Do You Ask Yourself, “Why is Isis so Cruel?” Here is the Only Article I’ve Read that Factually Answers this Question With No Liberal or Conservative “Spin”

Last updated on: March 12, 2015 at 5:34 pm by Frank Schaeffer

Do You Ask Yourself, “Why is Isis so Cruel?” Here is the Only Article I’ve Read that Factually Answers this Question With No Liberal or Conservative “Spin” 2015-03-12T17:34:54-06:00 Frank Schaeffer

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

If you want to understand what is actually happening with militant Islamist terror please take the time to read this article by Hassan Hassan. As he says, “Islamic traditions are filled with stories of mercy and tolerance. But it is not enough to tell these stories in isolation from other dark chapters in Islamic history that feed groups such as Isis… Islamic fundamentalism is Isis’s ideology, so to speak, and every act has to be grounded in religious traditions.”

Hassan Hassan is an analyst at the Delma Institute, a research center in Abu Dhabi. He is co-author, with Michael Weiss, of Isis: Inside the Army of Terror, to be published this month in New York by Regan Arts.

ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror

Isis has reached new depths of depravity. But there is a brutal logic behind it

By Hassan Hassan

Excerpt:

The burning to death in a locked cage of captured Jordanian pilot Muadh al- Kasasbeh by Islamic State (Isis), … was barbarous even by its own brutal standards… The group struggled to justify the live immolation of a Muslim prisoner with the ease it did in previous cases of heinous crimes…

… In previous cases, Isis found little difficulty in citing evidence to back the religious legitimacy of its acts. Beheading, crucifixion and hand-lopping did not require much reasoning because these punishments are part of the penal code of countries such as Saudi Arabia. Also, Isis cites isolated incidents described in sacred texts that (contrary to most Muslim clerics) it believes should be followed as rules to justify obscure punishments, including throwing gay people from high buildings. But with its latest action, many believe Isis has alienated previous supporters in the region. Even though some still criticised the pilot’s participation in the US-led bombing campaign in Syria, anger and resentment against Isis defined public opinion in Jordan and beyond, including among them sympathetic individuals such as Abu Sayyaf, a prominent Salafist leader in Jordan who approved of the immolation but not the publicity that accompanied it.

So in the Middle East, the savagery of the murder has raised the question: why is Isis so cruel? …

… Savagery is part of Isis’s ideological DNA … One of the most prominent of those jihadi texts is a book called Idarat al-Tawahush, or Management of Savagery, by an anonymous jihadi ideologue who calls himself Abu Bakr Naji. The book, translated by William McCants of the US Brookings Institution in 2006, has been widely distributed on jihadist online forums…

… The Management of Savagery’s greatest contribution lies in its differentiation between the meaning of jihad and other religious tenets. The author argues that the way jihad is taught “on paper” makes it harder for young mujahideen and Muslims to grasp the true meaning of the concept. “One who previously engaged in jihad knows that it is naught but violence, crudeness, terrorism, [deterrence] and massacring,” Naji writes, as translated by McCants. “I am talking about jihad and fighting, not about Islam and one should not confuse them. He cannot continue to fight and move from one stage to another unless the beginning state contains a stage of massacring the enemy and deterring him.”

The concept Isis used to justify the massacre of hundreds of Shaitat tribesmen in Deir Ezzor, Syria, in August was tashreed, a word that can be translated as “deterrence”, as mentioned in the quoted text. “That is the true jihad,” said Abu Moussa, an Isis-affiliated religious cleric, echoing Naji’s text. “The layman who learned some of his religion from [mainstream] clerics think of jihad as a fanciful act, conducted far away from him. In reality, jihad is a heavy responsibility and requires toughness.”

Naji’s book offers practical tips on how to fill the power vacuum left by what he calls the retreating armies of the west and its regional agent regimes, as a result of gradual violence applied by the mujahideen. He says that the defeat of the crusaders in the past was not a result of decisive battles between the Muslim and Christian armies, but was a process of exhaustion and depletion …

… Naji says that people think of Muslims at the time of the crusaders as one state, led by Saladin al-Ayubi and Nouradin Zinki, but “the fact is they were small families controlling citadels and fighting jihad against crusaders on a low level, in a hard hitting way … Random acts of violence are not enough in this context. Brutality has to be ever more savage, creative and shocking …

… Islamic traditions are filled with stories of mercy and tolerance. But it is not enough to tell these stories in isolation from other dark chapters in Islamic history that feed groups such as Isis. Isis uses these stories, combined with ideas and concepts accepted by the mainstream, as part of an ideology and a political project in the making. Muslim clerics speak in the realm of theory; Isis practises through stories and action.

What the group does is to match its practices with the “practical” history of Islam, even though many rightly view these practices as contradictory to Islamic teachings. The genius of Isis is that it makes people compare between its acts and those of early Muslims, rather than between its practices and the jihad “on paper”.

By Hassan Hassan

A longer article from which this excerpt was reprinted was first published in The Guardian. To read the whole original article click HERE

Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace

Available now on Amazon

Follow Frank on Twitter www.twitter.com/frank_schaefferSee Frank’s paintings http://www.frankschaefferart.com/Follow Frank on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/frank.schaeffer.16Contact Frank at http://www.frankschaeffer.com/

Previous Post

February 7, 2015

The Actual Gospel of Jesus Christ

Next Post

February 10, 2015 What Prayer Means to Me

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art children Christmas family parenting political humor politics religion sex Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz