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December 26, 2024
Muslim hostility for the West is not an aberration but a continuation of Islamic history.
I have been commanded to wage war against mankind until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.… If they do so, their blood and property are protected. —Muhammad
I have been made victorious with terror. —Prophet of Islam2
That Muhammad had only won over some one hundred followers after a decade of peaceful preaching in Mecca—but nearly the whole of Arabia after a decade of successful raiding, “an average of no fewer than nine campaigns annually”5—speaks for itself.
The appeal of Muhammad’s message lay in its compatibility with the tribal mores of his society, three in particular: loyalty to one’s tribe, enmity for other tribes, and raids on the latter to enrich and empower the former. For seventh-century Arabs—
The Islamic doctrine of al-wala’ wa al-bara’ (“loyalty and enmity”), which Muhammad preached and the Koran commands, captures all this.* The latter goes so far as to command all Muslims to “renounce” and “disown” their non-Muslim relatives—“even if they be their fathers, their sons, their brothers, or their nearest kindred”—and to feel only “enmity and hate” for them until they “believe in Allah alone”
Numerous Koran verses and canonical (sahih) hadiths portray jihad as the noblest endeavor. “Lining up for battle in the path of Allah,” Muhammad said, “is worthier than 60 years of worship.”§
the successful raid on the infidel was guaranteed all the usual spoils of war—plunder and slaves, including concubines¶; whoever died during this jihad was guaranteed similar but greater spoils in the afterlife. Either way, they won: “I guarantee him either admission to Paradise,” said Muhammad, “or return to whence he set out with a reward or booty.”
Muslims not inspired to fight on promises of temporal or eternal rewards: they “will be tortured like no other sinful human”14 in hell, threatened Muhammad, with confirmation from Allah
Muhammad declared eternal war on Christendom, as captured by Koran 9:29: “Fight those among the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.”‡ In other words, Islam’s three choices had come to Jews and Christians: either they converted, died fighting, or kept their religions by paying extortion money and accepting an inferior position as dhimmis in Muslim society.§
According to Muslim and Coptic historians, the Arab invaders also burned the Great Library of Alexandria. Amr sent a message to Caliph Omar inquiring what he should do with the tens of thousands of books and scrolls found within this massive building. Omar (in)famously responded: “If they agree with our Book [Koran], we do not need them; if they disagree, we do not want them. Burn them.” The amount of ink-stained papyri—which if preserved would have rewritten history as we know it—were reportedly so great that, serving as fuel, it kept the many bathhouses of Alexandria, now enjoyed by its
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Muhammad told a group of Muslim women that “the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you [women],” and they asked him why, he explained: “You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you” (Sahih Bukhari 1:6:301).
As for the much touted Koran 2:256—“there is no compulsion in religion”—this seems more of an assertion, a statement of fact, than an imperative for Muslims to uphold. After all, it is true: no Muslim can make a non-Muslim convert. But that does not mean they cannot entice, cajole, and reward on the one hand, and enslave, extort, and slaughter on the other, those who refuse.
the “House of Islam in the tenth century had little use for any of the produce and natural resources of Europe, except one; the bodies of the Europeans themselves. Young women and boys were preferred,
to join the jihadi caravan, to the Berber masses that first entered Europe—were always motivated by the promise of plunder. Such motives never clashed with Islam, the deity of which incites his followers to war on the promise of booty, both animate and inanimate—so much so that an entire sura, or chapter of the Koran, “al-Anfal,” is named after and dedicated to the spoils of war.
one important caveat: whenever Muslims find themselves under infidel authority, they may say and do almost anything—denounce Muhammad, receive baptism and communion, venerate the cross, all anathema to Islam—so long as their hearts remain true to Islam. Such is the doctrine of taqiyya,* which has traditionally defined Islam’s modus operandi under non-Muslim authority. Even the fanatical and uncompromising ribat warriors (al-murabitun) who devoted their lives to waging jihad on the Eastern Roman Empire were not above such dishonorable tactics, as relayed by the Baghdadi jurist Abd al-Jabbar:
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Muslims could never be loyal to infidel authority—constantly colluding and subverting, including with foreign Muslims—and if conversion to Christianity was no solution due to the dispensation of taqiyya, then only one solution remained: between 1609 and 1614, all Moriscos were expelled from the Peninsula to Africa,
keeping with Muhammad’s command: “Do not initiate the Salam [peace greeting] to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley”
Every Muslim who is well aware of the history of Islam, knows that jihad against infidels is an integral part of Islam, and those who read history would know. —Islamic State1
the post-Christian West slowly came into being. Islam did not change, but the West did: Muslims still venerate their heritage and religion—which commands jihad against infidels—whereas the West has learned to despise its heritage and religion, causing it to become an unwitting ally of the jihad.
