Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Suicide Bombings and Islam： An Apologist's Guide

All Episodes

Previous Next

Dec. 21, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

20:53

Suicide Bombings and Islam： An Apologist's Guide

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Here's some numbers that people on the left are not going to like but are going to have to accept.
	In 2015, most terrorist attacks were committed by either Islamists or communists.
	This was mostly done by bombings or explosions with armed assault coming a close second.
	Out of 452 suicide attacks that were committed in 2015, 450 of them were committed by Muslim extremists.
	And in Muslim countries, support for suicide bombings in defense of Islam from its enemies is remarkably high.
	For example, in Jordan, Turkey and Egypt, 15, 18, and 24% of people said that it is often or sometimes justified to suicide bomb your enemies in defense of Islam.
	That's millions of people in just those three countries.
	If we take a map of the Muslim population of the earth and then overlay the suicide attacks worldwide for 2015 over it, unsurprisingly, almost all of them occur within the Islamic world.
	When 99.6% of suicide bombings are done by Muslims, I think you can call this an Islamic problem.
	And if it wasn't for a couple of overenthusiastic communists, this would be exclusively done by Muslims.
	So let's watch a useful idiot of the Young Turks try to explain to us how suicide bombings have nothing to do with Islam.
	After a soccer match earlier this weekend in Turkey, a twin suicide bombing took the lives of 38 people and injured more than 160 others.
	Officials believe the bombing was the work of the Kurdish terrorist group TAK, an offshoot of the PKK.
	For anyone who doesn't know, the PKK is the Kurdish Workers' Party.
	They're communists.
	And this is some of that communist terrorism that we mentioned in the very beginning of this video.
	This is the 19th terrorist incident in Turkey in 2016.
	In 2015 alone, suicide attacks around the world reportedly killed or injured more than 9,000 civilians.
	Most suicide bombings target Muslims rather than non-Muslims.
	And most suicide bombings, 99.6% of them are done by Muslims to other Muslims.
	So do you know what that means, Mr. Useful Idiot?
	It means that if the entire world converted to Islam, that would not reduce the number of religiously motivated terrorist attacks.
	You know, the ones done in the name of Islam with people screaming, Allahu Akbar, it would actually increase it.
	And you saying that Muslims are the primary victims of Islamic terror is, in your opinion, meant to be some kind of defense of Islam.
	I can't think of a more damning indictment and you've only just begun your video.
	Yet there's this widespread perception in the West that suicide bombings tend to be carried out by Muslims against non-Muslim targets and serve this religious purpose rooted deep within Islamic doctrine.
	Yeah, but that's only because there are so many terrorist attacks in the West against non-Muslims done by people screaming Allahu Akbar.
	There is a reason that people have this impression.
	But you're right.
	They're not taking into account all of the Muslim terror attacks against other Muslims.
	That should definitely be on the table.
	We should definitely talk about just how phenomenally dangerous Islam is.
	Suicide bombings have been around since the 18th century, but I want to talk about suicide bombings as a tool of modern terrorist warfare and how it became the archetype of Muslim violence.
	Because while popular culture depicts Muslims as trigger-happy suicide bombers, suicide has always been a cardinal sin in Islam.
	By contrast, martyrdom, or when Allah decides when you die in battle while protecting your country, is sanctioned in certain verses throughout the Quran.
	Jesus Christ, look at these mental gymnastics.
	Okay, yeah, suicide is a sin, but martyrdom is not.
	And if suicide bombing is considered a form of martyrdom, guess what happens to the sin that person accrues?
	That's right, it's wiped away, which is the purpose of martyrdom.
	The remission of sin.
	Why do you think they are promised 72 virgins and an eternal paradise in a garden?
	That's the fucking point.
	This is where the misinformation comes from because a frequently cited verse is the al-Baqarah verse.
	And say not of those who are killed in the way of Allah.
	They are dead, nay, they are living, but you perceive it not.
	One should defend the realm of Islam and Muslims against heretics and invaders.
	And to fulfill this duty, one should even sacrifice one's life.
	Honestly, I am amazed at how much you are willing to condemn Islam in your defense of Islam.
	I mean, your mental gymnastics are going to have to be Olympic level to be able to somehow make this not exist.
	I mention this distinction because despite what both Islam's fiercest critics and also the most fervent adherents say... I love it.
	Yes, the people who are most strongly opposed to Islam and the people most in favour of Islam both agree that there is a fundamentalist reading of Islam that validates suicide attacks.
	But go on then, Mr. Useful Idiot.
	You know more about jihad than the jihadis.
	Tell them how they're wrong.
	Tell them how they're reading their own Quran's wrong.
	I mean, they only grew up in these cultures.
	They only were immersed in this their entire lives.
	They only treat the Quran as the religious interpretation of the universe as dictated by God.
	I mean, what the fuck would they know about the Quran?
	There are no verses in the Quran that explicitly urge Muslims to take their own lives and many verses that describe suicide as a sin.
	Oh, check me, Islamists.
	You know what?
	You're doing it wrong.
	It never says you should kill yourself.
	It only says that if you happen to kill yourself and you happen to kill yourself in battle for Allah against the infidel, then you'll go to heaven and you'll get all these free fucking goodies.
	Your slate will be wiped clean and you'll set the right fucking hand of God as he tickles your asshole for all eternity.
	Listen, you bloody useful idiot.
	Yes, these are the rationales they use.
	What you're saying is, yes, suicide might be a sin and I'm sure it is, but when you die fighting the infidel, your sins are wiped clean.
	Why do you think the Saudi hijackers before 9-11 spent their time in bars and with prostitutes, getting drunk and fucking whores?
	Because they knew that this sin would be wiped away.
	And the connection between suicide bombings and militant Islamic ideology can be traced back to Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iran-Iraq war that raged during the 1980s.
	For the first time ever, Khomeini took this concept of self-sacrifice that was already prominent within Iranians' Shia interpretation of the Quran and extended it to taking one's life for the greater cause of promoting the Iranian revolution.
	So you've just said that Islamic suicide bombing was invented by a Muslim theologian.
	Okay, how is that nothing to do with Islam?
	For Khomeini specifically, that also included expanding Islam's role in the war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
	Yes, expanding the role of the religion in the war.
	To encourage people to do things that would result in their own deaths, but promising them a reward in the afterlife so that they would go ahead and do it.
	You can't have a reward in the afterlife if you say this is nothing to do with religion.
	I mean, the communists don't even think they're gonna get a reward in the afterlife.
	This is the difference between them and the Muslims, and probably why Islam is responsible for so many fucking suicide attacks.
	If you actually believe in this nonsense, then there isn't a good counter-argument.
	Khomeini picked young boys who were susceptible to indoctrination and marched them through minefields, using their bodies to clear paths for Iranian forces to walk through.
	You would give these children keys to symbolically represent that they would be unlocking the gates of heaven.
	Oh yeah, committing suicide in the cause of Islam is nothing to do with Islam.
	Even though the way you simply describe this coming into being is inextricably Islamic.
	You couldn't have this from another faith that was A pacifistic or B didn't have this kind of afterlife.
	This is something that is almost exclusively Islamic.
	And the numbers themselves appear to bear this out.
	And it makes perfect sense.
	Just a common sense reading of this.
	What happens?
	Well, we've got highly militant religion.
	And it says that if you die a martyr, you get all of this stuff in the afterlife.
	So blowing yourself up in battle against the infidel is not a sin.
	And if it was, it would just be remiss with the rest of your sins when God gives you your reward for being a martyr.
	This is your argument that you are making.
	I'm just making it more in-depth for you.
	This tactic shocked the world.
	And while many within the Islamic world were horrified, Syrian president at the time, Hafez el-Assad, who's actually the father of the current Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, saw an opportunity.
	He then expanded on the idea of using self-sacrifice not only as a means of defense, but also as an offensive weapon when he sent in Shiite suicide bombers behind the wheel of a bus packed with 2,000 pounds of explosives into a US Marine base in Lebanon.
	So more Muslim suicide bombers then.
	I mean using Muslims, Shiites in this case, to bomb American forces.
	How exactly is this meant to be a refutation of the idea that suicide bombing has anything to do with Islam?
	You seem to be making exactly the case.
	The Shiite militants Assad helped assemble eventually became what we know as the Hezbollah.
	Okay, a terrorist organization that uses suicide bombing.
	That's Islamic.
	I'll try and contain my surprise.
	Now suicide is a sin in Islam.
	I've mentioned this before.
	It's a sin in both of the other Abrahamic religions as well, Christianity and Judaism.
	But these new interpretations, combined with the near constant struggle against what was perceived as occupying forces, created this new reality within the fringes of the Islamic community that glorified suicide.
	And after Hamas's adoption of this radical interpretation, suicide bombing actually became a tactic employed by the Sunni as well as Shiite militants.
	Okay, let's sum this up then.
	A Shiite Muslim theologian invents the concept of suicide bombing.
	This spreads to other Shiites who use it successfully in their terrorist campaigns and this is then adopted by other sects of Islam because it appears to be permissible within the text that they're using.
	Even though suicide is a sin, martyrdom in battle cleanses you of your sins and you get an eternal reward from God.
	How is it you think this is not theologically supported by Islam?
	Because breaking news, there are millions of Muslims who think this is supported by the Quran.
	Who think this is something legitimate within Islam.
	And they think it because of their religion.
	And that's when we truly saw the devastating power of suicidal attacks.
	In the 90s, Hamas started targeting Israeli citizens by strapping explosives made from household items onto women and children and detonating them in public places.
	Now this was out of the norm for two reasons.
	Because the Shia interpretation of the Quran offers some leeway around self-harm to allow for self-sacrifice, but the Sunni interpretation strictly prohibits it.
	It prohibits prostitutes gambling and drink as well.
	And yet, people who do suicide bombings often indulge in that too.
	And they indulge in it because it doesn't matter whether it's prohibited.
	They are happy to commit the sin because the sin will be wiped away.
	Honestly, this is such a simple concept.
	It's just what martyrdom is.
	But honestly, I have to say, I am actually impressed with the level of research this guy has done, and I don't know whether he personally has done it.
	But someone at the Young Turks has done a surprisingly good level of research here, which is shocking because usually the Young Turks' level of research is a joke.
	Also, until this point, only occupying combatants were targeted, whereas now, civilians were being victimized.
	Now, Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf al-Qadavi offers a very unique justification for this.
	It's not suicide.
	It is martyrdom in the name of God.
	Islamic theologians and jurisprudents have debated this issue.
	Israeli women are not like women in our society because Israeli women are militarized.
	You, my friend, are doing a fantastic job of demolishing your own position.
	Yes, Muslim leaders and theologians had a big debate about this, and we all decided that, in fact, this was a form of martyrdom and was completely acceptable.
	And frankly, their women and children simply are enemy combatants because they personally are militarized.
	Anyone supporting attacks on the Muslim people are connected to them.
	So all of them are now potential targets.
	The idea you think that can't be connected to Islam is baffling to me.
	They seem to be using Islam expressly as the justification for what they're saying.
	Sunni extremists' adoption of suicide bombing that targeted civilians proved critical.
	Once attacks against civilians could be justified, the words in the Quran no longer meant anything.
	Dummy, they are using the words from the Quran to justify it.
	They think the Quran justifies suicide bombings against civilians.
	You consider and go, well, I mean, there is a verse in the Quran saying, look, just don't kill yourself.
	Don't just stab yourself in the gut for no reason.
	There's no need to just lessen the number of Muslims on earth, unless you're actually going to be killing the infidel, in which case you die a martyr and you become glorious and you'll be rewarded in heaven for all time.
	I mean, are you even listening to the words you're saying at this point?
	I don't even know if they meant anything to begin with.
	But according to a 2012 study published in the National Counterterrorism Center, Sunni extremists account for the greatest number of terrorist attacks and fatalities for the third consecutive year where more than 5,700 incidents were attributed to Sunni extremists, accounting for nearly 56% of attacks, but most importantly, 70% of all fatalities.
	Oh yeah, aren't they going to have egg on their faces when they watch your video and realize that some privileged dude from the West is actually the actual expert on Islam?
	And in fact, they and their sheiks and their ancient Islamic traditions were completely wrong.
	They don't know what they're talking about.
	My goodness, they're all going to be so relieved that you've come along with this real, true interpretation of the Quran.
	Now this perverted version of Islam.
	See, listen to that.
	This is actually the perverted version.
	You guys don't know what you're talking about.
	I, Mr. White Western dude, I have the true interpretation of Islam.
	You're all wrong.
	I know that you've got many, many, many Islamic theologians and scholars who do nothing with their lives but study the Quran, study the Hadiths and the Sunnah, and then they preach Islam to the people.
	I mean, they are all wrong.
	I can't believe you guys hadn't seen this.
	But you see this one line here?
	That proves you wrong.
	Don't worry about the other lines that actually justify it, and don't worry about all that.
	But this one line, that's the kicker.
	You need to get autistically stuck on this, or else you're going to read the rest of the text as validating suicide bombing.
	And, you know, Islam's a religion of peace, so you must be doing it wrong.
	Appends more than thousands of years of consensus interpretation of the Quran and is now being used to indoctrinate youths in countries crippled by war.
	In states where citizens have very little access to the basic amenities that many other governments provide.
	Young people with nowhere else to turn seek answers from these religious leaders.
	And those religious leaders are not shy about pointing the finger of blame at the Western occupying forces and justifying attacks against fellow Muslims as a means of advancing their own agendas.
	So why is it that studies find that wealthy, better educated Muslims are more likely to wage jihad?
	New research from the Queen Mary University of London has found youth, wealth, and being in full-time education to be risk factors associated with violent radicalization.
	Contrary to popular views, religious practice, health and social inequalities, discrimination and political engagement showed no links.
	Experts have argued that radicalization is a staged process that starts with pre-radicalization and moves through stages of self-identification, indoctrination, and finally jihadization.
	In this study, researchers believe a preventative intervention needs to interrupt the pre-radicalization phase, a period when individuals begin to develop sympathies for extremist ideas or terrorist movements without becoming directly involved.
	If you forgive the lay interpretation, I think that this is because Islam is at once a political ideology and a religion.
	And so they get into the political ideology of it, and the religious aspect of it justifies killing oneself for a reward in the afterlife.
	And so when these two things combine, you get the ideological justification to kill the non-believer in the name of this religion.
	This is very easy to understand if you have a shred of empathy for the people you are discussing.
	If you look at it from their position, right, I believe that this book is the literal word of God, and in this book are determinations and diktats to say what should happen temporally, politically, on the earth.
	And if I help fulfill these commands, I will receive an everlasting reward, especially if I die in the attempt.
	How is that not justified?
	While power-hungry religious clerics and other Islamic leaders have promoted suicide bombings as a justifiable tool of war, the majority of Muslims condemn it.
	That's not strictly true, my dude.
	It really depends where you are.
	For example, in Egypt, only 38% said it's never justified.
	In Jordan and Turkey, it's just over 50%.
	In Lebanon, it's less than half.
	In Palestine, it's less than half.
	In Bangladesh, it's less than half.
	It's a third.
	In Israel, it's less than half.
	So it really depends where you are.
	And there are indeed millions of Muslims who think it is a valid interpretation of the Quran.
	So let's not talk as if this is a settled issue, shall we?
	Just like the Quran does.
	No, it doesn't.
	That's why they're using the Quran as justification, you moron.
	And suicide bombings have always been used to achieve political ends and have nothing to do with waging holy war, no matter what the Western media, Islam's critics, or religious clerks will have you believe.
	Yes, it is.
	It's just not exclusive to Islam.
	Yes, Japanese kamikaze pilots believed in their emperor as if he was a divine figure and killed themselves for that instead.
	There are many reasons that some Zaini ideologue can commit suicide for the greater good of their cause, and thinking you're going to get rewarded in heaven is one of those things.
	Just because it's not exclusive to Islam does not mean it's not something also prescribed or permitted by Islam.
	The attack committed by the PKK on Turkish soil is merely the latest example.
	Religion is simply a recruitment tool targeting the undereducated, the vulnerable, and the disaffected.
	No, actually.
	As I've already shown, it's actually a method of indoctrinating and persuading those who are well educated and have the time and effort to look into the subject deeply, to find their own personal, more literal version, and find, oh my goodness, this actually does mean that I am actually obligated as a good Muslim to wage war against the unbeliever to protect Islam.
	That's why I think most educated jihadists end up doing it.
	I don't think they're just irrational madmen.
	In the same way that I'm sure the PKK's communist suicide bombers weren't irrational madmen either.
	They were just inculcated into a fucking ideology that permitted this against its enemies.

▲