JIHAD:  WHAT IS JIHAD AND RAPE AS WARFARE IN ISLAM

The dualistic ethical system of the Islamic Trilogy (the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith) prepares the foundation of jihad with one set of ethics for Muslims and another set of ethics for the kafirs. So, there are two ways to deal with the kafirs. One is to think of them as inferiors but act in a kindly way. The other is jihad.

Jihad is a unique word. Its actual meaning is struggle or effort. Islam speaks of two types-the lesser jihad and the greater jihad. The greater jihad is spiritual effort or internal struggle, to stop smoking, for example, or control one's greed. Only 3% of the Hadith Bukhari recorded about jihad refer to the greater jihad. The rest, 97%, of the Hadith about jihad are about war.

The Fundamentals of Jihad

The following hadith summarizes all the key elements of jihad. (Notice that only the fourth item, the Day of Resurrection, is purely religious in nature). It tells us that the whole world must submit to Islam; kafirs are the enemy simply by not being Muslims. To achieve this dominance, Islam may use terror and violence. It may use psychological warfare, fear, and theft. It may take the spoils of war from kafirs. Violence and terror are made sacred by the Koran. Peace comes only with submission to Islam.

Bukhari 1,7,331 Mohammed: "I have been given five things which were not given to any one else before me:

Allah made me victorious by awe, by His frightening my enemies for a distance of one month's journey.

The earth has been made for me and for my followers a place for praying and a place to perform rituals; therefore, anyone of my followers can pray wherever the time of a prayer is due.

The spoils of war has been made lawful for me yet it was not lawful for anyone else before me.

I have been given the right of intercession on the Day of Resurrection.

Every prophet used to be sent to his nation only but I have been sent to all mankind."

The story of the Trilogy culminates in the dominance of political Islam.

The Trilogy teaches that Islam is the perfect political system and is destined to rule the entire world. The governments and constitutions of the world must all submit to political Islam. If the political systems of the kafirs do not submit, then force, jihad, may be used. All jihad is defensive, since refusing to submit to Islam is an offense against Allah. All Muslims must support the political action of jihad. This may take several forms-fighting, proselytizing or contributing money.

The Trilogy lays out the complete strategy, tactics, and vision of political Islam and jihad. Much of the Trilogy is about how Mohammed dealt with those people who disagreed with him. Violent political action with a religious motivation was taken against kafirs. Under Islam, their only political freedom was to submit. This legal inferiority is sacred, eternal and universal.

Duality of ethics was the basis for Mohammed's greatest single innovation-jihad. Jihad is dual ethics with sacred violence. The key religious element of the dual ethics is that Allah sanctifies violence for complete domination. The kafirs must submit to Islam.

In Mecca, Mohammed demonstrated the initial practice of jihad when Islam was weak: persuasion and conversion. When he moved to Medina, he demonstrated how jihad worked when Islam was strong: using immigration against inhabitants, creating political power by struggling against the host, dominating other religions, using violence, sowing division among the tribes, and establishing a government.

Jihad is civilizational war for two reasons. First, jihad uses every aspect of civilization as an element of war. Violence, education, fear, psychology, sociology, sex, population, immigration, public relations, corruption and religion are all used in jihad. Military force and terror are the smallest aspects of jihad. The second reason that jihad is civilizational war is that the purpose of jihad is to annihilate every aspect of the non-Islamic civilization. Art, history, law, dress, manners, names, education, customs, government, foreign policy, economics, and every other detail must become Islamic.

The greatest error in understanding jihad is to think of military force and terror. Jihad does not have to fit the Geneva Convention's rules. A jihadist is a civilian in the army of Allah and can move back and forth from soldier to citizen. Giving money to an Islamic "charity" is jihad. Writing a letter to the editor about how well Islam treats women is jihad. Having eight children is jihad.

The Koran could not be more clear-every Muslim is to be a jihadist. Jihad is laid out in all three of the Trilogy texts. There is no Islam without jihad.

Islam has been waging civilizational war for centuries. Before the Muslims arrived, Egypt and North Africa and the southern coast of the Mediterranean were Christian. There was a Buddhist monastery in Alexandria Egypt. Turkey was Buddhist and Christian. Persia-now Iran-was Zoroastrian. The Hindu culture covered an area of the world twice as large as it is now. Languages disappeared to be replace by Arabic.

When Napoleon invaded Egypt, he discovered that the Muslim population knew nothing about the pyramids or temples. The 5,000 year old culture of the Pharaohs had been annihilated. There is no longer a population of Buddhists in Afghanistan. Baghdad was once home to the oldest community of Jews in the world, brought there as Babylonian captives, today it is estimated that there are no more than a few dozen old, sick and infirm Jews left in Iraq. All cultures living within the borders of Islam are annihilated. People either leave, convert or die. There are no exceptions.

Once jihad has conquered a civilization, there is never another revolution. Even if the form of government changes, it remains Muslim. The only time Islam has left an occupied territory has been because it was forced out by military might.

Rape as Warfare

Mohammed encouraged the rape of female captives after battles. This is reported in the Sira and Hadith and approved in the Koran. In jihad it is not considered rape to have forced sex with a woman as long as she is a kafir captive or slave. This is true even if she is married. In the Muslim world, the act is only rape when committed against a Muslim. Again, the dual ethics of Islam prevail.

Bukhari 3,34,431 One of the captives was a beautiful Jewess, Safiya. Dihya had her first, but she was given to Mohammed next.

4:24 Also forbidden to you are married women unless they are your slaves or captives.

Rape was one of Mohammed's tactics of conquest because it worked. Forced sex with women whose protectors had been killed was considered supreme domination. It was also a humiliation to the women's male relatives and husbands who had not been killed. If a woman is captured, raped and absorbed into the captor's environment, her helplessness renders her totally compliant and her submission is complete. To protect her children from slavery, many widows and rape victims readily agreed to conversion and their children were raised as Muslims.

Forced sex is far more than rape in political Islam. It is a method of war, a tactical strike which is not a crime because it is jihad. It is not a sin. It is practiced against the kafir and is sanctioned in the Trilogy of the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith.