Jihad at Fort Hood

In 1994 I watched a PBS documentary from Steven Emerson. The film, Jihad in America, featured hiddencamera footage of men publicly raising money for terrorism in U.S. hotel conference rooms. The men were speaking in Arabic. With the help of a staff of researchers Emerson followed the terrorists' monetary sources and monitored their attacks and plans. He obtained videotaped evidence of terrorist training camps and conferences, and tracked the international connections of American operatives to over a dozen organizations.

On September 11, 2001, Islamic hijackers intentionally crashed two airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others who worked in the buildings.
Jihad had come to America!

What is Jihad? - In the Arabic language the word “Jihad” literally means, "to strive,” and "to struggle” against disbelievers.

- For 1400 years, Muslims always understood the meaning of Jihad as Islamic Holy War. Islamic scholars, Mullahs, Imams, etc., all over the world will agree with this meaning of Jihad. - Technically, Jihad is war against non-Muslims (Jihad al-kuffar or Jihad against the disbeliever).

Early Islam was spread in the Arabian Peninsula solely by holy wars (Jihad). Islam was propagated as a religion by series of wars/battles. As many as 78 historic battles were fought by the Prophet Muhammad himself. And out of 78, only one (battle of ditch) was defensive war, and the rest were all offensive wars. The Prophet Mohammed and his successors initiated series of offensive wars against pagan Arabs, Jews, Christians, etc., to spread or to impose Islam by force as well as to seize the abundance (booty) of these lands.

After Prophet Muhammad gained enough might in his force while in Medina, the tradition was to send an invitation of Islam to various Arab Tribes or countries. First, an invitation to pagans to accept Islam, then war against those who refused to accept Islam. A typical invitation to the people of the book (Christians and Jews) was: “Embrace Islam, or pay the poll-tax (Ziziya), or fight to death.”

You see; the concept of an offensive war to spread the faith of Islam is a genuine Islamic concept. It is considered a Holy War (Jihad), for the sake of Allah. It is not a peaceful struggle, by any means.

In the Qur’an we can find hundreds of verses (Ayats) that dictate to fight holy wars (Jihad) against non-Muslims infidels. Here is one of them: Qur’an-(9:5): “When the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)”.

In the Muslim community, Jihad is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.

The majority of the Qur’an’s texts clearly identify Jihad as physical warfare, and the Muslim community always understood these texts to be taken literally. From the time of Muhammad onwards, Jihad as physical warfare in support of Islam, has always been a reality for every Muslim.


Hence, it comes as no surprise when terrorists use the Qur’an to justify their actions, as did Nidal Malik Hasan, the shooter in this week’s Fort Hood massacre, who said: "Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor," before he killed 13 people and wounded 30 others.

The father of one of the soldiers said he heard the shooter exclaim "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire, reported KSL-TV in Salt Lake City.

According to a doctor who was in a graduate program with him, Nidal Malik Hasan, regularly described the war on terror as "a war against Islam." - Islamic jihadists routinely characterize anti-terror efforts as part of a "war on Islam."

But of course, there is no war on terror, and there is no war on Islam.

There is just the Islamic Jihad against the U.S. and the West.