com/2012/03/02/the-haunting-human-zoo-of-paris/
……………………
“Primitive Man” does not appear to understand that Westerners no longer approve of such exhibits, which ended many years ago.
But he also appears to believe that the employees who appeared in such exhibits were enslaved. Is he really so ignorant?
Muslims *today* support enslaving and slaughtering unbelievers. Does “Primitive Man” support this? It appears so.
More:
Was it fun when you were watching them in the cages like an animal ? Was it good when you were living confortable (sic) with their natural sources ?
……………………
“Primitive Man” does understand that this ended many decades ago?
I suppose not…
And his bit about the French “colonial tax” is absurd.
More:
Am i (sic) idiot you damn terorist (sic), Here its, French ppl laughing and dancing after people are dead in ISTANBUL.
……………………
This song is a parody by Frédéric Fromet claiming that French people should be as upset about Muslims slaughtering each other as they are about Muslims murdering French people–and that they are hypocrites if they are not.
People in the audience are laughing at the song–not over Muslims butchering each other. Does “Primitive Man” understand nothing, or does he just hope that we don’t?
More:
But when a terroist (sic) attack occured (sic) in Paris, All French ppl (sic) cried like a baby & changed the flags on twitter & facebook but when its (sic) in Turkey,they (sic) r (sic) happy, laughing & dancing I swear to god, if there is a terrorist attack in France, i (sic) will have a good laugh. Who is idiot (sic) ?
……………………
I believe that “Primitive Man” has proven to everyone here that he is an idiot, all right.
Walter Sieruk says
On Bastille Day in Nice France there was that jihadist/Muslim terror attack. This jihad attack, like the others, was vicious, malicious and murderous. At first that jihadist opened fired into a group of people and then he plowed into and through, with a large truck, a crowd of people. In that deadly Islamic terror attack in Nice it was so awful and hideous that one witness, just after that Islamic terror attack, described the scene as “bodies everywhere.” Another wittiness said “I was standing in blood, It’ everywhere.” This Islamic jihadist attack in Nice resulted in 84 murdered and over 200 injured. This violent and heinous murderous action of Islamic violence is based on the violence and killing that is part of the doctrines of the Koran, as some call Islam’s “holy book” the Qur’an . To give only a few of many example of this from the Koran is Sura 2:191 which instructs “Kill the disbelievers wherever you fine them.” Likewise, the Koran also teaches “Whenever you encounter the unbeliever’s strike of their heads, until you make a great slaughter among them…” Sura 47:4. Let’s face it , using a firearm and a truck can sure make a greater “slaughter among them” then a sword can . In addition, that jihad –minded Muslim also died in the brutal and deadly Islamic attack. This too is Koranic based. For the Koran instructs “The believers fight in Allah’s Cause, they slay and are slain, they kill and are killed.” Sura 9:111. So it’s not wise to be taken in as in fool as or snowed , by the many apologists for Islam who make the false claim that “Islam is a peaceful religion that was hijacked by criminal for politics” That is a lame attempt to hide as in cover up the violent and deadly essence of that religion which is Islam.
Jack Diamond says
Born-again Muslims “who led libertine lives”… as opposed to the spoils, war booty, allowed the pious under Islam? Or the promises of an afterlife life in Allah’s big whorehouse in Paradise? Roy is missing all the “fun” in this fundamentalism. (As you might expect from a former Maoist).
Islam never found wide appeal, or soldiers, by appealing to the better angels of our nature. John Quincy Adams understood what Oliver Roy does not: “the essence of his doctrine was violence and lust, to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature.” And give it a direction, Mecca.
But the knowledge that AllahMuhammad allowed, say, the rape of captive women, or that the blood and property of the kaffir harbi were allowed the Muslims absent a temporary peace treaty or dhimmi subjugation compact, or that a devout Muslim could tell the infidel woman he was raping that he was “doing worship” and be able to back that up with chapter and verse…let alone the intricate doctrines of concealment that permit a Muslim to engage in the most anti-Islamic, forbidden behavior to further Islam and carry out jihad…knowledge and acknowledgment of such grim realities about one of the “world’s great religions” could only cause Oliver Roy’s brain to explode.
Holy Ignorance, to quote one of his titles.
Jack Diamond says
Ok, Olivier…merde
mortimer says
Agree with JD’s suggestion that John Quincy Adams understood Islam’s brutal appeal better than Oliver Roy. The glorification of BRUTALITY… the systemic sadomasochism of Islam… is the point that Olivier Roy is missing.
Roy is an expert on culture and modern Protestantism to be sure, but he goes off the rail when je tries to transpose his knowledge to Islam.
Olivier Roy is pumping his thesis that religion and culture have been separating since the 1700s and that the Islamist movement is primarily secular. Salafism (now the most important Islamic sect in the world) gave the political justification that the House of Saud needed to make itself the saviors of Arabia. However, the continued promotion of Salafism by KSA around the world has another agenda: it is a purely religious motivation, since KSA is not planning to create a Saudi caliphate.
The basic appeal of Islam is emotional, psychological and is based on SADOMASOCHISM and the STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.
gravenimage says
Good point, Jack. No Western libertine can hold a candle to the vicious decadence of Islam, which includes “marrying” children, raping Infidels, and keeping sex slaves.
Muslims can do this and still be considered “chaste”. But going on a date is “Zina” worthy of flogging or stoning.
God, I hate Islam.
mortimer says
K.4.23-24 decrees the genocidal rape of MARRIED CAPTIVES. In so doing, K.4.23-24 commands Muslims to commit crimes against humanity and genocide.
gravenimage says
Absolutely, Mortimer.
Muslims can rape married Infidel victims. Their being raped by Muslims invalidates their marriages, and the victims can then either be married off to Jihadists or used as sex slaves.
*Ugh*.
VRWC member77 says
To the dhimi:
I
S..teal
L..ie
A..nd
M..urder
gravenimage says
Hugh Fitzgerald: Olivier Roy, “One of France’s Top Experts On Islamic Terrorism” (Part II)
…………………
In most regards Roy is an ignoramus. You know France is in trouble if this is one of their “experts”.
WPM says
This is the reason France England and Germany are in trouble Olivier Roy and people like him are consider the “Experts”. Having stated nothing from the Koran, Sira, Sharia law or the Hadiths or any historic facts of the last 1400 years he says that the man was a poor mix up “kid . He knew the Koran by heart attended the Mosqua all the time , live in a family that follow Islamic rules and beliefs.
gravenimage says
True, WPM–willful ignorance.
Matthieu Baudin says
“…The European counterattack lasted for roughly the last two centuries (since Napoleon entered Egypt in 1798), and led, among other developments deemed disastrous by Muslims, to the end of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924…”
The role of Vasco de Gama much earlier undercut the monopoly of trade with the east that the Arabs had secured at the expense of Europe – after this many wheels began to turn and Europe was strengthened immensely.
Aingel Strong says
Pontificating is fine when time is on your side. However islam must be destroyed, and the evidence IS available, NOW. Nothing in the quran is of merit. It is the work of at best a maniac and at worst a false prophet. A child can work that one out. So why are educated, civilised People permitting demented “believers” who are in fact engaged in jihad at one level or another, commit atrocities and disruption in our World?
lebel says
” Were those interviewing the “young people” (a cohort, one assumes, consisting of those who had gone to join the Islamic State and returned) Muslims themselves, who might have a stake in downplaying the “Islamic” knowledge of those they question? ”
No, its from ISIS’s own documentation, no need for Hugh Fitzgerald taqqiya conspiracies
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-documents-leak-recruits-islam-sharia-religion-faith-syria-iraq-a7193086.html
Jack Diamond says
and guess what the Islamically-ignorant recruit gets in the Islamic State? Knowledge of Islam. Why bother if they just wanted cannon fodder or if they have no case to make from the Qur’an and Sunnah? In fact, they are intent on fighting jihad strictly correct:
“Sharia training varies from one member to another, depending on the group’s assessment of his value or loyalty. New recruits join training that ranges from two weeks, one month, 45 days, six months up to one year. Inside the camps, students receive a mix of military, political and sharia orientation, usually given by around five instructors. During training, recruits can be dispatched to checkpoints but not to the frontlines.
“You first get the basics about religion,” said Abu Moussa, an Isis-affiliated religious cleric in eastern Syria but originally from Aleppo. “They cleanse you from religious innovations and Ba’athist ideas. Issuing fatwas is restricted to clerics and nobody can kill without a fatwa unless in the battlefield. You also study Arabic and learn how to speak in standard Arabic if you don’t know.”
Clerics in charge of religious training at Isis, known as sharii, are mostly academically qualified and have longstanding experience within the organisation’s ranks.
These imams are generally asked to preach about three key concepts that are shared by all Salafi and jihadist groups, but Isis has its own take on their functionalities, namely tawhid (strict monotheism), bida’a (deviation in religious matters) and wala wal baraa (loyalty to Islam and disloyalty to anything un-Islamic).
“The prophet said: ‘I have been given victory by means of terror.’ As for slaughter, beheading and crucifixion, this is in the Qu’ran and Sunna [oral sayings attributed to prophet Muhammad]. In the videos we produce, you see the sentence ‘deal with them in a way that strikes fear in those behind them’, and that verse speaks for itself. One more thing: the prophet told the people of Quraish, ‘with slaughter I came to you’.”
In terms of indoctrination, Isis generally steers clear of exposing new members to teachings that are not derived from sharia texts. The restriction of religious training to religious texts is in line with the group’s rhetoric that it is an extension of authentic Islam rather than a new group with its own set of teachings.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/25/inside-isis-training-camps
Peter Buckley says
Thank you for that link, Jack. It goes on my “ISIS are Islamic” file. Here is another proving that ISIS are perfectly Islamic, by the words of their own scholars:
http://raymondibrahim.com/2015/12/03/al-azhar-cannot-denounce-isis-of-being-un-islamic-even-if-isis-commits-every-atrocity/
These need to be posted to politicians and moderate muslims who are in denial.
gravenimage says
Muslim apologist lebel’s implication that Muslims do not regularly downplay the savagery of Islam to Infidels is, or course, utterly false.