A few of the bad boys of Islam who became shahids:
(Top L-R) Mohamed Bouhlel, Marwan al-Shehhi, Mohammad Sidique Khan, Ziad Jarrah
(Bottom L-R) Omar Mateen, Shehzad Tanweer, Mohammed Atta, Hasib Hussain
The legacy media have made much of the fact that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the “suddenly radicalized” mujahid who massacred at least 84 people in Nice with a truck, was a “bad Muslim”. He was non-observant — drank alcohol, ate pork, and consorted intimately with infidels of both sexes. Focusing on Mr. Bouhlel’s non-Islamic behavior buttresses the Nothing-To-Do-With-Islam meme, which is crucial to the media’s mission, even more crucial than all the weepy photos of candles and flowers and teddy bears.
The Orlando killer Omar Mateen was also noted to be a “lapsed” Muslim who was fond of an occasional tipple. And then there were the 9-11 hijackers, who engaged the services of prostitutes and lap-dancers during a pub crawl the night before they crashed their plane into the World Trade Center.
To the Western mind, this bad behavior by men who go on to martyr themselves killing kuffar for Allah seems contradictory. But it isn’t, really — it accords with a precise Islamic formula for how one may enter Paradise. It makes complete sense; it’s just totally alien to a Western mind.
Back in 2011 Russkiy wrote an essay about how “bad” Muslims make themselves “good”. It’s worth reproducing here in its entirety.
The “Bad” Muslims
by Russkiy
Shortly after the 9/11 events I became friends with one fellow at the university gym. I didn’t realize at first that he was a Muslim or an Arab. He was from Morocco, as I found out later.
He seemed very normal, always wore Hawaiian T-shirts, was a gym junkie and loved to go clubbing, although he never drank. He was always a sober driver for those of us who were drinking.
Other than his strange behaviour in night clubs (he never drank but seemed the least in control of his behaviour with the opposite sex — he used to whistle and say inappropriate things to women; he was embarrassing for those of us who were drunk) he seemed very normal and friendly until one day when we started discussing some political issues. The conversation revolved around the 9/11 attacks, concerning which he expressed his views as follows: “Osama Bin Laden is a great, brave man, a good Muslim. If all Muslims were like him, the Islamic world wouldn’t be such a s***hole. I wish I was a better Muslim, and brave enough to sacrifice my life in the great Jihad.”
He also said a lot of other things but the above statement summarises his general attitude. From that day onwards I was very suspicious of people who referred to themselves as “bad” Muslims — they were people who generally had a non-observant or not fully observant (Islamic) lifestyle but still referred to themselves as Muslims and defended Islam.
I have recently found out how they could justify their behaviour. Muslims on the day of resurrection are judged according to their good Islamic deeds (hasana) or bad (non-Islamic) deeds. Some Muslims try to keep track of their bad and good deeds. So if they decide to go drinking one night for example, they should go and pray a bit more, read the Quran, or kill lizards (one of the ways to score additional points. If you kill a lizard with one hit you get 100 hasanat; with two hits you get 50, and so on).
So all Muslims can once in a while lapse and do a few non-compliant (Islamically speaking) deeds as long as they compensate for that. The thing about the “bad” Muslims is that they lose track of how many bad deeds they have done. This means that they either have to leave Islam, as there is no longer any hope of salvation for them in Islam, become very, very observant in ways such as growing a beard (a hasana) and other things like that and hope that this will suffice to get them into Paradise, or become a jihadi and hope for a martyr’s death, which will guarantee entrance into Paradise.
So from this logic it can be seen that most bad Muslims would either become an atheist, join some other religion, or become Wahhabi, or even worse, a suicide bomber. Most of them don’t care about politics in Afghanistan or Somalia; they just know that there is a Jihad going on, and therefore a good chance for them to die as a martyr. A good example of this mentality is someone like Ayman al-Zarqawi, or those London bombers, all of whom used to be non-observant until one day something clicked and they suddenly became the most fanatical of all.
People like Osama or any other Muslim who were observant throughout their lives don’t have to become suicide bombers; they can participate in a Jihad, but not as fervently as some of the former “bad” Muslims.
Einstein.
If all Muslims were more like Einstein, the Islamic world wouldn’t be such a pit.
I also find it curious that Islam is a 7th century gamification of life, much like the Pokémon Go or Habit RPG smartphone apps. If only it were as innocent as those two more modern creations.
Excellent point. The hadith about killing lizards to earn extra _hasanat_ (Pokemon points) was a form of Pokemon Go _avant la lettre_, another example of Muslim progress centuries before the same discovers were made in the non-Islamic world.
Pokemon Go has already been denounced as “un-islamic” by the mullahs.
The good moslems may seldom go on jihad but surely they go to their mosque and make offerings for charity, zakat may be the term. It may be that the good AND likeable moslem known to you and I is permitted his normal life BECAUSE of that charity, required by islamic law.
Islamic jurisprudence, I have heard, has ruled jihad to be a legitimate charity. The bad moslems who can be suddenly radicalized will have ample resources. It would appear that this is just the way it is.
And the good moslems know perfectly well how their charity will be spent.
Adding to my previous comment:
It is not only a flotsom class of moslem we need to be aware of. Consider an approaching hurricane. The outer bands of 60 mph winds will not kill you, but the loose stuff the wind picks up may indeed kill you. Here a wooden fence in disrepair, there an item left outdoors, somewhere else a roof repair not yet completed, all local imperfections, picked up by the wind and we are never perfect.
In the early pages of a book called THE PIRATE COAST, THOMAS JEFFERSON THE FIRST MARINES AND THE SECRET MISSION OF 1805, by Richard Zacks one may find an interesting story of a village in Sardinia. A fisherman had been rejected by a girl he wanted and, no philosopher he, the fisherman wanted revenge. He would sail off to north Africa, convert, offer his services and get revenge. I would count him as flotsum and I will keep my other words to myself.
In a grievance society such as our political and cultural leaders have sought to make, there will be many such aggrieved ones. And they may do what many others have likely done for many centuries. My short term suggestion is dismally unhelpful, but: try not to be surprised by these betrayals.
Our modern leaders night have blamed the girl for having rejected the fisherman. I will support those leaders who would insist that the fisherman should have grown up.
Alec,
In the face of your hurricane analogy, Western secularist states are now ruled by termites . . . who insist that all future construction will consist of balsa wood, held together by spit.
Wonderfully said!
I do not like my own last preceeding sentence. Too weak.
You can’t always get what you want AND you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd. We all know those songs. We must demand that people grow up.
And there is no reason for us to welcome those into our country who would never welcome us into their countries.
Western philosophy seems more concerned with the “essence” of a person. You are good, bad, or a combination, but the essential goodness, or lack thereof, is relatively constant. This is reflected in the Christian notion of “grace” or either having accepted Jesus or not.
The Islamic viewpoint is that Allah is a giant bean-counter in the sky, assigned the mathematical expected value of paradise at all points in a person’s life. The weights and probability distribution are kept secret by Allah, so a Muslim is kept on pins and needles all his life, if he believes the story about paradise.
Under this view, it really doesn’t matter what type of person he is: the only thing that matters is his expected value of paradise at any moment.
It occurs to me some enterprising Muslim could develop a paradise test-prep course or coaching service, for those Muslims who don’t want to give up their sinful lifestyle, but are not quite ready for the state of shahid. They could comb through the Koran and Sunnah, finding high-value actions which don’t cause too much disruption, but which increase the chance of paradise. The Turkish Muslim huckster, Gulen, might want to add it as a component to his test-prep centers. Perhaps he could get government funding for something as important as attaining paradise without actually blowing yourself and others up.
Download the app — calculate your hasanat! In one easy step!
The one fly in the ointment would be external validation. For something as important as paradise, you want to get it right. But, as Hamlet stated:
Perhaps the first trials could be done with jinns, who are just as likely to be able to return from hell as they are to calculate their expected value of paradise.
Good or bad they dont belong in the West.
“If you kill a lizard with one hit you get 100 hasanat; with two hits you get 50, and so on).”
If someone thinks that a person believing in the above has a chance to integrate into western society, he is clearly out if mind.
Good luck integrating 7th century barbarians.
Good essay, but does anyone have a backup to an authoritative Islamic source … that becoming a martyr outweighs a life of sin? And especially that killing moar unbelievers counts as more good Islamic deeds to be weighed against previous sins ?
At the risk of repeating myself, the “bad muslim redemption by jihad” analysis is one of the drums that needs to be banged regularly and loudly to counter the preferred “not a true muslim” and therefore “not connected to the true (ROP)”narrative.
Incidentally, on the topic of bad muslims in the west, check this out : correlative stats on recruits to ISIS http://www.nber.org/digest/jun16/w22190.html
Bukhari 52:46
Narrated Abu Huraira: I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, “The example of a Mujahid in Allah’s Cause — and Allah knows better who really strives in His Cause – is like a person who fasts and prays continuously. Allah guarantees that He will admit the Mujahid in His Cause into Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home safely with rewards and war booty.”
OT Baron,
Someone was asking for a better term to replace ‘Honour Killing’.
I have pondered this for a while.
What do you think of ‘Religiously aggravated murder’?
It’s a bit cumbersome. How about “sharia execution”?
Yes,that is good,but we know that Hindus do it as well and possibly others.
On the other hand you could shorten it to RAM and make us all think of the unpleasantness of Ram raiders.
ps Thankyou for all your work.
Seems to me that Mohammad was being practical: of course soldiers will live a rough life compared to a recluse who prays all day long. So to get the soldiers motivated he had to make great promises.
And today I learned that Carlos the Jackal became a Muslim and called for the Left (even if an Atheist) to fall in line behind the Muslim leaders and that this is old news. Well that was a missing link of the connection between the Left and Islam.
I think people just don’t realize that because you want something to be real or you think it is real doesn’t make it real. Well it does make a real road to Hell possibly pave with all of the best of intentions.
I would bet that when the Russians rejected their soviet system and when the Berlin wall was torn down, the Beider Meinhoff(spelling?) gang did some thinking. Time to get a regular job? Or maybe go join Yasser Arafat and continue the lifestyle of occasional “work.” They may love the lifestyle of theft, lies and murder more than they love anything else.
I think it was General Pacepa (Romania) that made the accusations the Soviet Union has/had alot of relationships with in Africa and Middle East where they had been contributing to the instability. I remember a specific reference to printing and distributing the Elders of Zion and at least a few thousand agents there or at least people they had relationships with. I don’t really know what kind of people are running Russia today but to your point I think the revolutionaries went and found other work and the ones the were already in the West just kept doing what they were doing. Ever hear of Yuri Bezmenov?
Back from a chore. Yes. But I will need to push my own refresh on useful idiots versus wet work people when the game has moved on.
Bezmenov had learned of a list of people to get rid of if…in India they were no longer useful….
I do not recall plans for if the Soviet Union moved on…. I would guess this was not planned for.
While western useful idiots just kept plugging away? Unguided useful idiots on courses they have no comprehension of…
If I have got your idea right, I agree. If not, please correct me.
I wonder what Diana West would say to that. There may be hints I can pick up whenever I reread AMERICAN BETRAYAL….
Off topic but interesting; A quote from Lt. Col. Ralph Peters”the only difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS is that the Muslim Brotherhood has better table manners”.
There are no “good” muslims in the sense that readers may imagine. If we are talking of someone who considers humanity above 7th century doctrine, who believes that Muhammad’s life should be held to scrutiny, who believes that all men and women are absolutely equal, who believes that other religious systems also have equal merit, then there are no “good” muslims. I have interacted with this community for all my life, and have yet to meet a good muslim by the above definition.
Yes, there are many many muslims who are law abiding, non-violent, etc. But ideologically, they are still tilted towards the supremacist views of ISIS, though they may not recommend such extreme measures. Ask such a muslim what he thinks of a 54 year man having intercourse with a 9 year old girl. Surely a “good” man should disapprove of this. Yet I have not met a single muslim who can categorically say so.
Next time a left-wing nutcase insists that a jihadist who have just massacred dozens of innocent people isn’t a true Muslim, on account that the jihadi wasn’t a true ‘practicing’ Muslim, tell him/her that Catholic priest guilty of rape can’t be real Catholics because they are obviously not true ‘practicing’ Catholics.
Then wait and observe and see if the penny drops.
BTW, I’ve heard that shouting Allahu Akbar has ‘nothing to do’ with Islam …….
Pictured are 8 of the 72 virgins.