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Tuesday, July 19, 2005

The UK press is on the Jihadist case

An interesting byproduct of the London terror bombings is the British press' willingness to unflinchingly look at the radical terrorist Islamist subculture in their midst. I do not remember any similar actions by the mainstream US press after 9/11 - it appears that the PC crowd is much stronger in US media compared to the British media. I cannot imagine the New York Times having written something like this in late 2001.

AN ISLAMIC scholar who loathes Western values is advocating “physical jihad” in the Yorkshire home town of one of the London suicide bombers.

While Tony Blair and leaders of Britain’s Muslims were condemning extremism at their Downing Street summit, Mufti Zubair Dudha explained why British foreign policy led directly to the 7/7 atrocities. Mr Dudha, 29, teaches primary school children, teenagers and young adults at his Islamic Tarbiyah academy in Dewsbury.

He condemned the London atrocities and signed the Sunni Muslim fatwa against suicide bombings, but he is also an advocate of jihad. In his foreword to a 1996 translation of a pamphlet by one of his mentors, entitled Jihaad, Mr Dudha wrote: “Today many of us are misled into believing that in our times jihad of the sword is not warranted. Most definitely physical jihad is, and will be needed to a large extent.”

Later he added: “Besides the jihad of the pen and tongue, the Muslim ummah [nation] cannot be exempted from physical jihad. No learned person and no true Muslim can deny the benefits, fruits and blessings of physical jihad for the course of Allah.” One chapter title in the book is: “Preparing for Jihad and obtaining warfare equipment is also compulsory.”"