When buses and trains exploded on 7/7 in London, the objective of the suicide bombers was to sow fear and terror in the very soul of the British people.
In that the jihadis were successful.
One would have expected the British authorities to not just hunt down the terrorists, but also to fight the cancer of Islamism that lies at the ideological roots of jihadi terrorism. Instead, successive governments in London have tried to pussyfoot around the challenge, hoping the jihadi terrorists and their ideology would melt away with time as Downing Street funded so-called "moderate" Muslim groups and "former" extremists to do the government's bidding.
As the brutal hacking death of a British soldier by two fearless jihadis chanting "Allah O Akbar" has shown, this strategy has failed. Muslims who see the West as the enemy and seek its destruction have become even more emboldened by the lack of resolve, which they see as cowardice. In addition, jihadis in the U.K. are no longer restricted to the second generation Pakistani Britons; they now come from places as far apart as Chechnya and Nigeria.
While the run-of-the-mill jihadi terror attack relies on suicide bombers and remote-controlled improvised explosive devices, Wednesday's attack came straight from medieval times, with the two jihadis using knives and cleavers to hack away at the victim and then beheading him. If this was not enough, they played to the gallery, demanding they be filmed as they chatted with passers-by, proudly defending their actions and promising more attacks on non-Muslims to come.
If the latest act of jihadi terror was different in nature, the reaction by mainstream Islamic groups and prominent Muslims in Britain was not. It was exactly the same as it has been after every tragic incident. Old press releases were brushed off and sent afresh to the media.
While ordinary Britons and non-Muslims around the world are bewildered by these never-ending acts of terrorism, the response of the leaders of the Islamic community is the tired old cliche -- Islam is a religion of peace, and jihad is simply an "inner struggle."
The fact these terrorists are motivated by one powerful belief -- the doctrine of armed jihad against the "kuffar" (non-Muslims) -- is disingenuously denied by Islamic clerics and leaders.
Yesterday, instead of calling on Muslims to shelve the doctrine of armed jihad, predictably, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) issued a quick press release claiming the "barbaric" attack has "no basis in Islam."
Not true, MCB. As a Muslim, I can say without fear, the latest terror attack has a basis in Islam and it's time for us Muslims to dig our heads out of the sand.
The MCB was not alone. Imam Makkah Masjid in Leeds, Qari Asim, MBE said, "Islam does not permit vigilante attacks on anyone and therefore such inhumane acts have no place in Islam."
If the Imam was trying to put the best face of Islam to the British people, the London Muslim Centre was careful not to even mention the fact the two terrorists were Muslim, claiming instead that "criminals and murderers do not represent any community or religion. We remain steadfast in opposing all forms of hate and terrorism."
The Islamic Society of Britain joined in the chorus, stating, "justifying this killing in the name of faith or religion is false and rejected," again failing to mention the fact the terrorists were killing in the name of Islam, not just any "faith or religion."
Hundreds of British Muslims tweeted their condemnation of the act, but not one individual or organization had the courage to point out and admit the fact Sharia-backed doctrine of armed jihad does permit holy war on non-Muslims, specially in the land of the "kufaar."
This was an opportunity for the Muslim leadership to confess they have failed and that the time has come to admit that jihadis cannot be fought without fighting the doctrine of jihad.
It is worth noting that not a single Muslim cleric since 9/11 has mustered the courage to say the doctrine of armed jihad is defunct and inapplicable in the 21st century. They rightfully denounce terrorism, but dare not denounce jihad.
On the contrary, we keep hearing the propaganda that "Jihad" has nothing to do with warfare. Here is what the "Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam" has to say about Jihad:
"DJIHAD(A), holy war. The spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general. It narrowly escaped being a sixth 'rukn,' or fundamental duty."
The only Muslim group that has come to this conclusion are Ahmadi Muslims, whose founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in the nineteenth century had the wisdom to declare:
"I have brought a commandment for you people; it is that henceforth 'jihad by sword' [armed jihad] is forbidden ... Now jihad for the sake of religion is prohibited."For uttering these words, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was deemed to have blasphemed and was declared an apostate by the orthodoxy in Islam; the same school of thought that provides intellectual sustenance to the Muslim establishment in the West today.
The armed jihad launched against the infidels, is clearly promoted by the 20th-century writings of such Islamists as Syed Qutb and Hassan al-Banna of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the late Syed Maudoodi of Jamaat-e-Islami of Indo-Pakistan.
In his book Towards Understanding Islam, Maudoodi exhorts ordinary Muslims to launch jihad, as in armed struggle, against non-Muslims. "Jihad is part of this overall defence of Islam," he writes. In case the reader is left with any doubt about the meaning of the word "jihad," Maudoodi clarifies:
"In the language of the Divine Law, this word (jihad) is used specifically for the war that is waged solely in the name of God against those who perpetrate oppression as enemies of Islam. This supreme sacrifice is the responsibility of all Muslims."Maudoodi goes on to label Muslims who refuse the call to armed jihad as apostates:
"Jihad is as much a primary duty as are daily prayers or fasting. One who avoids it is a sinner. His every claim to being a Muslim is doubtful. He is plainly a hypocrite who fails in the test of sincerity and all his acts of worship are a sham, a worthless, hollow show of deception."If Maudoodi's exhortations are not enough to motivate Muslims to conduct acts of terror, we have the words of the late Hassan al-Banna being distributed in our schools and universities. Al-Banna makes it quite clear that the word "jihad" means armed conflict. He mocks those who claim jihad is merely an internal struggle.
Al-Banna says this redefinition of the term "jihad" to depict it as a non-violent act of self-examination, is in fact a conspiracy so that "Muslims should become negligent."
And here is what Syed Qutb, another Egyptian stalwart of the Islamist movement and the Muslim Brotherhood, writes in his seminal work on Islam and its relationship with the West, Milestones:
"A Muslim will remain prepared to fight against it (non-Muslim country), whether it be his birthplace or a place where his relatives reside or where his property or any other material interests are located."Unless the leaders of British mosques as well as the Islamic organizations in the U.K. denounce the doctrine of jihad as pronounced by the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami, and distance themselves from the ideology of Qutb, al-Banna and Maudoodi, they stand complicit in the havoc that these jihadis are raining down on the rest of us.
They cannot have it both ways: promoting the teachings of Maududi and Qutb among Muslim youth, while concealing the same teachings from the rest of Britain.
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