Islamism Unleashed

"Jihad is as much a primary duty as are daily prayers or fasting. One who avoids it is a sinner. His every claim to being a Muslim is doubtful. He is plainly a hypocrite who fails in the test of sincerity and all his acts of worship are a sham, a worthless, hollow show of deception." Syed Maudoodi

All right, the fact is that Islam is a religion of peace. Period. No need for further discussions. Further discussion will be interpreted as a challenge to the assertion that Islam is a religion of peace. And that comes fraught with the label of Islamophobia. No one wants to be charged with being a fascist, a bigot, a racist, discriminating against a minority and a religion that they little understand but stand ready to accuse of being a crucible spawning gratuitous bloody violence.

And yes, because people who do not pledge themselves to Islam and submit to its dictates are clearly ignorant and intolerant their apprehension of Islam as having been perverted, subverted, mis-interpreted and abused by ferociously psychotic fantasists who believe it to be only a matter of time before the world accepts the domination of Islam are just begging to be slaughtered.

Tens of thousands of jihadist assaults have taken place internationally, in the name of the Prophet Mohammad and Islamic ideology, if not theology. No other religion in the world has mounted fanatical attacks against symbols and peoples and religions other than their own, in a deliberate declaration of war against the 'other'.

Yet those who recognize and identify what is occurring as theology-driven by a religious institution whose heritage is replete with tribalism, wars and assassinations and the ultimate possession of geographic areas far from the source of their own, and decry and deplore the phenomenon are accused of insensitivity. It becomes more than a little tiresome to be labelled racist as a reaction to Islamist jihadism.

The delicacy of feelings of Muslims in response to the fear and loathing expressed by non-Muslims at constant attacks upon Western targets, much less moderate Muslims, is decried as unfair, victimizing all Muslims by association. Is it the West that has victimized moderate Muslims by linking them inextricably, through a shared religion with jihadists, or the vile encouragement of imams to young Muslim men to respect their heritage and engage in jihad as loyal Muslims?

There is a rampant disease infecting young Muslim men, and it is past time that it be recognized by the greater Muslim community. There are far too few courageous Muslims like Tarek Fatah and Salma Siddiqui, prepared to place themselves in the line of retributive ire and physical danger from the Muslim community by speaking out loud and clear in condemnation of violent jihad.

Of the general unwillingness of the broader Muslim community within Canada, in reflection of what pertains elsewhere in the Islamic ummah, of hearing no evil, seeing no evil, speaking no truth. Muslim Canadians who decry the situation they find themselves in as potential suspects of violent jihad, should complain not of unfair victimization, but of their role in assisting violence.

Canadian universities demonstrate amply the inability of Muslim youth to accept Canadian values by integrating into the Canadian community, and not instead seeking confrontation with other elements of Canada's ethnic minorities. Bringing to Canada the lethal mixture of ethnicity and traditional enmities. Justifying slander and aggravated insult and assault against others as a search for justice.

Canadian mosques and Muslim community centres, incarceration institutions and institutes of higher learning have all been compromised by the presence of hard-line, fanatical Islamists whose sermonizing about the necessity of Muslims to dedicate themselves to violent jihad is incumbent upon the faithful Muslim. Only the community of Muslims is capable of closing down these cesspools of unrest and destabilization.

From which, inevitably, come the violent jihadis of tomorrow. And when their plans are detected, and they are apprehended, and the Muslim community fears an 'unfair' backlash of condemnation from the wider community, who is responsible for that, but themselves, unwilling to assert their version of Islam, turning a blind eye to the blight within.