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ISLAMOPHOBIA

A Licence to Kill

The Koran grants every Muslim the equivalent of a licence to kill.

9:111 Allah has bought from the believers their lives and their wealth in return for Paradise; they fight in the Way of Allah, kill and get killed. That is a true promise from Him in the Torah, the Gospel and the Qur’an; and who fulfills his promise better than Allah? Rejoice then at the bargain you have made with Him; for that is the great triumph.

Atheists are not identified per se in the Koran. However, if Allah had deigned to explicitly single them out as death-deserving, they would certainly have been at the top of His enemies list, and deservedly so. It is one thing for a god to refute the reality of other gods and goddesses, as Allah does ad nauseam in His Koran (recommended: Getting to Know Allah, Boreal Books), it is quite another for a wretched human being to repudiate any and all gods.

Even without a detailed description from God, Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, knew an atheist when he encountered one and burnt them. His father-in-law did not approve of the method used, but the killing had his unequivocal approval.

Narrated Ikrima:

Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'"

Bukhari 84.57

It would be safe to assume that all who don’t acknowledge a higher power are covered under a believer’s licence to kill as a saying of Muhammad in Islamic Law has the same force as a revelation if it does not contradict the Koran. What about the practitioners of Buddhism and Shintoism and other Eastern religions that were founded long before Islam? God should have known about these far off faiths. An argument could be made that they deserved a mention in His eternal all-encompassing Koran in which He brags you can study “whatever you choose.”

68:35 Shall We consider those who submit like those who are criminals?

68:36 What is the matter with you; how do you judge?

68:37 Or do you have a Book in which you study?

68:38 Wherein there is whatever you choose.

Why would a God who is so attentive in singling out those deserving to be murdered on His behalf not remind his holy warriors that they would eventually encounter “criminals” whose spiritual outlook would be alien to them? People who also deserved to die if they did not agree to submit to the one-and-only god and acknowledge His special relationship with the illiterate who spoke on His behalf.

Allah, in his Koran, seems to have His spokesman’s knowledge of the world as he knew it and nothing much beyond that. Also, God’s preoccupation in His book is with people familiar to Muhammad: his Arab brethren, followed by the Jews and Christians of the Byzantine Empire. This has led to speculation that a verse in which Allah promises to treat the Zoroastrians—along with Christians, Jews and others—fairly on Judgement Day was added subsequent to Muhammad’s passing and after the Muslim invasion of Persia—undertaken by a successor— became mired in blood.

The invasion was led by the most pitiless of pitiless commanders, Khalid Ibn Al-Walid who made his intentions clear in a letter.

Our aim is not to fight you. Accept Islam the peaceful way, and you will be safe. If not then clear our way to the people so that we may explain this beautiful way of life to them.

If you do not accept any of these conditions then the only alternative is the use of the sword.

Before deciding on the third alternative you should keep in mind that I am bringing against you a people who love death more than you love life.

From a letter by Khalid Ibn Al-Walid the leader of the Muslim armies invading Persia to the Persian General Hormuz before the battle of Kadima.

It was a typically bloody conquest with the believers offering no quarter; beheading thousands of surrendered and captured Persian soldiers and fulfilling Khalid's pledge to God that, if He gave them victory, "no enemy warrior will be left alive, until their rivers run red with blood." The Muslims may have won the war, but getting the Persians to wholeheartedly submit may have proven problematic.

During the reign of Caliph Uthman, the leader of the believers when the Muslims declared victory in the almost decade old war, a revised version of the Koran was released.

The first transcribed Koran was put together in a hurry from what could be considered mainly second-rate sources after those who remembered Allah’s’ revelations best were killed putting down a rebellion against Muhammad’s successor Abu Bakr. At the battle of Yamama, during what is remembered as the War of the Apostates, seventy or more of the most proficient reciters of Allah’s Revelations were killed. The loss of the best "Koranic memories" meant that the young man tasked with putting together the first Koran had to depend on less reliable sources to create a written record of what Allah first revealed to the angel Gabriel, who then told Muhammad.

Narrated Zaid bin Thabit Al-Ansari who was one of those who used to write the Divine Revelation:

Abu Bakr sent for me after the (heavy) casualties among the warriors (of the battle) of Yamama (where a great number of Qurra' (reciters of the Koran) were killed). Umar was present with Abu Bakr who said, “Umar has come to me and said, ‘The people have suffered heavy casualties on the day of (the battle of) Yamama, and I am afraid that there will be more casualties among the Qurra' (those who know the Qur'an by heart) at other battlefields, whereby a large part of the Qur'an may be lost, unless you collect it. And I am of the opinion that you should collect the Qur'an.’"

Abu Bakr added, "I said to Umar, 'How can I do something which Allah's Apostle has not done?'"

Umar said (to me), "By Allah, it is (really) a good thing."

So Umar kept on pressing, trying to persuade me to accept his proposal, till Allah opened my bosom for it and I had the same opinion as Umar.

(Zaid bin Thabit added:) Umar was sitting with him, Abu Bakr, and was not speaking to me). "You are a wise young man and we do not suspect you (of telling lies or of forgetfulness): and you used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle. Therefore, look for the Qur'an and collect it (in one manuscript)."

By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift one of the mountains (from its place) it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Qur'an. I said to both of them, "How dare you do a thing which the Prophet has not done?"

Abu Bakr said, "By Allah, it is (really) a good thing."

So I kept on arguing with him about it till Allah opened my bosom for that which He had opened the bosoms of Abu Bakr and Umar. So I started locating Quranic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leaf-stalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart).

I found with Khuzaima two Verses of Surat-at-Tauba which I had not found with anybody else, (and they were): "Verily there has come to you an Apostle (Muhammad) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty He (Muhammad) is ardently anxious over you (to be rightly guided)" (9:128)

The manuscript on which the Quran was collected, remained with Abu Bakr till Allah took him unto Him, and then with Umar till Allah took him unto Him, and finally it remained with Hafsa, Umar's daughter.

Bukhari 60.201

Thabit's original, which Caliph Umar’s daughter kept under her bed, was retrieved on order of Uthman, Umar’s successor, who requested a revision.

Narrated Anas bin Malik:

Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur'an, so he said to Uthman, "O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Quran) as Jews and the Christians did before."

So Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, "Send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you."

Hafsa sent it to Uthman. Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, Abdullah bin AzZubair, Said bin Al-As and Abdur Rahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies.

Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, "In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue."

They did so, and when they had written many copies, Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.

Said bin Thabit added, "A Verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur'an and I used to hear Allah's Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuzaima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. (That Verse was): 'Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.'" (33:23)

Bukhari 61.510

Despite Uthman’s efforts, the finished product remains a challenge for the casual reader with scattered duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates and even quintuplicates of revelations not making it any easier. The opinion of two eminent historians on the end-product:

A confused, jumble, crude, incondite, endless iteration… Thomas Carlyle [1795 - 1881]

As toilsome a reading as I ever undertook; a wearisome confused jumble. Edward Gibbon [1737 - 1794]

Uthman’s revision, known as Uthman’s Codex, would have provided the opportunity to add a verse meant to reassure the Zoroastrians. The Magians in the following is the only reference to Zoroastrians in the entire Koran:

22:17 Indeed, the believers, the Jews, the Sabians, the Christians, the Magians and the idolaters – Allah shall decide between them on the Day of Resurrection.

This verse is in stark contrast to the preponderance of damning revelations pertaining to Jews, Christians and idolaters. This is further evidence that this revelation was probably added to the Koran sometime after Muhammad’s passing.

Robert Wright, in The Evolution of God, speculates that Verse 22:17 was added after the Muslim conquest of Persia to make Islam more palatable to Zoroastrians by including them as a people whom Allah may admit into Paradise.

By and large the Koran offers no evidence that Muhammad had contact with the Zoroastrians—except for this one verse where they appear out of nowhere and are suddenly eligible for Paradise. It’s enough to make you wonder whether this verse wasn’t added, or at least amended after Muhammad’s death, when the conquest of Persian lands brought many Zoroastrians under Islamic governance.

The Zoroastrians were a people of a book, not the Book, but a book, the Avesta. What about the Sabians?

There is another reason to suspect that this verse is a product of the post-Muhammad era. It grants salvation not only to Zoroastrians but to “Sabians.” To judge by the beliefs of their modern day heirs (sometimes called Mandeans), the Sabians, like the Zoroastrians, would have been hard to fit into the Abrahamic fold; they revered John the Baptist but considered Jesus, Abraham and Moses false prophets.

And again (judging by their modern heirs) they would have had another thing in common with Zoroastrians; their residential epicenter was to the east of Muhammad’s turf, in modern-day Iraq and Iran, land conquered not by Muhammad but by his successors.

Robert Wright, The Evolution of God, p. 394

Having said all that, a case could be made that God’s incessant condemnation of unbelievers includes every conceivable faith, along with those who forsake all omnipotent beings, and leave it at that.

While every Muslim is in possession of the equivalent of a licence to kill, it is the male believer who is expected to do most of the killing, as in the following, where Muhammad set the minimum age for participating in battles in Allah’s Cause, a world rule by the Sharia whose meaning is God’s Law or Islamic law and is based on the Koran and the sayings and example of Muhammad.

Narrated Ibn Umar:

That the Prophet inspected him on the day of Uhud while he was fourteen years old, and the Prophet did not allow him to take part in the battle. He was inspected again by the Prophet on the day of Al-Khandaq (i.e. battle of the Trench) while he was fifteen years old, and the Prophet allowed him to take Part in the battle.

Bukhari 59.423

Teenagers exercising their right to kill and reaping the rewards.

Narrated Abdur-Rahman bin 'Auf:

While I was standing in the row on the day (of the battle) of Badr, I looked to my right and my left and saw two young Ansari boys, and I wished I had been stronger than they. One of them called my attention saying, "O Uncle! Do you know Abu Jahl?"

I said, "Yes, what do you want from him, O my nephew?"

He said, "I have been informed that he abuses Allah's Apostle. By Him in Whose Hands my life is, if I should see him, then my body will not leave his body till either of us meet his fate."

I was astonished at that talk. Then the other boy called my attention saying the same as the other had said. After a while I saw Abu Jahl walking amongst the people. I said (to the boys), "Look! This is the man you asked me about."

So, both of them attacked him with their swords and struck him to death and returned to Allah's Apostle to inform him of that.

Allah's Apostle asked, "Which of you has killed him?"

Each of them said, "I Have killed him."

Allah's Apostle asked, "Have you cleaned your swords?"

They said, "No."

He then looked at their swords and said, "No doubt, you both have killed him and the spoils of the deceased will be given to Muadh bin Amr bin Al-Jamuh." The two boys were Muadh bin Afra and Muadh bin Amr bin Al-Jamuh.

Bukhari 53.369

In Martin Lings’ account of the murder of Abu Jahl in Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, the boys brought Muhammad Jahl’s severed head

Abu Jahl's last words as he was being bludgeoned to death by the teenagers:

Narrated Abdullah:

That he came across Abu Jahl while he was on the point of death on the day of Badr. Abu Jahl said, "You should not be proud that you have killed me nor am I ashamed of being killed by my own folk."

Bukhari 59.298

It was mainly men and boys with swords and knives who slashed and bludgeoned recalcitrant converts to death who are responsible for probably the greatest genocide in recorded history.

Based on Muslim chronicles of the period, and the demographic calculations done by historian K.S. Lal in his book Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, the largest known slaughter of followers of a lesser god, or gods, occurred during the Muslim conquest of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, i.e., modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. Dr. Lal estimates that between 1000 AD and 1500 AD the population of Hindus decreased by 80 million; meaning that for much of that period the death rate among Hindus exceeded their birthrate.

If the eminent historian’s estimates are even remotely accurate, this period would have witnessed the largest cold-blooded killing of an indigenous people in all of written history.

Those who are killed in their attempt to murder on God’s behalf automatically join the ranks of holy warriors—if not already part of that fraternity of pitiless killers—and avoid spending any time in the grave waiting for Judgement Day; they go directly to Paradise.

3:169 And do not think those who have been killed in the Way of Allah as dead; they are rather living with their Lord, well provided for.

The Koran has little to say about what happens to non-martyrs when they die. For most of that information we must look to the sayings (Traditions) of Muhammad. If you thought the Compassionate’s description of what He intends to do to unbelievers when he gets His hands on them was about as bad as it could get, you are sadly mistaken. Don’t try to make sense of what you are about to read, and don’t let it give you nightmares.

According to the Traditions, the whole death thing starts innocently enough. Forty days before a person dies, a leaf inscribed with the soon-to-be-deceased’s name falls from a tree in Paradise just beneath Allah’s throne. Izra’il, the Angel of Death, picks it up and schedules a pick-up forty days hence. Even believers, Muhammad said, will be taken aback when Izra’il comes knocking. When he shows up on their doorstep, even after they have been warned of his coming, they will still ask: “Who are you?”

Be that as it may, the last person the soon-to-be-departed will see is not the Angel of Death but two angels who have been patiently and anonymously recording their bad and good deeds. These two angels, in the blink of an eye, will present the soon-to-be deceased with their lifetime of good and bad deeds.

With this was your life formalities out of the way, the person’s living, thinking, seeing, able to feel pain soul will sink into the ground where they died, but not before Izra’il has finished extracting it from the still-warm body, drawing it out like rough cotton through an eye socket. Because the soul desperately tries to get out via a natural opening, the mouth, Izra’il’s extraction method seems unnecessarily cruel.

56:83 Would that, when the soul leaps to the throat,

56:84 And you are, then, waiting;

56:85 While We are closer to him (the dead man) than you, but you do not see.

In Islamic traditions, death’s aftermath—except for martyrs—is meant to be a painful transition. Satan will offer believers in Allah’s good books some relief from the pain caused by Izra’il’s appalling soul-extraction procedure. If the poor tormented soul can’t stand the pain and accepts Satan’s offer to reduce its suffering, it’s a U-turn from the threshold of Paradise to Hell come Judgement Day. Many will be sorry for not standing the pain just a while longer.

If the extracted soul is meant to go to Hell, it will be given a glimpse of life in the grave and its final destination on Judgement Day. The horror-struck soul will then briefly escape Izra’il’s grip and fly to heaven to try all seven doors to the seven levels of Paradise, only to be turned back by the angels guarding its entrances. It will be forced to return to Izra’il, who will then stuff it back into its corpse where the reconstituted soul-body combo will begin its new life in the grave.

The believers who die in God’s good books will be provided with a spacious grave complete with curtains and a bed. An unbeliever, or a believer who dies while in Allah’s bad books, will be confined to a cramped space with walls constantly closing in on them, making every breath a laboured one.

After the living dead have settled into their zombie-like existence, two black-skinned, blue-eyed angels by the names of Munkar and Nakir will burst into their graves and start questioning the decaying remains as to their religious beliefs for forty days non-stop; to what end I do not know, since the Koran states that a believer enters Paradise based on their records of good and bad deeds or at God’s discretion. One question asked by the angels will lead the corpse to incriminate itself, “bear witness against themselves”, Revelation 7:37.

7:35 “O Children of Adam, when Messengers from your own people come to you reciting to you My Verses – then those who fear God and mend their ways have nothing to fear, and they will not grieve.”

7:36 But those who deny Our Revelations and reject them arrogantly – those are the people of the Fire; therein they shall abide forever.

7:37 For who is more unjust than he who fabricates lies about Allah or denies His Revelations? Those will get their share of the punishment ordained for them. When Our Messenger (the angel messengers of deaths) come to take their souls they will say: “Where are those upon whom you called besides Allah?” They will say: “They have left us” and they will bear witness against themselves that they were unbelievers

The corpse will not only be asked about Allah’s Revelations but also whether it ever spoke ill of Muhammad. If only praise and prayer were expressed during its living, breathing life above ground, Muhammad declared that all will be forgiven; Paradise it is!

Narrated Anas:

Prophet Muhammad said, "When a human being is laid in his grave and his companions return and he even hears their footsteps, two angels come to him and make him sit and ask him: 'What did you used to say about this man, Muhammad?' He will say: 'I testify that he is Allah's slave and His Apostle.' Then it will be said to him, 'Look at your place in the Hell-Fire. Allah has given you a place in Paradise instead of it.'"

Prophet Muhammad added, "The dead person will see both his places. But a non-believer or a hypocrite will say to the angels, 'I do not know, but I used to say what the people used to say!’ It will be said to him, 'Neither did you know nor did you take the guidance (by reciting the Quran).' Then he will be hit with an iron hammer between his two ears, and he will cry and that cry will be heard by whatever approaches him except human beings and jinns."

Bukhari 23.422

***

Of all the inhabitants of the Koran, jinns are the most fascinating. They even have a chapter named after them, Surah 72. They are said to be spirits that inhabit another dimension. Pre-Islamic Arabs believed in the existence of the jinn, which may explain their significant presence in the Book. The caricature of the genie is undoubtedly based on this mystic creature of the Koran.

***

The interrogation over, the grave’s occupant will continue to receive a twice-daily visit from another angel until Judgement Day. He has not come to chat, but rather to open those curtains with either a pleasing or horrifying view.

Narrated Abdullah bin Umar:

Allah's Apostle said, "When anyone of you dies, he is shown his place both in the morning and in the evening. If he is one of the people of Paradise; he is shown his place in it, and if he is from the people of the Hell-Fire; he is shown his place there-in. Then it is said to him, 'This is your place till Allah resurrect you on the Day of Resurrection.’"

Bukhari 23.461

Life in the grave for convincing liars will be particularly excruciating.

Narrated Samura bin Jundub:

The Prophet said, "I saw (in a dream), two men came to me." Then the Prophet narrated the story (saying), "They said, 'The person, the one whose cheek you saw being torn away (from the mouth to the ear) was a liar and used to tell lies and the people would report those lies on his authority till they spread all over the world. So he will be punished like that till the Day of Resurrection.'"

Bukhari 73.118

Yahiya Emerick, convert and author of the bestseller The Complete Idiot's Guide to Islam, writes: "God’s Messenger said that if we could hear the screams of those being tortured in the grave we would faint in terror." If this claustrophobic, agonizing existence that combines both physical and psychological terrors to achieve an unprecedented level of horror and pain were not god-inspired, Muhammad would probably be remembered today as one of the most sadistic minds the world has ever known.

All of Allah’s messengers will enjoy a restful and relaxing life in the grave. In addition, God’s greatest will be visited every day by angels bringing him the blessings of believers still walking the earth. Muhammad will be allowed to intercede on behalf of a finite number of believers whom Allah has condemned to the torments of Hell. These lucky believers destined to be saved are those who have said the most “the peace and blessings of God be upon him” (often abbreviated to PBUH) whenever his name is mentioned. You will not have to wait until death overtakes you to begin experiencing Allah’s terrorizing, merciless Wrath if you have imputed falsehoods to Him or scorned His Revelations. “In the throes of death” angels, striking a somewhat horrifying stance under the circumstances, will inform the wrongdoers of the agony that awaits them.

6:93 And who is more unjust than he who imputes falsehoods to Allah, or says: “It has been revealed to me”, while nothing was revealed to him; or who says: “I will reveal the like of what Allah has revealed?” If you could see the wrongdoers in the throes of death, and the angels, with arms outstretched, saying: “Give us your souls. This day you receive the punishment of humiliation for what you used to say untruly about Allah, while scorning His Revelations.”

For the killer in Allah’s Cause it is reward time whether he lives or dies: Paradise if he “is killed”; booty if he “conquers.”

4:74 So let those who sell the present for the life to come fight in the Way of Allah. Whoever fights in the Way of Allah and is killed or conquers, We shall accord him a great reward.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "The example of a Mujahid (Muslim fighter) in Allah's Cause — and Allah knows better who really strives in His Cause—is like a person who fasts and prays continuously. Allah guarantees that He will admit the Mujahid in His Cause into Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home safely with rewards and war booty."

Bukhari 52.46

Avoiding life in the grave, along with the promise of assembly line sex with perpetually aroused female facsimiles, is another reason why holy warriors do what is expected of them with such gusto and have no fear of death. In fact, they welcome it!

3:143 You were yearning for death before you actually met it. Now you have seen it and you are beholding it.

Fifteen years of age is when boys can join men in battle but also commit the most adult of atrocities.

'He was a child and came to kill children’: ISIL suicide bomber kills 43 — most of them boys — at soccer match.

A total of 43 people died [on the evening of March 25, in Asriya, Iraq] — 29 of them boys younger than 17 who had either been participating in the match or were watching their friends play. The bomber also was a teenager, no more than 15 or 16.

Washington Post, April 8, 2016

A fifteen year-old boy is quite capable of using a knife or a sword (in our day a rifle), if trained to do so, to kill on Allah’s behalf along with men in battle or as part of an organized slaughter of unbelievers and hypocrites. This could be why Muhammad chose that age as when they could do so. Of course, that does not mean that younger boys (and girls) cannot be used as weapons of death and destruction or as cannon fodder.

Many victims of suicide attack at wedding in Turkey were children under 14 Associated Press, August 22, 2016

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday that his country is determined to fight Islamic State group extremists both inside Turkey and in Syria, after a youth blew himself up at a Kurdish wedding party, killing at least 54 people…

An official said at least 22 victims of attack in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, near the border with Syria, were children under the age of 14. Authorities were trying to identify the attacker, who President Erdogan said was aged between 12 and 14.

Iran used children to detonate mines. A veteran of the Iran/Iraq war told me that what Muhammad said and did was a much more powerful incentive for children to go to their death than anything Allah revealed in his Koran. The example of the Prophet, he explained, was not lost on boys as young as 12 years old, perhaps even younger, who were used, in a tactic sanctioned by Khomeini, to clear a path through minefields or in suicidal attacks to test Iraqi defenses (experienced soldiers were too valuable to risk in such enterprises).

Before the actual advance across a minefield or terrain to be shredded by enemy artillery, the children were given a small plastic key to hang around their necks and told this was the key to Firdaus, the incomparable house of martyrs located at the top most level of Paradise where they will find God and Muhammad and houris whose utility would have been lost on children.

Narrated Anas:

Um (the mother of) Haritha came to Allah's Apostle after Haritha had been martyred on the Day (of the battle) of Badr by an arrow thrown by an unknown person. She said, "O Allah's Apostle! You know the position of Haritha in my heart (i.e. how dear to me he was), so if he is in Paradise, I will not weep for him, or otherwise, you will see what I will do."

The Prophet said, "Are you mad? Is there only one Paradise? There are many Paradises, and he is in the highest Paradise of Firdaus."

The Prophet added, "A forenoon journey or an afternoon journey in Allah's Cause is better than the whole world and whatever is in it; and a place equal to an arrow bow of anyone of you, or a place equal to a foot in Paradise is better than the whole world and whatever is in it; and if one of the women of Paradise looked at the earth, she would fill the whole space between them (the earth and the heaven) with light, and would fill whatever is in between them, with perfume, and the veil of her face is better than the whole world and whatever is in it."

Bukhari 76.572

The signal to run to their death was a man in the distance on a black stallion, dressed in the black garb copied by the Islamic State, brandishing a sword and pointing towards the Iraqi positions. The children were told this was Prophet Muhammad. Their hero would be there to welcome them into Paradise should they be martyred.

Boko Haram has probably been the most innovative in using children, male and female, as weapons in Allah’s Cause.

In the last seven years, 14 per cent of all suicide bombings – one in seven – have been by children. Boko Haram has used more female suicide bombers than any other militant group. The price of paradise: 82 facts you didn’t know about suicide bombers.

The Irish Times (2019, April 18)

How do you get a child, in this example a male child, who has yet to develop an appreciation for houris, let alone a love for Muhammad whom he has never met, to do God’s dirty work?

Bob: How do you get little boys to blow themselves up anyway?

Uzza: Except for boys with pearl-like complexions who will go around the men lounging on couches, ostensibly to serve them food and drink, or whatever (76:19 And there go round them immortal boys; when you see them, you will think that they are scattered pearls), all who enter Paradise will be instantaneously transformed into thirty or thirty-three-year-olds (“The people of Paradise will enter Paradise hairless, beardless with their eyes anointed with kohl, aged thirty or thirty-three years.” al-Tirmidhi 2545). You play on every little boy’s fantasy of being all grown up. You tell them that, literally, in a puff of smoke, they can become a man if they are willing to help Allah get rid of the bad people.

Bob: You have to wonder why there are no old geezers blowing themselves up with a promise of eternal youth and sex galore.

Archie: They know better, and with every gullible guy blowing himself up, it leaves more young women and girls for them. They are no fools, just like the Prophet was no fool.

From Remembering Uzza - If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub: No Paradise for Old Men, Boreal Books

To get girls to go on suicide missions another method that requires someone to be unrepentantly brutal with them is called for. Holy warriors have proven themselves more than capable.

Bob: Young girls are also blowing themselves up. What’s in it for them?

Uzza: Not much, which is why the process of getting girls to do what young boys will do without much persuasion is slightly more complicated and brutal. Turning little girls into mass murderers is a challenge, but holy warriors have proven themselves up to the task with little girls increasingly outnumbering little boys as suicide bombers.

Gerry: How do they do it?

Uzza: The transformation usually begins with the rape of god-fearing girls by fighters in Allah's Cause. It is meant to make them feel a heart-breaking guilt for having brought dishonour on their family, a shame so intense that death seems preferable.

Gerry: But why do they not just kill themselves and not harm anyone else?

Archie: Or wait for their father to kill them?

Gerry: Archie, this is serious.

Archie: I am being serious.

Uzza: Rape makes a shambles of a young girl's fantasy of marrying her prince charming. What nice young man would have her as his beloved bride now that she is no longer a virgin? Only Allah, she is told, can now make her dream come true. Not in the here-and-now, but in the Hereafter, if she has the courage to kill herself and take as many of His enemies as possible with her.

From Remembering Uzza - If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub: No Paradise for Old Men, Boreal Books

A question was posed on a Hamas website by a prospective female suicide bomber as to what are the “rewards for a female martyr.” Would she get the equivalent to the male suicide bomber who is promised “a fairly extensive harem of women in return for martyrdom?” Hamas’ answer more than substantiates Uzza’s observation of “not much.”

Question: I wanted to ask: what is the reward of a female martyr who performs a martyrdom operation; does she marry 72 of the houris?

Answer: The female martyr gains the same rewards as does the male, with the exception of this one aspect [the houris], so that the female martyr will be with the same husband with whom she dies. “And those who have believed and their progeny, followed them in belief. We shall join their progeny to them. We shall not deprive them of any of their work; every man shall be bound by what he has earned” [52:21]. The one who is martyred and has no husband will be married to one of the people of Paradise.

David Cook, Understanding Jihad

Nonetheless, a housewife who leaves the home to fight in Allah’s Cause and is killed will be able to thumb her nose at those who chose to stay behind to look after the kids.

4:95 Those of the believers who stay at home while suffering from no injury are not equal to those who fight for the Cause of Allah with their possessions and persons. Allah has raised those who fight with their possessions and persons one degree over those who stay at home; and to each Allah has promised the fairest good. Yet Allah has granted a great reward to those who fight and not to those who stay behind.

The right to summarily execute unbelievers and suspected hypocrites granted to all Muslims, even the stay-at-home believer, in practical terms, means that a relatively few pitiless individuals can control a large population. These ruthless zealots will usually have been schooled in the Koran from the day they could mouth the words. In Allah's book you will find more than a sprinkling of chilling invectives, what would be considered hate speech under normal circumstances. Hate speech replete with sadistic, vicious utterances (a sample in Chapter “Teaching Cruelty”), read and repeated by young and old every day in Western households, madrassas and mosques. It is hate speech directed at the despised unbelievers, i.e., wrongdoers in the following revelation.

17:82 And We reveal of the Qur’an that which is healing and merciful to the believers, and it yields nothing but perdition for the wrongdoers.

All this divine venom directed at one group can only lead to a deepening dearth of empathy in those instructed by trusted adults to read, then regurgitate that same loathing for the target of Allah’s pathological hatred as part of their journey to the Khatmi-Qur’an, the ceremony to recognize and celebrate a child’s first reciting of the entire Koranic text, usually by the age of seven, under the not always gentle tutelage of their mother.

Life in jail for son's murder over Koran studies

A mother who beat her seven-year-old son to death when he failed to memorise passages from the Koran has been jailed for life, for a minimum of 17 years. The judge said she had beaten him for three months leading up to his death, adding: "The cause of the beating was your unreasonable view that he wasn't learning passages quickly enough."

BBC January 7, 2013

Even with a thorough grounding in the Koran, the lure of booty will often cause holy warriors to breach the terms of their license to kill.

Islamic State: Militants 'kill 300 Yazidi captives' BBC May 2, 2015

The Yazidis follow a religion derived from Zoroastrianism and were not a threat. Allah made Zoroastrians eligible for Paradise in Revelation 22:17, quoted earlier, and should have been given a choice of converting or paying the jizya.

9:29 Fight those among the People of the Book who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day, do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden and do not profess the true religion, till they pay the poll-tax out of hand and submissively.

Only after refusing both options are they to be summarily executed.

ISIS imposes rules on Christians in Raqqa

A jihadist group in Syria has demanded that Christians in the northern city of Raqqa pay a levy in gold and accept curbs on their faith, or face death. Raqqa, seized by ISIS last year, was the first provincial capital to be completely in the hands of rebels. The directive from ISIS, citing the Islamic concept of "dhimma", requires Christians in the city to pay tax (the jizya) of around half an ounce (14g) of pure gold in exchange for their safety.

"If they reject, they are subject to being legitimate targets, and nothing will remain between them and ISIS other than the sword," the [ISIS] statement said.

BBC, February 27, 2014

A predictable consequence of making the property of the people you killed—especially their wives and daughters—was to incentivise the killing of those with such enticing chattel even after they accepted to become Muslims and prosperous believers who crossed your path. When God became aware that this was happening He sent down a revelation politely telling his holy warriors not to do that, reminding them that He is aware of what is going on and that He has more of what they seek in Paradise.

4:94 O believers, if you journey in the Way of Allah, be discerning and do not say to him who greets you: “You are not a believer”, seeking the fleeting goods of the present life. For with Allah are abundant gains. This is how you were before and Allah has been gracious to you; so discern well. Allah is indeed fully aware of what you do!

Unlike the slaughter of Yazidi fathers and husbands so that holy warriors could avail themselves of their wives and daughters, the Islamic State’s mass murder of Iraqi soldiers, in and out of uniform, was more in keeping with a holy warrior’s licence to kill so-called hypocrites.

33:60 If the hypocrites, those in whose hearts is a sickness and those who spread lies in the city, do not desist, We will certainly urge you against them and then they will not dwell with you therein as neighbours but for a short time.

33:61 Accursed, wherever they are encountered they will be seized and slaughtered.

Killing alleged hypocrites has always been Allah’s way and “you will never find any alteration of Allah’s Way.”

33:62 That is Allah’s Way of dealing with those who have gone before, and you will never find any alteration of Allah’s Way.

Hypocrites are considered to have abandon Islam and will never believe again because of a seal Allah has placed on their hearts, Revelation 63:3.

63:1 When the hypocrites come to you, they say: “We bear witness that you are indeed Allah’s Messenger.” Allah knows that you are indeed His Messenger and Allah bears witness that the hypocrites are liars.

63:2 They take their oaths as a shield and so they bar other people from the Path of Allah. Evil is what they used to do.

63:3 That is because they believed, then disbelieved; and so a seal was set upon their hearts. Therefore, they do not understand at all.

Kill the hypocrites, but perhaps not before informing them of the painful punishment God looks forward to inflicting on them.

4:138 Announce to the hypocrites that a very painful punishment is reserved for them.

Who decides which believers are hypocrites with God’s mouthpiece no longer available to bear witness on His behalf? That would be Muhammad’s successors as leaders of the believers, the caliphs. Abu Bakr, who succeeded his good friend on his passing, was the first to orchestrate the mass slaughter of fellow Muslims based on Revelations 33:60-61.

Islam has five immutable obligations known as the Five Pillars. 1. Declaring your allegiance to God; 2. Daily prayers; 3. Zakat (obligatory charity); 4. Month-long fasting; 5. Pilgrimage to Mecca.

Many believers considered the Zakat, the oxymoronic obligatory charity they paid to Muhammad that would become the third of Islam’s five pillars, as their contribution to his efforts to Islamisize the Peninsula. Now that he had passed and that had been accomplished, they no longer felt an obligation to pay it. The acquisitive Bakr, (he would disinherit Muhammad’s widows and his friend’s daughter Fatima) would have none of it and decreed that anyone who refused to pay him the Zakat to be hypocrites and apostates and declared war on them. Towards the end of the War of the Apostates, more than 7,000 co-religionists for the most part, were surrounded and shown no mercy.

The admiration for Abu Bakr by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the leader of ISIS is not only evident in the name of the most recent claimant to the mantle of Caliph but in his way of dealing with captured Muslims who opposed him, Shias in particular.

In June, when IS forces moved into the Tikrit area, there was an apparent massacre of some 1500 Shia cadets at a former U.S. base known as Camp Speicher.

The Globe and Mail, March 6, 2015

Another documented instance of mass murder were the people pictured here that The Islamic State claimed were soldiers dressed as civilians. That they obviously had abandoned the fight made no difference. "An image posted on a militant website on June 14, 2014, appears to show militants from the al-Qaeda- inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant taking aim at captured Iraqi soldiers wearing plain clothes after taking over a base in Tikrit, Iraq." (AP)

Surrendering in uniform made no difference either, as is the case for soldiers about to be decapitated. "An image grab taken from a propaganda video released on November 16, 2014 by al-Furqan Media allegedly shows members of the ISIL jihadists preparing the simultaneous beheadings of at least 15 men described as Syrian military personnel." AFP Photo

Notice the composure of the decapitators. They know how it’s done. Many will have learned how during the celebration of the Feast of Sacrifice that marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage during which, all over the Muslim worlds and in countries that allow it, millions of animals are ritually slaughtered, i.e., the animal is bled to death while fully conscious. It is also a good time to show young boys how to decapitate an animal with just a knife, a large one preferably, without flinching and perhaps even enjoy it.

What it’s like for a human being to be killed the Islamic way. The Ottawa Citizen’s description of the execution of Nicholas Berg by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (al-Qaeda’s top man in Iraq at the time) on May 7, 2004:

Zarqawi literally hacked and sawed with his knife the neck of the young twenty-six year-old idealist from Pennsylvania while he screamed in agony. In the words of Dan Garner writing in the Ottawa Citizen, Zarqawi “sawed back and forth as if he were cutting a thick rope. Berg screamed and screamed and screamed. Zarqawi kept sawing back and forth, back and forth, cutting on this side, cutting on that. Finally, Nicholas Berg’s head left his body. Zarqawi clutched it by the hair and raised it to the camera as he and his men shouted “Allahu Akbar! God is Great, God is Great.”

When Muhammad championed the beheading of his enemies, holy warriors used swords. Today, it’s a combat knife or something similar that keeps that tradition alive. Unlike an expertly wielded sword, it is totally inadequate to the task, unless your goal is to prolong the horror and the agony of such a method of execution.

A holy warrior in the service of the Islamic State, with the power granted to him by the Koran, about to behead British aid worker Allan Henning with the same type of knife used to decapitate Nicholas Berg and the Syrian military personnel in the AFP photo.

It’s not enough to teach children how to kill an animal using only a knife and then expect them to apply what they have learned to kill a human being the way the man in black will demonstrate. You also have to overcome averseness in normal people to killing one of their own kind.