How a British Jihadi thinks

The British newspaper, the Daily Mail, has a fascinating column by a man named Hassan Butt who claims to have been a British jihadi, part of the network that spawned the 7/7 bombers.

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda work for us.

More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

Remember that every time you hear people blaming British or American foreign policy as the cause of terrorism.

So, if the reasons don't lie with our foreign policy, and with doctors being the ones plotting the murder, they certainly are rooted in poverty, why do these people living in in the western world want to engage in terrorism? He goes on to explain how the reasons are based in radical Muslim ideology that calls for a war on the entire world.

How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion?

There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.

Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same.

For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).

Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world.

Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief.

In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

He calls for Muslim clerics to engage in a discussion of the role of a Muslim in the modern world. Perhaps we will soon see the day when Muslim clerics around the world actively engage the radicals, but I'm not holding my breath. We will have to figure out how to deal with these radicals among us until such a theological transformation takes place. We can't always depend on the terrorists' incompetence.

Also, I hope that Hassan Butt, whose picture accompanies his column, has sufficient security to protect him. I don't imagine that his former compatriots appreciate his rejection of the Jihadi Network.

UPDATE: I wonder if Prime Minister George Gordon Brown has read Butt's column. Gordon Brown sounds like he needs a tutorial on the British Jihadi Network.

Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word “Muslim” in ­connection with the ­terrorism crisis.

The Prime Minister has also instructed his team – including new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – that the phrase “war on ­terror” is to be dropped.

The shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more “consensual” tone than existed under Tony Blair.

Gee, the men arrested seem to have come from several different countries. What did they have in common? Most were doctors or in the medical profession and they are Muslim. I guess Gordon Brown doesn't worry about offending doctors, just Muslims. If he refuses to mention the role of Islam in these attacks, how does he think that his government can fully protect the country?

And if Gordon Brown has jumped aboard the John Edwards "war on terror is just a bumpersticker" campaign, what does he say is going on? Is his country not fighting against terrorism? Are they scaling back? Is it a battle, not a war? A struggle? Or has he decided that terrorists are just criminals and so don't deserve a special category?