“Islamic State fighters carried out a series of bombings with explosive belts and devices on Tuesday, targeting an airport and a central metro station in the center of the Belgian capital Brussels, a country participating in the international coalition against the Islamic State,” said the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency on Tuesday, as translated by Heavy.com.
“Islamic State fighters opened fire inside Zaventem Airport, before several of them detonated their explosive belts, as a martyrdom bomber detonated his explosive belt in the Maalbeek metro station. The attacks resulted in more than 230 dead and wounded,” the report continued.
Very few major media outlets have reported on the longer “official statement” from the Islamic State, which extensively quotes the Koran and Islamic law to justify the atrocity.
“We have seen so many people in the social media claiming that The Islamic state was not justified in killing the French ‘innocent’ citizens in the blessed ghazwa in Paris, and that of the Brussels attack now,” says the longer statement plucked from ISIS social media. Ghazwa is a term for holy war, more specifically the final holy war against infidels that ISIS believes will bring the end of history.
“We have also seen some evil ‘scholars’ – scholars for the dollars – quoting the textual evidences out of context. Today, we shall tackle this topic with evidences from the Koran and sunnah, and the ijma, & quotes from the scholars of the salaf,” the statement continues.
Sunnah is traditional Muslim law, based on the words and deeds of Mohammed. Ijma refers to a consensus of Muslim scholars on matters of Islamic law. The Salaf are the first few generations of Muslims, beginning with Mohammed’s companions. In short, ISIS is mocking those who disagree with its interpretation of Islam as mercenaries for infidel powers, and citing the authority granted by Islamic law and tradition for its slaughter of unbelievers and apostates.
“First we want to make it clear to all that what makes the kafir’s blood permissible to spill is not him fighting the Muslims, rather it is his “KUFR” that necessitates his killing. So if one asks, can you kill a Kafir (who does not fight Islam and muslims)? the answer is a big YES,” declares the ISIS post, getting right to the point.
There follows a lengthy citation of Islamic verse, which has Allah stressing that “unbelievers” should be treated exactly the opposite as “believers” in all things, using the example of funeral prayers. This “Mafhum al-Mukhalafah” rule is interpreted, for example, to mean that because Allah forbade funeral prayers for dead infidels, then funeral payers for dead Muslims are mandatory.
Another verse has Allah saying that if infidels “repent and perform As-Salat, and give Zakat, then leave their way free.” As-Salat is praying to Allah, while zakat is a religious tax.
ISIS concludes this means the only way for unbelievers to “repent” is conversion to Islam. Absent such a conversion, “their blood would not be protected and would be legal to spill and their wealth would be halal to take.” Halal means “permitted under Islamic law.”
“Allah also has made the blood of every kafir legal to spill in the general ayah: “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush” (At-Tawbah verse 5),” the Islamic State continues. “The general ayah” means “basic religious writing.” Several more writings from Islamic scholars throughout history on the legality of murdering infidels are quoted, with some consideration granted to properly subdued infidels who pay the special jizya tax of submission to their Muslim overlords. The blood of infidels is compared to that of pigs and dogs.
Also, ISIS says Allah has no patience for the idea of infidel non-combatants: “Allah just said the mushrikeen (idolators), so he never differentiated the ‘innocent civilians’ from the ‘fighting soldiers.’ So who are we to differentiate the kuffar today?”
The statement directly challenges the common assertion that ISIS is abusing or misinterpreting Islamic law.
“For those that say that we mistranslate these Quranic verses of Jihad and Qitaal and we go against the ‘known’ ‘ulamaa’: then give them this audio by Shaykh Ibn ‘Utheymin who they respect a lot who says exactly what we have said now,” says the ISIS statement, referring to a prominent Saudi scholar of Salafist Sunni Islam who died in 2001.
The recommended quote from Utheymin reads as follows: “And the second (matter) is the forbiddance of killing women and children in times of war. But if it is said: ‘If they (the kuffār) do this to us – meaning that they kill our children and women – Then do we then kill them?’ The apparent [meaning] is that it is [permissible] for us to kill their women and children. And due to the generality of the Statement of Allah: ‘Then whoever transgresses the prohibition against you, you transgress likewise against him.’”
Further quotes from Allah in Koranic verses are offered to support literal retribution for acts against Muslims, such as, “So whoever has transgressed against you, then transgress against him in the same way that he has transgressed against you.”
ISIS proceeds to justify the slaughter of infidel women and children by asking, “So how many Muslim women and children and old have the French Kuffar killed in Syria, Iraq and other parts of the Muslim lands???? We have not yet settled the scores, a few hundreds ain’t enough yet.”
The Islamic State writer sums up by saying the post is intended for “the one who cry and mourn on the death of the Kuffar, while the death hundreds of muslim men, women, old and children dying daily in the airstrikes don’t effect them in any way.”
The missive ends with an all-caps invocation of divine will, presented exactly as written:
MAY ALLAH ACCEPT THE EFFORTS MADE TO COLLECT THESE PROOFS N EVIDENCES N MAY HE UNITE THIS UMMAH UNDER ONE LEADER AND ONE BANNER, M MAY ALLAH GRANT IZZAH TO ISLAM N MUSLIMS EVERY WHERE ON THE EARTH N MAY HE GRANT VICTORY TO THIS RELIGION ESTABLISHING THE SHARI’AH OF ALLAH IN EVERY CORNER OF THE EARTH. AAMEEEN.
The ummah is the entire Muslim world; izzah means glorious victory, shari’ah is Islamic law.
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