Infidels_ A History of the Conflict Between Christendom and Islam - Andrew Wheatcroft [250]
“On that basis, and in compliance with God’s order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims.
“The ruling is to kill the Americans and their allies is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it, in order to liberate the Al Aqsa mosque [Jerusalem] and the Holy Mosque [Mecca] … This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God … We call on every Muslim who believes in God and wished to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.”
Bin Laden’s interpretation is false and misleading. The tradition of jihad is as a collective and not an individual duty, to be imposed only through proper authority. Even then it has to be carried out within limits so as to be lawful. His interpretation sets aside all limits and constraints.
34. For a thoughtful (but controversial) view of “Islamism” see Francis Fukuyama and Nadav Samin, “Can Any Good Come of Radical Islam? A Modernizing Force? Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2002.
35. December 8, 1986.
36. “Satan” and Shaitan sound the same but their meaning is not identical. See The Light of Islam: The Infallibles, chapter 4, at http://home.swipnet.se/islam/imamsajjad.htm (November 9, 2003).
37. Khomeini had always viewed his revolution as pan-Islamic, transcending Sunni-Shi’i historical divergences, directed against the common enemy—namely, the twin forces of modernity and secularization and their nominally Muslim admirers, the “Westoxicated” (gharbzada in Persian; mustaghribun in Arabic). Hopes for such a pan-Islamic revolution were high in Tehran at the beginning of the 1980s. See Emmanuel Sivan, “The Holy War Tradition in Islam,” Orbis, spring 1998.
38. English, German, Hebrew, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish, and Russian.
39. See MEMRI Special Dispatch Series no. 486, March 25, 2003.
40. See MEMRI Special Report no. 10, September 26, 2002, “Friday Sermons in Saudi Mosques: Review and Analysis.”
41. To say nothing about the vicious insults that, say, militant Protestants use about Catholics, or how mainstream Muslims attack Islam’s schismatics.
42. Jefferson wrote to the Virginian George Wythe, who held the first chair of law in the United States, on August 13, 1786, “Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people.” See Gordon C. Lee (ed.), Crusade Against Ignorance: Thomas Jefferson on Education, New York: Columbia University Press, 1961.
43. Pastor Dino Andreadis, the senior pastor of Park Road Church, Ontario, at http://www.brokenhearted.org/india.html (November 9, 2003).
44. He is based at the First Church of the Gospel Ministry, Wooster, Ohio.
45. The outreach of the Victory Network may be found at http://www.victorynetwork.org (November 9, 2003).
46. Le Roy Finto on Jerris Bullard’s India. This site has moved and reconstituted. On November 9, 2003, it was to be found at http://www.manassaschurch.org/india_6.htm.
47. I have deliberately chosen examples that related the modern idea of “crusade” to both Hindu and Muslim communities.
48. Bernard Lewis, “Jihad vs. Crusade: A Historian’s Guide to the New War,” Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2001. See http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001224 (November 9, 2003). Here, as he often does, Lewis begins with the combative statement, and then goes in a more contemplative vein. However, the printed responses to his piece, which reflected a wide range of differing opinions, did not suggest any acceptance of his view that crusades were now only “a vigorous campaign in a good cause.”
49. At Princeton University in April 1999, the president of the university Christian group, Phil Belin, was widely quoted as saying: “We know the negative