You are making the wrong argument

Submitted by Schills (United States), Jun 26, 2012 at 18:21

Sara,

You are again talk about the justifications terrorists use for Jihad. This has nothing to do with how Jihad is conducted.

Bin Laden et al. go to great lengths to cast their terrorist acts as "defensive" because they are making an argument to other Muslims that: 1) the prohibition against fighting "offensively" without the authorization of the Muslim ruler is not applicable; and 2) condemning everyone who disagrees with as an apostate since fighting "defensive" Jihad is an individual obligation of every able-bodied person. The first is critical since the caliphate ended approximately one hundred years ago making offensive Jihad a legal impossibility. The second allows Bin Laden, et al. to kill other Muslims.

What you have written so far deals only with the apologist argument that Islam is the religion of peace, or that Jihad is personal struggle. I have not made this argument or anything resembling it.

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