What were they thinking?

Dogs in street vindicated – Muslim Brotherhood not our friends

In a stunning acknowledgment of what everyone else has known for a long time, the government has declared that “aspects of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and tactics, in this country and overseas, are contrary to our values and have been contrary to our national interests and our national security”.

That is the final paragraph of the long awaited Government Report into the Muslim Brotherhood, in fact only that part of the report which the government thinks you need to see. It has been issued along with David Cameron’s Statement.

The report also informs us that:

The MB was set up to bring about the Islamisation of Muslim societies and their eventual political unification in a Caliphate under sharia law.

From its foundation the MB organised itself into a secretive ‘cell’ structure…This clandestine, centralised and hierarchical structure persists to this day.

The key MB ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, promoted the doctrine of takfirism (declaring other Muslims to be infidel or apostate, and existing states unIslamic) and the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society…Jihad was neither solely spiritual nor defensive.

Qutb’s views remain central to the MB’s formational curriculum and have inspired many terrorist organisations, including the assassins of Sadat, Al Qaida and its offshoots.

The MB have preferred non violent incremental change on the grounds of expediency but they are prepared to countenance violence, including terrorism, where gradualism is ineffective.

In the 1990s the MB set up national organisations in the UK to promote their views. None were openly identified with the MB and membership of the MB remained (and still remains) a secret.

MB groups have set up a complex network of charities, some of which have been linked to Hamas (which refers to itself as the Palestinian chapter of the MB} and whose military wing has been proscribed in the UK as a terrorist organisation.

The two most prominent MB offshoots in Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim Council of Britain, have consistently opposed programmes by successive Governments to prevent terrorism.

All this will come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the activities of the MB and their various fronts. What is surprising is that HMG should be so frank, and diverge so markedly from the Obama administration under which the MB, in the guise of CAIR and ISNA, have ready access to the White House. The Obama administration regards the MB as “moderate Islamists” and has responded to the report with the comment that “political repression of non-violent Islamist groups has historically contributed to the radicalization of the minority of their members who would consider violence.”

Why has the government published the report? Some commentators have suggested that the primary reason (and also for the long delay in its publication) lies in the Great Game of Middle Eastern politics with Britain currently aligning itself with Saudi Arabia and the UAE which regard the MB as enemies, and with which Britain has extensive trade links.

On the domestic front, it can be seen as another incremental move towards recognising the danger which various Islamist groups represent, bringing the foremost of them within the reach of the government’s new Counter Extremism Strategy.

As to the content of the report, there is nothing in it that the authors could not have learned from any number of counter jihad authors. Nevertheless, for those who already regard the MB as the very definition of a fifth column the report represents a welcome and important step in the right direction.

At the heart of the report is the MB’s very dubious commitment to democracy. Personally I find the report decidedly understanding on that issue, as though lamenting a tiger’s difficulties in learning to eat with a knife and fork:

“…the Egyptian MB did not do enough to demonstrate political moderation or a commitment to democratic values, had failed to convince Egyptians of their competence or good intentions, and had subsequently struggled to draw lessons for what its failure in Egypt meant for its future.”

Do you know the difference between a Muslim Brother and a Salafi? A Salafi will tell you that he does not believe in democracy. A Brother will tell you that he does, but he actually means shura, the limited consultative process allowed within Islamic law. In fact the MB also venerate the Salaf, the first three generations of Mohammed’s followers. They just think they can operate more effectively in the West without the Middle-Eastern dress and the beards. Their ultimate goal is to bring us all to the theocratic utopia of 7th century Medina just like the more commonly recognised Salafis, only by a different route.

The report quite rightly states that the MB’s aim is eventual political unification of Muslim societies in a Caliphate under sharia law. Only Muslim societies though? Is that what they told the Government in the Londonistan days of the 90’s? It would fit in with what we are told, that HMG allowed them to set up headquarters as long as they did not pursue their agenda within Britain.

In fact, statements by the MB’s founders clearly show that their ambitions always went beyond existing Muslim societies. Their aim was to bring the entire world under Islam, just as with any other self respecting Islamic supremacists:

Hassan Al-Banna, founder of the MB:

“It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet“.

Sayyid Qutb, MB ideologue:

“We understand the true character of Islam, and that it is a universal proclamation of freedom of man from servitude to other men, the establishment of the sovereignty of God and His Lordship throughout the world, … and the implementation of the rule of the Divine shari’ah in human affairs.”

And in case you thought the MB might have mellowed over the years here is an ‘Explanatory Memorandum’ of the North American Brotherhood, as late as 1991, stating that the goal of the Brotherhood movement is to engage in:

“…a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their [own] hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

For a definitive view on the Brotherhood’s core attitudes we really need look no further than their own mission statement:

“Allah is our objective; the Qur’an is our Constitution; the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; death for the sake of Allah is our highest wish”.

Do the experts at the Foreign Office not know all this? One would like to think that they do, and that their previous indulgence of the MB was just part of some Machiavellian strategy of pitting various groups against each other in order to further our geopolitical aims in the Middle East. But this report gives the distinct impression that HMG really have been naïve about the Brotherhood and are only now slowly and painfully waking up to the awful reality.

There are two other reasons to believe this might be the case. One is the clear ignorance of Islamic teachings and attitudes shown by Theresa May and the other is David Cameron’s unfortunate forays into theology.

Theresa May the Home Secretary once said “I never thought I would see the day when members of the Jewish community in the United Kingdom would say they were fearful of remaining here.”

In that case she can never have thought at all about the likely consequences of the presence in Britain of millions of people whose religion teaches hatred for Jews. Perhaps she does not know that the Koran refers to Jews as the descendants of apes and pigs. More particularly, perhaps she does not know about the genocidal Charter of Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the MB, which incorporates a famous hadith looking forward to the slaughter of Jews by Muslims before the last day.

On the other hand David Cameron, in declaring who or what is or is not Islamic, has strayed into areas usually considered more appropriate for imams than Prime Ministers.

The report correctly points out that the doctrine of takfir is at the heart of Qutb’s thought and therefore MB ideology. It means declaring Muslims or organisations unIslamic and therefore apostate, after which murder or waging war are justified in the mind of the takfiri.

When David Cameron says that ISIS is “nothing to do with Islam” and “a sick perversion of Islam” not only is he is denying the obvious fact that ISIS is very Islamic indeed but unwittingly he has also come to sound very like a takfiri himself. Likewise when, after the Leytonstone attack, he endorsed a passerby’s comment to the throat cutter “You ain’t no Muslim bruv”.

Cameron is not actually a takfiri of course because he is not a Muslim but he has found declaring ISIS unIslamic useful as part of his justification for waging war on them. He could hardly say we are waging war on ISIS because they are so Islamic but the reality is that we have to recognise ISIS as our enemies precisely because they follow Mohammed’s supremacist agenda so faithfully. But so do the Muslim Brotherhood, just with less blood and more subversion – for the moment.

Islamism or Islam?

We all heard our leaders say after the Woolwich murder:

“There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act” (David Cameron)
“It is completely wrong to blame this killing on Islam” (Boris Johnson)
“…the distortion of a great salvation religion” (Nick Clegg).
Before them Tony Blair said “Anyone who knows anything about Islam, knows it is a religion of peace”.

Were you surprised that they all had the theological knowledge to make such definitive claims? Did you wonder what their justifications were? They never told us.

Boris Johnson’s case is particularly interesting because he appears to have had something of a Damascene conversion. After the 7/7 bombings in 2005 he said:

“To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke. Judged purely on its scripture – to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques – it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers….That means disposing of the first taboo, and accepting that the problem is Islam. Islam is the problem”

In 2008, while campaigning in the London mayoral election, he said he now believed, after having researched the Koran more in depth, that it is “a religion of peace”.

What did he find in the Koran that changed his mind? Sadly, he did not share that with us. Until he gives us chapter and verse, that is sura and ayah, we may suspect that his epiphany came not so much from reading the Koran as from realising the importance of the Muslim vote in London.

After the Woolwich murder Johnson wrote that:

“There is no sense in blaming Islam, a religion that gives consolation and enrichment to the lives of hundreds of millions of peaceful people…we need to make a hard and sharp distinction between that religion – and the virus of “Islamism”.

So there we have it – Islam is the otherwise healthy organism afflicted by an illness, Islamism, which has to be treated. I am grateful to Boris for making the establishment view so clear with his image.

This division is also at the heart of government policy. In December 2013 Her Majesty’s Government produced a report called Tackling extremism in the UK.

It says “As the greatest risk to our security comes from Al Qa’ida and like-minded groups, and terrorist ideologies draw on and make use of extremist ideas, we believe it is also necessary to define the ideology of Islamist extremism. This is a distinct ideology which should not be confused with traditional religious practice. It is an ideology which is based on a distorted interpretation of Islam, which betrays Islam’s peaceful principles, and draws on the teachings of the likes of Sayyid Qutb.”

(As an aside, if Sayyid Qutb is the evil genius behind all this, why is the organisation which reflects his ideology like no other, the Muslim Brotherhood, welcome in Britain? The MB has a record of engaging in terrorist violence or political infiltration according to circumstance, as do its offshoots for instance Hamas in Gaza (the former) and CAIR in the US and myriad organisations in Britain (the latter) and yet it operates openly from an office in Cricklewood. Conversely, if the MB is acceptable why is their great ideologue held up as the inspiration of our enemies?)

One intriguing development is referred to in the report:

“Appropriately recruited Muslim Prison Chaplains are already employed to challenge the extremist views of prisoners and to provide religious direction for Muslim prisoners. Using their experience, they are developing the ‘Ibaana’ [ie “clarify”] programme designed to target the small number of prisoners with the most entrenched extremist views. One-to-one sessions over several hours with a trained chaplain will be used to challenge the theological arguments used by these prisoners to justify their extremist views.”

There is of course the possibility that state backed theologians will just be dismissed by Muslim prisoners as “Uncle Toms” trying to create suitably docile Muslims.

But let us take a more positive view. If our leaders cannot provide the theological justifications for a peaceful Islam perhaps these appropriately recruited chaplains can. Whatever they are telling their charges, let them write it down so we can all see it and have our minds put at rest. I for one would be massively grateful for such justifications because whenever I go looking for them I find either comically blatant deception as in Tahir-ul-Qadri’s famous fatwah against terrorism or what could charitably be called wishul thinking as in Quilliam’s arguments.

No such document being planned? No, I thought not, but if HMG really think their Muslim chaplains can provide sound arguments to counter jihadi attacks against us then surely it has a duty to get them out into the world.

If you want to explore the intellectual underpinnings of the government’s stance then Michael Gove’s excellent book Celcius 7/7 would be a good place to start. It is heartening to know there is someone in the government with such an understanding of the Islamist threat and who is (or was) willing to speak out about it. Nevertheless, it seems to me that his attempt to separate Islamism from Islam does not hold water. He asserts that:

“The distinction is the difference between Islam, the great historic faith which has brought spiritual nourishment to millions, and Islamism, the specifically twentieth-century ideology which twists the religious impulse into submission to a new totalitarianism.”

and

“Islamism is not Islam in arms; it is a political creed that perverts Islam…”

but look at some of his supporting statements (I hope not misrepresented by taking them out of their context):

“…Islamism is driven by a divine mission to ensure that the whole earth, in due course, learns to submit to Islamist rule.”

“For Hassan al-Banna and his followers in the Muslim Brotherhood the roots of decline lay in the abandonment of a pure and unpolluted Islam. Revival could only come through a return to a society ordered on the basis of the literal, and unalterable, truths of the Koran.”

“His [ie Abul ala Mawdudi’s] group, Jamaat-i-Islami [closely related to the MB], was dedicated to the fundamental Islamist proposition that Islam was not so much a religion for private devotion as the source of a complete political system capable of competing with rival totalitarianisms for the minds of men.”

“…Mawdudi’s belief that ultimate sovereignty rested with God alone. It was by his unalterable rules and in accordance with his perfect revelation that society was to be ordered. Down to the last detail.”

Where is the specifically twentieth-century ideology there? I see nothing that could not be described simply as a return to Mohammed’s original religio-political ideology. Surely we must agree that Mohammed’s Islam, as developed in Medina at least, was not just “a religion for private devotion” but absolutely a complete political system.

Then, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, there are the Salafis and the Khomeiniites and Al-Qaeda. Is that one ideology or four? Quite different from each other, they share only one thing – the intent to spread Islam using peaceful or violent means as necessary. It seems to me that these four groupings do not represent a new totalitarian ideology but are simply new varieties of an old one. That is why I would reverse Mr Gove’s statement:

“Islamism is not a political creed that perverts Islam, it is simply Islam in arms.”

I hesitate to challenge Mr Gove’s view but I do have some scholarship on my side. Here is the historian Mervyn Hiskett writing twenty years ago when the terms “Islamism” and “Islamic fundamentalism” were used interchangeably:

“But the truth is, Islamic “fundamentalism”, as the world has understood it…adds little, if anything, to what has always been inherent in Islam since the Koran was revealed. The collapse of [Western European] imperialism and the rise of the liberal ethic have simply removed the barriers that once so salubriously contained it.”

One problem is that the groups we call Islamist are not so obliging as to refer to themselves as such. They see themselves simply as Muslims carrying out instructions laid down in Mohammed’s teachings, and supported by all four of the Sunni schools of jurisprudence and the Shiite equivalent. Look at these expressed views of Muslim scholars among others.

Can you tell the Islamists from the mainstream? For instance, what about the modern Syrian scholar Muhammad Sa’id Ramadan al-Bouti in his major work “Jurisprudence in Muhammad’s Biography”:

“The concept of Holy War (Jihad) in Islam does not take into consideration whether defensive or an offensive war. Its goal is the exaltation of the Word of Allah and the construction of Islamic society and the establishment of Allah’s Kingdom on Earth regardless of the means. The means would be offensive warfare. In this case, it is the apex, the noblest Holy War.”

In fact he would not be considered an Islamist, yet see how exactly he chimes with Osama bin Laden:

“It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme.”

The views of al-Bouti, “the scholar’s scholar”, are particularly interesting, even ironic, since he reverses our current ideas about the distortion of Islam. Expanding on his theme of offensive jihad he writes:

“…This is the concept which professional experts of thought attempt to conceal from the eyes of Muslims by claiming that anything that is related to a holy war in Islamic law is only based on defensive warfare to repel an attack…It is no secret that the reason behind this deception is the great fear which dominates foreign countries (East and West alike) that the idea of Holy War for the cause of God would be revived in the hearts of Muslims, then certainly, the collapse of European culture will be accomplished.”

Perhaps our Muslim chaplains will hear him quoted in their conversations with the Islamist prisoners.

It is not that I deny that there is a distinction to be made between Islam and Islamism but I suggest that it is of very limited use. Islamism just refers to those strains of Islam whose adherents are willing to use violence to spread the influence of their religion. That sounds just like the Mohammed of Medina to me. I do not see any distortion of his teachings there at all. In fact I venture to suggest that if Mohammed came back today he would say “Well done boys, keep up the good work”. Presumably he meant it for all time (and this is how Islamic tradition has understood it down the ages) when he said:

“Not equal are those believers remaining [at home] – other than the disabled – and the mujahideen, [who strive and fight] in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives. Allah has preferred the mujahideen through their wealth and their lives over those who remain [behind], by degrees. And to both Allah has promised the best [reward]. But Allah has preferred the mujahideen over those who remain [behind] with a great reward” (sura 4:95).

So was Mohammed an Islamist or just a Muslim? The historian Daniel Pipes calls this the killer question of those who see Islam itself as the problem and answers it in a worryingly facile way. He says “Muhammad was a plain Muslim, not an Islamist, for the latter concept dates back only to the 1920s”.

Is this not just playing with words? If you put the question another way, “Who in the modern world most closely follow Mohammed’s Medina teachings and example?” surely the Islamists come out tops. Why shouldn’t they be murderous fanatics? That is exactly what Mohammed was. If they are Islamists then so was Mohammed. If Mohammed was just a Muslim then so are they.

Suppose there was an Islamic version of the rapture tomorrow and all those Muslims commonly referred to as Islamists were taken to paradise. Would that solve our problems? According to HMG it must. The ideology which is a distortion or a betrayal of Islam would have disappeared, leaving only peaceful Muslims to live harmoniously with non-believers according to their traditional religious practice. I suggest that before too long some Muslims would start to scratch their heads and say “Hey, look what it says here. Why aren’t we doing it?” Then new groups would spring up with sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, just as has always happened since the 7th century (apart from a relatively short spell of containment under European colonialism).

This is why I say that, while Islam and Islamism can be distinguished, the relationship between them is not that of an organism and an infection but more accurately that of a fire and the flames that it inevitably produces. If you doused the flames currently burning up so much of the world they would soon be replaced by others.

Is it not patronising and futile to imagine we can convince aspiring jihadis that they have misunderstood Mohammed’s demands? It appears obvious to most newcomers to Islam, as it does to so many learned scholars, Muslim and non-Muslim, that supremacism and jihad are utterly inherent in the Islam of Mohammed, not just of Sayyid Qutb. Instead of trying to convince jihadis that they have it all wrong should we not accord them the dignity of regarding them genuinely as our enemy?

Let us close with a quote, taken from a comments section of the Guardian, from an unknown Salafi with whom I would not try to argue:

“As for how I define myself, I am merely a Muslim. If I have to expand on that further then I am also a Sunni. If I need to expand on that even further then I am a Salafi too. I don’t give credence to labels that are thrown around by the infidels. I believe that as a Muslim one should understand the religion by the apparent (i.e. literal) meaning of the texts which would no doubt render me a ‘devout Fundamentalist’. Thus I also believe in the concept of jihad which would also render me a ‘Jihadist’. The usage of these titles is a major bugbear of mine because there is no such thing as a fundamentalist or moderate Islam. There is simply Islam and Muslims may choose to be sincere and accept it in its entirety or on the other hand pick and choose from it to please their desires and others.”

Who says Islam is supremacist?

Allah:
“He it is Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad SAW) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), that He may make it (Islam) superior over all religions. And All-Sufficient is Allah as a Witness.” (Koran 48:28)

“Allah hath promised such of you as believe and do good work that He will surely make them to succeed (the present rulers) in the earth even as He caused those who were before them to succeed (others)…” (Koran 24:55)

Mohammed, in a letter to Haudha bin Ali, governor of Yamama inviting him to convert or take the consequences:
“Peace be upon him who follows true guidance. Be informed that my religion shall prevail everywhere. You should accept Islam, and whatever under your command shall remain yours”. (The Sealed Nectar:Biography of the Noble Prophet)

Likewise to Jaifer, King of Oman:
“Allah has sent me as a Prophet to all His creatures in order that I may instil fear of Allah in the hearts of His disobedient creatures so that there may be left no excuse for those who deny Allah”. (The Sealed Nectar:Biography of the Noble Prophet)

Also according to Sahih Muslim (41:6904):
“Allah drew the ends of the world near one another for my sake. And I have seen its eastern and western ends. And the dominion of my Ummah would reach those ends…“.

And according to Sahih Bukhari (1:7:1331):
“The Prophet said, ‘I have been given five things which were not given to anyone else before me. 1. Allah made me victorious by awe by His terrorizing my enemies. 2. The earth has been made for me. 3. Booty has been made lawful for me yet it was not lawful for anyone else before me. 4. I have been given the right of intercession. 5. Every Prophet used to be sent to his nation only but I have been sent to all mankind‘ “

And according to Ibn Ishaq, Mohammed’s earliest biographer, on hitting a stone with his pickaxe during preparations for the Battle of the Trench:
“The first spark means that Allah has promised me the conquest of Yemen ; the second that Allah has granted me the conquest of Syria and the West ; and the third that Allah has bestowed upon me victory over the East.”

Ibn Taymiyyah, mediaeval theologian and the inspiration for Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, founder of Wahhabism:
“Since lawful warfare is essentially Jihad and since its aim is that religion is entirely for Allah and the word of Allah is uppermost, therefore, according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought”.

Ibn Kathir, mediaeval Koranic commentator:
“Allah the Exalted and Most Honored said, while delivering the glad tidings to the believers that the Messenger will triumph over his enemies and the rest of the people of the earth“.

Ibn Khaldun, mediaeval historian:
“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“.

The Reliance of the Traveller, the authoritative 14th century Shafi’i manual of Islamic Jurisprudence:
“Among the things that entail apostasy from Islam are…to deny that Allah intended the Prophet’s message (Allah bless him and give him peace) to be the religion followed by the entire world“.

The Hedaya, the equally authoritative 12th century Hanafi manual of Islamic Jurisprudence:
“War must be carried on against the infidels, at all times, by some party of the Mussulmans. The sacred injunction concerning war is sufficiently observed when it is carried on by any one party or tribe of the Mussulmans; and it is then no longer of any force with respect to the rest. It is established as a divine ordinance, by the word of God, who has said, in the Koran ‘SLAY THE INFIDELS’; and also by a saying of the prophet, ‘war is permanently established until the day of judgment’.”

Encyclopaedia of Islam, standard reference work:
“The spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general.… Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam.… Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad [warfare to spread Islam] can be eliminated.”

Hassan Al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood:
“It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet“.

Sayyid Qutb, Muslim Brotherhood ideologue:
“We understand the true character of Islam, and that it is a universal proclamation of freedom of man from servitude to other men, the establishment of the sovereignty of God and His Lordship throughout the world, … and the implementation of the rule of the Divine shari’ah in human affairs.”

Abdul A’la Maududi, founder of Jamaat-i-Islami:
“… The purpose of the Holy Prophet’s appointment as a Prophet was not merely to preach this Religion, but to make it prevail over all others… so that it should be the dominant Religion of life and any other religion should survive, if at all it survives, only within the limits in which it allows it to survive”.

Ayatollah Khomeini:
“Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. Those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world…Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless”.

Bernard Lewis, doyen of Islamic historians:
“The basis of the obligation of jihad is the universality of the Muslim revelation. God’s words and God’s message is for all mankind; it is the duty of those who have accepted them to strive (jihada) unceasingly to convert or at least subjugate those who have not. This obligation is without limit of time or space. It must continue until the whole world has either accepted the Islamic faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state.”
(this is the same Bernard Lewis who said that by the end of this century “Europe will be part of the Arabic west, of the Maghreb.”)

Majid Khadduri, scholar of Islamic law:
“The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world…. The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state.”

Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Professor of Sharia:
“This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya, extortion tax] is to be exercised only after subjugation [of non-Muslims].”

Hilali-Khan translation (aka the Wahhabi Koran)
“And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone [in the whole of the world]. But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allah), then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do.” (sura 8:39)

Omar M. Ahmad, co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):
“If you choose to live here you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam… Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”

Muhammad Sa’id Ramadan al-Bouti, Al-Azhar University Islamic scholar (assassinated Damascus 2013):
“The concept of Holy War (Jihad) in Islam does not take into consideration whether defensive or an offensive war. Its goal is the exaltation of the Word of Allah and the construction of Islamic society and the establishment of Allah’s Kingdom on Earth regardless of the means. The means would be offensive warfare. In this case, it is the apex, the noblest Holy War. It is legal to carry on a Holy War.”

Taqiy al-Din al-Nabahan, founder of Hizb ut-Tahrir:
“The foreign policy of Islamic states must be to carry the Islamic mission to the world by way of holy war. This process has been established through the course of the ages from the time the apostle settled down until the end of the last Islamic state which was ruled by Islamic law. This process has never been changed at all. The apostle Muhammad, from the time he founded the state in the city Yathrib, prepared an army and began holy war to remove the physical barriers which hinder the spread of Islam.”

Osama bin Laden:
“It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme.”

Samantha Lewthwaite, the “white widow”:
“Verily Allah has purchased the lives of the believers that theirs shall be paradise. They fight in Allah’s cause, so they kill and are killed… it will NEVER be over until the day that we see our lands governed by Allah the almighty, whose law is complete”. (quoting sura 9:111)

IS (Islamic State), from their magazine Dabiq issue 7:
“…the sword will continue to be drawn, raised, and swung until ‘Īsā (Jesus – ‘alayhis-salām) kills the Dajjāl (the Antichrist) and abolishes the jizyah. Thereafter, kufr and its tyranny will be destroyed; Islam and its justice will prevail on the entire Earth.”

Sam Harris, anti-religious author:
“While there are undoubtedly some moderate Muslims who have decided to overlook the irrescindable militancy of their religion, Islam is undeniably a religion of conquest. The only future devout Muslims can envisage—as Muslims—is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed. The tenets of Islam simply do not admit of anything but a temporary sharing of power with the ‘enemies of God’.”

WHO SAYS IT ISN’T?

George Bush, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, David Cameron, Theresa May (theological competence uncertain).

Quilliam

Everyone at the Guardian.

The entire interfaith dialogue industry.

CAIR (when talking to non-Muslims eg “My jihad is building new friendships. What’s yours?”).

Tariq “double talk” Ramadan (Oxford Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies and grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood).

Mehdi “the kuffar live like cattle” Hasan (Journalist and deceptive apologist).

John Esposito (Saudi funded academic, champion of the mythical higher jihad and author of “The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?”).

Your local smiley imam