Islam and violence

Islam has been associated with violence in a variety of contexts: Holy wars - historic and present, violent acts by adherents against perceived enemies of Islam, violence against women ostensibly supported by Islam's tenets, references to violence in the Qur'an, and acts of terrorisms motivated and/or justified by Islam. Muslims, Islamic clerics and leaders have used Islamic ideas, concepts, texts, themes in their violence, especially against non-Muslims.

Intolerance

See also: Criticism of Islam

Despite claims that the sources of Islam demand it to be a "Religion of peace" with violence being regulated by laws of Jihad, Islam has been criticised for its followers exhibiting intolerance and violence towards critics (often viewed as being pejorative of Islam and its Prophet).

According to Islamic scholar Khaleel Mohammed, throughout the world, Muslim intellectuals are punished for criticizing some aspects of traditional and contemporary Islam. He cited the case of Muhammad Said al-Ashmawy being held in Egypt is under house arrest for his own protection; Abdel Karim Soroush who was beaten in Iran for raising the voice of inquiry, Mahmoud Taha who was killed in Sudan. Mohammed claims that Scholars Rifat Hassan, Fatima Mernissi, Abdallah an-Na'im, Mohammed Arkoun and Amina Wadud were all vilified by the imams for asking Muslims to use their intellects.

In one example, Hashem Aghajari, an Iranian university professor, was initially sentenced to death because of a speech that criticized some of the present Islamic practices in Iran being in contradiction with the original practices and ideology of Islam, and particularly for stating that Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow" the clerics. The sentence was later commuted to three years in jail, and he was released in 2004 after serving two years of that sentence.

Ibn Warraq has collected and published stories of the reported mistreatment of Muslim apostates at the hands of Islamic authorities.

• Christoph Luxenberg feels compelled to work under a pseudonym to protect himself because of fears that a new book on the origins of the Qur'an may make him a target for violence.

• In recent times fatwas calling for execution have been issued against author Salman Rushdie and activist Taslima Nasreen for pejorative comments on Islam.
• On 2 November 2004, Dutch Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was assassinated by Dutch born Mohammed Bouyeri for producing the 10 minute film Submission critical of the abusive treatment of women by Muslims. A letter threatening the author of the screenplay, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, was pinned to his body by a knife. Hirsi Ali entered into hiding immediately following the assassination.
• On 30 September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published editorial cartoons, many of which caricatured the Islamic prophet Mohammed. The publication was intended to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship; objectives which manifested themselves in the public outcry from Muslim communities within Denmark and the subsequent apology by the paper. However, the controversy deepened when further examples of the cartoons were reprinted in newspapers in more than fifty other countries. This led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which escalated into violence, including setting fire to the Norwegian and Danish Embassies in Syria, and the storming of European buildings and desecration of the Danish and German flags in Gaza City. Globally, at least 139 people were killed and 823 injured.
• On 19 September 2006 French writer and philosophy teacher Robert Redeker wrote an editorial for Le Figaro, a French conservative newspaper, in which he attacked Islam and Muhammad, writing: "Pitiless war leader, pillager, butcher of Jews and polygamous, this is how Mohammed is revealed by the Qur'an"; he received death threats and went into hiding.
• On 4 August 2007, Ehsan Jami was attacked in his hometown Voorburg, in The Netherlands, by three men. The attack is widely believed to be linked to his activities for the Central Committee for Ex-Muslims. The national anti-terrorism coordinator's office, the public prosecution department and the police decided during a meeting on 6 August that "additional measures" were necessary for the protection of Jami who has subsequently received extra security.

Professors assert that "Hatred towards people who follow other religions such as Jews and Christians, as well as Hindus and other polytheists, are a part of the teachings of the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an."

Qur'an

See also: Criticism of the Qur'an

Muhammad's book, the Qur'an (and in its Hadith) contains passages that glorify or endorse violence. one example is: "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers]...and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah." There is a good case to be made that the textual context of this particular passage is defensive war, even if the historical context was not. However, there are also two worrisome pieces to this verse. The first is that the killing of others is authorized in the event of "persecution" (a qualification that is ambiguous at best). The second is that fighting may persist until "religion is for Allah." The example set by Muhammad is not reassuring. Qur'an (2:191-193)

The reality of current violence against critics hit many who are outspoken (Salman Rushdie), including a teacher who's forced into hiding after describing the Koran as a "book of extraordinary violence" and Islam as "a religion which ... exalts violence and hate".

The Qur’an's teachings on matters of war and peace have become topics of heated discussion in recent years. On the one hand, some critics interpret that certain verses of the Qur’an sanction military action against unbelievers as a whole both during the lifetime of Muhammad and after. The Qur'an said " fight in the name of your religion with those who fight against you. On the other hand, other scholars argue that such verses of the Qur’an are interpreted out of context, and argue that when the verses are read in context it clearly appears that the Qur’an prohibits aggression, and allows fighting only in self defense.

Methods of violence

Beheading and cutting are rooted in Islamic teaching, "kill their opponents by cutting off their hands and feet."

Beheadings

Beheading in the Name of Islam is a wide past and present phenomenon. Some have called it: "sacred Muslim practice of beheading." The Qur'an: (8:12): "...and strike upon their necks." Andrew McCarthy elaborated on "Islam and Beheadings." From the Oxford dictionary of Islam:

Hadith reports introduce the teaching that renunciation of Islam is punishable by beheading, burning, crucifixion, or banishment.

Muhammad reported that the angel Gabriel said beheading was one of Allah's punishments for those who reject him.

Among the atrocities of the Islamic Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines are multiple beheadings.

Glorification of these crimes manifested itself in examples of: Beheaded Christian girls were Ramadan 'trophies' and beheading Video was up for sale in Baghdad.

Islamists in Iraq sent -in 2006- the following message: 'Leave, Crusaders, or have your heads cut off.'

From Islamic terrorists' addmission:

we found a Swedish infidel. Brother Nimr cut off his head, and put it at the gate so that it would be seen by all those entering and exiting. We continued in the search for the infidels, and we slit the throats of those we found among them. . . . We found Filipino Christians. We cut their throats and dedicated them to our brothers the Mujahideen in the Philippines. [Likewise], we found Hindu engineers and we cut their throats too, Allah be praised. That same day, we purged Muhammad's land of many Christians and polytheists.

See: Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg.

Cutting

Cutting in found in the Quran. Islamists' tactics include cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides. It is denounced together with stoning of women. Jihadists cut off nose, ears, tongue of civilians in Afghanistan.

Against women

Main articles: Islam and Domestic violence and An-Nisa, 34

Verse 4:34 of the Qur'an as translated by Mohammed Habib Shakir reads:

Men are the maintainers of women because God has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as God has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely God is High, Great.

The film Submission, which rose to fame after the murder of its director Theo van Gogh, critiqued this and similar verses of the Qur'an by displaying them painted on the bodies of abused Muslim women. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the film's writer, said "it is written in the Koran a woman may be slapped if she is disobedient. This is one of the evils I wish to point out in the film".

Scholars and other defenders of Islam have a variety of responses to these criticisms. (See An-Nisa, 34 for a fuller exegesis on the meaning of the text.) Although the Qur'an does allow a husband to punish his wife for transgressing the bounds given to her by God, the Qur'an and Muhammad still put forth the prescription that the man is only allowed to hit the woman so lightly that it would not leave as much as a faint mark upon her, otherwise the man has himself transgressed divine bounds. Some Muslims argue that beating is only appropriate if a woman has done "an unrighteous, wicked and rebellious act" beyond mere disobedience. In many modern interpretations of the Qur'an, the actions prescribed in 4:34 are to be taken in sequence, and beating is only to be used as a last resort.

Some Islamic scholars and commentators have emphasized that beatings, where permitted, are not to be harsh or even that they should be "more or less symbolic." According to Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Ibn Kathir, the consensus of Islamic scholars is that the above verse describes a light beating.

Some jurists argue that even when beating is acceptable under the Qur'an, it is still discountenanced.

See also: Honor killing

Holy wars

Clear 'holy wars' - Islamization tendencies and obvious attempts of eradication of Christians, Hindus, Jews, have been recorded since the early days of Islam.

Today it has widen, the jihad, or holy war, against impure Muslims, against infidels, or non-Muslim / unbelievers. Calls for violence against non-Muslims has accompanied sharia implementation.

Ever since the Khaybar Massacre 628, in Saudi Arabia of the Qurayza Jews, the term, the idea of 'Khaybar' has been used by Muslims when calling to kill, to annihilate Jews (genocide).

Islamic calls include: "Rise up and kill the Jews; they are indeed The bitterest enemies who reject Muhammad. Rise up and kill the Jews, as they were killed At Khaybar beneath the sword of Muhammad. Rise up and kill the Jews and all of those Who fight for them." Egyptian cleric: "The Jews "are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing."

The Jews are infidels - not because I say so, and not because they are killing Muslims, but because Allah said: 'The Jews say that Uzair is the son of Allah, and the Christians say that Christ is the son of Allah. ) If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never love them. Absolutely not. The Jews are infidels – not because I say so, and not because they are killing Muslims, ... Qur'an... This is it. We must believe that our fighting with the Jews is eternal, and it will not end until the final battle – and this is the fourth point. You must believe that we will fight, defeat, and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the Earth.

Qatari Cleric:

We do not treat the Jews as our enemies just because they occupied Palestine... even if they return Palestine to us, because they are infidels.

Saudi cleric, Mohammed Salah el-Munjeed, stated: "How can Moslems not be joyful when in the killing of Jews and infidels? Allah will surely gladden the hearts of his followers as they kill and destroy all of them (the Jews)." The Khaybar battle is used in driving anti-Semitism in the Muslim world.

The war-cry of the Apostle's companions at the battle of Khaybar was "O you who have been given victory, kill! kill!" Example of calls include: "Rise up and kill the Jews; they are indeed The bitterest enemies who reject Muhammad. Rise up and kill the Jews, as they were killed At Khaybar beneath the sword of Muhammad. Rise up and kill the Jews and all of those Who fight for them."

There's a quote by Sufi jurist Sirhindi (1621): "Whenever a Jew is killed, it is for the benefit of Islam."

Haj Amin al-Husseini the Islamic supreme leader of Palestine since the 1920s have used his Islamic power and Koranic themes to incite for violence. He's regarded as being the most influencial -early on- in the Middle East conflict.

The Mufti aimed "for a holy War of Islam in alliance with Germany against world Jewry" says historian Bernard Lewis.

His speeches were anti-Jewish with a radical Islamic theme, like: "Kill the Jews wherever you find them—this pleases Allah." From a chapter called "Fatwas and Holy War: Al-Husseini's Legacy as a Pioneer of Modern Jihad":

During the 1920 and 1930s. Haj Amin al-Husseini was one of the first radical Islamic leaders to issue fatwas, or religious rulings, calling for jihad, or holy war, against Great Britain, the United States, the Jews, and the West. Since Workd War I, during which al-Husseini served as an officer in the Ottoman Turkish army, the fatwa was served as a major instrument by which Islamic religious leaders have impelled their followers to engage in acts of jihad, which invariably involved acts of violence and terrorism.

"Throughout his public career, the Mufti relied upon traditional Koranic anti-Jewish motifs to arouse the Arab street."

The Mufti's Jihad commanders and supporters refused to cooperate with moderates among the Arabs in Palestine. The grand Mufti declared particular areas to be "freed" from the British and from the Jews, and to be under the authority of Shari'a - the Islamic religious law - instead. Women, were forced to veil themselves, be they're Christians or Muslims.

In Jihad and international security the authors suggest that "Perhaps the longest-running jihad in today's world is the struggle to reclaim Israel for the Muslims." kicked off by the "highest ranking Islamic cleric of Jerusalem" the grand Mufti.

Today, too, violent anti Israel, campaigns by Muslims (including Hamas, Hezbollah (and even on the Flotilla ship by Islamists from Turkey in 2010) are marked by cries of "Allah Akbar!" As well as Palestinian Muslims in their anti-Christian Pogrom in the West bank, and against Christian Maronites in Lebanon.

Jihad against Israel was waged on several occasions, either individually or collectively, have Arab leaders proclaimed a jihad against Israel, Bat Ye'or concludes that it confirms "their attachment to a theocratic system embracing the whole of humanity." In one example, even before its establishment as a state: In 1947, after the UN Resolution for the partition of Palestine, the Muslim spiritual leader of al-Azhar University in Cairo issued a fatwa (religious ruling) that called for a "Jihad to save Palestine and to defend the al-Aqsa mosque." Dan Kurtzman wrote that the Arabs launched their first big operation against the Jews in January 14 [1948], when thousands of Arab villagers shouting Jihad! Jihad! ("Holy War! Holy War!") stormed the Etzion Bloc of settlements perched atop the rolling Hebron hills." In August 1980 Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Fahd called "on all Arab countries to unite in a jihad (holy war) to liberate Israeli-occupied Arab territory and establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital." Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat routinely lambasted for provocative citations from the Quran, especially for his liberal use of the word jihad. When Arafat called for a "jihad for Jerusalem," he "intended his Muslim audience to hear a call to arms." He named the second wave of violence in 2000 as "al Aqsa intifada," after the Mosque on top of the temple mount.

The Dhimitude inferior status of non-Muslims in Muslim lands is rooted in the Quran. (which engulfs the "Jizya" - a tax stipulated in the Koran to be paid by Dhimmis or unbelievers, accompanied with great humiliation and recognition of the inferior status of the "dhimma.") often this subjucation justified violence. Despite some tolerance in the early days, Jews (for example) were not supposed to enjoy public office, power, every so often when the Muslim population felt that the Jews are too comfortable and have some power, a massacre has been unleashed. Author relates the anti-Jewish violence - including in: The Fez massacre of 1033, The Fez 1146 massacre reaching 100,000 and in Marrakesch 120,000, the 1576 and 1577 deportations of Safed Jews to Cyprus, the 1660 massacre of those Jews still settled in Safed - to what he describes "at times the Jew has been considered tainted spiritually and capable spiritually of contaminating by his shadow falling across a Muslim. let alone by actual contact." Adding that although "Christians suffered similarly but at least they had the the opportunity of finding help in Christian lands." Some of the known forced conversions of Jews to Islam were in Fez Morocco: in 1165, 1275, 1465, and 1790-92

The following are some highlighted dates in timeline of violence by Islam (it includes: Muhammad's followers in Islam's early days acting for his honor/sake, Muslims using Islamic themes, Quranic text or/and ideas, mobilized forced conversions, "religious cleansing" campaigns to cleanse the area of non-Muslims, attacks by Islamic religious authorities often explained with declaration of clear 'Islamic' goals, violence with a clear subjugation of Dhimmitude / infidels status, [regarding the massacres in early Islam in Spain, during frictions, Christians and Jews were dehumanized and referred to as apes and pigs, a Quranic inspired idea.] violence triggered by Islamic clerics preaching in mosques, battles described as Jihad or holy war and emerging of radical-Islamic movements - which take its roots from Muhammad/Quran - inspiring source for violence) from its early days till post WW2, 622-1946.

• Early Islam - 622-634

1. The killing of with Abu Afak.

The poet who mocked Muhammad was killed with "one blow of his sword when the latter slept outside his house."

1. The killing of Asma Marwan
2. Attack upon the Banu Qaynuqa Jews
3. The killing of Kab Ashraf
4. The killing of Ibn Sunayna
5. Attack against the Banu Nadir Jews
6. The killing of the shepherd
7. Massacre of the Banu Qurayza Jews.

Medina in 627, Muhammad's followers killed between 600 and 900 of the men, and divided the surviving Jewish women and children amongst themselves, after the Jewish tribes refused to accept Muhammad and convert to his movement.

1. The torture killing of Kinana
2. The slaying of an old woman from Banu Fazara
3. The killing of Abdullah Khatal and his daughter.
4. The attack upon Tabuk.

The Shia [Shiite] Martyrdom. - October, 680 It began on the morning of 3 October 680 CE. Some link it to the "Roots of terror: suicide, martyrdom, self-redemption and Islam." Even outside the Shi'ite martyrdom, violent death seems to have followed the event.

• Cordoba revolt - 818

The revolt in Muslim Spain by Christians, put down by massacres for three days.

Many of the insurgents were crucified, as prescribed in the Koran (5:33): "The revolt in Cordova of 818 was crushed by three days of massacres and pillage."

• Christians beheaded in Cordoba, Spain Between 850 and 859, accused of "blasphemy against Islam." What became known among Christians: The Martyrs of Cordoba

It included women like: Spanish women Flora and Mary, that were beheaded in Cordoba in 851.

• The 1011 Massacre of Jews by Muslims in Cordoba, Andalusia, Muslim Spain, about two thousand perished.

• Pogrom in Fez, Morocco, 1033.

Between five and six thousand Jews lost their lives in the hands of Muslims. The women were dragged off into slavery.

• December, 1066 Granada massacre of Jews by Muslims, Andalusia Spain.

The 1066 Granada massacre took place on 30 December 1066 (9 Tevet 4827), when a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, crucified Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city. "More than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, fell in one day."

According to historian Bernard Lewis, the massacre -in Muslim narrative- is "usually ascribed to a reaction among the Muslim population against a powerful and ostentatious Jewish vizier." Muslims' sentiments of resentments of refusal of Jews to be subjucated by Muslims as Dhimmis can be seen in the following:

Particularly instructive in this respect is an ancient Anti-Semitic poem of Abu Ishaq, written in Granada in 1066. This poem, which is said to be instrumental in provoking the anti-Jewish outbreak of that year, contains these specific lines: "Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them, the breach of faith would be to let them carry on. They have violated our covenant with them, so how can you be held guilty against the violator? - How can they have any pact when we are obscure and they are prominent? - Now we are humble, beside them, as if we were wrong and they were right!"

It has been confirmed by a contemporary chronicle that the massacre followed what Muslims saw as "breach in the system of dhimmitude." Thus justifying a jihad against them.

Historian Walter Laqueur characterizes this episode as a pogrom: "Jews could not as a rule attain public office (as usual there were exceptions), and there were occasional pogroms, such as in Granada in 1066." Some 4000 Jews were massacred in the 1066 Granada pogrom, inspired in part by an anti-Jewish ode containing a line (based on a Quranic idea of referring to infidels as apes and pigs), "Many a pious Muslim is in awe of the vilest infidel ape," referring to the Jewish communal leader, the vizier Joseph b. Samuel Naghrela. (In Spain, during periods of friction between the various religious communities, the Muslims called the Jews "apes" and the Christians "pigs and dogs." Research revealed that "viewing Jews as the 'descendants of apes and pigs' is grounded in the most important Islamic religious sources." ) Andrew Bostom claims that "More Jews were killed in this one pogrom than in the Crusaders."

• The Almohads Spain and North Africa between the middle of the 12th cventury and the 14th century.

The Almohades arose in the Atlas mountains and declared a Holy War, a jihad, on the moderate Almoravides in order to restore the original Islamic values. In conquering most of Morocco and invading (again) Spain in 1150, to combat Christians. The fanatical warriors alienated Moslems and Jews alike and the Arab-Jewish cooperation and the previous usual tolerance in Andalucia came to an end.

Historian writes that "The jihad depredations of the Almohads (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations in Spain and North Africa." The massacres and forced conversions effected the Jewish communites of Spain: Seville, Cordova, Jaen, Almeria, and of North Africa: including Sijilmasa and Dar’a, Marrakesh, Fez, Tlemcen, Ceuta, and Meknes.

When the liberal Almoravids came to power in 1062, conditions for Jews improved, but when the Almohades took over in the middle of the 12th century Jews were forced to embrace Islam or emigrate. It was during that time that Jews were forced to wear a particular costume a precursor of the Jewish badge. After the ouster of the Almohades in the 14th century the situation of Jews stabilized.

It was during the reign of Abu Ya'Qub Yusuf (1165-84) when the upsurge in Almohad fanaticism in Fez came about, it brought a new wave of forced conversions. It was either convert or die. "Thousands of Jews in Morocco had been forced to convert at the height of the Almohade persecutions."

• On both dates 1165 and 1678, forced conversions of Jews were carried out in Yemen, Jews were given the choice, convert or die.

When al-Hadi offered the Jews the choice between the sword and conversion to Islam: "Many Jews chose death and the survival of the community."

• The Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism - 1263 - 1328

Ibn Taymiyyah, or Taq ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah, is regarded as the Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism's, he lived from 1263 to 1328. His name by birth was Ahmad ibn Abdul-Halim ibn Abdas-Salaam. Maududi borrowed extensively from Taymiyyah's writings.

• The Bahmani sultans and the genocide on Indians - 1347-1480.

Every new invader of India made (often literally) his hills of Hindu skulls. The Bahmani sultans (1347–1480) in central India made it a rule to kill 100,000 Hindus (kaffir - non-believers) every year. In 1399, Teimur killed 100,000 captives in a single day.

• Fez Massacre - 1465 Morocco.

In 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, for 'Islamic honor,' after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman—what was seen as—in "an offensive manner." (Jews weren't even supposed to surpass a Dhimmitude status, behold, if "the dhimma had been violated", much less holding office,) The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco. some six thousand Jews were murdered in 1033." and massacres look place again in 1276 and 1465.

• The advent of the Safavid kings 1501 Iran.

In Persia 1501, the Shah Esmail founded the Safavid dynasty, he was a Shia and waged a jihad against Sunni Islam over the next decade. He eventually conquered all of Persia.

The Shiite Safavids made Shiite Islam the official religion of Iran. They created a "a rigid religious hierarchy with unlimited power and influence in every sphere of life." Minorities: Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews suffered harsh measures including strict segregation, the era brought persecutions, massacres and forced conversions to Islam. "Jews were forced to wear both a yellow badge and a headgear."

• Islamists' Massacre of 30,000 Indians - after battle for Chitod. part of Mogul Empire's atrocities on Indians, by the order of Islamic Akbar - 24 February 1568. Akbar -like all Mughal rulers- had the holy Muslim title of "Ghazi" (slayer of Kaffir - infidel). Described as a 'holy war.'

• Barbary pirates - July 1625 and the 1700's.

The height of North African Arab Muslim pirates' violence against Christians, mainly British, Barbary pirates -called- Britain's 200-year jihad. There are tales of unspeakable barbarism including the Sultan, Moulay Ismail, who tortured and butchered the captives at whim. It involved also forced conversion of the British Christians into Islam. The "Sally Rovers" were called 'al-ghuzat'-- the term once used for the soldiers who fought with Muhammad -- and were hailed as religious warriors engaged in a holy war against the infidel Christians who were pressurised to convert to Islam under threat of hideous punishment, writes historian Giles Milton.

In negotiating a peace treaty and protect the United States from the threat of Barbary piracy, the future United States presidents: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams questioned the Tripolitan ambassadorto Britain Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja as to "why his government was so hostile to the new American republic even though America had done nothing to provoke any such animosity." Ambassador Adja answered them, as they reported to the Continental Congress,

"that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

• The San'a expulsion of Jews of Yemen in the wake of Shiites' radical-Islam - 1679-1680. Religious cleansing.

In that year, the country returned to the Shi'ite rule of the Zaydi imams, and the legitimacy of Jewish presence in Yemen came under an attack which culminated in 1680 with the expulsion of the Jews from San'a and central Yemen.

• The 1660 massacre of Jews in Safed, Israel-Palestine.

At that oppressive era, to buy off the Muslim attackers, Jews had to borrow money from rich Muslims at compound interest, under threats of further attacks if they failed to repay." (see the Islamic concept of: Dhimmitude) When the Jewish community of its holy city of Safed was "massacred in 1660," and the town "destroyed by Arabs," only one Jew managed to escape.

• Rise of Wahabbism - 1744.

Wahhabism is an extremist, puritanical, and violent movement that emerged, with the pretension of "reforming" Islam, in the central area of Arabia in the 18th century. It was founded by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who formed an alliance with the house of Saud, in which religious authority is maintained by the descendants of al-Wahhab and political power is held by the descendants of al-Saud: This is the Wahhabi-Saudi axis, which continues to rule today.

From the more notable first wars of Wahabbi Islam, "in 1802 Wahhabi armies slaughtered thousands of Shiites in their holy city of Kerbala, situated in Ottoman Iraq." The second wave came with modern Saudi Arabia re-established the royal family ties with the Wahabbists pushing to create the fanatical Wahhabi army: the Ikhwan.

The Ikhwan waged a jihad against other Muslims in Arabia, including Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who established the Hashemite dynasty that ruled first in Arabia and then in Syria, Iraq and Transjordan. As many as 400,000 Arabs were killed or wounded in these campaigns.

• "The Butcher" — el Djezzar - 1783-1801.

Historian J. Peters:

The year 1783 brought the rise of an Albanian-born Mamluk "Arab," nicknamed "The Butcher" — el Djezzar — whose sadistic, wanton exploits became legend... The Christians in their holy town of Nazareth were also forced through maltreatment into fleeing. Even as late as 1801 Djezzar sent troops to destroy the standing crops in the environs of Nazareth. "Ramleh, however, bore the brunt of the Muslim wrath."

The term "butcher" (in Arabic el Djezzar) was given to him by Arabs, as a result of the "ferocity with which he proceeded to subdue the Bedouins of the Delta."

The Jews of Safed were attacked under the "sadistic Albanian-born Muslim" reign, as he's called.

In an exchange with the "Butcher," the following text was sent "that Islam was to be protected."

Religious cleansing: In their days of ascendancy the Muslims in the Nablus of 1783 prohibited Christians from settling. "In 1801 those Christians not driven out of Ramallah and Nazareth were murdered."

• Tetouan Pogrom, Morocco 1790.

As the new ruler (Mawlay Yazid) entered the city of Tetouan, he commanded that all the Jews should be gathered and imprisoned in a house, meanwhile permitting the Moors to rob all their homes and cellars, which they obeyed with their own particular ferocity. Thus, they stripped all the Jews and their wives of all the clothes which they had on their body with the greatest violence, so that these unfortunates not only had to watch all their belongings being stolen, but also had to bear the greatest injury to their honor...

But on top of this, their bestiality showed itself to such an extent that they stripped the Jewesses of their clothes, forthwith satisfied their desires with them, and then threw them naked into the streets.

This [Sultan Mawla] Yazid "had rabbis hung by their feet until they died, another burned alive for refusing to convert to Islam... had Jews crucified by nailing them to the doors of their houses... jews were converted by force."

• Jihad in Africa (Mali) - 1810-18.

Jihad was a religious war fought from 1810 to 1818 in what is now the Mopti Region of Mali. In either 1810 or 1818 (the exact date is uncertain), an Islamic fighter led a jihad against the Muslim chiefs in Masina, later the jihad expanded to include the Bambara. Seku Ahmadu established an austere Muslim empire ruled from the newly built city. He led the second major jihad of the 19th century beginning in 1818. "His jihad brought about an Islam theocracy as a successor to the non-Islamic empire of Segou that had been established by the Bambara."

The ruler launched from 1853 a series of expeditions against pagans, in Bambara in particular. The 1818 "Fulani" Empire of Massina fell to a more militant movement.

• The Suleika affair - 1834.

A Jewish woman from Tangier Morocco refuses to convert and marry a high-ranking official. She is executed in Fez.

A writer has put it:

Suleika, a 17-year-old girl with her entire life in front of her, offered everything under the sun if she would convert to Islam but who was beheaded on another sunny day in Morocco because she couldn't change what she was...

The martyrdom of the beautiful Suleika, who, despite torture, refused to convert to Islam left a strong impression. A song was written in her memory, it was "sung by Jewish girls in Morocco to a sad, touching melody."

• 1834-5 Safed and Hebron violence

1) The Safed plunder. 2) The massacre in Hebron, pillaging, looting, killing/rapes, in Jerusalem.

The pogrom - massacre, "plunder," by Arab-Muslims on Jews in Safed. It went on for 33 days. It was incited by a self proclaimed Islamic "prophet" Muhammad Damoor, who envisioned the massacre to which he agitated to.

The attacks in Hebron, Jerusalem, that year. In 1834, Egyptian soldiers massacred Jews in Hebron on the way of putting down a Muslim rebellion, local Muslims go on rampage, pillaging, rape, killing, looting in Jerusalem at that same era.

According to professor M. Ma'oz, considered of great authority on that period, "a noticeable number of Christians and Jews, particularly children, were forced to adopt Islam." Yet, that being said, "even the converts were persecuted as Jews."

• Massacre of Jews in Meshed Iran in 1839 followed by forced conversion (to Islam) of the survivors.

It was under Muhammad Shah. Oppression and persecution followed the forced conversions. However, when the Qajar king attempted to make it an official order for the entire Jewish community to convert to Islam, European powers intervened.

• Damascus Blood Libel - 1840.

The Damascus affair It brought with it riots and violence against Jews. It was the beginning of a spiral of blood libels in many cities in Syria followed by outbreaks in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and (other) Arab countries of the Middle East.

In his book Blood libel: the Damascus affair of 1840 author R. Florence describes the chain of blood libels that followed all over the Islamic world, including in western Iranian city of Hamadan where Jews were killed, burned alive, "many escaped the violence only by converting to Islam."

• Massacres against the Assyrians 1840 - 1860.

In 1842, Muslims engaged in the following massacre:

Badr Khan Bey, A Hakkari Kurdish Amir, combined with other Kurdish forces led by Nurallah, attacked the Assyrians, intending to burn, kill, destroy, and, if possible, "exterminate the Assyrians race from the mountains." At the massacre, the "women were brought before the Amir and murdered in cold blood." one incident has been depicted to illustrates the revolting barbarity:

the aged mother of Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Church of the East, was seized by them, and after having practiced on her the most abominable atrocities, they cut her body into two parts and threw it into the river Zab, exclaiming, "go and carry to your accursed son the intelligence that the same fate awaits him."

An estimate of nearly ten thousand Assyrian men were massacred, and as many women and children were taken captive, most of the women were sold as slaves, many were presented as presents to influencial Muslims.

In 1847, Muslim forces massacred 30,000 members of the Assyrian Christian community. It was an example of (Ottoman) State complicity by the Khilafah in massacres of Christians. The massacre was succeeded by another in 1896.

The Kurdish chief, Bedr Khan who [also] massacred Assyrian villagers in 1847, was "able to assemble a tribal confederacy for a 'holy war against the infidels'."

• Jihad in Africa - 1861, in the region that is today an area in Mali, Toucouleur conqueror El Hadj Umar Tall took Ségou from its Bambara rulers and launched a fresh [second] jihad down river against the Massina.

The Islamic jihad of El Had L'mar, which defeated the Bambara Kingdom in 1861 was an attempt to establish (again) a theocratic Islamic state.

• The Rafin Jaki battle - 1873.

Jihadists waged war on Africa in the region of present day Nigeria. The combined ethnic communites from present day Jos area, which is: the Afizere, Anaguta, Birom, defeated the Jihadists at the battle of Rafin Jaki.

• The April Uprising - 1876-1912.

In 1876 the Bulgarians staged a rebellion (April Uprising) against the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman forces responded with a brutal massacre in what quickly became known as "the Bulgarian horrors." By 1912, as new Balkan alliances were formed in opposition to Ottoman rule, the Turks again responded with massacre. The Islamic Turks massacre 25,000 Bulgarian Christians, some claim, 100,000. Sixty to seventy villages were burned.

Bulgaria, Serbia-Montenegro and some other European lands which had been under Ottoman rule declared their independence from Turkish rule, and tried to align themselves with Austra-Hungary. The Turks were outraged, and sent extra troops to the Balkans. Between 1909–12, Turks massacred (at least) 25,000 Bulgarian, Kosovar and Serbian citizens, in addition to the number of casualties inflicted during the actual fighting of the war.

Historian states that "During that span of about five hundred years, the Christians of the Balkans, the majority of whom were Slavs, lived under Ottoman Muslim rule, and were accorded the traditional Ottoman treatment of those of infidel status. The Balkan Christians, were subjected to heavy taxation (see: Dhimmitude), arbitrary violence, political disenfranchisement, and cultural oppression; some of whom converted to Islam."

Opposing view: The Ottoman reprisals to the so-called Bulgarian horrors, received great publicity in Europe where only the Bulgarian side of the story was known. Estimates of the actual number of Bulgarians killed in the suppression of this revolt vary: the Ottoman figure is 3,100; the British, 12,000: the American, 15,000: and the Bulgarian, from 30,000 to 100,000.

• A Jihad in Sudan and in Egypt - 1880.

What is called the (major) "First Jihad", in 1880, Muslim fighter raised the banner of holy war, and thousands of warriors flocked. "The Mahdi's army crushed forces dispatched from British (controlled) Egypt." History of Mahdist Sudan

• Hamidian massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman empire - 1894-1896.

The Hamidian Massacres in 1894-1896 were the first near-genocidal series of atrocities committed against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. Estimates of those killed range widely, anywhere between 100,000 and 30,000, with thousands more maimed or rendered homeless.

Scholars cite an exemplary event in 1896 as part of Turks' overall jihad on Christians in that era: "The leader of the mob cried: 'Believe in Muhammad and deny your religion.' No one answered… The leader gave the order to massacre..." Concluding that "This 1894-1896 Jihad against Christians in Eastern Turkey claimed 250,000 lives. Many Armenian women were forced into harems, and many women and children were sold as slaves. Rape, considered one of the rights of "booty" in Muslim Jihad."

• Settat and Taza pogrom, Morocco - 1903/1907.

Prior to the 1830 French occupation of Morocco, thousands of inoffensive Jews were brutually attacked in different parts of Morocco by hostile tribesmen and uncontrolled soldiery. As Jews sought refuge by the French Christians it caused even more massacres: in Settat and Taza 1903 and in 1907.

The follwoing text was written around that time: "We live among savages who have already tried to satisfy their ferocious hatred by making a carnage of all the Jews..."

It is listed among dates in a timeline of "The End of Judaism in Islam's land."

• Greek Genocide - 1914-23.

1,400,000 Victims by the Muslim Turks.

In 1913, sixteen thousand Greek inhabitants of Eastern Thrace were atrociously murdered by the Turks. The clear anti-Christian drive manifested itself in an example: "On 27 May 1914, the Muslims ordered that all Christians leave the town of Pergamum within two hours."

During the years 1914-1923, the indigenous Greek minority of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey's predecessor, was subjected to a centrally-organized, premeditated and systematic policy of annihilation, perpetrated by two consecutive governments; the Committee for Union and Progress, later better known as the Young Turks, and the nationalist Kemalists led by Mustafa Kemal 'Atat'rk'. A lethal combination of labor brigades, internal deportations and massacres conducted throughout Anatolian Turkey resulted in the death of 1,400,000 Greeks.

At the Hellenic Genocide (as it is called by the Greeks) most of the victims were massacred between 1895 and 1955. Also Serbs, and Bulgarians in Europe, were systematically massacred.

In 2001, the "Greek genocide" decree angered Turks. Turkish officials have formally complained about a decree passed by the Greek parliament that accuses Turkey of genocide.

• Massacre, genocide of Assyrians by the Turks Ottoman empire and by local Muslims - 1914-1920.

Assyrian scholar Frederick Aprim describing his book "Assyrians: from Bedr Khan to Saddam Hussein. Driving into extinction the last Aramaic speakers":

As the Ottoman Empire entered WWI, it declared jihad (holy war) against its Christian subjects. Backed by Kurds, the Turkish army invaded northwestern Persia (Iran) and committed further atrocities against the Assyrian refugees who fled the Ottoman territories and against Assyrians of Persia as well. The jihad transformed into an ethnic genocide against the Assyrians that was perpetrated by the Turkish state and Kurdish warlords.

An anti-Assyrian ethnic cleansing of Hakkari mountains in July 1915 began on a small scale, it spiraled after a few months into a full scale operation. In referring to the ethnic cleansing of Hakkari, local Kurdish tribes spoke of if as the time of the "great jihad," the "great jihad" was also referred to the "massive campaign against the heartland of the Assyrian tribes in June 1915."

In the book "The rage of Islam: an account of the massacre of Christians by the Turks in Persia" the author gives examples of "Holy War" proclamations.

The massacre of Assyrians in Urmia Iran between September 1914 and August 1915, was perpertrated by Ottoman (Turkish) troops, and Kurdish tribal forces who began to "pillage, burn villages, destroy farmsteads, slaughter Christians, and fulfill any other obligations conceivably intrinsic to jihad." In October 1914, the Russian vice consul in Urmia commenting on the anti-Christian nature of the destruction, he wrote: "The consequences of jihad are everywhere." The retreat of the Russian army from Urmia in January 1915 had further tragic consequences for Assyrians living in Iran. Turkish troops along with Kurdish detachments organized mass slaughters of the Assyrian population.

There are "lengthy first-hand descriptions of the barbarous jihad around Lake Urmia." From a description of events:

All Christians were now branded as traitors, and any caught behind the Turkish lines were liable to be savaged by Turkish troops and their Kurdish auxiliaries in a cruel jihad sweeping Asia minor... By January 1917, when Semenov and the Transbaikal Cossacks arrived in the area, the Ottoman jihad had disfigured the landscape with scorched villages, wells stuffed with decaying corpses, meadows littered with human bones and tufts of drifting hair, gorges lined with mummified cadavers of the menfolk, and river banks coughing up the swollen remains of children. The countless crime scenes of brutal, individual murders contrasted sharply in scale and emotion with the endless fields of mass slaughter wrought by machine guns and artillery on the Eastern Front. Gaunt survivors, Assyrian and Armenian men and boys for the most part, weakened by typhoid and hunger, stumbled out of the hills to hail the Cossacks as saviors and beg for food. Girls and women were few and far between; most had been gang-raped and carted off to slavery in neighboring Muslim villages.

Casualties figure of the genocide of Assyrians range in the hundreds of thousands.

On "The Fall of Atra and the Dispersion of the Clans," Elizabeth Yoel Campbell in her memoir of her childhood in early twentieth century, describes the calling for jihad before the Muslims attacked the Assyrian Christians in Iran: <blockqote>Turks, the overlords of the land, had never before seen eye to eye with the fractious Kurds, except in times of jihad (holy war). Now, armed to the teeth, they fraternized in mosque and maidan, heads together, listening to the dangerous sermonizing of mullahs. And among Assyrians, one thought, one fear was dominant over all others, that of jihad, holy war against the infidel Christians. The ring around the Assyrians kep tightening slowly, but inexorably, as thousands joined the well-armed, well-trained Turkish ranks... As they closed in, ululating voices could be heard from surrounding camps, enticing the mob ... "Jee-haad, jee-haad, jee-haad!" and thousands of fervent voices took up the chorus in return, "Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!" As the Assyrian lines grew thinner and thinner, women and older children took guns and daggers from fallen hands to try and hold back the invaders.

When it finally came down to hand-to-hand combat, women chose to jump the gap rather than surrender, taking their younger children with them. Those who were captured alive were thrown over after Kurd and Turk had no further use of them.

Massacres were also carried out in Helwa.

Within the First World War in the territory of Ottoman Turkey there were about 1 million Assyrians with common cultural, national traditions. Together with 1,5 million Armenians, from 500 to 750 thousand Assyrians have been brutally killed and tortured. It was 4 years after the Young Turk "Committee for Unity and Progress" declared its goal to "Turkify" all subjects in 1911. 'This implementation of the Pan-Turkic program and ideology can be described as the "dark Period" of ethnic and religious "cleansing" of the Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians in the Ottoman Empire,' writes Assyrian historian. The Assyrians claim to have lost "two-thirds of their population and most of their homelands in northern Mesopotamia during WWI" period.

Some estimate that "Since 630 A.D., the coming of Islam, Assyrians have suffered 33 genocides at the hands of Muslims—an average of one every 40 years."

• Armenian Genocide - 1915

1.5 Million Armenian Christians massacred.

An increasing number of countries are recognizing the Armenian genocide as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Scholar, on the events says:

To promote the idea of Jihad, the sheikh-ul-Islam, the most senior Sunni Muslim religious leader in Turkey, published a pamphlet with these words: "Oh Muslims, ye who are smitten with happiness are on the verge of sacrificing your life and your good for the cause of right…He who kills one unbeliever of those who rule over us, whether he does it secretly or in the open, shall be rewarded by God..."

Bat Ye'or asserts that "The genocide of the Armenians was a jihad."

The Islamic religious motifs were extensively researched. Six thousand four hundred Armenian children, young girls, and women from Yozgad, were decamped by their Turkish captors at a promontory some distance from the city. "of 282 Christian churches transformed into mosques; of 21 Protestant preachers and 170 Gregorian (Armenian) priests who were, after enduring unspeakable tortures, murdered on their refusal to accept Islam."

From the Islamic holy war themes in the massacres:

Attack them from every side. Whenever you meet them, kill them. Quicken the failing proclamation of the Unity by the fire of your rifles and cannon, and by the blows of your swords and knives. cause the minarets and mountains and wildernesses to resound once more with the cry. "Allah! Allah!" Jihad! Jihad! Oh, Moslems, blow the trumpet everywhere, of people of the Unity. The great God is ordering you to fight with your foes everywhere.'

Or:

"Kill them: God will punish them in your hand and put them to shame; and ye will overcome them. He will rejoice the hearts of believers, and take away the wrath from the hearts unbelievers." (Text of the Koran.) ...Jihad! Jihad! Oh, Moslems...

Historian reminds that the British consul Henry Barnham, who oversaw Aintrab and Birecik in Aleppo Province, made it clear in his account how powerfully the killing of Armenians was motivated by Islamic fanaticism and a jihad mentality:

The Butchers and the tanners, with sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, armed with clubs and cleavers, cut down the Christians, with cries of "Allahu Akbar! ...Muslim clerucs played a perpetual role in the massacring of Armenians; imams and softas would often rally the mob by chanting prayers; and mosques were often used as places to mobilize crowds, especially during Friday prayers. Christians were murdered in the name of Allah...

In 2007, three were arrested in Turkey for murder of Journalist Hrant Dink, who was outspoken on Turks' genocide of Armenians. Dink was one of the most prominent voices of Turkey's Armenian community.

The fascist Arab-Islamic leader of Palestine Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti who was given sole religious and secular authority and vast unsupervised funds by the British in the early 1920s, was known for his ideological hatred of Jews and formenting mass violence against them from 1920, culminating in the Great Revolt of 1936-39, also leading deadly terror against his Arab-Palestinian opponents, and affirmation of Nazi genocide of Jews. It was suggested that "a key additional factor in the grand mufti's experience may well have been the Armenian genocide." Noting that "while training in the Ottoman Military Academy in Constantinople from late 1914 to mid-1915, Haj Amin must have been aware of the deportations and mass murders of Christian Armenians both in Constantinople and within the army itself." Some analyze that the Nazis were inspired by the Armenian genocide. The Turks used primitive gas chambers and developed other murderous templates that were later adopted by the Nazis.

• Arab riots, Massacres, Pogroms on Jews in Israel / Palestine - 1920-1921.

On February 1920, the pogroms by Arabs on Jews in Jerusalem were orchestrated by two young Arab Muslim supremacists (prominant in Arab Palestine), Haj Amin al-Husseini [who later on became the Mufti] at that time served in the British army's intelligence and Aref al-Aref. A Hebron Muslim Sheik shouted: "Whoever has a stick, a gun' a knife or stone, shall go and exterminate the Jews, And in ecstasy screamed: "Adbachu Al Yahud" ['Kill the Jews!']. Amin el-Husseini was using his considerable wealth and growing power to incite the masses. Due to Haj Amin's overt role in instigating the pogrom, the British arrested him.

Arab pogroms were launched against Jews in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936-1939. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 1920 to 1966, Arab terrorists murdered 1513 Jewish residents of British Mandatory Palestine.

Islamists turned mosques into hubs instigating violence, "shrine into a center of unholy activity," explaines historian, where "political intrigue and violence were hatched, as were the bloody anti-Jewish riots of 1920, 1929 and 1936. Inside the Temple Mount enclosure, fanatical preachers incited the masses who then went on the rampage with shouts of Allahu akbar (Allah is great) mingled with Idbah al Yahud (Slaughter the Jews)."

• The Moplah rebellion - 1921, (also known as the Mopla riots) was a British-Muslim and Hindu-Muslim "conflict" in (Malabar) Kerala that occurred in 1921. It involved forced conversion to Islam.

There were clashes that provoked arsonists who took to the street, burning and destroying government property. At first, the focus was on the British, but then it turned into a jihad against Hindus. A wave of large number of killings, massive forced conversions to Islam swept the region. Some described it as: "Muslim violence is sheer religious bigotry, an unreasoning jihad."

From Encyclopedia Britannica:

In Aug. 1921 the most serious of many unpardonable deeds of violence broke out. The Malabar country in Madras is occupied by 2,000,000 Hindus and about 1,000,000 Moplahs, an ignorant Mahommedan peasantry of mixed Arab and Indian decsent with an evil reputation for outbreaks of fanaticism. Among the latter the Khilafat excitement spread like wildfire... and attempted wholesale the forcible conversion of the Hindus to Islam.

Moplah Fanatics Massacre is primarily understood the arose religious fanaticism and from the intense hatred of tic Moplahs, or Mohammedans of Arab descent, writes the New York Times.

The second declaration of jihad was made by the Khilafat Committee and several Muslim groups in 1920s when the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished, consequent upon the defeat of Turkey. It resulted from the agitation carried out by two Muslim organizations, the Khuddam-i-Kaaba (servants of the Mecca Shrine) and the Central Khilafat Committee. The Moplahs of Malabar were suddenly carried off their feet by this proclamation of jihad by the Khilafat Committee. They resorted to large scale violence which was supposed to be a rebellion against the British Government. As a rebellion against the British Government the jihad could be understandable but what shocked most people was the horrid treatment meted out by the Moplahs to the Hindus of Malabar, in this Jihad.

Pundits account that the "Moplah massacre was one of the most gruesome acts of murder by the Muslims rivaled only by the Razakars in Hyderabad in 47, and the ethnic cleansing in Pakistan and Bangladesh after partition."

• Revival of the old custom of forced conversion of Jewish orphans in Yemen - 1922-1929.

The 'stealing of orphans' was under the Imam Yahya, under his drastic measures the re-introduction in 1922 of the old custom of the forced conversion of Jewish orphans - was implemented in Yemen. The edict was re-promulgated in December 1928.

• The Muslim Brotherhood - founded - 1928.

In 1928, Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, a rigidly conservative and highly secretive Egyptian-based organization dedicated to resurrecting a Muslim empire (Caliphate). According to al-Banna, "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet." The Muslim Brotherhood, also called Muslim Brethren (jamiat al-Ikhwan al-muslimun, literally Society of Muslim Brothers), it opposes secular tendencies of Islamic nations and wants return to the precepts of the Qur'an, and rejection of Western influences. Al Bana was Born out of the extreme Muslim right wing's desire to counter the ideology of modernization, the Brotherhood's platform included a strict interpretation of the Koran (Quran) that glorified suicidal violence. Along with Al Banna, the grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj-al Amin Al-Husseini was also an enormously influencial Muslim leader of the time. Together, the two created a powerful and popular Islamist party by classically appealing to fundamentalist Islamic principals while blaming the world's problems on the Jews. Al-Banna also gave the group the motto it still uses today: "Allah is our purpose, the Prophet our leader, the Quran our constitution, jihad our way and dying for God our supreme objective." The 9/11 Commission Report states the Brotherhood's influence on Osama bin Laden and on Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman responsible for the 1993 attack on the WTC. An important aspect of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology is the sanctioning of Jihad such as the 2004 fatwa issued by Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi making it a religious obligation of Muslims to abduct and kill U.S. citizens in Iraq.

It advocated a war of Arabism and Islamic Jihad against the British and the Jews.

The Muslim brotherhood waged a "Holy war" against Syria after the Hama massacre.

The BBC explains how the roots of Jihad and the origins of Bin Laden's concept of jihad can be traced back to two early 20th century figures, who started powerful Islamic revivalist movements in response to colonialism and its aftermath. al-Banna blamed the western idea of separation between religion and politics for Muslims' decline. In the 1950s Sayed Qutb, Muslim Brotherhood's prominent member, took the arguments of al-Banna even further. For Qutb, "all non-Muslims were infidels - even the so-called people of the book, the Christians and Jews," he also predicted an eventual clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. "Qutb inspired a whole generation of Islamists, including Ayatollah Khomeini." The Muslim world widely accepted his ideology post Arabs' defeat in the 1967 war.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been invloved in violent attacks. From its Islamic theme in its symbolism: on its flag there's a brown square frames a green circle with a white perimeter. Two swords cross inside the circle beneath a red Koran. The cover of the Koran says: "Truly, it is the Generous Koran." The Arabic beneath the sword handles translates as "Be prepared." A reference to a Koranic verse that talks of preparing to fight the enemies of God. It is among 17 groups categorized as "terrorist organizations" by the Russian government, as well as in Egypt, where they started to perform terrorist attacks, now banned by that government.

Scholar states that in "The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest of Europe," its real goal is to extend Islamic law Sharia throughout Europe and the United States.

Contemporary Islamism holds that Islam is now under attack, and therefore -experts explain-

Jihad is now a war of defense, and as such has become not only a collective duty but an individual duty without restrictions or limitations. That is, to the Islamists, Jihad is a total, all-encompassing duty to be carried out by all Muslims – men and women, young and old. All infidels, without exception, are to be fought and annihilated, and no weapons or types of warfare are barred. Furthermore, according to them, current Muslim rulers allied with the West are considered apostates and infidels.

One major ideological influence in Islamist thought was Sayyid Qutb. Qutb, an Egyptian, was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. He was convicted of treason for plotting to assassinate Egyptian president Gamal Abd Al-Nasser and was executed in 1966. He wrote extensively on a wide range of Islamic issues. According to Qutb, "There are two parties in all the world: the Party of Allah and the Party of Satan – the Party of Allah which stands under the banner of Allah and bears his insignia, and the Party of Satan, which includes every community, group, race, and individual that does not stand under the banner of Allah."

In the "Holy land foundation" case of the Palestinian Arab al-Arian's involvement in funding terror organization, the Muslim Brotherhood's papers detailed plan to seize U.S. The Group's takeover plot emerged when revealed a handful of classified evidence detailing Islamist extremists' ambitious plans for a U.S. takeover. Terrorism researchers said "the memos and audiotapes, many translated from Arabic and containing detailed strategies by the international Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, are proof that extremists have long sought to replace the Constitution with Shariah, or Islamic law," paving its way via a plot to form "a complex network of seemingly benign Muslim organizations whose real job, according to the (US) government, was to spread militant propaganda and raise money." The Muslim Brotherhood created some American Muslim groups and sought influence in others, many of which are listed as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case, such as CAIR.

On a website devoted to Ramadhan, the Muslim Brotherhood posted a series of articles by Dr. Ahmad 'Abd Al-Khaleq about Al-Walaa Wa'l-Baraa, an Islamic doctrine which, in its fundamentalist interpretation, stipulates absolute allegiance to the community of Muslims and total rejection of non-Muslims and of Muslims who have strayed from the path of Islam.

In his articles, the writer argues that according to this principle, a Muslim can come closer to Allah by hating all non-Muslims - Christians, Jews, atheists, or polytheists - and by waging jihad against them in every possible manner.

Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood has a long-standing war on the West. From 1948 until the 1970s it engaged in assassinations and terrorism in Egypt, and has indoctrinated many who went on to commit acts of terror. Muslim Brotherhood's supreme guide issued the statement that Al Qaeda's "Bin Laden is a Jihad Fighter."

The accused mastermind of the 9/11 terror massacre, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was raised in Kuwait and joined the Muslim Brotherhood at age 16.

• The Hebron Massacre - August 1929

1929 Hebron massacre' pogrom the 'ethnic cleansing' attack upon [mostly non- Zionist, religious] pious Jews by Arab Muslims in Israel / Palestine. Agitated by the Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The brutality was accompanied with cries of 'Itbach al Yahud' (kill the Jews). and “Allah akbar.”

The massacres in Hebron and elsewhere of 1929, began in the wake of the Mufti's provocative speeches. The mosques were used in numerous outbreak of violence in Palestine, such as the massacre of the Jews of Hebron in August 1929 which started with leaflets handed to the Muslims while leaving the mosques. It was on August 23 (1929) when the riots erupted, as masses of Arabs, "leaving their mosques after Friday prayers, attacked Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem and the vicinity." The violence spread to other parts of the country, reaching a peak in Hebron on August 24, when 66 Jews were murdered, and in Safed, on August 29, where the death tall was 45. The riots lasted a full week, leaving 133 Jews dead and 339 wounded."

• The Simele massacre (Simel), Iraq - August, 1933, the massacre and ethnic cleansing by The Iraqi government, by Arab and Kurdish Muslim masses on Christian Assyrians, indigenous people.

An estimated 3,000 Assyrians were systematically targeted by the Iraqi government to cleanse the Assyrian race."

From the British document of the time:<bockquote>"Simel Massacre.. The culmination of the indiscriminate action against Assyrian men, regardless of party or guilt... Between the 8th and 10 August, widespread looting, raiding and burning of Assyrian villages in the Simel, Dohuk and Al Qosh areas had been in progress... Both Kurds and Arabs of the Shammar and Jabur tribes were implicated."

For years the scars in the region remained unhealed. The surviving Assyrians were described as, "spiritless, cowed, and apprehensive." while the Kurds and Arabs were hideously inflamed.

• The Jaffa Massacre - 19 April 1936.

Inspired by the religious Islamic leader the Mufti, Arab rioters attacked Jaffa and killed 16 Jews.

In September 1937, Armed Arab terrorism, under the direction of the Arab Higher Committee, was used for both; to attack the Jews and to suppress Arab opponents. This campaign of violence continued through 1938 and then tapered off, ending in early 1939. Researchers conclude about the terrible toll: "Eighty Jews were murdered by terrorist acts during the labor strike, and a total of 415 Jewish deaths were recorded during the whole 1936-1939 Arab Revolt period."

The attacks occured as Islamic preachers incited the masses inside Mosques and the mobs attacked with the 'Islamic' shouts of "Allah Akbar!"

• The Farhud pogrom on Jews in Iraq June 1941 -inspired by the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini- by a pro-Nazi Arab mob led by Al-Muthanna club's al-Futuwwa Arab-Islamic Fascist paramilitary group. Iraqi soldiers were among the first attackers. Jews were killed randomly, hundreds were injured, "women and children were raped in front of their relatives, babies crushed, children mutilated."

The Farhud, the Mufti (who declared a jihad) inspired Krystallnacht in Iraq, 1941, took place Sunday and Monday, 1 June and 2 1941. The two days of murder, looting, rape and mutilation, shattered this ancient community’s self-confidence, and swiftly led to the exodus of over 90 percent of Iraqi Jewry.

• Arab Muslim leader the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini [the religious authority of 'Palestine'] meets with Adolph Hitler -

21 November 1941.

Prior to the meeting. In June 1940 the Mufti offered his services to the Nazi Reich government. In 1941, he went to Berlin via Tehran, where he explained to the German ambassador, Ettel, his plan to bring all Arabs under the banner of Pan-Arabism over to the side of the Axis. (25 June 1942). Here he came out unconditionally for the "final solution" of the Jewish question," calling on the Germans to wipe out all Jews, "not even sparing the children."

His meeting with Hitler evolved around Jews being "his foremost enemy." The Nazi dictator rebuffed the Mufti's requests for his empowerment. Though Adolf Hitler hated Arabs, considered them to be racially inferior just as Jews, Hitler refused to touch, shake the Mufti's hand, nevertheless, the Nazi Fuhrer and the supreme religious authority of Islamic world were able to bridge in a common hatred of the Jews. Prof. W. Phares explaines in a paragraph: Jihadists and World War II that "While Nazi infidels were ultimately anathema to jihadists, the alliance answered all their practical needs at the moment."

From a description "The Mufti of Berlin" in the Wall Street Journal how his legacy had an impact of future radical Islamists:

...the Palestinian wartime leader "was one of the worst and fanatical fascists and anti-Semites," .... He intervened with the Nazis to prevent the escape to Palestine of thousands of European Jews, who were sent instead to the death camps. He also conspired with the Nazis to bring the Holocaust to Palestine. The mufti "invented a new form of Jew-hatred by recasting it in an Islamic mold," according to German scholar Matthias Küntzel. The mufti's fusion of European anti-Semitism—particularly the genocidal variety—with Koranic views of Jewish wickedness has become the hallmark of Islamists world-wide, from al Qaeda to Hamas and Hezbollah. During his time in Berlin, the mufti ran the Nazis' Arab-language propaganda radio program, which incited Muslims in the Mideast to "kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history and religion." Among the many listeners was also the man later known as Ayatollah Khomeini, who used to tune in to Radio Berlin every evening, according to Amir Taheri's biography of the Iranian leader. Khomeini's disciple Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still spews the same venom pioneered by the mufti as do Islamic hate preachers around the world. Muslim Judeophobia is not—as is commonly claimed—a reaction to the Mideast conflict but one of its main "root causes." It has been fueling Arab rejection of a Jewish state long before Israel's creation.

The exiled al-Husseini fled in 1941 to Berlin, serving the Nazi regime for four years in broadcasting jihadist as well as anti-British propaganda to the entire Middle East and by recruiting Bosnian Muslims for the Wehrmacht, the SS.

• Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini of 'Palestine' recruites Moslem Holy Warriors who fought as the Waffen SS, and the "Free Arabia." - 1943 He heads the Nazi Islamic brutal brigade, the SS division in (former) Yugoslavia, compiled of Muslim Bosnians and carries out atrocities against Serb Christians and against Jews. Muslim Albanians were also recruited in Nazi divisions.

In speaking to potential recruits, al-Husseini stressed the connections they had to the "Muslim nation" fighting the British throughout the world. That it is about "defending Muslims."

There were three divisions of Muslim soldiers: The Waffen SS 13th Handschar ("Knife"), the 23rd Kama ("Dagger") and the 21st Skenderbeg. The Skenderbeg was an Albanian unit of around 4,000 men, and the Kama was composed of Muslims from Bosnia, containing 3,793 men at its peak. The Handschar was the largest unit, around 20,000 Bosnian Muslim volunteers. The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust states "These Muslim volunteer units, called Handschar, were put in Waffen SS units, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. They participated in the massacre of civilians in Bosnia and volunteered to join in the hunt for Jews in Croatia." Part of the division also escorted Hungarian Jews from the forced labor in mine in Bor on their way back to Hungary. "The division was also employed against Serbs, who as Orthodox Christians were seen by the Bosnian Muslims as enemies." All in the all, there were at least 70,000 Bosnian Muslims captured by the British. Some of these Muslim ex-soldiers participated in aiding Arabs in the anti Israel war of 1948.

Current holy wars

Tunisian human rights activist describes Islamists' ideology and goal: "Fighting infidels until they either convert to Islam or submit to Muslims as 'Dhimmis'... is still considered by Islamists to be a religious duty."

Contemporary Islamist ideology—explains a researcher—authorizes genocidal murder via the notion by contemporary Islamism's view that

Islam is now under attack, and therefore Jihad is now a war of defense, and as such has become not only a collective duty but an individual duty without restrictions or limitations. That is, to the Islamists, Jihad is a total, all-encompassing duty to be carried out by all Muslims � men and women, young and old. All infidels, without exception, are to be fought and annihilated, and no weapons or types of warfare are barred. Furthermore, according to them, current Muslim rulers allied with the West are considered apostates and infidels.

One major ideological influence in Islamist thought is Muslim Brotherhood movement's leader Sayyid Qutb's thoughts.

Terrorism

Main article: Islam and terrorism

Islamic terrorism is terrorism committed by Muslims, and aimed at achieving varying political ends and the advancement of Islamist goals; for example, Osama bin Laden's stated goal of ending American military presence in the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula, overthrowing Arab regimes he considers corrupt and insufficiently religious, and stopping American support for Israel. Bombing in London 7/7 are said to be in retaliation for UK's support in the war in Iraq that began in 2003, though it can't be linked as a motive for Islamic terror plots on London, December, 2001. The Islamic terrorism attack in Madrid were "explained" as "inspired by al-Qaeda's call to punish Spain's government for supporting the Iraq war," another motive was given that Spain holds a strong appeal to Islamic militants because the southern region of Andalucia was under Muslim control for almost 800 years, and "Al-Qaeda has called on jihadists to reconquer Spain as part of a broader Muslim caliphate, or kingdom under Islamic rule."

At the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Islamic terrorists were told by their handlers in Pakistan "that the lives of Jews were worth 50 times those of non-Jews."

The Qur'an: (8:12): "...cast terror in their hearts and strike upon their necks." The commanded to terrorize the disbelievers have been cited in motivation of Jihadi terror.

A Jihadi cleric:

"Another aim and objective of jihad is to drive terror in the hearts of the [infidels]. To terrorize them. Did you know that we were commanded in the Qur'an with terrorism? ...Allah said, and prepare for them to the best of your ability with power, and with horses of war. To drive terror in the hearts of my enemies, Allah's enemies, and your enemies. And other enemies which you don't know, only Allah knows them... So we were commanded to drive terror into the hearts of the [infidels], to prepare for them with the best of our abilities with power. Then the Prophet said, nay, the power is your ability to shoot. The power which you are commanded with here, is your ability to shoot. Another aim and objective of jihad is to kill the [infidels], to lessen the population of the [infidels]... it is not right for a Prophet to have captives until he makes the Earth warm with blood... so, you should always seek to lessen the population of the [infidels]."

Observers have also argued that the attacks are aimed at propagating Islamic culture, society and values in opposition to perceived political, imperialistic, and/or cultural influences of non-Muslims, and the Western world in particular.

There are also historical dimensions to the phenomenon, and the history of Western influence and control after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, is a common stated reason used within some terrorist groups to justify and explain its use of violence as resistive and retributive against western influences.

World domination

The strive to an 'Islamic Caliphate.' Caliph is translated from the Arabic Khalifa (خليفة ẖalīfä) meaning "successor", "substitute", or "lieutenant". It is used in the Qur'an to establish Adam's role as representative of Allah on earth. Kalifa is also used to describe the belief that man's role, in his real nature, is as khalifa or viceroy to Allah. The word is also most commonly used for the Islamic leader of the Ummah; starting with Muhammad and his line of successors.

Indeed domination's Jihadists' ultimate goal. Al-Qaeda revealed its grand plan towards an Islamic caliphate, - global domination. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al-Qaeda in Iraq, has released a statement in which it explains the reasons for its terror campaign:

"We are not fighting to chase out the occupier or to save national unity and keep the borders outlined by the infidels intact," [...] "We are fighting because it is a religious duty to do it, just as it is a duty to take the Sharia [Islamic law] to the government and create an Islamic state."

"Al-Qaeda has called on jihadists to reconquer Spain as part of a broader Muslim caliphate, or kingdom under Islamic rule." Spanish Court to Deliver Verdict in Madrid Train Bombing Case - Bloomberg]</ref> Explaining why even Hamas has an eye on Spain. In the early 1990s, the GIA Algerian Armed Islamist Group, which is "well known for its radical positions and the barbaric violence of its operations, announced the restoration of the caliphate and the appointment of a caliph." With Palestinian Islamic party Hamas victory in the 2007 election, a mass gathering followed with Hamas' spokesman calling for a Caliphate. The official said Hamas seeks to create an "Islamic caliphate" in the land. Barack Obama said about radical Islamists terrorists:

The terrorists are at war with us... They kill man, woman and child; Christian and Hindu, Jew and Muslim. They seek to create a repressive caliphate. To defeat this enemy, we must understand who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for.

See also

• Islamic Jihad
• Islamic terrorism
• Honor killing