Islam's Binding Obligation

"Nobody gives a damn. They don't. They didn't know this kid as a child. This is not the kid I raised. I'm going to leave it at that, OK?"
Patricia Earl, Ottawa resident

"[Muslims are obliged to either john ISIL or] follow the example [of the jihadists who killed in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec in October]."
"You  either pack your bags, or prepare your explosive devices. You either purchase your airline ticket, or you sharpen your knife. Waging jihad represents a religious obligation binding upon every Muslim."
John Maguire, aka Yahya, Abu Anwar Al-Canadi

Site Multimedia   John Maguire, a former University of Ottawa student who converted to Islam and became radicalized.

She mourns alone, her son a convert to Islam, dedicated to jihad, naming himself Abu Anwar al-Canadi, he exhorted other Canadians through ISIS-released video propaganda, to follow his sterling example, and defy Canadian values because they are inimical to Islamic tenets and purposes. She can hardly expect other Canadians to feel badly that her son, once called John Maguire before his conversion as a passionate Islamist, is now dead.

Death claimed him close to the Syrian/Turkish border town of Kobani, long under siege by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham, defended by the Kurds, and more latterly and effectively bombed by the U.S.-led coalition battling ISIS. He will no longer be available to host ISIS propaganda videos, his message sending eager conscripts to jihad abroad to join the killing fray.

News of his death at age 24 surfaced on a Twitter account reflecting a pro ISIS stance. The anguish of a mother who watched a son transform to someone she thought she knew and most certainly loved, to a fiercely hate-filled terrorist is sad, and she may be in need of emotional support, but there are few who will share her sense of loss and grief. Her son represented the nemesis of those who detest bloodshed.

The simple fact is that these young men leaving their Democratic-centric havens to respond to the call to duty as Muslims for whom jihad is claimed to be a responsibility of the faithful, have met their timely end by their very decisions to go abroad and challenge civilizational norms in favour of bloody carnage. Air strikes by the international air flotillas have killed hundreds of ISIS jihadis in the past several months over Kobani.

Many of those whom death has taken made their choice, to live as jihadis and die as martyrs. It was this man's decision to convert to Islam and change his name to Yahya; it was his decision to travel to Syria, to post violent tirades calling on Christians and Jews to convert to Islam or be slaughtered. He decided to deal death, and death claimed him. Wasn't that his ultimate goal, after all?

To serve Islam in jihad and to make his mark as a martyr. "You either pack your bags, or prepare your explosive devices. You either purchase your airline ticket, or you sharpen your knife. Waging jihad represents a religious obligation binding upon every Muslim."