Islamic terrorism – “a perversion of Islam”? 3

AP reports: 

The Islamic State group [ISIS] claimed responsibility Thursday [March 22, 2017] for an attack by a man [Khalid Masood], who plowed an SUV into pedestrians on a crowded London bridge and then stabbed a police officer to death on the grounds of Britain’s Parliament.

The attacker was born in Britain and known to authorities who had once investigated him for links to religious extremism  

The Islamic State group said through its Aamaq News Agency that the attacker was a soldier of the Islamic State who “carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of the coalition” of countries fighting IS in Syria and Iraq. …

Theresa May, the prime minister of Britain mirabile dictu, informed the world that the murderous attack (March 22, 2017) with a car on dozens of people on London’s Westminster Bridge and with a knife on a policeman in the precincts of Parliament, was “NOT AN ACCIDENT”. The world was not stunned to hear it. Who could disagree?

She called it “Islamist terrorism”, yet declared “it would be wrong to describe the attack as Islamic extremism”.

Because, she announced, “Islamist terrorism” is “A PERVERSION OF A GREAT FAITH”.

Is it?

From Jihad Watch, by Robert Spencer:

How is “Islamist terrorism” a “perversion of a great faith”? The learned imam Theresa May did not bother to explain. For her and her ilk, it is self-evident.

Yet one might get the impression that violence against unbelievers is not at all a perversion of Islam from the authoritative sources in Sunni Islam, the schools of Sunni jurisprudence (madhahib):






This is also taught by modern-day scholars of Islam. Majid Khadduri was an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject, Khadduri says this about jihad:



All this makes it clear that there is abundant reason to believe that violence against unbelievers is not a perversion of Islam. It would be illuminating if Theresa May or someone around her produced some quotations from Muslim authorities she considers “authentic”,  and explained why the authorities I’ve quoted above and others like them are inauthentic. While in reality there is no single Muslim authority who can proclaim what is “authentic” Islam, and thus it would be prudent not to make sweeping statements about what “authentic Islam” actually is, clearly there are many Muslims who believe that violence against unbelievers is not a perversion of Islam.

One might also get the impression that violence against unbelievers is not a perversion of Islam from these Qur’an verses:









9:111: “Allah has bought from the believers their selves and their possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the way of Allah; they kill, and are killed; that is a promise binding upon Allah in the Torah, and the Gospel, and the Qur’an; and who fulfills his covenant truer than Allah? So rejoice in the bargain you have made with Him; that is the mighty triumph.”



There are some tolerant verses in the Qur’an as well — see, for example, sura 109. But then in Islamic tradition there are authorities who say that violent passages take precedence over these verses. Muhammad’s earliest biographer, an eighth-century Muslim named Ibn Ishaq, explains the progression of Qur’anic revelation about warfare. First, he explains, Allah allowed Muslims to wage defensive warfare. But that was not Allah’s last word on the circumstances in which Muslims should fight. Ibn Ishaq explains offensive jihad by invoking a Qur’anic verse: “Then God [Allah] sent down to him: ‘Fight them so that there be no more seduction,’ i.e. until no believer is seduced from his religion. ‘And the religion is God’s’, i.e. Until God alone is worshipped.”

The Qur’an verse Ibn Ishaq quotes here (2:193) commands much more than defensive warfare: Muslims must fight until “the religion is God’s” — that is, until Allah alone is worshipped. Ibn Ishaq gives no hint that that command died with the seventh century.

The great medieval scholar Ibn Qayyim (1292-1350) also outlines the stages of the Muhammad’s prophetic career: “For thirteen years after the beginning of his Messengership, he called people to God through preaching, without fighting or Jizyah, and was commanded to restrain himself and to practice patience and forbearance. Then he was commanded to migrate, and later permission was given to fight. Then he was commanded to fight those who fought him, and to restrain himself from those who did not make war with him. Later he was commanded to fight the polytheists until God’s religion was fully established.”

In other words, he initially could fight only defensively — only “those who fought him” — but later he could fight the polytheists until Islam was “fully established”. He could fight them even if they didn’t fight him first, and solely because they were not Muslim.

Nor do all contemporary Islamic thinkers believe that that command is a relic of history. According to a 20th century Chief Justice of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid, “at first ‘the fighting’ was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory.” …

Here again, obviously there is a widespread understanding of the Qur’an within Islamic tradition that sees it, and Islam, as mandating violence against unbelievers. And we see Muslims who clearly understand their religion as mandating violence against unbelievers acting upon that understanding around the world today.

So will Theresa May defend her claim? Of course not.

So there will be more terrorist attacks and more lethal violence carried out on in the name of Allah in Britain.

Why should British Muslims, faithful to their creed, hold back?

They have their instructions from “the authoritative sources in Sunni Islam, the schools of Sunni jurisprudence”, and from the Qur’an itself.

And Prime Minister Theresa May will exonerate their ideology.