Confronting the Takfiri Culture

For the second time since the Amman bombings, hundreds of clan members of the Bani Hassan tribe, which Zarqawi can trace his roots to, have disowned him publically in a letter printed in the Jordanian newspapers bearing 370 signatures which I’m guessing is all the papers would allow them to print. This was done again in response to a message Zarqawi sent from Iraq which condemned his excommunication from the clan saying:

“Either the enemy of God forced you to take this step … or you agreed and did it voluntarily,” the group said in a Web statement. “Enemy of God” was a reference to King Abdullah.

“If the first case, then you have an excuse. In the latter case, then you can only make your excuses before God Almighty,” said the statement, posted Monday on an Islamic Web forum and signed by al-Qaeda in Iraq’s spokesman, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi.

If you do a search of the word “takfiri” in some of the main Internet news sources you might get Jordan popping up in the overwhelming majority of results. What most of these articles will refer to is HM King Abdullah’s recent decleration of war on the “Takfiri Culture”. Though little people know what this relates to, or just what exactly is this culture and does it include.

The Takfiris have deep roots in Islamic fundementalism or extremism but out rank the worst of the worst, including yes, the wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. What they seek to establish is far worse than anything even the Taliban could have dreamt of. Coming from the word takfeer which means to “excommunicate” or to be more literal: to declare one as an infidel or a non-muslim.

While the Quran preaches a level of co-existance with Christians and Jews (people of the book) and strictly forbids the forcing of the Islamic religion on anyone, the Takfiris seek the death of all these people and forcing of religion on all.

What is worse is that they also seek the death of any Muslim who does not believe in their own brand of twisted Islam. Hence they have no hesitation in calling fellow Muslims “apostates” in other words accusing them of “takfeer” and labeling them as “kafers” or infidels.

To most people who are not Muslims or who are unfamiliar with the Islamic faith, this may not be such a big deal, but in the Islamic community and religion there is nothing worse, no sin darker than being declared an apostate.

In other words while the Takfiri culture has become the worst enemy of the non-Muslim world which it seeks to destroy it has also become the greatest enemy of the Muslim world as well. While many might see this new battle which the King wishes to commit to as an attempt to fight a culture which seeks to dethrone him, it is actually in essence a culture which is much much more dangerous to the Muslim populations. On a scale that includes America’s imperialistic ventures in the Middle East, Israel’s Occupation of Palestine, America’s occupation of Iraq, death in Palestine, death in Iraq, Cruel reigns of some leaders throughout the region, lack of freedoms and lack of democracy with an abundance of censorship and domestic oppression…the Takfiri culture is much worse than all of these put together.

Takfeer is a complex subject in Islam and is never ever taken lightly as it comes with a maximum punishment of death but to Muslims a much worse punishment in the hereafter. This is the reason why most religious scholars or Ulama will avoid coming out against certain Muslims and calling them Kufar without support of general consensus. This label is not for popular mass consumption. No scholar will tread those waters just to be recognised in the media as someone who “came out against terror” and risk having to deal with the consequences in the hereafter.

Recently in an Islamic conference convened by His Majesty King Abdullah this past summer, scholars of the major schools came together and “endorsed religious edicts (fatwas) forbidding the declaration of any Muslim an apostate (takfir) and limiting the issuance of religious edicts to qualified Muslim clerics in the eight schools of Islamic jurisprudence”

We have to also consider that it is in the nature of a person who belongs to this culture to easily describe a Muslim as a Kafer without hesitation, but for the moderate, knowledgable, ordinary and majority of Muslims, issuing such a call carries a heavier weight. You’ll notice that AlQueda in Iraq lead by Zarqawi has absolutly no problem in targetting Shi’a weddings, funerals, mosques or hospitals, because to them the Shi’a are not Muslims. Recently with the attacks in Amman as the focal point it has proven that Takfiris have no problem in seeing Sunni Muslims in the same light. While Zarqawi did say it was not his intention to kill Muslims at a wedding we have to consider the amount of indoctrination which goes into have a Takfiri terrorist and his wife stand in the midst of a wedding and calculate with some degree of awareness of their actions, where to position themselves to inflict the highest casualty rate possible. It was not like they tried to blow themselves up in a room where Mosad and CIA agents were playing poker and didnt realise there was a wedding next door. There was calculation, there was a lack of hesitation, and this requires a degree of indoctrination that can only be traced back to the Takfiri culture of “if they are Muslims who do not agree with us then they are Kuffar” (infidels).

Zarqawi has also asked for the King’s head which is another way of already labeling him as a Kafer and issuing his punishment in public despite the fact that the King belongs to the Hashemite tribe which has direct lineage to the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) himself!

I can only imagine the kind of world these people wish to establish and they are in Iraq right now trying to take advantage of the chaos to do just that. How far these people have strayed from the Quran and its teachings is just unbelievable. At times I wish I knew nothing about any of this because ignorance would be bliss. But the more I know about the intricate details of my religion and the more I learn about the ideology of these lunatics, the more I go insane with maddness. They are the black to Islam’s white.

I am proud the King has taken the first step which no Arab leader has dared to do and declared a war on these people. I am hoping to see a change in the educational institutions of the country where students (especially Muslims) can learn the difference between where they stand and where the likes of Zarqawi stand.