How Islamic Extremists Quote the Quran

[BarakzaiAbdali]

http://csc.asu.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdf/csc1202-quran-verses.pdf

An Academic Study out of the Center for Strategic Communication at the Arizona State University.

Link to the actual evidence based argument that analyzed the most pertinent 2000 pieces of extremist literature (large sample size rendering it robust) between the dates 1998-2011.

Executive Summary/Abstract States:

Other findings in the report raise questions about the veracity of claims often made by analysts. The most surprising is the near absence of the well-known “Verse of the Sword” (9:5) from the extremist texts. Widely regarded as the most militant or violent passage of the Qur’an, it is treated as a divine call for offensive warfare on a global scale. It is also regarded as a verse which supersedes over one hundred other verses of the Qur’an that counsel patience, tolerance, and forgiveness.

We conclude that verses extremists cite from the Qur’an do not suggest an aggressive offensive foe seeking domination and conquest of unbelievers, as is commonly assumed. Instead they deal with themes of victimization, dishonor, and retribution. This shows close integration with the rhetorical vision of Islamist extremists.

Based on this analysis we recommend that the West abandon claims that Islamist extremists seek world domination....

Excellent summary article for those with limited time to read the original. Enjoy dear friends.

https://asunews.asu.edu/20120709_extremistcommunication

[Khostai]

Yeah sure, what ever makes you sleep better at night.

[Khostai]

And by the way both articals are from 2012, Before the creation of the bigest extremist ISIS. ISIS claimed several times world domination, you can see that by their maps and several extremist want to inplemt shariah in Europe as a first step to world wide domination.

[Al-Afghani]

Then it's strange how the Quran allows people to interpret it in many different ways. You'd think Allah would be very clear when he revealed his word to Muhammad.

[Badlun]

Quran,if taken out of context and it's applicablity only to the wars fought by Muhammad,is truly a terror text book.

[AgriculturalJake]

Quran,if taken out of context and it's applicablity only to the wars fought by Muhammad,is truly a terror text book.

Paternity if taken in context is truly somehow Shinwari one day and Safi the next:

http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthread.php?p=758808#post758808

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Then it's strange how the Quran allows people to interpret it in many different ways. You'd think Allah would be very clear when he revealed his word to Muhammad.

What a foolish comment! Seems that your powers of perception are lacking. The abstract indicates the contrary of what you allege. The majority of these folks are on the same page in their interpretation. Taking that further, the concept of "Just War" by Saint Augustine or "defensive warfare" theory amongst the Muslims appears to be the most acceptable across the board world round to all populations. Instead, it is what people interpret as the methodology of execution and justification that varies, and this is often due to differences in what people interpret as "the greater good" and not so much differences in Quranic exegesis.

Additionally, the Quran makes no qualms whatsoever about the ability of man to take a concept or an idea of any bent and to twist it to his desires:

He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book: In it are verses basic or fundamental (of established meaning); they are the foundation of the Book: others are allegorical. But those in whose hearts is perversity follow the part thereof that is allegorical, seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings, but no one knows its hidden meanings except Allah. And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say: "We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:" and none will grasp the Message except men of understanding.

The ninth chapter goes into greater detail elucidating the difference between hypocritical interpretations and honest interpretations.

This ability of man to impose his views or read his own personal intentions is inherent to many great documents. For instance, John Yoo's view on the constitution held sway in the Bush administration and run counter to mainstream interpretations:

http://news.firedoglake.com/2014/07/...school-of-law/

or his infamous reinterpretation of the 4th amendment.

Rather, the Quran makes it clear that a certain cadre of men will impose their own trains of thought for their own gain onto "The Book" and that these men will suffer spiritual, if not worldly punishment.

Ive noted that it seems to trouble you when your Persiofascist narrative is threatened by an evidence based assessment of the problem at hand. After all, if this study is on to something then your general view that these nihilistic cavemen Arabofascist populations polluting the world with their ideology carries less sway.

Perhaps it hits close to home since your proposed solutions and methodologies worsen the problem as opposed to solving it?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Yeah sure, what ever makes you sleep better at night.

Evidence based assessments are like Ambien, they certainly soothe the mind and permit a great nights sleep!

[Khostai]

Evidence based assessments are like Ambien, they certainly soothe the mind and permit a great nights sleep!

Still both of your articals are based on 2012, its 3 years old and poorely done, the claims of major Islamist is evident. Just look what the ejd goal of ISIS is.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

And by the way both articals are from 2012, Before the creation of the bigest extremist ISIS. ISIS claimed several times world domination, you can see that by their maps and several extremist want to inplemt shariah in Europe as a first step to world wide domination.

This is actually a great point. I appreciate this consideration. Lets talk about this some more and tease out the nuances.

So here is my rejoinder:

1) The article discusses the narrative and works of violent extremism with the samples of literature being cut off around 2011 and deriving from armed militant groups in hot spot regions around the world. The key word being violent. What this automatically excludes is your garden variety megaphone preacher like Anjem Chaudry or advocacy groups like Shariat4.Whoever that have not been linked to any violence. And quiet frankly that is not problematic in my mind. Certainly the behavior is foolish appearing. In my view - if you are 1% of less of a population you should think about how foolish it appears when you go to a new land and instead of seeking education and other important resources, antagonize the "native" population with calls of implementing a system that the overwhelming majority views as an anathema. That being said, there are a multitude of Christian, KKK, Jonesboro Church, and other groups that are as incendiary. So long as they do not cross the line into violence - that is their business and the rest of us should be smart enough to ignore them. Proselytization is inherent to many faiths/doctrines/political systems and is a different matter altogether though.

Additionally, even if we were to group in Western Muslims with antagonist ideologies into the greater whole, they contribute an underwhelming minority to what the authors view as the greater military threat of insurgencies. And this is validated.

Most data shows that Western Muslims actually interpret Islam differently than the way that their motherland counterparts do (both in terms of accepting other ideas (more tolerant) and in terms of their interpretations of extremism).
http://www.pewforum.org/2011/08/30/m...for-extremism/


2) ISIS

I think you make a good point to analyze, but lets examine how we got here because I still think the case is far stronger for ISIS still being a bellicose responsive movement than an aggressive expansionist movement:
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My counterpoints I would like your response on.
A) What is actually true and what is false in war zone reporting?
http://fair.org/blog/2015/02/20/top-...-isis-stories/

Refer to false story number 5 on that link: ISIS Caliphate map that actually was investigated and sourced by reporters to a white nationalist group called Third Position and was deemed a hoax. ABC News and Breitbart were fooled by this and subsequently had bylines that stated they could not validate this claim.

Here is Aaron Zelin's commentary on the supposed map and his sourcing it:
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/pers...p-is-fake.html
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B) Even here at PF we have had faux news and garbage without validation that has been repeatedly trumpeted and was exposed here by enquiring minds

http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthr...hlight=snowden
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C) now the meat of the matter. What is ISIS? And is it a responsive or an offensive movement? That is, is it the creation of circumstances imposed on Iraqi sunnis or is it a movement that would have been conjured into being as a random one-off isolated event?

Lets start at the top. Here is an excellent expose showing how Saddam generally was an enemy and a clamp down on these sorts of movements. In his time, the sunnis were in charge anyway and really had no major affinity for such movements. Rather, Baghdad was forged in the heat of war and this article details his genesis from random Arab Iraqi to full fledged war machine:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...oker-extremism

Camp Baquba, where many sunnis were imprisoned and cross fertilized ideologies was his starting point on the ascent to power.
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D)
Lets look at a case study. The most powerful tribe in the sunni regions in Iraq is the Dhulaim tribe. They were a part of the awakening council that killed off Zarqawi's group. Here is why ISIS gained traction and why it is actually the manifestation of sunni defensive posturing against Shiite aggression/post Saddam era reprisals

This is the statement of the powerful Khan/Malik of the Dhulaim confederacy:

“We can fight Isis and al-Qaeda whenever we want to,” he said. “But now are fighting for our lands and our tribes. We are not responsible for Isis. Look what has Maliki has done – look at the two million refugees. He has destroyed and killed – and where was the world then?”

The articles goes on to state:

They insist publicly that Isis, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, is playing only a minor role in the insurgency and that they can easily “deal with them” once they have forced a political solution that gives them greater autonomy and ends what they say is harassment of Sunnis by security forces.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...est-tribe.html

It grows even more complex because recent investigations show that remnants of Saddam's security forces are the key to ISIS military prowess. That is, these are former Baathist (militant secularist) sunnis that were removed from power post Saddam:

All of the men, however, were former Iraqi officers who had served under Saddam Hussein, including the masked man, who had once worked for an Iraqi intelligence agency and now belonged to the Islamic State’s own shadowy security service,...

and another interesting quote regarding who and what ISIS is

“All the decision makers are Iraqi, and most of them are former Iraqi officers. The Iraqi officers are in command, and they make the tactics and the battle plans,” he said. “But the Iraqis themselves don’t fight. They put the foreign fighters on the front lines.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...759_story.html

The best part of the article basically states the exact fodder or fuel that gives the group power:

The raw cruelty of Hussein’s Baathist regime, the disbandment of the Iraqi army after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the subsequent insurgency and the marginalization of Sunni Iraqis by the Shiite-dominated government all are intertwined with the Islamic State’s ascent, said Hassan Hassan, a Dubai-based analyst and co-author of the book “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.”“A lot of people think of the Islamic State as a terrorist group, and it’s not useful,” Hassan said. “It is a terrorist group, but it is more than that. It is a homegrown Iraqi insurgency, and it is organic to Iraq.”

So we have established that ISIS is actually a response to the US invasion of Iraq ---> The anchoring of a Shiite regime in Baghdad backed by Iran ---> Subsequent marginalization and abuse of Sunnis ---> This would fuel the rise of insurgency
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E) What about the violent actions around the globe? E.g. Charlie Hebdo and Canada?

While they are despicable and cruel, as Ron Paul and Glenn Greenwald said, we comment on causation and not anything else.

Well, I refer you to the evidence at hand. Glenn Greenwald wrote a superb article regarding what fueled these actions. Once again these belie your claim of aggressive and offensive maneuvering and actually support the Robert Pape, Arizona, and Scheuer hypothesis of these being responsive actions.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...cked-soldiers/

Earlier this month, the Prime Minister

revealed, with the support of a large majority of Canadians, that “Canada is poised to go to war in Iraq, as [he] announced plans in Parliament [] to send CF-18 fighter jets for up to six months to battle Islamic extremists.” Just yesterday, Canadian Defence Minister Rob Nicholson flamboyantly appeared at the airfield in Alberta from which the fighter jets left for Iraq and stood tall as he issued the standard Churchillian war rhetoric about the noble fight against evil.

It is always stunning when a country that has brought violence and military force to numerous countries acts shocked and bewildered when someone brings a tiny fraction of that violence back to that country. Regardless of one’s views on the justifiability of Canada’s lengthy military actions, it’s not the slightest bit surprising or difficult to understand why people who identify with those on the other end of Canadian bombs and bullets would decide to attack the military responsible for that violence.

Glenn would be proved correct when an investigation would examine for the reasons/causes of why that individual did what he did.

Notice that the Arizona article is once again proven correct when we examine the stated impetus behind even the France siege:

Al-Ansi blamed not only Charlie Hebdo, but also France and the United States.
"It is France that has shared all of America's crimes," al-Ansi added. "It is France that has committed crimes in Mali and the Islamic Maghreb. It is France that supports the annihilation of Muslims in Central Africa in the name of race cleansing." ("Islamic Maghreb" refers to North Africa.)

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/14/europe...rance-attacks/
Here was what one of the wretched attackers said:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...ains-reasons-a

Coulibaly cited the airstrikes carried out against the Islamic State by the U.S.-led coalition, in which France participates, as one of the motives for his assault on the supermarket, which came two days after two brothers, Said and Chérif Kouachi, stormed the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people.

“You attack the Islamic State. We attack you,” he said, speaking in French and occasionally lapsing into broken Arabic, in a segment of the recording that showed him wearing a leather jacket and wool cap, seated beside an AK-47 automatic rifle. “You and your coalition, so that you who are almost in the lead now, you bombard there regularly,” he said. “You kill civilians, you kill combatants, you kill.”

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F) So we have definitively shown above that even the ISIS movement and the current conflicts/attacks/justifications accords with the ASU study cited above. Defensive posturing actually drives the motivation and actions of these people.
This is not a commentary on whether they are in the moral right or whether they are actually in need of defensive rhetoric. This idea of donning the garb of defensive action is not new or unique. Rome, despite being an offensive empire burned Carthage to the ground based on "defensive action against Hannibal" and Americans generally flock to the religion of Patriotism and did so under Reagan during his aggressive offensive support against popular elected and even friendly leaders in Latin America (see the Iran Contra Affair).
In fact, in the modern era we see this same manifestation from Christians as well:

But in the case of the Norwegian youth camp murderer, Anders Breivik, Atlanta Olympic Park bomber Eric Robert Rudolph and the Sikh Gurdwara attacker, Wade Michael Page, their motivations appear to have included an imagined defense of Christian society.

Mind you, Breivik and Rudolph are sporadic events because they are in generally stable, unoccupied societies that do not have foreign military bases dotting the country side.
None of this means that that these people are completely correct. For instance, Saddam was stupid enough to take tons of money from the US and then to invade and kill and maim and massacre many Shiites when he was armed and instructed to do so. He had no insight or foresight into what it would mean for his own nation in the long run and how power is fleeting. Same goes for Indian nationalism. Despite Moghuls and Turks not doing what America and others have done in Korea and to their own indigenous populations (mass extinction level conversions)- the majority of invasions into Hindu India were to acquire wealth. It was obvious that the local indigenous population would one chafe and view the new Muslim power with suspicion and as an occupier. Now, a century later Hinduvati/aka Indian nationalism is a sort of time lag response.
However, morality says the cycle has to stop somewhere... though biology and history indicate it probably wont.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Paternity if taken in context is truly somehow Shinwari one day and Safi the next:

http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthr...808#post758808

Very interesting.... ! This explains a lot.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Quran,if taken out of context and it's applicablity only to the wars fought by Muhammad,is truly a terror text book.

Same rubbish and useless (evidence lacking) commentary as always. I go away for 6 months and expected some advancement in thought... I would recommend that you figure out your tribal identity and your own internal thought processes first before commenting on major religious/political matters. I have never in my life met a Pashtun that confused his Kaba'el so blatantly like that.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Still both of your articals are based on 2012, its 3 years old and poorely done, the claims of major Islamist is evident. Just look what the ejd goal of ISIS is.

Also time doesn't degrade a good study. In medicine we still refer to the COURAGE trial though it is many years old. Its the quality and impact factor that matter. Your points on current movements and whether the results apply are good though and food for thought.

[Karachi]

My problem is with the Wahabhi sect of Islam, nearly all the famous groups of terrorists come from this sect. Something needs to be done to stop the spread of this evil. If you take out the Wahabhis, all of a sudden muslim world will look much more peaceful

[BarakzaiAbdali]

My problem is with the Wahabhi sect of Islam, nearly all the famous groups of terrorists come from this sect. Something needs to be done to stop the spread of this evil. If you take out the Wahabhis, all of a sudden muslim world will look much more peaceful

Incorrect. Are the wahhabis the ones who told Madeline Albright to sanction and mass murder millions of Iraqi babies? Are the wahhabis the ones that destabilized a relatively stable post war Iraq in 2003 or was that George W Bush? Are the Wahhabis the one that armed Baathist secular Iraq to attack post revolt Iran and initiate a bloody and violent conflict? Are wahhabis the ones that instigated Al-Sisi to overturn a democractically elected government and invite violence whereby a relatively non salafist brotherhood faction would align with Daesh?

While Saudi Arabia is a problem and certainly does its best to export an ideology that actually is aggressive - to assume that they are lock, stock, and barrel the cause of the violence or even the pure trigger is very very dangerous and short sighted.

What after all would one say about the commentary leveled by Winston Churchill regarding the tribal mullahs in his time?

Their superstition exposes them to the rapacity and tyranny of a numerous priesthood -- "Mullahs," "Sahibzadas," "Akhundzadas," "Fakirs," -- and a host of wandering Talib-ul-ilms, who correspond with the theological students in Turkey, and live free at the expense of the people. More than this, they enjoy a sort of "droit du seigneur," and no man's wife or daughter is safe from them. Of some of their manners and morals it is impossible to write. As Macaulay has said of Wycherley's plays, "they are protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters." They are "safe, because they are too filthy to handle, and too noisome even to approach."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/tribal/churchill.html

or

His description of the enemy sounds familiar. Churchill singled out a 'Mad Mullah': 'A wild enthusiast convinced of his divine mission preached a crusade, here called Jihad, against the infidel. Even after the fighting - when the tribesmen reeled back from the terrible army they had assailed, leaving a quarter of their number on the field - the faith of the survivors was unshaken.'

In fact, the evidence suggests the 1897 uprising was even more organised than Churchill thought. Behind the 'Mad Mullah', whose fiery sermons could be said to equate to Fazlullah's FM talk shows, stood a group of radical frontier clerics.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3WUUrGeWS
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Were the wahhabis around then?

Instead of thinking critically about why human beings respond to violence with violence, you are assuming that singling out an ideology and pursuing it to the world's end will end all the insurrections and violence in the Muslim world.

This is hardly the case. This would not explain the Ayatollah's violence. This would not explain Moqtada Al Sadr's violence... nor would it explain the fact that even amongst the far right conservative spectrum of Islamists there are shades of gray. For instance, Takfirists (ISIS) differ in many important respects from Salafists who also differ from the brotherhood.

Finally, please read on who is currently assisting and aiding the Saudi state in its strikes on Yemen:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-26/yemeni-bombing-led-by-saudis-is-backed-by-u-s-logistics-spying

If the "free world" is so overly concerned with Wahhabists funding violence, why is the "free world" so busy providing logistics to SA to inflict inordinate violence on Yemen?