by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n In a blog entry for\u00a0Islamist Watch<\/a>, David J. Rusin shows how the word \u201cjihad\u201d continues to be euphemized in the West. Despite Islamic law\u2019s unequivocal portrayal of it as a military endeavor to empower Islam, jihad is still being peddled as \u201cnothing more than a student laboring to pass algebra, a mom driving her kids to soccer practice, or, in the words of the Cambridge study, a civic-minded person engaged in \u2018lobbying, activism, and writing\u2019 \u2014 a community organizer of sorts.\u201d Rusin concludes by observing: \u201cWhy Islamists peddle such specious definitions should be clear. More baffling and disturbing is why they gain traction among so many Westerners.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, therein lies the irony: Islamist perfidy is only to be expected; Western naivety, on the other hand, which, if anything, should have begun to dissipate in our post-9\/11 world, has burgeoned to the point of nearly making the former unnecessary. For while there is no doubt that Islamists (and their misguided Western cronies) distort the meaning of jihad, increasingly, even when the true meaning is in plain sight, America\u2019s leaders and media still fail to discern it. In other words, apathy \u2014 or willful blindness \u2014 regarding jihad has become so deep-seated in the West that Islamists need no longer actively dissemble.<\/p>\n Consider: When President Barack Hussein Obama\u00a0addressed the Islamic world<\/a>from Cairo on June 4, 2009, he said: \u201cAs the Holy Koran tells us, \u2018Be conscious of God and speak always the truth\u2019 [Sura 9:119]. That is what I will try to do \u2014 to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us.\u201d Let us for the moment put aside the fact that Sura 9, from whence Obama quotes, contains the most violent and intolerant exhortations in all the Koran (which is saying something). The problem here is that the original Arabic text of Sura 9:119 says absolutely nothing about \u201cspeaking the truth.\u201d The word \u201cspeaking\u201d is nowhere in the text, and \u201ctruth,\u201d as an abstract, is a wrong translation forsadiqin<\/em>, which refers to people. The verse most literally translates as \u201cfear Allah and be with the truthful.\u201d In other words, Muslims should stand firm with fellow Muslims (\u201ctruthful\u201d serving as a Koranic epithet for \u201cMuslims\u201d the same way \u201cbelievers\u201d often does). It is, as ever, a call for divisiveness \u2014 of Muslims (the \u201ctruthful\u201d) versus infidels (the \u201cfalse\u201d).<\/p>\n Had Obama or his Mideast advisors and speechwriters simply bothered to read this verse in context \u2014 verse 9:111, a jihadi all-time favorite, looms just above, promising believers paradise in exchange for their killing and being killed \u2014 or if they had bothered consulting mainstream Muslim exegeses, they might have known that this verse is part of a Koranic segment that deals exclusively with fighting infidels: Muhammad and several Muslims were preparing to invade Byzantine territory. Some Muslims wanted to stay behind. It was then that Allah\/Muhammad threatened them with this verse to \u201cfear Allah and be with the truthful\u201d (i.e., join ranks with your fellow Muslims on the warpath). Sentences later, this exhortation culminates in one of the most famous calls to violence in all the Koran, regularly evoked by modern-day jihadis: \u201cO you who believe, fight those infidels who dwell around you, and let them find harshness in you!\u201d [9:123].<\/p>\n Incidentally, the infidels mentioned here are the Christians of Byzantium (or in Arabic, al-Rum, \u201cthe Romans\u201d). That modern-day jihadis, such as\u00a0Osama bin Laden<\/a>, often liken the United States to Byzantium, which for long thwarted the caliphate\u2019s expansionist designs into Christendom, makes Obama\u2019s choice of verse \u2014 \u201cbe[ing] with the truthful\u201d \u2014 further ironic.<\/p>\n Speaking of infidels and irony, here is a more recent, a more comical, anecdote: On September 11, 2009, NPR ran a story called \u201cFor NYC Muslims, a New Kind of Police Attention<\/a>,\u201d which tells of how \u201cthe NYPD hosts an annual Ramadan program, during which the police get to know members of the Muslim community and Muslims are free to speak their minds.\u201d Lest the theme of this story eludes you, words such as \u201coutreach,\u201d \u201cdiversity,\u201d and \u201cbuilding bridges\u201d predominate.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the problem (first brought to my attention by the\u00a0Washington Times<\/em>\u2019Diana West<\/a>): In\u00a0the audio<\/a>\u00a0version of this report (around 0:25-0:50), the NPR narrator says that \u201cthere was not an empty seat to be had at the NYPD\u2019s auditorium at One Police Plaza. NYPD brass, Muslim clerics, and community members all stood and listened to the cadences of the call to prayer from the NYPD\u2019s imam,\u201d Khalid Latif. While this is being said, you can hear part of the imam\u2019s Arabic recitation from the Koran in the background.<\/p>\n The narrator\u2019s enthusiastic talk of NYPD brass standing in awe of the \u201ccadences of the call\u201d makes it difficult to discern exactly which verse is being recited. Only the last few words \u2014\u00a0qawm al-kaffirin<\/em>, \u201cnation of infidels\u201d \u2014 are crystal clear, raising red flags. Thanks to my trusty Arabic Koranic concordance, I have placed this phrase as part of Koran 2:286, which supplicates Allah \u201cto make us [Muslims] victorious over the nation of infidels.\u201d Bear in mind that, from an Islamist point of view, the United States is the \u201cnation of infidels\u201d par excellence.<\/p>\n And there it is: From an American president who publicly defines his mission by quoting a jihadi-related verse, to American-Muslim leaders who publicly pray for the subjugation of non-Muslims (in the middle of an NYPD auditorium, no less), it is clear that the ultimate threat comes more from Western carelessness and indifference \u2014 in a word, naivety \u2014 than it does from active Islamist machinations. In short, Islamists peddling misleading interpretations for the word \u201cjihad\u201d is but the very tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n