RSSBelievers or infidels
Jul 11
Interesting article: I was a fanatic… I know their thinking, says former radical Islamist
This part is especially interesting:
And though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many others to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain and abroad was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary worldwide Islamic state that would dispense Islamic justice.
If we were interested in justice, you may ask, how did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting such a (flawed) Utopian goal?
How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion?
There isn’t enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.
I’m very curious how representative this view is by the extremists. I’ve never believed the neo-con claim that the extremists “hate our freedoms and way of life.” That’s not true and is more of a political fear-mongering ploy. If what the ex-Jihadist above says is true, it’s not our freedoms they hate it’s our lack of Islamic law. If we lived under a brutal but secular dictator, they’d still be able to justify their aims.
It is really educational to read more about Islam on Wikipedia here and about the division between believers and infidels here.
It doesn’t seem like a good answer to blame the religion though. All religions have been interpreted, throughout history, to imply consent to kill people. It likely has to be a societal or cultural influence as well.
I don’t believe all of their conclusions, but this is one possibility: Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature. Eventually get to the point about “Most suicide bombers are Muslims” but don’t skip the earlier points because they build on each other.
Jul 11, 2007 @ 11:32:17
What the ex-jihadist wrote may be true about himself, but he is making a huge assumption – and probably an incorrect one – about the application of his mentality to the doctors who were wannabe bombers.
Considering that some of these doctors were of Iraqi and Jordanian origin, and were obviously all educated, anger at what is happening in Iraq, and Palestine was probably a large part of the motivation.
Re “Most suicide bombers are Muslims”, this is a recent phenomenon. Suicide bombing was largely practiced by Tamil separatists earlier. It has a great deal to do with the hopeless situation faced by Palestinians.
The comment about “72 virgins” is a simplistic and bigoted view. It is mentioned nowhere in the Quran, but apparently is part of a controversial saying attributed to Muhammad (which maybe be totally incorrect, or at least taken out of context) that gained currency after 9/11.
Jul 11, 2007 @ 11:39:21
Yeah the tie-in between their take on polygamy and the 72 virgins is where I thought their argument starts to fall apart. I got the feeling they started with one basic idea, that the desire for polygamy influences human behaviour and societies, and then looked for all places they could apply it.
Anyways, at the very least it was thought-provoking.