Boreal

The Fractured Nation Interviews

Muhammad Abdullah

Killing Conditions

Johnny: When is a Muslim allowed to fight the good fight? When does a Muslim know that fighting, maiming, killing for his God is the right thing to do?

Muhammad: It’s not up to individual Muslims to decide when killing and maiming in the name of Allah The Most Holy is allowed. That decision can only be made by a cleric, a cleric who is held in high esteem by the Muslim community – the umma. It is that cleric who will decide, decide if one or more of the three conditions where violence is permitted, in fact, required under Islamic law has been met.

Johnny: And these conditions are?

Muhammad: To defend your community or nation from aggressors; to liberate people living under oppressive regimes; to remove any government that will not allow the free practice of Islam within its borders.

Johnny: Can a Muslim, once a cleric with the spiritual authority to do so, has made the decision to use violence against an alleged foe of Allah, decide that he will not participate in the violence or even try to stop it?

Muhammad: NO! It is not up to him to decide. If he doesn’t follow his cleric’s instructions, not only will he be harshly dealt with by fellow Muslims, he will also have incurred the wrath of Allah The Dishonourer and hell will be waiting.

Johnny: Some historians have argued that the third condition was met when the Supreme Court of Canada refused to exempt Muslims from the equality provision of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom and that violence, extreme violence was now inevitable.

Muhammad: Those historians are wrong and anti-Muslim. Violence was not inevitable. A Muslim must not resort to violence to change an unjust law if there is a possibility to change the law through non-violent means. In Canada, laws changed all the time. Eventually democracy with its pandering politicians would have worked in our favour and the unjust law would have been changed without any blood being spilled.

Johnny: But that all changed when the first Muslim was shot and killed?

Muhammad: Clearly the shooting of a Muslim faithful who was only doing what Allah, The Appreciative, expected of him meant that Canada was never going to allow the free practice of Islam within its borders.

Johnny: In Canada, before the violence, before The Fracture, Muslims were allowed a lot of freedom to practice their religion.

Muhammad: That is not the point. A lot of freedom is not the complete freedom to practice your religion demanded by Allah and Islamic law once Muslims within a jurisdiction or region have achieved majority status.

Johnny: I guess the key word here is majority. This is where I see Canada’s tolerance for minority views running smack into Islam’s requirement that where Muslims form a majority, it is their obligation to create a society where Islam can be practiced unfettered by the wishes of any minority.

Muhammad: In Islam, the rights of the faithful take precedence over any rights that a minority of unbelievers can pretend to have. What is wrong with that?

Johnny: Nothing, absolutely nothing!

Muhammad: And it’s not that minorities under an Islamic regime can not practice their religion, they can, as long as they do it discretely, don’t try to recruit Muslim into their faith and pay the tax that all unbelievers must pay for not practicing the perfect religion. The Koran is clear on the issue: Fight those who do not profess the true faith till they pay the jiziya with the hand of humility.

Johnny: Jiziya???

Muhammad: Poll tax. The rights of the followers of the one and only true God should take precedence over the rights of those who would deny His existence or who worship a false God. Why should an unbeliever have the same rights as a Muslim, especially if that unbeliever wants to put restrictions on the practice of the perfect religion?

Johnny: That is the accepted doctrine now, but it was not then. Then minorities had the same rights as every other minority or even the majority.

Muhammad: It was these wrong-headed views about the rights of minorities, minorities of unbelievers who did not practice the perfect religion that led to the first incident of violence and its escalation.

Johnny: It is starting to make sense. For our viewers who may not be familiar with the incident, with the murder that ignited the sectarian violence, let’s take a quick look back at what became known as the Steeple and Minaret War.

Muhammad: The Minaret and Steeple War.