The Koranic Case against Osama bin Laden

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Saddam Hussein's imminent march towards Saudi Arabia 12 years ago brought a mighty U.S. military presence to the Arab Holy Land, an action which allegedly enraged Osama bin Laden and spurred his hatred of his former ally. In his eyes, as the story goes, the landing of "infidels" in the land of the Prophet was a desecration to the Holy Land and a flagrant abuse of the House of Saud's stewardship of Mecca and Medina, that was beyond dismissal.

Empowering himself with the ability to issues religious rulings, fatwas, he urged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Somalia in 1996 and, again in 1998 called for attacks on American civilians. Donning the mantel of defender of the "faith," akin to Islamic hero Saladin's title, "Defeater of the Crusades," he launched the terrorist umbrella organization, the International Islamic Front for Jihad against Crusaders and Jews.

Yet unlike the noble Saladin, bin Laden has failed to follow even the most basic tenets of Islam.

Firstly, the Koran clearly states that the practice of suicide attacks, particularly the vile brand exercised on 9/11, is profoundly against the teachings of Islam. According to Islamic law, martyrdom excludes death by ones own hand (suicide), and is only achieved through death in battle at the hands of ones enemy. Suicide is strictly forbidden in the Islamic faith and harshly punished:

"He who killed himself with steel would be the eternal denizen of the Fire of Hell … he who drank poison and killed himself would sip that in the Fire of Hell where he is doomed for ever and … he who killed himself by falling from a mountain would constantly fall in the Fire of Hell.... " (Sahih Muslim, 48:1: 0199).

As the 9/11 hijackers are undoubtedly learning, the phase "Fire of Hell" is not interchangeable with the promised "seventy two virgins." Legitimate fatwas by Shaykhs ibn Baaz, ibn Jabreen, and ibn Uthaymeen further reinforce the prohibition against suicide attacks and the hijacking of civilians.

Secondly, Islam prohibits Muslims from partaking of illicit drugs, referred to in the Quran as "abominations and the work of Satan" (5:90). Yet, The Golden Crescent countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan, bin Laden's lair of choice, are the world's largest producers of heroin, growing in excess of $50 billion in street value annually.

Furthermore, The al Qaeda-Taliban regime actually formalized the revenue-generating aspect of opium production by imposing a ten percent zakat (tax) on all opium transactions.

Let us not forget bin Laden's chummy relationship with the late Somalia warlord and close al Qaeda ally, Gen. Mohamed Farah Aideed, who not only handed out the cocaine-like herb, khat, to his troops, but violated one of the five holy Pillars of Islam (Concern for and almsgiving to the needy) by withholding food shipments to starving Muslims.

Thirdly, and even more damning for bin Laden, is his regular dealings with communist China. Islamic extremists view the world in two distinct spheres, Dar al Islam (the abode of faith) and Dar al Harb (the abode of war). China clearly falls into the sphere of Dar al Harb, particularly in light of Beijing's active and severe persecution of the Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province, a great many of whom served as mujhadeen during the Soviet Afghan War.

Osama bin Laden ignored the plight of his former Uighur brothers-in-arms and pursued extensive dealing with the Chinese government. The al Qaeda-Taliban regime overtly maintained ties with Beijing and paid China's Huawei Technologies to develop a limited telephone exchange in Kabul and Kandahar. A Libyan national who served as a liaison officer for al Qaeda elements in Italy went so far as to characterize the relationship between bin Laden and the Chinese, as "He [Bin Laden] works a great deal with China. He's got good relations with them."

Bin laden has shown time and again flagrant disregard for Islamic law, and exhibited a willingness to work not only with drug dealers, but the persecutors of fellow Muslims. One must then wonder why this pillar of hypocrisy espouses such venom towards America.

Despite his abundant inherited wealth and business successes, bin Laden is a frail, gangly man wracked with poor health. His greatest triumphs in life have come, not on the battlefield (though his leg wound during the war has given rise to the warrior bin Laden myth), but from his financial association with the mujhadeen during the Soviet-Afghan War. He is clearly representative of those misfits of society whose only sense of significance comes from the attention garnered by perpetrating acts of self-aggrandizement.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait brought the opportunity for bin Laden to raise an army of mujhadeen to cast out a despised enemy and defend the Holy Land. Moreover, it brought the promise of leading an army of mujhadeen on the very sands once ruled by the Prophet Muhammad.

The defeat of Iraq at the hands of bin Laden would have made him a hero as renowned as Saladin in the eyes of his countrymen. Such a victory would undoubtedly be a precursor to his mujhadeen unseating the House of Saud and creating an Islamic Caliphate as existed under Muhammad, with himself as caliph.

But the U.S. military success in Desert Storm vanquished bin Laden's hoped-for stardom and triggered his cataclysmic desire to destroy the United States.

While there is no discounting that the strong American presence in the Holy Land, coupled with Saudi Arabia financing of Desert Storm, rankled devout Muslims, it was largely the derailment of his personal aspirations that spurred bin Laden's hatred of America.

Piety is clearly a cloak that bin Laden has loosely donned merely to mask his ambition and rally disciples to his banner.

At some point, probably sooner for the miscreants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and later for the rest of the Muslim world, they are going to see that this fiend is no warrior, no holy man, and certainly no Saladin.

It should be a major tactic of the U.S. war against terrorism to forcefully present this case to the Muslim world.

>>It should be a major tactic of the U.S. war against terrorism to forcefully present this case to the Muslim world.

IF this is the case, why is it incumbent upon the US to get tangled in issues of islamic theology.

Where are the senior clerics of Saudi mecca and medina?

Where are the learned academics of AlAzhar in Cairo?

Silence. Silence that speaks for itself. Silence that acquiesces in the murders of thousands around the world - on a daily basis.

Just another jihadi apologist.

It is not the job of the U.S. to convince the Muslim world of anything. They must set their own house in order if indeed that is what the majority desire. The problem here is more and more Westerners are beginning to realize that the Muslim world advocates what Bin Laden has done both by their silence and by their active propaganda.

The senior clerics and academics are scared for their lives. Assassins are everywhere, and too early for them to commit to our support until the troops jump out of the planes. We've fallen short before. I can understand their reluctance.

If we don't go in now, Saudi, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt will fall into the Iraq/Syria/Communist/Radical-Islam fold. Then these guys will have their tongues cut out before they're shot.

Observers have noted that people like bin Ladin combine the worst aspects of Islam, Nazism, Italian Fascism, and Communism.

But although al Qaeda borrows from twentieth-century totalitarian methods, its basic driving force, the force that motivates the troops, is surely Islam.

The problem is that Islam, if I may say so, is a false religion, with built-in lies and contradictions. Mohammed himself was guilty of violence, treachery, oath-breaking, polygamy, slavery, and many other despicable modes of behavior. So it's not all that hard to "twist" traditional Muslim beliefs into terrorist patterns.

In earlier times, the Assassins were also drug-addled killers, convinced that they would earn their houris by similar sorts of behavior. Nor do I think the Corsairs behaved very admirably.

Of course we should hope that Islam will change or evolve, though it might be preferable if it simply imploded from the weight of its own contradictions. But that is probably too much to hope for. In any case, we can't really tell them how to run their religion. All we can say is, "Dont tread on me." Or, "Cross this line and you're dead."

Don't care if they are scared. they are the religious leaders and it is incumbent upon them to speak out.

Unless, of course, they agree with the jihadis.

Time to speak out was IMMEDIATELY after the Attacks on America. They did not.

I understand their silence, alright.

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