By Mike Konrad
When one thinks of mass murder, Hitler comes to mind. If not Hitler, then Tojo, Stalin, or Mao. Credit is given to the 20th-century totalitarians as the worst species of tyranny to have ever arisen. However, the alarming truth is that Islam has killed more than any of these, and may surpass all of them combined in numbers and cruelty.
The enormity of the slaughters of the "religion of peace" are so far beyond comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale. When one looks beyond our myopic focus, Islam is the greatest killing machine in the history of mankind, bar none.
The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. -- Will Durant, as quoted on Daniel Pipes site.
Conservative estimates place the number at 80 million dead Indians.
According to some calculations, the Indian (subcontinent) population decreased by 80 million between 1000 (conquest of Afghanistan) and 1525 (end of Delhi Sultanate). -- Koenrad Elst as quoted on Daniel Pipes site
80 Million?! The conquistadors' crimes pale into insignificance at that number. No wonder Hitler admired Islam as a fighting religion. He stood in awe of Islam, whose butchery even he did not surpass.
Over 110 Million Blacks were killed by Islam.
... a minumum of 28 Million African were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. Since, at least, 80 percent of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave market, it is believed that the death toll from 1400 years of Arab and Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been as high as 112 Millions. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the trans-Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 Million people. -- John Allembillah Azumah, author of The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa: A Quest for Inter-religious Dialogue
Add just those two numbers alone together, and Islam has surpassed the victims of 20th-century totalitarianism. However, it does not end there. Add the millions who died at the hand of Muslims in the Sudan in our lifetime.
Much of Islamic slavery was sexual in nature, with a preference for women. Those men who were captured were castrated. The mulatto children of the women were often killed, which explains why Islam was not demographically shifted towards the black race, unlike slaves in the West, who bore children to breed a mestizo class. Add in those dead children; and we arrive at well over 200 million.
Remember that in the 7th century, North Africa was almost totally Christian. What happened to them?
By the year 750, a hundred years after the conquest of Jerusalem, at least 50 percent of the world's Christians found themselves under Muslim hegemony… Today there is no indigenous Christianity in the region [of Northwest Africa], no communities of Christians whose history can be traced to antiquity.-- "Christianity Face to Face with Islam," CERC
What happened to those Christian millions? Some converted. The rest? Lost to history.
We know that over 1 million Europeans were enslaved by Barbary Pirates. How many died is anybody's guess.
...for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily have been as high as 1,250,000 - BBC
In the Middle Ages…
…many slaves were passed through Armenia and were castrated there to fill the Muslim demand for eunuchs. -- Slavery in Early Medieval Europe.
The same practice ran through Islamic Spain. North Europeans captured from raids up to Iceland, or purchased, were butchered in the castratoriums of Iberia. Many died from the operations that ran for centuries.
The number of dead from the Muslim conquest of the Balkans and Southern Italy is unknown, but again the numbers add up, surely into the millions over the centuries. Don't forget the 1.5 million Armenian Christians killed by the Turks during WWI. We do know that over five centuries, vast numbers of Christian boys were kidnapped to become Islamic Janissary mercenaries for the Turks. Add those in, too.
Muslims prized blonde women for their harems; and so enslaved Slavic women were purchased in the bazaars of the Crimean Caliphate. In Muslim Spain, an annual tribute of 100 Visigothic [blonde] women was required from Spain's Cantabrian coast.
For decades, 100 virgins per year were required by the Muslim rulers of Spain from the conquered population. The tribute was only stopped when the Spaniards began fighting back -- Jihad: Islam's 1,300 Year War Against Western Civilisation
Add in the death toll from the Reconquista and the numbers climb higher.
Research has shown that the Dark Ages were not caused by the Goths, who eventually assimilated and Christianized:
…the real destroyers of classical civilization were the Muslims. It was the Arab Invasions... which broke the unity of the Mediterranean world and turned the Middle Sea -- previously one of the world’s most important trading highways -- into a battleground. It was only after the appearance of Islam... that the cities of the West, which depended upon the Mediterranean trade for their survival, began to die. -- Islam Caused the Dark Ages
Add in those unknown millions who died as a consequence.
How many know the horrors of the conquest of Malaysia? The Buddhists of Thailand and Malaysia were slaughtered en masse.
When attacked and massacred by the Muslims, the Buddhists initially did not make any attempt to escape from their murderers. They accepted death with an air of fatalism and destiny. And hence they are not around today to tell their story. – History of Jihad.org
We may never know the numbers of dead.
After Muslims came to power in the early 15th century, animist hill peoples eventually disappeared due to their enslavement and ‘incorporation’ into the Muslim population of Malaya, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java via raids, tribute and purchase, especially of children. Java was the largest exporter of slaves around 1500. -- Islam Monitor
In the same manner, Islam arrived in the Philippines. Only the appearance of the Spanish stopped a total collapse, and confined Islam to the southern islands.
The coming of the Spanish saved the Philippines from Islam, except for the Southern tip where the population had been converted to Islam.-- History of Jihad.org
Again, the number of dead is unknown; but add them to the total.
The animist Filipinos were eager to ally with the Spanish against Islam. In fact, much of Southeast Asia welcomed the Spanish and Portuguese as preferable to Islam.
...from the 17th century successive Thai kings allied themselves with the seafaring Western powers – the Portuguese and the Dutch and succeeded in staving off the threat of Islam from the Muslim Malays and their Arab overlords.-- History of Jihad.org
A few galleons and muskets were not enough to conquer Asia. Islam had made the Europeans initially appear as liberators; and to a certain extent they were. Who were the real imperialists?
Even today...
...Malaysian Jihadis are plotting to transform multi-ethnic Malaysia into an Islamic Caliphate, and fomenting trouble in Southern Thailand.-- History of Jihad.org
Add this all up. The African victims. The Indian victims. The European victims. Add in the Armenian genocide. Then add in the lesser known, but no doubt quite large number of victims of Eastern Asia. Add in the jihad committed by Muslims against China, which was invaded in 651 AD. Add in the Crimean Khanate predations on the Slavs, especially their women.
Though the numbers are not clear, what is obvious is that Islam is the greatest murder machine in history bar none, possibly exceeding 250 million dead. Possibly one-third to one-half or more of all those killed by war or slavery in history can be traced to Islam; and this is just a cursory examination.
Now consider the over 125 Million women today who have been genitally mutilated for Islamic honor's sake. In spite of what apologists tell you, the practice is almost totally confined to Islamic areas.
New information from Iraqi Kurdistan raises the possibility that the problem is more prevalent in the Middle East than previously believed and that FGM is far more tied to religion than many Western academics and activists admit. – “Is Female Genital Mutilation an Islamic Problem?” ME Quarterly
Once thought concentrated in Africa, FGM has now been discovered to be common wherever Islam is found.
There are indications that FGM might be a phenomenon of epidemic proportions in the Arab Middle East. Hosken, for instance, notes that traditionally all women in the Persian Gulf region were mutilated. Arab governments refuse to address the problem. -- "Is Female Genital Mutilation an Islamic Problem?" ME Quarterly
Remember that this has gone on for 1400 years; and was imposed on a population that had been formerly Christian or pagan.
FGM is practiced on large scale in Islamic Indonesia; and is increasing.
...far from scaling down, the problem of FGM in Indonesia has escalated sharply. The mass ceremonies in Bandung have grown bigger and more popular every year. -- Guardian
The horrified British author of that Guardian article is still deluded that Islam does not support FGM, when in fact it is now settled that FGM is a core Islamic practice. Islamic women have been brainwashed to support their own abuse.
Abu Sahlieh further cited Muhammad as saying, "Circumcision is a sunna (tradition) for the men and makruma (honorable deed) for the women." -- “Is Female Genital Mutilation an Islamic Problem?” ME Quarterly
What other tyranny does this? Not even the Nazis mutilated their own women!
Unlike the 20th-century totalitarians whose killing fury consumed themselves, reducing their longevity, Islam paces itself. In the end, though slower, Islam has killed and tortured far more than any other creed, religious or secular. Unlike secular tyranny, Islam, by virtue of its polygamy and sexual predations, reproduces itself and increases.
Other tyrannies are furious infections, which burn hot, but are soon overcome. Islam is a slow terminal cancer, which metastasizes, and takes over. It never retreats. Its methods are more insidious, often imperceptible at first, driven by demographics. Like cancer, excision may be the only cure.
So whenever you read about this or that Israeli outrage -- and there may be truth to the complaint -- place the news in context. Look whom the Israelis are fighting against. Islam is like nothing else in history.
By Ryunen Raj
While I was browsing Islamic Articles online, I came through a most horrifying, sadistic, cruel article on Non-Muslims. I didn’t expect an alleged god (Allah) to be that cruel and sadistic, as his revealed book and words of his holy Prophet suggests. Below I’ll quote the article, with my comments as explanation. The article is taken from ARAB News:
AS Hell has various levels, in some of which the torment and horror is greater than in others, so the people of Hell will be given different levels of punishment. According to a Hadith narrated by Muslim and Ahmad from Samurah, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said concerning the people of Hell: “There are some whom the Fire will take up to their ankles, others up to their knees, others up to their waists, and others up to their collarbones.”
According to another report, “up to their necks” (Muslim in Kitab Al-Jannah wa Sifaat Na’imiha, Baab Shiddat Harr an-Naar, 4/2185) [ARTICLE]
Are we sure, that these words are from Holy Prophet of most merciful god? It doesn’t seems so, because all it talks about burning Non-Muslims, and tormenting them, just because they didn’t believe in an imaginary god, when they were alive? I would also like to draw the attention of readers, that it is not our deeds, which determine whether we Non-Muslim (Kafirs) will be in hell or heaven. Its Allah’s prerogative to send anyone to hell or heaven. In this connection, Prophet Muhammad himself said, in Sahih Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 60, Number 473 :
“There is none among you, and no created soul but has his place written for him either in Paradise or in the Hell-Fire, and also has his happy or miserable fate (in the Hereafter) written for him.”
If we need to believe on this Hadith, then for sure, Allah is the most merciless & brutal god, who first predetermine the fate and then punishes the Non-Muslims. This is just beginning, let’s see what more Non-Muslims will face in hell of Islam.
The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) has told us about those who will receive the lightest punishment in Hell. Al-Bukhari reports from Al-Nu’maan ibn Bashir who said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) say, ‘The person who will have the least punishment among the people of Hell on the Day of Resurrection will be a man under the arch of whose feet will be placed a smoldering ember, and his brains will boil because of it’. [ARTICLE]
I am amazed to read that the least punishment in Allah’s sadistic torment house will be a man with burning feet & boiling brain. When we are talking of fire, I’ll not forget that the fire in Islamic hell is not the same which we usually see & feel. Because the merciful prophet said, “The Hell Fire is 69 times hotter than ordinary worldly fires.’ So someone said, ‘Allah’s Apostle, wouldn’t this ordinary fire have been sufficient to torture the unbelievers?” [Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 54, Number 487]. Now we are getting little idea of Islamic hell, which is prepared by merciless, barbaric Allah to torture those who chose not to believe in his pseudo-scientific, illogical, violent rant. Below is the list of some extremely violent, inhumane, barbaric list of punishment, with reference from authentic scriptures of Islam, which will be given to Non-Believers of Islam.
Roasting of the skin
The Fire of the Almighty will burn the skin of the infidels. The skin is the site of sensation, where the pain of burning is felt, and for this reason, Allah Almighty will replace the burned skin with a new one, to be burned anew, and this will be repeated endlessly: “Those who reject Our Signs, We shall soon cast them into the Fire. As often as their skins are roasted through, We shall change them for fresh skins, that they may taste the penalty. For Allah is Exalted in Power, All-Wise.” (Qur’an, 4:56)
Melting
One of the kinds of torment will be the pouring of Al-Hamim over their heads. Al-Hamim is ultra-heated water; because of its extreme heat, it will melt their innards and everything inside: “… then as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them, boiling water will be poured down over their heads. With it will melt or vanish away what is within their bellies, as well as skins.” (Qur’an, 22:19-20)
At-Tirmidhi reported from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Al-Hamim will be poured on their heads and will dissolve through until it reaches their sides and all their innards will drop out, until it comes out of his feet, and everything is melted, then he will be restored as he was.” He (At-Tirmidhi) said, “It is a sahih ghareeb hasan Hadith.” (At-Takhweef min An-Naar, p.145, Jaami’ Al-Usool, 10/540)
Scorching (the face)
The noblest and most dignified part of a person is the face, hence the Prophet (peace be upon him) forbade us to strike the face. One of the ways in which Allah Almighty will humiliate the people of Hell is by gathering them on their faces, blind, deaf and dumb, on the Day of Resurrection: “…We shall gather them together prone on their faces, blind, dumb, and deaf; their abode will be Hell; every time it shows abatement, We shall increase for them the Fierceness of the Fire.” (Qur’an, 17:97)
Then they will be thrown on their faces in the Fire: “And if any do evil, their faces will be thrown headlong into the Fire: “Do you receive a reward other than that which you have earned by your deeds?” (Qur’an, 27:90)
The Fire will burn and cover their faces forever, with no barrier between them and it: “If only the unbelievers knew when they will not be able to ward off the Fire from their faces, nor yet from their backs, and no help can reach them!” (Qur’an, 21:39)
“The Fire will burn their faces and they will therein grin, with their lips displaced.” (Qur’an, 23:104)
“Their garments of liquid pitch, and their faces covered with fire.” (Qur’an, 14:50)
“Is then one who has to fear the brunt of the penalty on the Day of Judgement his face?” (Qur’an, 39:24)
Look at this horrific scene that makes one shudder!
“The Day that their faces will be turned upside down in the Fire, they will say, “Woe to us! Would that we had obeyed Allah and obeyed the Messenger.” (Qur’an, 33:66)
Do you not see that just as meat and fish are turned over when they are cooked, so their faces will be turned over in the Fire of Hell. We seek refuge with Allah Almighty from the punishment of the people of Hell.
Dragging
Another of the painful torments that the infidels will suffer is being dragged on their faces into Hell: “Truly those in sin are the ones straying in mind, and mad. The Day they will be dragged through the Fire on their faces: “Taste the touch of Hell.” (Qur’an, 54:47-48)
Their pain at being dragged will be increased by the fact that they will be tied up in chains and fetters: “…But soon shall they know, when the yokes round their necks, and the chains, they shall be dragged along, in the boiling fetid fluid, then shall they be burned.” (Qur’an, 40:70-72)
Qatadah said, “They will be dragged once in the Fire, and once in Al-Hamim.” (Ibn Rajab, at-Takhweef min an-Naar, p.147)
Blackening of the faces
Allah Almighty will blacken the faces of the people of Hell in the Hereafter: “On the Day when some faces will be white and some faces will be black; to those who faces will be black: “Did you reject Faith after accepting it? Taste then the Penalty for rejecting Faith.” (Qur’an, 3:106)
This is intense blackness, as if the darkness of night had covered their faces
“But those who have earned evil will have a reward of like evil, and ignominy will cover their faces. No defender will they have from Allah. Their faces will be covered, as it were, with pieces from the darkness of night. They are Companions of the Fire, they will abide therein [for aye!] (Qur’an, 10:27) [ARTICLE]
After reading these verses from Quran, and sayings of Muhammad, I don’t believe any sane, rational mind, will call Islam a religion of peace, or Allah the Most Merciful Lord of universe as Muslims say. These verses are evil & demonic, and it appears that these verses are written by the most demonic & sadistic man ever to live on face of Earth. I want to leave readers with choice, either they want to live a life-like hell with so-called peaceful Muslims like Osama Bin Laden & Hafiz Syed, or they want to eradicate this cancer called Islam.
By Arnold Ahlert
Those looking for the real war on women–as opposed to the one promoted by the American left and their media enablers—should focus their attention on Pakistan and Sudan. In the former nation, a 25-year-old pregnant woman has been stoned to death by members of her own family, with her father dubbing the atrocity an “honor killing.” In the latter nation, a 27-year-old woman has been sentenced to death for refusing to renounce her Christian faith. She was also pregnant, and has given birth while awaiting her sentence to be carried out. The common thread in both cases is as predictable as it is disturbing: the religion of Islam and the endemic mistreatment of women practiced by far too many of its followers.
Farzana Parveen was killed in broad daylight by nearly 20 members of her family before a crowd of onlookers outside the High Court in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistan. As she walked up to the court’s main gate with her husband Mohammad Iqbal, relatives waiting for the couple’s arrival fired shots in the air and attempted to snatch her away. When she resisted, the attackers, who included her father, two brothers and her former fiancé, started beating her and her husband, before escalating the attack with bricks obtained from a nearby construction site.
Parveen subsequently sustained severe head injuries and was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to police.
All of the attackers but her father, Mohammad Azeem, escaped. He surrendered to the police and admitted taking part in the killing. He had no remorse. “I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it,” the father was quoted as saying by police investigator Rana Mujahid.
Parveen had been engaged to her cousin, but married Iqbal instead, following an engagement of several years. In response, her family registered an abduction case against Iqbal, and Parzeen was to appear in court to argue that she had married him of her own free will, according to her lawyer Mustafa Kharal. Arranged marriages are the norm among conservative Pakistanis. Marrying for love is a transgression that ostensibly dishonors the family.
Iqbal, who started seeing Parveen following the death of his former wife with whom he had five children, claimed the couple was “in love.” He further alleged that her family wanted to extract money from him before allowing the marriage to take place. Instead, “I simply took her to court and registered a marriage,” Iqbal explained.
Parveen’s murder is hardly an anomaly. According to Pakistani rights group the Aurat Foundation, as many as 1,000 Pakistani women are killed every year by their families in such honor killings. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan released a report last month revealing that 869 women were murdered in honor killings in 2013, but the Aurat Foundation insists the number could be far higher because the totals are based solely on newspaper reports. The Pakistani government does not compile any honor killing statistics.
Despite that ongoing reality, Zia Awan, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist, expressed shock at the brutal and public nature of the crime. “I have not heard of any such case in which a woman was stoned to death, and the most shameful and worrying thing is that this woman was killed in front of a court,” he said. He further noted that those who commit such violence against women are either acquitted outright, or handed light sentences, due to inadequate police work and improperly handled prosecutions. Even those convicted may eventually walk free as Pakistani law permits a victim’s family to forgive the victim’s killer.
Even more appalling, though most honor killings are committed by family members, they can instead nominate someone else to commit the murder–and subsequently forgive him. ”This is a huge flaw in the law,” said the Aurat Foundation’s Wasim Wagha. “We are really struggling on this issue.”
In Sudan, the law has produced an equally despicable outcome. Yesterday, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim gave birth to a baby girl in the hospital wing of a prison in Omdurman, where she awaits execution for refusing to renounce her Christian faith and embrace Islam. Ibrahim, who has been imprisoned since February has her 20-month old son with her as well.
The 27-year-old doctor had a Muslim father, but was raised as a Christian by her mother. On May 11, a court in Khartoum convicted Ibrahim, who was eight months pregnant at the time, of apostasy and adultery and sentenced her to death by hanging. The verdict was reached after she refused to renounce her Christianity during a three-day “grace period.” In addition, the court annulled her marriage and sentenced her to receive 100 lashes for the crime of “zena” (Arabic for illegitimate sex) because she had sexual relations with a “non-Muslim man” who happens to be her husband Daniel Wani. Wani, who is an American citizen, told Fox News his wife would not convert, and spends her time “shackled” in prison with her son.
Her daughter has now joined them.
And once again, as in the case of Farzana Parveen, Ibrahim’s family is part of the equation. She was arrested in August of 2013 when men claiming to be from her father’s side of the family charged her with adultery. They claimed her real name was Abrar al-Hady, according to the Khartoum-based al-Taghyeer newspaper, who cited their lawyer, Abdel Rahman Malek. Malek claimed they presented a Sudanese nationality document to the court with both that name and her fingerprints. The complaint further alleged she had been missing for several years and her family was shocked to discover she had married a Christian. Under Sudan’s version of Sharia Law, any marriage of a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim man constitutes adultery. The apostasy charge was added in February 2014.
Wani claimed he never met anyone from her family because Ibrahim’s mother was an Ethiopian refugee who had no relatives in Sudan. He was introduced to his wife by his sister who attended the same church. “She was never a Muslim, she was always a Christian,” Ali said. “And even if she renounced Islam, she should not be punished for that.” Wani, who has been unable to see his new daughter despite making a request to prison authorities, illuminated his hope for the future. “We call on the world to ask the Sudanese government to drop the verdict and just let us live our normal lives,” he said.
That is not likely at this juncture. Sudanese officials have refused to allow Wani to take his son because the law forbids a Christian man from raising a Muslim child, as the court has so designated him. According to Amnesty International, the law also requires the postponement of Ibrahim’s execution until she has raised her newborn child for at least two years. Moreover, on May 18, the judiciary asserted that Ibrahim “enjoyed all the necessary requirements for a fair trial as a constitutional right,” according to a statement published by Suna, the state news agency.
In a twist to the story, the Daily Mail is reporting that lawyers hired by the US-based human rights organization Justice Centre Sudan have alleged that Ibrahim’s “half brother and half sister” tracked her down so they could take over her successful general store. “We believe the family filed the lawsuit because they want to gain control of the business. If Meriam stays in jail she could lose everything and they could be the ones to benefit,” said a spokesman for the organization.
All well and good in terms of sensationalism, but it doesn’t negate the reality that Sharia Law is the vehicle that has enabled the outrage that has a mother and her two children languishing in prison—until such time as Meriam Ibrahim is beaten and hanged.
Thus the ongoing and very real war against women in the Muslim world continues. It is a war largely ignored by the American left and their feminist cohorts, who have managed to largely ignore the real and present danger of Sharia Law. It is Sharia Law that relegates millions of women to second-class status at best–and honor killings, whippings and the hangman’s noose at worst. That the left’s so-called war against women extends only as far as the nearest member of the GOP and his or her position on abortion is myopic. So myopic that someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali must be stripped of an honorary degree by Brandeis University, lest she use her acceptance speech to remind her audience where the most virulent aspects of the war against women originate. Islam is the tip of the spear, and no amount of politically calculated obfuscation by the American left will alter that reality.
Sudanese Woman in Prison for Christianity Gave Birth While Chained
By Daniel Greenfield
Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with Islam. She’s just in prison because her mother raised her as a Christian, while Sudan’s Islamic law demands that she be Muslim because she had a Muslim father.
Daniel Wani, the husband of the Sudanese woman sentenced to hang for apostasy, has spoken for the first time of his delight at seeing his baby daughter – and his anger at the authorities’ insistence on keeping Meriam Ibrahim in chains.
Mr Wani, 27, told The Telegraph that his wife gave birth on Tuesday with her legs shackled.
“They kept a chain on her legs,” he said. “She is very unhappy about that.”
Immediately after the birth, Mr Wani was refused permission to see his wife. But finally, on Wednesday, the authorities relented and let him and his lawyer enter the jail, and removed the chains from Ms Ibrahim’s legs.
“It was very wonderful to see my baby daughter – I am so happy,” he said.
“The baby is very beautiful.”
Ms Ibrahim named their daughter Maya – when asked why, Mr Wani said: “Her mother chose the name.”
Don’t worry. According to Sudan, freedom of choice is the cornerstone of Islam.
In a statement on a Sudanese court’s death-for-apostasy conviction of a Christian mother of two–who is the wife of a U.S. citizen–the Embassy of Sudan in Washington, D.C., said on its website “it is important to emphasize that freedom of choice is the cornerstone of both Islam and Christianity.”
The Sudanese embassy also said of the two children: “It is unfair to accuse the government of Sudan of imprisoning the two infants.”
“We stand with our statement that: that freedom of choice is the cornerstone of both Islam and Christianity. The facts on the ground support that thousand of Sudanese Christian live in peace and harmony with their fellow Muslim brothers and sisters and practice their religious ritual all over the country in a very nice respected and protected churches.”
Right, sure, absolutely. If you can’t trust Islam to protect minorities, you can’t trust a serial killer to babysit your kids.
“We are facing the nightmare of genocide of our people in a final attempt to erase our culture and society from the face of the earth.”
That’s the warning of African Episcopal Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail in northern Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. His warning is echoed by Operation Broken Silence.
“Due to the ongoing, targeted attacks against civilians in the South Kordofan region of Sudan,” says the Nashville-based group, which is dedicated to raising awareness to international issues, “a new genocide is beginning to be committed by government of Sudan forces and their proxy militias.
Religious persecution is the cornerstone of Islam.
By Mark Durie
It is a common refrain of pious Muslims in the face of atrocities done by other Muslims in the name of Islam that Islam must not be shamed. Whenever an Islamic atrocity potentially dishonors Islam, non-Muslims are asked to agree that ‘This is not Islamic’ so that the honor of Islam can be kept pristine. The real issue, however, is not what would be good or bad for Islam’s reputation; Islam is not the victim here. The pressing issue is not to get people to think well of Islam, but how, for instance, in the case of Boko Haram’s kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls, the girls can be rescued and, above all, how Boko Haram’s murderous rampage can be halted.
Qasim Rashid, an American Muslim, recently published on FoxNews.com a heart-felt expression of deep distress at the kidnapping of Nigerian girls by Boko Haram (‘What would Muhammad say to Boko Haram’). He declared that Muhammad himself would not recognize this group as acting in line with his teachings:
“Boko Haram’s claim that Islam motivates their kidnappings is no different than Adolf Hitler’s claim that Christianity motivated his genocide. This terrorist organization acts in direct violation of every Islamic teaching regarding women.”
Qasim Rashid is not the only Muslim who has been speaking out in support of the kidnapped girls, while denying that their plight has anything to do with Islam (see here).
Qasim Rashid is a member of the Ahmaddiyah community, which is regarded as unorthodox by most Muslims. Indeed Ahmaddiyahs are often severely persecuted for their beliefs in Islamic nations. Although Qasim Rashid does not speak for mainstream Islam, he is nevertheless to be commended for speaking up against Boko Haram’s repugnant acts.
But does the claim that Boko Haram is not Islamic hold up to scrutiny?
What counts as a valid manifestation of Islam? Ahmaddiyah beliefs can be considered Islamic, for those who hold them do so on the basis of a reasoned interpretation of Islamic canonical sources, even if the majority of Muslims reject them as Muslims. By the same token, the beliefs of Boko Haram must also be considered a form of Islam, for they too are held on the basis of a reasoned interpretation of Islamic canonical sources.
It needs to be acknowledged that Boko Haram has not arisen in a vacuum. As Andrew Bostom has pointed out, violent opposition to non-Islamic culture has been a feature of Nigerian Islam for centuries. Today this hatred is being directed against Western education and secular government, but in the past it was indigenous Africa cultures which were targeted for brutal treatment, including enslavement and slaughter. The modern revival of absolutist Sharia-compliant Islam in the north of Nigeria is a process which has deep roots in history. It has also been in progress for decades. Khalid Yasin, an African American convert to Islam and globe-trotting preacher, waxed lyricalabout the advance of Sharia law in Nigeria on Australian national radio in 2003:
“If we look at the evolution of the Sharia experiment in Nigeria for instance. It’s just a wonderful, phenomenal experience. It has brought about some sweeping changes, balances, within the society, regulations in terms of moral practices and so many things. …What did the Sharia provide? Always dignity, protection, and the religious rights?”
But let us consider the evidence Qasim Rashid gives for his view that Muhammad would disown Boko Haram. His arguments can be summarized as follows:
- ‘Boko Haram violates the Koran 24:34 [i.e. Sura 24:33] which commands, “and force not your women to unchaste life,” i.e. [this is] a condemnation of Boko Haram’s intention to sell these girls into prostitution.’
- ‘They violate Koran 4:20 [i.e. Sura 4:19] which declares, “it is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will; nor should you detain them,” i.e. a specific repudiation of Boko Haram’s kidnapping and detention.’
- ‘Prophet Muhammad’s dying words embodied these commandments. He implored, “Do treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers.”’
- The seeking of knowledge is an obligation on all Muslims, including ‘secular knowledge’.
- ‘Islam … commands female education.’
Although Qasim Rashid’s views are sincerely held, his reasoning is weak. Let us consider his points in order.
Compel not your slave-girls — Sura 24:33
Contra Qasim Rashid, Sura 24:33 does not say ‘force not your women’ but:
“… compel not your slave-girls to prostitution when they desire to keep chaste, in order to seek the frail goods of this world’s life. And whoever compels them, then surely after their compulsion Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.” (The Quran translation used here is cited from a translation by Ahmaddiya scholar Muhammad Maulana Ali).
The word translated ‘slave-girl’ here can also mean a young woman, but in this passage it clearly refers to female slaves. A standard interpretation of this verse by Sunni commentators – such as Ibn Kathir – is that if someone owns a slave girl, he should not prostitute her, but if he does, Allah will forgive her.
Strictly speaking, this verse does not appear to apply to the situation of the Nigerian girls taken by Boko Haram. The outrage is that they were taken captive and enslaved in the first place, becoming what the Koran refers to as ‘those whom your right hand possesses’. That they may have been raped by their captors seems highly likely, but this is not the same thing as being prostituted to produce income for their owners. Islam permits men to have sexual intercourse with their slave women, and also to sell them into the service of another, but it frowns on hiring them out for prostitution.
In Sura 33:50 of the Koran it is stated that it was permissible for Muhammad to have sex with his female slaves:
“O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesses, out of those whom Allah has given thee as prisoners of war”,
and in verse 23:6 this prerogative is extended to Muslim believers:
“Successful indeed are the believers … who restrain their sexual passions except in the presence of their mates [their wives], of those whom their right hands possess.”
The actions and teaching of Muhammad also support the practice of sexual slavery for women taken captive in jihad. Chapter 547 of the Sahih Muslim, a revered collection of sayings of Muhammad considered reliable by most Muslims, is entitled ‘It is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a captive woman…’. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, the translator and editor of the Sahih Muslim, added the following footnote to this chapter:
“As for the expression malakat aymanukum (those whom your right hands possess) [it] denotes slave-girls, i.e. women who were captured in the Holy War … sexual intercourse with these women is lawful with certain conditions.”
Boko Haram is reported to be intending to sell the girls at a slave market. This is no doubt based upon the precedent of Muhammad’s own practice. There are many examples from Muhammad’s actions and those of his companions which could be cited. For example, after putting the men of the Jewish Quraiza tribe in Medina to the sword, Muhammad’s biographer Ibn Isaq reports that he sold some of the Jewish women and used the money to buy horses and weapon:
“Then the apostle divided the property, wives, and children of B. Qurayza among the Muslims, and he made known on that day the shares of horse and men, and took out the fifth. … Then the apostle sent Sa‘d b. Zayd al-Ansari brother of b. ‘Abdu’l-Ashhal with some of the captive women of B. Qurayza to Najd and he sold them for horses and weapons. (Sirat Rasul Allah, by Ibn Ishaq)
The rest of the Jewish slaves were divided among the Muslims. Muhammad himself took one of the leading Jewish women, Rayhana, for his concubine, but she refused to marry him:
The apostle had chosen one of their women for himself, Rayhana d. ‘Amr b. Khunafa, one of the women of B. ‘Amr b. Qurayza, and she remained with him until she died, in his power. The apostle had proposed to marry her and put the veil on her, but she said: ‘Nay, leave me in your power, for that will be easier for me and for you.’” (Sirat Rasul Allah, by Ibn Ishaq).
Rayhana, who became Muhammad’s concubine by capture in warfare, is revered to this day as one of the ‘wives’ of the prophet of Islam.
In addition to the support for this practice found in the Islamic canon, historical sources give ample evidence that enslavement of women as captives of war and resulting sexual servitude has been a persistent feature of Islamic warfare conducted by pious Muslims. Consider for example the report of Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, Saladin’s chronicler, of the fate of 8,000 Christian women in Jerusalem who were unable to pay a ransom for their release after the conquest of that city by Saladin:
“Women and children together came to 8,000 and were quickly divided up among us, brining a smile to Muslim faces at their lamentations. How many well-guarded women were profaned, how many queens were ruled and nubile girls married, and noble women given away, and miserly women forced to yield themselves, and women who had been kept hidden stripped of their modesty, and serious women made ridiculous, and women kept in private now set in public, and free women occupied, and precious ones used for hard work, and pretty things put to the test, and virgins dishonoured and proud women deflowered, and lovely women’s red lips kissed, and dark women prostrated, and untamed ones tamed, and happy ones made to weep!” (Arab Historians of the Crusades, ed. by Francesco Gabrieli, pp. 96-97).
It is has been widely accepted by Islamic jurists down the ages that Islam permits Muslim men to have sex with women who have come into their possession through being taken captive in war, either because they personally captured them, or because they acquired them by purchase or gift from another. Indeed this was the legal basis in Islam for the harem system: the women of the harem were mainly sourced from jihad campaigns waged against non-Muslim communities.
It is simply incredible that Qasim Rashid would quote a verse which prohibits Muslim men from hiring out their concubines for sex as evidence that Islam is against the use of sexual violence against captive women. If we are supposed to deny the label ‘Islamic’ to Boko Haram, are we also to conclude that Saladin and even Muhammad himself cannot be called Muslims?
Inheriting and troubling wives — Sura 4:19
Sura 4:19 is another passage cited by Qasim Rashid. Maulana Muhammad Ali’s translation throws a different light on this passage:
“O you who believe, it is not lawful for you to take women as heritage [i.e. to inherit them] against their will. Nor should you straiten them by taking part of what you have given them …”.
The standard explanation of this verse is that it prohibited two practices: a man ‘inheriting’ the wife of his male relative, which had apparently been a pagan Arab custom before Islam; and oppressing one’s wife in order to make her seek a divorce, so that she will pay back the bride-price. This latter practice had been occurring in Muhammad’s time, because if a Muslim man divorced a wife, he was not entitled to any financial compensation, but if a woman initiated divorce proceedings, she had to compensate him for her bride-price. (See Ibn Kathir and also Muhammad Ali’s explanation in footnotes which both concur with the explanation given here.)
Sura 4:19 is thus not a prohibition against detaining women: it has absolutely nothing to do with the situation of the captured Nigerian girls.
Treating Your Women Well:
With regard to Muhammad’s command to Muslims to treat their wives well, these words could apply as an instruction for the men who have married the captured girls, taking them as their wives. It says nothing, however, about the issue of their capture, enslavement or sale.
On Seeking Secular Knowledge:
With regard to Qasim Rashid’s next point, most pious Muslims would agree that seeking knowledge, including Western scientific knowledge, is an obligation for Muslims. Most Muslims do not agree with Boko Haram’s desire to banish all learning apart from Islamic instruction. However antipathy to non-Islamic education and knowledge has had a long history in Islamic thought. This is not a new idea, nor even a particularly aberrant one, but is part of the broad range of Islamic theological perspectives.
Learned Muslim Women in the Past:
With regard to Qasim Rashid’s fifth argument, it is of course possible to find examples in history of capable Muslim women who were well-educated. On the other hand there are traditions of Muhammad which denigrate the intellectual capacity of women, such as the following:
Once Allah’s Apostle went out to [to pray] … Then he passed by the women and said, “O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women).” They asked, “Why is it so, O Allah’s Apostle ?” He replied, “You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you …” The women asked, “O Allah’s Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?” He said, “Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?” They replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn’t it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?” The women replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her religion.” (Sahih Bukhari, Book 6, Hadith 301)
In any case, asking what Muhammad would say on the subject of educating women is irrelevant to what Boko Haram has done. It did not attack the girls’ school because Boko Haram believes women should not be educated. They did it because they are opposed to secular, non-Islamic education per se, and they believe they have the right to kill, enslave and plunder people who they count as their enemies. They also wish to terrorize their enemies by stirring up as much fear and emotional trauma to them as possible.
Islam Is Not The Victim Here:
Qasim Rashid writes: “Do not give the terrorists known as Boko Haram the dignity of attributing any religion to their name.” This is a common refrain of pious Muslims in the face of atrocities done by other Muslims in the name of Islam: whenever an atrocity dishonors Islam, non-Muslims are asked to agree that ‘This is not Islamic’ so that the honor of Islam can be kept pristine.
However the real issue is not what might be good or bad for Islam’s reputation. The sight of Boko Haram’s leader saying on video that ‘by Allah’ he will go to market and sell the captive girls, because his religion permits him to do so, has already dishonored Islam. Muhammad and Saladin, by their actions, could equally be considered to have dishonored Islam, but this is beside the point. The real challenge here is not preserving the honor of Islam, but what can be done to counter Boko Haram.
What is crystal clear is that nothing can be gained by denial of the truth about the jihadis’ religious ideology. Other Muslims may — and do! — disagree with Boko Haram’s beliefs. That is a not a bad thing. But what will not help anyone – least of all the victims of this outrage – is putting forward weak arguments that no-one should judge Islam on the basis of Boko Haram’s actions. That line of thought is completely irrelevant to addressing the problem.
Islam is not the victim here. The pressing issue here is not to get people to think well of Islam, but how these girls can be rescued, and above all how Boko Haram’s murderous rampage can be halted.
To achieve progress with this second goal it is necessary first and foremost to acknowledge the theological character of the challenge. In historical contexts, such as colonial India and the Dutch East Indies, colonial governments were able to turn the tide on long-running and costly Islamic insurgencies by acknowledging the religious character of the challenge they were facing – that they were up against a jihad. This enabled them to pursue appropriate strategies, such as:
- Getting leading mainstream Muslim scholars to issue credible rulings (fatwas) which declared the specific jihad insurgency to be sinful and forbidden by Islam. (Such fatwas continue to be used by Islamic regimes today to counter their home-grown insurgents.)
- Making it a primary military objective to pursue and take out the ideologues – Islamic clerics – who were driving the insurgency through recruitment and religious formation of the jihadi combatants. It is essential to cut off the flow of ideology. US Navy Seals may be able to go in and rescue the kidnapped girls, but many more girls will continue to be kidnapped until the transmission of the ideology is disrupted.
Attempting to persuade non-Muslim Westerners that Islam is not the problem actually makes it much harder to formulate an effective strategy for countering jihadi insurgencies. The aversion of the US State Department to acknowledge that Boko Haram was an Islamic religious movement – they only classified it as a banned terrorist organization in late 2013 – has had a crippling effect on America’s ability to make a difference in Nigeria (see Nina Shea’s analysis).
Boko Haram will not be contained by sending in hostage negotiation experts, or making public statements about poverty, disadvantage and ‘poor government service delivery’. These are not the cause of all this hatred. Acknowledging the potent religious roots of the insurgency movement is the basic first step in shaping a credible response. To accept this is not the same as saying that Boko Haram’s interpretation of Islam is correct. One can be completely agnostic about what is or is not true Islam but yet grasp that Boko Haram is an interpretation of Islam, which at least for its followers has become the most compelling interpretation around. Finding a solution to the challenge of Boko Haram can only start from this premise.
Islamic 'Sex Slaves' Throw Wrench in Official Narrative
By Raymond Ibrahim
Islamic law permits the possession of concubines, or sex slaves. This has been demonstrated countless times, including through Islamic clerics quoting Islamic scriptures, and through ordinary Muslims, past and present, acting on those scriptures.
That said, Islam-sanctioned sex-slavery does not perturb the Western world simply because the powers-that-be – specifically, academia, media, and government – ignore it, and any number of other unsavory phenomena associated with Islam, out of existence.
Interesting, therefore, are the responses – comical, one might even say – when one of these everyday anecdotes actually does surface for the general public.
Enter the recent abduction of nearly 300, mostly Christian, teenage schoolgirls in Nigeria at the hands of Boko Haram, yet another Islamic terrorist organization plaguing mankind. As expected, the group justified its actions in Islamic terms, with its leader declaring on video, “I abducted your girls. I will sell them on the market, by Allah. … There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell.”
Of course, for those in the know, none of this is surprising. In March 2012, Boko Haram warned that it would do just this, declaring that it was preparing to “strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women.”
Moreover, of all the human rights abuses I catalog in Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians – and there are depressingly many – Boko Haram’s savagery has resulted in more Christians killed than in the rest of the world combined.
The group has bombed or burned hundreds of Christian churches, most when packed for service, including on Christmas Day and Easter Day, leaving hundreds of worshippers dead or dismembered through the years. In its bid to cleanse northern Nigeria of all Christian presence – a repeatedly stated goal – it has threatened to poison the food eaten by Christians and stormed areas where Christians and Muslims were intermingled,singling the Christians out before slitting their throats.
Go to my monthly “Muslim Persecution of Christians” series, currently 30 in all, and see the countless atrocities that Boko Haram has been responsible for – most of which make the recent Nigerian girls’ abduction pale in comparison.
The real news here is that the so-called mainstream media actually reported on this latest atrocity, prompting both Western and Muslim authorities – who are much more accustomed to, and comfortable with, pretending these sorts of things don’t exist – to respond in awkward, hypocritical and, in a word, foolish ways. Thus:
Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. had been in touch with Nigeria “from day one” of the crisis. But repeated offers of U.S. assistance were ignored until Kerry got on the phone Tuesday with [Nigerian president] Jonathan amid growing international concern and outrage over the fate of the girls in the weeks since their abduction…. “I think now the complications that have arisen have convinced everybody that there needs to be a greater effort,” Kerry said at a State Department news conference. “And it will begin immediately. I mean, literally, immediately.”
“Convinced everybody”? Is Kerry referring to himself? After all, there might not be any need for “greater effort” had Kerry only let the Nigerian president and government do their job one year ago, when they were waging a particularly strong offensive against Boko Haram in the very same region where the schoolgirls were recently kidnapped.
Back then, in May 2013, according to Reuters, “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a strongly worded statement [to the Nigerian president] saying: “We are … deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism” from Boko Haram.
Perhaps this sheds more light on why “repeated offers of U.S. assistance [regarding the kidnapped girls] were ignored” by Nigeria, “until Kerry got on the phone” (whatever that means).
As for Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, who is now bemoaning the lot of the kidnapped girls in Nigeria – saying it’s “abominable, it’s criminal, it’s an act of terrorism and it really merits the fullest response possible” – when she was secretary of state and in a position to help offer “the fullest response possible,” she repeatedly refused to designate Boko Haram as a “foreign terrorist organizations,” despite the countless atrocities it had already committed, despite the fact that it had boasted it would “strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women,” as it just has, and despite urging from the CIA, FBI, Justice Department, and several congressmen and senators.
Her logic was once voiced by her husband, former U.S. president Bill Clinton. Back in February 2012, in a speech discussing Boko Haram’s terror campaign, Clinton declared that “inequality” and “poverty” are “what’s fueling all this stuff” and warned the Nigerian government that “[i]t is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with violence” – a precursor to Kerry’s May 2013 condemnation of the Nigerian government’s tough offensive against Boko Haram, which would “only escalate the violence and fuel extremism.”
In short, just like the Obama administration has been a thorn in Egypt’s war with the Muslim Brotherhood, so too has it been a thorn in Nigeria war’s with Boko Haram – despite all its current handwringing and “outrage” over this latest – that is, known – atrocity.
As for the “Islam” aspect of Boko Haram’s violence and Christian persecution, needless to say, the Obama administration rejects it outright. Thus, after the 2012 Easter Day church bombings by Boko Haram that killed dozens of worshipers, U.S. Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson was quick to insist that “religion is not driving extremist violence” – in other words, as Bill Clinton might put it, that “inequality” and “poverty” are “what’s fueling all this stuff.”
Still, because this latest kidnapping anecdote has received sufficient media attention, including in the Arab and Muslim worlds, some Muslim leaders have been forced out of their comfort zone to respond.
Thus, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayib, the Grand Sheikh of Egypt’s Al Azhar – regularly touted as the Muslim world’s most prestigious institution of Islamic learning – was quick to condemn Boko Haram’s actions of kidnapping and selling “infidel” women, saying, “these actions have no connection to the tolerant and noble teachings of Islam.”
As for Egypt’s minister of endowments, Dr. Muhammad Mukhtar al-Gum‘a, he too released a statement saying that “the terrorist deeds of Boko Haram have nothing to do with Islam, especially this latest deed of kidnapping girls. Instead, they are terroristic, criminal actions, and Islam is clean of them.” He then went into White House spokesperson mode, saying that poverty, oppression, and the rest were the true motivators for Boko Haram’s carnage.
On can sympathize with Egypt’s state sheikhs – after all, they are busy fighting their own misunderstanders of Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood and their fellow ideologues, who have been abducting male Coptic Christians for ransom, and females for sexual abuse, slavery, and/or conversion to Islam.
Happily for these moderate clerics, they are not in a position to have their assertions challenged. Based on precedent, they often have no response and can get hostile.
For example, some years back, when Sheikh Gamal Qutb, a one-time Grand Mufti of Al Azhar, was asked on live Arabic-language TV if Islam permits sex slaves, as some Koran verses (e.g., 4:24) indicate, he refused to give a direct answer, preferring to prevaricate. When pressed for a clear answer by the Muslim female host, he became hostile and stormed off the set. He eventually returned, only to be implored again by the host, who said, “Ninety percent of Muslims, including myself, do not understand the issue of sex slavery in Islam and are having a hard time swallowing it,” to which he gruffly responded, “You don’t need to understand!”
And there you have it. From Obama administration officials who helped empower Nigeria’s Islamic terrorists, now wringing their hands and pretending outrage, to Islamic clerics forced to confront the ugly side of Islam, by simply putting their heads in the sand and hoping no one puts them on the spot, here is just a small example of what officialdom would have to deal with if the full totality of crimes committed in the name of Islam were to become common knowledge, as they increasingly are.
Obama’s Alliance with Boko Haram
By Daniel Greenfield
Leftist policy is the search for the root cause of evil. Everything from a street mugging to planes flying into the World Trade Center is reduced to a root cause of social injustice. Throw poverty, oppression and a bunch of NGO buzzwords into a pot and out come the suicide bombings, drug dealing and mass rapes.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group that kidnapped hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls, or a drug dealer with a record as long as his tattooed arm.
Obama and Hillary resisted doing anything about Boko Haram because they believed that its root cause was the oppression of Muslims by the Nigerian government. Across the bloody years of Boko Haram terror, the State Department matched empty condemnations of Boko Haram’s killing sprees with condemnations of the Nigerian authorities for violating Muslim rights.
Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton haven’t championed #BringBackOurGirls because it’s a hashtag in support of the kidnapped girls, but because it undermines the Nigerian government. They aren’t trying to help the kidnapped girls. They’re trying to bring down a government that hasn’t gone along with their agenda for appeasing Boko Haram and Nigerian Muslims.
The hashtag politics aren’t aimed at the terrorists. They’re aimed at helping the terrorists.
There’s a reason why the media and so many leftists have embraced the hashtag. #BringBackOurGirls isn’t a rescue. It denounces the Nigerian government for not having already gotten the job done even as the State Department stands ready to denounce any human rights violations during a rescue attempt.
Obama and Boko Haram want to bring down the Nigerian government and replace it with a leadership that is more amenable to appeasement. It’s the same thing that is happening in Israel and Egypt.
State Department officials responded to Boko Haram attacks over the years with the same litany of statistics about unemployment in the Muslim north and the 92 percent of children there who do not attend school. When Hillary Clinton was asked about the kidnappings by ABC News, she blamed Nigeria for not “ensuring that every child has the right and opportunity to go to school.”
Clinton acted as if she were unaware that Boko Haram opposes Muslim children going to school or that it would take the very same measures that her State Department has repeatedly opposed to make it possible for them to go to school. This is a familiar Catch 22 in which the authorities are blamed for not fixing the socioeconomic problems in terrorist regions that are impossible to fix without defeating the terrorists and blamed for violating the human rights of the terrorists when they try to defeat them.
The mainstream media has been more blatant about carrying Boko Haram’s bloody water. Their stories begin with the kidnapped schoolgirls and skip over to a sympathetic reading of history in which Boko Haram only took up arms after government brutality.
Two years ago the New York Times ran an op-ed titled, “In Nigeria, Boko Haram Is Not the Problem.”
The op-ed contended that Boko Haram didn’t exist, that it was a peaceful splinter group and that the Nigerian army was worse than Boko Haram. Somehow these three claims were made on the same page. The editorial warned the US not to give the impression that it supports Nigeria’s Christian president or it would infuriate Muslims and suggested that Christians might really be behind the Muslim terror attacks.
Last year, Secretary of State John Kerry , after a pro forma condemnation of Boko Haram terror, warned, “We are also deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism.”
Kerry was blaming the victims of Boko Haram for the violence perpetrated against them and claiming that resistance to Boko Haram caused Boko Haram’s attacks.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, three of whose members had been appointed by Obama and one by Nancy Pelosi, issued a report blaming Nigeria for Boko Haram’s murderous Jihad.
The report’s findings claimed that the Nigerian government’s “violations of religious freedom” had led to “sectarian violence.” It echoed the propaganda of the Islamic terrorist group, stating that, “Boko Haram also justifies its attacks on churches by citing, among other things, state and federal government actions against Muslims.”
The report suggested that the Nigerian government was too focused on fighting Boko Haram and not focused enough on dealing with Christian violence against Muslims. “The Nigerian government’s failure to address chronic religion-related violence contrasts with its commitment to stop Boko Haram, which at times has resulted in the indiscriminate use of force against civilians and in human rights abuses.”
The solution was to scale back the fight against Boko Haram and appease Nigerian Muslims.
“In meetings with Nigerian officials, including Secretary Clinton’s meeting with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in August 2012, the U.S. government consistently has urged the Nigerian government to expand its strategy against Boko Haram from solely a military solution to addressing problems of economic and political marginalization in the north, arguing that Boko Haram’s motivations are not religious but socio-economic,” the report stated.
“Additionally, senior U.S. officials frequently warn in private bilateral meetings and in public speeches that Nigerian security forces’ excessive use of force in response to Boko Haram is unacceptable and counterproductive.”
A year earlier, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns had proposed helping Nigeria develop “a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy” that includes “citizen engagement and dialogue.” This was really a proposal to export Obama’s failed appeasement strategy in Afghanistan that had cost over 1,600 American lives to Nigeria.
Boko Haram’s kidnapping of the schoolgirls is both convenient and inconvenient for Obama and the State Department. On the one hand it has brought negative attention to their stance on Boko Haram, but on the other hand it may end up toppling the Nigerian government and empowering Muslims. And they see a more flexible Nigerian government as the only means of coming to terms with Boko Haram.
This isn’t just their strategy for Nigeria. It’s their universal approach to Islamic terrorism. It’s why Kerry blamed Israel for the collapse of the peace talks with the PLO. It’s why Egypt is being pressured to free its Muslim Brotherhood detainees. And It’s why the United States is never allowed to defeat Al Qaeda.
Obama is trying to bring down governments that fight Islamic terrorism, whether in Egypt, Israel or Nigeria, and replace them with governments that appease terrorists. This shared goal creates an alliance, direct or indirect, open or covert, between Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and the PLO and Obama and Boko Haram.
