If we
continue to characterize these mass killings as events disassociated from
Islamic doctrine and faith, we will fail to identify and thus defeat our enemy.
After an
American Muslim who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State killed 50 people
and injured 53 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, President Obama said it was an
act of hate. This portrayal has led people across the country to focus on
homophobia and gun control instead of exposing the real motivation so we can
recognize the actual threat.
While any
atrocity like this is certainly hateful, we would be remiss to simply leave it
at that, because we’d fail to comprehend the complex motivations that set a man
like Omar Mateen apart from other mass killers. That failure to comprehend only
increases our vulnerability.
It is imperative
for us to understand that the driving impulse of a man like Mateen is religious
in nature. A lot is being said about how he beat his ex-wife and that he made
homophobic comments to coworkers, but this behavior is part of his belief
system, which allows men to beat their wives, to put homosexuals to death, and
to slaughter unbelievers en masse.
Terrorists’ Main
Motivation Is Religion
This last part
is stated in Surah 9:14, “Fight them [unbelievers]; Allah will punish them by
your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and satisfy
the breasts of a believing people.” Also, “They shall be slaughtered, or
crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they
shall be banished from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world;
and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement.”
The jihadist’s
act of killing, therefore, becomes less about hate and more about honor and
righteousness. Those who obey Allah, who “cast into the hearts of the
unbelievers terror,” who “fight them till there is no persecution and the
religion is Allah’s,” will be richly rewarded for their righteous act. They
fight—and they die—for the “gift of Paradise.”
“The person who
participates in [Holy Battles] in Allah’s cause and nothing compels him do so
except belief in Allah and His Apostle, will be recompensed by Allah either
with a reward, or booty [if he survives] or will be admitted to Paradise [if he
is killed]” (Al Bukhari vol 1:35).
Mohommed
Bouyeri, who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, explained his motivations when
he said “what moved me to do what I did was purely my faith. I was motivated by
the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and
his Prophet.”
It is important
to understand this core motivation of Islamic terrorists in order to identify
and stop them. If we continue to characterize these mass killings as events
disassociated from Islamic doctrine and faith, placing the blame totally on
personal hateful impulses, we will fail to identify our enemy. If we can’t
identify him—if we can’t name him—we won’t know him, which means we can’t
defeat him.
These Are Acts
of Religious War
We will also
fail to recognize that this is an act of war by a group of people who have no
wall of separation between the religious and the political. As terrorism expert
Sebastian Gorka said, “stop calling the
Orlando shooting a hate crime. Nobody should be shocked by the attack. This is
what jihadists had been planning to do after Paris, after Brussels.” This isn’t
a hate crime; it’s not a tragedy, like a train being derailed. “This is part of
the Global Jihad strategy. It’s not an accident—it’s a war against America. . .
. it is part of an ideological military assault on the United States of
America.”
It is, in reality,
a religious war, driven by religious doctrine (in this case radical Islam), and
carried out with religious impulses. Continuing to call this a hate crime and
failing to grasp what actually defines and motivates these people will blind us
to their methods, practices, and plans.
It will also
cause us to look inward at ourselves instead of outward at the enemy storming
our gates. We will wrongly assume we have contributed to the hate in some way,
that we have done something to make them lash out and attack us. We will then
erroneously conclude that there is something we can do to make them not hate us
anymore. This is what leads to political correctness and weakness when we need
to be bold and courageous.
The fact is we
can do nothing to appease radical Islamists. They are not motivated by our
policies, words, and actions, no matter how much they reference them to
manipulate us. They are motivated by who we are: We are unbelievers. We are, by
our very nature an offense to them. That goes for all of us, whether we are
straight, gay, male, female, black, or white. We are in this together, facing
an enemy who wants to kill us equally. Our response, therefore, should be a
unified one, standing together against a common foe.
That foe does
not act alone. Because these individuals are motivated by a divine directive
and act with a communal mindset, they don’t need orders from the leaders of the
Islamic State to act. For one thing, those orders have already
been issued. In 2014, the chief spokesman for the Islamic State called for
all supporters to kill unbelievers “in any manner or way, however it may be.”
“Do not ask for
anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict,” said Abu Mohammed al Adnani.
“Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the
same ruling.”
If they want to
shoot up a Christmas party where Christians are gathered, ISIS sympathizers can
do that, according to their faction’s leaders. If they want to target U.S.
military members because that’s their particular bugaboo at the time, then they
are free to do that. Or they can target a gay nightclub, killing homosexuals
with the same hand of judgment as their brethren in the Middle East who execute
homosexuals by the thousands.
To Them, War Is
a Means of Peace
Whatever their
target, these “soldiers of Islam” are motivated by the same impulse: honor,
faith, and the glory of god. In 1998, Osama bin Laden made this clear, saying,
“I am one of the servants of Allah. We do our duty of fighting for the sake of
the religion of Allah.” The Taliban has stated that those who wage war on
unbelievers are bound by the command “to restore to this world the light of
divine justice…. For to die in the cause is to be sent immediately to
paradise.”
Whatever
their target, these ‘soldiers of Islam’ are motivated by the same impulse:
honor, faith, and the glory of god.
Through pain,
there will be healing. Out of violence, there will be peace. In death, there
will be eternal life. In judgment, there will be salvation. This is what
motivates the Islamic terrorist. This is what ties him to all the other radical
Islamists throughout the world.
How these men
and women feel about the infidels—whether they hate them or not—doesn’t really
matter. Of course, if they think Allah considers unbelievers to be evildoers
who need to be eradicated by any means necessary, then they probably will hate
them—for “righteousness sake.” But it’s not a prerequisite. What they desire is
to bring glory to Allah.
They don’t need
marching orders or emails with instructions. They don’t need a green light from
ISIS headquarters. All they need is the courage and the opportunity to do what
Allah has commanded—because, according to their faith and doctrine, it is the
right thing to do.
Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, the militant Islamist from Jordan who ran a paramilitary training
camp in Afghanistan, said Allah commanded them to strike unbelievers (the
Kuffar), to “kill them and fight them by all means necessary to achieve the
goal. The servants of Allah, who perform Jihad to elevate the word of Allah,
are permitted to use any and all means necessary to strike the active
unbeliever combatants for the purpose of killing them, snatch their souls from
their body, cleanse the earth from the abomination, and lift their trial and
persecution of the servants of Allah.
“The goal must
be pursued even if the means to accomplish it affects both the intended active
fighters and unintended passive ones such as women, children and any other
passive category specified by our jurisprudence.”
These are the
“defenders of Islam and its sanctity” who wear, as Hassan
al-Smeik said, terrorism as “a badge of honor on our chests until Judgment
Day.”
Assimilate,
Fight, Or Be Slaughtered
The words of Mohammad Sidique Khan,
who bombed a subway in London, should ring in the ears of every politician, law
enforcement official, and American citizen: “Our driving motivation doesn’t
come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is
Islam—obedience to the one true God, Allah, and following the footsteps of the
final prophet and messenger Muhammad… This is how our ethical stances are
dictated.”
These are the
ethical stances that drive true believers to shoot up a nightclub, killing
dozens. These are the ethical stances that require either death or obedience,
slaughter or conversion to Islam: “Repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the
alms,” the holy text says to unbelievers. If we do this, we will be allowed to
live.
In other words,
assimilate or die. This is unacceptable to every liberty-loving American, and
it’s why we must fight back with courage, solidarity, and strength, without
appeasement or apology. We must be willing to look our enemy in the eye as a
united free people and call him by the name he has given himself—the name of
Islam.
