Isn't it interesting how the Islamic murder/suicide bombers who blast themselves and as many infidels as possible into the next world for Allah are always remembered for being such nice guys? Their families and friends couldn't see it coming. They were so loving, they had so much to live for. They were so normal. The Western media eat up these bite-sized eulogies like a familiar, tasty snack. We desperately need to be told that this diabolical madness is an aberration. And it's reassuring to be told that we can hit the snooze button one more time before we need to wake up.

Subsequent to last week's horrific jihad attacks in London, we began to hear from those who knew the young men that were identified as the fiends who murdered more than fifty innocent Londoners trying to get to work.

From South Africa's News 24:

• "He had a way with children and was well-loved."

From London's The Herald:

• "We are extremely shocked and find it hard to understand."
• "I just feel that something has gone terribly wrong for that guy to be involved because he is a really nice person."
• "It's not in his nature to do something like this, he's is the type of guy who would condemn things like that."

From the BBC:

• "It wasn't him. It must have been forces behind him."

Also from the BBC:

• "He was a good man, quiet."
• "He didn't seem to be an extremist. He was not one to talk about religion. He was generally a very nice bloke."
• "He was proud to be British. He had everything to live for. His parents were loving and supportive."
• "He was a very kind and calm person. He was respected by everyone."

And then one morning, these nice, calm, well-loved, and respectable young men, who have everything to live for, walk out the door and blow themselves and any kuffar (infidels) within their blast radius into a nightmare scene of bloody shreds, splintered bones, and shrapnel torn body parts, after yelling, "Allahu akbar!" (God is great) Why do they do it? Why do they calmly and deliberately kill scores of people, and themselves, in the name of the Religion of Peace™? And why do they appear, prima facie, to be so normal to the casual infidel observer?

In many instances, the most effective way to explain a perplexing phenomenon is by using Occam's razor. Named after the English Franciscan friar and philosopher, William of Ockham (in Surrey, England), this logical device dictates that when several seemingly valid theories are competing to explain a phenomenon or event, the complex ones should be cut away until the most simple remains. Occam's razor often works remarkably well in helping one to get to the truth. It dispenses with the elaborate, interesting, and psychologically/emotionally appealing explanations that we would like to be true, but which aren't. Such is the case with the conundrum of the murder/suicide bomber, or any other mujahid (holy warrior).

These mass murderers for Allah do what they do out of a firm conviction that a.) it is pleasing to Allah, and b.) it will gain them instant entrée into paradise with all its sensual rewards for the devout, noble shahid (martyr). When they live among us, waiting for that one day of idiotic destiny when they will depress the detonator's button or board the 747, the reason that they appear so normal is because they are normal. In their minds and hearts, they are engaged in the planning of an activity that is absolutely normal—honorable even. Therefore, they are untroubled and free of anxiety as they go about the rest of their lives, even in a society that ardently loathe.

This is not a simplistic dismissal of what makes the homicidal/suicidal holy warrior tick. These are bright young men who are most often from good families, have a high level of educational achievement, and come from a secure financial background. But they are also deadly serious about their religion.

In the West, many of us seem to subscribe to the misleading leftist stereotype of who the jihadi is. He (and disturbingly more often these days, she) is an impoverished, disenfranchised malcontent who has been forced, through privation and oppression (by America and/or Israel), into the last desperate act of offering up his body as a weapons platform for social justice. He is a noble, impassioned figure—possessed of imposing stature and a poised disposition. He has a somewhat scruffy appearance, wears a kaffiyeh on or around his head, and dresses in military attire, usually wielding a Kalashnikov and a Qur'an. Personally, I think a lot of jihad's Western useful idiots admire these vile thugs because they remind leftists of their favorite, romanticized caricature hero, Che Guevara.

This idealized notion of who the mujahideen are is condescending, intellectually lazy, and woefully wrong. Long established, divergent world cultures do not conform to Western conceptions and sensibilities, leftist or otherwise. They stand on their own, sharing with all other cultures the universal traits that unite us all (love, hate, affiliation, enmity, societal norms and rules, etc.), but they are still distinctly defined by the places and people who forged them. Although it doesn't square with the familiar noble savage/multicultural view of some in the West, it is normal for some people to rise up in a committed, resolved effort of devotion to their religion to kill en masse and destroy with impunity—irrespective of economic and geopolitical factors. Normal, compulsory, and time-honored.

These young terrorists elicit bewildered incredulity from their loved ones when they come from the West, but when they come from Muslim lands, they are venerated as heroes and role models. In the aftermath of their "martyrdom" operations, their relatives will receive congratulatory visitors and hand out sweets as everyone extolls the virtues of the deceased killer who is then presumably enjoying the charms of seventy-two doe-eyed houris and intermittent visits to Allah's all-you-can-eat divine buffet. Last year when Palestinian Arab mujahideen gunned down Israeli David Hatuel's pregnant wife and four little girls, it was publicly praised on PA radio as a "heroic act of martyrdom against the settler terrorists." Perfectly normal in a place where kids can buy Hamas trading cards depicting dead mujahideen.

Understandably, few of us here in the West want to consider, let alone accept, that this sort of hateful, depraved modus vivendi is in any way normative anywhere. It's unpleasant, uncomfortable, and revolting to think and talk about. But it is the norm in the dar al-Islam. It really is, and it's happening in many parts of the world right now, where jihad against the kuffar is in full swing. Islam is a politicoreligious ideology that has expansionism as an intrinsic principle of its doctrine, and when its borders aren't kept fixed from without, they are expanding from within. Regular readers at Clarity & Resolve understand that this is a widespread and universal phenomenon. It has been the norm since Muhammad's unholy terrorists rode out of the Hijaz fourteen centuries ago to conquer, kill, and destroy everything in their path—with the holy imprimatur of their angry deity. It's never stopped, really. It's just been slowed down from time to time throughout history (by the Crusades and the rise of the industrialized West, for example). The global jihad is currently experiencing an unprecedented revival.

The mujahideen are not coming after us where we live because we have oppressed them or taken advantage of their resources (their autocratic leaders have that racket cornered). They are acting upon the normative Muslim rage at any impediment to their faith's program of supremacist expansionism. They are only fulfilling their obligation to Allah, which is conquest of the world and subjugation of the kuffar in Allah's name. They are working to regain the khilafah (Islamic state) that they feel we robbed them of in 1924. It is the simple, mainstream doctrine found in Islam's unreformed, literally interpreted literature, and manifest in the hellacious jihad attacks worldwide against all infidels, be they Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, or otherwise.

• Narrated Ibn 'Umar: Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform a that, then they save their lives an property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah." —Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 2: Belief, Number 24
• He it is Who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it conqueror of all religion however much the infidels may be averse. —Qur'an, 61.9

Sure, he was a nice guy. He was good with the kids. He had so much going for him—so much to offer. That is all well and good, but

• It has been narrated on the authority of Anas b. Malik that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: Leaving (for Jihad) in the way of Allah in the morning or in the evening (will merit a reward) better than the world and all that is in it. —Sahih Muslim, Book 20: The Book on Government (Kitab Al-Imara), Number 4369
• Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, has ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah Alone or give Jizya (i.e. tribute); and our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says:-- "Whoever amongst us is killed (i.e. martyred), shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever amongst us remain alive, shall become your master." —Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 53: One-fifth of Booty to the Cause of Allah (Khumus) Number 386
• Narrated Abu Huraira:

  Allah's Apostle was asked, "What is the best deed?" He replied, "To believe in Allah and His Apostle (Muhammad). The questioner then asked, "What is the next (in goodness)? He replied, "To participate in Jihad (religious fighting) in Allah's Cause." —Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 2: Belief, Number 25
  

He was a normal, pious, and typical holy warrior fighting in Allah's cause, and the tiny minority of all Muslims™—i.e., one million (>.1%)—just like him are waiting to take his place on the bus to Allahland in the sky after he gets off.

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.