THE ISLAMIC ROOTS OF ABDULMUTALLAB'S HOMICIDAL-SUICIDAL ODYSSEY *** Jai Maharaj posts
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
And why liberals can't acknowledge what drove the Christmas Day terrorist.
By Jamie Glazov
Pajama's Media
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The liberal milieu and mainstream media are baffled: What could have
possibly led the 23-year-old Nigerian boy Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
[1] to attempt jihadi suicide on a passenger plane? How could such a
nice, educated Islamic boy, who grew up in a rich and prosperous
family, have come under the "radical" and "extreme" influences that
set him on his violent course? It's just all so mysterious.
It's so mysterious that the news anchors on CNN continue to
incredulously ask each other and their guests these questions -- back
and forth, over and over again, in a cyclical circus that has no end
and that never produces the most obvious answer staring any sensible
person right in the face. In the liberal imagination, there is just
this "extremist ideology" out there somewhere and somehow this
unfortunate Muslim boy fell under its spell, but no one can be
exactly sure how or why it happened. All one can be sure of is that
an adversarial culture or ideology must not be blamed and that
America, somewhere, somehow, must definitely be at fault.
And so, when it comes to the liberal left trying to digest
Abdulmutallab and his suicidal quest, perplexed dismay becomes a much
safer hiding place than honesty, because the basic truth threatens
the very survival of the liberal faith. For the liberal to accept the
evident reason why Abdulmutallab set off on his suicide odyssey would
necessitate him having to completely shed himself of his entire
worldview and personal identity. [2] The much easier route,
therefore, is to keep oneself confused and to stay focused on how
American capitalism and imperialism must have surely had something to
do with it -- even though, as is the case with the cause of Islamic
terror itself, [3] these factors are so obviously not involved in
Abdulmutallab's suicidal and murderous yearnings (i.e., Abdulmutallab
comes from a privileged, wealthy, and educated life, etc.).
What the lib-left milieu simply can't digest is what Islamic
terrorists like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab themselves insist motivated
them. And these are things like, you know, reading certain religious
texts and following a certain religion's teachings. They are things,
sort of like, well, following Islam and reading the Koran and stuff
like that.
When all is said and done, the true reasons why Abdulmutallab
embarked on his murderous mission of suicide are completely
understandable -- and only to be expected -- in the context of his
Islamic odyssey. And Abdulmutallab himself clearly points to the
influence of his religion in his own personal writings on the
internet.
In his 300 postings [4] under the name "farouk1986" in an online
forum, Abdulmutallab sheds light on how the Islamic theology that he
follows marginalized him from human life and led him on his hateful
and suicidal road. One of the main themes in his postings, for
instance, is a recurring complaint about his loneliness and how he
has "never found a true Muslim friend." While liberals will
expectedly blame capitalism for Abdulmutallab's estrangement, a
certain question has to be asked, a question that will never be
asked, or answered, on CNN or in the Nation magazine:
From where, oh where, did Abdulmutallab get the self-ostracizing and
hateful idea that only Muslims could be his friends?
Indeed, from where did this young man absorb an ideology that
eliminated billions of people on the planet from the pool in which he
could make friendships and nurture human connection? Hmmm, could it
possibly be that the self-marginalization he inflicted on himself had
something to do with his religion's instruction that he not only
never make friends with infidels (Koran 5:51), but also wage war on
them? (Koran 9:5, 9:29, etc.).
Abdulmutallab also agonizes about his behavior when he does manage,
on the rare occasion, to join the human race. He admits that when he
socializes he does "laugh and joke" but he stresses, in self-defense,
that he does not do this "excessively." Pray, do tell, from where the
need to make confessions and self-justifications about such beautiful
elements of life? What could this possibly be about? Could it be that
it has nothing to do with American capitalism and imperialism at all,
but maybe with the life-hating teaching of a religion that demonizes
earthly happiness, joy, and pleasure? [5] Could it be somehow
connected to a certain religion's hatred of music, [6] frivolity, [7]
and, above all, a woman's laughter? [8] Could this all have something
to do with why Ayatollah Khomeini insisted that "there is no fun in
Islam"? [9]
In his posting for December 2005, Abdulmutallab shares a monumental
crisis he is facing: While victims of poverty are starving throughout
the world, the young Muslim boy is faced with a doomsday scenario:
his wealthy family will be visiting him in London and he might have
to join them and eat meat. Abdulmutallab is full of panic, sharing
that "I am of the view meat not slaughtered by Muslims . . . is haram
[forbidden] for consumption unless necessary." He thus disagrees with
his parents' view that "as foreigners, we are allowed to . . . eat
any meat" and worries that if he doesn't eat it this "might cause
division and other complicated family problems."
Abdulmutallab reveals the crucial inspiration to his murderous and
suicidal yearnings when he agonizes about his inner struggle between
being a devout Muslim and a member of a society infected by Western
values. He writes of his "dilemma between liberalism and extremism"
and, as a Muslim, he strives to live his life "according to the Koran
and Sunnah to the best of my ability. I do almost everything, sports,
TV, books . . . (of course trying not to cross the limits in the
deen)." The deen is the dutiful way of life demanded by Islam.
In these circumstances, the most obvious torment that arises in the
life of a young devout Muslim like Abdulmutallab is what he himself
honestly describes: the tension between sexual desires and the
Islamic mandate of, as he writes, "lowering the gaze" in the presence
of women. "The Prophet (S) advised young men to fast if they can't
get married," he agonizes, "but it has not been helping me much and I
seriously don't want to wait for years before I get married."
It is precisely in this context that we see the origins of the Muslim
suicide bomber's journey into the heart of jihadi darkness.
For a pious Muslim who is attempting to obey the pleasure-denying
mandates of his religion, the totalitarian and often sole choice
available to him becomes purifying himself by extinguishing his own
earthly sinful existence.
Thus, despite liberal fantasies, it is not Muslims' lack of access to
Western prosperity that spawns their terror, but exactly the
opposite: it is Muslims' contact with and ability to reap the
benefits of Western values that end up serving as key inspirations
for jihad.
Indeed, there is a morbid dilemma for the devout Muslim who has
experienced and come into contact with the temptations of Western
freedom. These Muslims end up feeling infected and fault America and
the West for the excruciating guilt they feel over the desires that
freedom plants within their hearts. To disinfect themselves, they end
up lashing out violently at the tempter -- and then ultimately at
themselves for the impurity and desires that the tempter instilled.
In this light, Theodore Dalrymple brilliantly analyzes the impulses
and motivations of the young suicide bombers who struck in London in
July 2005. He demonstrates [10] how they saw no way out of their
confrontation with freedom and modernity except through death:
Muslims who reject the West are therefore engaged in a losing
and impossible inner jihad, or struggle, to expunge everything that
is not Muslim from their breasts. It can't be done: for their
technological and scientific dependence is necessarily also a
cultural one. You can't believe in a return to seventh-century Arabia
as being all-sufficient for human requirements, and at the same time
drive around in a brand-new red Mercedes, as one of the London
bombers did shortly before his murderous suicide. An awareness of the
contradiction must gnaw in even the dullest fundamentalist brain.
Furthermore, fundamentalists must be sufficiently self-aware to
know that they will never be willing to forgo the appurtenances of
Western life: the taste for them is too deeply implanted in their
souls, too deeply a part of what they are as human beings, ever to be
eradicated. It is possible to reject isolated aspects of modernity
but not modernity itself. Whether they like it or not, Muslim
fundamentalists are modern men -- modern men trying, impossibly, to
be something else. . . . How to persuade themselves and others that
their lack of faith, their vacillation, is really the strongest
possible faith? What more convincing evidence of faith could there be
than to die for its sake? How can a person be really attached or
attracted to rap music and cricket and Mercedes cars if he is
prepared to blow himself up as a means of destroying the society that
produces them? Death will be the end of the illicit attachment that
he cannot entirely eliminate from his heart. . . . By means of
suicide bombing, the bombers overcome moral impurities and religious
doubts within themselves and, supposedly, strike an external blow for
the propagation of the faith.
It is no coincidence, therefore, that in the Islamic paradigm, the
pleasures denied on earth are exactly the pleasures offered in
heaven. For a typical Muslim male like Abdulmutallab who desperately
yearns for sex but does not want to offend Allah, the only escape
route becomes to die -- and kill -- for Islam.
Pierre Rehov, the French filmmaker of the documentary Suicide
Killers, [11] spent hours speaking with would-be martyrs in Israeli
jails and with their families. He noted that they not only spoke
about the obvious Islamic instruction to kill Jews and Christians,
but also articulated a consistent theme of not being allowed to do
anything pleasurable on earth; and so they sought death in order to
do it in heaven. Rehov writes [12]:
Imagine a world where separation between men and women is
virtually absolute. Where not only sex is a taboo, but where a
woman's body is considered to be so impure that it must be hidden at
all times. . . . In this chauvinistic land, a 16-or 18-year-old boy
has a 99% chance of having never touched the hand of a girl or having
spoken to one, except for his sister. At this age where libido is at
its peak, a young male is in need of these beautiful and forbidden
sensations. He needs to prove to himself that he is a man, a future
man. But, in this arena, there is no hope -- only frustration. Dating
and flirting are forbidden. Marriage is the only tolerated path to
sex in the Muslim world. But without money there is no wife.
Ironically, while women are the object of the highest contempt, while
the temporal existence of flesh is considered despicable ("seek for
death, and eternal life will be given to you" -- Prophet Muhammad),
the promise of eternal life surrounded by 72 virgins is popularized
daily through every arm of the Muslim media. The misguided kids I
interviewed while shooting Suicide Killers spoke of the 72 virgins
with total conviction. "No one knows how much Allah would have given
me in heaven if I had succeeded," said one of them, who described his
ideal target as a mall, a school, or a hospital in Netanya.
Within the confines of this Islamic concentration camp, the young
tormented Abdulmutallab desperately sought to purify himself. With
his religion informing him of his sinful, despicable, Allah-negating,
unwanted physical self, the only way out became to rid himself of his
earthly flesh, ideally by taking some infidels along with him.
Abdulmutallab hoped to annihilate all that was impure in his earthly
existence -- and to gain in Islamic paradise everything that he had
denied himself, ever so mercilessly, on earth.
[1] http://detroit.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/de122609.htm
[2] http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon1222jg.html
[3] http://www.danielpipes.org/104/god-and-mammon-does-poverty-cause-militant-islam
[4] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34618228/ns/us_news-washington_post
[5] http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35483
[6] http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=10323
[7] http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=10323
[8] http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35483
[9] http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35483
[10] http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_suicide_bombers.html
[11] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0830968/
[12] http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=6583
More at:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-islamic-roots-of-abdulmutallabs-suicidal-odyssey/
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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