The Factuals versus the OABS (Old Age BullShit)

orthodoxymoron

orthodoxymoron
Posts: 6427
Join date: 2010-09-28

• Post n°53

Re: The Factuals versus the Old Age BS or OABS

orthodoxymoron Today at 8:42 pm
This may not be the right time or place -- but it seems as if everything is somehow a power-struggle of some sort -- regardless of political and religious loyalties. Even the concept of a God implies that God is MOST Powerful. Do people conceptualize a Weak-God ruling the Universe?? But Power implies Violence. Violence implies Weaponry. Weaponry implies Funds to Purchase Said-Weapons. Fund-Raising often implies Deception, Cheating, and Stealing -- so as to raise Money faster than the Other-Guys. So -- Does God End-Up Being a Corrupt and Violent Warrior-Banker??!! I realize that a lot of theology conceptualizes God as Being All-Powerful -- going back forever -- with no end or beginning -- with no viable-rivals -- but what is the reality?? What if the Universe is filled with literally Billions or Trillions of Really-Nasty Star-Wars with Bad@$$ Beings in Piloted Bad@$$teroid Mother-F$#%-Ships??!! What if we really Can't All Get Along?? What if the call for peace in Christianity is the Victor's-Trick for Emasculating the Vanquished?? Is Kneeling Before God Really the Conquered Submitting to the Conqueror?? BTW -- Could you PLEASE Tell Me What You Know Concerning Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer??!! Is it really just Gabriel and Michael (with some Lucifer-Like Characteristics)?? Is there really a separate and distinct being called "Lucifer"?? The code at the bottom of your posts seems to imply a preference for Michael over Gabriel -- with Gabriel being referenced in somewhat hostile language!! "MICHAEL SUN = INFINITY-1 = JERUSALEM+1 = EARTH1HEART = DEMON GABRIEL = LOVE MICHAEL" What's going on here?? The Bible doesn't really say much about Gabriel, Michael, Lucifer, Satan, and the Devil. One has to do a lot of inventing and copying to create a significant Doctrine Concerning the Archangels and Bad-Beings!! I'm currently modeling the Michael v Gabriel hypothesis as being mostly what's going-on regarding Local Power-Struggles, Civil-Wars, and Governance-Modalities within this particular solar system.

​

shiloh


shiloh
Posts: 938
Join date: 2011-03-16
Age: 58
Location: Akbar Ra

• Post n°54

Re: The Factuals versus the Old Age BS or OABS

shiloh Today at 9:17 pm
orthodoxymoron wrote:
This may not be the right time or place -- but it seems as if everything is somehow a power-struggle of some sort -- regardless of political and religious loyalties. Even the concept of a God implies that God is MOST Powerful. Do people conceptualize a Weak-God ruling the Universe?? But Power implies Violence. Violence implies Weaponry. Weaponry implies Funds to Purchase Said-Weapons. Fund-Raising often implies Deception, Cheating, and Stealing -- so as to raise Money faster than the Other-Guys. So -- Does God End-Up Being a Corrupt and Violent Warrior-Banker??!! I realize that a lot of theology conceptualizes God as Being All-Powerful -- going back forever -- with no end or beginning -- with no viable-rivals -- but what is the reality?? What if the Universe is filled with literally Billions or Trillions of Really-Nasty Star-Wars with Bad@$$ Beings in Piloted Bad@$$teroid Mother-F$#%-Ships??!! What if we really Can't All Get Along?? What if the call for peace in Christianity is the Victor's-Trick for Emasculating the Vanquished?? Is Kneeling Before God Really the Conquered Submitting to the Conqueror?? BTW -- Could you PLEASE Tell Me What You Know Concerning Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer??!! Is it really just Gabriel and Michael (with some Lucifer-Like Characteristics)?? Is there really a separate and distinct being called "Lucifer"?? The code at the bottom of your posts seems to imply a preference for Michael over Gabriel -- with Gabriel being referenced in somewhat hostile language!! "MICHAEL SUN = INFINITY-1 = JERUSALEM+1 = EARTH1HEART = DEMON GABRIEL = LOVE MICHAEL" What's going on here?? The Bible doesn't really say much about Gabriel, Michael, Lucifer, Satan, and the Devil. One has to do a lot of inventing and copying to create a significant Doctrine Concerning the Archangels and Bad-Beings!! I'm currently modeling the Michael v Gabriel hypothesis as being mostly what's going-on regarding Local Power-Struggles, Civil-Wars, and Governance-Modalities within this particular solar system.

​

Alphanumerical analysis:

MICHAEL = 13+9+3+8+1+5+12 = 51 = DEMON = 4+5+13+15+14
GABRIEL = 7+1+2+18+9+5+12 = 54 = SUN = 19+21+14 = LOVE = 12+15+22+5 = VAGINA = NAVIGA = 14+1+22+9+7+1 = ISLAM = MALIS = 13+1+12+9+19 = Number of the Post #54
{See how one can create duality perceptions like good and evil by WORDS=SWORD?}

LUCIFER=74=JESUS=CROSS=BEAUTY=GOSPEL=CLOUDS=SONGS=LONDON=ENGLISH=JOSHUA=?NOT=SUSAN=.....{Coincidence?}
DEVIL + LIVED = 52 = FINANCE = PRIDE = EARTH = HEART = 26+26 = GOD+GOD (evil) = GOD+DOG (good) = GODDOG = DOGGOD (palindromatic and alphanumerically anagrammatically supersymmetric)

ORTHODOXYMORON = {15+18+20+8+15+4+15+24+25} + {13+15+18+15+14} = 144 +75 = 144 + MARRY = 144,000 = 12x12,000 {The Lonely One}


Revelation 7:1-4 - King James Version (KJV)

1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.


Revelation 14:1-4 - King James Version (KJV)

1 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.


Revelation 21:14-18 - King James Version (KJV)

14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15 And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.

16 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.

17 And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.

18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.

74=LUCIFER {The Lonely One} as A LUCIFER = 1+74=75=MARRY =ANDROMEDA=SHARON = ... as {The Sexchanged Lonely One} as 74+1=LUCIFERA=75

​

orthodoxymoron


orthodoxymoron

Posts: 6428
Join date: 2010-09-29

• Post n°55

Re: The Factuals versus the Old Age BS or OABS

orthodoxymoron Today at 4:40 am

Thank-you Shiloh. I'm basically navigating uncharted-waters regarding Angels, Archangels, God, and Satan. How do we REALLY know anything regarding these names For Certain??!! I've narrowed my quest to Gabriel and Michael -- for practical and simplifying purposes -- at least regarding this particular solar system. What scares me is the possibility that one's role determines how good or bad they end-up being. In this solar system, I think it might be impossible to be a genuinely-good ruler of any stature. Being an S.O.B. might be a significant part of the job-description. What if being a Sun-God includes being a Mass-Murderer?? What Would Undod the Sun-God Say?? What Would Pazuzu Do?? BTW -- I am wary regarding an over-reliance upon the Book of Revelation. I prefer a healthy mixture of Wisdom-Books -- Major-Prophets -- and Four-Gospels.

​

_________________

​

 

B.B.Baghor


B.B.Baghor

Posts: 1470
Join date: 2014-01-31
Age: 64
Location: Avalon area UK

• Post n°56

Re: The Factuals versus the Old Age BS or OABS

B.B.Baghor Yesterday at 7:41 pm
shiloh wrote:

74=LUCIFER {The Lonely One} as A LUCIFER = 1+74=75=MARRY =ANDROMEDA=SHARON = ... as {The Sexchanged Lonely One} as 74+1=LUCIFERA=75​

HEAVENLY CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEART
​

Thank you, shiloh, for this post. I smile often about my walking away from content of this thread and walking back to it too.
I'm opening new windows to unknown vistas, studying and learning, trying not to put IT or myself, in a box as if.... NOW I know it all.
My inner robust abbess in darkblue flowing robes, is stepping off her aisle more often, for my youthful logic that sounded "I can swim,
only I still sink" is a teaching and encouragement to me. Life is about sinking below the water-level now and than as much as about
surfacing, metaphorically speaking. This, to me, is about evolving and never coming to a halt by a definition, an absoluteness. Apart
from realizing THAT as an absolute truth... oh no! that could change also, for how can we know what lies hidden within us, ready to
surface and take a breath of fresh air? Upside down even?


Having fun catching a fresh nose....

That YouTube song with Shocking Blue's Venus, is fun to listen to, a memory of the year 1970, when this Dutch band was high on the
top ten list. Mariska Veres is the name of the woman in the band, her father was Hungarian and her mother German. She loved cats.

Yesterday, I found the book "Carl Jung, wounded healer of the soul" in a bookshop in Glastonbury. Your last post (and often parts of
this thread in general) reminds me of a what I've just been reading in the foreword and what struck me as significant, related to my view,
my dawning awareness that God is in all things, present in all that is, in dark and light. "Love" isn't the same as "Like", is it? Here's what I
find most resonating with that view, that work in progress of mine that involves all of me that is known to me. The part that is at the core
of it is present in blue:

(Quote) "It began in 1913, the year Jung broke with Freud. Inner experiences were drawing Jung into a way of being not primarily dependent on intellect. here were dreams he didn't understand and then a repeated and dramatic sign - a daylight vision of horrific floods, Europe devastated,
rivers of blood, and an inner voice that said: "It will come to pass." "I thought my mind had gone crazy" wrote Jung. He undertook a psychological
self-examination but became stuck. To tap into underlying material, he devised a "boring method" that evolved into "active imagination" which was
to become a keystone of his psychology as a means of accessing and penetrating fantasy. From late 1913 to mid-1914, he recorded an relentless
avalanche of inner openings, images, and dialogues, material for his "most difficult experiment." Often these experiences occurred at night in his
library, following a day's work with patients, and dinner with family. He sometimes did yoga-type excersizes to quell emotional turmoil and empty
his consciousness.

He then went into the spontaneous fantasies that appeared, as if entering a drama, engaging in conversations with their characters. But he
remained uncertain of the meaning and significance of their content. Mental illness was a recurring fear. "Finally I understood" he wrote in 1914,
after the outbreak of World War I. His early symbolic pre-cognitions had been given terrible form. Understanding gave Jung the courage to begin a handwritten draft of his Liber Novis (New Book). He transcribed the Black Book material, adding further interpretations of each episode, and often combining these with a lyrical elaboration. Some snapshots impressions of the book may yield a skeleton of its content. Inner battles take place.

In the prophetic opening the Spirit of the Depths spars with the Spirit of the Times in him. The contemporary and changing thinking of Time,
constantly has to give way to the immemorial and shaping future contained in, and arising from, the Depths.
A spiritual message emerges, a new way for the time we live in today, with Jung becoming the task, interpreter and bearer of it. The teaching is of a new God image -
an immanent God who is in everything big and small, dark and light. The paradox in the holds that "the highest truth and the absurd is one and the
same thing" Moreover, "the melting together of sense and nonsense produces the supreme meaning" and "if you marry the ordered to the chaos
you produce the divine child." The task is to hold the opposites together "the goal is not the heights but the center"- the center or Self which can
be said as "God in us." Jung came to believe that "You should be...... not Christians but Christ, otherwise you will be of no use to the coming of God"
He realized he needed to love all of life in him, God spirit and human animal, together in unity"(end of quote).

And a bit further on (Quote) Jung stopped work on The Red Book in 1930 when the impact of a Chinese alchemical text "The Secret of the Golden
Flower" brought him "undreamed of confirmation" of is ideas, and the link between the East and West. In 1959, a single handwritten page was added
to the book by Jung, reaffirming its contents: "I always knew those experiences contained something precious." It ends in mid-sentence"(end of quote).

From the book, referring to The Secret of the Golden Flower with the commentary of Carl Gustav Jung:

(Quote)"An ancient adept has said: 'If the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.' This Chinese saying,
unfortunately all too true, stands in sharp contrast to our belief in the 'right' method irrespective of the man who applies it. In reality, in such
matters everything depends on the man and little or nothing on the method. For the method is merely the path, the direction taken by a man".
(end of quote)

https://www.scribd.com/doc/58044038/Commentary-by-Jung-on-The-Secret-of-the-Golden-Flower

Here's the link to the book "The Secret of the Golden Flower, http://www.alchemylab.com/golden_flower.htm



_________________

B.B.Baghor

When we stop learning and growing, we begin to die; when we believe we have all the answers
and become wise in our own eyes, we become fools! Have a blessed and beautiful day.

Not all those who wander are lost.
Tolkien​

 

shiloh


shiloh

Posts: 941
Join date: 2011-03-16
Age: 58
Location: Akbar Ra

• Post n°57

Re: The Factuals versus the Old Age BS or OABS

shiloh Today at 2:50 am
B.B.Baghor wrote:
shiloh wrote:

74=LUCIFER {The Lonely One} as A LUCIFER = 1+74=75=MARRY =ANDROMEDA=SHARON = ... as {The Sexchanged Lonely One} as 74+1=LUCIFERA=75​

HEAVENLY CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEART​

Thank you, shiloh, for this post. I smile often about my walking away from content of this thread and walking back to it too.
I'm opening new windows to unknown vistas, studying and learning, trying not to put IT or myself, in a box as if.... NOW I know it all.
My inner robust abbess in darkblue flowing robes, is stepping off her aisle more often, for my youthful logic that sounded "I can swim, only I still sink" is a teaching and encouragement to me. Life is about sinking below the water-level now and than as much as about surfacing, metaphorically speaking. This, to me, is about evolving and never coming to a halt by a definition, an absoluteness. Apart from realizing THAT as an absolute truth... oh no! that could change also, for how can we know what lies hidden within us, ready to surface and take a breath of fresh air? Upside down even?


Having fun catching a fresh nose....

That YouTube song with Shocking Blue's Venus, is fun to listen to, a memory of the year 1970, when this Dutch band was high on the top ten list. Mariska Veres is the name of the woman in the band, her father was Hungarian and her mother German. She loved cats.

Yesterday, I found the book "Carl Jung, wounded healer of the soul" in a bookshop in Glastonbury. Your last post (and often parts of this thread in general) reminds me of a what I've just been reading in the foreword and what struck me as significant, related to my view, my dawning awareness that God is in all things, present in all that is, in dark and light. "Love" isn't the same as "Like", is it? Here's what I find most resonating with that view, that work in progress of mine that involves all of me that is known to me. The part that is at the core of it is present in blue:

(Quote) "It began in 1913, the year Jung broke with Freud. Inner experiences were drawing Jung into a way of being not primarily dependent on intellect. here were dreams he didn't understand and then a repeated and dramatic sign - a daylight vision of horrific floods, Europe devastated, rivers of blood, and an inner voice that said: "It will come to pass." "I thought my mind had gone crazy" wrote Jung. He undertook a psychological self-examination but became stuck. To tap into underlying material, he devised a "boring method" that evolved into "active imagination" which was to become a keystone of his psychology as a means of accessing and penetrating fantasy. From late 1913 to mid-1914, he recorded an relentless avalanche of inner openings, images, and dialogues, material for his "most difficult experiment." Often these experiences occurred at night in his library, following a day's work with patients, and dinner with family. He sometimes did yoga-type excersizes to quell emotional turmoil and empty his consciousness.

He then went into the spontaneous fantasies that appeared, as if entering a drama, engaging in conversations with their characters. But he remained uncertain of the meaning and significance of their content. Mental illness was a recurring fear. "Finally I understood" he wrote in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. His early symbolic pre-cognitions had been given terrible form. Understanding gave Jung the courage to begin a handwritten draft of his Liber Novis (New Book). He transcribed the Black Book material, adding further interpretations of each episode, and often combining these with a lyrical elaboration. Some snapshots impressions of the book may yield a skeleton of its content. Inner battles take place.

In the prophetic opening the Spirit of the Depths spars with the Spirit of the Times in him. The contemporary and changing thinking of Time, constantly has to give way to the immemorial and shaping future contained in, and arising from, the Depths.

A spiritual message emerges, a new way for the time we live in today, with Jung becoming the task, interpreter and bearer of it. The teaching is of a new God image -
an immanent God who is in everything big and small, dark and light. The paradox in the holds that "the highest truth and the absurd is one and the same thing" Moreover, "the melting together of sense and nonsense produces the supreme meaning" and "if you marry the ordered to the chaos you produce the divine child." The task is to hold the opposites together "the goal is not the heights but the center"- the center or Self which can be said as "God in us." Jung came to believe that "You should be...... not Christians but Christ, otherwise you will be of no use to the coming of God"
He realized he needed to love all of life in him, God spirit and human animal, together in unity"(end of quote).

And a bit further on (Quote) Jung stopped work on The Red Book in 1930 when the impact of a Chinese alchemical text "The Secret of the Golden Flower" brought him "undreamed of confirmation" of is ideas, and the link between the East and West. In 1959, a single handwritten page was added to the book by Jung, reaffirming its contents: "I always knew those experiences contained something precious." It ends in mid-sentence"(end of quote).

From the book, referring to The Secret of the Golden Flower with the commentary of Carl Gustav Jung:

(Quote)"An ancient adept has said: 'If the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.' This Chinese saying, unfortunately all too true, stands in sharp contrast to our belief in the 'right' method irrespective of the man who applies it. In reality, in such matters everything depends on the man and little or nothing on the method. For the method is merely the path, the direction taken by a man".
(end of quote)

https://www.scribd.com/doc/58044038/Commentary-by-Jung-on-The-Secret-of-the-Golden-Flower

Here's the link to the book "The Secret of the Golden Flower, http://www.alchemylab.com/golden_flower.htm

HEAVENLY CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEART​

Heart/Throne of Isis = AB |Mirror of the Cosmic Twinship| BA = Soul/Sistrum of Bast​

AB+BA = ABBA = Universal Creator/God = Monad Metaphysical​

BA+AB = BAAB = Universal Creation/Goddess = Monad Physical​

ABBABAAB = Universal CreatorCreation = Monadic Dyad Unified = BAABABBA = Universal CreationCreator = Dyadic Monad Unified​

​

Robert Sceptico: "Well, I propose that the layphilosopher will have great difficulties following your arguments of quantum geometry in a similar vein of semantic unfamiliarity.
Let's see if we can use the Hebrew Kabbalah in an alternative description of the Egyptian mythology of numerological archetypes.
We have defined our ten characters and now map the kabbalistic 'tree of life' in the following fashion:


1. Keter or Crown is the Khu of the Spirit and the 'Tree of Life as Djed or Phallus of Osiris'
2. Hokmah or Wisdom is the Ab of the Heart and 'Throne of Isis
3. Binah or Intelligence is the Sahu of the Masculine in the 'EyeMirror of Horus'
4. Hesed or Love is the Ba or Soul of the 'Sistrum of Bast'
5. Gevurah or Power is the Ibis or Mind of the 'Caduceus of Thoth'
6. Tiferet or Beauty is the Sekhem of the Feminine in the 'EyeMirror of Hathor'
7. Nezah or Endurance is the Ka of the Double of the 'Astral Chalice of Nephthys'
8. Hod or Majesty is the Ren or Name of the 'Mason's Tool of Ptah'
9. Yesod or Foundation is the Khaibit or Image of the 'Shadow of Anubis'
10. Malkuth or Kingdom is the Khat or Body and the 'Tree of Death as Yoni or Vulva of Set'

A 1-series: 1=A/Spirit of Osiris as Khu; 10=J/Body of Set as Khat; 19=S/Winged Disk of RahaR;
a 2-series: 2=B/Heart of Isis as Ab; 11=K/Fire of Nephthys' Duamutef; 20=T/Twinship of TefnutShu;
a 3-series: 3=C/Body of Horus as Sahu; 12=L/Air of Ptah's Qebhsnuf; 21=U/Sphinx Harmakhis' GebNut;
a 4-series: 4=D/Soul of Bast as Ba; 13=M/Water of Seshat's Imsety; 22=V/Maat's Scarab as Khepera;
a 5-series: 5=E/Mind of Thoth as Ibis; 14=N/Earth of Anubis' Hapi; 23=W/Pyramid of Thoth;
a 6-series: 6=F/Power of Sekhem as Hathor 15=O/Sirius of Hathor; 24=X/Sekhmet's Ankh as Sekhem;
a 7-series: 7=G/Chalice of Nephthys as Ka; 16=P/Lotus of Isis's Elements; 25=Y/NutGeb's YoniPhallus;
a 8-series: 8=H/Name of Ptah as Ren; 17=Q/Crook & Flail of Horus; 26=Z/ShuTefnut's PhallusYoni;
a 9-series: 9=I/Shadow of Anubis as Khaibit; 18=R/Uraeus of Thoth; 27=A*/RaH as HaR.


The SEPHIROTIC TREE OF LIFE also known as MOSES' SAPPHIRE TABLET ;
then partitions those ten archetypes into a male, say left stem and a female right stem, parted in a middle stem, centred on the 'unclean sexes' of the 69=96.

The male 'clean-sex' stem is the sequence from top to bottom in: 1-3-5-8-10 and the female 'clean-sex' stem as the series from bottom to top in: 10-7-4-2-(1=1+0=10) as the Kelim of Reshimu.
The middle stem is so given as: 1-6-9-10, with 1 and 10 interchangeable in a rootreduction of 10=1.
One sets the maleness as odd numbers and the femaleness in even numbers; the unlean sexes of 6 and 9 encompassing 7 and 8, which so become interchanged in the male 7 associated with the
female Nephthys and the female 8 given to the male Ptah to effect the overall transformation of the 10 of Set=Ar into Har and rendering the dragking Set as 'fake' DragonKing into a real DragonQueen Har for a real DragonKing RaH and as the Tsimtsum of the Tehiru in the Torah.
And so the seven 'clean sexes' are 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 8 and the two 'unclean' sexes are 6 and 9; the differentiation being made for the pupose to render the number 10 as a true female, the 0 in between two number 1's, say in: (101binary=5decimal), mirroring the maleness in the femaleness and vice versa; the 'fowls of heaven' defining the bisexuality contained in the undifferentiated twinships.
The symbolism of the 69=96 involves this mirror of being inverted either back to back in 96 or of being inverted face to face in the two 'immutable principles', by whom it was impossible for 'God' and hence the 'AntiGod' or 'Dog' to lie, coded in Hebrews.6.18.
Mirroring 6 in a vertical mirror, either left or right results in a reflected numeral 6, which is however an inverted 9 in a reflection about a horizontal mirror either above or below the cipher 6.

So a double-reflection, once vertical and once horizontal transforms the 6 into the 9 or vice versa and so 69=96 represent the mechanism by which God's purpose of the 10-tiered unification is accomplished.
The numbers 66 or 999 etc. only transform the 6's into 9's and the 9's into 6's and do not achieve the desired aim of using two in one to mirror the one in the two."
Logan Antico: "So only the birth of omniscience towards the beginning of the third millennium has allowed us to finally draw all the ancient threads together and to weave the carpet of the New Science.
We have built upon the traditions of the historical sciences and yet we could accomodate hitherto elusive concepts, such as consciousness and the meaning of emotions, love and the mind.


An ancient inscription is legendarily ascribed to the Egyptian Ibisgod Thoth (also sometimes identified with some archcherubimic character called Metatron) and is supposedly his hieroglyphic legacy left as a testimonial in the Great Pyramid of Cheops or Khufu.
It was translated ages ago by German archaeologists and exists as a prototype in the 'Amphitheatrum Sapientae Aeternae of Heinrich Khunrath', the 'Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom' and is dated to 1609.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Khunrath

​

Verba secretorum hermetis!

{1} Verum sine menda cio certum & verissimum, quod est inferi est sicut quod est superius & quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius; ad peristranda miracula rei uni.
{2} Et sicut omnes res fuerunt ab uno, meditatione unius, sic omnes res nuta fuerunt ab hac
una adaptatione.
{3} Pater ei, est sol, mater eius luna, portavit illud ventus in ventre.
{4} Suo nutrix eius terra est.
{5} Pater omnis talismi toti mundi.
{6} Est hic vis ei.
{7} Integra est sive fuerit in terram separabis terram ab igne, subtile & spisso, suaviter cum magno ingenio.
{8} Ascendit terra in coelum, iterumque descendit in terram & recipit vim superiorum & inferiorum.
{9} Sic habebis gloriam toti mundi.
{10} Ideo fugi atite omnis obscuritas.
{11} Hic est totius fortitudinis fortitudo fortis.
{12} Quia vincet omnem rem subtilem, omnem que solidam penetrabit.
{13} Sic mundus creatus est.
{14} Hinc erunt adaptationes mirabilis quarum modus hic est.
{15} Itaque vocatus sum Hermes Trismegistus, habens tres partes philosophie totis mundi.
{16} Completum est quod dixi de operatione solis.
Mercurius Trismegistus in Pimandro.



Das Wort des geheimnisvollen Boten

{1} Wahrhaftig, keiner Luegen bewusst und auf das aller wahrhaftigste; das Unten ist dem Oben gleich und das Obere is dasselbe als da Untere; damit kann man das wunderbare eines einzigen Dinges erlangen und verrichten.
{2} Und wie alle Dinge durch die Wahl eines einzigen Wesens erschaffen sind, werden alle Dinge durch das Denken eines Einzigen mit dem Einen duch Schickung und Gebot wieder zusammengefuegt.
{3} Die Sonne ist sein Vater und der Mond ist seine Mutter, der Wind hat ihn in seinem Bauch getragen.
{4} Seine Ernaehrerin oder Amme ist die Erde.
{5} Dieser ist der Vater aller Vollkommenheit dieser ganzen Welt.
{6} Seine Macht ist vollkommen.
{7} Wenn Es in der Erde verwandelt wird, dann wird das Erdreich vom Feuer scheiden und das Feine vom Groben; ganz lieblich mit grosser Bescheidenheit und Verstand.
{8} Er steigt von der Erde in den Himmel und vom Himmel wieder zur Erde zurueck und gewinnt so die Kraft des Oberen und des Unteren.
{9} Auf diese Weise wird all die Herrlichkeit der ganzen Welt erhalten.
{10} Deshalb versetze von Dir allen Unverstand und Unvermoegenheit.
{11} Das ist von aller Staerke die staerkste Staerke.
{12} Dann kann das uebriggebliebene Subtile gewonnen und das alte, harte Gewand durchdrungen werden.
{13} Also ist die Welt geschaffen.
{14} Daher geschehen seltsame Vereinigungen und deshalb werden mancherlei Wunder gewirkt.
{15} Und sei darum gesund, Hermes Trismegistus, Besitzer der dreiteiligen Weisheit von der ganzen Welt.
{16} Er wird alles erfuellen, was ich gesagt habe, vom Werke der Sonnen.
Merkur, der dreifach Grosse, in Pimandro.


The Emerald Tablet of the Secret Messenger

{1} Truly, without fault and in all certainty and truthfulness; what is below is like what is above and the above is the same as the below, for the purpose to experience and bring about the wonders of the one thing.
{2} And as all things are created through the choosing of one being; so the thinking of one with the one, brings all things by command and fate together again.
{3} His father is the sun and his mother is the moon; the wind has carried him in his womb.
{4} He is joined together and nursed by the earth.
{5} This is the father of all completeness of the entire world.
{6} His power is all inclusive.
{7} At the time of its renewal, the soil shall separate from the fire and the subtle from the rough,
acting sweetly and with great ingenuity.
{8} He ascends sagaciously from the earth into heaven and then descends again into the earth, thus regaining the unifying force of the above and the below.
{9} In this way is all the glory of all the worlds obtained.
{10} Therefore avoid all ignorance.
{11} Herein is found in all strenght the strongest strength.
{12} By this can the remaining subtle whole be won and the old solid whole be penetrated.
{13} Thus is the creation of the world.
{14} Henceforth the eventuation of strange adaptations by extraordinary methods.
{15} Accordingly be well, Hermes Trismegistos, keeper of the tripartite wisdom of the unified worlds.
{16} He will accomplish that of which I have spoken through the operations of the suns.
Mercury, the thrice-great, in Pimandro.

So who is this Hermes Trismegistos?
It is the archetype for the 'Teacher of Righteousness'.
Right throughout the ages of humankind, there have been sages, soothsayers, prophets and mystics of all kinds; some sincere and others praying on the superstitions and the gullibilities of the general members of the population.

One remembers the Naassenes; an early Christian Gnostic sect and closely associated with Jesus-Yeshuah.

​

_________________
Shiloh Za-RaH

I Am the Darkness of the Purple Dawn and the Light of the Moon Turquoise!



Bluey Dracs
The Presence of the Mosaic implies the will of Unity=God=Starhumanity and not the will of Humanity=Man=Separation!
I Am One in Many and Many in One!
Exe*=1
GODGOD=DOGDOG=DEMONA=DEVIL=LIVED=FINANCE=PRIDE=EARTH=HEART
GODDOG=DOGGOD=JCCJCJJC=52=26+26=13+13+13+13=5+2=7
7=7_dec=7_bin=111=DRAGONHEART
Decoder Michael = 54+51=105=15=6=123=ABC=ABBA=BAAB=33=E3=8=3E=ME=WE
MICHAEL SUN = INFINITY-1 = JERUSALEM+1 = EARTH1HEART = DEMON GABRIEL = LOVE MICHAEL

 

​

 

​

 

B.B.Baghor


B.B.Baghor

Posts: 1477
Join date: 2014-01-31
Age: 64
Location: Avalon area UK

• Post n°59

Re: The Factuals versus the Old Age BS or OABS

B.B.Baghor Today at 1:13 am

shiloh wrote:

The Emerald Tablet of the Secret Messenger

{1} Truly, without fault and in all certainty and truthfulness; what is below is like what is above and
the above is the same as the below, for the purpose to experience and bring about the wonders of the one thing.
{2} And as all things are created through the choosing of one being; so the thinking of one with the one,
brings all things by command and fate together again.
{3} His father is the sun and his mother is the moon; the wind has carried him in his womb.
{4} He is joined together and nursed by the earth.
{5} This is the father of all completeness of the entire world.
{6} His power is all inclusive.
{7} At the time of its renewal, the soil shall separate from the fire and the subtle from the rough,
acting sweetly and with great ingenuity.
{8} He ascends sagaciously from the earth into heaven and then descends again into the earth, thus
regaining the unifying force of the above and the below.
{9} In this way is all the glory of all the worlds obtained.
{10} Therefore avoid all ignorance.
{11} Herein is found in all strenght the strongest strength.
{12} By this can the remaining subtle whole be won and the old solid whole be penetrated.
{13} Thus is the creation of the world.
{14} Henceforth the eventuation of strange adaptations by extraordinary methods.
{15} Accordingly be well, Hermes Trismegistos, keeper of the tripartite wisdom of the unified worlds.
{16} He will accomplish that of which I have spoken through the operations of the suns.
Mercury, the thrice-great, in Pimandro.

So who is this Hermes Trismegistos?
It is the archetype for the 'Teacher of Righteousness'.
Right throughout the ages of humankind, there have been sages, soothsayers, prophets and mystics of all kinds;
some sincere and others praying on the superstitions and the gullibilities of the general members of the population.

One remembers the Naassenes; an early Christian Gnostic sect and closely associated with Jesus-Yeshuah.

This archetype is fascinating and somehow familiar, just like the Nag Hammadi Library. It's for this archetype's role,
I enjoy the work of Drunval Melchizedek much, with Thoth/Hermes as his main teacher in the creation of "The ancient
Secret of the Flower of Life" material, the geometry of that symbol





(Quote) While some decades ago it might have appeared that the line of transmission extending from Greco-Egyptian
wisdom might come to an end, today the picture appears more hopeful. The discovery and translation of the Nag
Hammadi Library generated a great interest in matters Gnostic that does not seem to have abated with the passage
of time. Because of the close affinity of the Hermetic writings to the Gnostic ones, the present interest in Gnosticism
extends to Hermeticism as well. Most collections of Gnostic scriptures published today include some Hermetic material.

Gnosticism and Hermeticism flourished in the same period; they are equally concerned with personal knowledge of God
and the soul, and equally emphatic that the soul can only escape from its bondage to material existence if it attains
to true ecstatic understanding (gnosis). It was once fashionable to characterize Hermeticism as "optimistic" in contract
to Gnostic "pessimism," but such differences are currently being stressed less than they had been. The Nag Hammadi
scriptures have brought to light a side of Gnosticism that joins it more closely to Hermeticism than many would have
thought possible.

There are apparent contradictions, not only between Hermetic and Gnostic writings, but within the Hermetic materials
themselves. Such contradictions loom large when one contemplates these systems from the outside, but they can be
much more easily reconciled by one who steps inside the systems and views them from within. One possible key to
such paradoxes is the likelihood that the words in these scriptures were the results of transcendental states of cons-
ciousness experienced by their writers. Such words were never meant to define supernatural matters, but only to
intimate their impact upon experience.

From a contemporary view, the figure of Hermes, both in its Greek and its Egyptian manifestations, stands as an
archetype of transformation through reconciliation of the opposites. (Certainly Jung and other archetypally oriented
psychologists viewed Hermes in this light.) If we are inclined to this view, we should rejoice over the renewed interest
in Hermes and his timeless gnosis. If we conjure up the famed image of the swift god, replete with winged helmet,
sandals, and caduceus, we might still be able to ask him to reconcile the divisions and contradictions of this lower
realm in the embrace of enlightened consciousness. And since, like all gods, he is immortal, he might be able to fulfill
our request as he did for his devotees of old!(end of quote)

Source: http://gnosis.org/hermes.htm

My words:

I've found confirmation of truthful hunches that I felt present within me for years, in these words, written by Dion
Fortune in the book "The esoteric philosophy of love and marriage":

"The true aim of evolution is not to segregate consciousness, but to correlate it and the trance method of transcending
physical consciousness is merely a temporary expedient"

To me, that wisdom in Dion's book is closely related to Jung's words, quoted in blue in my former post here:
"......if you marry the ordered to the chaos you produce the divine child." The task is to hold the opposites together
"the goal is not the heights but the center"- the center or Self which can be said as "God in us."​

_________________

B.B.Baghor

When we stop learning and growing, we begin to die; when we believe we have all the answers
and become wise in our own eyes, we become fools! Have a blessed and beautiful day.

Not all those who wander are lost.
Tolkien​

 

​

 

Geller: The West Has Lost the Will to Live


​

The most basic, primitive honor a nation owes to its dead is to fight to defend itself—to defeat the enemy and win. And yet the West won’t.

The West is hanging on by a thread and doesn’t even know it. We are living off the fumes of the accomplishments of our forefathers and those who fought and died in the cause of freedom and individual rights. But the thread is wearing thin. Time is just about running out.
After the murderous jihad attacks in Paris comes the predictable Western response: not resolute self-defense, but weepy candlelight vigils, protestations of unity, and hashtags. After the jihad attacks in Garland, Texas, Chattanooga, the University of California Merced, and scores of arrests of American Muslims working for ISIS (the FBI has 900 ISIS-related investigations currently ongoing), our top priority should be to crush the enemy.

Instead, we get pathos and pitiful memes. NBC reported: “Paris residents were using the hashtag #PorteOuverte — French for ‘open door’—on Twitter to offer safe haven to strangers stranded after a string of deadly attacks Friday night.” Everyone is congratulating himself over this hashtag. “Twitter users in other countries,” NBC added, “also began using the hashtag to share their delight that social media was being used for a good cause”—colossal stupidity.

“Share their delight?” This delight is misplaced. I would expect nothing less than that Parisians should offer safe haven: just because savages are at war with us doesn’t mean that we should be less human.
This hashtag is just the latest in an endless stream of manifestations of the sophomoric, embarrassing, preening self-indulgence that is endemic in our sick culture. It is reminiscent of “Boston Strong”: Really? How? After the Boston Marathon jihad bombings, the media and Boston elites refused to call the attack jihad. The Boston city government refused repeatedly to run our American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) counter-jihad ads, but run vicious Jew-hatred ads regularly. We are en route to the Supreme Court compelling Boston to run our ads. What’s strong about Boston? What stand did Boston take against jihad?
Equally revolting is the Eiffel Tower peace symbol that is circulating around. Do the leftists think the ISIS jihadis will see this and lay down their arms? If the Christians and Yazidis in Syria make the peace sign, will all be well? If the kidnapped schoolgirls—now sex slaves—make the peace sign, will they be freed? Such idiocy is an affront to every freedom-loving human being.

The endless patting ourselves on the back that citizens of Western countries engage in after a mass slaughter by jihadists is disgusting. People are crowing about hashtags and blood donations as if this is somehow new. Of course we care. We always care. That is our value system, that is a Western value. The United States of America is the most charitable nation on earth. That is who we are—although when Obama speaks about universal values, G-d only knows which ones he is talking about: those of the West or those of Sharia.

What no one is talking about is taking on these savages. That is what is so morally depraved about our response. The idea that we’re not allowed to take the appropriate measures to defeat the Islamic State is obscene. The idea that the United States of America cannot defeat the Islamic State or al-Qaeda is absurd, and the whole world knows it. But we choose not to use our strength. We choose to be victims. It’s shameful.

And clearly, since everybody knows that we are not physically weak, where is the basic dignity that any nation should have, to stand up for its own values? If nothing else, when we find ourselves involved in a war, we should fight it and finish it. You either win or you will be defeated.
Obama has aligned with the jihad force. In Syria, Egypt and Libya, and worst of all, now Iraq. He has blood on his hands. He has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Christians, the blood of our soldiers. By abandoning Iraq, he takes on his hands the death of every soldier who gave life and limb in Iraq to defend this country. Whether you agreed with the Iraq war or not, we did it. We went in and asked the native population to help us. You cannot just withdraw and abandon those people.

Is it proper for us to defend ourselves and to take the appropriate action to defend this country? Of course. One of Obama’s historic crimes is that he allowed our superiority to deteriorate. But that doesn’t mean our enemies have disappeared, or that we cannot or should not defend ourselves against them. Just hours after Obama insisted that he had contained the “Junior Varsity team” ISIS, they laid siege to Paris. And this goes unchallenged.

When Muslims attack, the left attacks us. MSNBC, the Guardian, and Salon all ran pieces blaming the “right-wing” for the Paris attacks. Outrageous, but not surprising. The enemedia is aligned with the jihad force. As the jihad heats up in the West, the media is becoming more clumsy and desperate in its attempts to deflect attention away from the jihad and back to its favorite bogeyman, “right-wing extremists.” Now, even when the evidence of Islamic jihad responsibility is everywhere, as it is with the Paris attacks, “journalists” still find ways to put the blame on the “right-wing” that they hate far more than they do bloodthirsty jihadis, whom they don’t dislike at all.

If you have an ounce of self-esteem, when someone comes at you with a gun, you answer with force. If he is out to destroy you, you owe it to yourself to defend yourself. We need to understand that the left is as dangerous, if not more so, than the suicide bomber, for obscuring this basic fact—because leftists have the legitimacy of the mainstream, the imprimatur of respectability, and they wield this spurious legitimacy like a club to destroy all opposition to their totalitarianism.

We need to go to war against the left. We have to get that into our heads. We have to accept that terrible reality. They want to destroy our freedom. They want to destroy our country. They want to steal our children. That’s war. There is no one on the right who has the correct philosophy about this. The left demands the right to lie, and they are lying to the American people on a massive scale, even to the extent of making people think there is something wrong with loving and defending our nation.
The idea that the Paris attacks happened on the eve of a global conference not on the gravest threat to freedom, not on the global jihad, but on climate change, speaks to how unreal and sick we are as rational beings. Even worse, as if that weren’t bad enough, you have a presidential candidate saying that climate change is responsible for terrorism. And the very serious talking heads in the mainstream media are reporting this with a straight face.

The fact is, global jihadists, whether they’re ISIS or al-Qaeda or Hamas or Hezbollah, are monstrous aggressors. We don’t have to wait for the first sign that they are attacking; they have declared war against us. They must be destroyed. We can’t complain about what we should or shouldn’t be doing, we have to correct it. This idea of containment, as Obama claimed the other day to have “contained” ISIS, is absurd—an intermediate state.

There is no intermediate state. It’s either/or. This is war. We have to fight it.

Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.

Breitbart News Daily:
Pamela Geller on Terror Attacks in Paris and Garland ByPamela Geller on November 17, 2015​

See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/11/bre...-paris-and-garland.html/#sthash.Hqx4fpg5.dpuf
​

Listen to my appearance on the new Breitbart News radio show on Sirius patriot network — you can hear the whole thing: click here.
“Breitbart News Daily: Pamela Geller on Terror Attacks in Paris and Garland,

” By John Hayward, Breitbart News, November 17, 2015:

“We’ve lost our civilizational self-esteem,” warns Pamela Geller during a Tuesday appearance on Breitbart News Daily.

Geller illustrated her point by discussing the Paris terror attack and comparing it to the aborted jihadi attempt to murder her, along with hundreds of other attendees, at her Mohammed Art Exhibit in Garland, Texas.

She succinctly summed up the difference between Paris and Garland as: “We had guns.”
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/11/bre...-paris-and-garland.html/#sthash.Hqx4fpg5.dpuf

Her point about the self-esteem of a civilization can be demonstrated by looking at how President Obama defends his Syrian refugee program by saying that resistance is contrary to vital American principles – “Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values,” as he put it on Monday. On the other hand, Obama and the Left think the core American principle of free speech is negotiable, and as Geller witnessed first-hand, the negotiation is conducted with violent intimidation. Resisting Syrian migration is “unpatriotic”… and so is drawing a cartoon those refugees find distasteful.

• See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/11/bre...-paris-and-garland.html/#sthash.Hqx4fpg5.dpuf

When it was time to take a firm stance for freedom of speech, most of the media was AWOL, with the notable exception of Breitbart News, which she credited as the only media organization willing to write about the Mohammed Art Exhibit before the terrorist attack, and publish the cartoons.

“Thank God for Breitbart,” she said. “I don’t think people understand the role you’r playing historically. Congratulations on your new Jerusalem bureau!”

Geller found the Administration’s promises to screen the Syrian refugees laughable. “

They cannot vet the quote-unquote ‘migrants’ or ‘refugees’ coming over from Syria, because, if you recall early in the Obama Administration, he scrubbed the intel and counter-terrorisms of jihad and Islam,” she explained. “People that speak, like Ibn Wariq and Robert Spencer, to the CIA and law enforcement… they were scrubbed, they were banned for being as CAIR – which became an advisor – said, for being Islamophobic.”

“How could you possibly determine who the jihadists are, if jihad and Islam have been removed from the equation?” she asked. “It’s ludicrous. Vetted? They’ll be vetted? Vetted for what? Pink socks?”

Geller noted that the one thing these refugees do seem to get screened for is Christianity – a topic she wrote about for Breitbart News on Monday.

“Again, let’s point to Obama’s hypocrisy,” she said. “When he talks about how we don’t have a religious measure for refugees, that’s patently untrue. As early as 2011, we had issued a call – my international organization SION, Stop Islamicization of Nations – we’d issued a call to protect Christians, they were slaughtering Christians then… they needed emergency asylum then… where was Obama then? Now he wants to bring the perpetrators of that genocide to America.”

She noted that she has posted hundreds of entries, with carefully obscured personal data, describing herself and others – including military and law-enforcement personnel – who have been targeted with death threats by ISIS.

“And Obama wants to bring in our assassins? And he’s contemptuous of us?” she asked incredulously.

The re-election of President Obama following the Benghazi disaster left Geller worried that too many American voters were unaware of the threat they face from radical Islam, and too willing to “abridge their freedoms” to appease that threat.
Those attitudes may have already been changing before the Paris terror attack.

Geller noted that while presidential candidate Donald Trump was critical of her Mohammed Art Exhibit event, he was also quick to call for investigating suspicious mosques, like the one from which the Garland attackers and several other jihad suspects emanated. The French have announced just such an initiative to shut down radical mosques.

• See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/11/bre...-paris-and-garland.html/#sthash.Hqx4fpg5.dpuf

EXCLUSIVE – ISIS Supporter To Breitbart: ‘We’re Coming For The U.S.’ – ‘We’ll Shake Your Existence’


​

by Aaron Klein and Ali Waked17 Nov 20154,090
TEL AVIV – The Islamic State will not hesitate to attack the U.S. and is waiting for the opportunity to carry out assaults on American soil, a leading Palestinian jihadist told Breitbart Jerusalem.


Abu Al-Ayna al-Ansari, leader of an ISIS-aligned Salafi jihadist group in the Gaza Strip, said he believes ISIS will strike the home fronts of “all countries that participate in the anti-Islamic State coalition” in Syria and Iraq.

“The [Islamic] State will not leave these countries alone without them having to suffer from the blows of the Mujahideen in a way that will let them understand that their war is lost,” the terrorist said. “There is no way that ISIS territory remains under aerial bombardment without a violent retaliation deep in the capitals of those countries.”

Ansari addressed the possibility of attacks inside the U.S., saying, “Certainly the Mujahideen of the Islamic State will not hesitate to attack the head of the infidel states and the head of global terrorism – America – and all those who support the U.S. and back it in its crusade war against the Muslims in Syria and Iraq.”
Ansari further stated that “the Mujahideen of the Islamic state are waiting for every opportunity in order to carry out attacks in all countries of the crusader coalition.”
The gunman continued with a diatribe against “America and the Jewish enemy, as well as Russia and all the infidel Western countries that take part in the crusade against our brothers, the Mujahideen.”

He warned that these countries “must wait for more of our strikes that will shake their existence. Wars are dynamic and the battle will move soon to the depth of their homes, it will happen sooner or later.”

Al Ansari added that “the little drop of the Russian plane was the beginning and the blessed invasion of Paris will not be the end. … Our Mujahideen are scattered everywhere and will not hesitate to offer their lives for the sake of Allah.”
He was asked how ISIS can justify the indiscriminate killing of civilians in Paris, some of whom may have been Muslims.
Ansari sidestepped the question, asking, “Does France and America and their followers of the Cross alliance differentiate between civilians and armed Mujahideen when they bombard innocent civilians in Raqqa, in Aleppo and in Mosul?”
When Breitbart Jerusalem persisted, Ansari claimed that “dozens of civilians” are killed in “the daily raids of the crusader coalition and then you lie to the world by saying the raids target the headquarters and sites of the Islamic State.”
“The civilian victims and the areas targeted prove that it has nothing to do with the ISIS infrastructure,” he claimed.
Ansari went on to bash reports that Middle Eastern refugees may have participated in the Paris massacres. The passport of a Syrian refugee was found on or near the body of one of the suicide bombers, and Greece subsequently confirmed that it was used by a refugee registered on the island of Leros in early October. The same passport was used to cross the southern border of Serbia a few days later.

Nonetheless, Ansari said that “Such claims have nothing to do with reality and are not true. No refugee is among the brothers who carried out these blessed attack. … No refugee who wanted to come and live in France was chosen for this attack.
“Some political forces are trying to exploit the incident in a campaign against the refugees. Even before the Paris attack, those political forces were against the migrants for numerous reasons that are connected to the nature of their countries and to their general position on the migration phenomenon.”
Ansari failed to mention that ISIS documents released in February announced that the group was planning to use Libya as a “gateway” to smuggle refugees into Europe.
The ISIS material further raised the possibility of storming southern European cities to cause “pandemonium” or attempting to close international shipping lines in the Mediterranean Sea.
The documents were released by ISIS supporters and propagandists, and obtained by the Quilliam Foundation, a Britain-based think tank that focuses on counter-extremism.


[17-Nov-15 2:35:46 PM] Sirius 17: yes i saw the videos you shared, all but the last one

[17-Nov-15 2:35:46 PM] ShilohaPlace: Religious war suppressed by 'progressive' politics with western appeasements of facts
[17-Nov-15 2:36:39 PM] Sirius 17: buenas lovers (heart)
[17-Nov-15 2:36:50 PM] Kali 666: rest easy peasy (F)
[17-Nov-15 2:37:05 PM] Sirius 17: thank you, same to you dear
[17-Nov-15 2:38:06 PM] Kali 666: Tony, there is this guy that says that the end of the world began with the tunguska event back in 1908 and the Armagaedon will begin in September 2018
[17-Nov-15 2:39:08 PM] ShilohaPlace: Nabs, the Tunguska meteor event has to do with WW1 and the 20th century yes
So if you call WW1 and WW2 armageddon then ok, but it is not the Logos timeline. can go like paranoid oxy and add 120 years to 1908 to get the 'end of the world' - 2028
Or choose any date of a disaster and do the same see? Adding 70 years to political Israel is different

[17-Nov-15 2:41:58 PM] Kali 666: i often try to imagine what is really happening in the middle east right now

[17-Nov-15 2:42:15 PM] ShilohaPlace: 1947/1948 + 70 MUST mean something as it relates to Israel's history 6009BC and the Megiddo/Harmageddon battle between Egypt's pharaoh Necho and Josiah, King of Israel

[17-Nov-15 2:42:27 PM] Kali 666: if i was able to see it with my third eye, and really see everything that the news will never tell you

[17-Nov-15 2:42:35 PM] ShilohaPlace: This was the Babylonian captivity until 538BC - atrocity and suffering and 'future deprived' children
http://www.cosmosdawn.net/forum/ind...he-oabs-old-age-bullshit.701/page-5#post-7406
I put the video collection there

[17-Nov-15 2:45:16 PM] Kali 666: rabbis exorting ppl to come back to Israel and not to travel becaus ethe mesiah's coming is imminent, same with the Muslims and their mahdi

[17-Nov-15 2:45:59 PM] ShilohaPlace: So you see my statement that this IS a religious war for dogma ideology etc and NOT some terrorist agenda; recall Kidari and the blood moons?

[17-Nov-15 2:46:25 PM] Kali 666: yes

[17-Nov-15 2:46:39 PM] ShilohaPlace: I can say it VERY simply

[17-Nov-15 2:46:47 PM] Kali 666: last one was back in September

[17-Nov-15 2:46:54 PM] ShilohaPlace: To stop Isis etc get rid of Allah period. The prophets false fall with their fake gods

[17-Nov-15 2:47:39 PM] Kali 666: why couldn't they make up another word for it...i don't like it that they call it Isis, like the goddess

[17-Nov-15 2:47:55 PM] ShilohaPlace: As Allah is Jehovah of the OT too, the old canons can go

[17-Nov-15 2:48:09 PM] ShilohaPlace: Isil

[17-Nov-15 2:48:10 PM] Kali 666: yes the demiurge

[17-Nov-15 2:48:14 PM] ShilohaPlace: Yes, but it is deeper, as this demiurge is also the I Am of the nabsers. So no wonder they all get confused as to what is what.
The only way out is the Logos of the NT

[17-Nov-15 2:49:06 PM] Kali 666: is fagocitated a word in English?

[17-Nov-15 2:49:22 PM] ShilohaPlace: facilitated is

[17-Nov-15 2:49:33 PM] Kali 666: yes i know

[17-Nov-15 2:49:38 PM] ShilohaPlace: I think Asha made it up shehe makes many words up to suit her purposes

[17-Nov-15 2:49:38 PM] Kali 666: anyway, lol

[17-Nov-15 2:49:52 PM] ShilohaPlace: fagot icitated

[17-Nov-15 2:49:54 PM] Kali 666: no..that one comes from me

[17-Nov-15 2:49:58 PM] Kali 666: hahha, no, it has to do with cell consumption

[17-Nov-15 2:50:09 PM] ShilohaPlace: fago in espaniol? It sounds hispanic

[17-Nov-15 2:50:39 PM] Kali 666: like the destruction of something as it being completely eaten up by the host. I guess it has no english translation. Yes it is fagocitar or fagocitado

[17-Nov-15 2:51:22 PM] ShilohaPlace: Eaten up by the host does not make sense. You can have an invader eating the host like cancer.

[17-Nov-15 2:51:37 PM] Kali 666: sorry, by the environment

[17-Nov-15 2:51:46 PM] ShilohaPlace: I see

[17-Nov-15 2:52:34 PM] Kali 666: fagocitosis is the scientific term

[17-Nov-15 2:52:44 PM] ShilohaPlace: Italian

[17-Nov-15 2:52:55 PM] Kali 666: same in Spanish

[17-Nov-15 2:53:20 PM] ShilohaPlace: https://en.glosbe.com/it/en/fagocitate --- swallowed up, yes environmental absorption is fine

[17-Nov-15 2:54:46 PM] Kali 666: when certain cells of the organism "fagocitate" noxious substances to itself; like surround and destroy lol

[17-Nov-15 2:54:55 PM] ShilohaPlace: This is what New Gaia will do. Yes Thuban fagocitates Allah and Jehovah
Why asha hates it so much calling it Lordness

[17-Nov-15 2:55:54 PM] Kali 666: well yes exactly, we use that world in Spanish to talk about people becoming "fagocitated" by the archetypes, the memeplexes, their Lord demiurge, whatever it may be that HAS them

[17-Nov-15 2:56:26 PM] ShilohaPlace: Yes now the memeplex is simply the environment for the memes so the memeplex hosts the memes

[17-Nov-15 2:56:28 PM] Kali 666: so they get "eaten up" by it/them

[17-Nov-15 2:56:46 PM] ShilohaPlace: Yes the new memes eat the old memes very simple. New and better thoughtforms see?
My god is bigger than yours in simpleton lingo

[17-Nov-15 2:57:23 PM] Kali 666: yes it is like if you do not eat the lion, the lion will eat you

[17-Nov-15 2:57:33 PM] ShilohaPlace: Now all old gods can be eaten by the Logos. Exactly well seen dear. This IS the 'secret' and correct interpretation

[17-Nov-15 2:57:56 PM] Kali 666: it is in the gospel of Thomas

[17-Nov-15 2:58:01 PM] ShilohaPlace: lol

[17-Nov-15 2:58:07 PM] Kali 666: haha, it is, don't know what number but it's there

[17-Nov-15 2:58:34 PM] ShilohaPlace: Every second post from us has some GOT in it. It is Thuban's backbone

[17-Nov-15 2:58:51 PM] Kali 666: yes it's beautiful

[17-Nov-15 2:58:51 PM] ShilohaPlace: 8

[17-Nov-15 2:58:56 PM] Kali 666: ahh 8 ok

[17-Nov-15 2:59:03 PM] ShilohaPlace: 7, 8 is related

(7) Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man."
(8) And he said, "The man is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them the wise fisherman found a fine large fish. He threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the large fish without difficulty. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear."

Because the large fish is Jonah's whale which is the Lion is the universal body. So eating the Lion means you are eating the universe and so 'rule over it' as part of your own body

These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.
(1) And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."
(2) Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."
(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

Of course you will be troubled perceiving yourself as your own environment see?
This is the bilocation though, I mentioned before.

[17-Nov-15 3:02:42 PM] Kali 666: i've had this feeling

[17-Nov-15 3:02:45 PM]ShilohaPlace: Then the terrorist slaughters all happen within you and you can feel the suffering etc. Many have this empathy naturally


[17-Nov-15 3:40:00 PM] Kali 666: http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=E24A5A2D3EB8D78ACF700681243362B3
This is supposed to be a video that has been deleted most everywhere and all this youtube deletions too as you know, you said, which I didn't know no
[17-Nov-15 3:50:06 PM] Kali 666: I will go to sleep now, goodnight

[17-Nov-15 3:50:18 PM] ShilohaPlace: nn sweety

[10:16:34 AM - 18November 2015 +10UCT] ShilohaPlace:
[10:41:12 AM] ShilohaPlace:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4shqQJDdCA

[10:44:33 AM] ShilohaPlace:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbmeQtGMkUU&list=PL1973C69FF153BE8E

[10:49:56 AM] ShilohaPlace: the failure of progressive feminisms
[11:08:31 AM] ShilohaPlace:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9gFNwC8Qp4&list=PL1973C69FF153BE8E

[11:15:14 AM] ShilohaPlace:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3KOZCM91c&index=115&list=PL1973C69FF153BE8E

[11:15:22 AM] ShilohaPlace: Dhimmis you are
[11:46:47 AM] ShilohaPlace: Geller: The West Has Lost the Will to Live
[11:47:00 AM] ShilohaPlace: http://www.cosmosdawn.net/forum/ind...he-oabs-old-age-bullshit.701/page-5#post-7407

 

"We must face the truth. We must say the truth.""There are moderate muslims, there is no moderate islam!"
"I do not hate people. I am not against people. I critisize the ideology not the people!"
Geert Wilders {5:45 - 6 - 8:20 minute marker}
​

Published on Oct 1, 2015

Question:

Does the Quran really contain dozens of verses promoting violence?


Summary Answer:

The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text. They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subject to interpretation as anything else in the Quran.

The context of violent passages is more ambiguous than might be expected of a perfect book from a loving God; however this works both ways. Most of today's Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book's call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence. Apologists cater to their preferences with tenuous arguments that gloss over historical fact and generally do not stand up to scrutiny. Still, it is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology.

Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed. Muhammad's own martial legacy - and that of his companions - along with the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran have produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm

 

The Facts of World War III as a Conflict of Ideologies to begin a New Planetary History​

What ISIS Really Wants
​

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

• Graeme Wood
• March 2015 Issue

What is the Islamic State?

Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

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What to Do About ISIS?

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The group seized Mosul, Iraq, last June, and already rules an area larger than the United Kingdom. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been its leader since May 2010, but until last summer, his most recent known appearance on film was a grainy mug shot from a stay in U.S. captivity at Camp Bucca during the occupation of Iraq. Then, on July 5 of last year, he stepped into the pulpit of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, to deliver a Ramadan sermon as the first caliph in generations—upgrading his resolution from grainy to high-definition, and his position from hunted guerrilla to commander of all Muslims. The inflow of jihadists that followed, from around the world, was unprecedented in its pace and volume, and is continuing.
Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State’s countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate’s supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world.

The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.
We have misunderstood the nature of the Islamic State in at least two ways. First, we tend to see jihadism as monolithic, and to apply the logic of al‑Qaeda to an organization that has decisively eclipsed it. The Islamic State supporters I spoke with still refer to Osama bin Laden as “Sheikh Osama,” a title of honor. But jihadism has evolved since al-Qaeda’s heyday, from about 1998 to 2003, and many jihadists disdain the group’s priorities and current leadership.
Bin Laden viewed his terrorism as a prologue to a caliphate he did not expect to see in his lifetime. His organization was flexible, operating as a geographically diffuse network of autonomous cells. The Islamic State, by contrast, requires territory to remain legitimate, and a top-down structure to rule it. (Its bureaucracy is divided into civil and military arms, and its territory into provinces.)

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The Roots of the Islamic State’s Appeal

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We are misled in a second way, by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature. Peter Bergen, who produced the first interview with bin Laden in 1997, titled his first book Holy War, Inc. in part to acknowledge bin Laden as a creature of the modern secular world. Bin Laden corporatized terror and franchised it out. He requested specific political concessions, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia. His foot soldiers navigated the modern world confidently. On Mohamed Atta’s last full day of life, he shopped at Walmart and ate dinner at Pizza Hut.

An interview with Graeme Wood: The author describes how he tracked down the world’s most influential recruiters for the Islamic State—and how they reacted after reading this story.
There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.


The most-articulate spokesmen for that position are the Islamic State’s officials and supporters themselves. They refer derisively to “moderns.” In conversation, they insist that they will not—cannot—waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers. They often speak in codes and allusions that sound odd or old-fashioned to non-Muslims, but refer to specific traditions and texts of early Islam.
To take one example: In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison him, run him over with a car, or “destroy his crops.” To Western ears, the biblical-sounding punishments—the stoning and crop destruction—juxtaposed strangely with his more modern-sounding call to vehicular homicide. (As if to show that he could terrorize by imagery alone, Adnani also referred to Secretary of State John Kerry as an “uncircumcised geezer.”)
But Adnani was not merely talking trash. His speech was laced with theological and legal discussion, and his exhortation to attack crops directly echoed orders from Muhammad to leave well water and crops alone—unless the armies of Islam were in a defensive position, in which case Muslims in the lands of kuffar, or infidels, should be unmerciful, and poison away.


The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

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Could ISIS Exist Without Islam?

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Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.

Control of territory is an essential precondition for the Islamic State’s authority in the eyes of its supporters. This map, adapted from the work of the Institute for the Study of War, shows the territory under the caliphate’s control as of January 15, along with areas it has attacked. Where it holds power, the state collects taxes, regulates prices, operates courts, and administers services ranging from health care and education to telecommunications.


I. Devotion

In November, the Islamic State released an infomercial-like video tracing its origins to bin Laden. It acknowledged Abu Musa’b al Zarqawi, the brutal head of al‑Qaeda in Iraq from roughly 2003 until his killing in 2006, as a more immediate progenitor, followed sequentially by two other guerrilla leaders before Baghdadi, the caliph. Notably unmentioned: bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al Zawahiri, the owlish Egyptian eye surgeon who currently heads al‑Qaeda. Zawahiri has not pledged allegiance to Baghdadi, and he is increasingly hated by his fellow jihadists. His isolation is not helped by his lack of charisma; in videos he comes across as squinty and annoyed. But the split between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State has been long in the making, and begins to explain, at least in part, the outsize bloodlust of the latter.


Zawahiri’s companion in isolation is a Jordanian cleric named Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi, 55, who has a fair claim to being al-Qaeda’s intellectual architect and the most important jihadist unknown to the average American newspaper reader. On most matters of doctrine, Maqdisi and the Islamic State agree. Both are closely identified with the jihadist wing of a branch of Sunnism called Salafism, after the Arabic al salaf al salih, the “pious forefathers.” These forefathers are the Prophet himself and his earliest adherents, whom Salafis honor and emulate as the models for all behavior, including warfare, couture, family life, even dentistry.

The Islamic State awaits the army of “Rome,” whose defeat at Dabiq, Syria, will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse.

Maqdisi taught Zarqawi, who went to war in Iraq with the older man’s advice in mind. In time, though, Zarqawi surpassed his mentor in fanaticism, and eventually earned his rebuke. At issue was Zarqawi’s penchant for bloody spectacle—and, as a matter of doctrine, his hatred of other Muslims, to the point of excommunicating and killing them. In Islam, the practice of takfir, or excommunication, is theologically perilous. “If a man says to his brother, ‘You are an infidel,’ ” the Prophet said, “then one of them is right.” If the accuser is wrong, he himself has committed apostasy by making a false accusation. The punishment for apostasy is death. And yet Zarqawi heedlessly expanded the range of behavior that could make Muslims infidels.

Maqdisi wrote to his former pupil that he needed to exercise caution and “not issue sweeping proclamations of takfir” or “proclaim people to be apostates because of their sins.” The distinction between apostate and sinner may appear subtle, but it is a key point of contention between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

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What Motivates Terrorists?

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Denying the holiness of the Koran or the prophecies of Muhammad is straightforward apostasy. But Zarqawi and the state he spawned take the position that many other acts can remove a Muslim from Islam. These include, in certain cases, selling alcohol or drugs, wearing Western clothes or shaving one’s beard, voting in an election—even for a Muslim candidate—and being lax about calling other people apostates. Being a Shiite, as most Iraqi Arabs are, meets the standard as well, because the Islamic State regards Shiism as innovation, and to innovate on the Koran is to deny its initial perfection. (The Islamic State claims that common Shiite practices, such as worship at the graves of imams and public self-flagellation, have no basis in the Koran or in the example of the Prophet.) That means roughly 200 million Shia are marked for death. So too are the heads of state of every Muslim country, who have elevated man-made law above Sharia by running for office or enforcing laws not made by God.

Following takfiri doctrine, the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people. The lack of objective reporting from its territory makes the true extent of the slaughter unknowable, but social-media posts from the region suggest that individual executions happen more or less continually, and mass executions every few weeks. Muslim “apostates” are the most common victims. Exempted from automatic execution, it appears, are Christians who do not resist their new government. Baghdadi permits them to live, as long as they pay a special tax, known as the jizya, and acknowledge their subjugation. The Koranic authority for this practice is not in dispute.


Musa Cerantonio, an Australian preacher reported to be one of the Islamic State’s most influential recruiters, believes it is foretold that the caliphate will sack Istanbul before it is beaten back by an army led by the anti-Messiah, whose eventual death— when just a few thousand jihadists remain—will usher in the apocalypse. (Paul Jeffers / Fairfax Media)
Centuries have passed since the wars of religion ceased in Europe, and since men stopped dying in large numbers because of arcane theological disputes. Hence, perhaps, the incredulity and denial with which Westerners have greeted news of the theology and practices of the Islamic State. Many refuse to believe that this group is as devout as it claims to be, or as backward-looking or apocalyptic as its actions and statements suggest.

Their skepticism is comprehensible. In the past, Westerners who accused Muslims of blindly following ancient scriptures came to deserved grief from academics—notably the late Edward Said—who pointed out that calling Muslims “ancient” was usually just another way to denigrate them. Look instead, these scholars urged, to the conditions in which these ideologies arose—the bad governance, the shifting social mores, the humiliation of living in lands valued only for their oil.
Without acknowledgment of these factors, no explanation of the rise of the Islamic State could be complete. But focusing on them to the exclusion of ideology reflects another kind of Western bias: that if religious ideology doesn’t matter much in Washington or Berlin, surely it must be equally irrelevant in Raqqa or Mosul. When a masked executioner says Allahu akbar while beheading an apostate, sometimes he’s doing so for religious reasons.

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The Phony Islam of ISIS

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Many mainstream Muslim organizations have gone so far as to say the Islamic State is, in fact, un-Islamic. It is, of course, reassuring to know that the vast majority of Muslims have zero interest in replacing Hollywood movies with public executions as evening entertainment. But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion” that neglects “what their religion has historically and legally required.” Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, he said, are rooted in an “interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.”

Every academic I asked about the Islamic State’s ideology sent me to Haykel. Of partial Lebanese descent, Haykel grew up in Lebanon and the United States, and when he talks through his Mephistophelian goatee, there is a hint of an unplaceable foreign accent.
According to Haykel, the ranks of the Islamic State are deeply infused with religious vigor. Koranic quotations are ubiquitous. “Even the foot soldiers spout this stuff constantly,” Haykel said. “They mug for their cameras and repeat their basic doctrines in formulaic fashion, and they do it all the time.” He regards the claim that the Islamic State has distorted the texts of Islam as preposterous, sustainable only through willful ignorance. “People want to absolve Islam,” he said. “It’s this ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ mantra. As if there is such a thing as ‘Islam’! It’s what Muslims do, and how they interpret their texts.” Those texts are shared by all Sunni Muslims, not just the Islamic State. “And these guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.”

All Muslims acknowledge that Muhammad’s earliest conquests were not tidy affairs, and that the laws of war passed down in the Koran and in the narrations of the Prophet’s rule were calibrated to fit a turbulent and violent time. In Haykel’s estimation, the fighters of the Islamic State are authentic throwbacks to early Islam and are faithfully reproducing its norms of war. This behavior includes a number of practices that modern Muslims tend to prefer not to acknowledge as integral to their sacred texts. “Slavery, crucifixion, and beheadings are not something that freakish [jihadists] are cherry-picking from the medieval tradition,” Haykel said. Islamic State fighters “are smack in the middle of the medieval tradition and are bringing it wholesale into the present day.”

Our failure to appreciate the essential differences between ISIS and al-Qaeda has led to dangerous decisions.
The Koran specifies crucifixion as one of the only punishments permitted for enemies of Islam. The tax on Christians finds clear endorsement in the Surah Al-Tawba, the Koran’s ninth chapter, which instructs Muslims to fight Christians and Jews “until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” The Prophet, whom all Muslims consider exemplary, imposed these rules and owned slaves.

Leaders of the Islamic State have taken emulation of Muhammad as strict duty, and have revived traditions that have been dormant for hundreds of years. “What’s striking about them is not just the literalism, but also the seriousness with which they read these texts,” Haykel said. “There is an assiduous, obsessive seriousness that Muslims don’t normally have.”
Before the rise of the Islamic State, no group in the past few centuries had attempted more-radical fidelity to the Prophetic model than the Wahhabis of 18th‑century Arabia. They conquered most of what is now Saudi Arabia, and their strict practices survive in a diluted version of Sharia there. Haykel sees an important distinction between the groups, though: “The Wahhabis were not wanton in their violence.” They were surrounded by Muslims, and they conquered lands that were already Islamic; this stayed their hand. “ISIS, by contrast, is really reliving the early period.” Early Muslims were surrounded by non-Muslims, and the Islamic State, because of its takfiri tendencies, considers itself to be in the same situation.

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The Zoolander Theory of Terrorism

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If al-Qaeda wanted to revive slavery, it never said so. And why would it? Silence on slavery probably reflected strategic thinking, with public sympathies in mind: when the Islamic State began enslaving people, even some of its supporters balked. Nonetheless, the caliphate has continued to embrace slavery and crucifixion without apology. “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women,” Adnani, the spokesman, promised in one of his periodic valentines to the West. “If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”

In October, Dabiq, the magazine of the Islamic State, published “The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour,” an article that took up the question of whether Yazidis (the members of an ancient Kurdish sect that borrows elements of Islam, and had come under attack from Islamic State forces in northern Iraq) are lapsed Muslims, and therefore marked for death, or merely pagans and therefore fair game for enslavement. A study group of Islamic State scholars had convened, on government orders, to resolve this issue. If they are pagans, the article’s anonymous author wrote,
Yazidi women and children [are to be] divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations [in northern Iraq] … Enslaving the families of the kuffar [infidels] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Koran and the narrations of the Prophet … and thereby apostatizing from Islam.




II. Territory

Tens of thousands of foreign Muslims are thought to have immigrated to the Islamic State. Recruits hail from France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Australia, Indonesia, the United States, and many other places. Many have come to fight, and many intend to die.
Peter R. Neumann, a professor at King’s College London, told me that online voices have been essential to spreading propaganda and ensuring that newcomers know what to believe. Online recruitment has also widened the demographics of the jihadist community, by allowing conservative Muslim women—physically isolated in their homes—to reach out to recruiters, radicalize, and arrange passage to Syria. Through its appeals to both genders, the Islamic State hopes to build a complete society.


In November, I traveled to Australia to meet Musa Cerantonio, a 30-year-old man whom Neumann and other researchers had identified as one of the two most important “new spiritual authorities” guiding foreigners to join the Islamic State. For three years he was a televangelist on Iqraa TV in Cairo, but he left after the station objected to his frequent calls to establish a caliphate. Now he preaches on Facebook and Twitter.

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Pilgrims to the Islamic State

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Cerantonio—a big, friendly man with a bookish demeanor—told me he blanches at beheading videos. He hates seeing the violence, even though supporters of the Islamic State are required to endorse it. (He speaks out, controversially among jihadists, against suicide bombing, on the grounds that God forbids suicide; he differs from the Islamic State on a few other points as well.) He has the kind of unkempt facial hair one sees on certain overgrown fans of The Lord of the Rings, and his obsession with Islamic apocalypticism felt familiar. He seemed to be living out a drama that looks, from an outsider’s perspective, like a medieval fantasy novel, only with real blood.
Last June, Cerantonio and his wife tried to emigrate—he wouldn’t say to where (“It’s illegal to go to Syria,” he said cagily)—but they were caught en route, in the Philippines, and he was deported back to Australia for overstaying his visa. Australia has criminalized attempts to join or travel to the Islamic State, and has confiscated Cerantonio’s passport. He is stuck in Melbourne, where he is well known to the local constabulary. If Cerantonio were caught facilitating the movement of individuals to the Islamic State, he would be imprisoned. So far, though, he is free—a technically unaffiliated ideologue who nonetheless speaks with what other jihadists have taken to be a reliable voice on matters of the Islamic State’s doctrine.

We met for lunch in Footscray, a dense, multicultural Melbourne suburb that’s home to Lonely Planet, the travel-guide publisher. Cerantonio grew up there in a half-Irish, half-Calabrian family. On a typical street one can find African restaurants, Vietnamese shops, and young Arabs walking around in the Salafi uniform of scraggly beard, long shirt, and trousers ending halfway down the calves.
Cerantonio explained the joy he felt when Baghdadi was declared the caliph on June 29—and the sudden, magnetic attraction that Mesopotamia began to exert on him and his friends. “I was in a hotel [in the Philippines], and I saw the declaration on television,” he told me. “And I was just amazed, and I’m like, Why am I stuck here in this bloody room?”

The last caliphate was the Ottoman empire, which reached its peak in the 16th century and then experienced a long decline, until the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, euthanized it in 1924. But Cerantonio, like many supporters of the Islamic State, doesn’t acknowledge that caliphate as legitimate, because it didn’t fully enforce Islamic law, which requires stonings and slavery and amputations, and because its caliphs were not descended from the tribe of the Prophet, the Quraysh.
Baghdadi spoke at length of the importance of the caliphate in his Mosul sermon. He said that to revive the institution of the caliphate—which had not functioned except in name for about 1,000 years—was a communal obligation. He and his loyalists had “hastened to declare the caliphate and place an imam” at its head, he said. “This is a duty upon the Muslims—a duty that has been lost for centuries … The Muslims sin by losing it, and they must always seek to establish it.” Like bin Laden before him, Baghdadi spoke floridly, with frequent scriptural allusion and command of classical rhetoric. Unlike bin Laden, and unlike those false caliphs of the Ottoman empire, he is Qurayshi.

The caliphate, Cerantonio told me, is not just a political entity but also a vehicle for salvation. Islamic State propaganda regularly reports the pledges of baya’a (allegiance) rolling in from jihadist groups across the Muslim world. Cerantonio quoted a Prophetic saying, that to die without pledging allegiance is to die jahil (ignorant) and therefore die a “death of disbelief.” Consider how Muslims (or, for that matter, Christians) imagine God deals with the souls of people who die without learning about the one true religion. They are neither obviously saved nor definitively condemned. Similarly, Cerantonio said, the Muslim who acknowledges one omnipotent god and prays, but who dies without pledging himself to a valid caliph and incurring the obligations of that oath, has failed to live a fully Islamic life. I pointed out that this means the vast majority of Muslims in history, and all who passed away between 1924 and 2014, died a death of disbelief. Cerantonio nodded gravely. “I would go so far as to say that Islam has been reestablished” by the caliphate.

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ISIS and the Foreign-Fighter Phenomenon

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I asked him about his own baya’a, and he quickly corrected me: “I didn’t say that I’d pledged allegiance.” Under Australian law, he reminded me, giving baya’a to the Islamic State was illegal. “But I agree that [Baghdadi] fulfills the requirements,” he continued. “I’m just going to wink at you, and you take that to mean whatever you want.”


To be the caliph, one must meet conditions outlined in Sunni law—being a Muslim adult man of Quraysh descent; exhibiting moral probity and physical and mental integrity; and having ’amr, or authority. This last criterion, Cerantonio said, is the hardest to fulfill, and requires that the caliph have territory in which he can enforce Islamic law. Baghdadi’s Islamic State achieved that long before June 29, Cerantonio said, and as soon as it did, a Western convert within the group’s ranks—Cerantonio described him as “something of a leader”—began murmuring about the religious obligation to declare a caliphate. He and others spoke quietly to those in power and told them that further delay would be sinful.

Social-media posts from the Islamic State suggest that executions happen more or less continually.
Cerantonio said a faction arose that was prepared to make war on Baghdadi’s group if it delayed any further. They prepared a letter to various powerful members of ISIS, airing their displeasure at the failure to appoint a caliph, but were pacified by Adnani, the spokesman, who let them in on a secret—that a caliphate had already been declared, long before the public announcement. They had their legitimate caliph, and at that point there was only one option. “If he’s legitimate,” Cerantonio said, “you must give him the baya’a.”

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How ISIS Territory Has Changed Since the U.S. Bombing Campaign Began

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After Baghdadi’s July sermon, a stream of jihadists began flowing daily into Syria with renewed motivation. Jürgen Todenhöfer, a German author and former politician who visited the Islamic State in December, reported the arrival of 100 fighters at one Turkish-border recruitment station in just two days. His report, among others, suggests a still-steady inflow of foreigners, ready to give up everything at home for a shot at paradise in the worst place on Earth.

Bernard Haykel, the foremost secular authority on the Islamic State’s ideology, believes the group is trying to re-create the earliest days of Islam and is faithfully reproducing its norms of war. “There is an assiduous, obsessive seriousness” about the group’s dedication to the text of the Koran, he says. (Peter Murphy)
In London, a week before my meal with Cerantonio, I met with three ex-members of a banned Islamist group called Al Muhajiroun (The Emigrants): Anjem Choudary, Abu Baraa, and Abdul Muhid. They all expressed desire to emigrate to the Islamic State, as many of their colleagues already had, but the authorities had confiscated their passports. Like Cerantonio, they regarded the caliphate as the only righteous government on Earth, though none would confess having pledged allegiance. Their principal goal in meeting me was to explain what the Islamic State stands for, and how its policies reflect God’s law.

Choudary, 48, is the group’s former leader. He frequently appears on cable news, as one of the few people producers can book who will defend the Islamic State vociferously, until his mike is cut. He has a reputation in the United Kingdom as a loathsome blowhard, but he and his disciples sincerely believe in the Islamic State and, on matters of doctrine, speak in its voice. Choudary and the others feature prominently in the Twitter feeds of Islamic State residents, and Abu Baraa maintains a YouTube channel to answer questions about Sharia.

Since September, authorities have been investigating the three men on suspicion of supporting terrorism. Because of this investigation, they had to meet me separately: communication among them would have violated the terms of their bail. But speaking with them felt like speaking with the same person wearing different masks. Choudary met me in a candy shop in the East London suburb of Ilford. He was dressed smartly, in a crisp blue tunic reaching nearly to his ankles, and sipped a Red Bull while we talked.
Before the caliphate, “maybe 85 percent of the Sharia was absent from our lives,” Choudary told me. “These laws are in abeyance until we have khilafa”—a caliphate—“and now we have one.” Without a caliphate, for example, individual vigilantes are not obliged to amputate the hands of thieves they catch in the act. But create a caliphate, and this law, along with a huge body of other jurisprudence, suddenly awakens. In theory, all Muslims are obliged to immigrate to the territory where the caliph is applying these laws. One of Choudary’s prize students, a convert from Hinduism named Abu Rumaysah, evaded police to bring his family of five from London to Syria in November. On the day I met Choudary, Abu Rumaysah tweeted out a picture of himself with a Kalashnikov in one arm and his newborn son in the other. Hashtag: #GenerationKhilafah.

The caliph is required to implement Sharia. Any deviation will compel those who have pledged allegiance to inform the caliph in private of his error and, in extreme cases, to excommunicate and replace him if he persists. (“I have been plagued with this great matter, plagued with this responsibility, and it is a heavy responsibility,” Baghdadi said in his sermon.) In return, the caliph commands obedience—and those who persist in supporting non-Muslim governments, after being duly warned and educated about their sin, are considered apostates.

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Choudary said Sharia has been misunderstood because of its incomplete application by regimes such as Saudi Arabia, which does behead murderers and cut off thieves’ hands. “The problem,” he explained, “is that when places like Saudi Arabia just implement the penal code, and don’t provide the social and economic justice of the Sharia—the whole package—they simply engender hatred toward the Sharia.” That whole package, he said, would include free housing, food, and clothing for all, though of course anyone who wished to enrich himself with work could do so.
Abdul Muhid, 32, continued along these lines. He was dressed in mujahideen chic when I met him at a local restaurant: scruffy beard, Afghan cap, and a wallet outside of his clothes, attached with what looked like a shoulder holster. When we sat down, he was eager to discuss welfare. The Islamic State may have medieval-style punishments for moral crimes (lashes for boozing or fornication, stoning for adultery), but its social-welfare program is, at least in some aspects, progressive to a degree that would please an MSNBC pundit. Health care, he said, is free. (“Isn’t it free in Britain, too?,” I asked. “Not really,” he said. “Some procedures aren’t covered, such as vision.”) This provision of social welfare was not, he said, a policy choice of the Islamic State, but a policy obligation inherent in God’s law.

Anjem Choudary, London’s most notorious defender of the Islamic State, says crucifixion and beheading are sacred requirements. (Tal Cohen / Reuters)




III. The Apocalypse

All Muslims acknowledge that God is the only one who knows the future. But they also agree that he has offered us a peek at it, in the Koran and in narrations of the Prophet. The Islamic State differs from nearly every other current jihadist movement in believing that it is written into God’s script as a central character. It is in this casting that the Islamic State is most boldly distinctive from its predecessors, and clearest in the religious nature of its mission.


In broad strokes, al-Qaeda acts like an underground political movement, with worldly goals in sight at all times—the expulsion of non-Muslims from the Arabian peninsula, the abolishment of the state of Israel, the end of support for dictatorships in Muslim lands. The Islamic State has its share of worldly concerns (including, in the places it controls, collecting garbage and keeping the water running), but the End of Days is a leitmotif of its propaganda. Bin Laden rarely mentioned the apocalypse, and when he did, he seemed to presume that he would be long dead when the glorious moment of divine comeuppance finally arrived. “Bin Laden and Zawahiri are from elite Sunni families who look down on this kind of speculation and think it’s something the masses engage in,” says Will McCants of the Brookings Institution, who is writing a book about the Islamic State’s apocalyptic thought.

During the last years of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the Islamic State’s immediate founding fathers, by contrast, saw signs of the end times everywhere. They were anticipating, within a year, the arrival of the Mahdi—a messianic figure destined to lead the Muslims to victory before the end of the world. McCants says a prominent Islamist in Iraq approached bin Laden in 2008 to warn him that the group was being led by millenarians who were “talking all the time about the Mahdi and making strategic decisions” based on when they thought the Mahdi was going to arrive. “Al-Qaeda had to write to [these leaders] to say ‘Cut it out.’ ”

For certain true believers—the kind who long for epic good-versus-evil battles—visions of apocalyptic bloodbaths fulfill a deep psychological need. Of the Islamic State supporters I met, Musa Cerantonio, the Australian, expressed the deepest interest in the apocalypse and how the remaining days of the Islamic State—and the world—might look. Parts of that prediction are original to him, and do not yet have the status of doctrine. But other parts are based on mainstream Sunni sources and appear all over the Islamic State’s propaganda. These include the belief that there will be only 12 legitimate caliphs, and Baghdadi is the eighth; that the armies of Rome will mass to meet the armies of Islam in northern Syria; and that Islam’s final showdown with an anti-Messiah will occur in Jerusalem after a period of renewed Islamic conquest.
The Islamic State has attached great importance to the Syrian city of Dabiq, near Aleppo. It named its propaganda magazine after the town, and celebrated madly when (at great cost) it conquered Dabiq’s strategically unimportant plains. It is here, the Prophet reportedly said, that the armies of Rome will set up their camp. The armies of Islam will meet them, and Dabiq will be Rome’s Waterloo or its Antietam.

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“Dabiq is basically all farmland,” one Islamic State supporter recently tweeted. “You could imagine large battles taking place there.” The Islamic State’s propagandists drool with anticipation of this event, and constantly imply that it will come soon. The state’s magazine quotes Zarqawi as saying, “The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify … until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq.” A recent propaganda video shows clips from Hollywood war movies set in medieval times—perhaps because many of the prophecies specify that the armies will be on horseback or carrying ancient weapons.

Now that it has taken Dabiq, the Islamic State awaits the arrival of an enemy army there, whose defeat will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse. Western media frequently miss references to Dabiq in the Islamic State’s videos, and focus instead on lurid scenes of beheading. “Here we are, burying the first American crusader in Dabiq, eagerly waiting for the remainder of your armies to arrive,” said a masked executioner in a November video, showing the severed head of Peter (Abdul Rahman) Kassig, the aid worker who’d been held captive for more than a year. During fighting in Iraq in December, after mujahideen (perhaps inaccurately) reported having seen American soldiers in battle, Islamic State Twitter accounts erupted in spasms of pleasure, like overenthusiastic hosts or hostesses upon the arrival of the first guests at a party.
The Prophetic narration that foretells the Dabiq battle refers to the enemy as Rome. Who “Rome” is, now that the pope has no army, remains a matter of debate. But Cerantonio makes a case that Rome meant the Eastern Roman empire, which had its capital in what is now Istanbul. We should think of Rome as the Republic of Turkey—the same republic that ended the last self-identified caliphate, 90 years ago. Other Islamic State sources suggest that Rome might mean any infidel army, and the Americans will do nicely.
After mujahideen reported having seen American soldiers in battle, Islamic State Twitter accounts erupted in spasms of pleasure, like overenthusiastic hosts upon the arrival of the first guests at a party.
After its battle in Dabiq, Cerantonio said, the caliphate will expand and sack Istanbul. Some believe it will then cover the entire Earth, but Cerantonio suggested its tide may never reach beyond the Bosporus. An anti-Messiah, known in Muslim apocalyptic literature as Dajjal, will come from the Khorasan region of eastern Iran and kill a vast number of the caliphate’s fighters, until just 5,000 remain, cornered in Jerusalem. Just as Dajjal prepares to finish them off, Jesus—the second-most-revered prophet in Islam—will return to Earth, spear Dajjal, and lead the Muslims to victory.

“Only God knows” whether the Islamic State’s armies are the ones foretold, Cerantonio said. But he is hopeful. “The Prophet said that one sign of the imminent arrival of the End of Days is that people will for a long while stop talking about the End of Days,” he said. “If you go to the mosques now, you’ll find the preachers are silent about this subject.” On this theory, even setbacks dealt to the Islamic State mean nothing, since God has preordained the near-destruction of his people anyway. The Islamic State has its best and worst days ahead of it.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was declared caliph by his followers last summer. The establishment of a caliphate awakened large sections of Koranic law that had lain dormant, and required those Muslims who recognized the caliphate to immigrate. (AP)




IV. The Fight

The ideological purity of the Islamic State has one compensating virtue: it allows us to predict some of the group’s actions. Osama bin Laden was seldom predictable. He ended his first television interview cryptically. CNN’s Peter Arnett asked him, “What are your future plans?” Bin Laden replied, “You’ll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing.” By contrast, the Islamic State boasts openly about its plans—not all of them, but enough so that by listening carefully, we can deduce how it intends to govern and expand.
In London, Choudary and his students provided detailed descriptions of how the Islamic State must conduct its foreign policy, now that it is a caliphate. It has already taken up what Islamic law refers to as “offensive jihad,” the forcible expansion into countries that are ruled by non-Muslims. “Hitherto, we were just defending ourselves,” Choudary said; without a caliphate, offensive jihad is an inapplicable concept. But the waging of war to expand the caliphate is an essential duty of the caliph.

Choudary took pains to present the laws of war under which the Islamic State operates as policies of mercy rather than of brutality. He told me the state has an obligation to terrorize its enemies—a holy order to scare the shit out of them with beheadings and crucifixions and enslavement of women and children, because doing so hastens victory and avoids prolonged conflict.
Choudary’s colleague Abu Baraa explained that Islamic law permits only temporary peace treaties, lasting no longer than a decade. Similarly, accepting any border is anathema, as stated by the Prophet and echoed in the Islamic State’s propaganda videos. If the caliph consents to a longer-term peace or permanent border, he will be in error. Temporary peace treaties are renewable, but may not be applied to all enemies at once: the caliph must wage jihad at least once a year. He may not rest, or he will fall into a state of sin.
One comparison to the Islamic State is the Khmer Rouge, which killed about a third of the population of Cambodia. But the Khmer Rouge occupied Cambodia’s seat at the United Nations. “This is not permitted,” Abu Baraa said. “To send an ambassador to the UN is to recognize an authority other than God’s.” This form of diplomacy is shirk, or polytheism, he argued, and would be immediate cause to hereticize and replace Baghdadi. Even to hasten the arrival of a caliphate by democratic means—for example by voting for political candidates who favor a caliphate—is shirk.
It’s hard to overstate how hamstrung the Islamic State will be by its radicalism. The modern international system, born of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, relies on each state’s willingness to recognize borders, however grudgingly. For the Islamic State, that recognition is ideological suicide. Other Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, have succumbed to the blandishments of democracy and the potential for an invitation to the community of nations, complete with a UN seat. Negotiation and accommodation have worked, at times, for the Taliban as well. (Under Taliban rule, Afghanistan exchanged ambassadors with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, an act that invalidated the Taliban’s authority in the Islamic State’s eyes.) To the Islamic State these are not options, but acts of apostasy.
The United States and its allies have reacted to the Islamic State belatedly and in an apparent daze. The group’s ambitions and rough strategic blueprints were evident in its pronouncements and in social-media chatter as far back as 2011, when it was just one of many terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq and hadn’t yet committed mass atrocities. Adnani, the spokesman, told followers then that the group’s ambition was to “restore the Islamic caliphate,” and he evoked the apocalypse, saying, “There are but a few days left.” Baghdadi had already styled himself “commander of the faithful,” a title ordinarily reserved for caliphs, in 2011. In April 2013, Adnani declared the movement “ready to redraw the world upon the Prophetic methodology of the caliphate.” In August 2013, he said, “Our goal is to establish an Islamic state that doesn’t recognize borders, on the Prophetic methodology.” By then, the group had taken Raqqa, a Syrian provincial capital of perhaps 500,000 people, and was drawing in substantial numbers of foreign fighters who’d heard its message.

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If we had identified the Islamic State’s intentions early, and realized that the vacuum in Syria and Iraq would give it ample space to carry them out, we might, at a minimum, have pushed Iraq to harden its border with Syria and preemptively make deals with its Sunnis. That would at least have avoided the electrifying propaganda effect created by the declaration of a caliphate just after the conquest of Iraq’s third-largest city. Yet, just over a year ago, Obama told The New Yorker that he considered ISIS to be al-Qaeda’s weaker partner. “If a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” the president said.
Our failure to appreciate the split between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and the essential differences between the two, has led to dangerous decisions. Last fall, to take one example, the U.S. government consented to a desperate plan to save Peter Kassig’s life. The plan facilitated—indeed, required—the interaction of some of the founding figures of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and could hardly have looked more hastily improvised.
Given everything we know about the Islamic State, continuing to slowly bleed it appears the best of bad military options.
It entailed the enlistment of Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi, the Zarqawi mentor and al-Qaeda grandee, to approach Turki al-Binali, the Islamic State’s chief ideologue and a former student of Maqdisi’s, even though the two men had fallen out due to Maqdisi’s criticism of the Islamic State. Maqdisi had already called for the state to extend mercy to Alan Henning, the British cabbie who had entered Syria to deliver aid to children. In December, The Guardian reported that the U.S. government, through an intermediary, had asked Maqdisi to intercede with the Islamic State on Kassig’s behalf.
Maqdisi was living freely in Jordan, but had been banned from communicating with terrorists abroad, and was being monitored closely. After Jordan granted the United States permission to reintroduce Maqdisi to Binali, Maqdisi bought a phone with American money and was allowed to correspond merrily with his former student for a few days, before the Jordanian government stopped the chats and used them as a pretext to jail Maqdisi. Kassig’s severed head appeared in the Dabiq video a few days later.
Maqdisi gets mocked roundly on Twitter by the Islamic State’s fans, and al‑Qaeda is held in great contempt for refusing to acknowledge the caliphate. Cole Bunzel, a scholar who studies Islamic State ideology, read Maqdisi’s opinion on Henning’s status and thought it would hasten his and other captives’ death. “If I were held captive by the Islamic State and Maqdisi said I shouldn’t be killed,” he told me, “I’d kiss my ass goodbye.”
Kassig’s death was a tragedy, but the plan’s success would have been a bigger one. A reconciliation between Maqdisi and Binali would have begun to heal the main rift between the world’s two largest jihadist organizations. It’s possible that the government wanted only to draw out Binali for intelligence purposes or assassination. (Multiple attempts to elicit comment from the FBI were unsuccessful.) Regardless, the decision to play matchmaker for America’s two main terrorist antagonists reveals astonishingly poor judgment.
Chastened by our earlier indifference, we are now meeting the Islamic State via Kurdish and Iraqi proxy on the battlefield, and with regular air assaults. Those strategies haven’t dislodged the Islamic State from any of its major territorial possessions, although they’ve kept it from directly assaulting Baghdad and Erbil and slaughtering Shia and Kurds there.
Some observers have called for escalation, including several predictable voices from the interventionist right (Max Boot, Frederick Kagan), who have urged the deployment of tens of thousands of American soldiers. These calls should not be dismissed too quickly: an avowedly genocidal organization is on its potential victims’ front lawn, and it is committing daily atrocities in the territory it already controls.

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One way to un-cast the Islamic State’s spell over its adherents would be to overpower it militarily and occupy the parts of Syria and Iraq now under caliphate rule. Al‑Qaeda is ineradicable because it can survive, cockroach-like, by going underground. The Islamic State cannot. If it loses its grip on its territory in Syria and Iraq, it will cease to be a caliphate. Caliphates cannot exist as underground movements, because territorial authority is a requirement: take away its command of territory, and all those oaths of allegiance are no longer binding. Former pledges could of course continue to attack the West and behead their enemies, as freelancers. But the propaganda value of the caliphate would disappear, and with it the supposed religious duty to immigrate and serve it. If the United States were to invade, the Islamic State’s obsession with battle at Dabiq suggests that it might send vast resources there, as if in a conventional battle. If the state musters at Dabiq in full force, only to be routed, it might never recover.

Abu Baraa, who maintains a YouTube channel about Islamic law, says the caliph, Baghdadi, cannot negotiate or recognize borders, and must continually make war, or he will remove himself from Islam.
And yet the risks of escalation are enormous. The biggest proponent of an American invasion is the Islamic State itself. The provocative videos, in which a black-hooded executioner addresses President Obama by name, are clearly made to draw America into the fight. An invasion would be a huge propaganda victory for jihadists worldwide: irrespective of whether they have given baya’a to the caliph, they all believe that the United States wants to embark on a modern-day Crusade and kill Muslims. Yet another invasion and occupation would confirm that suspicion, and bolster recruitment. Add the incompetence of our previous efforts as occupiers, and we have reason for reluctance. The rise of ISIS, after all, happened only because our previous occupation created space for Zarqawi and his followers. Who knows the consequences of another botched job?
Given everything we know about the Islamic State, continuing to slowly bleed it, through air strikes and proxy warfare, appears the best of bad military options. Neither the Kurds nor the Shia will ever subdue and control the whole Sunni heartland of Syria and Iraq—they are hated there, and have no appetite for such an adventure anyway. But they can keep the Islamic State from fulfilling its duty to expand. And with every month that it fails to expand, it resembles less the conquering state of the Prophet Muhammad than yet another Middle Eastern government failing to bring prosperity to its people.
The humanitarian cost of the Islamic State’s existence is high. But its threat to the United States is smaller than its all too frequent conflation with al-Qaeda would suggest. Al-Qaeda’s core is rare among jihadist groups for its focus on the “far enemy” (the West); most jihadist groups’ main concerns lie closer to home. That’s especially true of the Islamic State, precisely because of its ideology. It sees enemies everywhere around it, and while its leadership wishes ill on the United States, the application of Sharia in the caliphate and the expansion to contiguous lands are paramount. Baghdadi has said as much directly: in November he told his Saudi agents to “deal with the rafida [Shia] first … then al-Sulul [Sunni supporters of the Saudi monarchy] … before the crusaders and their bases.”
Musa Cerantonio and Anjem Choudary could mentally shift from contemplating mass death to discussing the virtues of Vietnamese coffee, with apparent delight in each.
The foreign fighters (and their wives and children) have been traveling to the caliphate on one-way tickets: they want to live under true Sharia, and many want martyrdom. Doctrine, recall, requires believers to reside in the caliphate if it is at all possible for them to do so. One of the Islamic State’s less bloody videos shows a group of jihadists burning their French, British, and Australian passports. This would be an eccentric act for someone intending to return to blow himself up in line at the Louvre or to hold another chocolate shop hostage in Sydney.

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A few “lone wolf” supporters of the Islamic State have attacked Western targets, and more attacks will come. But most of the attackers have been frustrated amateurs, unable to immigrate to the caliphate because of confiscated passports or other problems. Even if the Islamic State cheers these attacks—and it does in its propaganda—it hasn’t yet planned and financed one. (The Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in January was principally an al‑Qaeda operation.) During his visit to Mosul in December, Jürgen Todenhöfer interviewed a portly German jihadist and asked whether any of his comrades had returned to Europe to carry out attacks. The jihadist seemed to regard returnees not as soldiers but as dropouts. “The fact is that the returnees from the Islamic State should repent from their return,” he said. “I hope they review their religion.”
Properly contained, the Islamic State is likely to be its own undoing. No country is its ally, and its ideology ensures that this will remain the case. The land it controls, while expansive, is mostly uninhabited and poor. As it stagnates or slowly shrinks, its claim that it is the engine of God’s will and the agent of apocalypse will weaken, and fewer believers will arrive. And as more reports of misery within it leak out, radical Islamist movements elsewhere will be discredited: No one has tried harder to implement strict Sharia by violence. This is what it looks like.
Even so, the death of the Islamic State is unlikely to be quick, and things could still go badly wrong: if the Islamic State obtained the allegiance of al‑Qaeda—increasing, in one swoop, the unity of its base—it could wax into a worse foe than we’ve yet seen. The rift between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda has, if anything, grown in the past few months; the December issue of Dabiq featured a long account of an al‑Qaeda defector who described his old group as corrupt and ineffectual, and Zawahiri as a distant and unfit leader. But we should watch carefully for a rapprochement.
Without a catastrophe such as this, however, or perhaps the threat of the Islamic State’s storming Erbil, a vast ground invasion would certainly make the situation worse.
V. Dissuasion

It would be facile, even exculpatory, to call the problem of the Islamic State “a problem with Islam.” The religion allows many interpretations, and Islamic State supporters are morally on the hook for the one they choose. And yet simply denouncing the Islamic State as un-Islamic can be counterproductive, especially if those who hear the message have read the holy texts and seen the endorsement of many of the caliphate’s practices written plainly within them.
Muslims can say that slavery is not legitimate now, and that crucifixion is wrong at this historical juncture. Many say precisely this. But they cannot condemn slavery or crucifixion outright without contradicting the Koran and the example of the Prophet. “The only principled ground that the Islamic State’s opponents could take is to say that certain core texts and traditional teachings of Islam are no longer valid,” Bernard Haykel says. That really would be an act of apostasy.
The Islamic State’s ideology exerts powerful sway over a certain subset of the population. Life’s hypocrisies and inconsistencies vanish in its face. Musa Cerantonio and the Salafis I met in London are unstumpable: no question I posed left them stuttering. They lectured me garrulously and, if one accepts their premises, convincingly. To call them un-Islamic appears, to me, to invite them into an argument that they would win. If they had been froth-spewing maniacs, I might be able to predict that their movement would burn out as the psychopaths detonated themselves or became drone-splats, one by one. But these men spoke with an academic precision that put me in mind of a good graduate seminar. I even enjoyed their company, and that frightened me as much as anything else.
Non-muslims cannot tell Muslims how to practice their religion properly. But Muslims have long since begun this debate within their own ranks. “You have to have standards,” Anjem Choudary told me. “Somebody could claim to be a Muslim, but if he believes in homosexuality or drinking alcohol, then he is not a Muslim. There is no such thing as a nonpracticing vegetarian.”

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There is, however, another strand of Islam that offers a hard-line alternative to the Islamic State—just as uncompromising, but with opposite conclusions. This strand has proved appealing to many Muslims cursed or blessed with a psychological longing to see every jot and tittle of the holy texts implemented as they were in the earliest days of Islam. Islamic State supporters know how to react to Muslims who ignore parts of the Koran: with takfir and ridicule. But they also know that some other Muslims read the Koran as assiduously as they do, and pose a real ideological threat.
Baghdadi is Salafi. The term Salafi has been villainized, in part because authentic villains have ridden into battle waving the Salafi banner. But most Salafis are not jihadists, and most adhere to sects that reject the Islamic State. They are, as Haykel notes, committed to expanding Dar al-Islam, the land of Islam, even, perhaps, with the implementation of monstrous practices such as slavery and amputation—but at some future point. Their first priority is personal purification and religious observance, and they believe anything that thwarts those goals—such as causing war or unrest that would disrupt lives and prayer and scholarship—is forbidden.
They live among us. Last fall, I visited the Philadelphia mosque of Breton Pocius, 28, a Salafi imam who goes by the name Abdullah. His mosque is on the border between the crime-ridden Northern Liberties neighborhood and a gentrifying area that one might call Dar al-Hipster; his beard allows him to pass in the latter zone almost unnoticed.
A theological alternative to the Islamic State exists—just as uncompromising, but with opposite conclusions.
Pocius converted 15 years ago after a Polish Catholic upbringing in Chicago. Like Cerantonio, he talks like an old soul, exhibiting deep familiarity with ancient texts, and a commitment to them motivated by curiosity and scholarship, and by a conviction that they are the only way to escape hellfire. When I met him at a local coffee shop, he carried a work of Koranic scholarship in Arabic and a book for teaching himself Japanese. He was preparing a sermon on the obligations of fatherhood for the 150 or so worshipers in his Friday congregation.

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Pocius said his main goal is to encourage a halal life for worshipers in his mosque. But the rise of the Islamic State has forced him to consider political questions that are usually very far from the minds of Salafis. “Most of what they’ll say about how to pray and how to dress is exactly what I’ll say in my masjid [mosque]. But when they get to questions about social upheaval, they sound like Che Guevara.”
When Baghdadi showed up, Pocius adopted the slogan “Not my khalifa.” “The times of the Prophet were a time of great bloodshed,” he told me, “and he knew that the worst possible condition for all people was chaos, especially within the umma [Muslim community].” Accordingly, Pocius said, the correct attitude for Salafis is not to sow discord by factionalizing and declaring fellow Muslims apostates.
Instead, Pocius—like a majority of Salafis—believes that Muslims should remove themselves from politics. These quietist Salafis, as they are known, agree with the Islamic State that God’s law is the only law, and they eschew practices like voting and the creation of political parties. But they interpret the Koran’s hatred of discord and chaos as requiring them to fall into line with just about any leader, including some manifestly sinful ones. “The Prophet said: as long as the ruler does not enter into clear kufr [disbelief], give him general obedience,” Pocius told me, and the classic “books of creed” all warn against causing social upheaval. Quietist Salafis are strictly forbidden from dividing Muslims from one another—for example, by mass excommunication. Living without baya’a, Pocius said, does indeed make one ignorant, or benighted. But baya’a need not mean direct allegiance to a caliph, and certainly not to Abu Bakr al‑Baghdadi. It can mean, more broadly, allegiance to a religious social contract and commitment to a society of Muslims, whether ruled by a caliph or not.
Quietist Salafis believe that Muslims should direct their energies toward perfecting their personal life, including prayer, ritual, and hygiene. Much in the same way ultra-Orthodox Jews debate whether it’s kosher to tear off squares of toilet paper on the Sabbath (does that count as “rending cloth”?), they spend an inordinate amount of time ensuring that their trousers are not too long, that their beards are trimmed in some areas and shaggy in others. Through this fastidious observance, they believe, God will favor them with strength and numbers, and perhaps a caliphate will arise. At that moment, Muslims will take vengeance and, yes, achieve glorious victory at Dabiq. But Pocius cites a slew of modern Salafi theologians who argue that a caliphate cannot come into being in a righteous way except through the unmistakable will of God.
The Islamic State, of course, would agree, and say that God has anointed Baghdadi. Pocius’s retort amounts to a call to humility. He cites Abdullah Ibn Abbas, one of the Prophet’s companions, who sat down with dissenters and asked them how they had the gall, as a minority, to tell the majority that it was wrong. Dissent itself, to the point of bloodshed or splitting the umma, was forbidden. Even the manner of the establishment of Baghdadi’s caliphate runs contrary to expectation, he said. “The khilafa is something that Allah is going to establish,” he told me, “and it will involve a consensus of scholars from Mecca and Medina. That is not what happened. ISIS came out of nowhere.”

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The Cyber Activists Who Want to Shut Down ISIS

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The Islamic State loathes this talk, and its fanboys tweet derisively about quietist Salafis. They mock them as “Salafis of menstruation,” for their obscure judgments about when women are and aren’t clean, and other low-priority aspects of life. “What we need now is fatwa about how it’s haram [forbidden] to ride a bike on Jupiter,” one tweeted drily. “That’s what scholars should focus on. More pressing than state of Ummah.” Anjem Choudary, for his part, says that no sin merits more vigorous opposition than the usurpation of God’s law, and that extremism in defense of monotheism is no vice.
Pocius doesn’t court any kind of official support from the United States, as a counterweight to jihadism. Indeed, official support would tend to discredit him, and in any case he is bitter toward America for treating him, in his words, as “less than a citizen.” (He alleges that the government paid spies to infiltrate his mosque and harassed his mother at work with questions about his being a potential terrorist.)
Still, his quietist Salafism offers an Islamic antidote to Baghdadi-style jihadism. The people who arrive at the faith spoiling for a fight cannot all be stopped from jihadism, but those whose main motivation is to find an ultraconservative, uncompromising version of Islam have an alternative here. It is not moderate Islam; most Muslims would consider it extreme. It is, however, a form of Islam that the literal-minded would not instantly find hypocritical, or blasphemously purged of its inconveniences. Hypocrisy is not a sin that ideologically minded young men tolerate well.
Western officials would probably do best to refrain from weighing in on matters of Islamic theological debate altogether. Barack Obama himself drifted into takfiri waters when he claimed that the Islamic State was “not Islamic”—the irony being that he, as the non-Muslim son of a Muslim, may himself be classified as an apostate, and yet is now practicing takfir against Muslims. Non-Muslims’ practicing takfir elicits chuckles from jihadists (“Like a pig covered in feces giving hygiene advice to others,” one tweeted).
I suspect that most Muslims appreciated Obama’s sentiment: the president was standing with them against both Baghdadi and non-Muslim chauvinists trying to implicate them in crimes. But most Muslims aren’t susceptible to joining jihad. The ones who are susceptible will only have had their suspicions confirmed: the United States lies about religion to serve its purposes.
Within the narrow bounds of its theology, the Islamic State hums with energy, even creativity. Outside those bounds, it could hardly be more arid and silent: a vision of life as obedience, order, and destiny. Musa Cerantonio and Anjem Choudary could mentally shift from contemplating mass death and eternal torture to discussing the virtues of Vietnamese coffee or treacly pastry, with apparent delight in each, yet to me it seemed that to embrace their views would be to see all the flavors of this world grow insipid compared with the vivid grotesqueries of the hereafter.
I could enjoy their company, as a guilty intellectual exercise, up to a point. In reviewing Mein Kampf in March 1940, George Orwell confessed that he had “never been able to dislike Hitler”; something about the man projected an underdog quality, even when his goals were cowardly or loathsome. “If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon.” The Islamic State’s partisans have much the same allure. They believe that they are personally involved in struggles beyond their own lives, and that merely to be swept up in the drama, on the side of righteousness, is a privilege and a pleasure—especially when it is also a burden.
Fascism, Orwell continued, is
psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life … Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them, “I offer you struggle, danger, and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet … We ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.
Nor, in the case of the Islamic State, its religious or intellectual appeal. That the Islamic State holds the imminent fulfillment of prophecy as a matter of dogma at least tells us the mettle of our opponent. It is ready to cheer its own near-obliteration, and to remain confident, even when surrounded, that it will receive divine succor if it stays true to the Prophetic model. Ideological tools may convince some potential converts that the group’s message is false, and military tools can limit its horrors. But for an organization as impervious to persuasion as the Islamic State, few measures short of these will matter, and the war may be a long one, even if it doesn’t last until the end of time.




TheReligionofPeace.com Guide to Understanding Islam

What does the Religion of Peace Teach About...
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Violence
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Question: Does the Quran really contain dozens of verses promoting violence?

Summary Answer:

The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.
Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text. They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subject to interpretation as anything else in the Quran.
The context of violent passages is more ambiguous than might be expected of a perfect book from a loving God; however this works both ways. Most of today's Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book's call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence. Apologists cater to their preferences with tenuous arguments that gloss over historical fact and generally do not stand up to scrutiny. Still, it is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology.
Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed. Muhammad's own martial legacy - and that of his companions - along with the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran have produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.


The Quran:

Quran (2:191-193) - "And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing...
but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)" (Translation is from the Noble Quran) The verse prior to this (190) refers to "fighting for the cause of Allah those who fight you" leading some to believe that the entire passage refers to a defensive war in which Muslims are defending their homes and families. The historical context of this passage is not defensive warfare, however, since Muhammad and his Muslims had just relocated to Medina and were not under attack by their Meccan adversaries. In fact, the verses urge offensive warfare, in that Muslims are to drive Meccans out of their own city (which they later did). Verse 190 thus means to fight those who offer resistance to Allah's rule (ie. Muslim conquest). The use of the word "persecution" by some Muslim translators is disingenuous (the actual Arabic words for persecution - "idtihad" - and oppression - a variation of "z-l-m" - do not appear in the verse). The word used instead, "fitna", can mean disbelief, or the disorder that results from unbelief or temptation. This is certainly what is meant in this context since the violence is explicitly commissioned "until religion is for Allah" - ie. unbelievers desist in their unbelief.


Quran (2:191-193) - "And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing...
but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)" (Translation is from the Noble Quran) The verse prior to this (190) refers to "fighting for the cause of Allah those who fight you" leading some to believe that the entire passage refers to a defensive war in which Muslims are defending their homes and families. The historical context of this passage is not defensive warfare, however, since Muhammad and his Muslims had just relocated to Medina and were not under attack by their Meccan adversaries. In fact, the verses urge offensive warfare, in that Muslims are to drive Meccans out of their own city (which they later did). Verse 190 thus means to fight those who offer resistance to Allah's rule (ie. Muslim conquest). The use of the word "persecution" by some Muslim translators is disingenuous (the actual Arabic words for persecution - "idtihad" - and oppression - a variation of "z-l-m" - do not appear in the verse). The word used instead, "fitna", can mean disbelief, or the disorder that results from unbelief or temptation. This is certainly what is meant in this context since the violence is explicitly commissioned "until religion is for Allah" - ie. unbelievers desist in their unbelief.

Quran (2:244) - "Then fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah Heareth and knoweth all things."

Quran (2:216) - "Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not." Not only does this verse establish that violence can be virtuous, but it also contradicts the myth that fighting is intended only in self-defense, since the audience was obviously not under attack at the time. From the Hadith, we know that this verse was narrated at a time that Muhammad was actually trying to motivate his people into raiding merchant caravans for loot.

Quran (3:56) - "As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help."

Quran (3:151) - "Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority". This speaks directly of polytheists, yet it also includes Christians, since they believe in the Trinity (ie. what Muhammad incorrectly believed to be 'joining companions to Allah').

Quran (4:74) - "Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward." The martyrs of Islam are unlike the early Christians, who were led meekly to the slaughter. These Muslims are killed in battle as they attempt to inflict death and destruction for the cause of Allah. This is the theological basis for today's suicide bombers.

Quran (4:76) - "Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah…"

Quran (4:89) - "They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks."

Quran (4:95) - "Not equal are those of the believers who sit (at home), except those who are disabled (by injury or are blind or lame, etc.), and those who strive hard and fight in the Cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives. Allah has preferred in grades those who strive hard and fight with their wealth and their lives above those who sit (at home). Unto each, Allah has promised good (Paradise), but Allah has preferred those who strive hard and fight, above those who sit (at home) by a huge reward " This passage criticizes "peaceful" Muslims who do not join in the violence, letting them know that they are less worthy in Allah's eyes. It also demolishes the modern myth that "Jihad" doesn't mean holy war in the Quran, but rather a spiritual struggle. Not only is this Arabic word (mujahiduna) used in this passage, but it is clearly not referring to anything spiritual, since the physically disabled are given exemption. (The Hadith reveals the context of the passage to be in response to a blind man's protest that he is unable to engage in Jihad, which would not make sense if it meant an internal struggle). According to the verse, Allah will allow the disabled into Paradise, but will provide a larger reward to those who are able to kill others in his cause.

Quran (4:104) - "And be not weak hearted in pursuit of the enemy; if you suffer pain, then surely they (too) suffer pain as you suffer pain..." Is pursuing an injured and retreating enemy really an act of self-defense?

Quran (5:33) - "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement"

Quran (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them" No reasonable person would interpret this to mean a spiritual struggle.

Quran (8:15) - "O ye who believe! When ye meet those who disbelieve in battle, turn not your backs to them. (16)Whoso on that day turneth his back to them, unless maneuvering for battle or intent to join a company, he truly hath incurred wrath from Allah, and his habitation will be hell, a hapless journey's end."

Quran (8:39) - "And fight with them until there is no more fitna (disorder, unbelief) and religion should be only for Allah" Some translations interpret "fitna" as "persecution", but the traditional understanding of this word is not supported by the historical context (See notes for 2:193). The Meccans were simply refusing Muhammad access to their city during Haj. Other Muslims were allowed to travel there - just not as an armed group, since Muhammad had declared war on Mecca prior to his eviction. The Meccans were also acting in defense of their religion, since it was Muhammad's intention to destroy their idols and establish Islam by force (which he later did). Hence the critical part of this verse is to fight until "religion is only for Allah", meaning that the true justification of violence was the unbelief of the opposition. According to the Sira (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 324) Muhammad further explains that "Allah must have no rivals."

Quran (8:57) - "If thou comest on them in the war, deal with them so as to strike fear in those who are behind them, that haply they may remember."

Quran (8:67) - "It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he had made a great slaughter in the land..."

Quran (8:59-60) - "And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah's Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy."

Quran (8:65) - "O Prophet, exhort the believers to fight..."

Quran (9:5) - "So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them." According to this verse, the best way of staying safe from Muslim violence is to convert to Islam (prayer (salat) and the poor tax (zakat) are among the religion's Five Pillars). This popular claim that the Quran only inspires violence within the context of self-defense is seriously challenged by this passage as well, since the Muslims to whom it was written were obviously not under attack. Had they been, then there would have been no waiting period (earlier verses make it a duty for Muslims to fight in self-defense, even during the sacred months). The historical context is Mecca after the idolaters were subjugated by Muhammad and posed no threat. Once the Muslims had power, they violently evicted those unbelievers who would not convert.

Quran (9:14) - "Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of a believing people." Humiliating and hurting non-believers not only has the blessing of Allah, but it is ordered as a means of carrying out his punishment and even "healing" the hearts of Muslims.

Quran (9:20) - "Those who believe, and have left their homes and striven with their wealth and their lives in Allah's way are of much greater worth in Allah's sight. These are they who are triumphant." The Arabic word interpreted as "striving" in this verse is the same root as "Jihad". The context is obviously holy war.

Quran (9:29) - "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." "People of the Book" refers to Christians and Jews. According to this verse, they are to be violently subjugated, with the sole justification being their religious status. Verse 9:33 tells Muslims that Allah has charted them to make Islam "superior over all religions." This chapter was one of the final "revelations" from Allah and it set in motion the tenacious military expansion, in which Muhammad's companions managed to conquer two-thirds of the Christian world in the next 100 years. Islam is intended to dominate all other people and faiths.


Quran (9:30) - "And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!"

Quran (9:38-39) - "O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place." This is a warning to those who refuse to fight, that they will be punished with Hell.

Quran (9:41) - "Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if ye but knew." See also the verse that follows (9:42) - "If there had been immediate gain (in sight), and the journey easy, they would (all) without doubt have followed thee, but the distance was long, (and weighed) on them" This contradicts the myth that Muslims are to fight only in self-defense, since the wording implies that battle will be waged a long distance from home (in another country and on Christian soil, in this case, according to the historians).


Quran (9:73) - "O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination." Dehumanizing those who reject Islam, by reminding Muslims that unbelievers are merely firewood for Hell, makes it easier to justify slaughter. It also explains why today's devout Muslims have little regard for those outside the faith.

Quran (9:88) - "But the Messenger, and those who believe with him, strive and fight with their wealth and their persons: for them are (all) good things: and it is they who will prosper."


Quran (9:111) - "Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Quran: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme." How does the Quran define a true believer?

Quran (9:123) - "O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness."

Quran (17:16) - "And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction." Note that the crime is moral transgression, and the punishment is "utter destruction." (Before ordering the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden first issued Americans an invitation to Islam).

Quran (18:65-81) - This parable lays the theological groundwork for honor killings, in which a family member is murdered because they brought shame to the family, either through apostasy or perceived moral indiscretion. The story (which is not found in any Jewish or Christian source) tells of Moses encountering a man with "special knowledge" who does things which don't seem to make sense on the surface, but are then justified according to later explanation. One such action is to murder a youth for no apparent reason (74). However, the wise man later explains that it was feared that the boy would "grieve" his parents by "disobedience and ingratitude." He was killed so that Allah could provide them a 'better' son. (Note: This is one reason why honor killing is sanctioned by Sharia. Reliance of the Traveler (Umdat al-Saliq) says that punishment for murder is not applicable when a parent or grandparent kills their offspring (o.1.1-2).)

Quran (21:44) - "We gave the good things of this life to these men and their fathers until the period grew long for them; See they not that We gradually reduce the land (in their control) from its outlying borders? Is it then they who will win?"

Quran (25:52) - "Therefore listen not to the Unbelievers, but strive against them with the utmost strenuousness..." "Strive against" is Jihad - obviously not in the personal context. It's also significant to point out that this is a Meccan verse.

Quran (33:60-62) - "If the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and the alarmists in the city do not cease, We verily shall urge thee on against them, then they will be your neighbors in it but a little while. Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter." This passage sanctions the slaughter (rendered "merciless" and "horrible murder" in other translations) against three groups: Hypocrites (Muslims who refuse to "fight in the way of Allah" (3:167) and hence don't act as Muslims should), those with "diseased hearts" (which include Jews and Christians 5:51-52), and "alarmists" or "agitators who include those who merely speak out against Islam, according to Muhammad's biographers. It is worth noting that the victims are to be sought out by Muslims, which is what today's terrorists do. If this passage is meant merely to apply to the city of Medina, then it is unclear why it is included in Allah's eternal word to Muslim generations.

Quran (47:3-4) - "Those who disbelieve follow falsehood, while those who believe follow the truth from their Lord... So, when you meet (in fight Jihad in Allah's Cause), those who disbelieve smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly (on them, i.e. take them as captives)... If it had been Allah's Will, He Himself could certainly have punished them (without you). But (He lets you fight), in order to test you, some with others. But those who are killed in the Way of Allah, He will never let their deeds be lost." Those who reject Allah are to be killed in Jihad. The wounded are to be held captive for ransom. The only reason Allah doesn't do the dirty work himself is to to test the faithfulness of Muslims. Those who kill pass the test.

Quran (47:35) - "Be not weary and faint-hearted, crying for peace, when ye should be uppermost (Shakir: "have the upper hand") for Allah is with you,"

Quran (48:17) - "There is no blame for the blind, nor is there blame for the lame, nor is there blame for the sick (that they go not forth to war). And whoso obeyeth Allah and His messenger, He will make him enter Gardens underneath which rivers flow; and whoso turneth back, him will He punish with a painful doom." Contemporary apologists sometimes claim that Jihad means 'spiritual struggle.' Is so, then why are the blind, lame and sick exempted? This verse also says that those who do not fight will suffer torment in hell.

Quran (48:29) - "Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard (ruthless) against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves" Islam is not about treating everyone equally. This verse tells Muslims that there are two very distinct standards that are applied based on religious status. Also the word used for 'hard' or 'ruthless' in this verse shares the same root as the word translated as 'painful' or severe' to describe Hell in over 25 other verses including 65:10, 40:46 and 50:26..

Quran (61:4) - "Surely Allah loves those who fight in His way" Religion of Peace, indeed! The verse explicitly refers to "battle array" meaning that it is speaking of physical conflict. This is followed by (61:9): "He it is who has sent His Messenger (Mohammed) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist." (See next verse, below). Infidels who resist Islamic rule are to be fought.

Quran (61:10-12) - "O You who believe! Shall I guide you to a commerce that will save you from a painful torment. That you believe in Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad ), and that you strive hard and fight in the Cause of Allah with your wealth and your lives, that will be better for you, if you but know! (If you do so) He will forgive you your sins, and admit you into Gardens under which rivers flow, and pleasant dwelling in Gardens of 'Adn - Eternity ['Adn (Edn) Paradise], that is indeed the great success." This verse refers to physical battle in order to make Islam victorious over other religions (see above). It uses the Arabic word, Jihad.

Quran (66:9) - "O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey's end." The root word of "Jihad" is used again here. The context is clearly holy war, and the scope of violence is broadened to include "hypocrites" - those who call themselves Muslims but do not act as such.

Other verses calling Muslims to Jihad can be found here at AnsweringIslam.org




From the Hadith:

Bukhari (52:177) - Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."

Bukhari (52:256) - The Prophet... was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, "They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans)." In this command, Muhammad establishes that it is permissible to kill non-combatants in the process of killing a perceived enemy. This provides justification for the many Islamic terror bombings.

Bukhari (52:65) - The Prophet said, 'He who fights that Allah's Word, Islam, should be superior, fights in Allah's Cause. Muhammad's words are the basis for offensive Jihad - spreading Islam by force. This is how it was understood by his companions, and by the terrorists of today.

Bukhari (52:220) - Allah's Apostle said... 'I have been made victorious with terror'

Abu Dawud (14:2526) - The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Three things are the roots of faith: to refrain from (killing) a person who utters, "There is no god but Allah" and not to declare him unbeliever whatever sin he commits, and not to excommunicate him from Islam for his any action; and jihad will be performed continuously since the day Allah sent me as a prophet until the day the last member of my community will fight with the Dajjal (Antichrist)

Abu Dawud (14:2527) - The Prophet said: Striving in the path of Allah (jihad) is incumbent on you along with every ruler, whether he is pious or impious

Muslim (1:33) - the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah

Bukhari (8:387) - Allah's Apostle said, "I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah'. And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally."

Muslim (1:30) - "The Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah."

Bukhari (52:73) - "Allah's Apostle said, 'Know that Paradise is under the shades of swords'."

Bukhari (11:626) - [Muhammad said:] "I decided to order a man to lead the prayer and then take a flame to burn all those, who had not left their houses for the prayer, burning them alive inside their homes."

Muslim (1:149) - "Abu Dharr reported: I said: Messenger of Allah, which of the deeds is the best? He (the Holy Prophet) replied: Belief in Allah and Jihad in His cause..."

Muslim (20:4645) - "...He (the Messenger of Allah) did that and said: There is another act which elevates the position of a man in Paradise to a grade one hundred (higher), and the elevation between one grade and the other is equal to the height of the heaven from the earth. He (Abu Sa'id) said: What is that act? He replied: Jihad in the way of Allah! Jihad in the way of Allah!"

Muslim (20:4696) - "the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: 'One who died but did not fight in the way of Allah nor did he express any desire (or determination) for Jihad died the death of a hypocrite.'"

Muslim (19:4321-4323) - Three separate hadith in which Muhammad shrugs over the news that innocent children were killed in a raid by his men against unbelievers. His response: "They are of them (meaning the enemy)."

Muslim (19:4294) - "When the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) appointed anyone as leader of an army or detachment he would especially exhort him... He would say: Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war... When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them... If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them."

Bukhari 1:35 "The person who participates in (Holy Battles) in Allah’s cause and nothing compels him do so except belief in Allah and His Apostle, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty ( if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise ( if he is killed)."

Tabari 7:97 The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, "Kill any Jew who falls under your power." Ashraf was a poet, killed by Muhammad's men because he insulted Islam. Here, Muhammad widens the scope of his orders to kill. An innocent Jewish businessman was then slain by his Muslim partner, merely for being non-Muslim.

Tabari 9:69 "Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us" The words of Muhammad, prophet of Islam.

Tabari 17:187 "'By God, our religion (din) from which we have departed is better and more correct than that which these people follow. Their religion does not stop them from shedding blood, terrifying the roads, and seizing properties.' And they returned to their former religion." The words of a group of Christians who had converted to Islam, but realized their error after being shocked by the violence and looting committed in the name of Allah. The price of their decision to return to a religion of peace was that the men were beheaded and the woman and children enslaved by the caliph Ali.

Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 484: - “Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion.’”

Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 990: - Lest anyone think that cutting off someone's head while screaming 'Allah Akbar!' is a modern creation, here is an account of that very practice under Muhammad, who seems to approve.

Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 992: - "Fight everyone in the way of Allah and kill those who disbelieve in Allah." Muhammad's instructions to his men prior to a military raid.

Saifur Rahman, The Sealed Nectar p.227-228 - "Embrace Islam... If you two accept Islam, you will remain in command of your country; but if your refuse my Call, you’ve got to remember that all of your possessions are perishable. My horsemen will appropriate your land, and my Prophethood will assume preponderance over your kingship." One of several letters from Muhammad to rulers of other countries. The significance is that the recipients were not making war or threatening Muslims. Their subsequent defeat and subjugation by Muhammad's armies was justified merely on the basis of their unbelief.

Additional Notes:

Other than the fact that Muslims haven't killed every non-Muslim under their domain, there is very little else that they can point to as proof that theirs is a peaceful, tolerant religion. Where Islam is dominant (as in the Middle East and Pakistan) religious minorities suffer brutal persecution with little resistance. Where Islam is in the minority (as in Thailand, the Philippines and Europe) there is the threat of violence if Muslim demands are not met. Either situation seems to provide a justification for religious terrorism, which is persistent and endemic to Islamic fundamentalism.

The reasons are obvious and begin with the Quran. Few verses of Islam's most sacred text can be construed to fit the contemporary virtues of religious tolerance and universal brotherhood. Those that do are earlier "Meccan" verses which are obviously abrogated by later ones. The example of Muhammad is that Islam is a religion of peace when Muslims do not have the power and numbers on their side. Once they do, things change.

Many Muslims are peaceful and do not want to believe what the Quran really says. They prefer a more narrow interpretation that is closer to the Judeo-Christian ethic. Some just ignore harsher passages. Others reach for "textual context" across different suras to subjectively mitigate these verses with others so that the message fits their personal moral preferences. Although the Quran itself claims to be clear and complete, these apologists speak of the "risks" of trying to interpret verses without their "assistance."

The violent verses of the Quran have played a key role in very real massacre and genocide. This includes the brutal slaughter of tens of millions of Hindus for five centuries beginning around 1000 AD with Mahmud of Ghazni's bloody conquest. Both he and the later Tamerlane (Islam's Genghis Khan) slaughtered an untold number merely for defending their temples from destruction. Buddhism was very nearly wiped off the Indian subcontinent. Judaism and Christianity met the same fate (albeit more slowly) in areas conquered by Muslim armies, including the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe, including today's Turkey. Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of a proud Persian people is despised by Muslims and barely survives in modern Iran.

Violence is so ingrained in Islam that it has never really stopped being at war, either with other religions or with itself.

Muhammad was a military leader, laying siege to towns, massacring the men, raping their women, enslaving their children, and taking the property of others as his own. On several occasions he rejected offers of surrender from the besieged inhabitants and even butchered captives. He inspired his followers to battle when they did not feel it was right to fight, promising them slaves and booty if they did and threatening them with Hell if they did not. Muhammad allowed his men to rape traumatized women captured in battle, usually on the very day their husbands and family members were slaughtered.

It is important to emphasize that, for the most part, Muslim armies waged aggressive campaigns, and the religion's most dramatic military conquests were made by the actual companions of Muhammad in the decades following his death.

The early Islamic principle of warfare was that the civilian population of a town was to be destroyed (ie. men executed, women and children taken as slaves) if they defended themselves and resisted Islamic hegemony. Although modern apologists often claim that Muslims are only supposed to "attack in self-defense", this oxymoron is flatly contradicted by the accounts of Islamic historians and others that go back to the time of Muhammad.

Some modern-day scholars are more candid than others. One of the most respected Sunni theologians is al-Qaradawi, who justifies terror attacks against Western targets by noting that there is no such thing as a civilian population in a time of war:

"It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar Al—Harb [ie. non-Muslim people who resist Islamic conquest] is not protected... In modern war, all of society, with all its classes and ethnic groups, is mobilized to participate in the war, to aid its continuation, and to provide it with the material and human fuel required for it to assure the victory of the state fighting its enemies. Every citizen in society must take upon himself a role in the effort to provide for the battle. The entire domestic front, including professionals, laborers, and industrialists, stands behind the fighting army, even if it does not bear arms."

Consider the example of the Qurayza Jews, who were completely obliterated only five years after Muhammad arrived in Medina. Their leader opted to stay neutral when their town was besieged by a Meccan army that was sent to take revenge for Muhammad's deadly caravan raids. The tribe killed no one from either side and even surrendered peacefully to Muhammad after the Meccans had been turned back. Yet the prophet of Islam had every male member of the Qurayza beheaded, and every woman and child enslaved, even raping one of the captives himself (what Muslim apologists might refer to as "same day marriage").

One of Islam's most revered modern scholars, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, openly sanctions offensive Jihad: "In the Jihad which you are seeking, you look for the enemy and invade him. This type of Jihad takes place only when the Islamic state is invading other [countries] in order to spread the word of Islam and to remove obstacles standing in its way." Elsewhere, he notes: "Islam has the right to take the initiative…this is God’s religion and it is for the whole world. It has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions … it attacks institutions and traditions to release human beings from their poisonous influences, which distort human nature and curtail human freedom. Those who say that Islamic Jihad was merely for the defense of the 'homeland of Islam' diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life."

The widely respected Dictionary of Islam defines Jihad as "A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad. It is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Qur'an and in the Traditions as a divine institution, and enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam and of repelling evil from Muslims…[Quoting from the Hanafi school, Hedaya, 2, 141.], "The destruction of the sword is incurred by infidels, although they be not the first aggressors, as appears from various passages in the traditions which are generally received to this effect."

Dr. Salah al-Sawy, the chief member of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America, stated in 2009 that "the Islamic community does not possess the strength to engage in offensive jihad at this time," tacitly affirming the legitimacy of violence for the cause of Islamic rule - bound only by the capacity for success. (source)

Muhammad's failure to leave a clear line of succession resulted in perpetual internal war following his death. Those who knew him best first fought afterwards to keep remote tribes from leaving Islam and reverting to their preferred religion (the Ridda or 'Apostasy wars'). Then the violence turned within. Early Meccan converts battled later ones as hostility developed between those immigrants who had traveled with Muhammad to Mecca and the Ansar at Medina who had helped them settle in. Finally there was a violent struggle within Muhammad's own family between his favorite wife and favorite daughter - a jagged schism that has left Shias and Sunnis at each others' throats to this day.

The strangest and most untrue thing that can be said about Islam is that it is a Religion of Peace. If every standard by which the West is judged and condemned (slavery, imperialism, intolerance, misogyny, sexual repression, warfare...) were applied equally to Islam, the verdict would be devastating. Islam never gives up what it conquers, be it religion, culture, language or life. Neither does it make apologies or any real effort at moral progress. It is the least open to dialogue and the most self-absorbed. It is convinced of its own perfection, yet brutally shuns self-examination and represses criticism.

This is what makes the Quran's verses of violence so dangerous. They are given the weight of divine command. While Muslim terrorists take them as literally as anything else in their holy book, and understand that Islam is incomplete without Jihad, moderates offer little to contradict them - outside of personal opinion. Indeed, what do they have? Speaking of peace and love may win over the ignorant, but when every twelfth verse of Islam's holiest book either speaks to Allah's hatred for non-Muslims or calls for their death, forced conversion, or subjugation, it's little wonder that sympathy for terrorism runs as deeply as it does in the broader community - even if most Muslims personally prefer not to interpret their religion in this way.

Although scholars like Ibn Khaldun, one of Islam's most respected philosophers, understood that "the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force", many other Muslims are either unaware or willfully ignorant of the Quran's near absence of verses that preach universal non-violence. Their understanding of Islam comes from what they are taught by others. In the West, it is typical for believers to think that their religion must be like Christianity - preaching the New Testament virtues of peace, love, and tolerance - because Muslims are taught that Islam is supposed to be superior in every way. They are somewhat surprised and embarrassed to find that this is contradicted by the Quran and the bloody history of Islam's genesis.

Others simply accept the violence. In 1991, a Palestinian couple in America was convicted of stabbing their daughter to death for being too Westernized. A family friend came to their defense, excoriating the jury for not understanding the "culture", claiming that the father was merely following "the religion" and saying that the couple had to "discipline their daughter or lose respect." (source). In 2011, unrepentant Palestinian terrorists, responsible for the brutal murders of civilians, women and children explicitly in the name of Allah were treated to a luxurious "holy pilgrimage" to Mecca by the Saudi king - without a single Muslim voice raised in protest.

For their part, Western liberals would do well not to sacrifice critical thinking to the god of political correctness, or look for reasons to bring other religion down to the level of Islam merely to avoid the existential truth that this it is both different and dangerous.

There are just too many Muslims who take the Quran literally... and too many others who couldn't care less about the violence done in the name of Islam.

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