Honouring Islam

Islamic State fighters in a video produced by the group (YouTube screen capture/VICE News)

The brave mujaheddin of Islam have done it again. Captured the focus of the world on their ground-breaking exploits of convincing their captive audience in Syria and Iraq that there is only one method of living one's life and that is a full surrender of humanity with all its vices of compassion, empathy and love for one another to be disposed of, and replaced by death-affirming full-bodied genuflections to barbarism unleavened by the alien concept of human rights.

There is much food for introspection available to Muslims who insist that theirs is a religion of peace. For it is not. It is their impression that a religion they hold dear must advocate for peace and this belief gives them comfort, leaving them puzzled that co-religionists indulge in mass atrocities, other than for the conclusion they reach that these are not true Muslims. The jihadis, on the other hand, consider those Muslims who will not accept their brand of Islam to be heretics.

All one need do is look closely at the history of Islam to realize that no religion of peace could be based on brutally murderous conquest yet this is the history of Islam; replete with assassinations, tribal and sectarian enmities, hatred run amok, and bloodletting without end. The sacred scriptures instruct the faithful of their duty to proselytize and in Islam prosetylization is synonymous with the scimitar; conquest equals the spread of Islam.

Look beyond the dread punishments that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant delights in visiting on its 'enemies' -- those who refuse to become adherents, those who are unfortunate enough to belong to minority ethnic and religious groups, those who misguidedly take up arms against ISIL -- gruesome deaths of loathsome description, none more barbaric than beheading. And then examine Sharia law as practised by Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan and understand that capital punishment honours beheading.

 

A screen grab from an ISIL video released on June 23, 2015, purportedly showing alleged spies being executed by drowning.

 

It is not only in medieval times that 'sorcery' and 'witchcraft' are accusations levelled at those whom others in a position of power label to slander and thus render it acceptable to murder them as threats to society. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has monitored more than sufficient episodes of Syrian-government-led assaults on human rights has revealed: "The Islamic State group executed two women by beheading them in Deir Ezzor province, and this is the first time the Observatory has documented women being killed by the group in this manner", stated Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.

 

On Monday and on Sunday two couples were executed, both of whom were accused of "witchcraft and sorcery". In each of these instances, both husband and wife of each pair was beheaded. Why this is particularly appalling is puzzling. After all, the infamous use of dull blades to detach a living human being's head from his neck has been done proudly by ISIL. Crucifixions are another favourite method of displaying scorn for human life. And caging a man and setting fire to him another way to impress on enemies that ISIL is somewhat unique.

As a terrorist group ISIL goes beyond the ordinary. Hamas only lines those whom it accuses of 'collaborating with the enemy' up against brick walls to be executed by firing squad. And when Hamas operatives become really inventive they will drag a 'suspect' behind a moving vehicle until the corpse becomes a limp rag unrecognizable as a man only moments before. ISIL is far more creative, given to indulging its collective genius for horror whose entertainment quotient has made them famous among their supporters.

Such as, for example, tying explosives around the necks of prisoners and then detonating them, an even more expressive way of beheading helpless human beings:

The video then shows the severing of the prisoners’ heads when the explosives are detonated.

A recently released video demonstrated just how brilliantly inventive Islamic State groups like Takfiri can be, wracking their brains for the value that can be head in exterminating human beings in the most impressive ways to attract the blood lust in young men waiting to be convinced to join the terrorists. One way to influence friends and horrify the civilized world was to lock three helpless men taken prisoner in a vehicle at some Iraqi desert location, and aim a rocket-propelled grenade at the car.


Then the video cuts to an ISIL executioner who fires a rocket-propelled grenade at the vehicle, which bursts into flames purportedly killing the prisoners, who can be heard screaming before burning to death.

According to the Observatory, Islamic State has so far imaginatively executed over three thousand people in Syria alone in the last year, throughout its caliphate territory. Of that number almost two thousand were not combatants, but civilians. And of that civilian demographic 74 were children.

 

Speak, please do, of the religion of peace, enlighten the audience with explanations of how peace equates with deadly horrors visited upon the hapless and the helpless. So it is written, so it must be.