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  The 2014 open letter continued the campaign to whitewash the concept of jihad. “All Muslims see the great virtue in jihad,” it says, repeatedly claiming that jihad warfare is strictly defensive. “There is no such thing,” the scholars assert, “as offensive, aggressive jihad just because people have different religions or opinions. This is the position of Abu Hanifa, the Imams Malik and Ahmad and all other scholars including Ibn Taymiyyah, with the exception of some scholars of the Shafi’i school.”

  On its surface, it sounds moderate to renounce “offensive” jihad to convert or subjugate non-Muslims and claim the right only to defend fellow Muslims when they’re attacked. But remember that in Sunni Islamic law, only the caliph has the authority to declare offensive jihad, while defensive jihad is obligatory upon all Muslims when a Muslim land is attacked, and need not be declared by anyone. Thus since 1924 (when the caliphate was abolished by Atatürk) to this day (except for those who accept the Islamic State’s claim to have revived it), all jihad attacks, even 9/11, have been cast by their perpetrators as defensive.

  So endorsing only “defensive” jihad is not as moderate as it sounds.

  In any case, the Shafi’i school, which even the open letter’s signatories have to admit does endorse “offensive” jihad, is one of the four great schools of Sunni jurisprudence. If some Shafi’i scholars allow for “offensive, aggressive jihad just because people have different religions or opinions,” can it really be said to be un-Islamic? Are the scholars pronouncing takfir on the Shafi’i school (declaring them heretics)? Or just deceiving gullible non-Muslims?

  2. Dhimmitude

  “Regarding Arab Christians,” the scholars remind the Islamic State caliph, “you gave them three choices: jizyah (poll tax), the sword, or conversion to Islam.” Jizya, as we have seen, is the tax specified in the Qur’an (9:29) to be levied on “the People of the Book” as a sign of their dhimmitude, their subjugation and submission to Muslim hegemony. This, the scholars say, was wrong, because “these Christians are not combatants against Islam or transgressors against it, indeed they are friends, neighbours and co-citizens. From the legal perspective of Shari’ah they all fall under ancient agreements that are around 1400 years old, and the rulings of jihad do not apply to them.”

  The letter’s explanation of jizya, however, is hopelessly self-contradictory.

  The scholars tell the caliph that the Arab Christians are friends of the Muslims, who “did not wage war against you” and thus should not have been subjugated as dhimmis. But then in the very next paragraph they mention a “second type of jizyah,” which “is levied on those who do not wage war against Islam.” So if, as the signatories to the letter aver, “there are two types of jizyah in Shariah,” and only the first “applies to those who fought Islam,” then how is the Islamic State transgressing against Islam by levying the jizya on those who did not wage war against Islam?

  These “moderate” scholars are apparently fine with a religion-based poll tax, a sign of the subjugation of the religious minority, in an Islamic state. In this the authors also contradict their earlier claim that jihad is only defensive; now “those who do not wage war against Islam” are to be made to pay the jizya, which in the Qur’an is the end goal of Muslims’ fighting the People of the Book: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).

  3–5. Stoning for Adultery, Amputation for Theft, Execution of Apostates

  In Islamic law Hudud refers to the punishments fixed by Allah himself for serious crimes, including the stoning of adulterers, the amputation of thieves’ hands, and the execution of apostates from Islam. While Islamic apologists in the U.S. routinely claim that these punishments are not really part of Sharia or Islam at all, these “moderate” scholars say: “Hudud punishments are fixed in the Qur’an and Hadith and are unquestionably obligatory in Islamic Law.”61 Their quibble with the Islamic State is that it has been cruel and merciless in applying these punishments.

  TAQIYYA WATCH

  “The Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam. Everything Mohammed stood for is the opposite of what they do—he condemned violence.”

  —Amjad Mahmood Khan, Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association62

  This is telling. In its campaigns against laws that would block the imposition of Islamic Sharia law in the United States, CAIR has claimed that these punishments are not an integral or essential part of Sharia.63 Now, CAIR has admitted otherwise.

  6. The Caliphate

  “There is agreement (ittifaq) among scholars,” say the scholars, “that a caliphate is an obligation upon the Ummah.”

  A caliphate is an obligation. That is, Muslims should strive to establish a single multinational, multiethnic empire, to which alone they owe political loyalty. In other words, they owe no loyalty to the nations in which they currently reside.

  This is a notable and extremely important admission. The Islamic State is appealing to so many young Muslims in the West because it claims to be the caliphate. Caliphates are established and sustained on the principle of Might Makes Right. If the Islamic State sustains itself and survives, more and more Muslims will pledge allegiance to it.

  To be sure, Hamas-linked CAIR, the Fiqh Council, and all the signers of this open letter really do oppose the Islamic State. But they don’t oppose it because it is transgressing against the commands of what they believe to be a religion of peace. They oppose it because they want to establish a caliphate led by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Islamic State constitutes competition. This is clear from their sly endorsements of jihad, the Sharia, and the concept of the caliphate in this letter. But with so many infidels so eager to be fooled, their work is easy.

  Chapter Nine

  ON THE ISLAMIC STATE’S TO-DO LIST

  (ROME, NON-MUSLIMS, AND THE FINAL SHOWDOWN)

  In his inaugural address as caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph Ibrahim, asserted that “the Muslims were defeated after the fall of their khilafah [caliphate]. Then their state ceased to exist, so the disbelievers were able to weaken and humiliate the Muslims, dominate them in every region, plunder their wealth and resources, and rob them of their rights.”1

  Did you know?

  •ISIS has issued a series of pamphlets about their upcoming attacks on Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel—and Rome

  •In the fight for Europe, ISIS is counting on allying with the anti-Israel Left

  •In keeping with Islamic law, women on the ISIS hit list are named, but not pictured like the men. Apparently it is possible to lust after even apostates and blasphemers.

  This was not a new idea; in fact, it was the foundation of the global Muslim effort to restore the caliphate. On June 21, 2013, Mohammed Malkawi, founder of the Chicago-based pro-Sharia, pro-caliphate organization known as Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) America, sounded the very same theme when he complained that “ever since the Caliphate was destroyed, the world has lost an exemplar of justice, a model for humanity in its entirety. Since then, the world has been held hostage by wolves, who do not respect the honor of a man or a believer. Two world wars cost the lives of over 70 million people, yet they accuse us of terrorism. They killed over 70 million people, and dropped atomic bombs on Japan, yet they level accusations against us.”2

  Malkawi admitted that the caliphate would be bad for infidels: “They say that the caliphate makes the infidels angry. Don’t we want to make the infidels angry? Isn’t this Islam?” He added: “Let America and Britain hate the caliphate. Let Britain, America, and the entire West go to hell, because the caliphate is coming, Allah willing.”3

  The record of the new caliphate shows that the West and the free world in general have abundant reason to hate it.

  The Islamic State’s To-Do List: Conquering Rome and E
urope

  Early in 2015, the Islamic State released an e-book entitled Black Flags from Rome, as part of its series detailing its plans for world conquest. Other titles in the series included Black Flags from the East, Black Flags from Syria, Black Flags from Arabia, and Black Flags from Persia.

  All of these e-books detail why and how the various areas specified in their titles can and must be conquered by ISIS. Black Flags from the East, Black Flags from Syria, Black Flags from Arabia, and Black Flags from Persia detail the Islamic State’s plans for the conquest of the Muslim areas outside its domains, with particular emphasis on two of its most formidable foes, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Black Flags from Rome explains how the ISIS jihad will also be extended into non-Muslim domains—and details how it will succeed in Europe.

  Black Flags from Rome begins with a quotation from the Qur’an that sets the tone for the whole thing (punctuation, including parentheses and brackets, are as in the original in all the quotations that follow): “And I (Allah [God]) wanted to do a favour to those who were weak and oppressed in the land, and to make them rulers . . . (Quran 28:5).”4

  Borrowing Leftist Fantasies: The Rise of “Far-Right Racist Groups” . . .

  The theme of the whole piece is that the Muslims in Europe are “weak and oppressed,” and that they can and will rise up against non-Muslim Europeans and conquer Rome and Europe for Islam.

  NOT THAT THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM

  “We want, Allah willing, Paris before Rome and before Al-Andalus, [and] after that we will blacken your life and blow up your White House, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower, Allah willing. . . . We want Kabul, Karachi, the Caucasus, Qom, Riyadh, and Tehran. We want Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Sana’, Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Amman. And Muslims shall return to ruling and leadership everywhere.”

  —Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, March 12, 2015, in an audio message entitled, “So They Kill and Are Killed”

  To portray Muslims in Europe as oppressed, Black Flags from Rome paints a paranoid and contrary-to-reality picture of a European continent full of “armed gangs” that are “forming into militias for racist politicians,” and “far-right racist groups” being “funded by racist rich people.”5

  These violent gangs of racists are—for reasons that are unclear—focused in particular upon Islam. The right wing groups started off “as people who were against immigration,” but soon “their leaders were paid to oppose Islam especially.”6

  Europe is returning to the Dark Ages [due to the financial recession]. Armed gangs are forming into militias for racist politicians, and a young Muslim minority is their enemy. All this while a Caliphate is growing across the Mediterranean sea next door.7

  ISIS suggests that European governments are behind these anti-Muslim racists—whereas the reality is that the European political establishment viciously hounds even peaceful groups that attempt to combat Islamization using only free speech.

  As far as the Islamic State is concerned, the strife between Muslims and these European racist gangs is coming to a head—and it will culminate in the Islamic conquest of Rome.

  Increasingly Assertive and Aggressive Muslim Populations

  The document offers a history of Muslim immigration into Europe, identifying three waves. The first immigrant generation “was satisfied with a basic living” and “did not want to offend their European rulers and felt grateful to them for giving them a job, a home to live in and a mosque to pray at in their European land.” They were grateful for these things because they hadn’t had them back home, and that, too, was the Europeans’ fault: “They had been prevented from these basic human rights in their homelands by the puppet rulers (which the colonisers had put on thrones before they left.) So these immigrants were grateful for even a little.”

  The second generation, which the Islamic State places between 1960 and 1980, was focused on ensuring that “their families were rich and had high ranking jobs so they support the poorer family members ‘back home.’”8 The third generation, thriving now, is different: “Unlike their parents version of Islam, which was more cultural and subservient, this new generation, would start studying the life of Allah (God’s) Messenger, Muhammad (peace be on him) and comparing it to their situation in Europe.”

  As a result of these studies, this generation “had given up the victim subservient slave mentality the previous generations had. This generation would be emboldened and more confident in their newly (re)discovered beliefs. They would see the world from a new perspective, and unlike the previous generations who only dedicated on earning money for supporting the family ‘back home’, this new generation would see the world through the eyes of a global Ummah (Muslim nation) which transcended all national boundaries.”9

  The Islamic State’s e-book doesn’t say it, but aiding and abetting this generational shift was the European embrace of multiculturalism, which led to the rejection—as “racist” and “ethnocentric”—of the earlier idea that immigrants must be assimilated. Immigrants into Europe (and the United States as well) were encouraged to keep and celebrate their own cultures and traditions rather than embrace those of their new home—an idea that played right into the hands of those who believed that all earthly loyalties must take a second place to the believers’ adherence to the “global Ummah” that “transcended all national boundaries.”

  Smuggling Lessons

  Meanwhile, according to the ISIS e-book, “Many Jihad preachers and supporters who left Afghanistan came to Europe as refugees in the early 90s, and later married convert Muslim women and got permanent stay where they lived. Countries with the biggest Jihadi populations in Europe were; Belgium, France, and later the UK.”10 These preachers took advantage of lax and conflicting laws in European countries:

  The Jihad preachers and supporters in the West took advantage of the different laws within each country. In the early 90s, many went to Belgium (located: North of France) due to its relaxed laws against supporting armed groups. However, once the Belgium government found out there were many Jihadis’ there, it made stricter laws against them so many fled to the UK where the laws were also soft (this would change in the 2000s). France has a huge Muslim Arab population, and they knew that many Arab Jihadis’ from the GIA were in their country. They would try to arrest them but many of the leaders who inspired the youth were in the UK. But the UK would not hand the preachers over to France because the preachers had not broken any laws in the UK. This caused the European intelligence agencies to be bitter against each other in the early to mid-90s.11

  The GIA was the Armed Islamic Group, a jihad group in Algeria. Black Flags from Rome offers a fascinating glimpse into how such groups operated in Europe, with jihadis smuggling weapons from there into Algeria:

  They would receive donations from supporters in Europe and with them donations buy weapons for the GIA. From where? From Europe, and transport them into the Islamic Maghrib. They would buy the weapons and then take them to a car mechanic who worked for them, who would dismantle the car and place the cash and weapons inside the cars (deep in the interior framework) and fix the car back together again. These cars would then be driven by GIA members pretending to be natives going on a holiday from France to Spain, and from Spain by Ferry (ship) to Morocco, and from Morocco into Algeria. A middle-person would then collect the car in Morocco and take it to the location of the fighters who would receive the car, dismantle it and extract what was inside. This is how they smuggled weapons from France to Algeria.12

  This isn’t just anecdotal history, it’s strategizing for the next jihad: “No doubt, if a war in Europe is to spark in the future, this whole process will be reversed and weapons will be smuggled in a similar way from the Islamic Maghrib into the heart of Europe. . . .”13

  “Extremists” and “Moderates”

  The other side, according to Black Flags from Rome, was mobilizing as well: “In 1998, the New World Order was beginning to take place, and European countries began to work together i
n fighting against Islam.”14 And after 9/11, “the Western intelligence agencies began to change their laws and co-operate together to capture and lock up the preachers who were the most outspoken within the 90s. Groups and organisations made by the preachers were closed down and banned. Spies and listening devices were installed in the Muslim mosques and community centres everywhere.”15 But the Western officials’ task was difficult, as “many AQ [al-Qaeda] members captured in Muslim lands had shaven their beards for deception and hiding their devout Muslim identity.”16

  Black Flags from Rome remarks upon the absurdity of Western authorities’ inability or unwillingness to deal with the ideological roots of the challenge they were facing:

  The Western policy makers had to play a powerful balancing act. They would fight the Muslim world while trying to stop Muslims from becoming ‘radicalised’ and reactionary violent. This was almost impossible, so they came up with a clever plan. They would begin to divide Muslims in the media as ‘extremists’ (who supported Jihad) and ‘moderates.’ (those who didn’t).17

  The Islamic State rejects the distinction, preferring instead to distinguish between real Muslims, whom they consider to be following Islam, and those who, in their opinion, are not. As far as ISIS is concerned, the “moderates” are on the wrong side—and they continue to appeal to Muslims in the West on the basis of their claim that only the “extremists” are properly following the Qur’an and the example of Muhammad.

  Meanwhile, those classified as “extremists,” such as the famed jihad preacher in Britain, Anjem Choudary, skillfully exploit the weaknesses of the tolerant West:

  People like Anjem Choudhary were lawyers before they were practising Muslims, so they knew how the law works. Everyday they would study the latest version of the Anti-Terrorism Act [Law], and then call for Islamic law while staying within the guidelines of the British and Western law. This way, they could never be doing anything illegal while fulfilling the obligation of calling for Islam to be the highest.