Response to Tariqnelson II

I’ve been engaged in a debate with Tariqnelson in the comments section of this posting.  Given the length of my latest response I’ve decided to post it in the main section of the blog.

Josephnadir: the notorious “Verse of the Sword” in sura 9:5 (“slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush”) is used logically for jihadi recruitment

Tariqnelson: I agree that it is used for terror recruitment, but I disagree that it is used logically and in context by terrorists.

Mainstream Islamic commentators disagree with you as they regard Sura 9 as precisely the Koran’s last word on jihad since it was the last sura revealed.

From http://jihadwatch.org/billboard.php:

Sahih Bukhari, which Muslims regard as the most trustworthy of all the many collections of traditions of Muhammad, records this statement of the Prophet: “Allah assigns for a person who participates in (holy battles) in Allah’s Cause and nothing causes him to do so except belief in Allah and in His Messengers, that he will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr).”

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”

Violent jihad is a constant of Islamic history. The passages quoted above and many others like them form a major element of the motivation of jihad warriors worldwide today. No major Muslim group has ever repudiated the doctrines of armed jihad. The theology of jihad, with all its assumptions about unbelievers‚ lack of human rights and dignity, is available today as a justification for anyone with the will and the means to bring it to life.

tariqnelson: Looked at literally, one would think that it is permissible to kill anyone anytime.

Not “anyone” only the non-Muslim and verses like these are what jihadists use around the world to justify their abominable acts (e.g., sawing people’s heads off, purposefully murdering innocent women and children, etc.)

Here is more:

Re targeting of civilians:

“It is not permissible to kill women or children unless they are fighting against the Muslims.” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.10).

“It is not permitted to kill women and children in battle, nor elsewhere, as long as they are not fighting…” (Mawardi, Al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah, 4.2).

The idea of civilians (“women and children”) fighting making it permissible to kill them has led modern jihad terrorists to justify 9/11 etc. by saying that everyone who was killed there was aiding the American war effort against Islam — and that therefore killing them was ok.

“The term ‘civilians’ does not exist in Islamic religious law….I’m familiar with religious law. There is no such term as ‘civilians’ in the modern Western sense. People are either of Dar Al-Harb [House of War] or not…” Dr. Hani Al-Siba’i, director of the Al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies, London, July 8, 2005.

Re offensive jihad:

Under ordinary circumstances, what he is saying is true: only the Commander of the Faithful can declare offensive jihad. That’s why jihadists are so keen to reestablish the caliphate. Osama even had Mullah Omar of the Taliban proclaimed “Emir al-Momineen” (Commander of the Faithful) in 1996.

Also, the concept of defensive jihad requires no caliph. Jihad is ordinarily fard kifayah: an obligation on the community as a whole, which if some discharge, others are freed from. However, when a Muslim land is attacked, it becomes fard ayn: obligatory upon everyone individually. Abdullah Azzam, a founder of Al-Qaeda, and others have argued that jihad is now fard ayn because of the West’s attack on Islam (Azzam was murdered, probably by Osama, in 1989, so he wasn’t talking about Iraq).

This places every Islamic jihadist action in the context of the defense of Muslim lands, and so justifies today’s jihad according to classical, traditional, orthodox Islamic jurisprudence.

Tariqnelson: How do you explain that 1.3 billion Muslims are not slaughtering non-Muslims upon sight, but instead have non-Muslim friends and treat them well. That is total non-sense.

From The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam:

There are several principal reasons for this.  One is that because the Qu’ran is in difficult, classical Arab, and must be read and recited during those who identify themselves as Muslims have scant acquaintance with what it actually says.  Although the media establishment continues to interchange the words “Muslim” and “Arab”, most Muslims worldwide today are not Arabs.  Even modern Arabic, much less classical Qur’anic Arabic, is foreign to them.  They often memorize the Qur’an by rote without any clear idea of what it actually says.  A Pakistani Muslim once proudly told me that he had memorized large sections of the Qur’an, and planned to buy a translation one day so he could find out exactly what it was saying.  Such instances are common to a degree that may surprise most non-Muslims. 

Tariqnelson: Here is the ebook that I provided a link to that refutes the arguments of the Khawarij (Bin Laden’s sect). Remember that this is written for Muslims and uses terminology that you may not be familiar with

So let’s assume what you are saying is true, then in fact you have not provided an example of a fatwa against OBL for his 9/11 terrorist attacks.