It Is About Islam Page 2
In America we like to believe that all religions are equal. But that’s not the truth. A religion that believes in stoning and killing people who don’t share their views and values is not equal to the rest. A religion that supports the beheading of human beings in the twenty-first century simply is not equal to Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism or any of the world’s great faiths.
The PC police in America will be aghast at this thought—and this book. How, they’ll ask, could you say that the radicals and fanatics of Iran or ISIS have anything to do with Islam? ISIS is a terrorist group that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith.
That is a lie, and it’s time to label it as such.
Islam is at the root of everything that terrorists from ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas say and do. Islam is the reason they have recruits. To argue that it has nothing to do with terrorism or violence is the equivalent of going back to the sixteenth century and telling Martin Luther that the corrupt actions of the Catholic Church had nothing to do with Christianity.
If you take Islam out of ISIS, you have nothing left. They are called Islamists for a reason: their references to Islam—to what they call a holy war against our Roman Empire—are what help them gain recruits and money and support.
As a nation we bend over backward to accommodate—yes, to appease—some of the most vile practitioners of Islam. As I write this, the Obama administration is making a deal with the radical ayatollahs of Iran—a country that roots for the death of the Jews and the end of America; a country that refuses basic rights to women and denies not only the rights, but the very existence, of homosexuals. In Tehran, Bruce Jenner would not have a widely televised special where he talks about his transformation into a woman; he would be in pieces, torn limb from limb, hung from a crane, or stoned to death in public.
Let me repeat that: stoned to death. You will find that word repeated again and again throughout this book. Millions of practitioners of Islam believe that God wants us to literally stone people to death when we find their lifestyle offensive.
We haven’t had stoning in America, well, ever. But in the Islamic Republic of Iran, stoning is one of the punishments currently available for a variety of offenses. Here’s how a report by Amnesty International put it:
Iran’s Penal Code prescribes execution by stoning. It even dictates that the stones are large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately. Article 102 of the Penal Code states that men should be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts for the purpose of execution by stoning. Article 104 states, with reference to the penalty for adultery, that the stones used should “not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones.”
What the Amnesty International report neglects to mention is the full name of the statutes that allow stoning: the Islamic Penal Code of Iran (emphasis added). Here’s what Chapter 21 of that code authorizes in cases of attempted theft: “up to five years’ imprisonment and up to 74 lashes.”
Lashes? Also known as flogging, as in taking a strap to human flesh seventy-four times. Hitting a human being repeatedly and violently so that pieces of their flesh tear off the body. That’s sanctioned under Islamic law.
How about forced amputations? This, too, comes from Amnesty International’s report on the Islamic Republic of Iran:
Sentences of flogging and amputations continued to be imposed for a wide range of offences, including alcohol consumption, eating in public during Ramadan, and theft. These sentences were increasingly implemented in public.
Under Islamic law, at least as interpreted by Iran, you can lose a hand for things that teenagers in America do on a typical Friday night. Even crucifixion is not off-limits in Iran as well as in ISIS-controlled areas of Syria.
In this book, we’re going to use the Islamists’ own words to show what they really believe. To show what they stand for. To show what their laws actually say. To show what they hope to impose on the rest of the world.
Again, we’re going to do this in their own words.
We’re going to quote straight from the Quran, Islam’s most holy book, so you can see what it really says. We’re going to quote straight from the Hadith, the collected deeds and sayings of Allah’s prophet Muhammad, which form one of the primary bases of Islamic law. And we’re also going to expose the foolish, naïve, and, as we’ll learn in some cases, intentionally deceptive views of Islam apologists in the United States who have worked hard to convince everyone that there is nothing to see here. That there isn’t something inherently wrong with the way millions of people are practicing the Islamic religion. That Islam has nothing to do with the fact that so many people want us dead.
The first chapter will take you into the heart of the Islamist agenda—an agenda that seeks to bring about, in the words of many Islamists, Armageddon and the End Times. This is why reasoning or negotiating with terrorists is pointless. They believe they have literally been tasked by Allah with bringing about the end of the world—and that the time for it is rapidly approaching.
Chapter 2 offers some history of the Islamic faith, going back to the time of Muhammad and the spread of Islamic empires.
Chapter 3 chronicles the rise of modern Islamist ideology and the use of terrorism as a response to Islam’s stagnation and the rise of Western powers.
Chapter 4 outlines how Islamist terrorists have used everything from 9/11, to the war in Iraq, to the rise of ISIS to bring about a final confrontation with the West, one they hope will result in World War III. We will chronicle, in their own words, their twenty-year plan to build a new empire, or Caliphate, and expand it to the rest of the world.
The book also contains a section about the many lies that are told about Islam and its followers, using other people’s words and sentiments as much as possible. The lies include the oft-heard claims that Islam is a religion of peace, that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, that Islam respects the rights of women and Christians, and that sharia law is a myth made up by Islamophobes.
Finally, we’ll talk about the future. What can we do about any of this that will make a real difference? How do we protect ourselves against people who believe they are taking their cues to destroy us directly from Allah?
In doing all this and asking the hard questions we will be following in the path of Thomas Jefferson himself, who read and thought deeply about Islam. He stood as representative of a nation that had hundreds of captives languishing in prisons across North Africa. He was face-to-face with jihad and saw the threat it posed.
Which brings us back to Jefferson’s Quran.
Today it resides in the Library of Congress in the great round room that replicates his original collection. Other than the fact the two volumes arrived at the Library of Congress in 1815 from Monticello, how do we know the book is in fact Jefferson’s?
On page 113 in volume 1 of George Sale’s translation are Thomas Jefferson’s own initials beside one of the Quran’s most warlike passages: “God hath preferred those who fight for the faith [mujahideen] before those who sit still.”
What possessed Jefferson to mark this page, and this page only, in his Quran? We will never know. Perhaps he was struck by Allah’s blessings bestowed on the mujahideen—the holy warriors who strive and fight in His name. Perhaps he turned to this passage before his meeting with Abdul Rahman in 1786. Or perhaps he turned to this passage in 1801, when, as commander in chief, he finally gave the order to take America to war against the Barbary pirates, the mujahideen of the Mediterranean. Regardless, it seems clear that Jefferson undertook a serious effort to understand the
motivations of his enemies.
The mujahideen of 2015 are no less devoted than those of 1800. They seek Allah’s reward with even greater fervor. So, to truly understand the threat they pose, we must follow Jefferson’s example and go straight to the source of their beliefs.
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* There are many English translations of the Quran. Because Muslims believe the Quran was delivered to Muhammad in Arabic, most Muslims believe that any translation cannot be more than an approximate interpretation. As a result, every translated version of the Quran contains parentheses and brackets to give context and clarify missing pronouns. For the purposes of this book, we are using the translation by Muhammad Taqi al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, titled The Noble Qur’an in the English Language. Endorsed by the Saudi government, Dr. al-Hilali and Dr. Khan’s translation is the most published Quran in Islamic bookstores throughout the English-speaking world. I have used the exact translation; all parentheses and brackets appearing in Quranic verses (as well as Hadith) can be found in the original text, which is available online at: http://www.noblequran.com/translation/.
PART ONE
Islam 101
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1
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ISLAM AND END TIMES
“The Last Hour would not come until the Romans would land at al-A’maq or in Dabiq. An army consisting of the best (soldiers) of the people of the earth at that time will come from Medina (to counteract them). . . . They will then fight and a third of the army would run away, whom Allah will never forgive. A third which would be constituted of excellent martyrs in Allah’s eye would be killed and the third who would never be put to trial would win and they would be conquerors of Constantinople.”
—Muhammad, according to the Hadith
Dabiq, Syria
November 2014
The man clad in black stood over his victim.
Peter Kassig, an American aid worker, wore an orange jumpsuit. His head was shaved. He was on his knees.
The man in black spoke into a camera with a discernible British accent. “To Obama, the dog of Rome: today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow, we will be slaughtering your soldiers. Soon we will be slaughtering your people on your streets.”
As insane videotaped rants go, this one featured production values worthy of a Hollywood studio, complete with sound effects of heavy breathing and an audible heartbeat that seemed to speed up as the sixteen-minute video progressed. The sounds crescendoed right before Kassig and others were decapitated, their heads bloodying the sand.
Though clips of the grisly video were disseminated around the world, virtually no one in the media picked up the most important thing about them: the location of Kassig’s slaughter, a town called Dabiq in northwest Syria. The spark of this conflict was lit in Iraq, the video’s narrator warned, “and its heat will continue to intensify by Allah’s permission until it burns the crusader army in Dabiq. And here we are, burying the first crusader in Dabiq. Eagerly awaiting for the remainder of your armies to arrive.”
Kassig’s was among the first blood to spill in Dabiq, but millions of Muslims believe (and hope) that it is only the beginning. Dabiq, they contend, will be the site of the most consequential battle in the history of mankind.
The unassuming farmlands surrounding this northern Syrian town may at first seem like an odd place for such a confrontation. But for supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, it is the place prophesied by Muhammad where the forces of Christianity and Islam will mass and engage in a final conflagration.
End Times
In Islamic tradition, Dabiq is the site for what the Bible calls “Armageddon.” In and around this village the crusaders, or “armies of Rome,” as ISIS fanatics like to call them (and as Muhammad is reported to have predicted), will be vanquished once and for all, leaving an open road to Istanbul and Europe beyond. In this telling, Barack Obama and the United States are the leaders of these “forces of Rome” who will send their armies to fight ISIS. What will be left in the wake of the marauding Islamic armies and America’s final defeat is the Caliphate, a global governance of Muslims that will impose Islamic law, or sharia, on any survivors.
Dabiq is so central to this vision that it is mentioned over and over again in ISIS propaganda. In fact, it is the name of the movement’s official digital magazine. The cover of one recent issue featured ISIS’s black flag superimposed on a picture of St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
ISIS followers believe they will make all of this come to pass—that they are actors setting the stage for the final act of history. Their tweets, propaganda videos, and statements are filled with references to the coming Day of Judgment, which will bring about the death of infidels and the resurrection of the righteous. As Graeme Wood, a scholar on the teachings and ideology of ISIS, wrote in the Atlantic, “The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. . . . The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.”
To understand the stakes of the battle at hand, it makes sense to start at the end, to understand the cosmic plan in which our enemies believe they are playing a preordained role.
While there are varying interpretations and prophecies of how the end will play out, there is a strong conviction in Islamic circles that we are currently witnessing the disintegration of the world and the beginning of a new era to be ushered in by a mythical figure named the Mahdi and the second coming of Jesus Christ, who together will battle an Antichrist figure known as the Dajjal.
What makes ISIS’s (as well as the radical Islamists who share their ideology) interpretation of Islam so unique and dangerous is that they don’t just believe that the End Times and the Day of Judgment are imminent—there are other religions that share this belief—they believe they are charged with playing an active role in bringing these times about. In their minds, that justifies everything they do. The bloodshed and terror are just means to an end—to the end, in fact.
And it’s why they will never stop.
The Dajjal versus the Mahdi
On several occasions the Quran mentions the coming Day of Judgment (yawm al-din), a horrific time when the Muslim faithful will be separated from the infidels, who will be “led to Hell in crowds,” among “boiling water and in the shades of black smoke.” In fact, the Quran revels in the torture of nonbelievers after the Day of Judgment, predicting that they will have nothing but “food that chokes” and “boiling water” to drink while wearing “garments of liquid pitch.”
On Judgment Day, the Quran states, everyone who has ever lived will be resurrected. They are judged in the presence of Allah, who sends nonbelievers, such as Jews and Christians, to torment and the believers to Paradise:
And the Trumpet will be blown, and all who are in the heavens and all who are on the earth will swoon away, except him whom Allah will. Then it will blown a second time and behold, they will be standing, looking on (waiting). And the earth will shine with the light of its Lord (Allah, when He will come to judge among men) and the Book will be placed (open) and the Prophets and the witnesses will be brought forward, and it will be judged between them with truth, and they will not be wronged. And each person will be paid in full of what he did; and He is Best Aware of what they do.
This will be a great moment for all true Muslims. Not so great for the rest of us.
The Quran is less clear about the major signs that precede the Day of Judgment, but there are ample Hadith—oral traditions of sayings and acts attributed to Muhammad—that offer guidance. The Hadith are second in sacredness only to the Quran. They are the recorded wisdom of Islam’s prophet—the model Muslim—and are essential sayings and stories of how Muhammad lived in the seventh century A.D.
But according to the Hadith, first, the birth of the Dajjal, or Antichrist, heralds the beginning of the End Times. It is said that the Dajjal will have one eye
, and hair all over his body. Some prophecies attributed to Muhammad say that he will appear on the road between Iraq and Syria.
According to the Hadith of Muhammad, the Dajjal will be born near Iran and Syria at a time when immorality—specifically homosexuality and drug use—reign. Seventy thousand Jews will be seduced by the Dajjal to fight the true Muslims, who will be led by a successor of Muhammad called the Mahdi. Epic battles will ensue.
Many ISIS militants believe that the Dajjal has already been born. They’ve even distributed photographs on social media of supposedly one-eyed babies. It turns out some of the photographs are of actual real-life children born with one eye (one was born in Bolivia in 2008; the other, born in India in 2006, lived only one day).
The Twelvers and the Shia Mahdi
Islam is divided into two main branches: Sunni and Shia. Sunnis make up 85 to 90 percent of Muslims. The branches share many views, such as their reverence of the Quran as a holy book and their belief that Muhammad was a prophet, but the 120 to 170 million Shia Muslims around the world take a distinctly different view from Sunnis toward the End Times and the role of the Mahdi, who according to their tradition has already visited earth and gone into hiding.
The majority of Shia consider themselves “Twelvers,” referring to the number of imams, or leaders, who have been divinely ordained. These successors to Muhammad were infallible and ruled with perfect justice, despite persecution from the Sunni caliphs who attempted to kill most of them.
The first imam was Ali, a son-in-law and cousin of Muhammad. The most recent was Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Ali, whom Twelver Shia refer to as the Mahdi. In 873, he went into hiding, supposedly at the bottom of a well, to avoid being captured by Sunni authorities. The Mahdi waiting in hiding is called “the occultation,” which, in the Shia tradition, continues to this day.