What is it With Muslims and Beheading?

Our British correspondent JP points out a blog post by Shashank Joshi at The Telegraph entitled “Where does the Islamic State’s fetish with beheading people come from?”

The topic in itself is fairly interesting, in a grim sort of way, but Mr. Joshi fastidiously avoids the most obvious explanation for the Islamic practice of beheading infidels: it is permitted (and mandated) by the Koran, the hadith, and the sira. Mentioning that aspect of the issue presumably borders on “Islamophobia”, and we can’t have that, can we? Not under the banner of a respected outlet such as The Telegraph!

Without going into details, the author’s analysis of ISIS’ three principal strategic reasons for beheading and related activities could be summarized thus:

1.   Psychological warfare — making their forces seem more powerful and effective than mere numbers or arms would otherwise indicate
2.   The deterrence of civilized nations whose leaders might face political ruin if their soldiers were crucified, beheaded, or otherwise mutilated
3.   The “propaganda of the deed”, which is particularly effective among Muslims who share ISIS’ fundamentalist outlook, and tend to sympathize with their goals
 

As is often the case on MSM websites, the comments are more interesting than the article itself. JP sends this representative selection — representative, that is, of those that were not deleted by The Telegraph’s ever-vigilant moderators.

Reader comment by aneuranbevan

well my comment didn’t last long!! Not to worry there are plenty of you saying the same thing. The veil has lifted…we all see what’s going on.

Reader comment by CrocodileGunnD

William Law has obviously touched a nerve. “A silly foolish blog with a silly foolish headline. The answer is more evident than the noses on the faces of most people: because they are barbarians. And you do not negotiate or be reasonable with barbarians”

I’m guessing it’s his last sentence that’s upset someone, (see above without it). What on earth has happened to the Telegraph? Who are these newbies writing nonsense? All the talent has moved on and with the time frame involved, there must be something fundamental going on.

Reader comment by Martin Adamson on 14 August 2014.

The Islamic State are terrorising and killing Yazidis, Christians and Kurds to make themselves popular and to legitimize their rule with their fellow Sunni Arabs. When they arrived in Iraq, they were treated with suspicion by local Sunnis because they were mostly foreigners who had no place in the local tribal culture. Driving out religious minorities creates free homes, cars, land, women to rape/enslave and other kinds of property which can then be redistributed to local Sunnis, ensuring popularity and legitimacy for the Islamic State. This is precisely how Islam has operated for hundreds of years. It is how Mohammed himself operated. Expansionist, revolutionary Islam is a belief system designed to allow alienated and disenfranchised young males to live out fantasies of adventure, violence, vengeance, dominance, limitless wealth through theft and unbridled sexual satisfaction through rape.

Reader comment by John Gerard

I like the way the moderators keep deleting my comments when I point out that Shashank said the caliphate would never, ever happen, yet it was declared five days after he said that in this very publication. And there’s not even a ‘comment deleted’ – it’s just gone.

Funny, eh? Let’s see how long this one lasts… I’ll run a stopwatch. It’s 17:11 now.

And now the rest of it. Mohammed’s jihadist career full of beheading and crucifixion, as detailed in the Hadith and Sira, not to mention commands from Allah himself to behead in the Koran.

“strike them in the neck”, “the penalty for those causing corruption in the (Islamic) land is none other than that they be killed or crucified”. And so we find ISIS beheading and crucifying today.

Pretty simple really. Next.

Reader comment by bugalugs2

“Where does the Islamic State’s fetish with beheading people come from?”

The Koran, for example 47:4.

Are you guys seriously trying to analyse what ISIS are doing without knowing the relevant instructions of violence in the Koran?

Reader comment by AY

jaw-dropping title, eh?

this is the case when facts are 100% sufficient for any type of meaningful qualification.

today’s BBC broadcasts were focused on discussion about “IS” properties, aims and traditions, islamic heritage and future, and how it is related to other types of sharia etc.

basically, this is the bogus discussion about which type of islam is good for Britain.

bogus because in reality the subject is – the way and the speed of Britain’s submission to islam, here are the 3 pillars of political islam in the West.

1) islamic oil money
2) tribal muslim demographics (aka “immigration”)
3) islamic terrorism

these are the real subjects.

there is no time to conduct long discussions aiming at proving to each other that black is black and white is white.

Reader comment by Paul Weston

“When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…” (Qur’an 47:4)

Reader comment by totusporcus

The answer is simple and the above analysis is superfluous. These people are savages. They understand only force, the bomb, bullet and bayonet are the only way to deal with them. As for the “Britons” we hear of out there, they are not British, any citizenship they have should be immediately revoked and they should never be allowed on these shores again.

Reader comment by fraternal

Islam is a religion that was born out of hatred and terror, and so it continues today. The liberal elite that have allowed the followers of this backward religion to settle in Britain are to blame and if we should vent our anger we need to vent it at them first. The current incumbent Cameron has doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to stop mass immigration from Pakistan the world centre of Islamic terrorism.

I do not believe there are moderate muslims as their rotten religion dictates otherwise, so on that basis the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis allowed in present a huge risk to the stability of Britain. Cameron could stop immigration from these rotten countries tomorrow, so why doesn’t he?

More about the author of the blog post

Shashank Joshi

Position: Senior Research Fellow

Shashank Joshi is a Research Fellow at RUSI [Royal United Services Institute] and a doctoral student of international relations at Harvard University’s Department of Government. He specialises in international security in South Asia and the Middle East.

He holds Masters degrees from Cambridge and Harvard, and previously graduated with a Starred First in politics and economics from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. During 2007-8, he was a Kennedy Scholar from Britain to the United States.

He has taught as a supervisor and teaching fellow at both Cambridge and Harvard, and also worked for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Moscow on electoral analysis and democratic training projects, Citigroup in New York in their regulatory reporting division, and in RUSI’s Asia Programme on India and global security issues. He is a graduate of the Columbia-Cornell Summer Workshop on the Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy (SWAMOS).

He has published peer-reviewed work in academic journals, commented on international affairs for radio and television, and written for newspapers including the New York Times, Financial Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, and Foreign Policy.

See also http://shashankjoshi.wordpress.com/.

18 thoughts on “What is it With Muslims and Beheading?

  1. I often look at the comment sections of the MSM newspapers, online versions. With the exception of the NYTimes – and even it is sometimes surprising – the comments specifically in newspapers can be informative and lead me to new links & information I might not have seen otherwise.

  2. To date 78.4% of my comments appended to Daily Mail articles have been ‘moderated’, i.e. did not appear at all. I have for almost three years now been keeping a record of what can be said (and cannot, of course) to try to determine the boundary between what is ‘acceptable’ and what the Ruling Classes have, by Statute and indoctrination, deemed those truths that may not be seen to speak their name.

    It has been an interesting journey, particularly as of the 21.6% that were published only two comments concerning the Religion of Peace made it through and they were so anodyne they were meaningless; furthermore those of my accurate, albeit intentionally pointed and draconian, comments that also made it through concerned white, non-Muslim subversive activities and crime only, never anything concerning Islam and its enablers.
    I have now kicked this project into touch but to be fair to the DM I have noticed that the heartfelt intensity and accurate analysis expressed in those comments re. the joys of multiculturism that are permitted is now at least an order of magnitude greater than when I commenced, and I do hope this really is a case of the Mills of Gods grinding slowly but exceeding fine. S III.

  3. Another motive is to cause panic in a population that will flee leaving Muslims a numerical majority. Then their leaders call for elections. A terror deed to accelerate depopulation.

  4. And also the comments in the newspapers make us realise we are not alone – comments in the Daily Telegraph are i would guess 95% opposed to the official MSM line.

  5. Most of us know the truth but the MSM are afraid to report it. Events will inevitably overtake this censorship.

  6. Why limit the inquiry to beheadings? One could just as well ask:

    What is it with muslims and killing apostates?
    What is it with muslims and not tolerating free inquiry, especially inquiry of islam?
    What is it with muslims and the complete destruction and obliteration of cultures and works of art that pre-date the arrival of islam?
    What is it with muslims and their religiously-sanctioned oppression of women?

  7. What is it With Muslims and Beheading?

    Talk about asking a stupid question then giving a stupid propagandistic reply.

    All those high and mighty institutions handing out degrees in [redacted].

  8. I just posted my comment there:

    Is there a Shashank Redemption? He titles his piece with a question — ”
    Where does the Islamic State’s fetish with beheading people come from?” — but does not really answer his own question. Instead, he speculates about why the Islamic State would have such a predilection for decapitation. Why they like to behead to further their aims is not necessarily pertinently the same as “where does [it] come from?” His speculative three-part answer seems concerned to paint IS in pragmatic terms: their utilitarian motives — to successfully conquer the region — explain why they go with grisly and fanatical relish for the jugular so much. This begs the question why is no one else in the world who has geopolitical ambitions beheading with such grisly and fanatical relish? The one source that might well answer Shashank’s own titular question, as many commenters who don’t have a hill of academic degrees obscuring their view of the open Koran on their desk have helpfully pointed out, seems to elude him. And that’s why I answer my own titular question roundly with a No.

  9. Ignore Shashank Joshi. He is a perfectly dhimmified Hindu. The Hindus are, without any doubt, the worst victims of Islam’s holocausts against others. And yet, the left in India has so completely taken over the instruments of education and media that saying this is regarded as “anti-national.” Instead, we are taught to pretend that everything was like one big fun party during the Islamic years (invasion and rule). Shashank is a perfect idiot churned out by the left. He doesn’t know it though.

    But to my American friends: PLEASE enter Iraq. Your cowardly Prez is getting on a lot of people’s nerves. Is he some secret admirer of the Islamic state or something? What’s up with not bombing the living daylights out of the Islamic state. That thing is PURE EVIL.

  10. Perhaps it is time to introduce our Muslim friends of the IS to the Blood Eagle. Prior to the performance of this ritual; relate to the recipient that if Allah is with him he will remain silent. Also relate to him that if he does not remain silent then he will be dowsed with pigs blood prior to death. Do a trial run in front of IS prisoners with swine on hand and dowse the first participant regardless. Take photos of it and tweet it around the world; entitled A Gift From the Sons of Thor! The barbarity of the IS and their ilk can only be met with equal or greater barbarity.

  11. The Quran sanctions beheading. See Quran 47:4 and 8:12.

    These guys are simply following orders from the Quran.

  12. to all: beheading is not directly connected to an ” islamic state”.
    19 th and early 20 th century authors ( french,spanish, english mostly) report from North Africa that collecting and piling up ennemies heads was common.
    I gathered this from reports of the struggle the French had in Algiers around 1840 and the Spanish in the 20 ies of last century.
    Wasn’ t it the great Albert Camus who let his protagonist in ” L’ Hôte” speak out against the bloodthirstiness of the Algerians?

  13. Actually, the beheading of defeated enemies was common practice in the Byzantine Christian armies. The pole mounted head and hands would often be used as a battle standard. Source:- Romano-Byzantine Armies 4th-9th Centuries – Osprey · Paperback · 47 pages · ISBN 1855322242

    • And why don’t “Christian armies” or Christians at all do it anymore, and why are Muslims doing it still in the 21st century all over the world, as much as ever? That’s the question for which Romano’s book is not only irrelevent, but a positively misleading attempt at a treasonous Ego Quoque.

  14. “He holds Masters degrees from Cambridge and Harvard, and previously graduated with a Starred First in politics and economics from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. During 2007-8, he was a Kennedy Scholar from Britain to the United States.”

    I can’t remember if it was Paul Gottfried or Samuel Francis who pointed out that there is an entire infrastructure in place to provide hoops through which adjutants/spokesmen of the managerial class/power elite jump. This credentialism is the means by which the power elite validate their ideological view of the world.

    We can’t expect any truth from these adjutants. They exist (professionally) solely to manipulate the truth. Such biographical details should serve as above should serve as a warning flag that what comes from such an individual will be distortion.

    A week after Shashank Joshi’s laughable claim that the Caliphate would never re-appear, his next article for The Telegraph did not contain any claims of regarding his supposed academic affiliations. His stupidity/bias on this matter has been pointed out in the comments on subsequent articles, over and over again.

    Far more truth and knowledge is to be found in the comments sections (this is particularly true of The Telegraph, which is less censorious than most other online news media). We have identified this phenomenon (the discrepancy between the lies and distortions in the main articles, and the truth/information which appears in the comments) as “the ideological chasm”. Once we can identify and name these phenomena, we are better able to spot them and to predict behaviour and events based on such identification.

  15. Islam like any other religion is born out of necessity to counter-balance or counter-attack something. Islam targeted Christianity from the beginning and was created exactly for this reason. That was the only ideological tool able to unite people of many tribes, a religion. Islam was inspired by Christianity borrowing many ideas from the Scriptures but the creators understood that it has to be different in order to be efficient against Christianity. So they decided to make Islam ruthless, more radical than Christianity. Many of the habits preached in their religion were created having in mind to carry direct assaults against Christians’ habits. Like not allowing people to eat pork was conceived in regard to destroying the Christian Asian populations who had strong relations with Europe and imported European food and they also considered the possibility of conquering Europe in some distant future and as at the time Europe’s main food was mainly pork they preconceived a method to starve and destroy the European population if they would succeed to conquer them.

    The habit of beheading people is a direct response to the resurrection of Jesus on who’s powers the practitioners of Islam are envious -after all, their prophets never had so much divine support like Jesus presumably had, according to the Bible. Can’t blame anyone for this, each civilization and each religion with its imagination, and the Arabs weren’t very rich on this field.

  16. Think if you look at this from another perspective, then the beheadings can be seen as a blood sacrifice to a demonic god.

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