Part 14
By Abu Umair al-Afghani
Another goal the West had for ISIS was to discredit jihad and qital in the eyes of Muslims and the world.
Through ISIS, the West presented jihad as something that means, God forbid, terror, oppression, the killing of innocent people, and destruction. ISIS carried out acts that gave jihad a bad name in the minds of most ordinary Muslims and young people who did not know better.
Jihad (qital) is a sacred command and obligation from Allah (SWT), and the disbelievers and Westerners fear it deeply. It is the only legitimate means Muslims have to defend themselves. Muslims wage jihad to protect their honor and property, to defend their homeland against combatant disbelievers, to free themselves from oppression, and to defend the Islamic system.
Yes, killing innocent people is strictly forbidden in jihad. But in order to discredit this sacred divine obligation in the eyes of the world, Western powers used ISIS to do the following. ISIS killed thousands of innocent people, most of them Muslims, and called it jihad.
This at a time when burning a human being alive as punishment is explicitly forbidden. The Prophet (PBUH) said:
«لَا تُعَذِّبُوا بِعَذَابِ اللَّهِ»
“Do not punish with the punishment of Allah,” meaning fire. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Jihad wal-Siyar, Hadith 3016)
Yet ISIS burned a Jordanian pilot alive and filmed it. The whole world watched. And ISIS called that jihad.
The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) also forbade killing women and children during war. Abdullah ibn Umar (RA) narrated:
«نَهَى رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلی الله علیه وسلم عَنْ قَتْلِ النِّسَاءِ وَالصِّبْيَانِ»
“The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) forbade the killing of women and children.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3015; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1744)
ISIS deliberately killed thousands of women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan and called it jihad. It also destroyed thousands of religious centers, mosques, and madrasas, deliberately targeting them militarily, again under the name of jihad.
