Distorting Reality to Justify Jihad

Raymond Ibrahim
Dec 23rd, 2011

Sheikh Ahmad Abu Quddum recently declared the legitimacy of offensive jihad for the world to hear:

When we declare Jihad against Germany, for instance, it is declared against the German state, for refusing to allow Islam to spread to the people of Germany. We give them a choice: Either to convert to Islam, or to pay the jizya and submit to the laws of Islam.

Otherwise, war is the third choice.

All well and good; the Sheikh is merely quoting standard jihadi doctrine.

But he did say something that revealed how utterly deluded he is, how he cannot comprehend the full significance of what he himself is preaching. After agreeing that there is a “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam, he said:

If not for Jihad, Islam would not have reached us and all the other places. Within a quarter of a century, Islam reached most of the ancient world by means of Jihad. The common people want Islam. Anyone who doesn’t can stick to his own religion. Here in the Levant, most of our forefathers were not Muslims, but they converted to Islam because of its goodness and justice. So, after telling us that Islam does teach jihad—that is, offensive war to spread Islamic hegemony; after telling us that “Islam reached most of the ancient world by means of jihad”; after telling us that those who do not wish to convert to Islam must pay jizya—which, as he well knows, involves much more than merely paying a tax, involves being a second-class dhimmi, whose worth is at best half that of a Muslim (he even alluded to this when he said “pay the jizya and submit to the laws of Islam”—after all this straightforward and honest talk, he resorts to fantasy by adding

The common people want Islam. Anyone who doesn’t can stick to his own religion. Here in the Levant, most of our forefathers were not Muslims [most were Christian during Islam’s invasion], but they converted to Islam because of its goodness and justice.

Really, now? Does it not occur to the Sheikh that his ancestors, when confronted by Islamic jihad and forced to decide between either joining the “winning team” or becoming second-class dhimmis, treated contemptuously, abused, and persecuted—as they still are to this very day—does it not occur to him that maybe that’s why many of his ancestors converted, and not because of Islam’s “goodness and justice”?

Does it not occur to him that Islam’s own apostasy law—Islam being the only religion that ensures people remain in its fold by threatening to kill them should they wish to convert to another religion—is a clear substitute for natural appeal?

Of course, Sheikh Quddum’s contradictions are but the latest example of how Muslim sheikhs totally distort history to justify jihad. They have no problem being honest about Islam’s history and doctrines of violence; but they must always frame the jihad as a “good thing” which “liberates” people.

Apparently treating people as second-class citizens if they don’t convert to Islam, and threatening those born into the religion with death if they try to leave it, is proof that “the common people want Islam”—that they “converted to Islam because of its goodness and justice.”

[For more, see this article by Egyptian liberal Khaled Montaser, which exposes the deep set “inferiority complex” infecting the Muslim world regarding the issue of conversion.]