Narrated 'Ikrima:

Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to 'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'"
—Sahih Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84: Dealing with Apostates, Number 57

The mujahideen in Afghanistan have once again demonstrated the characteristic peaceful tolerance that Islam is so well-known for.

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas have beheaded six Afghan policemen they kidnapped in southern Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Sunday, a day after the guerrillas claimed to have beheaded a missing U.S. commando.

The bodies and heads of the policemen were found dumped in an area of Deshu district of Helmand province near the border with Pakistan on Saturday, said Helmand's governor, Sher Mohammad Akhundzada.

"They were beheaded in a very brutal way," Akhundzada told Reuters adding government forces were scouring the area for suspected Taliban members who had carried out the executions.

In a very brutal, Islamic way.

According to the shari'ah, any Muslim who conspires or works with the enemies of Islam has committed irtitad (apostasy) and has become a murtad (apostate). Working for the government that replaced the Taliban theothugocracy is irtitad. The punishment for apostasy is death, although sometimes the actor is given the chance to return to Islam. The punishment is so severe because apostasy entails disbelief in Allah's religion, which is loathsome to Allah.

As we've seen before, the kuffar who are captured in jihad (including apostates) can expect their fate to follow one of four provisions laid out in the shari'ah. We find in The Ordinances of Government fiqh manual of shari'ah, by Sheikh Abu al-Mawardi:

As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them.

Number four is, of course, rare, but it is useful to the mujahideen to occasionally be seen as compassionate. It sort of takes the edge off the manical, burning hatred for God that even Islam's Western useful idiots get creeped out over.

Jihad is offensive (and defensive) armed warfare against the infidel with the express goal of expanding Islam's dominion. It is a mainsteam Islamic concept and terror is its most powerful weapon. All mujahideen are violent degenerates who are convinced that they are in commission of the righteous acts that God has bound them to. Never underestimate the faith of the Muslim. What we get caught up on is our difficulty in comprehending that Islamic terror is actually believed to be holy and virtuous by so much of the ummah (the Muslim community).

I use the words jihad, holy war, mujahideen, holy warriors and jihadi(s) more than terror, al-Qaeda, or Taliban. The latter terms tend to divorce the reality of jihad's brutal terror from the raw, unreformed Islamic faith which is its ideological basis. Westerners are not only largely misinformed about the full meaning of jihad, but they also seem to be attached to the idea that there are certain Muslim "teams" that are the "bad guys." This isn't to say that every Muslim is a jihadi. It's just that jihad is a crucial and integral part of Islamic dogma and culture. It is enshrined in God's message to mankind (the Qur'an), it is canonized throughout the life of Muhammad in the sunnah of the hadith and in his biography (Sirat Rasul Allah), it is thoroughly and meticulously codified in the shari'ah, and it is on display every day worldwide as Muslims fulfill their duty to strive in Allah's way.

In time, I anticipate that more Westerners willl begin to undertake the ponderous task of educating themselves about Islam and jihad through the same source material that Muslims use, thus becoming free from the apologetic rhetoric and ignorant agenda-driven multicultspeak, to draw their own conclusions. I certainly hope so. As the jihad strikes keep coming, so will the elaborate dissimulation techniques of Western Islamosupremacists, bolstered by the uninformed blather of their shrill leftist flunkies. Being able to combat the ideological jihad will grow increasingly important.

For today, though, we must admit that it's been a little while since we last heard about six cops being kidnapped and beheaded in the name of Jesus, YHWH, or Buddha.

Copyright ©2005 Patrick D. O'Brien: may not be copied, published, or otherwise used (except for quotes) without express permission of author. Originally posted at Clarity & Resolve.