Simple disproof (can be multiplied endlessly) of the idea that Islamic extremism is a perversion of Islam

Hamas in the Hamas Charter calls for unceasing war against the Jews:

Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised.

In a later passage, the Charter specifically bases its war against the Jews on verses from the Hadiths:

Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

So according to the Hadiths (the Traditions of Muhammad, which have an authority in Islam almost equal to that of the Koran, and which with the Koran serve as the basis for the sharia law) the murder of all Jews is the culminating act of this world, making possible the Day of Judgment.

In what sense, then, is Hamas’s war of terror murder against Israel and Jews a perversion of Islam?

Every time President Bush—or whoever—says that Islamic extremism is a “perversion” of Islam, he should be immediately asked the question I’ve just asked, using the above texts or any number of other texts which illustrate the same point: that modern Islamic jihadism is based on and is continuous with classical Islam.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 18, 2007 04:36 PM | Send