Posted by
RabbiHaim on Monday, July 02, 2007 8:20:16 PM
What is the mission of a Jihadist? To understand this we must understand a little more about Islam than most non-Moslems do.
As non-Moslems, most of us consider our Religion as a framework for our own personal actions. Christians, I have been told, desire to do their best to emulate The Christ as they understand the life he lived, (through the filter of time and translation). Jews also are instructed to live their lives in accordance with rules and directives which they believe have been transmitted to them by The Creator in a lineage which they consider to be both traceable and unbroken across more than three millennia. Both of these religions focus on individual commitment to self-improvement as a path to individual redemption and salvation. Even the Christian, sometimes coercive, proselytizing efforts are theologically and philosophically based in the idea of “passing on the Good News” and allowing others to “benefit” from the message. We know that at times these efforts extended beyond arm bending, but the philosophical cover was always one of “sharing” the “Good News.”
Other religions throughout the world are even more inwardly directed than these two, though not all religions share the definition of “good works,” which is at least similarly constructed in Judaism and Christianity.
Islam also views itself as a framework for one’s own personal actions. Additionally, however, Islam views it a communal imperative to conquer the entire world in an effort to bring the “rule of Allah” to all humankind. Not only is redemption and salvation in question, but in most views of Islam even elevation to human status is dependant on one’s acceptance of the “only true religion.”
Islam takes the very long view of this world conquest. The requirement which each devout Moslem has is to advance the conquest by his own actions. Symbolic of this is the “stoning of Satan” which is a part of the ritual of the Hajj Pilgrimage to Mecca. The pilgrims throw stones at a pillar representing Satan in this ritual. They know, as we do, that their stones will not topple the pillar, but they also know that they are “wearing it down.” Some day the pillar will fall.
Did it matter that the car bombs in London didn’t explode? Did it matter that nobody was killed in any of the three incidents in Great Britain this weekend? Of course, in the Islamic view it didn’t matter at all. They caused great havoc and fear among the Infidel. They succeeded in creating “terror” in the hearts of the unworthy. The pebbles which they threw against Satan hit the mark although they didn’t topple the pillar.
Expect that there will be more pebbles cast at the Great Satan and the Little Satan, and that they may or may not hit, but in the Moslem view, the Satan pillar must eventually topple.
We, the non-Moslem World must realize that this is the nature of the war that we are in, whether or not we wish it. We must understand it, and we must develop a way not only to rebuff the attacks of the Moslem world, but also to devise a way to win this war.