Jihadist propagandists have found their way on YouTube, where they are openly calling for the execution of LGBTQ People and apostates.
This article will address four of their arguments:
1. Offensive Jihad.
2. Sexual slavery.
3. Traditional values.
4 Westernisation.
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To justify their support for Jihad, they have created a simple narrative that you can watch here.
I’ll summarize it below:
“Jihad is not only defensive, it can be offensive as well. Let me ask you a question. Do you agree with the Geneva Convention? Do you accept the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights?
Let’s call these beliefs First Worldism. If you support them then that means you’re a believer and an adherent of first worldism, and not only are you a believer of this “religion” but you also believe that this religion should be spread by the sword.
“First worldists” are forcing their beliefs on everyone else, through sanctions, military interventions and NGOs. Disbelievers don’t have a choice, it is either “submit or die“.
So what’s the difference between First Worldism spreading its values and beliefs through force across the globe versus Islam doing it?
Offensive Jihad is not functionally any different from what is considered standard practice in the world today“
In most of those arguments, Islamists often lump those they wish to critique under a big-tent label that they either refer to as “liberalism”, “westernisation” or “First Worldism”.
This creates a binary narrative where Islam is in a defensive war (even when offensive) against a force that appears to be homogeneous, centralised and united.
For example: In this narrative, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank does not specifically represent right-wing colonialism, but “First Worldism”.
Even though “first worldism” represents the same camp that allegedly honors the Geneva convention and the UN’s declaration of human rights – which Israel does not.
The invasion of Iraq would also be “first worldism”, rather than a neo-conservative, pro-capitalist war that also disregarded the Geneva Convention and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
College students with secular values and the military-industrial complex would both represent “first worldism”, even if the students happen to be pro-palestine and anti-colonialism.
In other words, the “first worldism” analogy itself consists of many contradiction.
Even the United Nations’ itself has a stronger reputation of abandoning war zones and its victims (in Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Bosnia & Herzegovina, etc), rather than “militarily expanding and enforcing their values”.
With such labels, Islamists blur the lines between militant Islamism and the specific ideologies they have most in common with; which would be the far-right, militant and expansionalist movement of the first world.
There was an instance where Zaakir Nayik was asked about sexual slavery in Islam, and he deflected by bringing up Guantanamo Bay – as a counter-example of the injustices committed against Muslims.
The point was to showcase the hypocrisy of condemning Islamism for doing what “the west” is doing, but what Islamists didn’t realise is that they also highlighted the western ideologies that Islamism has the most in common with.
An investigative documentary by the name of “The Power of Nightmares” specifically highlights the shared ideological concerns between neo-conservatism and Islamism within the 20th century.
On a socio-political spectrum, the western ideologies that happen to come closest to Islamism would be neo-conservativsm, imperialism and fascism – though they have major ideological differences as well, they all share a spot within the solid right to far-right camp.
Instead of the narrative of “Islam versus first worldism”, a more accurate perception of this conflict is that it represents in-fighting between far-right ideologies.
In fact, the US (“First Worldist”) conflict within the last century weren’t with Islamism, but primarily with secular-leaning and explicitly atheist nations; a common enemy shared with Islamists.
This ranges from the Baa’th parties of Syria and Iraq, to communist militas and governments across the Caribbeans (Cuba), Central America, East Asia (North Korea), South-east Asia (Vietnam) and the USSR.
Naturally, Islamists aren’t particularly eager to concede that the western movements with most similarities to Islamism happen to be the most Anti-Muslim movements themselves.
That would imply that they both largely share the same values while simultaneously viewing those values as unjust.
Hence, the very same arguments Islamists use to “justify” the killing of apostates could inadvertently be used to far-right westerners to “justify” the killing of Muslims (especially converts).
As the Islamist mentioned earlier also says:
“If someone in that community says “No, I’m not Muslim anymore”, it disrupts all of that cohesion, and it also makes the group less unified. There’s less in-group unity, and that makes it more vulnerable to existential threats.”
All it takes is to change a single term.
Which brings us to the next topic:
Sexual Slavery.
In this video, the same Islamist attempts to justify sexual slavery in Islamic conquests by stating the following:
“A good book I recommend on this is Lawrence Keeley’s “War before Civilization”.
Pre-modern war was primarily about man power. The side that has the largest army was usually going to win, and if you got too few people then that made you an easy target for a larger group to attack you and wipe you out.
This meant women were very valuable in pre-modern societies, because your society’s ability to reproduce and build up a population is limited by the number of fertile wombs you have.
All pre-modern civilizations took sex slaves. This was a necessary aspect of war. If you did not take concubines, you are at a major disadvantage militarily, because you either take concubines or your people get wiped off the face of the earth.
Given that stark reality, yes – taking concubines was not only morally justified, it was morally necessary.“
The Islamist makes this argument to justify the sexual slavery that occurred under Islam, while citing a book by the title of “War before Civilization” by Lawrence Keeley.
This in itself represents the first flaw in his argument.
The book doesn’t speak of “pre-modern civilizations” (as he states throughout his argument), but of “pre-civilization” itself.
That would be before Islam, and before Christianity and Judaism – for the matter.
It would also be before Buddhism, Hinduism, Zorostrianism, Ancient Egypt, the Assyrian Empire, the Akkadian Empire, written text, etc
Hence, it does very little to justify (let alone explain) something that occurred thousands of years after pre-civilization have already ended.
In fact, there is a far shorter time-frame between the present and the first Islamic conquest, in comparison to the massive time-frame between Islam and “pre-civilization”.
2. At no point does the book (which is accessible online) makes the assertion that captives were taken by smaller tribes as a military tactic towards population growth, nor does it strongly credit it for this outcome.
The closest the book comes to this point is in the following line:
“In some tribal cases, such growth was partially due to the practice of incorporating captive women and children into the tribe“
This suggests that growth was due to the additional population of captives within the tribe, rather than due to off-springs.
Needless to say, in an era where “65% of nonstate societies were continously at war”, and “87% were at war more than once a year” (page 33), a small tribe may already be wiped away by the time offsprings reach “warrior age” – which was estimated to be over 13-years-old in nonstate societies (Page 34).
There is no evidence that it was perceived as an investment for growth, considering that it would’ve been a poor investment.
However, even in the case of nation-states, there is little evidence that the intentions for sexual slavery was population growth – especially since the offsprings of female captives were often killed (page 85).
In addition to that, the biggest victims of infanticide were girls.
3. At best, this argument merely offers an explanation, rather than a justification.
An explanation and a justification are two different notions.
A justification implies that an act is free from injustices towards those it involves, whereas an explanation merely analyses the reasons and motives behind a given action.
An explanation could go through the reasons Mongol forces took Muslim women as concubines in Baghdad in 1258.
An explanation could go through the reasons Serpska forces took Muslims as concubines between 1992 and 1995.
However, an Islamist would likely agree that such explanations wouldn’t sufficiently justify either of those acts, since they still represent an act on injustice towards Muslim women.
Moreover, the Islamists’ justification for sexual slavery would probably hold more meaning to a Serpska warlord than it would to the Muslim women he subjugated.
This further highlights the close proximity between the values of Islamists and far-right westerners.
Other Jihadist talking points include:
1. The “necessity for traditional values”, which I addressed here.
2. The threat of “westernisation”, which I already addressed here.
Khaleeji Syndicate 