Imam Hocine Drouiche, vice president of the imams of France, expresses his concern for this violent use of religion. “Once again – he has told AsiaNews – “France is hit by terrorism in the name of the Islamic jihad. These sick people always find religious coverage to justify their inhumane crimes. Terrorism will not stop until all Muslims condemn it firmly and remove this cover that dirties them and endangers their future in France and Europe”.
Imam Drouiche calls Jihadis “sick people” who “always find religious coverage to justify their inhumane crimes.” No. He has it backwards. They do not commit these crimes just for the fun of it, and then attempt after the fact to give these “inhumane crimes” a religious justification. Those we call Jihadis are led to commit these crimes by the Qur’an itself, and its clear commands, in over 100 verses, to commit Jihad against the Infidels. Religion is not the ex post facto excuse, but rather the cause, of this violence. Nor are Jihadis “sick people”; they understand and take to heart these commands; they are good Muslims, following Islam’s texts (Qur’an, hadith, sira) and teachings.
Imam Drouiche says that “terrorism will not stop until all Muslims condemn it firmly and remove this [religious] cover that dirties them.” How can Muslims possibly condemn those many verses in the Qur’an that call upon them to “strike terror” in the hearts of the Infidels? How can they ignore Muhammad himself, who claimed in a famous hadith that “I have been made victorious through terror”? Muslim terrorism will last as long as the uncreated and immutable Qur’an itself. How does Imam Drouiche, who means well, but cannot allow himself to believe that the sources of Muslim terrorism are to be found in the Qur’an and Hadith, hope to convince 1.5 billion Muslims to ignore so much of what they read in those texts? It can’t be done.
Prof. Drouiche points the finger at the indoctrination of imams in mosques.
“In general, the speech of the imams has not yet adapted to the values of the republic or human ones. If Muslims want to continue living in France and in Europe, it is necessary and urgent to awaken and free this religion from the hands of intolerant integralists. If a religion does not introduce peace, it is harmful to itself and does not deserve to be close to the divine.”
These “intolerant integralists” have the Qur’an and the example of Muhammad, as described in the hadith, on their side. They are not making up these Qur’anic verses. It is the truly “moderate” Muslims, like Prof. Drouiche himself, who want us to ignore, as they do, all the jihad verses in the Qur’an. But it is they who are being untrue to both the letter and spirit of Islam, an aggressive conquering faith whose adherents are taught to wage jihad until the entire world is dominated by Islam, and Islam rules everywhere. It is Imam Drouiche who is ignoring the 1,400 year history of Jihad, and the conquest by Muslims of many lands and many peoples, who when once they were subjugated, were given the choice of death, conversion to Islam, or acceptance of the permanent status of dhimmi, with the many onerous conditions, including payment of the jizyah, that that status entailed.
For Drouiche, “Islam is going through a profound crisis worldwide.” It needs “a new wise and intelligent elite to be free and humanized. We can still save the situation in Europe, but I’m not too optimistic.”
Is Islam truly “going through a profound crisis worldwide”? Isn’t the problem that Islam is not going through such a crisis, but that it ought to be? Within Muslim states there is internecine warfare of every kind: Sunni versus Shi’a, Arab versus non-Arab Muslims, Muslims versus Christians, locally-based militias fighting among themselves for power and money — in Yemen, Libya,Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Bahrain.
And there should be, but there is not, a “profound crisis” in Islam among Muslims who have settled deep within non-Muslim lands, by the tens of millions, unwilling to integrate, battening on the largesse of generous non-Muslim states, that provide free or highly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, family allowances, unemployment benefits. Muslims seem quite pleased with this arrangement, taking all this as if by right, with some even describing it as the “jihad seeker’s allowance” — a proleptic jizyah, in societies where non-Muslims are still in control. They don’t see a crisis in Islam; they see Islam instead as triumphantly on the march, unstoppable by such confused Western leaders as May, Macron, and Merkel. They see a crisis among the Unbelievers, who are gradually losing control of the Muslim-populated parts of their own countries.