"Sudden" Jihad Syndrome - something more basic?, such as Islam's belief that Violence is Holy.

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Aug 20, 2006 at 17:03

(Delayed comment - I've been away). Is it wrong to paraphrase a basic tenet of Islam as, "Violence Is Holy"? For if it's not wrong to do this, then the cause of "sudden" Jihad Syndrome, with its rather frightening connotation of something inexplicable and out-of-the-blue , becomes immediately more accessible to understanding and a better way to fight it.

For what then follows is the uncomfortable realization that, at long last, we might just have to look directly at Islam, and not just "radical" Islam, or "Islamists" (awkward word), for an explanation of this world-wide propensity of individual Moslems to suddenly open fire on total noncombatants.- not to mention uncounted small groups of Muslims spontaneously planning to attack noncombatants with a total absence of the slightest sign of restraint by conscience (because their religion bans any consideration of something so weak and decadently Western as conscience when ...... Holy Violence is called for?)

I don't normally think of Daniel Pipes as someone subject to the mental straitjacket of PC thinking. But it is striking to me how many conservatives and other non-liberals (including myself at some moments in the past) drop their usual opposition to multi-culturalism and an alleged respect for cultural 'diversity', and actually accept the tenets of these soft-headed modes of thought with regard to Islam. Which means that a hard analysis of the dominant beliefs of both Sunni and Shiite Islam is precluded, and it becomes impermissible to pass judgment on this religion even if massive evidence seems to require it.

I am aware of no other large-scale religion which has anything like this tenet of the Muslim faith, often called the sixth pillar of Islam, that, says, only slightly paraphrased, Violence is Holy, sometimes put in other ways, such as "kill Jews wherever you find them, this is pleasing to God'"(the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, British-appointed head of the Palestinians for over 20 yrs in the 1920's and 30's).

Recent fatwas have said such things as it is "permissible" to kill 10 million non-believers because of the injuries done to Islam, but more than that would be unjust (I suppose this is a voice of moderation)

Around the time of the Iranian Presidential election, Rafsanjani, who lost out to Ahmadinejad, said something to the effect that Isalm could lose 100 million Moslems if that's what it took to destroy Israel, as the Moslem birthrate would quickly replenish them.

Whenever Muslims claim that such comments are "not the real Islam", or that violence "is unIslamic", this seems to me nothing more than a refusal to accept responsibility for what has been done in the name of Islam by tens of thousands of Jihadis all around the world, applauded by thousands of Imams and Mullahs and Ayatollahs, and is even now being planned and urged in Muslim public comments all over the Middle East , Europe, and from what I understand in the Detroit area, home to the largest and most politically active Muslim population in the United States.

We should stop witlessly joining with the Muslim apologists and evaders in this foolish conspiracy of denial and rationalization of the cause of Muslim violence worldwide. As I have just left two airports in the last 10 ten days involving long lines inching through absolutely necessary security procedures, I couldn't help thinking, THIS is the contribution of Islam to world civilization. Nothing else except its violence explains the notoriety of Islam in the world.

Without even getting into the hellish, and worsening, situation in Iraq, an even more glaring tribute than the Hezbollah-ignited war in Lebanon to the essential belief in and respect for unlimited violence at the core of islam, we must stop excusing Islam and evading the reality of its violence by misleading and confusing ourselves that "radical" Moslems or "Islamists" are somehow oustside the mainstream of a religion which proudly declares (when it is not denying it) that, in almost these exact words, "Violence is Holy."

Ron Thompson

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