Onward Muslim Soldiers / Robert Spencer
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ONWARD MUSLIM SOLDIERS How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West By Robert Spencer Since 1947 REGNERY PUBLISHING, INC. An Eagle Publishing Company Washington, DC ONWARD MUSLIM SOLDIERS How jihad Still Threatens America and the West Robert Spencer I Since 1947 REGNERY I PUBLISHING, INC. An Eagle Publishing Company Washington, DC Copyright © 2003 by Robert Spencer All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spencer, Robert, 1962- Onward Muslim soldiers / Robert Spencer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-89526-100-6 1. Jihad. 2. War-Religious aspects-Islam. 3. Terroris Religious aspects-Islam. 4. Religious tolerance-Islam. 5. Isla Controversial literature. I. Title. BP182.S64 2003 297.7'2 dc22 2003017604 Acknowledgments For many reasons, including the unpleasant prospect of reprisals against innocent people, there are more people who helped make this book a reality than I can thank here. However, I am able to single out Dr. Andrew Bostom and Bat Ye'or for alerting me to important sources, Theresa Barger for help with French, and many others for their enormously valuable advice, information, and support, including Jeffrey Rubin, Dr. Walid Phares, Fr. Thomas Steinmetz, Paul Weyrich, and Dr. Farajollah Parvizian. I am grateful also to the indefatigable and resourceful Steve Lilienthal of the Free Congress Foundation, and to my editor, the protean and insightful Harry Crocker. As for the others, I trust you know who you are, and to all: Shukran. Published in the United States by Regnery Publishing, Inc. An Eagle Publishing Company One Dedicated to the victims of jihad and dhimmitude worldwide Massachusetts Avenue, NW Your sufferings are not forgotten Washington, DC 20001 Visit us at www.regnery.com Distributed to the trade by National Book Network 4720-A Boston Way Lanham, MD 20706 Printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America 987654321 Books are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. Write to Director of Special Sales, Regnery Publishing, Inc.,. One Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001, for information on discounts and terms, or call (202) 216-0600. Table of Contents Introduction: Jihad Today ........................................................ ix PART ONE: Jihad Now ............................................................. 1 Chapter One: Are We Already Fighting a Jihad? How radical Muslims use jihad as a modern-day rallying cry.............................................................................. 3 Chapter Two: Europe: Jihad in the Making?......................... 51 Chapter Three: The Jihad Way of War.................................. 85 PART TWO: Jihad Then .......................................................... 113 Chapter Four: Jihad in the Qur'an: Is war the will of Allah? .................................................. 115 Chapter Five: Muhammad in the Field: The wars of the prophet.................................................... 147 Chapter Six: In the Prophet's Footsteps: Jihad and dhimmitude in early and modern Islam ........ 165 Chapter Seven: The Modern Myth of Islamic Tolerance: The fact of modern Islamic intolerance ......................... 185 Chapter Eight: Jihad in Eclipse and Resurgent .................. 213 PART THREE: The Great Jihad Cover-Up............................. 251 Chapter Nine: Terrorism: Jihad Abused? ......................... 253 Chapter Ten: Everybody Must Get Stoned: The strange alliance between radical Islam and the post-1960s Left .................................................... 277 Chapter Eleven: How to Fight the War We're In .............289 Introduction Notes......................................................................................305 Index ......................................................................................337 JIHAD TODAY "Get out u,our weapons," commanded Jaffar UmarThalib, a foraj- Ljear-old Muslim cleric, over Indonesian radio in Mat) 2002. "Fight against [Christians in Indonesia] to the last drop of blood." 1 T WAS JIHAD. Christians, Jaffar explained, were "belligerent infidels" {kafir harbi) and entitled to no mercy. This designation was not merely a stylistic flourish on Jaffar's part. On the contrary, kafir harbi is a category of infidel that is clearly delineated in Islamic theology; by using it, Jaffar not only incited his followers to violence, but gave that violence the legitimacy of Islamic doctrine. His usage and reasoning resonated with his followers in the now-disbanded Laskar Jihad. Thousands heeded his call with ferocious single-mindedness. Some estimate the death toll among IX x Introduction xi Indonesian Christians to have been as high as ten thousand, with Enrollees in the Ultimate Jihad Challenge at Camp Ground thousands more left homeless. Zero would no doubt have agreed with the Saudi sheikh Nasser Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that has set itself up as Muhammad Al-Ahmad, who preached a sermon on jihad in 2000 at the chief roadblock on the latest road map to peace in the Middle the Al-Nour mosque in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Speaking of East, also sees itself as fighting a jihad. The Hamas charter of Jerusalem, sheikh Nasser declared, "There is no solution to this August 1988 declares: "Nothing is loftier or deeper in Nationalism problem, and to any problem to which the infidel enemy is party, than waging Jihad against the enemy and confronting him when he except by waving the banner of Jihad....The sites holy to Muslims sets foot on the land of the Muslims." When will it end? "It is a will be regained only by Jihad for the sake of Allah....When true Jihad until either victory or martyrdom," declares the Hamas Islamic Jihad is declared, the balance of power will shift." Qas-sam Brigade at the end of each of its communiques. The sheikh rejoiced that the West perceived jihad as a threat. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, aspiring warriors of jihad "What frightens the West more than anything else is the word 8 were invited to enroll in Ultimate Jihad Challenge: "a two-week 'Jihad,' because they understand what it means." A sweatshirt course in our thousand-acre state-of-the-art shooting range in the spotted among Muslim radicals at pro-Iraq rallies in the Middle United States." This was not a course for effete intellectuals. "The East in spring 2003 bore a similar legend: "JIHAD is the language course emphasis is on practical live fire training. You will fire they understand!" between two to three thousand rounds of mixed caliber Sheikh Nasser and the sweatshirt manufacturers could be ammunition. Class theory is kept to a minimum." The certain that the West understood what they meant by jihad, British-based website advertising the course explained that, "due to because their view of the term has ample support in Islamic the firearms law of the UK all serious firearms training must be theology, tradition, and history. Theirs isn't the only Muslim done overseas." 5 That is, in the United States. understanding of jihad, but it's well enough established in Islam to The website's owner, an English convert to Islam named enable radicals to recruit and mobilize Muslims in Egypt, Palestine, Sulay-man Zain-ul-Abidin, denied operating anything less Pakistan, Turkey, Nigeria, the Philippines, Indonesia, and around the innocuous than a training center for security guards. However, world including Western Europe and the United States. Jihadist police charged that he had received and erased e-mails containing movements are able to gain followers around the world not by calls evidence to the contrary, including one that read, "Let me sacrifice for political or economic justice or by twisting and abusing Islamic myself for jihad send details." Investigators probed links between theology, but by preaching the old-time religion of jihad as holy Zain-ul-abidin and "Camp Ground Zero" in Alabama, where they war, which has always been attractive to a significant sector of found mannequins, buses, and even police cars that had been used Islamic populations. Samuel Huntington puts it bluntly in The for target practice. Marion, Alabama, police chief Tony Buford said Clash of Civilizations: "Some Westerners, including President that "it was rumored that the camp here was used as a training site Clinton, have argued that the West does not have problems with for possible people [sic] that were sent here to do bodily harm to Islam but only with violent Islamic extremists. Fourteen hundred Americans." years of history demonstrate otherwise." Jihad constitutes an ongoing and global threat to the xii Introduction xiii West a threat that, as Huntington points out, key Western analysts the text. So except where I noted otherwise, the parenthetical and policymakers persistently refuse to face on its own terms. material in quotations is in the original. That is what I report about in this book. In doing so, I give not In using this material, I do not present my own findings or my own conclusions but draw on Islamic sources themselves, opinions about what Islam teaches or what jihad means. I am beginning with