The So-Called "Friends of Jerusalem" Are Friends of Neither Egypt, Nor of Islam, Nor of International Law, Nor of Peace

Like the global outlaws, called Al-Qaeda, and their franchises using Islam as a cover for their crimes against humanity, the "Friends of Jerusalem" have unfurled in Egypt a black flag.  They call it the flag of "jihad" -a term in Islam which is globally misunderstood.  The "FOJ," to use initials in reference to that cabal, openly brag about committing numerous heinous crimes committed recently all over Egypt.  They are gleeful about the mayhem they are perpetrating in the name of God.

FOJ now admits to attempting to assassinate Egypt's Minister of Interior; killing army and police personnel in Sinai; burning down Coptic (Christian) churches and private businesses; paralyzing mass transit whether by rail to upper Egypt or by cars and buses in urban areas.  Further they promise more of the same, because they believe that this is their express way to paradise.  Only an Islamic regime, in their image, can be legitimate.  Thus, to them and to their allies in the Muslim Brotherhood, a country which is not ruled by their own fossilized interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, is a country to be conquered, a body politic to be subdued, a rulership to be delegitimized.

Judging by an analysis of the connotations of that term, their ideological resort to jihad is totally idiotic.  The Friends of Jerusalem, acting out of total ignorance of what jihad means, do not comprehend that, legally, jihad is reserved for the defense of the homeland against foreign occupation and external aggression.

In that jurisprudential context, it is a duty.  But, guided by Al-Qaeda's principles, the FOJ extends the notion of jihad to activities categorically prohibited under Sharia.  Islamic Law prohibits the coerced propagation of any faith, including Islam; it disavows Al-Qaeda's presumptions about rescuing the West from its "ignorance" (jahiliah); it totally negates the terroristic attempts to call non-Muslims "infidels."

Islamic Law does not permit any human being to evaluate the faith of another human being.  Why? Because Islam insists on the privacy and directness of relationships between man/woman and their Creator.  In effect, Sharia tells any intermediary between the human being and the Creator "Butt Out!!"

We have seen the catastrophic consequences of 9/11.  How can the wilful and criminal attacks on 3000 civilians in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania be considered justifiable?  Those martyred victims did nothing offensive to merit that horrible fate.  They, including hundreds of Muslims, did nothing except go on that fateful morning to earn their livelihood.

The jihad of the Friends of Jerusalem and like criminally-minded organizations had the disastrous effect of instilling hostility between the States so affected and mainstream Islam.  The primary issue here is confusing the concept of jihad and the concept of combat (Qital).  Jihad is a non-changing legal concept of self-defense, guaranteed by natural law, customary law and conventional law.  By contrast, combat (Qital) is a transitory event which arises at times out of the exigencies of the necessities an organized State.  Only the State, not non-state actors such as FOJ, has the monopoly of resorting to arms.

Even the Prophet Muhammad, while in Mecca at the beginning of his mission, together with his companions, waged for 13 years "peaceful jihad" against his tormentors.  Their jihad consisted of patience, endurance, advice, and ultimately immigration (Hijrah) to Medina.  Even in Medina, which marked the beginning of the formation of the Islamic community (in Islam "community" and "State" are two different things),  Muhammad resorted to combat (Qital) but only in self-defense.

In Islam, there is no aggressive war, and war is both defensive and proportional.  Alas, these are values lost on the criminal gangs of Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrab), the Nusra and the Friends of Jerusalem.  The long-term danger of such criminal gangs, which prey on the ignorance of the illiterate masses of what Islam stands for, is this: the adverse effects on the freedom of belief held by non-Muslims, and the propelling of Muslims into fanaticism, including suicide (the destruction of self -totally prohibited under Sharia).

The great Egyptian poet, Ahmed Shawki, nicknamed "The Prince of Poets" summed up the difference between jihad and Qital in one famous verse:

"War is not everday's vehicle,

and blood is not to be sanctified at every episode" (my translation from the classical Arabic).

That exquisite verse justifies in full measure the anti-colonial struggle in Libya under the Sanusis against Italian occupation; in Algeria under Abdel-Qader against French colonialism; in Morocco under Abdel-Kareem Al-Khattabi also against French occupation; in the Sudan under the Mahdi against Anglo-Egyptian suppression of national and tribal aspirations; and in Egypt under the leadership of the Scholars of Al-Azhar against Napoleon.  This is a partial list of instances of where jihad is justifiable under Islamic Law which clearly militates against unjust authority whether external or internal.

The advocacy of the Friends of Jerusalem is fueled not only by common mass ignorance.  It is backed up by books like that by an Egyptian by the name of Magdy Ahmed Hassanain.  In historically cosmopolitan Egypt (nicknamed "The World's Mother"), religious fanaticism is heading toward one final destination called "Station Failure."

In his book, published in Arabic in Cairo in 2003, under the provocative title of "Jihad: The Nation's Vocation," Magdy Ahmed Hassanain, in 383 pages, totally upends the legal interpretation of jihad.  In its egregious assumptions and fanciful conclusions, Hassanain's writing evokes the spirit of "Mein Kampf" (in German: My Struggle), authored by Hitler in the 1930's, and read by me in Arabic in the 1940s.  I have little doubt that Hassanain's advocacy shall lead to the same cataclysmic failures produced by Naziism on the world stage.

As head of the "New Labor Party," Magdy Ahmed Hassanain advocates in his newspaper "Al-Shaab Al-Jadeed" (The New People), a unique compromise with the present secular transitional government of Egypt.  That is total surrender to the Islamists!!  Thus he calls for the immediate arrest and execution of Field Marshall El-Sisi, the Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister (who, at the urging of 35 million Egyptians led the unseating of the Islamist regime of Morsi.)

Calling El-Sisi "a pimp," he forthes at the mouth when he yells across the pages of his rag that "without El-Sisi's immediate arrest, summary trial and execution, Egyptian society shall see no peace."  Now Hassanain, this champion of false jihad and permanent war against all non-Muslims, is the subject of a subpoena issued against him by the General Prosecutor investigating Hassanain's out of sight accusations against Egypt's Military Intelligence.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel which secular Egypt is successfully traversing at present in spite of "The Friends of Jerusalem," Hassanain, and other advocates of endless conflict for no rational end.