Boreal
Remembering Uzza
If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub
Crusades v. Jihad, Community v. Family
Uzza:
With Mecca and vicinity secured and the believers spreading out across the
Peninsula to spread the good news, Muhammad returned to Medina.
Gerry: Why Medina? Why not stay closer to God in Mecca?
Uzza: Medina, being an oasis, was much more hospitable than dusty Mecca. Also, it was further north, closer to Muhammad's ultimate objective, the Byzantine Empire and Dabiq.
Bob: I would like to visit Medina sometime.
Uzza: You cannot. It and Mecca are sacred cities in what is called the Hejaz, the Western Province. If you get caught trying to sneak in, it is convert or be beheaded on the spot.
Gerry: Is that what Hejaz means, the Western Province?
Uzza: No. Hejaz means Barrier. Islamists like bin Laden consider the entire Hejaz sacred and off limits to unbelievers. One of his stated reason for the 9/11 attacks on the United States was that American troops were stationed in the Hejaz to thwart any attempt by Saddam Hussein to invade Saudi Arabia.
Archie: For saving the Muslim Holy Land from being overrun by Iraqi troops in the First Gulf War, bin Laden slaughtered thousands of Americans.
Uzza: Before saving the Saudi Princes, the United States should have demanded they stop promoting their hate-filled supremacist, anti-Semitic Wahhabi theology to the tune of billions of dollars a year, building mosques and madrassas around the world that must closely adhere to Wahhabi teachings.
Gerry: Unless they need them to defend them, the House of Saud and its 4,000 plus princes[342] are not welcoming to Christians, unlike in Iraq where 250,000 found a home until that ill-fated invasion.
Bob: What is Wahhabism?
Uzza: “Wahhabi theology sees the world in white and black categories—Muslim and non-Muslim, belief and unbelief, the realm of Islam and that of warfare. They regard Muslims who do not agree with them as unbelievers to be subdued, that is, fought and killed in the name of Islam. Wahhabi theology demands a non-stop active campaign to make fundamentalist Islam triumphant everywhere.”[343]
Bob: What you’re saying is that Saudi Arabia is at war with us.
Uzza: The United States had a great opportunity to take the fight to an intractable enemy of Western civilization with much of the world cheering it on after 9/11, when it was revealed that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens raised on Wahhabi hate. Instead, not only did they spirit the Saudi princes who were in the country at the time out of the United States on private jets to avoid them becoming the targets of an understandably enraged population and perhaps even the Justice Department, but deflected any blame by attacking Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
Gerry: That would be like the United States declaring war on, I don't know, Korea instead of Japan after Pearl Harbour.
Uzza: They had an oilman as a President with little appreciation of the perfidy of the Saudis. That may have had something to do with it. He allowed them to continue spreading the good news, even if that good news was responsible for the horrible death of thousands of American men, women and children.
Bob: What is this "good news" you keep referring to?
Uzza: The Koran. Today, that is the Saudi-sponsored translation for which a respected scholar of the Book wrote, “reads more like a supremacist Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian polemic”[344]. The Saudi Koran concludes with evocatively capitalised denunciations squarely aimed at recruiting Christians in Allah's Cause, such as FINALITY OF PROOF ON THE FABRICATION OF THE STORY OF THE CROSS and BIBLICAL EVIDENCE OF JESUS BEING A SERVANT OF GOD AND HAVING NO SHARE IN DIVINITY (Appendix: A Gratuitous Discrediting of Christian Doctrine). Imagine, if every bible contained a gratuitous denunciation of Muhammad’s Prophethood, that people thought him a madman − and Allah admitted as much[345] − the hell that would result.
Archie: The name does seem to fit, doesn’t it? Change the “u” to an “e.”
Uzza: STOP IT!
Bob: Why can they do that?
Archie: You mean call Jesus a fraud to our faces and we can’t stop them, or return the favour and accuse Muhammad of being a con[346] and a madman, even a joke[347]?
Bob: I guess that’s what I mean.
Archie: Because Islam is a religion whose followers will kill you if you do.
Uzza: There is some truth to that, I hate to admit. But first, you would have to read the darn book to understand what has been written about Judeo-Christian scriptures before raising the fuss that, yes, could get you killed.
Archie: What you said about the Saudi Koran being like, Muslims are the greatest, you’re all scum. Isn’t that what you said about Wahhabism?
Uzza: That is not quite what I said. Oh, what is the point! To answer your question about Wahhabism, Wahhabism is a reflection of a literal interpretation of the Koran.
Archie: Is there any other?
Uzza: Not for dedicated Sunnis or Shias. The Saudi translation of the good news is available to anyone free of charge and is the book that Saudi-subsidized mosques and madrassas worldwide are expected to use, making it the most widely read and quoted Koran on the planet.
Gerry; Are you saying the Koran used at the mosque next door is a Saudi Koran?
Uzza: If it is a Sunni mosque, probably.
Gerry: That would explain the correlation between the establishment of a mosque and the rise of extremism within its vicinity.
Uzza: That correlation has never been proven.
Gerry: How can there not be a correlation when both the preacher and the congregation are a captive of the Book?
Uzza: The imam leading a congregation in prayer must confine himself to verses from the Koran; but, in his sermon, he is free to quote Muhammad or anyone else for that matter.
Archie: Sure, quote the guy who said he owed his success to terrorism. That won’t give people ideas.
Uzza: Muhammad said other things.
Bob: Good news and Koran in the same sentence; that doesn’t sound right.
Uzza: It does to Islamists. They believe that if all countries allowed the unimpeded preaching of the Koran, the good news - or as the conqueror of Persia Al-Walid phrased it, “this beautiful way of life”[348] - to its citizens, they would willingly embrace Islam without the believers having to topple their governments to deliver the good news.
Archie: Good news only if you bought into the message and your neighbour didn't, then you improved your lifestyle and standing in your newfound god's eye at the expense of the neighbour. Or, if all converted and you couldn't just grab your neighbour's property, you joined the mob on a profitable crusade.
Bob: Christians did Crusades, not Muslims.
Archie: Crusades are simply an armed mob on the march grabbing somebody's property in the name of some god, usually after depriving the legitimate owner of his life.
Bob: That would mean the Muslims, with their concept of a Holy War, invented the Crusade?
Gerry: That would also mean there is no difference between a Jihad and a Crusade.
Uzza: There is a difference, a BIG difference. You may know nothing about Islam, but Muslims know everything about Christianity. Since it came after the Bible, the story of Jesus is part of the Koran, if only to lower his prestige and raise that of God's new favourite. The Koran says that Jesus got it wrong when he said to love everyone unconditionally. The actual message Allah wanted him to deliver was to love only those who believed in Him and to hate those who did not, to death if necessary. That is why he sent Muhammad who could be counted upon not to muddle the message[349].
Gerry: But you don't hate us, do you?
Uzza: Allah may have been right when He warned us not to associate with Christians lest they corrupt you. This may be what has happened to me.
Gerry: You're not about to say that you believe in Jesus?
Uzza: That he is the Son of God? Of course not! But his message, that of a wise and kind person, that we should all love each other no matter what, is the message I prefer to live by, with one “but.” Must be my Muslim upbringing.
Bob: What do you mean? We’re not talking about deviant sex again, are we?
Uzza: No, silly. The Koran has no universal declaration like those contained in the Ten Commandments. There is always a "but." I would add to Jesus' universal declaration to love everyone unconditionally: to love everyone who loves you back no matter what.
Gerry: As if we were all family.
Uzza: The Western humanitarian concept that we are all brothers and sisters, and that brothers and sisters love each other no matter what, is somewhat alien to Islam.
Gerry: Uzza, I can't believe you just said that Muslims don’t have our appreciation of what it means to be a family.
Uzza: Not Muslims, believers! There is difference, as I have been trying to tell you.
Gerry: I am sorry, but you don't sound like any Muslim I've ever met.
Uzza: I am not unique. Trust me.
Gerry: I trust you. So why do believers have a different understanding of what is family than you and me?
Uzza: Pay close attention when you listen to a preacher or read about Islam as a social group. It is rarely about the family. It is almost always about the community, the so-called ummah. Us against them, that is the theme. Family is secondary to the ummah. A member of your family will not believe; you must get them to believe or disown them, if not kill them. That is what the ummah expects you to do, and you do it if you want to maintain or improve your standing within the community.
Gerry: But the Torah makes the same demands of observant Jews?
Uzza: The Koran is often a reflection of the worst the Torah has to offer.
Archie: What about all this stuff about dishonouring your family by not wearing a scarf or by dating a boy not of your religion. That is family stuff?
Uzza: NO, IT IS NOT! Do you not understand? It is not what the family thinks that matters; it is what the community thinks. You kill your daughter for being disobedient to maintain your standing in the community as an upholder of Allah's morality.
Archie: And you kill the other guy to get at his wives and daughters and whatever. Got it.
Gerry: What does any of this have to do with "the big difference" between a Muslim Crusade and a Christian Crusade and what does Jesus have to do with it?
Uzza: The Christian Crusades were a relatively short-lived phenomenon, while the believers' Crusade has been ongoing for almost 1,400 years. In fact, the Christian version may have been in response to believers' incursions into Europe which took on a new urgency. The Christians rulers, if not their subjects, had to be aware of Muhammad's ultimatum, after his return to Medina, that all nations had to submit to the will of Allah or expect to be invaded.
Gerry: Are you saying that the Prophet actually declared war on the world? That our conflict with Islam is the continuation of an old war?
Uzza: Yes, and it will not end until all nations have agreed to the terms Muhammad set out in a letter he sent to the nations that bordered the Peninsula, to submit or else.
Archie: Do we have a copy of such an important letter?
Uzza: You may still be able to find one in Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace, which is now a museum. The more than thousand-year-old shrunken piece of parchment contains both a promise of extravagant wealth and a threat[350].
Gerry: The old carrot and stick.
Uzza: It is addressed to the governor of Egypt, a fellow by the name of Muqawqis. Become believers willingly and you will grow rich, Muhammad promises; refuse and expect the worst. He ends his ultimatum with an ominous warning that believers do not make idle threats.
Bob: Did it work, the threat and the promise of riches that is?
Uzza: No. The intimidating letters did not have the desired effect and Muhammad and his successors made good on the threats they contained. Within twenty short years after Muhammad’s death, Muslim armies, during the period known as the Rashidun ̶ the reign of the first four successors to Muhammad known as the Rightly Guided Caliphs ̶ imposed Muslim rule on Persia, modern day Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Egypt and most of North Africa.
Archie: When the preachers say that Islam is not at war with us, they are lying?
Uzza: Some, obviously.
Bob: But the Crusades, the Christian Crusades were not about stopping a Muslim invasion of Europe but about taking the Holy Land back from the infidels?
Uzza: It probably was easier to rally a divided Europe to fight the type of fight that had made the believers so successful, and that was a Crusade of their own; the fight would be all about pleasing God by returning the Holy Land to its rightful owners[351]. A not insignificant benefit of controlling the coastline of the Holy Land was that it would severely hamper the operations of slave-trading believers, who trolled the Mediterranean, preying on unsuspecting Europeans merchant ships.
Gerry: You realize that your reasonable explanation is not what most of us have been taught.
Uzza: You were taught wrong. It is not only things like the art that defines Western civilization which will be obliterated by an Islamist victory, but its history.
Bob: You still have not explained what Jesus had to with it.
Uzza: With what? I forget.
Bob: You said that Jesus was the big difference between the never-ending Muslim Crusade and the short-lived Christian Crusades.
Uzza: In response to the believers constantly using the Crusades to justify horrible acts committed by members of their community, an editorial in the Figaro explained that the Catholic Church was not without its faults, its history being filled with dark pages it regrets, the writer wrote. However, he said, what differentiates Christianity from Islam is that Christians can always return to the values in the Gospels and to the gentle person of Jesus and ignore a Church which has lost its way.
Bob: And Muslims can't do that?
Uzza: Muslims can do whatever they want; believers, however, cannot. As the Figaro explained, believers can only return to a book filled with violence and hatred and the example of a man for whom violence was a means to an end. The Catholic Church has put its violent past behind, thanks in large part to the example and sayings of Jesus. For the believers that is impossible; the Koran and the example of Muhammad will not allow them to do that[352].
Gerry: Uzza, you read French?
Footnotes
[342] The modern founder of the house of Saud, King Abdulaziz, fathered forty sons and an estimated twenty daughters. To stay within the Koranic limit of four wives while fathering that many children, he divorced one wife to marry another, taking a new wife sometimes every few weeks thereby creating a solid foundation for breeding the more than 4,000 princes you have today with obviously thousands more to be added over time which may severely tax the Kingdom’s economy in years to come.
[343] John L. Esposito author of Unholy War; Terror in the Name of Islam (Oxford University Press)
[344] Khaleel Mohammed, assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University.
[345] Many believed Muhammad to be quite mad, prompting Allah, on numerous occasions, to vouch for His Messenger’s sanity and excoriate those who would make the accusation.
7:184 Do they not consider that their companion (Muhammad) is not mad. He is only a plain warner.
7:185 Have they not considered the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and all the things Allah has created, and how perhaps their appointed term may have drawn near” In what other message after this (the Qur’an) will they, then, believe.
7:186 Whomever Allah leads astray will have no guide; and He leaves them in their arrogance to wonder aimlessly.
----
15:6 They say: “O you, to whom the Reminder (the Qur’an) is revealed, you are indeed a madman.
15:7 “Why do you not bring us the angels, if you are truthful?”
----
34:46 Say: “I only give you one exhortation, that you arise for Allah in couples and singly, then to reflect that there is no madness in your companion (the Prophet). He is merely a warner on the eve of a terrible punishment.”
Muhammad, after he left the cave where he first met the angel Gabriel, reported seeing the angel’s face on the horizon wherever he looked. This only increased the scepticism of his detractors as to his sanity.
81:22 Your companion is not mad;
81:23 He saw him (Gabriel) upon the luminous horizon.
Reassuring words, advice and praise from Allah and an ominous warning to those who would question His spokesperson’s sanity.
52:48 Bear with your Lord’s Judgement, for you are in Our Thoughts; and proclaim the Praise of Your Lord when you arise;
52:49 And in the night glorify Him, and at the receding of the stars.
-----
51:52 Likewise, no Messenger came to those who preceded them but they said: “A sorcerer or a madman.”
51:53 Have they attested to each other concerning him (Muhammad)? No, they are an unjust people.
51:54 So, turn away from them, you are not to blame.
51:55 And remind; for the reminder will benefit the believers.
-----
68:2 You are not (O Muhammad), by the Grace of your Lord, a madman.
68:3 You will have a wage which is unstinted;
68:4 And you are truly a man of noble character. They will get what is coming to them, just bear with Me. 68:5 You shall see and they shall see,
68:6 Which of you is the demented one.
6:25 And some of them listen to you, but We have cast veils over their hearts, lest they should understand it (the Qur’an) and a deafness in their ears. And even were they to see every sign, they will not believe in it; so that when they come to dispute with you, the unbelievers will say: “This is nothing but fables of the ancients.”
-----
8:31 And when Our Revelations are recited to them, they say: “We have heard. Had we wished, we would have uttered the like of this; this is nothing but fables of the ancients.”
-----
16:24 And if it is said to them: “What has your Lord revealed?” they say: “Fables of the ancients.”
-----
25:5 And they say: “Legends of the ancients which he solicited their writing down. Hence they are dictated to him morning and evening.”
25:6 Say: “He Who knows the secret in the heavens in the earth has sent it down; He is indeed All-Forgiving, Merciful.”
-----
32:1 Alif – Lam – Mim (no consensus on meaning).
32:2 The revelation of the Book from the Lord of the Worlds, wherein there is no doubt.
32:3 Or do they say: “He invented it?” Rather, it is the truth from your Lord, so as to warn a people to whom no warner came before you (Muhammad), that perchance they might be well-guided.
25:41 And when they see you, they only take you for a laughing stock: “Is this the one Allah sent as Messenger?
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 impose "the beautiful way of life" by force, 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, fulfilling Khalid's pledge to Allah that if He gave them victory, "no enemy warrior will be left alive, until their river runs red with blood."
[349] Who got it right: Jesus or Muhammad?
John 14:6… I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
----
3:31 Say [Muhammad]: “If you love Allah, follow me; then Allah will love you and forgive your sins.” Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
Allah maintains that he sent messengers like Jesus all the time. Tiring of His instructions being misinterpreted or misunderstood, he sent His last and greatest Messenger, to whom He revealed the Koran, His final, complete, unchanging and unambiguous instructions for mankind. When you compare Jesus’ message to the one delivered by Muhammad you are left to wonder who got God’s instructions right:
† Jesus said that you should treat other people, Christians and non-Christians, the way you would like to be treated.
) Muhammad said that Christians and Jews, and an obscure sect called the Sabians, were to be tolerated and remain unmolested if they paid a head-tax (the Jizya) while all other unbelievers were to be put to death, on the spot, if they refused to submit to the Will of Allah, i.e., become Muslims.
† Jesus said that violence should be met with non-violence (that stuff about turning the other cheek).
) Muhammad countered with a glorification of retaliation in kind:
2:179 In retaliation there is life for you, O people of understanding, that you may be God-fearing.
† Jesus said that His Father expected us to love one another unconditionally, the way a father loves his children.
) Muhammad repeated revelations from Allah which revealed that his god harboured a pathological noxious hatred of anyone who will not do as He commands, even children.
† Jesus told His followers to love their enemies and to forgive them any transgressions, even transgressions against Him and His Father.
) Muhammad said in 5:33 that “Indeed, the punishment of those who fight Allah and His Messenger is to have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or to be banished from the land.”
When you compare Jesus’ message, which is all about love and forgiveness to Muhammad’s, which is all about hate, merciless revenge and intolerance for all those who will not submit to the Will of Allah, you have to wonder how Jesus could have so badly misunderstood Allah’s earlier instructions?
† Jesus reminded us that His father is a merciful, compassionate, loving God. Like Father like Son, Jesus lived the message He was delivering. He spread His message on how to get along through completely non-violent, peaceful means and invited His followers to do the same.
) Muhammad, to quote Ayaan Hirsi Ali, “built the house of Islam using military tactics that included mass killings, targeted assassination, torture, lying …”
Is it conceivable that both men could have been messengers sent by the same god when the message they delivered and the tactics that they used to convey it are so different? What about heaven, or Paradise, a place Jesus of Nazareth called home, and Muhammad said he spent a night conversing with God?
† Paradise in the New Testament is a spiritual place where men and women are equal and happiness comes from basking in the light and the glory of the Lord and being free of physical wants and earthly desires.
) Paradise in the Koran is a materialist, licentious, hedonistic place where males are catered to by young boys, and freely roam, never requiring sleep, fornicating at will with sexually adept spirits (houris) and blushing maidens, gifts from Allah, stopping only to visit with friends and relatives to point and laugh at the unbelievers roasting in Hell. Females, on the other hand, are cloistered in large pavilions waiting for their husband to call on them if they are so inclined.
About Jesus, Christians and Muslims can agree on one thing: that he will be their flag bearer in the final battle against the forces of evil when humanity’s Earth-bound existence comes to an end. Christians believe that during this final conflagration, the Son of God will convert thousands of Jews to Christianity; in Islamic traditions, the son of Mary will convert thousands of Jews to Islam. And so it goes!
From Muhammad the servant and Prophet of Allah, to Muqawqis, the leader of the Coptic tribe. There is safety and security for those believers who follow the correct path. Therefore I invite you to accept Islam. If you accept it, you shall find security, save your throne, and gain twice as much reward for having introduced Islam to your followers. If you refuse this invitation, let the sin of calamity which awaits your followers be upon you. You too are People of the Book; therefore let us come to a word common between us that we worship none but Allah and shall equalise anything with him. Let us not abandon Allah and take others for lords other than him. If you do not consent to this invitation, bear witness that we are Muslims.
If you do not consent, we are Muslims; we do not make idle threats. Allah echoed Muhammad’s warning in a revelation:
3:64 Say: ‘O People of the Book, come to an equitable word between you and us, that we worship none but Allah, do not associate anything with Him and do not set each other as lords besides Allah.” If they turn their backs, say: ‘Bear witness that we are Muslims.”
Muqawqis, we are told, knew of Muhammad and held him in high regard. Proof of this admiration is the tribute he sent him, after receiving the ultimatum of a beautiful black stallion, gold and silver and two teenaged sisters, Maria and Sirin, to do with as he pleased. Upon receipt of Muqawqis' tribute, Muhammad said to a confident that he could not be that easily be bought off, and Muqawqis' reign would shortly be coming to an end.
Muhammad took Maria as his twelfth wife and gave Sirin to a henchman. It was this same Muqawqis, also known as Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria, who negotiated a separate peace with the Muslims on behalf of the Coptic Christians, which included agreeing to pay the Jizya, when the believers invaded Egypt about ten years after the ultimatum was received.
This early capitulation allowed a relatively small Arab invasion force (later re-enforced by desert Bedouins when it became evident that Egypt was ripe for the taking and plunder was to be had, followed by veterans of the northern campaigns to gain converts to Islam, e.g., Syria) to quickly take complete control of what was then a key province of the Byzantine Empire.
It seems to me that a politically correct mythology is replacing history on many of these topics. Consider the Crusades. The Christians are often depicted as barbarian aggressors and the Muslims as their highly cultured victims. But the Crusades were primarily a response to 300 years of jihad (whether the Crusaders were aware of the Islamic doctrine or not). They were a reaction to Muslim incursions in Europe, the persecution of Eastern Christians, and the desecration of Christian holy sites. And few people seem to remember that the crusaders lost all but the first of those wars.
Although the Crusades were undoubtedly an expression of religious tribalism, the idea of holy war is a late, peripheral, and in many ways self-contradictory development within Christianity—and one that has almost no connection to the life and teachings of Jesus. One can’t say the same about the status of jihad under Islam.
Sam Harris in conversation with Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance, Harvard University Press, 2015
[352] The following is my translation of pertinent parts of an article which appeared in Le Figaro and defined the problem for those who would deny the cause-and-effect of the terrible violence done in Allah’s Name.
The Catholic Church is not without its faults. Its history is filled with dark pages it regrets… However, what differentiates Christianity from Islam is that Christians can always return to the values in the Gospels and to the gentle person of Jesus and ignore a Church which has lost its way. ... Jesus is nonviolent. A return [to the teachings] of Jesus is the remedy for the excesses of religious institutions.
Looking to the Prophet[/Koran] for guidance, on the other hand, only reinforces the hate and the violence. Islam is a religion which in both its sacred text (Koran and Book of Hadiths) and in banal rituals promotes hatred and violence. The ritual stoning of Satan every year at Mecca is not simply a re-enactment of a superstition… Its impact is anthropological. It is a ceremony, to which every Muslim is encourage to participate, and which sanctifies and encourages violence.
Sam Harris again:
The reality of martyrdom and the sanctity of armed jihad are about as controversial under Islam as is the resurrection of Jesus under Christianity. It is not an accident that millions of Muslims recite the shahadah or make pilgrimage to Mecca. Neither is it an accident that in the year 2015, horrific footage of infidels and apostates being decapitated has become a popular form of pornography throughout the Muslim World. All these practices, including this ghastly method of murder, find explicit support in scriptures.
Sam Harris in conversation with Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance, Harvard University Press, 2015
On May 22, 2017, an Islamic terrorist detonated a shrapnel-laden homemade bomb as people were leaving the Manchester Arena following a concert by Ariana Grande, killing twenty-three people, including the attacker, and wounding 139, more than half of them children. In the wake of the massacre, Muslim clerics Dr. Jamal Rifi and Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi, hosted by Australia’s Channel Seven, debated the role religion played in the attack.
Basically, we need to be very realistic when dealing with this matter. You have a twenty-two-year-old who gets radicalised over two, three sermons in a Friday mosque gathering.
This age is an age when someone would expect people to be going out, having fun. But no, we have a large number of youth that are being radicalised. This happens because of the books that we have, the Islamic scriptures that we have; they push the Muslim youth to believe that if you go out there and kill the infidels, that's how you will gain Paradise.
For the past one thousand four hundred years we have had a religion of war – that is exactly what we have had. This is not something I am imagining, these are facts. We’ve had many wars. How did Islam spread from Saudi Arabia down to Indonesia and Bosnia? All spread by the sword. We had many wars. For someone to come and say that Islamic scriptures have nothing to do with it, I mean, that’s against the facts; that’s not true.
Islamic scriptures are what is pushing these people to behead the infidels. Let me tell you something: the people that are beheading, that mister (sic), the person that killed the young girls in Manchester did so believing he was going to dine with the Prophet Muhammad that very night that is what the Islamic scriptures tell them.
Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi