Inside the Minds of Orthodox Muslims

Tuesday

The following are excerpts from an article in The Week entitled, Inside the Minds of Jihadis. It is a book review:

As with any enemy, the best way to defeat the Islamic State is to understand it. And to do that, the best place to start is a new book by Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers. This book gives us the best insight yet into what makes the Islamic State tick.

Wood, a national correspondent at The Atlantic and lecturer in political science at Yale, spent years from the streets of Cairo to London to the Philippines to Australia, interviewing supporters of the Islamic State and getting inside their heads. What results is a series of gripping, fascinating portraits. Wood's subjects have little cageyness towards him. Since everything is foreordained by Allah anyway, revealing your plans to a Western journalist won't change the outcome. Plus, Wood has the talented journalist's skill for interview and observation. He's an astute psychologist and a good writer to boot...

The book's implicit thesis, one which is both inarguably true and persistently denied by so many decision makers in the West, is that ideas have consequences. While the motives of any individual and group of people are always multifaceted and almost always include a good helping of interest-seeking and self-delusion, it is also impossible to deny that large sections of Islamic State members and supporters, from its leadership down to foot soldiers, make decisions on the basis of what they believe.

As the Islamic State keeps repeating over and over through its high-polish propaganda apparatus, it has a theology, and this theology has content, and an internal logic, that can be understood on its merits. Once this theology is understood, and once the proponents of this theology are actually listened to, and their actions watched, it becomes impossible to deny that this theology is a key cause (maybe not the cause, but a key cause) of the actions of the Islamic State, most of its leaders, and most of its supporters.

What's more — and this is the source of the willful blindness of elite policymakers and commentators towards the Islamic State — this theology does have Islamic roots...

All Muslims agree on at least one thing, which is that Muslims should follow the example of the Prophet Muhammad. And the Prophet Muhammad did do many of the things that the Islamic State is most reviled for, such as waging absolute religious warfare, engaging in slavery, stoning adulterers, and so forth...

It's a great read. But more importantly, Wood's book reveals truths about ISIS that are hiding in plain sight — but that our leaders make themselves willfully ignorant of. They ought to read his book, too.

Read the whole article here: Inside the Minds of Jihadis

4 comments:

Anonymous 6:48 AM  

You are doing great work.
And it is appreciated. Thanks.
K Patel

Walter Sieruk 7:16 AM  

An outlandishly false statement of extreme folly I saw for the first time on a tee-shirt a young man was wearing in the year 1974. Which had printed on it the saying “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as your sincere.” That was statement of total falsehood and complete nonsense. For example, in the book entitled DEFYING ISIS by Johnnie Moore on page 30 it informs the reader about the jihadists who compose ISIS that “They sincerely believe they are doing justice by ridding the world of another generation of Christians, so they massacre them with pure joy.” In other words, the jihadist /Muslims of ISIS are sincere and thus believe and feel that they are “doing the right thing” by their brutal, cruel mass murder of Christians. Therefore, since the ISIS jihadists are sincere it followers, naturally, in their delusional Islamic mindset and worldview they actually “good intentions .” As strange, odd and ironic as this is. A semi-good way to explain this would is in history many Marxists had murdered many people to obtain the goal of the “greater good for a workers paradise.” In that aspect those murdering Marxists had “good intentions.” So in contrast to that foolishness and falsehood of folly false statement ,just sited above , is the tragic but true reality based statement .Which is that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Walter Sieruk 7:16 AM  


For balance who about an essay entitled “Inside the minds of Christians” Meaning genuine Christians who have more the head knowledge about Jesu but know Him as their Savior and Lord. So about to be specific about real, actual, Christians many do need to keep the right focus about what is really important and not become distracted by things that don’t really matter in the long run.
Since the new year has thus arrived and the ISIS jihad threat against the USA and American’s citizens to continues a good time to make a revised reiteration that Bible based Christian churches in America are very good bulwarks against Islam with its many false doctrines. For those false doctrines of Islam are exposed in the light of the Bible as being extremely erroneous. Nevertheless, even though I go to such a church , from first hand observation, of Christians in church , it seems many Christians do need to take some time for Christian introspection of their priorities in the news of current events In the world today concerning Islam and its different kinds of jihad.
For example, this year on March 21, no more than eleven miles from the home church there was a speaker who in times pasts, was both a Christian and a Muslim and lived in Iran as an Iranian citizen. Now he’s a Christian and an American and lives in America in an district of Pennsylvania. During the lecture he exposed, from the Quran, the violent and deadly nature of Islam. Likewise he also exposed, for the Quran and the Bible, that the god of Islam is not the God of the Bible.
The point is of the many people at the lecture not even one person from my home church want to hear him. In contrast a month of two later a number of people ,at church, signed up to take a group trip to go to see baseball game that was about sixty miles away.
A few month later the Sunday before the Sunday of the fifteenth anniversary after the service no one was, as far as I know , talking about the coming fifteenth anniversary of that vicious demonic jihad attacks by Al Qaeda jihadist on September 11, 2001. The only talk I head was about sports. Those Islamic attacks were heinously wicked and murderous. For the Bible view, those jihad attacks on 9/11 was a sin unto God as well as an affront to God. Furthermore the jihad attacks by the powers and forces of Islam were also a heinous crime against humankind and an affront against America as well as an affront against all that is good and right . Nevertheless I head one mentioned it . Then next exact Sunday that was September 11, 2016 no mention was made of September 11, 2001 .as if the hideous wicked and tragic events of the day never happen. What a shame. In conclusion, in this twenty first century “war of idea’s “ between the Christian West and Islamic East many Christians need to set their priorities right and invest their time and effort ,not so much on frivolous things as sports but subject of value and worth . as the reading and study of book by Christian scholars who used to be Muslims . As for example , the books , ISLAM AND TERRORISM by Mark A. Gabriel and also UNVEILING ISLAM by Eegun Mehmet Caner and Eethi Caner . Likewise, there is the book ANSWERING JIHAD by Nabeel Qureshi .

Walter Sieruk 7:57 AM  

The scholar as well as author, Nabeel Qureshi of the book entitled ANSWERING JIHAD who in the past was a Muslim but now a Christian had explained clearly that god of Islam is not the God of the Bible. For on page 113 in his book he informs the reader that “Islam roundly condemns worship of the Trinity [5:73], establishing in contrast its own core principle of Tawhid, the absolute oneness of God. Tawhid emphatically denies the Trinity; so much that it is safe to say the doctrine of God in Islam is antithetical to the doctrine of God in Christianity. Not just different but opposed.” Further on page 116 he elaborates that “Tawhid is antithetical to the Trinity, fundamentally incompatible and only similar superficially and semantically, Muslims and Christians do not worship the same God.” Therefore it’s fitting then to make a reiteration of the following essay on this very important subject.

There are a number of apologists for Islam, some are imams and mullahs and strangely enough, even some so called “Christian” pastors, who have made the outstanding claim that Christians and Muslim both believe in and worship the same God. So it stands to reason that it’s important to know if this claims valid and true or invalid and false. The facts are that the god of Islam or the Muslims is a single being. In great contrast the God of Christianity, of the Christians consists as the Trinity. By the Trinity it means that “Within the essence of the one True God there are Three Persons. Being God the Father. God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Not three gods in one But Three Distinct Persons in One God. Being the Tri-Personal Nature of God, Matthew 3:13-17. Second Corinthians 13:14. . The Bible teaches, the Father is God, Galatians 1:1.The Son is God, First John 5:20. The Holy Spirit is God, Acts 5:3,4. Not three gods but the one and only Triune God.
As further explained in the Christian book MAJOR BIBLE THEMES by Lewis Sperry Chafer on page 39 which informs the readers that “Many believe that the doctrine of the Trinity in implicit in the use of the word Elohim, as the name of God which is in a plural form and seems to refer to the Triune God. “ Likewise, in the Christian magazine PERHAPS TODAY November/December 2013 on page 8 it reads about Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning God [this is the plural noun Elohim, meaning ‘more than one’] created the heaven and the earth.” Furthermore, a bit of a view of the inner workings of the Trinity together may be seen in that the God the Father raised Jesus from the dead. Romans 10:9,10. Jesus raised Himself from the dead, John 2:19,20. The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, Romans 8:11.The inner-workings of the Trinity of God may also be seen in the fact that the Father sanctifies, First Thessalonians 5:23. The Son sanctifies, Ephesians 5:26. Hebrews 2:11; 9:12,14;13:12.The Holy Spirit sanctifies ,Romans 15:16. Second Thessalonians 2:13. Getting back to the Bible book of Genesis. In Genesis 1:26 in reads “The God said let US make man in Our image , according to our likeness…” The words are the plural “Us” and “Our.” As in “We the Trinity” For the very next verse, 27, it further reads “So God created man in His own image…” In verse 26 it’s the plural “Us” and “Our” to the singular “His” That is Three Persons in One God. In addition, in the New Testament in Matthew 28:19 It further reads the Jesus said “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the the Son and the Holy Spirit.” [N.K.J.V] That is “name” not “names.” In conclusion the many apologists and propagandists for Islam for Islam who make the claim that Christians and Muslims believe in and worship the same God are make an untrue and outright false claim. For the God of Christianity, Christians and the Bible is not the god of Islam Muslims and the Koran.

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