Why let Chicago, Detroit and New York have all the fun? Hawaii corruption by the party of crime also deserves <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ex-hawaii-senator-sentenced-to-40-months-for-taking-bribes/ar-AAZeUqu">a little attention</a>.


	English announced he was retiring last year due to health issues. His retirement will have to take place behind bars.

<blockquote>
	
		Former Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English, 55, pleaded guilty to honest services wire fraud in February, admitting he accepted bribes from a Hawaii business owner in exchange for shaping legislation that would benefit a company involved in publicly financed cesspool conversion projects...

	
		English “peddled the power and influence of his position as a Hawaii State Senator and Majority Leader to enrich himself and betray the trust bestowed upon him by those he was elected to serve,” U.S. prosecutors said in a sentencing memo urging the judge to send him to prison for three-and-a-half years.

	
		The sentence, a little more than three years, must send a “stern and lasting message” that corruption of elected officials will be punished, the memo said.
</blockquote>


	Not all that long ago, English was <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/news/hawaii-obamas-birthplace-and-refuge/">praising</a> Obama.

<blockquote>
	
		“Hawaiians love Obama,” says J. Kalani English, a Democratic state senator. “He is one of us — he understands what aloha is, he understand what mana is.”&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	Obama and English both understand<a href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/07/feds-want-former-hawaii-lawmaker-who-took-bribes-to-spend-more-than-3-years-in-prison/"> "mana"</a> really well.

<blockquote>
	
		English pleaded guilty in February and&nbsp;admitted to accepting cash and other payments&nbsp;totaling more than $18,000 from Honolulu businessman Milton Choy. English leaked documents related to a wastewater working group to Choy in exchange for cash payments. He also accepted more money to first introduce, and then kill a bill that could have benefitted Choy’s business.

	
		“As the investigation progressed it became astoundingly clear that no matter the legislative ask, the answer from English would almost certainly be ‘yes.’ English’s behavior signaled that it was systemically normal for him to accept, and indeed expect, financial benefits in return for legislative favors,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Sorenson wrote in a sentencing memorandum Friday.
</blockquote>


	And the party may just be<a href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/02/honolulu-businessman-milton-choy-had-been-working-for-years-with-feds-on-legislative-bribery-case/"> getting started</a>.

<blockquote>
	
		Choy is a prolific donor, as are his immediate family members and business associates. Choy, his family members, and his employees from various companies have donated more than $356,000 to political campaigns since 2014, according to campaign finance data. Of that, Choy has contributed more than $160,000 to the elections and reelections of numerous Democrats.

	
		Choy himself has donated to 55 campaigns — including 29 sitting lawmakers — since 2014. Money has gone to former Gov. Neil Abercrombie and current Gov. David Ige. He has most recently contributed to former Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s campaign for governor, and to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s campaign.
</blockquote>


	Culture of corruption.

Hawaii Senate Dem Majority Leader Gets 3 Years in Prison for Bribery

Why let Chicago, Detroit and New York have all the fun? Hawaii corruption by the party of crime also deserves a little attention.


	English announced he

Hawaii Senate Dem Majority Leader Gets 3 Years in Prison for Bribery

Dumping the country's oil reserves was the only strategy to lower energy prices that Biden would accept. He continues blocking domestic drilling and taxes remain high. The practical impact&nbsp;of the reserve releases was negligible and, worse still, 5 million barrels of oil from the reserve were actually <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/oil-from-u.s.-reserves-sent-overseas-as-gasoline-prices-stay-high">exported abroad</a>.

<blockquote>
	
		More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency reserves release to lower domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, according to data and sources, even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices hit record highs.

	
		About 1 million barrels per day is being released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) through October. The flow is draining the SPR, which last month fell to the lowest since 1986.&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	Considering the scale of even the national use, 20 million a day, there was never going to be much of an impact here.

<blockquote>
	
		U.S. officials have said oil prices could be higher if the SPR had not been tapped.
</blockquote>


	Ah, the hypothetical.&nbsp;


	Anyway the oil went all over.

<blockquote>
	
		The fourth-largest U.S. oil refiner, Phillips 66&nbsp;PSX.N, shipped about 470,000 barrels of sour crude from the Big Hill SPR storage site in Texas to Trieste, Italy, according to U.S. Customs data. Trieste is home to a pipeline that sends oil to refineries in central Europe.

	
		Atlantic Trading &amp; Marketing (ATMI), an arm of French oil major TotalEnergies&nbsp;TTEF.PA, exported 2 cargoes of 560,000 barrels each, the data showed.

	
		Cargoes of SPR crude were also headed to the Netherlands and to a Reliance&nbsp;RELI.NS&nbsp;refinery in India, an industry source said. A third cargo headed to China, another source said.
</blockquote>


	Yes, the story wouldn't be complete without China. Much like the PPP disaster, the government efforts invariably only punish Americans and reward Communist China.

Barrels of Oil Released by Biden From Reserve Were Sent to China

Dumping the country's oil reserves was the only strategy to lower energy prices that Biden would accept. He continues blocking domestic drilling and taxes

Barrels of Oil Released by Biden From Reserve Were Sent to China

Racist DOJ official&nbsp;Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke announced that the Biden administration is targeting Arizona for trying to prevent non-citizens from voting.


	At issue is an Arizona law asking voters to show proof of citizenship. What should be an elementary and common sense requirement is being opposed by the Biden administration, officially on technical grounds, but as a practical matter because it is trying to protect voter fraud.


	Why fight against asking voters to show a legal right to vote unless...


	1. They are your voters


	2. You believe that they don't have a legal right to vote


	“The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona is dedicated to protecting voters in the state,” said U.S. Attorney Gary M. Restaino for the District of Arizona. “We are proud to join the Civil Rights Division in bringing this lawsuit to ensure that all eligible citizens in Arizona have the opportunity to register to vote and exercise their fundamental right to participate in our elections.”&nbsp;


	Voters have the right to vote. And they have the right to protect the legitimacy of their vote by passing common sense voter tests to fight fraud.

Biden Administration's Racist DOJ Official Seeks to Protect Non-Citizen Voting in Arizona

Racist DOJ official&nbsp;Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke announced that the Biden administration is targeting Arizona for trying to prevent non-

Biden Administration's Racist DOJ Official Seeks to Protect Non-Citizen Voting in Arizona

Democrats want to make the midterms about abortion. There's one big problem. Americans are upset about the economy and don't care about abortion.&nbsp;


	In the latest <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/MonmouthPoll_US_070522/">Monmouth poll</a>,&nbsp;33% of Americans rank inflation as their top concern while 15% list gas prices. 9% mention the economy and 6% grocery prices. And only 5% list abortion.


	Over 70% list various economic concerns. Social hot button issues are on the back burner. So is national security. And the second amendment.


	57% also say that the actions of the federal government have hurt them, only 8% say that they have helped them.


	So much for the abortion or BLM or gender identity midterms. When people can't afford to eat or drive, they don't care about the hot button issues.

33% of Americans Worry About Inflation, 15% Gas Prices, 5% Abortion

Democrats want to make the midterms about abortion. There's one big problem. Americans are upset about the economy and don't care about abortion.&nbsp;

33% of Americans Worry About Inflation, 15% Gas Prices, 5% Abortion

For the past few years, the entertainment industry inhabited a strange world in which massive amounts of streaming programming were unleashed on an unprecedented level. Led by Netflix, Amazon&nbsp;and followed by tradiitional&nbsp;industry competitors like Disney&nbsp;and HBO Max, the sheer amount of money being spent was astronomical, in the billions, and the hours of programming, the number of shows made it Peak TV.


	And then Netflix and its business model crashed.


	In the familiar Dot Com pattern, a whole lot of money was chasing the promise of endless growth that would usher in its own business model. Now the crash <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-07-04/the-age-of-peak-tv-is-ending-an-age-of-austerity-is-beginning">has ended Peak TV.</a>

<blockquote>
	
		The sudden decline in Netflix’s share price&nbsp;and the&nbsp;growing fear of a recession&nbsp;have forced&nbsp;Hollywood into a new period of fiscal austerity. This manifests in ways big and small. A TV director who made&nbsp;$4 million a year is now getting $750,000. Mid-budget movies are being shelved. Broadcast TV budgets have dropped more than 30%...

	
		This is a significant departure from&nbsp;the last few years when&nbsp;media companies tripped over themselves to produce any halfway decent idea. The industry made 559 scripted shows last year, up more than 200 since 2013, the year “House of Cards” debuted...

	
		But the age of peak TV is coming&nbsp;to a close, and that will impact&nbsp;almost every sector of an industry where budgets, valuations and strategic plans were predicated on a booming&nbsp;market for new programming.&nbsp;

	
		Just a few months ago, any production company with a few credits to its name was suddenly worth&nbsp;hundreds of millions of dollars. (It helped if you were aligned with a celebrity like&nbsp;Reese Witherspoon&nbsp;or LeBron James.) Now many of the companies looking to raise capital or sell themselves are&nbsp;having a harder time.
</blockquote>


	Did Hollywood nuke its own business model?


	Streaming was supposed to be the future. Hollywood cannibalized its theatrical business for streaming. Every studio either tried to become Netflix or market to it. Or both.


	What's the future now? The plan to have every studio sell membership to its gated subscription service looks increasingly shaky especially in a troubled economy. Amazon and Netflix still want to be the dominant platform. Hollywood tried to compete with them and the result broke everyone.&nbsp;


	The entertainment industry can't grow further without China. And China wants to grow its own industry. And investors will now be skeptical of dot com promises of infinite growth.&nbsp;


	 
	&nbsp;

Hollywood Nuked Itself

For the past few years, the entertainment industry inhabited a strange world in which massive amounts of streaming programming were unleashed on an

Hollywood Nuked Itself

Natural disasters can raise pressing questions for religious believers who believe in a sovereign God. One question which inevitably arises is, “What is God doing in this?” For the almost 2 billion Muslims who make up a quarter of the world’s population, this is an important question. How might Muslims respond when they seek to frame a spiritual response to the pandemic? And what spiritual resources might their faith offer them in the face of this disruption to their lives?


	For Muslims, there are specific religious obligations which social distancing requirements interfere with, especially communal prayer in mosques, pilgrimage, and washing the body of the dead.


	Over recent months, most Muslim organizations around the world have been supporting social distancing measures brought in by their governments to control the pandemic. In Saudi Arabia Muslims were ordered not to perform their prayers at mosques, but to perform them in their own homes. The Australian National Imams Council issued a ‘Public Statement’ on 18 March, which gave Australia Muslims similar advice.


	Islam offers a system of guidance for human behavior. Ordinary Muslims are expected to follow the guidance provided by those who are more knowledgeable about Islam than they, and ultimately the guidance issued should be based upon the Quran and the Sunna (the example and teaching) of Muhammad. These sources, to which legal reasoning is applied, are the foundation for the practice of Islam. Complying with this guidance is believed to bring benefits in this life and the next.


	Most Muslim scholars would say that attending Friday communal prayers is obligatory for all Muslim men. The Quran instructs Muslims to leave their places of work on Friday and hurry to prayer (Sura 62:9), and there is a tradition of Muhammad which says that recording angels sit at the gates of mosques to keep track of all who attend (so their participation will be rewarded). But how to comply with this requirement during a pandemic?


	To relax an obligatory requirement of Islam requires an exception which can trump the obligation. There is a principle in Islam that prevention of harm, especially to Muslim lives, can overrule other obligations. Thus the Australian Fatwa Council’s fatwa on COVID-19 applied the principle that “Islamic Sacred Law protects the life of a Muslim,” in order to grant an exemption to Muslims from attending communal prayers. The International Fiqh Academy, a peak global body of Muslim jurists, put it this way, in a <a href="http://www.iifa-aifi.org/5254.html">statement</a> delivered on 20 April, that under necessity, “Almighty God has allowed people do to what is forbidden, and to omit what is obligatory”.&nbsp; IFA’s comprehensive fatwa endorses such measures as closing businesses, using alcohol-based hand sanitizers, wearing masks and gloves, closing mosques, and generally adhering to the health directives issued by authorities, even if this interferes with Islamic requirements.


	In relation to pandemic restrictions, of particular relevance are traditions of Muḥammad which refer to exemptions for attending mosques, and traditions which refer to contagious diseases. There is a tradition that during cold, windy wet weather, Muhammad instructed Muslims to pray in their homes. This establishes a precedent for an exemption to mosque attendance for health reasons. On the other hand, there is another tradition which could be taken as guidance to ignore contagious diseases. Muhammad is reported to have said, ‘There is no such thing as vermin (poisonous snakes, scorpions etc), contagious disease, or an evil omen.” Islamic traditions report some controversy among Muhammad’s companions concerning this statement. Some report that there was an additional balancing comment made that “the ill should not be taken to the healthy.” This second part of the tradition has been cited by Australian Imams and other Muslim leaders to support social distancing.


	At stake here is a theological tension between the empirically observable principle of cause-and-effect, and a Islamic doctrine that everything happens according to the Divine Decree. Islamic teaching especially emphasizes that each soul dies at the precise time preordained by Allah. I remember an engaging discussion with Muslims in an Indonesian village early in 1980, about the fate of Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia, who was being kept alive on life support systems. The villagers had seen TV images of Tito in his hospital bed. Was it possible, they asked me, to prolong someone’s life past the time of death predetermined by Allah? It was made very clear to me that the correct Islamic answer was, ‘No it is not’. The influential Salafi sheik, Muhammad Saalih al-Munajid has <a href="https://islamqa.info/en/answers/153438/ordaining-the-end-of-life-according-to-ahl-as-sunnah-and-the-mutazilah">observed</a> that not even murder violates Allah’s sovereignty over the time of death: ‘the one who kills a person has not taken anything away from the lifespan of the one who was slain; rather Allah, may He be exalted, decreed that from eternity.”


	The issue of divine sovereignty over epidemics also features in traditions in which Muhammad states that plague is sent by Allah, so “when you hear that it has broken out in a land, don’t go to it, and when it has broken out in the land where you are, don’t run out of it.” This might sound rather like a sensible restriction on travel for quarantine purposes, but in reality the logic is that if Allah is punishing a particular region with plague, it is senseless to try to evade his judgement, and if divine judgement is falling upon a region, it makes no sense to throw in your lot with them.


	There is a telling discussion of this tradition reported in the Sahih Muslim. ‘Umar was leading Muslims on a raiding party to Syria when they received word that the plague had broken out there. Umar sought advice, and decided to turn back. Then a follower asked, “Are you going to run away from the Divine Decree?”, the implication being that it was futile to try to avoid a date with destiny set by the creator himself. Umar replied, “We are running from the Divine Decree to the Divine Decree.” He then gave the illustration that if you take camels into a valley, and there is green grass on one side and none on the other, whichever side you choose, it will be the Divine Decree. So to take steps to avoid plague must be considered as pre-ordained by Allah as dying from the plague after you get infected from entering plague territory.


	No doubt with all this in mind, the Australian Fatwa Council’s ruling on COVID-19 began by asserting the sovereignty of Allah over death: “Life and death are absolutely within the decree of Allah alone, exalted be He. This is a reality, no matter what secondary causes appear to be.” The second paragraph continues, “No human shall die until it has completely exhausted its destined provision (rizq) and lifespan (ajal). Death is one of the decrees of Allah.” So if someone dies from COVID-19, it is because Allah has willed it. However, after asserting the principle of divine sovereignty over death, the fatwa defends attending to ‘secondary’ causes, such as infectious disease. Accepting the reality that Allah takes life by secondary causes is, the fatwa states, “part of our belief in the decree and destiny that Allah has established in the world.” So engaging with and acting in accordance with our understanding of ‘secondary’ causes is also the Divine Decree. Therefore, the fatwa urges, “a Muslim repels the decree of illness and transmissible diseases with the decree of protection, treatment and medicine.”


	The Australian Imams were wise to urge Muslims to support the government’s policy of social distancing. Several early cases were reported from around the world where large gatherings of Muslims played a critical role in spreading COVID-19, including in Malaysia and India. In Indonesia it was reported in April that, at the instigation of Muslim leaders in the province, mosques continued to be open to thousands to attend Friday prayers together. One Acehnese congregant stated that she <a href="https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/indonesia-covid-19-mass-prayers-mosques-aceh-sumatra-12690702">prefers to attend the mosque</a> because ‘the reward is bigger [for praying in the mosque on Friday]… so no matter how afraid we are, most importantly is that we believe it is Allah’s provision’ and another suggested that “maybe by worshipping, Allah will keep the disease away from us.”&nbsp; She would rather trust in God’s sovereignty than miss out on the potential spiritual benefit of attending mosque.


	There are risks for Muslims in applying certain Islamic teachings concerning epidemics. One risk is to emphasize the Divine Decree at the expense of the ‘Decree’ of preventative measures. According to a tradition attributed to Muhammad, plague may be a punishment for some, but for genuine believers it could be a source of mercy, so that if a believer trusts in the Divine Decree for his life during an epidemic, and he falls sick and dies, he will receive the reward of a martyr, i.e. paradise with all the options. Here is the full text of the hadith:

<blockquote>
	
		“I asked Allah’s Apostle about the plague. He told me that it was a Punishment sent by Allah on whom he wished, and Allah made it a source of mercy for the believers, for if one in the time of an epidemic plague stays in his country patiently hoping for Allah’s Reward and believing that nothing will befall him except what Allah has written for him, he will get the reward of a martyr.” (Sahih al-Bukhari)
</blockquote>


	This teaching might be considered an incentive to get infected, if it means attaining to the status of a martyr!


	There is also theological pressure in the Quran, at the core of Islam, to see pandemics in terms of divine punishment. The Quran speaks repeatedly of the wrath of God falling on groups of people as punishment for rejecting past messengers. Quranic punishments include earthquake, fire, flood, windstorms, thunderbolts, and airborne projectiles. This emphasis is so pervasive, especially in the earlier, ‘Meccan’ passages of the Quran, that there can easily be a tendency to consider all natural disasters as acts of divine punishment. For example, when the Tsunami devastated South East Asia, the Saudi-based cleric, Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajjid announced it to be a punishment upon unbelievers for evil practices associated with holidays, such as adultery, drinking alcohol, and dancing: “the Almighty Lord … showed them his vengeance”.


	A very practical risk for Muslims if they interpret epidemics as divine punishment is that they might not take necessary precautions against infection. This is a risk for the followers of the Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who boasted that he and his followers have no need for social distancing: “We pray fives time daily … we stick together. We join hands. We eat from one bowl. We are doing very, very, very well. We have anti-virus. You have coronavirus, we have anti-virus.” Early on in the progress of the pandemic, as reports of COVID-19 devastation were coming in from China and then Iran, some Sunni Muslims clerics declared that this was God’s judgement against China for persecuting Muslims, and against Shia Muslims for being heretics. Those who assume that the epidemic is God’s judgement against other people could be tempted not to take adequate precautions themselves. Later, of course, the pandemic came for Sunnis too.


	There are political risks for religious communities who do not observe health requirements. In India, Muslims were blamed by Hindu extremists for the spread of the virus. At one point, one in five confirmed cases in India was linked to a single three-day long meeting of the Tablighi Jamaat movement in New Delhi. After this event a government raid on the movement’s compound discovered the largest virus cluster in India. The authorities arrested 29 people, including 16 foreigners who attended the meeting, and as news of these events spread there were incidents of discrimination and hatred against Muslims across the country. (At the same time, the disruptions caused by COVID-19 have also provided opportunities for increased persecution of non-Muslims in some countries. For example, reports have been received from Pakistan that a NGO denied COVID-19 related food aid to poor Hindus and Christians, and a Muslim cleric <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2020/05/14/simply-reprehensible-covid-19-occasions-more-abuse-of-christians-under-islam/">boasted</a> on Pakistan television that a destitute Christian was offered food in exchange for conversion to Islam.&nbsp; These actions have been <a href="https://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases-statements/uscirf-troubled-denial-food-aid-pakistani-hindus-and-christians">called ‘reprehensible’</a> by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.)


	We have seen repeatedly that large gatherings of people in close proximity, whether for sports, religious observance, parties, or even a choir practice, can turbo-charge the spread of COVID-19. Islam mandates for large gatherings of men in mosques, and afterwards these men potentially could spread the virus to their families. It is not an easy thing for Muslim communities to suspend communal gatherings, given that they play such a central role in Islamic spirituality. This is especially true of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Despite a hadith which states that angels prevent plague from entering Mecca and Medina, there have been multiple large-scale <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(17)30454-1/fulltext">epidemics</a> which decimated pilgrims: 20,000 pilgrims died of cholera in 1821 and 15,000 in 1865 (one sixth of all pilgrims that year). (However it is considered especially meritorious to pass away on the Hajj.) This year the Saudis have suspended the year-round umra pilgrimages to Mecca, and the Muslim world is still waiting for a decision from Saudi Arabia concerning the Hajj, which is due to commence in late July.


	Islam offers a system of guidance, and Muslim leaders are speaking up all over the world to offer this guidance, addressing the many challenges caused by the pandemic. Most scholars are using their spiritual clout to instruct Muslims to follow guidelines issued by national authorities. This guidance is intended to release Muslims from the invidious position of being conflicted between religious requirements, and the requirements of the state. At the same time, there are theological drivers in Islam which could lead Muslims either to regard the pandemic as a punishment for non-believers, and thus not a serious risk for sincere Muslims, or to downplay the risk in favor of the perceived benefits of maintaining meritorious religious practices. Some Muslim communities may consider the tenets of their faith, including the requirement for men to gather for Friday prayers, to take precedence over anything a secular government might give them. The pandemic requires Muslim leaders to balance certain aspects of Islamic teachings with sensible medical advice, and when Islamic leaders do not align the guidance they are issuing with sound medical advice, the health outcomes for Muslims can be expected to be poor.


	In countries which are trying to achieve compliance with pandemic measures, it is important to recognize that for many pious Muslims, religious requirements can take precedence over human-made laws of nations, if they interfere with core requirements of Islam. In order to secure the compliance of their Muslim citizens with health advisories and social distancing rules, the state needs Muslim organizations to issue guidance mandating the compliance of the faithful. There are risks, both for Muslims and rest of the community if this does not happen.


	Dr. Mark Durie is an academic, theologian, Anglican pastor, a Shillman-Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and Senior Research Fellow of the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology. Visit his site at <a href="https://markdurie.com/">markdurie.com.</a>


	<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sultan_Mosque_-_Prayer_Hall.jpg">Photo credit: Dekoelie at Wikimedia Commons</a>

Islam, COVID-19, and the Divine Decree

Natural disasters can raise pressing questions for religious believers who believe in a sovereign God. One question which inevitably arises is, “What is God

<a href="/sites/default/files/uploads/2015/03/rf.jpg"><img src="/sites/default/files/uploads/2015/03/rf.jpg" alt="rf" width="286" height="212" /></a>Last week the Islamic State's ‘Hacking Division’ released the names and addresses of one hundred US military personnel.  It urged the ‘brothers residing in America’ – i.e. American Muslims – to ‘deal with’ them, which is to say, it wants them killed.
There is much talk these days of radicalization and deradicalization. At the heart of both processes are religious ideas: theological dogmas.  What are some of the key theological principles which might cause a Muslim to take this call seriously? What is the Islamic reasoning given by the IS Hacking Division in support of its call to kill non-Muslims?
The Hacking Division quote two verses of the Qur’an:
<ul>
<li>Sura 9:123 ‘fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you’ and</li>
<li>Sura 9:14 ‘Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them, and satisfy [actually yashfi ‘heal’] the breasts of a believing people’.</li>
</ul>
The meaning of these two verses hangs upon the word qātilū, translated here as ‘fight’. The verbal root q-t-l from which qātilū is formed means ‘kill’, so the the Arabic actually means ‘fight to kill’ (see discussion <a href="http://blog.markdurie.com/2011/04/on-difficulty-of-reading-quran-part-b.html">here</a>). These Qur’anic verses truly are commands to kill non-Muslims.
The second quoted verse, from Sura 9:14, puts forward a view concerning what Muslims should do about emotional pain and anguish they may experience because of unbelievers.  ‘Allah’, the verse says, ‘will heal the breasts’ of Muslims, – and then the sentence continues into the next verse – ‘and remove the rage of their hearts’.
The key concept here is that if Muslims have strong feelings, including anger, against non-Muslims, their emotional distress will subside and be ‘healed’ as they kill, humiliate and triumph over non-believers. Strange therapy indeed for the human soul!  According to the Qur’an, in order to secure inner  ‘peace’, calm within the Muslim soul can be secured by shedding non-Muslim blood.
These are stock-standard verses used to urge Muslims to go for jihad against disbelievers. However what most caught my eye in the Hacking Division’s call to arms against infidels in America was but a reference to Muhammad’s teachings. The Hacking Division refers to hadith 4661 in a published English version of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahih_Muslim">Sahih Muslim</a> (translated by Abdul Hamid Sidiqqi).
The Sahih Muslim is one of the most revered and authoritative sources for the teaching and example of Muhammad, whose life is considered exemplary and compulsory for Muslims to emulate.  This particular hadith can be found on page 1263 of Volume 3 of the English edition:
<blockquote>Chapter 789 (DCCLXXXIX)
About a man who killed a disbeliever and embraced Islam. 
(4661) It has been narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: A disbeliever and a believer who killed him will never be gathered together in Hell. [See <a href="http://www.theonlyquran.com/hadith/Sahih-Muslim/?volume=20&amp;chapter=36">here</a>.]</blockquote>
This is a most significant statement. It is saying that if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, they cannot both end up in hell.  The alternative to hell is paradise, so in other words, killing a non-Muslim – who is destined for hell due to their unbelief – can provide a sure ticket to paradise for a Muslim.
This tradition is the authority for a view widely put about by jihadis, that if a Muslim personally gets to kill a disbeliever, the Muslim will gain paradise.  Put together with with the famous belief that for a Muslim to be ‘martyred’ in jihad opens the gates of paradise (see Sura 3:169-170; 9:111; and 22:58), fighting to kill non-Muslims can be a ticket to glory, win or lose. Either one kills and gains a get-out-of-hell free card, or one is killed and gains a get-into-paradise-free card. This is a win-win proposition for the jihadi.
Persuading Muslims to take the words of Muhammad seriously is the core strategy of radicalization.  This tactic works as well as it does because it appeals to a plain reading of Islam’s holy texts.
To be deradicalized, a Muslim needs to repudiate the theological authority of the teachings of Muhammad and the Qur’an. This is a hard call for pious Muslims. Ayan Hirsi Ali was surely correct in her recent essay calling for reform of Islam when <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/why-islam-needs-a-reformation/story-e6frg6zo-1227272860152">she wrote that</a>
<blockquote>‘the fundamental problem is that the majority of otherwise peaceful and law-abiding Muslims are unwilling to acknowledge, much less to repudiate, the theological warrant for intolerance and violence embedded in their own religious texts.’</blockquote>
Hirsi Ali also declared:
<blockquote>‘we in the West need to challenge and debate the very substance of Islamic thought and practice. We need to hold Islam accountable for the acts of its most violent adherents and to demand that it reform or disavow the key beliefs that are used to justify those acts.’</blockquote>
Hirsi Ali was right: the West needs to engage with and repudiate the Islamic dogmas that killing or being killed in murderous attacks against non-Mulims is some kind of golden key which unlocks the gates of paradise. Until these beliefs and the canonical teachings they rely on are acknowledged and repudiated, the lives of non-Muslims will continue to be discarded as the ‘ticket to paradise’ of Muslim belligerents.
Hadiths such as 4661 from Sahih Muslim, and the Qur’anic verses cited here are a genuine part of the Islamic canon. Such verses remain unrenounced and unrepudiated by a great many Muslims and Islamic institutions today.
As long as such texts are not repudiated, the theological winds of Islam will all too easily continue to sweep pious Muslim hearts and minds towards radicalization, a process which exalts the idea that the lives of infidels are disposable.
Islam’s warrant to kill infidels is an idea which deserves to be exposed, challenged, thoroughly debated, and rejected.
*
Don't miss the Glazov Gang's 2-part series with Dr. Mark Durie on Jihadist Slavery and Rape -- and Islam-Denial and Our Fear of Islam:
Part I: 
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Part II:
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Challenging Islam’s Warrant to Kill

Last week the Islamic State's ‘Hacking Division’ released the names and addresses of one hundred US military personnel.  It urged the ‘brothers residing in

Boko Haram and the Dynamics of Denial

It is a common refrain of pious Muslims in the face of atrocities done by other Muslims in the name of Islam that Islam must not be shamed. Whenever an Islamic

<a href="/sites/default/files/uploads/2014/04/ipeI1.gif"><img alt="ipeI" src="/sites/default/files/uploads/2014/04/ipeI1.gif" width="315" height="219" /></a>Tony Blair delivered a major speech on April 23 entitled, “Why the Middle East Matters”. In summary, he argued that the Middle East, far from being a “vast unfathomable mess” is deep in the throes of a multi-faceted struggle between a specific religious ideology on the one hand, and those who want to embrace the modern world on the other.  Furthermore, the West, blinded up until now as to the religious nature of the conflict, must take sides: it should support those who stand on the side of open-minded pluralistic societies, and combat those who wish to create intolerant theocracies.
In his speech Blair makes a whole series of substantial points:
He states that a ‘defining challenge of our time’ is a religious ideology which he calls ‘Islamist’, although he is not comfortable with this label because he prefers to distance himself from any implication that this ideology can be equated with Islam itself. He worries that “you can appear to elide those who support the Islamist ideology with all Muslims.”
He considers Islamism to be a global movement, whose diverse manifestations are produced by common ideological roots.
He rejects Western non-religious explanations for the problems caused by Islamist ideology, including the preference of “Western commentators” to attribute the manifestations of Islamism to “disparate” causes which have nothing to do with religion.  Likewise he implies that the protracted conflict over Israel-Palestine is not the cause of this ideology, but rather the converse is the case: dealing with the wider impact of Islamist ideology could help solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
According to Blair, what distinguishes violent terrorists from seemingly non-violent Islamists – such as the Muslim Brotherhood – is simply “a difference of view as to how to achieve the goals of Islamism”, so attempts to draw a distinction between political Islamist movements and radical terrorist groups are mistaken.  Blair considers that the religious ideology of certain groups like the Brotherhood, which may appear to be law-abiding, “inevitably creates the soil” in which religio-political violence is nurtured.
He considers “Islamism” to be a major threat everywhere in the world, including increasingly within Western nations. The "challenge" of Islamism is “growing” and “spreading across the world” and it is “the biggest threat to global security of the early 21st Century.”
Because of the seriousness of the threat of this religio-political ideology,  Blair argues that the West should vigorously support just about anybody whose interests lie in opposing Islamists, from General Sisi in Egypt to President Putin in Russia. He finds it to be an absurd irony that Western governments form intimate alliances with nations whose educational and civic institutions promote this ideology: an obvious example of this would be the US - Saudi alliance.
In all this, one might be forgiven for thinking that Blair sounds a lot like Geert Wilders, except that, as he takes pains to emphasize, he emphatically rejects equating Islamism with Islam. Tony Blair and Geert Wilders agree that there is a serious religious ideological challenge facing the world, but they disagree on whether that challenge is Islam itself.My Blair’s speech is aimed at people who do not wish to be thought of as anti-Musilm, but who need to be awakened to the religious nature of the Islamist challenge. He is keen to assure his intended audience that if they adopt his thesis they would not be guilty of conflating those who support radical Jihadi violence with all Muslims.Two key assumptions underpin Blair’s dissociation of Islamism the religio-political ideology from Islam the religion.
First, Blair presupposes that Islamism is not “the proper teaching of Islam”. It may, he concedes, be “an interpretation”, but it is a false one, a “perversion” of the religion, which “distorts and warps Islam’s true message.”  He offers two arguments to support this theological insight.One is that there are pious Muslims who agree with him: “Many of those totally opposed to the Islamist ideology are absolutely devout Muslims.”
This is a fallacious argument. It is akin to asserting that Catholic belief in the infallibility of the Pope cannot be Christian merely because there are absolutely devout protestant Christians who totally oppose this dogma.  The fact that there are pious Muslims who reject Islamism is not a credible argument that Islamism is an invalid interpretation of Islam.
Blair’s other argument in support of his belief that Islamism is a perversion of Islam is an allegation that Christians used to hold similarly abhorrent theologies: “There used to be such interpretations of Christianity which took us years to eradicate from our mainstream politics.”  This is a self-deprecating variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy, in which another’s argument is attacked by accusing them of hypocrisy. Here Blair rhetorically directs the ad hominem attack against himself and his culture. In essence, he is saying “It would hypocritical of us to regard Islamist ideology as genuinely Islamic, because (we) Christians used to support similarly pernicious theologies in the past (although we do not do so today).”
This logic is equally fallacious: observations about the history of Christian theology, valid or not, prove nothing about what is or is not a valid form of Islam.
Blair’s second key assumption is a widely-held view about the root cause of “the challenge”. The fundamental issue, he argues, is people of faith who believe they and only they are right and do not accept the validity of other views. Such people believe that “there is one proper religion and one proper view of it, and that this view should, exclusively, determine the nature of society and the political economy.” “It is not about a competing view of how society or politics should be governed within a common space where you accept other views are equally valid. It is exclusivist in nature.”
Hilary Clinton <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120803000739/http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/07/195782.htm">has expressed</a> a very similar understanding of extremist religionists, who “define religion in such a way that if you do not believe what they want you to believe, then what you are doing is not practicing religion, because there is only one definition of religion.”
Such views about religion may reflect the secularist Zeitgeist, but they offer a very weak explanation for the challenge of radical Islam.  The problem is not that Islamists believe they and only they are right.  The problem is all the rest of what they believe.Consider this: Tony Blair himself believes his goal is valid, true and worth fighting for, namely a tolerant, open, democratic society, and the Islamists’ goal of a sharia society is invalid.  He does believe that his view should determine the nature of society.  Likewise many religious groups believe that they follow the one true religion, including the Catholic Church, which Tony Blair formally joined in 2007: Mother Theresa of Calcutta certainly did not consider alternative religious views equally valid to Catholic dogma.  But none of this certainty of belief implies that Tony Blair or Catholics in general are disposed to become terrorists, cut hands off thieves or kill apostates.
Blair’s argument manifests the paradox of tolerance. His vision of a good society is one in which people must respect the views of others as “equally valid”. At the same time he argues that we should disallow and combat Islamism because it is “perverse”. He is asking for Islamism not to be tolerated because it is intolerant.If Blair’s explanation for Islamist nastiness is flawed, what then is the explanation? This takes us back to Islam itself.  Does Blair’s position on Islam hold water?
Blair’s arguments for his positive view of Islam are weak. The validity of Islamism does not rest or fall on whether there are pious Muslims who accept or reject it, nor on whether Christians have advocating equally perverse theologies in the past.  In the end, Islam as a religion - all mainstream Muslim scholars would agree - is based upon the teachings of the Sunna (the example and teaching of Muhammad) and the Koran. Islam’s religious validity in the eyes of its followers stands and falls on how well it can be justified from those authorities.There are at least three respects in which Islamist ideologies claim strong support from Islam - that is, from the Koran and Muhammad.
One is the intolerance and violence in the Islamic canon.  The Koran states "Kill them / the polytheists wherever you can find them (Sura 9:5, 2:191). Muhammad, according to Islamic tradition, said “I have been sent with a sword in my hand to command people to worship Allah and associate no partners with him. I command you to belittle and subjugate those who disobey me …” He also said to his followers in Medina, "Kill any Jew who falls into your power." Following in Muhammad’s footsteps, one of Muhammad’s most revered companions and successors as leader of the Muslim community, the Caliph Umar, called upon the armies of Islam to fight non-Muslims until they surrender or convert, saying “If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency.”
It will not do, in the face of many such statements found in the Koran and the traditions of Muhammad, to throw one’s hands up in the air and say there are also bad verses in the Bible.  If Jesus Christ had said such things as Muhammad did, Christianity’s political theology would look very different today and medieval Christian Holy War theology – developed initially in response to the Islamic jihad – would have come into being as part of the birth-pangs of the religion, just as the doctrine of the Islamic jihad did in the history of Islam.
Islamist apologists find it relatively easy to win young Muslims over to their cause precisely because they have strong arguments at their disposal from the Koran and  Muhammad’s example and teaching.  Their threatening ideology is growing in influence because it is so readily supported by substantial religious foundations.  Islamism may not be the only interpretation of Islam, but by any objective measure, it is open for Muslims to hold it, given what what is in their canon.
Blair makes a telling over-generalisation when he states that Islamist ideology is an export from the Middle East.  Another important source has been the Indian sub-continent.  Today Pakistanis today are among the most dynamic apologists for Islamism. Abul A’la Maududi, an Indian (later Pakistani) Islamic teacher and founder of Jamaat-e-Islami was writing powerful texts to radicalise Muslims more than 70 years ago - including his tract Jihad in Islam (first published in 1927). His works remain in widespread use as tools of radicalization by Islamist organisations. Maududi’s theological vision was driven, not by Middle Eastern influences or Saudi petrodollars, but by his life-long study of the Koran and the example of Muhammad.  The spiritual DNA of Maududi’s Islamist theology was derived from the Islamic canon itself.
The second point to understand about Islamist ideologies is that the conflation of politics and religion, which is one of Blair’s main objections to Islamism, has always been accepted as normative by the mainstream of Islamic theology.  It is orthodox Islam.  As <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2006/04/27/islam-and-the-west-a-conversation-with-bernard-lewis/">Bernard Lewis pointed out</a>, the separation of church and state has been derided by most Muslim thinkers since the origins of Islam:  “Separation of church and state was derided in the past by Muslims when they said this is a Christian remedy for a Christian disease. It doesn’t apply to us or to our world.”
The third point about Islamist ideologies is that their vision of a closed society in which non-Muslims are second-class participants is in lock-step with the conservative mainstream of Islamic thought.  Here again Bernard Lewis:  “It is only very recently that some defenders of Islam began to assert that their society in the past accorded equal status to non-Muslims. No such claim is made by spokesmen for resurgent Islam, and historically there is no doubt that they are right. Traditional Islamic societies neither accorded such equality nor pretended that they were so doing. Indeed, in the old order, this would have been regarded not as a merit but as a dereliction of duty. How could one accord the same treatment to those who follow the true faith and those who willfully reject it? This would be a theological as well as a logical absurdity.” (The Jews of Islam, Princeton University Press, 1987, p.4).
Tony Blair is right to call the world to engage with and reject radical Islamist ideology. This is a defining global challenge of our time.  He is also correct to affirm that this ideology is religious.  But he is profoundly mistaken to characterize it as un-Islamic.  The fallacious arguments he puts forward for distinguishing Islam from Islamism are nothing but flimsy rhetoric.  The hard evidence against separating Islamism from Islam is clear, the sentiments of some pious Muslims non-withstanding.
Islamism is a valid interpretation of Islam, not in the sense that it is the only ‘correct’ or ‘true’ one, but because its core tenets find ready and obvious support in the Islamic canon, and they align with core principles of 1400 years of Islamic theology.  (To make this observation is not the same thing as saying that all pious Muslims are Islamists!)
Blair is right to call for the West to combat “radical Islam”, but the reason why “radical” is a correct term to use for this ideology is that radical means “of the root,” and Islamist ideas are deeply rooted in Islam itself. Islamism is a radical form of Islam. This explains why the radicalization project has been advancing with such force all over the world.
In order to combat radical Islamic views we do need to have a frank and open dialogue about the dynamics of radicalization. Blair is concerned about the damage being caused by denial about Islamism, but he indulges in his own form of blinkered thinking, which is just as unhelpful.  He was right to identify Islamist ideology as the soil in which violent jihadi ideologies "inevitably" take root, but fails to identity mainstream Islam itself as the soil in which Islamism develops. In reality the Islamist movement is but the tip of the iceberg of the Islamic movement, a deeper and broader revival of Islam across the whole Muslim world.
When countering radical Islamic ideologies, Western leaders should refrain from putting themselves forward as experts on theology, who are somehow competent to rule on whether a particular interpretation of Islam is valid or “perverse”. There is something ridiculous about secular politicians ruling on which manifestations of Islam are to be judged theologically correct. As Taliban Cleric Abu Qutada once said, “I am astonished by President Bush when he claims there is nothing in the Quran that justifies jihad violence in the name of Islam. Is he some kind of Islamic scholar? Has he ever actually read the Quran?”
Ritual displays of respect for Islam should not be naively used as sugar to coat the pill of opposition to the objectionable beliefs and behaviour of some Muslims. Leaders need to be absolutely clear about what values they stand for, and insist on these values. They should not need to express a theological opinion about what is or is not valid Islam in order to challenge the anti-semitism of Palestinian school textbooks, the denial of basic religious rights to non-Muslim guest workers in Saudi Arabia, incitement against Christians in Egypt, the promotion of female genital mutilation in the name of Islam in the Maldives, or the UK practice of taking child brides.
In this post-secular world, our leaders need to “do God” with less naivety.  They need to grasp that the inner pressure they feel to manifest respect for Islam whenever they object to some of its manifestations is itself a symptom of the ideology of dominance which powers the Islamist agenda.  They should resist the pressure to mount an apology for Islam.  The mullahs can do that.
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Tony Blair on the Islamist Threat

Tony Blair delivered a major speech on April 23 entitled, “Why the Middle East Matters”. In summary, he argued that the Middle East, far from being a “vast

<img title="000_Nic6201239.jpg.1000x297x1" src="/sites/default/files/uploads/2013/03/000_Nic6201239.jpg.1000x297x1.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="157" />On March 21, Sheikh Dr Mohamed Said Ramadan Al-Bouti of Syria was killed, along with 40 others, by a suicide bomber at the Iman mosque in Damascus.
A 2009 publication edited by John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin listed the 500 most influential Muslims in the world. Al-Bouti was no. 23.  He was Imam of the Ummayyad Mosque and Dean of the Department of Religion at Damascus University, where he had taught Islam for more than half a century. Aged in his eighties, Al-Bouti was regarded as one of the eminent Sunni jurists of the modern era.
Al-Bouti had long been a critic of Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood.  More recently, the Brotherhood's spiritual leader Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawy has been fanning the flames of unrest across the Middle East, reaching millions of viewers on Al-Jazeera.  When asked the question on Al-Jazeera TV,  "Is it permissible to target those who support the [Syrian] regime, especially government scholars?" Al- Qaradawy replied: "We should fight to kill all those who work for the government, whether civilians, army, scholars, or ignorant."  Al-Qaradawy has also mocked Al-Bouti (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WNaReoAGRU">here</a>) and called him a mad imbecile (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbLSgkrEhfU&amp;feature=youtu.be">here</a>) and threatened him with Allah's wrath and people's anger if he did not repent.
Also stirring the pot from the safety of Saudi Arabia has been <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21564913-influential-rebel-preacher-who-needs-tone-things-down">Adnan al-Aroor, an exiled Syrian Sunni Cleri</a>c, who has cursed Al-Bouti and called for his death.
The loss of Al-Bouti will be sorely felt by the Assad regime.  Well-known for his opposition to revolution, he was the most senior Sunni cleric who still supported Assad.
Al-Bouti's support was consistent with a sharia principle which states that it is unlawful for Muslims to revolt and take up arms against their Muslim ruler, even if he is unjust.  Most scholars agree that this is forbidden.  Ibn Taymiyyah made the famous comment that "sixty years under an oppressive ruler are better than one night without any ruler."
Muhammad himself said:
<blockquote>"The best among your rulers are those whom you love and they love you in turn, those who pray (make supplication) for you and you pray for them. The worst of your rulers are those whom you hate and they hate you in turn, and you curse them and they curse you."
Someone asked: "O Messenger of Allah! Shall we confront them with swords?"
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "No, as long as they hold prayers among you (i.e. as long as the ruler is a Muslim). If you see from your rulers what you hate, hate the action they do but do not rebel against them."  (Sahih Muslim)</blockquote>
In order for Muslims to rebel, the ruler should first be declared to be a kaffir "unbeliever" who has abandoned Islam.  Declaring Muslims to be kaffir is known as the practice of takfir. There have been many takfir rulings against President Assad and his supporters in recent times to justify fighting and killing them (for example <a href="http://ahlusunnahwaljamaah.com/2012/02/14/takfeer-alawi-assad/">these two</a> rulings against Assad and Alawites on a Salafist website).
It is not surprising that in a statement released after Al-Bouti's death, President Assad, after declaring Al-Bouti to be a martyr, <a href="http://www.syriaonline.sy/?f=Details&amp;catid=12&amp;pageid=5379">pledged to continue to work to eliminate "takfiri thinking</a>."
In recent years there have been concerted efforts by leading Muslim scholars to suppress the practice of takfir, notably the <a href="http://www.ammanmessage.com/http://www.ammanmessage.com/">Amman Message</a>, sponsored by King Abdullah of Jordan and signed by over 500 leading Muslim scholars, including Al-Bouti and Al-Qaradawy. Nevertheless many Muslims accept the use of takfir against apostates from Islam, against groups regarded as heretical such as the Ahmadis, and against those who, like Salman Rushdie, are considered to be blasphemers.
Islam has a long doctrinal tradition of warfare - the institution of jihad - which offers Paradise to those who die fighting. Indeed in Islam, all warfare should be religious, because it is forbidden to wage war without a religious mandate.
The principle of Islamic law that Muslims should not take up arms against Muslim rulers is pragmatic.  It helps protect Islamic societies from being torn apart by sectarian conflict.  The dogma of jihad and practice of takfir, if invoked by competing parties in a conflict, can produce extraordinary devastation, as was witnessed in the Iran-Iraq war, in which there were more than a million "martyrs." It was on such grounds that Al-Bouti supported Assad - and opposed the more radical takfiri Muslims, who now constitute the opposition forces in Syria.
His distaste for armed rebellion notwithstanding, Al-Bouti was a theological conservative who endorsed the classical principles of Islamic jihad.  In Fiqh Al-Sira ("Jurisprudence of the Life of Muhammad") he defined the doctrine of jihad to consist of the duty of Muslims to impose Islamic government on the world if they have sufficient military force. In support of this principle he cited Sura 9:123:
<blockquote>"O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him)."</blockquote>
As well as the words of Muhammad:
<blockquote>"I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah,' and whoever says, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah', Allah will save his property and his life from me [i.e. from Muhammad], except justly [i.e. he has committed a crime], and his account will be with Allah?"  (Sahih Al-Bukhari)</blockquote>
Al-Bouti also taught that atheists, idolaters and polytheists could be fought against, to compel them into Islam, while Christians and Jews could be permitted to live alongside Muslims provided they submit to sharia law and pay tribute to the Islamic authorities.  He pooh-poohed the distinction often made between offensive and defensive jihad:
<blockquote>"It is nonsense to want to distinguish the two aspects of defensive and offensive warfare in the struggle for the cause of Allah.  The legitimacy of jihad does not depend upon the right of attack or defense as such; it is based upon the necessity of establishing an Islamic society which follows the laws and principles of Islam, therefore it matters little how one pursues jihad towards this end, whether offensive or defensive." (Fiqh Al-Sira, from the French translation of Z. Diab, pp. 187-188).</blockquote>
Like many other leading Muslim scholars, Al-Bouti issued a fatwa endorsing "martyrdom operations" -- suicide bombings -- in Israel.  This fatwa was cited by Nawaf Hayel Al-Takrouri in Martyrdom Operations in Islamic Jurisprudence (al-Amaliyat al-Istishhadiyya fi Mizan al-Fiqhi) along with 31 other similar rulings:
<blockquote>"These operations are one hundred percent legal if the one who carries it out intends to inflict defeat upon the enemy, but not to kill himself. If he intended to kill himself, he has committed suicide and he is not a martyr. His intention must be to inflict defeat upon the enemy and not death [to himself]. Allah might save him supernaturally."
Then he [Prof. Al Bouti] gave an illustration.  He said:
"A man says, 'Since I am tired of life, I am going to carry out a [martyrdom] operation.' This [person] would be committing suicide.
Someone else says, 'I am pursuing jihad in the cause of Allah to strike the enemy. If I die, that is good; if I don't die, that is better.' This [person] will be a martyr, Allah willing. Furthermore, this an act of vengeance."</blockquote>
It is a bitter irony that this respected scholar was killed at the end of a long and productive life by someone who was acting out the very belief he had promoted against Israelis: that a Muslim who blows himself up to inflict defeat upon "the enemy" has not committed suicide, but is a martyr enjoying the delights of paradise, provided his intentions are "good."
Muslim armies down the centuries have found the doctrine of jihad to be a potent weapon against their non-Muslim foes. However bellicose dogmas, which even "moderate" Muslims, such as Al-Bouti espouse, have the capacity to tear societies apart in a bloodbath if conditions for their implementation are triggered. The recent slaughter of 41 civilians in the Iman mosque in Damascus was but a microcosm of the larger theologically-driven tragedy which is engulfing Syria, and threatens to make mince-meat of much of the Middle East. For too long Arab states have tolerated and even invested heavily in the promotion of jihadist dogma in their societies.  Those who stoke the fires of jihad better watch out for the blowback.
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Sheikh Al-Bouti Dies By the Means He Promoted

On March 21, Sheikh Dr Mohamed Said Ramadan Al-Bouti of Syria was killed, along with 40 others, by a suicide bomber at the Iman mosque in Damascus.

A 2009

<a href="/sites/default/files/uploads/2012/08/ins.jpg"><img title="ins" src="/sites/default/files/uploads/2012/08/ins.jpg" alt="" width="323" height="215" /></a>In the past two weeks at least nine Americans <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/us/war-in-afghanistan-claims-2000th-american-life.html">have been killed by their Afghan allies</a> in what is known to as "insider killings."  Members of the Afghan army, having been trained and armed by NATO forces, are turning their weapons in increasing numbers against their foreign allies, killing at least 40 NATO troops this year so far.
These killings are demoralizing, not only for the troops, but also for the folks back home.  They make people war-weary.  Mrs. Marina Buckley, the mother of Lance Corporal Gregory Buckley who was killed by one of his Afghan allies just before he was due to return home, spoke for many when she said: “Our forces shouldn’t be there.  It should be over. It’s done. No more.”
These killings have been blamed on foreign spies and Taliban infiltrators, but such theories have been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/world/asia/afghanistan-blames-spies-for-insider-attacks-on-western-troops.html">discounted by military investigators</a>, who could only link one in ten killings to Taliban infiltration.
The generals seem to be mystified, for Colonel Lapan, spokesman for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff commented, “we don't know what’s causing them, and we’re looking at everything.”
They could also look at Islam, and at history.
Let us wind the clock back 120 years to Aceh, today part of Indonesia.  In 1892 the sultanate of Aceh, a staunchly Islamic region, had been under Dutch military occupation for twice as many years as the Americans have been in Afghanistan.  When the Dutch first stormed the Acehnese capital Kutaraja (now Banda Aceh) in 1871 they naively assumed that control of the rest of the countryside would quickly follow. Instead they became entangled in a conflict which lasted for decades.
A poignant legacy of the Aceh-Dutch war is a military cemetery in Banda Aceh, reputed to be the largest graveyard of Dutch troops outside Holland.
As the decades passed, the Acehnese waged a tenacious insurgency from jungle hideouts, and Dutch leaders cycled through various theories to explain their military failures.  One theory was that the passing of time would see a steady reduction in hostilities.  Time did pass, and this theory ended up in the trash.  Another theory was that a "concentration line" of forts could effect a safe haven around the capital to guarantee security, but the attacks continued.
A particularly demoralizing aspect of the conflict was a pattern of Acehnese allies turning against and killing Dutch soldiers.  <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teuku_Umar">Teuku Umar</a> was an early leader of the Acehnese resistance who became an ally of the Dutch, as a result of which he was rewarded with weapons, money and command of hundreds of troops.  Then he turned these weapons and troops against his supposed "allies," inflicting heavy casualties.  The Dutch regarded this as an odious betrayal, yet today the name of Teuku Umar is recognized as one of Indonesia's greatest heroes and boulevards all over the country are named after him.
The problem of deceit and betrayal was also a rank-and-file problem.  There was no shortage of would-be Acehnese martyrs who, for the sake of gaining a victim, were willing to feign friendship with the Dutch, before drawing their knives against them.  The phenomenon of unpredictable killings by the Acehnese came to be known as Atjèh-moord "Acehnese murder."
The failure of Dutch military policy in Aceh – and the resulting drain of Dutch blood and treasure – caused a host of political difficulties for governments back in Holland.  The war became intensely unpopular.
The turning point in the Aceh-Dutch war came in 1891-92 when Christian Snouck Hurgronje, an expert in Arabic and Islam, was sent to do field research into "the pernicious Aceh Question" (het verderfelijke Atjeh-questie).
Snouck Hurgronje was the preeminent Western expert on Islam of his generation.  After completing a PhD on Islamic theology in Holland, he spent a year in Mecca in 1884-85, living as a Muslim, studying at the feet of the Sheikhs, and making a special study of Indonesian Muslims.
After his field trip to Aceh, Snouck Hurgronje published a two-volume report on the Acehnese society in 1893, which included a military analysis, and offered a blueprint for winning the insurgency.
At the heart of Snouck Hurgronje's explanation of the "Aceh Question" was a theological analysis.  The Acehnese war, he explained, was jihad, a theologically motivated struggle against the Dutch as infidel-occupiers of Islamic territory.
Because it was a theological struggle, grounded in the deeply held Islamic convictions of the Acehnese people, the Aceh war could not be won by capturing a few key cities or neutralizing a handful of key leaders.  Indeed, as time passed, and the early chieftain leaders were superseded, the insurgency came to be dominated by clerics, whose influence greatly increased as a result of the jihad.  (This same pattern can be observed in Afghanistan over the past decade.)

Snouck Hurgronje's thesis was rejected by many when it first saw the light of day.  In time however, it proved triumphant, and provided the basis for the successful pacification of Aceh.  It was only when the Dutch authorities aligned their military strategy with Snouck Hurgronje's insights that they began to win the war.  Military success came as a huge relief to the Dutch authorities, and meant that by 1902 Snouck Hurgronje was able to write, “Now no one any longer doubts that the dogmas of Islam on the subject of religious war, so fanatical in their terms, supplied the principal similes to the obstinate rebellion.”  (However individual acts of "Acehnese murder" did continue – albeit in significantly decreasing numbers – right up until the Japanese occupation in 1942.)
The theological framework for the Acehnese jihad, which Snouck Hurgronje exposed to the understanding of Dutch leaders in 1893, happens to be exactly the same as that used by jihadi scholars such as Abdullah Azzam in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to stimulate what western elites refer to as "terrorism."
It is a classical dogma of Islam that when Muslim lands are occupied by infidel forces, it is an individual religious obligation upon all Muslims to do their utmost to defend their lands against the infidels.  This belief drove the Acehnese insurgency over a century ago, and it drives the Afghan conflict today.
Snouck Hurgronje also explained that the practice of deceit – manifested in feigned friendship leading to what we would now call "insider killings" – can be derived from the dogmas of Islam and specifically from religious attitudes to infidels.
It is disappointing that after more than a decade of war, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff are mystified by the phenomenon of "insider killings." Has political correctness so neutered their capacity to wage war?  Are they so blind to the religious nature of the war they are fighting?  How can they be unfamiliar with the classical dogmas of jihad, which make it a compulsory religious duty for individual Muslims to fight against infidel occupiers of Muslim lands?
The US generals, indeed any army fighting a jihad insurgency in Muslim lands, would do well to read Snouck Hurgronje’s report, especially volume I (see <a href="http://archive.org/details/achehnese01hurg">here</a>).
The insider killings of Afghanistan today are essentially the same phenomenon as "Acehnese murder" of over a century ago. The straightforward, rational explanation for Afghan soldiers turning their US-supplied weapons against their "allies" can be found in the beliefs outlined by Snouck Hurgronje in the late 19th century: the dogma that Muslims have a duty to defend Muslim lands against infidel occupation; the dogma that if Muslims are killed in jihad, paradise will be their reward; and the dogma that in jihad, deceiving the infidel is no sin.
<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/19/us-afghanistan-usa-attacks-idUSBRE87I06L20120819">Reuters has reported</a> that in Afghanistan:
<blockquote>Field commanders have also been given discretion to increase numbers of so-called “guardian angel” sentries who oversee foreign soldiers in crowded areas such as gyms and food halls, to respond to any rogue shooting incidents.</blockquote>
This is reminiscent of remarks by the Acehnese poet Anzib Lamnyong, reflecting on the assassination of a Dutchman by Lém Abah, an Acehnese man from his own village:
<blockquote>Very often people attacked the Dutch like that, so that the Dutch had to keep a very close guard on Banda Aceh, night and day, all around the whole city.  But no matter how well those guards kept watch, they still kept getting attacked by our people, who would strike them down …  The Dutch were in great consternation about our brave people, who did not fear the bullet that might strike them dead in the twinkling of an eye.</blockquote>
One expects that, when the last infidel troops have left Afghanistan, and Muslim sovereignty has been fully restored, the memory of the Afghan jihadis who are even now perpetrating "insider killings" may come to be held in high renown, just as the name of Teuku Umar is revered in Indonesia to this day.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.

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