Tuesday, May 3, 2005
Koranic Verses are a Mental Drug for Jihadists [iv]
In a large article for the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, Ellian points out that terror has been connected to Islam since its origins. The article is translated in full.
"November. Netherlands is in fog. It is a cold November and on a [v]bicycle path a dead body, without remorse, is being inscribed with much love for death. Deeply from within the bicycle path, words were called out: "Don't do it, don't do it, mercy, mercy.' In the eyes of the scribe, in the spirit of a sacrificial festival, it was written: Labaik, Allahuma Labaik (At your service, oh Allah). The scribe had already been prepared for the begging of mercy: "There will be no mercy for the committers of injustice, only the sword will be raised against them. No discussion, no demonstrations, no marches, no petitions, only death shall separated Truth from the Lie."
Month long preparations, trainings, through prayer, fasting and the permanent recitation of the Koran, started to bear fruit: the scribe was surrounded by angels who have been pleading Allah for weeks and said: "O, our Master, most exalted, honor the plea of this scribe, since in this holiest month have You let the Koran, the most perfect book, come down to your laughing killer Mohammed Rasulu Allah." Allah looked at the bicycle path and thought about a few verses of the Surat An-Nissa. The operation was allowed to proceed. The angels descended to the bicycle path, singing: "They would love for you to become an unbeliever, just as they are; then you would be equal. So don't take any of them as companion as long as they do not drift unto Allah's way. If they turn away, grab them and kill them wherever you can find them."
The angels formed a shield around the scribe. The scribe was in a [trance], he didn't hear anything, he didn't see, he only felt the sacrificial flesh. The knife, flesh and blood. Together they sang: Labaik, Allahuma Labaik. The scribe was Mohammed, Mohammed was a tool. The Submission to the highest will had been accomplished. Only the verses about Shahid, the martyr, from Surat Al-Bakara had to be realised: "And don't say that those who are killed on Allah's path have been killed; they are alive, but you don't realise it."
While reciting, Mohammed prepared himself for his journey to the garderns of Truth, where according to Allah, there are companions with large telling eyes that are like well-kept pearls. These companions are Allah's houris who have been made to eternal virgins. The wise Satan told Mohammed: "O unlucky namesake of the prophet, whores are nevertheless whores." Suddenly Mohammed noticed that the angels had already departed. Everything was in vain. Allah broke his promise with Mohammed yet again. It was and remains a cold and merciless November day.[vi]
How must we understand this autumn of murder and loneliness? Omar Khayam (1048-?), a medieval precursor to Nietzsche, wrote poetry centuries ago about the misery of Mohammed and especially Mohammed-lovers:
Everything that there is, does not appear to be in the world
Imagination of everything that there isn't, is there in the world.
The Islamic ecstasy is not a phenomenon that was invented after the death of Mohammed. It started with the Koran. The way in which the Koran is read is called recitation. The irrational force of the Koran lies in recitation. In the repetition, without paying attention to the meaning, the Koran becomes a supernatural book. The Koranic verses are exceptionally suited to be recited loudly and musically on Jihadist battlefields. It promoted morale, because contrary to ordinary Arabic poetry, the Koranic verses are not without engagement. The Koranic verses claim an immediate realisation. And because a successful Jihad will lead to immediate material gain and political domination, the Koranic verses take on the function of mental drugs. With the Koranic verses Mohammed gave his Jihadists an effective drug that could briefly knock out the realities of the surrounding world. What happens if reality imposes itself? Then the terrifying verses about hell and damnation have to do their work.
During the various wars, many Koran reciters were killed, and this worried a Caliph, who therefore ordered the Koran to be assembled. The Koran became a book, but it is still a book for recitation.
The authenticity of the Koran is of course an open question. Amongst other things, the Koran is a book for the Jihad. Allah's only book is born from a will to political domination in the midst of wars and marauding. Hallucination, courage, hope and cruelty characterise a book that places political domination first, not just over a specific people, but over all peoples. This Koranic hallucination is usually very successful in combination with other factors. This way thousands of young men were prepared for martyrdom during the Iran-Iraq war with religious elegies and Koranic verses. The Koran also promises much to the Jihadists and Mohammed was smart enough to make them share the profits after every successful marauding (ghazu): wealth and women of the murdered enemy.
Has Mohammed B., the Jihadist marauder, murdered merely in a condition of Koranic hallucination, in hope of fulfilling his fantasies with the eternal houri? Does his crime have any roots in the tradition of Islam? Or is it far removed from the original Islamic tradition? If we are speaking here about tradition, then we have to examine the actions of the prophet Mohammed.
The prophet Mohammed ibn Abdollah, whose name we will shorten according to the legal tradition to Mohammed A, had one, to put it at its mildest, a very critical relationship with poets and mockers. There was once a poet called K'ab ibn Al-Ahraf. This poet lived in Medina where Mohammed A. had not yet consolidated all power, which is why he was neither capable nor qualified to kill him legally. This poet was also, like all other poets in the world, very cheeky. He wrote poetry about the Meccans who were killed by Mohammed A. during the Jihad. On one day Mohammed A. asked his friends: who will release me of Ka'b? This request was accepted by several volunteers: "O prophet, we will kill him for you." They tempted him to come outside and after a short walk they killed him as an enemy of Islam. He was murdered with a knife. According to Ibn Ishaak the terrorists had driven the knife so deeply into the body of the poet that it protruded from his backside. Mohammed A. committed many terrorist attacks on the enemies of Islam. Many thinkers and artists in Persia and in other Islamic countries were killed in more or less the same way, in the past 1500, on the basis of fatwas issued by spiritual leaders. I'll restrict myself to two names in Persia: the historian Kasrawi and the poet Mokhtari.
Mohammed B. has acted in agreement with this authentic tradition. The prophet Mohammed A. can be considered an example to Mohammed B., who slaughtered Theo van Gogh as the enemy of Allah. Thankfully there is still a great majority of Muslims that does not or barely lives in this tradition and does not want to imitate all aspects of Mohammed's life. This majority is still trapped in fear of hell and damnation and because of this, not quite capable of saying 'no' to terror and tyranny.
The revival of the traditional authentic Islam is always coupled with brutal acts of violence. In Iran I have seen with my own eyes how the supporters of Hezbollah attack dissident with knives and bayonets. It is a strange situation for me. I once fled the terror of political Islam. In the Middle East dissidents are stabbed in broad daylight, shot, in short, publicly executed, but I did not expect that here. The Netherlands offered people like me security and freedom. The Netherlands is unfortunately looking like a Middle Eastern country. This tragedy persecutes us as a curse.
I never wanted to write about this. I would have preferred to forget.
History teaches us that terror and Islamic culture are deeply related to each other. The fact that Islamic kings and caliphs are frequently killed, is also not new: the prophet Mohammed had fled from Mecca to Yathrib because a terror attack had been plotted against him; Umar, the second holy Caliph was killed by a frustrated Persian; Osthman de third holy Caliph is subsequently killed by a rival political group; Ali, the fourth Caliph, yet again, is killed by a more radical political sect during prayers in a mosque. Islam therefore starts with terrorist attacks against its opponents.
In the Philosophy of History, Hegel commented about Islam that what counted for Robespierre as la liberté et la terreur, was la religion et la terreur for Mohammedans. Also Alexis de Tocqueville opined that the French Revolution contained a satanic element. To point out the murderousness of the French Revolution, he compared this revolution with Islam, with its martyrs, apostles and warriors. My whole life had been determined by terror and religion and now it is tragical that I have become a citizen of a state, that is barely prepared to protect its own dissidents from terror. The essence of the state is the preservation of freedom and security. Or does the Dutch government want to gradually adjust their rule of law to the intolerant desires of Islam?
In these sad November days, I have to speak courage to myself and my family, that the Taliban who is aiming for us, the critical minds, will never win. The horizon of freedom, humanitas and human rights calls for us not to break our pens, not to bow our necks. Melancholically, I have once written:
(...)
under the low sun
runs in the pleated valleys of your face
an old dew
for the lost world
and the past friends
in the passing of these passed
the autumn rages
and the winter sleeps. "
________________________________
[i] "Mensenherfst" (2001) and "Verrijzenis van woorden" (1997), Vidya / Wolff publishers.
[ii] PhD Dissertation, written for the University of Tilburg: "An Inquiry into the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa", Wolf Legal Publishers, pp. 703.
[iii] "On Dutch and Islamic Cannibalism" Over Nederlands en Islamitisch Kannibalisme will be published in December of this year in the Netherlands by Meulenhoff Publishers.
[iv] "Koranverzen zijn een geestelijke drug voor de jihadisten" NRC Handelsblad 13 November 2004
[v] The 'inscribing' refers to the way in which Theo van Gogh was murdered. After shooting him and slitting his throat, Mohammed B. impaled a letter to van Gogh's body with two knives. Ellian quotes a fragment here from the letter, which he considers to be a declaration of jihad against the Netherlands.
The full letter, in Dutch, has been published by the Dutch Ministry of Justice and can be found at http://www.justitie.nl/Images/11_59707.pdf.
[vi] When fleeing the scene of the murder, Mohammed B was shot in the leg by the police and taken into custody. Apparently he expected to die a martyr in this operation, because he had a suicide note in his pocket.
"November. Netherlands is in fog. It is a cold November and on a [v]bicycle path a dead body, without remorse, is being inscribed with much love for death. Deeply from within the bicycle path, words were called out: "Don't do it, don't do it, mercy, mercy.' In the eyes of the scribe, in the spirit of a sacrificial festival, it was written: Labaik, Allahuma Labaik (At your service, oh Allah). The scribe had already been prepared for the begging of mercy: "There will be no mercy for the committers of injustice, only the sword will be raised against them. No discussion, no demonstrations, no marches, no petitions, only death shall separated Truth from the Lie."
Month long preparations, trainings, through prayer, fasting and the permanent recitation of the Koran, started to bear fruit: the scribe was surrounded by angels who have been pleading Allah for weeks and said: "O, our Master, most exalted, honor the plea of this scribe, since in this holiest month have You let the Koran, the most perfect book, come down to your laughing killer Mohammed Rasulu Allah." Allah looked at the bicycle path and thought about a few verses of the Surat An-Nissa. The operation was allowed to proceed. The angels descended to the bicycle path, singing: "They would love for you to become an unbeliever, just as they are; then you would be equal. So don't take any of them as companion as long as they do not drift unto Allah's way. If they turn away, grab them and kill them wherever you can find them."
The angels formed a shield around the scribe. The scribe was in a [trance], he didn't hear anything, he didn't see, he only felt the sacrificial flesh. The knife, flesh and blood. Together they sang: Labaik, Allahuma Labaik. The scribe was Mohammed, Mohammed was a tool. The Submission to the highest will had been accomplished. Only the verses about Shahid, the martyr, from Surat Al-Bakara had to be realised: "And don't say that those who are killed on Allah's path have been killed; they are alive, but you don't realise it."
While reciting, Mohammed prepared himself for his journey to the garderns of Truth, where according to Allah, there are companions with large telling eyes that are like well-kept pearls. These companions are Allah's houris who have been made to eternal virgins. The wise Satan told Mohammed: "O unlucky namesake of the prophet, whores are nevertheless whores." Suddenly Mohammed noticed that the angels had already departed. Everything was in vain. Allah broke his promise with Mohammed yet again. It was and remains a cold and merciless November day.[vi]
How must we understand this autumn of murder and loneliness? Omar Khayam (1048-?), a medieval precursor to Nietzsche, wrote poetry centuries ago about the misery of Mohammed and especially Mohammed-lovers:
Everything that there is, does not appear to be in the world
Imagination of everything that there isn't, is there in the world.
The Islamic ecstasy is not a phenomenon that was invented after the death of Mohammed. It started with the Koran. The way in which the Koran is read is called recitation. The irrational force of the Koran lies in recitation. In the repetition, without paying attention to the meaning, the Koran becomes a supernatural book. The Koranic verses are exceptionally suited to be recited loudly and musically on Jihadist battlefields. It promoted morale, because contrary to ordinary Arabic poetry, the Koranic verses are not without engagement. The Koranic verses claim an immediate realisation. And because a successful Jihad will lead to immediate material gain and political domination, the Koranic verses take on the function of mental drugs. With the Koranic verses Mohammed gave his Jihadists an effective drug that could briefly knock out the realities of the surrounding world. What happens if reality imposes itself? Then the terrifying verses about hell and damnation have to do their work.
During the various wars, many Koran reciters were killed, and this worried a Caliph, who therefore ordered the Koran to be assembled. The Koran became a book, but it is still a book for recitation.
The authenticity of the Koran is of course an open question. Amongst other things, the Koran is a book for the Jihad. Allah's only book is born from a will to political domination in the midst of wars and marauding. Hallucination, courage, hope and cruelty characterise a book that places political domination first, not just over a specific people, but over all peoples. This Koranic hallucination is usually very successful in combination with other factors. This way thousands of young men were prepared for martyrdom during the Iran-Iraq war with religious elegies and Koranic verses. The Koran also promises much to the Jihadists and Mohammed was smart enough to make them share the profits after every successful marauding (ghazu): wealth and women of the murdered enemy.
Has Mohammed B., the Jihadist marauder, murdered merely in a condition of Koranic hallucination, in hope of fulfilling his fantasies with the eternal houri? Does his crime have any roots in the tradition of Islam? Or is it far removed from the original Islamic tradition? If we are speaking here about tradition, then we have to examine the actions of the prophet Mohammed.
The prophet Mohammed ibn Abdollah, whose name we will shorten according to the legal tradition to Mohammed A, had one, to put it at its mildest, a very critical relationship with poets and mockers. There was once a poet called K'ab ibn Al-Ahraf. This poet lived in Medina where Mohammed A. had not yet consolidated all power, which is why he was neither capable nor qualified to kill him legally. This poet was also, like all other poets in the world, very cheeky. He wrote poetry about the Meccans who were killed by Mohammed A. during the Jihad. On one day Mohammed A. asked his friends: who will release me of Ka'b? This request was accepted by several volunteers: "O prophet, we will kill him for you." They tempted him to come outside and after a short walk they killed him as an enemy of Islam. He was murdered with a knife. According to Ibn Ishaak the terrorists had driven the knife so deeply into the body of the poet that it protruded from his backside. Mohammed A. committed many terrorist attacks on the enemies of Islam. Many thinkers and artists in Persia and in other Islamic countries were killed in more or less the same way, in the past 1500, on the basis of fatwas issued by spiritual leaders. I'll restrict myself to two names in Persia: the historian Kasrawi and the poet Mokhtari.
Mohammed B. has acted in agreement with this authentic tradition. The prophet Mohammed A. can be considered an example to Mohammed B., who slaughtered Theo van Gogh as the enemy of Allah. Thankfully there is still a great majority of Muslims that does not or barely lives in this tradition and does not want to imitate all aspects of Mohammed's life. This majority is still trapped in fear of hell and damnation and because of this, not quite capable of saying 'no' to terror and tyranny.
The revival of the traditional authentic Islam is always coupled with brutal acts of violence. In Iran I have seen with my own eyes how the supporters of Hezbollah attack dissident with knives and bayonets. It is a strange situation for me. I once fled the terror of political Islam. In the Middle East dissidents are stabbed in broad daylight, shot, in short, publicly executed, but I did not expect that here. The Netherlands offered people like me security and freedom. The Netherlands is unfortunately looking like a Middle Eastern country. This tragedy persecutes us as a curse.
I never wanted to write about this. I would have preferred to forget.
History teaches us that terror and Islamic culture are deeply related to each other. The fact that Islamic kings and caliphs are frequently killed, is also not new: the prophet Mohammed had fled from Mecca to Yathrib because a terror attack had been plotted against him; Umar, the second holy Caliph was killed by a frustrated Persian; Osthman de third holy Caliph is subsequently killed by a rival political group; Ali, the fourth Caliph, yet again, is killed by a more radical political sect during prayers in a mosque. Islam therefore starts with terrorist attacks against its opponents.
In the Philosophy of History, Hegel commented about Islam that what counted for Robespierre as la liberté et la terreur, was la religion et la terreur for Mohammedans. Also Alexis de Tocqueville opined that the French Revolution contained a satanic element. To point out the murderousness of the French Revolution, he compared this revolution with Islam, with its martyrs, apostles and warriors. My whole life had been determined by terror and religion and now it is tragical that I have become a citizen of a state, that is barely prepared to protect its own dissidents from terror. The essence of the state is the preservation of freedom and security. Or does the Dutch government want to gradually adjust their rule of law to the intolerant desires of Islam?
In these sad November days, I have to speak courage to myself and my family, that the Taliban who is aiming for us, the critical minds, will never win. The horizon of freedom, humanitas and human rights calls for us not to break our pens, not to bow our necks. Melancholically, I have once written:
(...)
under the low sun
runs in the pleated valleys of your face
an old dew
for the lost world
and the past friends
in the passing of these passed
the autumn rages
and the winter sleeps. "
________________________________
[i] "Mensenherfst" (2001) and "Verrijzenis van woorden" (1997), Vidya / Wolff publishers.
[ii] PhD Dissertation, written for the University of Tilburg: "An Inquiry into the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa", Wolf Legal Publishers, pp. 703.
[iii] "On Dutch and Islamic Cannibalism" Over Nederlands en Islamitisch Kannibalisme will be published in December of this year in the Netherlands by Meulenhoff Publishers.
[iv] "Koranverzen zijn een geestelijke drug voor de jihadisten" NRC Handelsblad 13 November 2004
[v] The 'inscribing' refers to the way in which Theo van Gogh was murdered. After shooting him and slitting his throat, Mohammed B. impaled a letter to van Gogh's body with two knives. Ellian quotes a fragment here from the letter, which he considers to be a declaration of jihad against the Netherlands.
The full letter, in Dutch, has been published by the Dutch Ministry of Justice and can be found at http://www.justitie.nl/Images/11_59707.pdf
[vi] When fleeing the scene of the murder, Mohammed B was shot in the leg by the police and taken into custody. Apparently he expected to die a martyr in this operation, because he had a suicide note in his pocket.
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