Wait, what? What was the Islamic State (ISIS) doing with an Islamic prayer book and a manual of Islamic law? Don’t they know that they have nothing to do with Islam? If you believe the establishment media and law enforcement/intelligence establishment, you’d expect ISIS to be reading Robert Spencer books. And our moral superiors years ago assured us that ISIS had nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with Islam. Barack Obama made it clear: “ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents.” Former British Prime Minister David Cameron intoned: “What we are witnessing is actually a battle between Islam on the one hand and extremists who want to abuse Islam on the other. These extremists, often funded by fanatics living far away from the battlefields, pervert the Islamic faith as a way of justifying their warped and barbaric ideology – and they do so not just in Iraq and Syria but right across the world, from Boko Haram and al-Shabaab to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.” Former Secretary of State John Kerry said: “It’s not a state. There’s nothing legitimate about it. There’s nothing Islamic about it. It’s a complete misnomer. It’s their title and we shouldn’t use it and I feel that very strongly.”
Obama State Department spokesperson Marie Harf emphasized that Obama meant what he said: “ISIL does not operate in the name of any religion. The president has been very clear about that, and the more we can underscore that, the better.” Former British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond declared: “[ISIL]’s so-called caliphate has no moral legitimacy; it is a regime of torture, arbitrary punishment and murder that goes against the most basic beliefs of Islam.” The British opposition agreed: then-Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that Islamic State “extremists are beheading people and parading their heads on spikes, subjugating women and girls, killing Muslims, Christians and anyone who gets in their way. This is no liberation movement — only a perverted, oppressive ideology that bears no relation to Islam.”
Only the Islamic State itself seems not to have gotten the message, and the group continues to recruit among peaceful Muslims by presenting itself as the embodiment of authentic Islam.
“Remnants of Isis: finds in a Syrian village – in pictures,” by Delil Souleiman, Guardian, March 25, 2020:
A year after the last black flag of Islamic State was lowered in the Syrian village of Baghouz, traces of the jihadist group are still all around this small and remote village near the Iraqi border, where Kurdish fighters and the US-led coalition declared the defeat of Isis in March 2019…
mortimer says
Top Sunnite scholars at Al Azhar University and top Saudi clerics endorsed the theology and policies of ISIS as being in full accord with SALAFISM/WAHHABISM … the official religion of Saudi Arabia. They disagreed (without giving one detail) on their ‘APPLICATION’ of theology and Sharia law.
Does ISIS represent Islam?
– in 2015, the former imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, Sheikh Adel al-Kalbani, declared that the Islamic State and Saudi Arabia “follow the SAME THOUGHT”. He has stated as well, that ISIS is a “TRUE PRODUCT of Salafism,” the SAME brand of Islam as officially espoused by Saudi Arabia. He clearly stated, “We [in Saudi Arabia] follow the SAME THOUGHT [as ISIS], but apply it in a refined way…They draw their ideas from what is written IN OUR BOOKS, from OUR OWN PRINCIPLES … we DO NOT criticise the thought on which it (ISIS) is based”.
– (Is ISIS Islamic?) “Yes. This is the truth, and we must discuss this in full honesty and fairness. We must confront our [problems]. We must discuss (the actions of ISIS) in full honesty … ISIS has come to implement Islam as it is, by the book. It has not come up with anything on its own. It evoked the religious texts exactly as they are. It did not distort, change, or replace anything. It came with the text and implemented it exactly as it is….They came in order to [implement] the proper Islam, complete with slave girls, the rape … We cannot shut our eyes and deny this … We must not blame others … We must all own up to what is happening.” – Yemeni Academic, Dr. Arwa Al-Khattabi
Al Azhar GRAND IMAM Cannot Denounce ISIS of Being Un-Islamic—Even If ISIS Commits “Every Atrocity”
– Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Sheikh and Grand Imam of Al Azhar refused to condemn ISIS terrorism, “Al Azhar CANNOT accuse any [Muslim] of being a kafir [disbeliever], as long as he believes in Allah and the Last Day—even if he commits every atrocity,” adding: “I cannot denounce ISIS as un-Islamic, but I can say that they cause corruption on earth. ISIS believes that those [Muslims] who commit the great sins are kafirs and can be killed. Thus if I denounce them of being un-Islamic, I fall into the same [trap] I am now condemning.”
Del says
“Does ISIS represent Islam? ” – ISIS is the perfect example of Islam. It blindly obeys their hate literature.
mortimer says
WHAT? ISIS possessed ZERO books from leading counterjihad writers? Nothing from Spencer? Nothing from Jamie Glazov? Or from Raymond Ibrahim? Or from Dan Pipes? Or from Bill Warner? Or from Mortimer’s own list of the 164 jihad verses ??? I’m hurt, hurt. ISIS must have ignored my warning to Western people. ISIS must be reading the 164 jihad verses in Arabic from the Koran.
CogitoErgoSum says
People like Kerry say ISIS gets Islam all wrong but then they never provide any proof that supports what they say. ISIS does back up everything it says (and does) by pointing specifically to Islamic scriptures. I have to make ISIS the winner of the argument.
mortimer says
Bingo. CES wrote: they never provide any proof to support what they say.
Meanwhile, Robert Spencer supports every conclusion with quotes from primary Islamic texts and sober explanations by Islam’s authentic authorities. Presumptuous dhimmis are overgeneralizations about Islam by professional Islamist apologists whose job is to whitewash and hide jihadism.
James Lincoln says
mortimer,
You and C.E.S. have it 100% right – B I N G O !!!
A bases-loaded grand slam homerun…
mortimer says
correction: Presumptuous dhimmis (like Kerry) are REGURGITATING overgeneralizations about Islam fed to them by professional Islamist apologists whose job is to whitewash and hide jihadism.
Dude says
In school they taught us it was a religion. They didn’t tell us why we needed another religion.
The founder of the new religion said he was thankful that God allowed him to use thuggery to spread his teachings. Before he became a thug, his teachings were only accepted by a few over many years. But after becoming a bandit, murderer, rapist, slaver, he became successful through terror.
ISIS is simply the formula of terror developed and perfected so long ago by the school of terror. The religion’s ideas cannot win followers; only coercion or the promise of plunder can bring lambs into its fold for slaughter.
We can’t believe it, and we will refute the obvious truth with ridiculous argument in the face of the obvious, over and over, for centuries. DUH, it’s still here.
mortimer says
Islam is ‘not just’ a ‘religion’ separated by a wall from the state. Islam IS THE STATE. Islam is a theocracy, an eternal wedding between politics and religion.
If you try to *DEPOLITICIZE* Islam, you have destroyed the essence of Islam.
Is the duck-billed platypus a mammal or a bird? It is both.
Islam is dualistic. That’s why Westerners who use unitary logic cannot figure out Islam, but they are not trying to understand it.
Anjuli Pandavar says
“Islamic prayer book and manual of Islamic law found among ISIS remnants.”
—
Oh, come on. Cut them some slack. There’ve obviously picked up somewhere that Islam is a religion of peace and they were just trying to check for themselves.
mortimer says
Agree … that is the sort of illogic we get from the neo-Marxist allies of the jihadists. They are so blinded by political expediency that they deny what is before them in plain sight … namely, that ISIS is self-consciously very Islamic and relies on Sharia law to guide every action.
ISIS plays Islam ‘by the book’. That is what the discovery of the Sharia law manual reveals. They didn’t make up their own version of Islam. ISIS practices strict canonical Islam.
Kepha says
Why should this be a surprise? It reminds me of something I read long ago, a propos another serious ideological conflict.
A veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War wrote a memoir of his experiences. In one firefight, they pinned down a single “Nacionalista”, killed him, and when going through his belongings, these dedicated Communists found a Bible in Cyrillic. One could almost hear the Dum-de-dumm-dumm-dA! dramatic music while reading. Horrible! Some White Russian guy signs up to fight Communists and gets killed while doing so! Or moral of the story, for the author of that old book, any Eastern Slav who wasn’t busy cheering himself hoarse praising Stalin was a dangerous, insiduous, malignant creepo.
It shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us here that a Muslim militant group either leaves behind an Islamic book or found one in a village it occupied.
FYI says
A manual of islamic “law”.. or as I call it:50 shades of islamic grey.
And what is the point of an islamic “prayer” book:dedicated to an ARAB god who admits to being the champion at deceiving people{koran 3:54} and whose self-appointed holy ‘prophet’ muhammed actually admitted to being a complete fraud{al tabari 6:111}?
A god who admits to being a champion at deceiving people is a god who admits to being capable of falsehood and cannot be trusted:how do muslims know that allah the champion deceiver isn’t deceiving them?After all allah claims to be a champion at it.
So a “prophet” who admits to being a fraud{al tabari 6:111},received a revelation from a god who admits to being a champion at deceiving people{koran 3:54}…in a cave with conveniently no witnesses,the same prophet who claimed he had a winged flying donkey with a woman’s face and who claimed he flew to visit a mosque in Jerusalem{koran 17:1} even though there was no mosque in Jerusalem in his time:and muslims can’t see the problem with this?
How hard is it to figure it?
OTTER says
To all the liberal brainwashed Dhimmis about Islam: Actions speak louder than words. If Muslims kill in the name of Islam, it is irrelevant whether it is ‘true’ Islam (it is) or not. We have a right to judge others by their actions just like Muslims never cease to judge the West by its ‘actions’. So give me a break as consistency matters, but I know that logic and consistency is not one of your strong points.
maemae77 says
So called moderate Muslims bring Sharia Law while radical Muslims carry it out.
gravenimage says
Islamic prayer book and manual of Islamic law found among ISIS remnants in formerly occupied village
………………….
I’m shocked to find that the Islamic State has anything to do with Islam and Islamic law…sarc/off
No Muzzies Here says
Obama knowingly lied about Islamic State, saying it had nothing to do with Islam.
US infidel says
looks like someone found some koran ass wipe not as absorbent as regular toilet tissue but works better than the hand.
Maemae77 says
I’m going to make this short.
No sh*t Sherlock.