Americans woke up on New Year’s Day to the terrorist attack in New Orleans—thus far fifteen have been murdered and dozens injured. Certain politicians, including President-elect Donald Trump reacted by pointing to immigrants entering the country illegally and creating havoc. This time, however, the perpetrator who committed the atrocious attack, forty-two-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was not only a U.S.-born citizen but a U.S. Army veteran, too. Police also found two bombs near the cathedral in the French quarter of New Orleans, leaving FBI investigators to say that Jabbar did not act alone.

As per the Islamic State flag on the truck Jabbar used to maul down his victims, one thing is apparent: jihadists have well organized sleeper cells in the U.S. to recruit fellow Muslims to carry out their jihadist attacks. In fact, in a disturbing manner, also on New Year’s Day, one person was killed and seven others were injured when a Tesla Cybertruck that appeared to be carrying fireworks caught fire and exploded outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel.

While the world is justly concerned about the acts of jihadist violence, it has been led by neoconservative and progressive politicians and the mainstream media to believe that, with the exception of the Iranian state-sponsored terrorism, the acts of terror carried out by Muslims are sparse and provincial. Consequential to this has been the denial of the jihadist doctrine as a juridical development of Islamic sacred texts. In an attempt to sustain this position, Islam has been compared to Christianity as a religion that promotes human dignity—this is false because the Christian faith sees every human being equal before God, regardless of race, gender, or status in society, while Islam calls for religious, ethnic, and political cleansing, since not all are equal or pleasing to Allah. Under the pretension that the teachings of the prophet Muhammad are indistinguishable from those of Jesus, many Westerners perceive the violence carried out by Islamists, such as ISIS, Boko Haram, or other jihadists, as an anomaly of Islamic observance.

‘Islam has been compared to Christianity as a religion that promotes human dignity—this is false’

The term jihad is obviously about more than just killing the infidel. One may be surprised that its tenets, as professed by radical Muslims, are not found in the Quran at all. However, according to Abu Hurairah (a companion of the Prophet):

‘I have been commanded to fight the people until they say La ilaha illallah [There is no other god but Allah]’ — Sunan an-Nasa’i, Book 25, hadith 3092

The Islamic faithful are obliged to ensure that the Islamic community is not only safeguarded from non-Muslims but increased. Since only one religion, Islam, can legitimately reign in society, people who fulfil their duty in imposing the tenets as taught by their prophet save their lives and do not have to reckon with Allah. This in turn binds the adherents of Islam to suppress any possibility for individuals to have the freedom to decipher for themselves which religion, other than Allah’s, they should adopt, if any.

The Islamic religion is structured around and within a sociopolitical construct that defines and stipulates a Muslim’s redemptive relationship with his god and with his fellow Muslim. Beyond that, there is only abnormal and disordered sociability between man and God and his brethren that must be either remedied or cancelled out.

The prophet of Islam did not propose a new social doctrine but rather a moralistic exigency, which was materialized into an Arab civitas, i.e., a self-reliant and independent nation-state with the mandate to proliferate Allah’s kingdom throughout the whole world, to every nation. As a social order, Islam can be understood to be an umma (community) that brings Allah’s message of worship and brotherhood, independent from any specific race, language, religion, nation, or geographic borders. The adherent, therefore, in the act of yielding to the tenets of Allah, simultaneously becomes a member of a worldwide faith community established by Allah’s prophet. By ‘submitting’, which is what Islam means, the Muslim incorporates a religious identity that is both individual and corporate, as well as a responsibility or duty to unconditionally obey and implement Allah’s will in their personal and social lives.

The late Dr. Nabeel Qureshi explained when growing up as a Muslim in Pakistan he and his fellow Muslims believed Islam to be a peaceful religion. ‘It wasn’t until I started reading the sources for myself – the Quran and the hadiths – that I saw the sources showed that Islam at its historical core was violent.’ This is something many politicians and church officials refuse to acknowledge. This is why for example, according to Qureshi, recruits for ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) ‘are inspired by the literal interpretation of Muslim sacred texts’.

This is not a call to suspect every Muslim as a terrorist. However, Islam is not a religion of peace as then President George W. Bush stated immediately after the 9/11 attacks. All one has to do is read the Islamic sacred texts and look at its 1,400-year history.

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