IC. You said...." Yes, I do have a strong desire to defend Islam because Islam is a creation of God; and I am a Christian."...
According to most all organized religions God created all things. Correct?
And as you say God created islam so it stands to reason that god is ultimately responsible for creating all branches of islam. Correct?
Now it appears to me that all branches of islam indulge themselves in mass murder. Correct
So the question arises which islam is the right one?
Teachings of Muslim sect linked to Iraqi suicide bombings
Attacks on Shiite shrines reflect Wahabis' long war against 'false idols'
Nicholas Pelham, Financial Times
Saturday, March 20, 2004
sfgate.com
Baghdad -- Moments before the explosions at Baghdad's Kadhimiya shrine earlier this month, killing 58 people, a pilgrim, Abu Taysir, standing near the doors heard a voice shout: "You are polytheists, and you worship Hussein son of Ali like a god!"
For many Iraqi Shiites, the March 2 attack on their holiest shrines -- at least 143 people were killed in the twin bombings in Baghdad and Karbala --
provides the clearest evidence to date that the most militant form of Islam, known as Wahabism, is at work in Iraq.
"The suicide bombers are acting just like Ibn Abdel Wahab (the 18th century founder of the movement), who launched raids on Imam Hussein's shrine in Karbala and killed many Shiites," says Emir al Hellou, editor of al Qadissiya, an Iraqi daily newspaper. "His followers, Wahabis, consider the shrines are polytheistic."
The strict Wahabi interpretation of Islam swept out of the Arabian Peninsula 200 years ago and has since taken root in many parts of the Middle East, most notably in Saudi Arabia, where it is the state-supported doctrine.
It preaches against worship of "false idols," which, in its interpretation, include Sufism, Islamic mystics noted for saint worship and the Shiites, who revere the descendants of Ali, the prophet Mohammed's son-in- law.
Even before the U.S. campaign, anti-Shiite diatribes could be heard from many a Friday prayer pulpit from Mosul to Baghdad, warning that a successful U. S. invasion would result in Sunni submission to the Rafida or rejectionists, as Wahabis term Shiites. "If we do not resist the invaders, the Rafida will kill anyone called Omar (a Sunni name)," clamored a Baghdad preacher at the last Friday prayers before the outbreak of the 2003 war.
Traditional Sunni preachers in Iraq say their congregations are increasingly drawn to Wahabism. Of an adult Sunni male population of perhaps 20,000 in the mixed Sunni and Shiite town of Abu Ghaib, 6 miles from Baghdad, Sheikh Yasseen Zubaie, a Sunni cleric, estimates that as many as 4,000 now worship at Wahabi mosques.
Since the capture of Saddam Hussein, Iraq's insurgency has acquired an increasingly religious hue, issuing communiques and daubing walls with graffiti under the name of "Mohammed's army." This army appears to be a loose of coalition of cells bearing such religious titles as Jihadi Earthquake Brigades, Saladin Brigades and Al-Mutawakkilun (those who rely on God), aimed at restoring "the capital of the caliphate," Baghdad.
Another group operating further north, Ansar al-Sunna (Sunna, meaning "the tradition of the prophet Mohammed," is a term often associated with Wahabi doctrine) used the Internet to claim responsibility for two suicide bombings that killed more than 100 people in the main Kurdish city of Irbil. It has also distributed video CDs claiming responsibility for attacks on British, Spanish and Canadian intelligence officers, complete with their passports and identity cards.
One of five wills of suicide bombers read out in Ansar al Sunna's video warned "the brokers of the West" that jihad would continue "until we get back al-Aqsa (Mosque, in Jerusalem) and Andalusia (southern Spain)." Al-Aqsa mosque and Spain both figure prominently in the propaganda espoused by Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In January, Iraq's intelligence services uncovered a video CD circulating in Fallujah entitled "Hidaya al-Eid" ("The Holiday Gifts"), in which sheikhs bearing Saudi tribal names such as Al Ghamdi and speaking with Saudi accents boasted of their attacks on U.S. troops. |
