There is a simple but crucial misunderstanding by the average decent fair minded European or North American which causes us to place ourselves at a distinct disadvantage to the jihadis in our midst. We believe in creating a territory within which, each person or group is free to express themselves how we choose to so long as it causes no major harm to others. We fight amongst ourselves as to where the lines need to be drawn. Whether an activity is truly harmful or not and where to allow an activity such as smoking in bars or cleaner energy and so on. But ultimately it stems from the principles stated above.
What we utterly fail to recognize is that Muslims world wide feel any law but sharia is an abomination. That any area which they claim is rightfully Islamic lands, and while ultimately this includes the whole world , for the moment it means any and all lands once governed by Muslims at any point in it’s history, must be governed by sharia or divine law.
This precludes any choices. When George W. Bush claimed simplistically perhaps, “They hate our freedoms” he was bang on the money. They do indeed hate our freedom to be anything other than Muslim and to govern according to any principle other than sharia law. Below is a fatwa from islam online which is a clear if chilling statement of principle and obligation for all Muslims living anywhere on earth. I would like to add that its a clear reason to end all Islamic immigration to the west immediately and perhaps even reversing it for all Muslims who have broken any laws or advocated the overthrow of our government and way of life. Special thanks to Grace for digging through the dirt to find this gem.
Wa `alaykum As-Salam Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
First of all, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you have in us. We hope our efforts meet your expectations.
It is the duty of every Muslim to support all his fellow Muslims in all times especially at times of calamities as all Muslims constitute one body when an organ of it aches, all the other organs feel ill as a result. In his Hadith, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stated: “A Muslim is a brother of a Muslim. He must not wrong him, nor fail him, nor hand him over (to enemies).” Muslim scholars state that there is nothing wrong in paying the Zakah as well as sadaqah to oppressed Muslims in Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Burma and in every part of the world.In his response to the question, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the prominent Muslim scholar, states the following:
The meaning of Jihad in our present time particularly refers to striving to liberate Muslim lands from the grip of the disbelievers who usurped them and imposed on them their own laws in lieu of the Divine Law. Those disbelievers may be Jews, Christians or both or even pagans, who follow no particular religion at all. Disbelievers are all alike.
Capitalists, Communists, Westerners, Easterners, People of the Book and pagans are by no means different from one other. They should all be fiercely fought if they attempt to occupy any part of the Muslim land. This duty falls on those closest to the occupied land, who should be aided by those closest to them, who, in turn, ought to be aided by those closest to them, till it becomes incumbent on all Muslims to take part in Jihad.
Muslims have never been more severely afflicted than they are nowadays. Many of their lands have been captured by the disbelievers, on top of which is Palestine that has fallen victim to corrupt Jews. Similarly, Kashmir has been dominated by pagan Hindus. Chechnya and other Islamic states have fallen in the grip of pagan tyrannical communism.
Retrieving these lands, freeing them from the clutches of atheists and their twisted laws is the joint responsibility of all Muslims. Declaring Jihad to save our land is an Islamic obligation.
If war is waged anywhere to achieve this goal, namely to free the occupied lands of the laws and the tyranny of disbelievers, it is undoubtedly a case of Jihad for the sake of Allah. It thus needs to be financed from the money of Zakah, the amount of which is to be decided based on the total sum of the charity, the requirements of Jihad as well as the degree of the need of other potential recipients of charity. This is all to be decided by reliable scholars, if they are to be found.
What needs special attention is the warping of a central thesis in this ‘fatwa’. When they say captured lands they mean a free area where Muslims in no way are prevented from worshiping or living as a Muslim but where they are not able to impose their laws on everyone else. This distinction is not subtle. When they mean liberate, they mean to impose some of the most draconian and restrictive laws the planet earth has ever seen. Two clear facts need to be recognized and applied to any moral equation with respect to Islam and the rest of the world.
Muslims who emigrate to other nations are not forced to by those nations. They chose to live amongst us.
We do not force them to our values or way of life. We allow them near perfect freedom to believe and act as they will short of breaking secular laws governing abuse of other human beings whether its women children or anyone at all. They would however, impose their values on us in our own homes as they do in all Islamic lands.
