Servants

O turn to me, and have mercy upon me; give Thy strength unto Thy servant, and save the son of Thine handmaid.   --Ps. 86:16

When it is the one ruling, never-ceasing desire of our hearts, that God may be the beginning and end, the reason and motive, the rule and measure, of our doing or not doing, from morning to night; then everywhere, whether speaking or silent, whether inwardly or outwardly employed, we are equally offered up to the eternal Spirit, have our life in Him and from Him, and are united to Him by the Spirit of Prayer which is the comfort, the support, the strength and security of the soul, travelling, by the help of God, through the vanity of time into the riches of eternity. Let us have no thought or care, but how to be wholly His devoted instruments; everywhere and in everything, His adoring, joyful, and thankful servants.  -- Wm. Law

A Devout Muslim is Devoted to Muslims -- Infidels, Not So Much

Understanding Islam and the Koran is just not a fun subject and most of the people I know don’t really care to take the time and lack any interest; what with the time-consuming task of trying to make ends meet economically, it’s just not a high priority.

First off, this will come across as being Islamophobic or viewed as “hate-speech,” but these are just labels those of the Leftist or Marxist ideology use to censor views they don’t agree with regardless of facts or given any consideration of the right to freedom of speech. Thankfully, I’m not overly concerned with what people think about me, so let the ad hominem begin.

While it may seem contradictory, the fact that a devoted Muslim soldier can join the U.S. military and refuse to attack or kill fellow Muslims while plotting to attack and kill fellow Americans, it does in fact make perfect sense. We have just had another planned attack by Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo as an example.

To make sense of the motive in these attacks we need to look at the Islam doctrine called wala wa bara, which translated is “loyalty and enmity”. This doctrine is built on many Koran verses and backed by Sharia (Islamic law). Wala requires Muslims to be loyal to fellow Muslims and would prevent one from attacking or killing a fellow Muslim, i.e. being deployed to a Muslim nation. While this loyalty appears admirable, the flipside is bara which requires Muslims to disassociate themselves from non-Muslims or to be disloyal to them (see al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s 60 page treatise titled, “Loyalty and Enmity” in The Al Qaeda Reader by Raymond Ibrahim for details.)

In the Koran 5:51 it literally warns Muslims against “taking the Jews and Christians as friends and allies…whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he surely is one of them,” i.e., he becomes an infidel; 58:22 states that true Muslims do not befriend non-Muslims – “even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin.”

The doctrine of taqiyya permits Muslims to deceive infidels and would certainly be helpful when planning harm to fellow soldiers and Abdo then would have no problem openly displaying loyalty to Muslims while trusting that tolerant or sentimental Americans would indulge him while he hid his enmity and disloyalty to those same Americans. This is the Koran’s primary justification for deception in the context of “loyalty and enmity”:

            Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels instead of believers. Whoever does shall have no       relationship with Allah – unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions (3:28).

Mainstream Muslim reference Tabari interprets this verse as:

            Only when you are in their [non-Muslims’] power, fearing for yourselves, are you to demonstrate  friendship for them with your tongues, while harboring hostility toward them. But do not join them in   the particulars of their infidelities, and do not aid them through any action against a Muslim.

So in fact there is no inconsistency between piety (devotion) and prayer on the one hand, and jihad and deceit on the other; all are equally codified in Sharia. Moreover, upholding one doctrine often leads to upholding another; thus loyalty to fellow Muslims is a sure sign of disloyalty to non-Muslims.

We need to wake up and see that all devotion is not the same. All prayer is not the same. No matter how much we wish it were so, it just is not. Using some of our common beliefs and values, from Christianity to secular humanism, they just don’t project well unto Islam. Naming someone as “devoutly religious” can have very different meanings.

TO SPEAK OR NOT TO SPEAK

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Gal.5:1

"I believed, and therefore have I spoken." 2 Cor. 4:13

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.   --J.R. Lowell


The real corrupters of society may be, not the corrupt, but those who have held back the righteous leaven, the salt that has lost its savor, the innocent who have not even the moral courage to show what they think of the effrontery of impurity---the serious, who yet timidly succumb before some loud-voiced scoffer,---the heart trembling all over with religious sensibilities that yet suffers itself through false shame to be beaten down into outward and practical acquiescence by some rude and worldly nature.  --J.H. Thom