“The notion that religious belief is a minor factor in the rise of the Islamic State,” he observes, “is belied by a crushing weight of evidence that religion matters deeply to the vast majority of those who have travelled to fight.”
The BBC’s narrative about Islamic terrorism and its intentions [the terrorism has a purpose] is distorted by its own beliefs and political agenda…it is the standard bearer for the Left that wants to undermine the West and its economic, political and military near dominance, and it is also determined to rewrite the history that found the BBC guilty of lying about the Iraq Dossier. To that end it always aims to put the blame for everything that happens in the world, in the Middle East in particular, on Western actions…even climate change of course.
Just as British political, economic and social failures are dated from 1979, ending in 1997 and then starting again in 2010 Islamic terrorism and radicalisation also has a curiously abrupt start…in 2003…let’s just ignore so much history….never mind Bin Laden declared war on the US in 1998 and then there was 9/11…in 2001. Best just not mention that.
So we can’t rely on the BBC, the source of so many false facts, or alternate facts if you like. Who can we rely upon? How about a Muslim woman, a migrant from the Yemen living in Germany…she says that it, radicalisation, isn’t America’s fault…it is there all along..in the religion…you know…Islam…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ebro6nEjTU
“Ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life.” On that basis, and in compliance with God’s order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it…. We — with God’s help — call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. Al Qaeda
Then how about an expert on ISIS? Could he tell us if the religion of peace is the source of so much trouble? You betcha…
Graeme Wood’s The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State reminds us of something that ought to be obvious: Islamic State is very Islamic.
Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future. In Islamic State’s propaganda, they certainly are. Sayings attributed to Muhammad that foretold how the armies of Islam would defeat the armies of the Cross serve their ideologues as a hall of mirrors. What happened in the Crusades is happening now; and what happens now foreshadows what is to come.
How much does Islamic State actually believe this stuff? The assumption that it is a proxy for other concerns – born of US foreign policy, or social deprivation, or Islamophobia – comes naturally to commentators in the West. Partly this is because their instincts are often secular and liberal; partly it reflects a proper concern not to tar mainstream Islam with the brush of terrorism.
“The reality is,” Wood wrote, “that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” The strain of the religion that it was channelling derived “from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam” and was fixated on two distinct moments of time: the age of Muhammad and the end of days long promised in Muslim apocalyptic writings. Members of Islamic State, citing the Quran and sayings attributed to the Prophet in their support, believe themselves charged by God with expediting the end of days. It is their mandate utterly to annihilate kufr: disbelief. The world must be washed in blood, so that the divine purpose may be fulfilled. The options for negotiating this around a table at Geneva are, to put it mildly, limited.
“The notion that religious belief is a minor factor in the rise of the Islamic State,” he observes, “is belied by a crushing weight of evidence that religion matters deeply to the vast majority of those who have travelled to fight.”
When Wood asks Hamza Yusuf, an eminent Berkeley Sufi, to demonstrate the group’s errors by relying only on the texts revealed to the Prophet, he struggles to do so: “Yusuf could not point to an instance where the Islamic State was flat-out, verifiably wrong.” This does not mean that it is right but it does suggest – despite what most Muslims desperately and understandably want to believe – that it is no less authentically Islamic than any other manifestation of Islam.
The achievement of Wood’s gripping, sobering and revelatory book is to open our eyes to what the implications of that for all of us may be.
Trouble is that is the last thing the BBC wants to happen…to have your eyes open to what is the consequence of allowing the mass migration of millions of Muslims into Europe.