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Jihad Watch

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

The Hornet’s Nest of Muhammad’s Islam

Oct 28, 2019 11:00 am By Mateen Elass

Turkey’s recent illegal incursion into Syria has as its principal goal the extermination of Syrian Kurds, as well as the potential annexation of Syrian land to serve as a Kurdish-free buffer zone for the indefinite future. In the process of this attack on the Kurds, it is likely that, whether intentional or not, large numbers of ISIS prisoners under the watch of largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces will break free from incarceration in the midst of the chaos created by Turkish aggression. Already close to 1,000 of a total numbering around 10,000 ISIS prisoners and family members, have fled camps abandoned by their Kurdish guards.

This has led some U.S. politicians, in the midst of hand-wringing over how “America has abandoned its allies, the Kurds,” to raise the additional specter that President Trump’s decision to remove U.S. troops from northern Syria will lead to the reconstitution of ISIS as a terrorist force in the region. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R) is one such voice. Interviewed on The Story with Martha McCallum, he declared:

“The president keeps saying we’ve won this war against ISIS. We certainly have not won the war against ISIS. We’ve made gains.”

In response to McCallum’s question “For how long are we going to stay there [in Syria]?”, Kinzinger opined:

“You asked the question about ‘How long.” It’s a good question. But the problem is that’s not a choice that we can make. It’s not the choice of the United States [that] determines how long we’re going to fight terrorism. It’s a decision the terrorists make because they determine if they’re going to kill innocent people, they’re gonna reach out again to the United States to strike here. I wish they didn’t believe this stuff. I wish we didn’t have to fight them….I wish this was all over, but it’s not our choice.”

The President is right that the Islamic State caliphate has been demolished, and in that sense ISIS has been defeated. But Rep. Kinzinger is correct that ISIS is still alive and could regain its former momentum. The problem is they both are dealing with symptoms rather than with the cause.

For the President, ISIS is a hornet that keeps buzzing around the patio table at lunch, bothering the guests. He rolls up a newspaper, swats it soundly and declares proudly, “It’s dead. You’re safe.” Kinzinger is not so sure. The seemingly lifeless hornet needs to be beaten repeatedly, and we need to be on the alert, for other hornets will not be far off . “We have to stay in this swatting contest until the hornets decide they don’t want our food. I wish they didn’t like our lunch, I wish this was all over, but it’s not our choice.”

The problem is, neither the President nor the Congressman (nor most other politicians and pundits, for that matter) is looking for the nest from which the hornets continue to be hatched and sent. Until the nest is found and destroyed, the incursions will continue. What Western leaders desperately need to understand is that ISIS, Boko Haram, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and its brood of viper organizations, al-Qaeda, AQAP, al-Shabaab, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the IRGC, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Abu Sayyaf and scores of other Muslim jihadi groups are only symptoms, not the source. They are merely angry hornets, looking for whomever they can sting, but destroying them will not rid the world of Islamic terrorism. To do that, we must destroy the nest which endlessly produces them.

That nest is the ideology of core Islam, i.e., the Islam of Muhammad as taught in its source materials: the Qur’an, the Hadith and the Sira (early biographies) of Muhammad.

Found prominently in all three is the directive that Muslims are to channel all their energies and resources into conquering the world for Allah and his religion. They are to use force, as necessary, to bring all human beings into subjection to Allah. This is the primary Qur’anic meaning of the well-known term “jihad.” Westernized Muslims often object to the translation “holy war”, and I would agree with them. There is nothing holy about jihad — but it is nevertheless a religiously mandated war against all unbelievers. Let’s just call it “religious war.”

The jihadi mindset is an inherent part of Muhammad’s Islam. Any neutral observer, reading Islam’s source materials, would come inevitably to this conclusion. And it is this reality, and only this reality, that can explain why Islam’s 1400 year history across the globe leaves a copious trail of blood in its wake, as Robert Spencer’s comprehensive work, The History of Jihad from Muhammad to ISIS, irrefutably demonstrates. Why is deadly violence associated so readily with Islam as compared with any other world religion? Because only in Islam is violence against unbelievers the unremitting divine command until the end of time.

We should not be surprised, then, that as the Muslim world perceives itself to be growing in strength vis-a-vis its enemies (i.e., all who refuse to bow before it), it is increasingly willing to flex its muscles in strategic, as well as desultory, acts of violence. Since al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks just over eighteen years ago, self-professing Muslims have been responsible for at least 35,800 deadly terrorist incidents. These reflect Muhammad’s own dictum, “I have been made victorious with terror” (Bukhari, 4.52.220), which in turn acknowledges the six places in the Qur’an where Allah reveals that he casts terror into the hearts of Muhammad’s opponents (often through his followers) to defeat them (3.151; 8.12-13, 59-60; 33.25-27; 59.2, 13).

The real enemy, then, is the nest of jihadi ideology inherent within core Islam, and not simply the individual hornets birthed through this ideology. Each jihadi group gains its strength and purpose through this ideology. When the ideology is defeated, these groups lose their steam and aspirations.

The question which should be at the heart of our nation’s counter-terrorism activities is: What does it take to defeat an ideology? Naturally, one must know that ideology well to craft a successful strategy. Core Islam teaches that the flag of Allah and his prophet will inevitably fly over all the world and will be evidenced by the subjugation of all people according to the exercise of Shari’a through one Caliphate, under Allah’s appointed earthly ruler. Jihadis are taught to believe that since their cause is righteous, Allah will always grant them victory. They are servants in his cause, loving what he loves and hating what he hates (this is known in Islamic circles as the oath of al-wala’ w’al-bara’ (loving what pleases Allah and opposing all that displeases him). Since Islam’s Allah is all-powerful and all-knowing, nothing can thwart his will. Islam must win over every foe. What then does it take to defeat the jihadi ideology of core Islam?

  1. Extreme power. Shock and awe kind of power. While it is true that military might can never defeat an ideology in and of itself, when that ideology depends upon the fiction that it is invincible, the use of unmatched force against enemy combatants so as to eradicate their vaunted assets goes a long way to undermining their confidence in their ideology. Militant Muslims are quick to shout “Allahu akbar!”, when firing their weapons or slicing the heads off their bound captives. By this they mean, “Our god is greater than whatever your god, or whatever you believe in.” But when their armies are pulverized, and their conquests are taken from them, the roar of Allahu akbar becomes a soft meow. Likewise, when ISIS was moving unopposed from victory to victory in Iraq and Syria, its call for recruits elicited huge response from Muslims around the world. But as soon as it became clear that ISIS could not withstand the might of first-world military forces, and especially as it was routed from its self-proclaimed capital, Raqqa, the flow of recruits dried up. For a religion based on power and victory, weakness and defeat are hard to swallow.
  2. Demonstration of the deficiencies of Islam. Since jihadi ideology stems from the belief that Islam is Allah’s final and perfect revelation and thus is to be established as the only acceptable religion everywhere in the world (” And fight them until there is no fitnah [i.e., opposition] and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah — Qur’an 8.39), any arguments which demonstrate the defects of the religion of Islam (which Allah in the Qur’an declared perfect — “Today I have perfected for you your religion…” 5.3) begin to undermine the jihadi’s confidence in his ideology. Granted, this war of ideas may take a long time to bear fruit, but the truth will ultimately overwhelm even entrenched ignorance. Those working to defeat the ideology of core Islam must point out the defects of Islam in at least the following areas:a) Moral corruption — How can one worship a god who takes delight in punishing those who reject him with hellish horrors beyond the imagination of most human beings? How can one believe in a god who permits sex slavery, rape after battles, raiding and pillaging of non-combatants’ property, killing or ransoming captives, the inequality of women, polygamy, etc.? How can one follow a prophet who admits he mistook the whispers of Satan for the voice of his god, or who claims his god gave him special privileges to marry as many women as he found desirable, or who married and forced himself on his 9-year-old “bride”? How can one respect a prophet so thin-skinned that when mocked by unbelieving poets, he directed that they be assassinated by his devotees? And this is only the beginning of what can be dredged up from early Muslim sources.b) Logical inconsistencies — The Qur’an insists that its revelation goes hand in glove with the Old and New Testaments, since it claims that its god is the same as the God of the Bible. And yet its teachings are fundamentally at odds with earlier Scripture. Muhammad was told by Allah and in turn told his listeners if they had any questions over his recitations, he/they should go the “people of the Book” [i.e., the Jews and Christians] for clarification. Muhammad apparently believed the Bible and the Qur’an were in perfect harmony. Only after his death, when his community spread far beyond Arabia, did his followers discover the huge contrasts between Bible and Qur’an, and devise an explanation that Christians and Jews had corrupted their original teachings (though they could never produce any evidence for this absurd claim). Muslims believe the Qur’an to be perfectly transmitted from the mouth of the angel Gabriel through Muhammad to the pens of his scribes such that no mistakes could creep into the Qur’an, which has been perfectly preserved to this present time. But, according to Islamic history, the Qur’an was not even collected as a codex or manuscript until at least twenty years after the death of Muhammad. The existence of early manuscripts which differ in detail from the “authorized version” of Caliph Uthman demonstrate that there were rival versions of the Qur’an, thereby undercutting the claim of a perfectly preserved and transmitted revelation from Allah.c) Historical horrors — Since al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on America in 2001, there have now been over 35,800 documented, deadly terrorist attacks around the world by self-described Muslims. But even these pale in comparison to the wholesale slaughter of non-Muslims (as well as those deemed “insufficiently or incorrectly Muslim”) by successive caliphates and Muslim empires over the last 1400 years. Estimates put the numbers slain across the globe at around 270 million. While this number must be taken with a grain of salt, there is no question that Muslim historical sources boast of butchery and carnage in the millions over the course of individual jihadi campaigns in Asia, Africa, Europe and India over the centuries. The recent atrocities of the ISIS caliphate are one mere cel in the long and repulsive movie reel of Islamic rule since the time of Muhammad.

    d) The many imperfections of the Qur’an — one of the two justifications for the legitimacy of Islam is the purported revelation of the Qur’an as the perfect and unchanged words of Allah, delivered through Muhammad to his followers without error and copied faithfully such that today’s Qur’an is exactly what it was when first gathered. Muslim historical sources, however, make clear that there never was an “original” Qur’an, and that there were many rival versions in the early caliphate until Caliph ‘Uthman standardized one version and ordered all others to be burned. Even after this, some Muslims complained that certain suras had been left out, or added, or otherwise edited. On top of this, the Qur’an, supposedly written in “pure” Arabic, contains many grammatical errors and anomalies, and hundreds of loan words from other languages. One wonders why Allah, from eternity, would have had to borrow words from other languages to reveal his will to Arabs living in the 7th Century. Perhaps Arabic was not his first language….Add to this this the numerous historical errors (e.g., naming one of Pharaoh’s advisers Haman, the Persian name of the vizier of Ahasuerus, some thousand years after the time of Moses, on another continent; the confusion of the person of Mary (Mariam in Arabic) the mother of Jesus with Mariam the sister of Aaron and Moses, thought they lived some 1500 years apart), and the embarrassing “scientific claims” (such as the sun setting in a muddy pool in the west, and the confused stages of fetal development in the womb), and one is left with serious questions about the claim to divine authorship of Islam’s preeminent source of revelation.

    e) Theological blunders — The Qur’an claims (9.30) that Jews believe Ezra to be the Son of God (in much the same way as Christians believe Jesus to be the Son of God), though there is no literary evidence to document this. Additionally, the Jesus of the Qur’an claims to bring “good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Ahmad” (61.6). Unfortunately for Islam, though Muslims have combed Old and New Testaments, there is no evidence to support such a “prophecy”. Further, the Qur’an has Allah saying that his revelation is given to Muhammad to confirm his prior revelation to the people of the Book (i.e., the Bible), but then the Qur’an later contradicts some of the central teachings of the New Testament (e.g., the sonship and divinity of Jesus, God’s trinitarian nature, the death of Christ on a cross, and the atonement). The Muslim answer to this is that Christians tampered with the biblical text to contradict the Qur’an, but there are a slew of New Testament manuscripts that predate the existence of the Qur’an, and all of them agree on these central teachings of the Christian faith. Islam puts itself in an untenable position: in order to gain theological legitimacy, it must attach itself in a parasitic way to the Bible; but then in order to distinguish itself as the true religion, it must deny the heart of the Bible in order to glorify Muhammad and his message.

    f) Sociological realities — Allah claims in the Qur’an that the Muslim community is the “best of all peoples” and that disbelievers are “the vilest of creatures.” One would expect then that over centuries of time the Muslim world would demonstrate its vaunted superiority over non-Muslims sociologically. The world’s population should be flocking to the Muslim world in order to benefit from life among the best of all peoples. Yet, what do we find? Millions upon millions of Muslims are desperate to emigrate from the 56 Muslim-majority nations of the world to make their homes instead in the West, preeminently in the USA. A brief glance at sociological statistics shows Muslim nations to be consistently at the back of the pack when it comes to education, economic standard of living, health care, working conditions, freedom of expression, religious freedom, sexual equality, humane treatment of prisoners, advancement of the arts and sciences, and so on. Measured by such a set of standards, Islam can be said to have done little or nothing to advance the cause of humanity, and indeed to have contributed instead to the deterioration of the human condition.

    No doubt there are many other deficiencies which should be explored, but this is sufficient to make the point that the ideology of core Islam is riddled with problems that must be exposed.

  3. Presentation of Preferred Ideologies. In the final analysis, people are rarely willing to jettison a life-defining ideology until they have something better to replace it. When it comes to the ideology of Islam, the West offers two possibilities which surpass jihadism. The first is Enlightenment secularism, which champions humanism and supports the freedom and rights of all human beings, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” A life of freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and other like documents makes for a society where human beings can decide for themselves what pursuits to prioritize. The secular West must do all it can to reclaim its lofty Enlightenment ideals, and to paint an attractive picture to disaffected Muslims of what a better life can look like when they exit Islam. The second is the Christian faith, which replaces a god of hate and violence with the God of love, which commands self-sacrifice on behalf of others rather than jihad against enemies, which reveals a divine savior who dies for human beings rather than a god commanding human beings to die for him. As millions of Muslims have discovered, their religious longings, never fulfilled under the harsh rules of Islam, are met in the good news of a God who draws them in love to Himself, and who promises eternal life to those who follow the way of Jesus. The Church must recapture her first love for Jesus Christ, and in joyful obedience to him must share the gospel lovingly with Muslims wherever we can meet and befriend them.

In the end, the problem of Islamic terrorism will not subside until one of two futures is realized: either Islam conquers all enemies and reigns globally, or the ideology of Muhammad’s Islam is debunked and derided for the evil it has spawned.

My personal belief is that secularism is not up to the task, because by its very nature it has no universally-accepted foundation upon which to appeal for the “unalienable rights” of humanity. It cannot speak of a divinely-mandated morality, nor of a human nature deserving dignity and honor because of having been created in the image of God. In the end, it must rest on a utilitarian plea that if we all just treat each kindly, human society will flourish. Or in the words of the song recorded by Sam Cooke in 1960:

But I do know that I love you,

And I know that if you love me too,

What a wonderful world this would be.

Nice sentiments, but hardly substantial enough upon which to build an enduring worldview of humane and equal treatment. Western secularism has endured to this point by living off the fumes of a Christian anthropology, understanding human beings to be a special creation of God, endowed with rights and protections precisely because of having been created in His image and likeness. As we have seen in the last century, as the West has retreated from this conviction and replaced it increasingly with the impersonal and naturalistic view of evolution, human beings become merely the result of random causation and as such have no special standing or purpose in the world. One day, secularism will collapse on itself, when it can no longer ride on the coattails of a religiously-inspired morality.

Read the rest here.

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Filed Under: Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Muhammad Tagged With: Adam Kinzinger


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Comments

  1. Angemon says

    Oct 28, 2019 at 11:55 am

    While it is true that military might can never defeat an ideology in and of itself, when that ideology depends upon the fiction that it is invincible, the use of unmatched force against enemy combatants so as to eradicate their vaunted assets goes a long way to undermining their confidence in their ideology.

    Indeed.

    • t. says

      Oct 28, 2019 at 3:54 pm

      Absolutely true! This should be the first step in the fight against this evil ideology and belief system.

      A well rounded and solid article, Mateen.

    • Westman says

      Oct 28, 2019 at 5:05 pm

      Japan and Germany, prior to WW2, were both in the grips of believing, religiously, in their dominance as the superior race. Japan’s Shinto was delt a fatal blow by the defeat and the visage of their god-Emperor walking, on demand, hat-in-hand to General MacAuthur. The cult of Hitler was dealt an equivalent blow; defeat and the “Muhammad” of Germany committing suicide.

      The wide geography of Islam seems unlikely to allow a similar complete defeat.The non-patriotic nature of Islam, observant Muslims not adhering to a homeland, would lead to jihadis moving from one country to another in a game of “whack-a-mole”.

      The destruction of Mecca by contaminating means, so dangerous that it was unapproachable for a thousand years, might be enough to start the waning of Islam. However that is only conjecture that is untested. The hajj might just move to another “holy” site.

  2. elee says

    Oct 28, 2019 at 2:00 pm

    Applause for Item #1 above! Not sure any of the others amount to much; Muslims have had lots of chances to disavow barbarism over the last millennium and a half; they tend to resolve theological ethical or normative issues with lethal force, per their scriptures. When I start reading about Koran-burnings in dar-es-salaam, maybe it will be time for the other items.

  3. DiploNerd says

    Oct 28, 2019 at 2:04 pm

    “The Church must recapture her first love for Jesus Christ, and in joyful obedience to him must share the gospel lovingly with Muslims wherever we can meet and befriend them.”

    Indeed.

  4. simpleton1 says

    Oct 28, 2019 at 3:48 pm

    There are a lot of little snakes, all looking to do the same formula as Baghdadi Mohammad based on Mohammad’s deen.
    Some are not too far away, but modern plane travel, make all to be near with friends, mosques already as bridgeheads.

    Following the creation of the Islamic State (IS), Emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called for jihadi groups around the world to pledge allegiance to IS.
    jihadi groups that have pledged allegiance/support as of 15 Dec. 2015, [so maybe even more. Placed geographically]

    SUPPORT/PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO IS
    • Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT) [Indonesia] – Aug. 2014 – Allegiance
    • Mujahideen Indonesia Timor (MIT) [Indonesia] – 1 Jul. 2014 – Allegiance

    • Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) [Phillippines] – 13 Aug. 2014 – Support
    • Bangsmoro Justice Movement (BJM) [Phillippines] – 11 Sep. 2014 – Support
    • Jemaah Islamiyah [Philippines] 27 Apr. 2015 – Allegiance
    • Abu Sayyaf Group [Philippines] – 25 Jun. 2014 – Support
    • Ansar al-Khilafah [Philippines] – 14 Aug. 2014 – Allegiance

    • Ansar al-Tawhid in India [India] – 4 Oct. 2014 – Allegiance

    • Jundullah [Pakistan] – 17 Nov. 2014 – Support
    • Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) [Pakistan/Uzbekistan] Video – 31 Jul. 2015 – Allegiance
    • Tehreek-e-Khilafat [Pakistan] – 9 Jul. 2014 – Allegiance
    • Leaders of the Mujahid in Khorasan (ten former TTP commanders) [Pakistan] – 10 Jan. 2015 – Allegiance

    • al-Tawheed Brigade in Khorasan [Afghanistan] – 23 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance
    • Heroes of Islam Brigade in Khorasan [Afghanistan] – 30 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance

    • al-Huda Battalion in Maghreb of Islam [Algeria] – 30 Jun. 2014 – Allegiance
    • The Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria [Algeria] – 30 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance
    • al-Ghurabaa [Algeria] – 7 Jul. 2015 – Allegiance
    • Djamaat Houmat ad-Da’wa as-Salafiya (DHDS) [Algeria] 19 Sep. 2015 – Allegiance
    • al-Ansar Battalion [Algeria] 4 Sep. 2015 – Allegiance
    • al-Ansar Battalion [Algeria] – 4 Sep. 2015 – Allegiance

    • Okba Ibn Nafaa Battalion [Tunisia] – 20 Sep. 2014 – Support
    • Mujahideen of Tunisia of Kairouan [Tunisia] 18 May 2015 – Allegiance
    • Jund al-Khilafah in Tunisia [Tunisia] – 31 Mar. 2015 – Allegiance

    • Islamic Youth Shura Council [Libya] – 22 Jun. 2014 – Support
    • Islamic State Libya (Darnah) [Libya] – 9 Nov. 2014 – Allegiance
    • Lions of Libya [Libya] (Unconfirmed) – 24 Sep. 2014 – [Support/Allegiance]
    • Shura Council of Shabab al-Islam Darnah [Libya] – 6 Oct. 2014 – Allegiance

    • Jamaat Ansar Bait al-Maqdis [Egypt] – 30 Jun. 2014 – Allegiance
    • Jund al-Khilafah in Egypt [Egypt] – 23 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance
    • Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSCJ) [Egypt] – 1 Oct. 2014 – Support

    • Jaish al-Sahabah in the Levant [Syria] – 1 Jul. 2014 – Allegiance
    • Martyrs of al-Yarmouk Brigade [Syria] – Dec. 2014 – Part of IS – Allegiance
    • Faction of Katibat al-Imam Bukhari [Syria] – 29 Oct. 2014 – Allegiance

    • Liwa Ahrar al-Sunna in Baalbek [Lebanon] – 30 Jun. 2014 – Allegiance

    • Mujahideen of Yemen [Yemen] – 10 Nov. 2014 – Allegiance
    • Supporters for the Islamic State in Yemen [Yemen] – 4 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance

    • Supporters of the Islamic State in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques [Saudi Arabia] – 2 Dec. 2014 – Support

    • Ansar al-Islam [Iraq] – 8 Jan. 2015 – Allegiance

    • The Nokhchico Wilayat of the Caucasus Emirate (CE) [Russia] – 15 Jun. 2015 – Allegiance
    • Central Sector of Kabardino-Balakria of the Caucasus Emirate (CE) [Russia] – 26 Apr. 2015 – Allegiance

    • al-Murabitoun [Mali] – 14 May 2015 – Allegiance
    • al-Shabaab Jubba Region Cell Bashir Abu Numan [Somalia]- 7 Dec. 2015 – Allegiance
    • Boko Haram [Nigeria] – 7 Mar. 2015 – Allegiance
    • al-I’tisam of the Koran and Sunnah [Sudan] – 1 Aug. 2014 – Support
    https://rinj.org/interactive/dont-buy-a-kid-it-is-now-a-war-crime/

    +Attacks recently in the Congo and remember, Sri Lanka.
    Then there are returning or already returned ISIS fighters to Europe, Canada, USA, South America, Africa, that may be sleepers for a while, but will school others, and reactivate when ready.

    By dispatching long-standing operatives to lead or help run these branches, the Islamic State seems to have successfully molded them in its image.
    This has helped it to maintain control over these regional offshoots despite its tumultuous collapse in Iraq and Syria.

    And in doing so, it has exported the specific jihadi brand it built in Iraq—known for its uncompromising, vicious, and sectarian strategy—even relative to that of al Qaeda and the Taliban.
    In Egypt, the group carried out numerous attacks targeting Coptic Egyptians over the past few years, and attacks against Shiites in Afghanistan feature prominently in the group’s operations there. In attacking Shiite civilians in Afghanistan and Yemen,
    Islamic State media outlets do not even add a reasoning for the killings. Being Shiite automatically makes one a legitimate target for the group, which is unusual even for other extremist jihadi groups.

    From the Islamic State’s point of view, the strategy of heightening brutality and sectarianism was effective, allowing it to rise from its original defeat in Iraq in 2008.
    In Iraq, the group pit communities against each other, targeted places of worship, deterred locals from cooperating with the government, and hunted local rivals who could pose a threat to it in the future.
    By the time it captured one-third of Iraq in 2014, it had established itself as the only viable force capable of controlling the areas and fighting the government, almost uncontested on a local level.

    …. Baghdadi refers to his group’s strategy for survival as a “war of attrition,” which also echoes the group’s propaganda since it started losing major strongholds three years ago.
    To understand where the Islamic State is heading next, it is important to pay a closer look to the long-game strategy that marked its original rise, not just the methods that came to be associated with the Islamic State in recent years, such as control of territory.

    The Islamic State’s history of rising from the ashes in Iraq after 2008 shapes the organization’s thinking more than anything else, evident in the frequent references to that experience in its publications and statements for the past three years.
    The situation for the group today resembles that earlier period, only on a broader geographic scale—which is why it is trying to replicate the same blueprint, which enabled it to eradicate its rivals, entrench itself locally, and ultimately present itself as the last flag for those fighting a central government.
    In Iraq and Syria since 2016, the group reverted to old tactics of assassinating community leaders, buying locality, and planting sleeper cells to conduct underground operations not just to fight its enemies but also to empty the areas in which it operates of any potential rivals.
    These tactics were detailed in a plan published in online jihadi forums in December 2009.
    https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/03/welcome-to-the-post-middle-east-isis/

    Baghdadi Mohammad’s system has always worked in many ways, with ummah support, through the past 1400 years.

    • simpleton1 says

      Oct 28, 2019 at 3:58 pm

      Edit for last sentence above, but that is still what we want. 🙂
      Baghdadi Mohammad’s system has always worked in many ways, with ummah support, through the past 1400 years.

      Note the ISIS influence, Earlier in this month of October, ISIS again endeavors to place its stamp in the Philippines, using the tactics mentioned above.
      Just a bit of tidy up of some rivals as they were capitulating, enjoying some of the good life, so not staying true to Mohammad’s guidance.

      ….. the dead were all members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), formerly the country’s largest guerrilla group but which began decommissioning weapons last month under the terms of a 2014 peace treaty.

      A pro-ISIS armed group called Dawlah Islamiyah attacked a MILF camp ….

      …… Hundreds of pro-ISIS gunmen seized the city of Marawi in May 2017, sparking a five-month battle that left more than 1,000 dead.

      The MILF, sometimes with Philippine military help, has in recent years waged an armed campaign to flush out a number of pro-ISIS groups operating in the swampy farming region around Shariff Saydona.

      https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/7-ex-muslim-rebels-killed-in-philippines-by-pro-isis-group

      Sorting out the muslims to who is guided the on the most straight path, as they daily pray, as per koran/hadith this time, just as Mohammad would advise.

  5. comradewhoopie says

    Oct 28, 2019 at 4:23 pm

    I believe the Chinese have the right idea for how to deal with their Moslem population. The Japanese also have done a great job of keeping Islam in check. We could learn from them if we had the courage and will.

  6. gravenimage says

    Oct 28, 2019 at 4:35 pm

    The Hornet’s Nest of Muhammad’s Islam
    ………………

    Yes–Islam has caused 1400 years of suffering.

    Good piece from Mateen Elass.

  7. don vito says

    Oct 28, 2019 at 5:35 pm

    jihad, the “endless”, or “forever” war. When will this war end? As pointed out in this post, either kufr submit to allah, or kufr resist submission and saracen true believers will die trying to force submission on all. “endless”, no?

  8. yiyoya says

    Oct 28, 2019 at 6:28 pm

    “My personal belief is that secularism is not up to the task, because by its very nature it has no universally-accepted foundation upon which to appeal for the “unalienable rights” of humanity. It cannot speak of a divinely-mandated morality, nor of a human nature deserving dignity and honor because of having been created in the image of God. In the end, it must rest on a utilitarian plea that if we all just treat each kindly, human society will flourish.”

    Mr.Mateen therein lies the crucial, philosophical, dilemma of rights. How can one defend the Rights Of Man, Individual Rights and Private Property rights, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, OBJECTIVELY and DEMONSTRABLY in a fully convincing manner. I submit to you, Mr.Mateen, that neither the Enlightenment secularism of the Founding Fathers nor Christianity can do so. The Enlightenment secularism as the Founding Fathers knew it and up to now, has been unable to offer a rational, scientific, objective defense of rights. Christianity argues that rights come from a supernatural Creator Deity, but there is no evidence nor rational argument that can prove the existence of such an entity thereby leaving the Christian defense of rights with no demonstrable, objective, proof. Essentially when one says rights come from God, one is saying “I can’t give you a rational, earthly, demonstrable defense of rights, just trust me rights come from somewhere up in the sky, they come from an unseeable, unprovable, dimension, you’ll have to have faith that it’s true”. How is that essentially any different from the argument that rights come from Mohammed’s Allah and not from Yehovah, or rights come from Society, or rights come from Big Brother? And if rights come from, i.e., are GRANTED, from a higher power, and are not inherent in the actual nature of man, they are then not rights, but permissions, and it stands to reason that permissions granted can become permissions denied.

    To quote Objectivist philosopher Craig Biddle, “Although the notion that rights come from God served to ESTABLISH America, it has not served and cannot serve to SUSTAIN America. This is because no matter how many people believe that rights come from God, there is no evidence for such a being, much less evidence that rights somehow emanate from his will….To defend inalienable rights against the left’s relentless assault, we need an evidence-based, demonstrably true conception of rights.”

    Mr. Mateen, to the best of my knowledge in the whole history of philosophy or religion, no rational, logical, evidence-based, objectively demonstrable defense of the Rights Of Man was ever discovered or formulated, until the appearance of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism. The Enlightenment secularism of the Founding Fathers was missing such a defense, the philosophy of their time was still evolving, and so the Founding Fathers had to kick the can down the road and upstairs to the sky, so to speak, and simply invoke a Creator Deity as the basis of rights. But I am firmly convinced that thanks to Ayn Rand we now do have an evidence-based, rational,objective, demonstrable defense of the Rights Of Man, and if freedom and Capitalism are to survive and have a future, Ayn Rand’s defense of rights is the answer.

    To understand why I make this assertion perhaps you would be so kind as to give Objectivist philosopher Craig Biddle’s essay “Why Religious Conservatives Should Embrace Secular Rights” your considered perusal?

    https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2016/04/why-religious-conservatives-should-embrace-secular-rights/

    • dhans says

      Oct 28, 2019 at 10:36 pm

      What you say is true. I cannot offer any verifiable proof of the existence of God, however, I can offer a mathematical proof of the absurdity of random chance being the causative agent of the universe and life. What’s left when you rule out random chance?

      I would suggest you try to understand how toxic an idea subjective morality is. It’s ultimate expression is found in someone like Ted Bundy or Jeffery Dahmer. It is a rapid decent into a dysfunctional society composed of dysfunctional individuals, each one busy carving out a personal sphere that serves only their self interests.

      You suggest that a consensus of the subjective morality of populations speaks to moral truth. In response I would only point to Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and on and on and on. There is certainly an enforced consensus among the supporters of those regimes, but what is resultant is the an even greater evil than the subjective morality of the individual. Again, what is left when you rule out the imperfect ideas of man, or collections of men as the source of moral standards?

      You seem to have lived in a state whose foundations are in fact Christian, and have grown so accustomed to the resultant peace and prosperity that you have forgotten exactly how evil the true base nature of humanity actually is. Maybe the book you should be writing is “Why Secular Fundamentalists should embrace the functional moral truth of Christianity”.

      • gravenimage says

        Oct 28, 2019 at 10:47 pm

        Actually, Ayn Rand *does* make a good case for a logical morality, The implication that she was for Stalin’s Russia or Nazi Germany is especially strange, given her documented opposition to both at the time.

      • yiyoya says

        Oct 29, 2019 at 1:38 am

        Hold on just a minute there sir! Nowhere in my post was I advocating any kind of SUBJECTIVE morality! And I take due umbrage at your flagrant, egregious, willful misreading of my post. I took diligent care to make myself clear in my post. I clearly stated thus – “I am firmly convinced that thanks to Ayn Rand we now do have an evidence-based, rational,objective, demonstrable defense of the Rights Of Man”, as you can clearly see I was advocating and promoting an OBJECTIVE defense of the Rights Of Man, not a SUBJECTIVE defense whatsoever.

        I would suggest you carefully read my post again and maybe possibly click on the link and try reading Craig Biddle’s essay “Why Religious Conservatives Should Embrace Secular Rights”.

        https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2016/04/why-religious-conservatives-should-embrace-secular-rights/

        And for a deeper, more technical, understanding of Ayn Rand’s OBJECTIVE, evidence-based, defense of individual rights and private property rights you can read Craig Biddle’s essay “Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society”.

        https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2011/08/ayn-rand-theory-rights/

        And if by some miracle of reason and intellectual courage you should care to go to the original source here is a link to Ayn Rand’s essay “The Objectivist Ethics”.

        https://courses.aynrand.org/works/the-objectivist-ethics/

      • yiyoya says

        Oct 29, 2019 at 11:31 am

        “I would suggest you try to understand how toxic an idea subjective morality is….You suggest that a consensus of the subjective morality of populations speaks to moral truth.”

        Nowhere in my post did I suggest, advocate, or promote any kind of SUBJECTIVE morality. I take umbrage at your willful misreading and willful misconstruing of what I wrote. In my post I made a diligent effort to make myself clearly and unequivocally understood. My exact words if you care to honestly read my post are these – “But I am firmly convinced that thanks to Ayn Rand we now do have an evidence-based, rational, objective, demonstrable defense of the Rights Of Man, and if freedom and Capitalism are to survive and have a future, Ayn Rand’s defense of rights is the answer.”, how can any honest person reading these words accuse me of suggesting a SUBJECTIVE morality?

        I am not a secular fundamentalist, whatever that term may mean, I am an advocate of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, the first philosophy in history to offer an OBJECTIVE, secular, evidence-based, demonstrable, defense of rights.

        “Again, what is left when you rule out the imperfect ideas of man, or collections of men as the source of moral standards?”

        What is left is reality and the imperfect ideas of man can be corrected and eventually perfected through OBJECTIVE, rational, observation of reality. To claim that man’s senses and perception of reality are imperfect and can never perceive true reality, therefore his ideas are doomed to imperfection, is a self-refuting claim. It could be that Ayn Rand’s atheistic philosophy threaten and rattle your Christian theology and therefore you reject her outright without reading her and can only see a man-made morality as doomed to subjectivism. I assure you Rand’s defense of rights is anything but subjective, it is OBJECTIVE. Perhaps with some moral fortitude and courage you would examine her OBJECTIVE argument and defense of rights. Perhaps not, religious minds of all stripes, feel threatened by her ideas.

        Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society
        https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2011/08/ayn-rand-theory-rights/

  9. Savvy Kafir says

    Oct 29, 2019 at 1:23 am

    Islam cannot be destroyed quickly enough to save the civilized world from its encroachments. Not even close! At this point in the game, that attempt is wasted effort — and a distraction we cannot afford. Devout Muslims despise us, our culture, our opinions, & all rival religions, to such a degree that they are simply not interested in anything we might have to say, other than “We surrender!”

    What CAN be done, via Herculean effort, is to prevent the West from being Islamized by ridding it of Muslims. All Muslims. We need to focus our energies on educating the people of the West regarding the threat posed by the Demographic Jihad — and on generating the political will to deport all Muslims from all Western nations. No matter what it takes. No matter how much money, manpower, or bloodshed it requires. Because the alternative is to have Western nations succumb to Islam, one after another, as Muslim populations in the West grow.

    The ONLY way to safeguard free, civilized societies, for the long term, is to rid them of Muslims. And the longer we postpone this project, the more difficult & costly it will be.

    Once Muslims are out, they need to stay out. That is the only way to put an end to terrorism, as well as the creeping Islamization of the West. Muslims must be isolated in their own countries, where their bloodlust will have to be satisfied by slaughtering each other. And we can weaken the economies of oil-rich Muslim nations by developing alternative energy sources. At that point, Islam will become a non-issue for the West, just as it was (for the most part) for three centuries, before we began buying Muslim oil and allowing large numbers of Muslims to immigrate to the West.

    At that point – once the people & societies of the West are safe – we can attempt to promote reason & religious skepticism among Muslims from a distance, by using the Internet, radio, TV, movies, etc. But I wouldn’t place any bets on any sort of mass apostasy taking place quickly. Islam is uniquely resistant to outside ideas & influences. It was designed that way from the start, and has weathered collisions with infidel societies for 1,400 years. And it’s still going strong – and making inroads in the West that would have seemed impossible just 20 years ago.

  10. Keya says

    Oct 29, 2019 at 9:37 am

    Muslims believe that Islam the purest of all religions and Muhammad was the best man on earth. Any attempts to show that Islam is something else will go in vain. A Muslim mind will resist.

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