Sunday, December 30, 2007

How To Wage War Against Everybody — And Feel Good About It

ACCORDING TO the Qur'an, a Muslim must continually and aggressively advance the cause of Allah. It is his duty, whether he likes it or not. And if he doesn't want to burn face down in the fires of hell forever with nothing to drink but boiling water, he had better accept his duty and fulfill it. (Read more about the amazing collection of instructions in the Qur'an.)

The only way a Muslim man can guarantee a place for himself in heaven (and avoid eternal torment in hell) is to die while fighting for Allah.


BUT...

The Qur'an also says, "Allah does not love aggressors."


What a dilemma. What's the solution?

Muhammad himself provided the way, and every Muslim is duty-bound to follow Muhammad's example. Muhammad always relentlessly advanced Islam, pushed it forward, prodding and poking those who were not Muslims, criticizing their religions and arguing against their beliefs and practices.

When the kuffar (non-Muslims) responded aggressively to Muhammad's aggressiveness, he called it persecution. The way he saw it, Islam is the true voice of the Almighty, and resisting it is evil. When kuffar resist the relentless advance of Islam, they are "fighting against Islam" and "persecuting Muslims" and it is the duty of all Muslims to rise up in defense of Islam.

This is Muhammad's example, and Muslims around the world have been using it ever since. The method is very clever. Muslims can stay in continual war with kuffar and never appear (either to themselves or their enemies) to be the aggressors.

The reason Muhammad's historical example is important is that jihadists around the world are doing exactly the same thing, and many in the West are buying it and thinking of the West as the "aggressors." This point of view undermines the West's ability to defend itself from a non-stop Islamic advance.

So let's look carefully at how it works.
Muhammad was pushy in Mecca (where he first started Islam). He harshly and publicly criticized the religions practiced by others. They resented this (of course) and criticized Muhammad's religion.

Muhammad kept aggressively insisting everyone needed to convert to Islam and give up their old religions. The more actively he insisted, the more actively they defended themselves. The hostilities escalated. Eventually, Muhammad left Mecca. He spoke of himself as "persecuted and exiled" by those who were unfaithful to the one true Allah.


To retaliate against those who had "persecuted" him (and to gain some wealth for his struggling cult) his men attacked caravans going to Mecca.

This was bad for business in Mecca. Their goods were being stolen before they arrived in Mecca, and their people were being killed. Eventually the Meccans sent out warriors to stop the Muslim raiders.
This led to bigger and bigger battles as Muslims "defended Islam."

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