From Peter Townsend, author of ‘Nothing to do with Islam – Investigating the West’s Most Dangerous Blind Spot‘
The Knives are Out! (And Have Been for a Very Long Time)
One
weekend, two knife attacks in major European cities - London and The
Hague. Obviously this is no coincidence. I suspect, however, that few
people will realize what deep historical roots such random stabbing
frenzies have in Islam’s past.
The
Kharijites were a hugely influential early (7th century onwards) group
of discontents within the ‘House of Islam’ who were convinced that the
Muslim community was straying from the purity that existed during the
time of Muhammad. They firmly believed that what the world really needed
was a state wherein, as their catch-cry incessantly repeated, there
would be ‘No judgement but Allah’s!’
And
how exactly was this lofty goal to be achieved? Here is how a historian
of the movement, Muhamad bin Ahmad al-Malati, described their modus
operandi: “...they would ‘go out with their swords into the markets
while people would stand around not realising what was happening; they
would shout “no judgement except God!” and plunge their blades into
whomever they could reach, and go on killing until they themselves were
killed’. Sound familiar?
ISIS,
which can in many ways be seen as the modern-day descendants of the
Kharijites, was not slow to learn the lesson. Here is, for example, an
exhortation from the April 2016 issue of their online magazine, Dabiq: “One
must either make the journey to dar-al-Islam, joining the ranks of the
mujahidin or wage jihad by himself with the resources available to him (knives, guns, explosives etc.) to kill the crusaders and other disbelievers and apostates...”
Over
the next few days we will probably be ‘treated’ to multiple theories to
try and explain the sudden surge in random knife attacks. Some of these
will, no doubt, work very hard to get Islam off the hook by blaming
alienation, psychological stress or western foreign policy. As you read
these, remember that there is indeed nothing new under the sun! We are
faced with an ancient ideology, that uses tried and tested methods. We
must get to grips with this fact and target all our attention to
defeating its truth-claims if we want the knives to go back in their
sheaths.
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