Andrew Bostom
The jihadist butchers (see here,
here,
here)
of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—supported by a much
broader Sunni insurgency (see here,
here,
and here)
against the Shiite-dominated, U.S.
mid-wived al-Maliki government—continue
their Baghdad-bound
carnage.
Predictably—confirming obvious
trends I documented
8-years ago—Maliki’s longstanding patron (and puppet-master) Iran,
has committed
(and pledged
even more) military assets
against the Sunni assault. Eli Lake of the The Daily Beast reported
today (6/17/2014):
“The offer to help us with
everything we need has been made from the highest levels of the Iranian
government,” a senior Iraqi official told The Daily Beast.
Lake added,
This official stressed that
Iran’s offer to assist Iraq’s fight against the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Sham (ISIS) [the Levant/ (ISIL)] was not conditional
on Maliki making any immediate reforms or changes to his government.
An indelible, “unconditional”
feature of the Iranian, and indeed the entire region’s “religiously”
imbued Muslim mindset, which transcends the bitter, violent Shiite-Sunni
divide, was simultaneously on display today: conspiratorial
Islamic Jew-hatred. General
Hassan Firouzabadi, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, insisted
Tuesday (6/17/14, in Tehran) Israel—i.e., in regional parlance, Jews/“Zionists”—had
created and supported ISIL, while further claiming,
The ISIL is Israel’s cover
up for distancing the revolutionary forces from Israeli borders and creating
a margin of security for the Zionists, and the Zionist media have also
admitted this fact
One year ago, a Sunni cleric also
blamed
the Jews—from his own
Jew-hating Islamic sectarian perspective—for the internecine Sunni-Shiite
bloodshed taking place in Syria. The good cleric, preaching at the renowned
Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, invoked
conspiratorial Jew-hating themes from the Koran and traditions of Muhammad—i.e.,
Jews as prophet-killers (which includes being murderers of Muhammad himself),
who allegedly violated their agreements with Muslims, driving Muslims astray
(from Islam), and sowing “corruption” throughout the world—before inculpating
them directly for the carnage in Syria.
Below are relevant extracts from
his sermon, which aired
on Syrian TV on June 28, 2013.
Let us take a look at the history
of mankind, which has recorded the true nature of the Jews, the slayers
of prophets and violators of agreements. It shows how they have
tried, since pre-Islamic times, to fragment, divide, and rip apart the
Arab and Islamic nation. In an effort to gain influence
in the world and to realize their desires, the Jews have set two basic
goals. Listen, oh Muslims, and beware of what is happening in Syria
– in that land with steadfast people and leadership. They
have two basic goals. The first is to divide the nations of the world,
to pit them one against the other, and to spark war and civil strife among
them. The second goal is to rip apart the nations of the world, destroying
their notions, moral values, and codes, and making them stray from the
path of Allah. That is what they did throughout the ages all
over the world. Oh nation of Islam, the Jews have been tearing this nation
apart for many years. […]What is happening today in this steadfast
fortress [Syria], and in the Middle East in general, is nothing new. It
was premeditated. We are a nation in slumber, a nation
that does not study the books of history, and has not studied what its
enemies are plotting and devising against it. They kindled the spark of
civil strife in Palestine and in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq, then in
Egypt, and after that, in Syria. […]
Sunnis and Shiites alike, come
together, perversely, in blaming a Jew (see here,
here)
for either Sunni-Shiite sectarianism (the Sunni claim), or “heresies”
within Shiism (the Shiite allegation).
Associated with “the birth pangs”
of Islam is an unabashedly conspiratorial Jew-hating theme occurring after
the events recorded in the traditions of Muhammad (hadith and sira),
put forth in early Sunni Muslim historiography (for example, by
Tabari): the story of
Abdullah Ibn Saba, an alleged renegade Yemenite Jew, and founder of the
heterodox Shiite sect. Sean Anthony’s extensive modern
analysis of Abdullah
Ibn Saba adds another pejorative characteristic conferred upon this ostensible
Yemenite Jew in the Muslim literature: his mother was black. Anthony notes
that a “favorite derisive handle for him,” was “son of the Black woman.”
According to Sunni
dogma, Abdullah Ibn Saba
is held responsible — identified as a Jew (and black) — for promoting
the Shiite heresy and fomenting the rebellion and internal strife associated
with this primary
breach in Islam’s “political
innocence,” culminating in the assassination of the third Rightly Guided
Caliph Uthman, and the bitter, lasting legacy of Sunni-Shiite sectarian
strife.
Here are key extracts
from Tabari’s account:
‘Abd Allah b. Saba’ was a
Yemenite Jew. . . . He later converted to Islam in the time of [Caliph]
Uthman. Then he traveled through the lands of the Muslims trying to lead
them into error. . . . [For example] in Egypt he promulgated to the people
the [heterodox] doctrine of the Return [of Muhammad as Messiah]. So the
Egyptians discussed this idea. Then, after that, he said that there were
one thousand prophets, each of whom had an agent; and that Ali was Muhammad’s
agent. Then he said, Muhammad was the Seal of the Prophets and Ali was
the Seal of the Agents. Also, he asked: “Who is more evil than those who
denied Muhammad’s designation of Ali as his agent-successor, pounced upon
this successor- designate of Ali’s messenger and seized (illegitimately)
the rulership of the Muslim community?” [In answer to this question as
it were,] he told the Egyptians that Uthman had seized power illegitimately
while Ali was, in fact, the agent-successor of Allah’s messenger. “Rebel
against this illegitimate rule, provoke it, and challenge your rulers .
. .” [said ‘Abd Allah b. Saba’].
Over a millennium later, the momentous
international gathering of Muslim religious authorities, sponsored by Sunni
Islam’s Vatican, Al-Azhar University, the Fourth Conference of the Academy
of Islamic Research, September, 1968, included Al-Azhar Professor Muhammad
El-Sayyed Husein Al-Dahabi’s paper, which declared,
Among the leading figures of
heresy and sectarianism was Abdullah ibn Saba the Jew, who feigned to be
a Muslim, disguising his unbelief, making a show of supporting the Prophet’s
offspring (Alu-l-Bait), so as to deceive Muslims and to propagate among
them his heretical and noxious views… [T]he earliest heresiarch, Abdullah
ibn Saba, who was the foremost leader of sedition and heterodoxy. He, with
his adherents,… feigned to be devout Muslim, and went to all lengths in
their deceitfulness, by simulating to be the most fervent supporters of
the offspring of the Prophet, so as to corrupt the beliefs of Muslims.
Circa 2008, a Hudson Institute
Center for Religious Freedom review
of Saudi Arabian textbooks, (“Update: Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance”),
demonstrated that this traditionalist, mainstream example of Sunni Islam’s
conspiratorial Jew-hatred was still being inculcated amongst Muslim youth:
The cause of the discord: The
Jews conspired against Islam and its people. A sly, wicked person who sinfully
and deceitfully professed Islam infiltrated (the Muslims). He was ‘Abd
Allah b. Saba’ (from the Jews of Yemen) began spewing his malice and venom
against the third of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, ‘Uthman (may God be pleased
with him), and falsely accused him.” (Tawhid: Literature, Science, and
Qur’an Memorization Section, Twelfth Grade. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ministry
of Education. Education Development, 1428-1429; 2007-2008, p. 78.)
But what is the Shiite position
on Abdullah Ibn Saba? Is this literature “silent” on the subject, for
example, conceding the discussion to Sunni polemicists? In fact authoritative
Shiite authors claimed he was guilty of perverting and warping the message
of Caliph Ali’s true (Shiite) followers. Mainstream Shiites thus designated
Abdullah Ibn Saba an archetypal avatar of extreme, heretical beliefs, notably,
the profession of Ali’s divinity. This profession was an egregious
heresy for which Caliph Ali purportedly had Ibn Saba burned alive, as described
in a Shiite hadith:
Muhammad b. Qūlawayh al-Qummī—Sa‘d
b. ‘Abd Allāh b. Abī Khalaf al-Qummī—Muhammad b. ‘Uthmān al-‘Abdī—Yūnus
b. ‘Abd al-Rahmān—‘Abd Allāh b. Sinān—his father (Sinān b. T{arīf)—Abū
Ja‘far (Muhammad al-Bāqir) said: “‘Abd Allāh b. Saba’ made a claim
to prophecy while asserting that the Commander of the Faithful (‘Alī)
is God. This reached the Commander of the Faithful, and he called for him
and questioned him. (Ibn Saba’) reaffirmed this and said, ‘Yes, you are
he! It was cast into my heart that you indeed are God, and I am a prophet.’
The Commander of the Faithful said to him, ‘Woe to you, for Satan mocks
you! Turn away from this, lest your mother be bereaved of you, and repent!’
(Ibn Saba’) refused. (‘Alī) imprisoned him and urged him to repent for
three days, but he did not repent. Then ‘Alī burned him alive with fire
and said, ‘Satan led him astray with false imaginings He would come to
him and cast such things into his heart.’”
Caliph Ali is also claimed to have
denounced
Ibn Saba’s blackness, allegedly declaring,
What do I have to do with the
vile, black man?
Both Iraq and Syria were ethnically-cleansed
of their indigenous, pre-Islamic Jewish populations during earlier convulsions
of jihadism and Islamic Jew-hatred, which punctuated the initial 25-years
after the creation of Israel, and the liberation of a portion of the Jews’
ancient homeland from 13-centuries of Sharia-imposed dhimmitude. Iran’s
vestigial remnant population of dhimmi Jews—reduced
in number by over 93% since the end of World War II—still suffers grinding
persecution under the revitalized theocracy of Khomeini and his currently
ruling heirs. Such brutal “recompense” notwithstanding, the warped, mea
culpa-free, and eternally bigoted Middle East Muslim “ethos” still blames
Jews for Islamdom’s own horrific present day internecine Sunni-Shiite
carnage.
Given Islamdom’s ugly
history, even if the
devoutly cherished jihad
genocide of Israel and
its Jewish population transpired, Sunnis and Shiites would continue to
slaughter each other with gusto. Hence, to help preclude not only Israel’s
destruction, but larger, global cataclysmic outcomes for non-Muslims, I
concur with Mike Konrad’s wise, cultural relativism-free prescription,
“Let
Them Kill Each Other”:
Iraq’s president, Maliki has
asked for US assistance. Oh really? Iraq insisted on setting up its country
with an Islamic constitution; against our advice, and now he wants American
help. For what? So Iraq's Shia can continue to run arms to
Syria and Hezb'allah in Lebanon? If our State Department had men and women
with intelligence instead of a love of the Qur’an, they would tell Maliki
that our help would be predicated on four conditions: 1) Get rid of the
Islamic constitution, and set up a secular state; 2) Recognize Israel;
3) Naturalize the Palestinians in your state; 4) Break off ties with Iran
[T]ell the Jordanians (and Saudis,
too) [i]f they want our help:1) Saudis and Jordanians have to start naturalizing
Palestinians; 2) Set up truly secular states; 3) protect their women;
Of course, they won't agree.
So let them shoot it out. Heaven has offered the administration one
last chance to redeem itself by doing nothing. If it does intervene,
it will be clearly seen as an attempt to prop up Islam, once again. Let
the Shia and Sunni kill each other. In the words of the late Mayor
Ed Koch, “root for whoever is losing.”
Konrad’s conclusion at least may
well be shared by the vast preponderance of Americans, 74%
of whom now “oppose
sending combat troops to Iraq.”
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