Three Stages of Jihad

From Acts17Apologetics:

Jihad proceeds in stages. Stage One: Stealth Jihad. Stage Two: Defensive Jihad. Stage Three: Offensive Jihad.

Watch the movie http://www.answeringmuslims.com/p/jihad.html



Three

Stages of

Jihad

Allah has bought of the believers

their persons and their property for this,

that they shall have the garden; they fight

in Allah's way, so they slay and are slain."

-Qur'an 9:111

"Mohammad is the Messenger of Allah,

and those who are with him are severe against disbelievers,

and merciful among themselves."

-Qur'an 48:29

Deception in the Media

On November 5^lh, 2009, a Muslim Army Major named Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas. Many innocent people died, and Hasan has been charged with thirteen counts of premeditated murder and more than thirty counts of attempted murder.

Shortly after the Fort Hood shooting, CNN posted an article titled "Murder Has No Religion" (by Arsalan Iftikhar), which claimed that such attacks are forbidden in Islam. The article began:

Most of the world's 1.57 billion Muslims know that the Holy  Quran states quite clearly that, "Anyone who kills a human being ... it shall be as though tie has killed all of mankind. ... If anyone  saves a life, it shall be as though he has saved the lives of al! of mankind." (http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/11/09/ iftikhar.fort.hood/index.html)

Notice that the article portrays Islam as a religion that condemns killing of any kind. But is this what the Qur'an actually says? Unfortunately for CNN's readers, the author didn't give a reference, so readers were left to find the quotation themselves. Yet when we rum to 5:32-33 of the Qur'an (the source of CNN's severely edited quotation), we get a surprisingly different picture of killing in Islam:

For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men; and certainly Our apostles came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them certainly act extravagantly in the land.

The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.

Two things are worthy of note in this passage. First, the teaching appealed to by CNN (“whoever slays a soul... it is as though he slew all men") was given “to the children of Israel” (i.e. the Jews). It was not given to Muslims. Second, even if Westernized Muslims want to apply this verse to themselves, the verse obviously permits killing people who spread “mischief in the land.” Indeed, the very next verse commands Muslims to murder, crucify, and dismember those who wage war against Islam and “make mischief” in Muslim lands.

Since the United States has maintained a military presence in predominantly Islamic countries, knowledgeable Muslims understand that, according to Muhammad, U.S. soldiers meet the “mischief-making” criterion, and should therefore be killed. It’s no coincidence that Major Hasan targeted soldiers, many of whom were being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thus, CNN quoted two carefully edited portions of a passage that justifies the killing of enemy combatants and used them to show that Islam condemns attacks such as the Fort Hood shooting. While deceptions like this are easily spotted, there is much confusion in the world concerning the role of violence in Islam. This short pamphlet will clear up some of the confusion.

Peace, Violence, and Abrogation

Muslims in the West are quick to point to passages such as Qur’an 109:6 ("You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion") and 2:256 ("There is no compulsion in religion") as evidence that Islam is a religion of peace. When confronted with harsher passages such as 9:5 ("Slay the idolaters wherever you find them") and 9:29 ("Fight those who believe not in Allah"), Westernized Muslims interpret these verses in light of the more peaceful teachings of the Qur'an, typically saying something like: “Well, the Qur'an can’t be commanding us to kill unbelievers, since it says that there’s no compulsion in religion."

Hence, Westernized Muslims pick the verses of the Qur'an they find most attractive, and they use these verses to sanitize the rest of the Qur’an. But is this the correct way to interpret the Qur’an? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The Qur’an presents its own method of interpretation—the Doctrine of Abrogation.

Qur’an 2:106—Whatever verse we shall abrogate, or cause [thee] to forget, we will bring a better than it, or one like unto it. Dost thou not know that God is almighty?

Qur’an 16:101—When We substitute one revelation for another—and God knows best what He reveals (in stages)—they say, "Thou art but a forger": but most of them understand not.

According to the Qur’an, then, when Muslims are faced with conflicting commands, they aren't supposed to pick the one they like best. Rather, they are to go to history and see which verse was revealed last. Whichever verse came last is said to abrogate (or cancel) earlier revelations.

What happens when we apply this methodology to Qur’anic verses on peace and violence?

The Call to Jihad: Three Stages

When we turn to Islam's theological sources and historical writings (Qur’an, Hadith, Sira, and Tafsir), we find that there are three stages in the call to Jihad, depending on the status of Muslims in a society.

STAGE ONE—When Muslims are completely outnumbered and can’t possibly win a physical confrontation with unbelievers, they are to live in peace with non-Muslims and preach a message of tolerance. We see an example of this stage when Muhammad and his followers were a persecuted minority in Mecca. Since the Muslims were entirely outnumbered, the revelations Muhammad received during this stage (e.g. “You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion”) called for religious tolerance and proclaimed a future punishment (rather than a worldly punishment) for unbelievers.

STAGE TWO—When there are enough Muslims and resources to defend the Islamic community, Muslims are called to engage in defensive Jihad. Thus, when Muhammad had formed alliances with various groups outside Mecca and the Muslim community had become large enough to begin fighting, Muhammad received Qur'an 22:39-40:

Permission (to fight) is given to those upon whom war is made because they are oppressed, and most surely Allah is well able to assist them; Those who have been expelled from their homes without a just cause except that they say: our Lord is Allah ...

Although Muslims in the West often pretend that Islam only allows defensive fighting, later revelations show otherwise.

STAGE THREE—When Muslims establish a majority and achieve political power in an area, they are commanded to engage in offensive Jihad. Hence, once Mecca and Arabia were under Muhammad's control, he received the call the fight all unbelievers. In Surah 9:29, we read:

Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Notice that this verse doesn't order Muslims to fight oppressors, but to fight those who don’t believe in Islam (including the “People of the Book”—Jews and Christians).

Not surprisingly, we find similar commands in Islam's most trusted collections of ahadith (traditions containing Muhammad's teachings).

Sahih al-Bukhari 6924—Muhammad said: “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: La ilaha illallah (none has the right to be worshipped but Allah), and whoever said La ilaha illallah, Allah will save his property and his life from me.”

Sahih Muslim 30—Muhammad said: “I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah.”

Here again, the criterion for fighting people is that the people believe something other than Islam.

It’s clear, then, that when Muslims rose to power, peaceful verses of the Qur’an were abrogated by verses commanding Muslims to fight people based on their beliefs. Islam’s greatest scholars acknowledge this. For instance, Ibn Kathir (Islam’s greatest commentator on the Qur’an) sums up Stage Three as follows: “Therefore all people of the world should be called to Islam. If anyone of them refuses to do so, or refuses to pay the Jizyah, they should be fought till they are killed.”

When Muslims Reach Stage Three

Abrogation also accounts for shifting attitudes regarding Jews and Christians in the Qur’an. While Muslims are to be friendly to Jews and Christians when the former are outnumbered, the Islamic position changes when Muslims reach Stage Three, at which point Christians and Jews are to recognize their inferior status and pay the Jizyah (a payment made to Muslims in exchange for not being killed by them). Consider some of Muhammad's later teachings about Christians and Jews:

Qur’an 5:51—O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of

them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.

Qur’an 9:30—And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!

Qur’an 98:6—Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein. They are the worst of creatures.

Sahih Muslim 4366—Muhammad said: “I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim.”

Al-Bukhari, Al-Adab al-Mufrad 1103—Muhammad said: “Do not give the People of the Book the greeting first. Force them to the narrowest part of the road.”

Needless to say, these teachings can hardly be considered peaceful or tolerant.

Muslims in the West

Since Muhammad obviously commanded his followers to fight unbelievers (simply for being unbelievers), why do Muslims in the West deny this? Here we must turn to Surah 3:28, which reads:

Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoso doeth that hath no connection with Allah unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were) security.

According to this verse (which uses a variation of the word Taqiyya, meaning “concealment”), Muslims are not allowed to be friends with non-Muslims. However, if Muslims feel threatened

by a stronger adversary, they are allowed to pretend to be friendly. Ibn Kathir comments: "In this case, such believers are allowed to show friendship outwardly but never inwardly." Abu Darda, one of Muhammad's companions, put it this way: “We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.”

Assessment

Is Islam a religion of peace? No. Islam is a religion that pretends to be peaceful when Muslims are too weak to win a war. When Islam is dominant, Muslims are commanded to subjugate or kill everyone around them. (Just look at how non-Muslims are treated in Muslim countries; compare this constant abuse and persecution with what is being proclaimed about “peaceful” Islam by Westernized Muslims.) Of course, there are many Muslims who aren't violent. Many Muslims in the West love peace and tolerance. But they didn't get these values from Islam. They got them from the West, and now they're reinterpreting Islam based on their Western values. For dedicated Muslims, however, there are only two possible situations to be in: (1) fighting unbelievers, and (2) pretending to be peaceful while preparing to fight unbelievers. Either way, conquering the world in the name of Allah is always the goal.

For Further Study

For a video detailed video discussion of this information:

http://www.answeringmuslims.eom/p/jihad.html

To learn more about these issues, be sure to visit these sites:

www.Answering-Islam.org

www.AnsweringMuslims.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/Acts 1 7 Apologetics

For some specific articles, please visit the following links:

http://answering-islam.org/Silas/swordverse.htm

http://answeruig-islam.org/Silas/femalecaptives.htm

http://answering-islam.org/Silas/jihad.htm

http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/badawi_mushrik.htm

http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/bada wi_tolerance.htm

http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/bada wi_holy_war.htm

http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/na_debate.htm

http://answering-islam.org/ AuthorsAVood7two_faces.htm

http://answering-islam.org/Authors/Wood/women.htm

Islam hijacked? Abrogation and Takiyya: Three things you didn't know about Islam

There is a very informative short video on youtube called Three things you didn't know about Islam. Go and watch it. In case it has been removed (as happens to several short movies that talk about Islam -- YouTube's self-censorship?) I decided to transcribe it down below.

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For every opinion or belief someone may hold there will be another party who just as strong opposes that idea. Both sides usually claim to sit with the best arguments, the real facts and the best world view, and (ironycally) both sides regard the other as being indoctrinated, blind to the obvious and outright stupid.

Most people only expose themselves to information that matches their own worldview. It is uncomfortable to do otherwise. Still, we would like to give to you some information surprising information about ISLAM. We also urge you to look further than mainstream media and, if you can find the time for it, read the Qur'an yourself.

To get started we would like to present you the three things you probably did not know about Islam.


1. Islam has not been hijacked. 

That Islam has been hijacked is what non-Muslims naturally assume because they assume that all religions are the same.

The reason non-Muslims are so easlily confused is that most of us don't realize the difference between the Qur'an and every other religious book we are familiar with.

The Christian Bible is a collection of writings from various authors written sometimes hundreds of years apart, with parables, advice and dreams, collected together into one book. Same with the Jewish Torah.

Even those of us in the West, who are neither Christians nor Jews, are still familiar enough with these religions to know this much, and therefore we assume the same is true for the Qur'an.

But the Qur'an is only one book, written by one man, in his own lifetime. It is meant to be taken literally, and it is not full of symbolism or vague analogies.

It is mostly direct commands. Of course, the Qur'an contains contradictory statements just like other religious books, but the Qur'an itself provides the reader with a way to know what to do with the contradictions.

It is explained in the Qur'an that if you have two passages that contradict each other, the one written later supersedes the one written earlier. Most Westerners are unaware that the peaceful, tolerant passages were written early in Mohammed's prophetic career. According to the Qur'an those passages have been abrogated by later, more violent and less tolerant passages.

So, when most Westerners hear Jihadists quoting violent passages from the Qur'an, and then peaceful Muslims quoting peaceful passages they interpret that the way they would if someone was quoting the Bible or the Torah. They think to themselves, Oh, there must be many different and contradictory passages, like there are in other religious books, so Muslims can pick and choose what they like and justify whatever actions they want to take. But the Qur'an is nothing like that. There is no picking and choosing. It says very explicitly and in no uncertain terms that a Muslim must not alter or ignore any part of its very clear and direct message, or they will burn in a fiery torment forever.

2. Striving to institute worldwide Shari'a Law is a religious duty. 

Many people don't realize how politically-oriented Islam is at its core. In fact, Islam is less of a religion than it is a "religious ideology." It includes a mandatory and highly specific legal and political plan for the whole society: Shari'a. There is no separation between the religious and the political in Islam. Rather, Islam and Shari'a constitute  a totalitarian means of ordering society at every level including: ritual worship, transactions and contracts, morals and manners, beliefs and punishments.

In the Qura'n Allah makes it clear that man-made governments, such as a democracy, and free speech, such as criticizing the Qura'n, are abominations, and must be eliminated.

The modern expression "Creeping Shari'a" is used to describe the slow, deliberate, and methodical advance of Islamic Law in non-Muslim countries. Official Shari'a courts already operate in the UK, handing cases raging from divorce and financial disputes to domestic violence. Attempts to introduce Shari'a in the legal system in Germany, Sweeden and other European countries are ongoing.

While Shari'a already has a foot in our door in the matter of minor disputes like inheritance and domestic violence, it should concern you that Shari'a commands that:

• Drinkers and gamblers should be wipped. 
• Allows husbands to hit their wives allows and injured plaintif to exact legal revenge literally and eye for an eye.
• Shari'a commands that a thief must have the hand cut off. 
• Commands that homosexuals must be executed. 
• Orders unmarried fornicators to be whipped and adultures to be stoned to death. 
• Orders death for both Muslim and non-Muslim critics of Muhammed, the Qura'n and even Shari'a itself. 
• Orders apostates to be killed. 
• Commands offensive, aggressive and unjust Jihad 

As written in the Qura'n, Shari'a is the law of Allah. Any other form of government is a sin. It is the duty of every Muslim to keep striving until all governments have been converted to Shari'a Law.

3. Muslims are allowed to deceive non-Muslims if it helps Islam. 

For non-Muslims, this principle, called Taqiyya, is another surprising concept of Islam.

While most other religions speak highly of truthfullness, the Qura'n instructs Muslims to lie to non-Muslims about their beliefs and their political ambitions to protect and spread Islam.

There are many examples of today's Islamic leaders saying one thing in English for the Western press and they saying something entirely different to their own followers in Arabic a few days latter. Deceiving the enemy is always useful in war and Islam is at war with the non-Islamic world until the whole world follows Shari'a Law.

All non-Muslims living in non-Islamic states are therefore enemies. So, deceiving Westerners is totally acceptable -- even encouraged -- if it can forward the goals of the spread of Islam.

As a recent example, the Islamic American Relief Agency were seemingly raising money for orphans but in fact giving the money to terrorists. They deceived good-heartened Western infidels into giving money to organizations that were actively killing Western infidels.

Do the research yourself. This is not an isolated case.

Islam as a religion of peace

Muslims organizations worldwide often declare Islam as a religion of peace, but what does that really mean? It seems easy for a Muslim to quote a few peaceful verse from the early parts of the Qura'n while by following the principle of Taqiyya neglecting to mention the fact that it has been officially abrogated by later more violent verses.

According to the Qura'n the world will be at peace only when Islam and Shari'a reign  in every country -- and never until then. This is why every Muslim can truthfully say that Islam is a religion of peace. 

If any of these points took you by surprise - then there is surely much more you still don't know.

This subject will affect you in the near future. So, take the chance to inform yourself now -- before it does.
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http://tinyurl.com/abrogations1 --> http://www.muhammadanism.org/Quran/abrogation_koran.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/taqiyya1 --> http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/011-taqiyya.htm

Abrogation Sura 2:106, 16:101, 17:86. 

2:106 None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?

16:101 When We substitute one revelation for another,- and Allah knows best what He reveals (in stages),- they say, "Thou art but a forger": but most of them understand not.

17:86 And if We please, We should certainly take away that which We have revealed to you, then you would not find for it any protector against Us.