by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Is it inconsistent for Muslim \u201choly warriors\u201d to engage in voyeuristic acts of lasciviousness? Because would-be jihadists and martyrs have been known to frequent strip bars \u2014 such as the 9\/11 hijackers and Major\u00a0Nidal Hasan<\/a>\u00a0[1], whose \u201clate-night jiggle-joint carousing stands at odds with the picture of a devout Muslim\u201d \u2014 many Americans have concluded that such men cannot be \u201ctrue\u201d Muslims, leading to the ubiquitous conviction that they are \u201chijacking Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, Islamists rely on several rationalizations \u2014 doctrines, even \u2014 that make \u201cjiggle-joint carousing\u201d consistent with Muslim piety. Considering that Islamic law permits sex slaves (Koran 4:3), who can be kept\u00a0topless<\/a>\u00a0[2] by their masters, and makes sex one of the highest paradisiacal rewards, this should come as no great surprise. However, to elaborate:<\/p>\n First, the doctrine of\u00a0taqiyya<\/em>\u00a0allows Muslims residing among infidels to deceive the latter by, among other things, behaving like infidels, e.g., frequenting strip bars: \u201cTaqiyya<\/a><\/em>\u00a0[3] [deception], even if committed without duress, does not lead to a state of infidelity \u2014 even if it leads to sin deserving of hellfire.\u201d<\/p>\n In conjunction, the overarching Muslim principle that\u00a0necessity makes that which is forbidden permissible<\/a>\u00a0[4] goes a long way in helping Islamists validate their libidinous desires: \u201cIt is \u2018necessary\u2019 for me to be at this strip club so infidels come to believe that I\u2019m just a regular bloke and not a soldier of Allah.\u201d Indeed, sometimes the mere gratification of sexual urges is deemed a \u201cnecessity\u201d that makes the forbidden permissible in Islam, as in this historical anecdote:<\/p>\n After conquering the Banu Mustaliq tribe in A.D. 628, Muhammad\u2019s men deemed it \u201cnecessary\u201d to rape their\u00a0captive women<\/a>\u00a0[5] (citing their wives\u2019 absence and untended desires). However, they also wanted to sell these women for a profit, which posed complications, as copulating with them risked impregnating them. So they rationalized that \u2018azl<\/em>\u00a0(coitus interruptus) would solve the problem and asked Muhammad. The prophet went one step further and offered acosmic rationalization<\/a>\u00a0[6], dismissing coitus interruptus as unnecessary, \u201cfor every soul that is to be born up to the Day of Resurrection will be born\u201d \u2014 that is, pullout or not, you cannot thwart Allah\u2019s will, so don\u2019t bother. (See\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0[7] and\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0[8] for more \u2018azl<\/em>\u00a0quotes.)<\/p>\n Muhammad also maintained that death in the jihad not only blots out all sins \u2014 including sexual ones, a la voyeurism \u2014 but it actually gratifies them:<\/p>\n The martyr is special to Allah. He is forgiven [of all sins] from the first drop of blood [that he sheds]. He sees his throne in paradise, where he will be adorned in ornaments of faith. He will wed the \u2018Aynhour [a.k.a. \u201cvoluptuous women<\/a>\u00a0[9]\u201d] and will not know the\u00a0torments of the grave<\/a>\u00a0[10], and safeguards against the greater terror [hell]. \u2026 And he will copulate with 72 \u2018Aynhour (see\u00a0The Al Qaeda Reader<\/a><\/em>\u00a0[11], p. 143).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In light of this, how \u201cun-Islamic\u201d can it be for Islamists to gawk at nude, gyrating, infidel women \u2014 especially prior to \u201cmartyring\u201d themselves in the jihad, which, as Muhammad said, blots out all their sins? This rationalization has precedents going back to the Middle Ages: Muslim groups like the Isma\u2018ilis created hidden \u201cgardens of delight\u201d swarming with voluptuous women, and, prior to sending their assassins on missions, would immerse them in these gardens, thereby giving these prototypical \u201csuicide attackers\u201d a foretaste of the sexual delights awaiting them in the afterlife. After this experience, the assassins would eagerly undertake any assignment simply to be \u201cmartyred\u201d and return to the gardens of delight, which were based on \u201cthe description Muhammad gave of his paradise\u201d (see Marco Polo\u2019s 13th-century\u00a0account<\/a>\u00a0[12]).<\/p>\n Nor has this intersection between sex and violence subsided in the modern era. The Arabic satellite program\u00a0Daring Question<\/a><\/em>\u00a0[13] recently aired various clips of young jihadists giddily singing about their forthcoming deaths and subsequent sexual escapades in heaven. After documenting various anecdotes indicative of Islamist obsession with sex, human rights activist Magdi Khalil concluded that \u201cabsolutely everything [jihad, suicide operations, etc.] revolves around sex in heaven,\u201d adding, \u201cif you look at the whole of Islamic history, you come up with two words: sex and violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Deceit, rationalizations, and a paradise that forgives the would-be martyr\u2019s every sin \u2014 indeed, that satiates his hedonistic urges with 72 voluptuous women (which may only be\u00a0raisins<\/a>\u00a0[14]) \u2014 all help demonstrate how Muslims can be observant and simultaneously frequent strip clubs.<\/p>\n Yet there is one final explanation that requires an\u00a0epistemic shift<\/a>\u00a0[15] to appreciate fully: in Islam, legalism trumps morality, resulting in what Westerners may deem irreconcilable behavior among Muslims, that is, \u201chypocrisy.\u201d As Daniel Pipes observed some three decades ago in his\u00a0In the Path of God<\/a><\/em>\u00a0[16]:<\/p>\n [There is] a basic contrast between the Christian and Islamic religions: the stress on ethics versus the stress on laws. Controls on sexual activity directly reflect this difference. The West restricts sex primarily by imbuing men and women with standards of morality. \u2026 Muslims, in contrast, depend on \u201cexternal precautionary safeguards\u201d [e.g., segregation, veiling] to restrain the sexes. \u2026 Rather than instill internalized ethical principles, Islam establishes physical boundaries to keep the sexes apart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In this context, the problem is not Muslims frequenting strip clubs, but misplaced Western projections that assume religious piety is always synonymous with personal morality \u2014 a notion especially alien to legalistic Islamists whose entire epistemology begins and ends with the literal words of seventh-century Muhammad and his Koran.<\/p>\n