“I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers! Whoever opposes Allah and his messenger, then verily, Allah is severe in punishment.” (The Noble Quran 8:12-13)

A chilling exhortation from the sacred text of the religion of peace clearly prescribes beheading as a method of enforcing Allah’s authority. The Islamic State is notorious for decapitating those it regards as enemies and exploits in propaganda taunts. Just recently former Army Ranger Peter Kassig became the latest victim murdered in this heinous manner. Regardless of his Islamic conversion while in captivity, his identity as a former American soldier deployed in Iraq made him a high-value prize.

President Obama has repeatedly stated that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. In a recent U.N. speech he adamantly declared that the Islamic State “is not Islamic.” But by insisting on this conclusion, the Muslim world is relieved of its responsibility to challenge the group’s Islamic basis. Its origins can then be blamed on the West while its radical ideology is left untouched. So how does one determine what is and is not Islamic?

The answer lies within core Islamic texts (Quran and Hadiths) and the consensus of Islamic authorities. But while both Western politicians and Islamic apologists accept this method of determination, whenever the issue in question makes Islam “look bad,” then this fundamental approach is wholly ignored and replaced with a false narrative, as exemplified by the president’s absurd remark.

In his 2005 essay, “Beheading in the Name of Islam,” author Timothy Furnish authenticates the practice of beheading non-Muslim captives extends back to the Prophet Muhammad himself, a warlord who killed his enemies, including beheading. The earliest Islamic biographer of Muhammad, Ibn Ishaq, records in Sirat-a-Rasul that the prophet ordered the decapitation of hundreds of men from the Jewish Banu Quraysa tribe in Medina (Hadith Vol. 5, Bk. 59, No. 448, pp. 463-464). Throughout their history Islamic leaders have followed this precedent, leaving countless victims.

But while it must be clear that ISIS’s evil does not represent most Muslim’s behavior, this nihilistic movement is not an isolated phenomenon, but an outgrowth of historic Islamic supremacist ideology. The Islamic State finds support for these atrocities in the Quran, in stories of its prophet, and in its history and is therefore Islamic. This uncomfortable truth may be spurned as “Islamophobic” by liberal ideologues, but to speak otherwise would be disingenuous. The secular West trips over itself to portray the myriad acts of violence done in the name of Allah as misrepresenting “real Islam.”

The notion that authentic religion in general is naturally peaceful is a Western prejudice rather than a demonstrated truth. Today’s proponents of multiculturalism and tolerance, who champion Islam at the expense of Western mores, demonstrate ignorance of a suicidal order. It is imperative to address this issue directly. Only then will Western society determine whether it survives the 21st century.

 

Kent Larson

Stewartville