Status Updates From الجهاد والموت

“For Salafis, if there is a pact with the infidels, one can of course preach the word of God. One should avoid socializing with them, but one cannot convert them by force. ISIS magazines, on the other hand, make repeated statements that non-belief is punishable by death, and so the combat serves not only to protect the ‘ummah’, but well and truly to convert he whole world by force.”

“Radicals never refer explicitly to the colonial period. They reject or disregard all political and religious movements that have come before them. [...] As mentioned previously, almost none of them go back to their parents’ countries of origin to wage jihad [because they think they had lapsed], which would be the case if there had been a colonial genealogy.”

”While a group may be assigned a mission by an outside organization, it is never created by a larger organization. [...] The upshot of this is significant: radicalization precedes recruitment. [...] A group can move into action without an organization urging it to do so. This means that destroying outside organizations will not put an end to radicalization.”

“Those who perpetrate the attacks in Europe are not inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, or Libyans, or Afghans. They are not necessarily the poorest, the most humiliated, or the least integrated. The fact that 25 per cent of jihadis are converts shows that the link between radicals and their “people” is also in the realm of the imaginary, or at least - as I argue - an imaginary construct.”

”Muslim tradition, while it recognizes the merits of the martyr who dies in combat, does not prize those who strike out in pursuit of death, because it interferes with God’s will.”