A Critical Analysis of 'Real Islam'. Its People ... - Bukti dan Saksi

"When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind
your captives firmly. Then grant them their freedom or take a ransom from them, until war shall lay down its
burdens.'"
"Commentary on the Surahs of Muhammad, Al-Fath, Al-Hujurat and Qaf, Grade 11, (2002) p. 9 …When you
meet them in order to fight [them], do not be seized by compassion [towards them] but strike the[ir] necks
powerfully.... Striking the neck means fighting, because killing a person is often done by striking off his head.
Thus, it has become an expression for killing even if the fighter strikes him elsewhere. This expression contains
a harshness and emphasis that are not found in the word "kill", because it describes killing in the ugliest manner,
i.e., cutting the neck and making the organ - the head of the body - fly off [the body].' "
Although chilling to our modern sensibilities, particularly when being taught to children, these are
merely normative interpretations of the rules for jihad war, based on over a millennium of Muslim
theology and jurisprudence. And the context of these teachings is unambiguous, as the translator makes
clear that:
"[the] concept of jihad is interpreted in the Egyptian school curriculum almost exclusively as a military
endeavor… it is war against God's enemies, i.e., the infidels… it is war against the homeland's enemies and a
means to strengthening the Muslim states in the world. In both cases, jihad is encouraged, and those who refrain
from participating in it are denounced."
Ibn Hudayl, a 14th century expert and author of an important treatise on jihad, explained forthrightly,
sanctioned procedures and methods which contradict Islamic apologists erroneous assertions that certain
war crimes, including razing beheading, are not sanctioned by Islam:
"It is permissible to set fire to the lands of the enemy, his stores of grain, his beasts of burden – if it is not
possible for the Muslims to take possession of them – as well as to cut down his trees, to raze his cities, in a
word, to do everything that might ruin and discourage him, provided that the imam (i.e. the religious "guide" of
the community of believers) deems these measures appropriate, suited to hastening the Islamization of that
enemy or to weakening him. Indeed, all this contributes to a military triumph over him or to forcing him to
capitulate. [34]
The late, seminal 20th century scholar of Muslim Spain and North Africa, Charles Emmanuel
Dufourcq, characterized the impact of these repeated attacks, indistinguishable in motivation from
modern acts of jihad terrorism (like 9/11/01 and, perhaps even more geographically relevant, 3/11/04):
"It is not difficult to understand that such expeditions sowed terror. The historian al-Maqqari, who wrote in
seventeenth-century Tlemcen in Algeria, explains that the panic created by the Arab horsemen and sailors, at
the time of the Muslim expansion in the zones that saw those raids and landings, facilitated the later conquest, if
that was decided on: ‘Allah,’ he says, ‘thus instilled such fear among the infidels that they did not dare to go
and fight the conquerors; they only approached them as suppliants, to beg for peace.’ " [35]
Al-Mawardi, a significant 11th century (Shafi’ite) jurist from Baghdad, wrote regarding the treatment
of jihad POWs. The real issues at hand: what does Muslim Law actually instructs regarding jihad POWs
in various campaigns conducted throughout Muslim history, and how does the spate of contemporary
beheadings of prisoners of jihad terrorism comport with these rulings. Al-Mawardi’s writing makes clear
that killing of jihad POWs is a primary (i.e., "first") option based solely upon what is most expedient for
the Muslims:
"As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the
first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery
regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth,
to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, 'When you encounter those [infidels]
who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks' (Qur'an sura 47, verse 4)"....Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-
Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah." [36]
Al-Mawardi was hardly unique, the views of this Shafi’ite jurist being nearly identical to those of key
jurists representing the three other main Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence, including the Hanafites,
who prevailed in Ottoman Turkey:
Abu Yusuf (from the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, d. 798):
"...that one can even ...finish off the wounded, or kill prisoners who might prove dangerous to the Muslims.. As
for the prisoners who are lead before the imam, the latter has the choice, as he pleases, of executing them, or