The "99 Names of Allah" vs The al Qaeda Apostasy
Author: Jim Guirard -- TrueSpeak Institute
Source:Word Warrior Lists -- August 16, 2006
Al Qaeda propaganda, enormously enhanced by a largely anti-American "Western" media and embraced by radical elements of the "Arab Street,", continues to paint a false picture of America as attacking Islam, as desecrating the Quran and as insulting the Prophet.
Although patently untrue, these constantly repeated charges provide much undue credance to Osama bin Laden's incessant branding of America as "The Great Satan," when the de facto satanic force and chief enemy of Islam is actually al Qaeda itself.
In face of this pseudo-Islamic deception in the seductive language of so-called "Jihadi martyrdom," it is essential that what remains of authentic, Qur'anic Islam take major steps to unmask and to reject this monumental scam and to reassert its authoritative voice as to exactly what Islam is and is not.
To prevent murderous bin Ladenism from redefining Islam in its own apostate image, it is high time that various Ulema (groups of truly faithful scholars, jurists and clerics) begin asserting the clearly un-Islamic nature of al Qaeda's hate-filled and violent "Jihad Against America and the West" -- whose proper name in Islam is Hirabah (pronounced hee-RAH-bah and meaning Unholy War and forbidden "war against society"). It is what we today call crimes against humanity.
The need now is for these truly "peaceful, compassionate, merciful and just" Defenders of the Faith -- which are four sacred words, among 95 others, by which Allah defines Himself in the Quran -- to devise some novel Islamic frame of reference that goes far beyond occasional fatwas and resolutions in condemning the plainly khawarij (outside the religion) al Qaeda mufsidoon (evildoers, corruptors, mortal sinners) as the real enemies of Islam.
Only then will the "main enemy" designation be shifted by Quranic Islam itself to where it truly belongs -- onto the Al Qaeda infection that dwells and spreads like a cancer within the Umma, rather than onto Abrahamic America or Christianity or the West -- or onto such hyped up distraction as a few insulting European cartoonists.
In this regard, Islamic scholars and jurists the world over might turn to the highly revered "99 Names of Allah" by which the Holy Quran defines Allah -- and to find for each of these holy and blessed names the Islamic antonym which best describes the hateful, sinful and even satanic character of the mufsidoon al Qaeda and like-minded terrorists who are busy bringing such discredit and distrust on the Prophet and on Allah Himself.
Some of these more obvious comparisons -- which would quite clearly identify the al Qaeda terrorists not as abdul-Allah (Servants of Allah) but as abd' al-Shaitan (Servants of Satan), instead -- might be the following dozen examples:
| Allah, The Compassionate versus | al Qaeda, The Heartless |
| Allah, The Peace versus | al Qaeda, The Warmongers |
| Allah, The Merciful versus | al Qaeda, The Merciless |
| Allah, The Munificent versus | al Qaeda, The Selfish |
| Allah, The Just versus | al Qaeda, The Unjust |
| Allah, The Restrainer versus | al Qaeda, The Transgressors |
| Allah, The Forgiver versus | al Qaeda, The Unforgiving |
| Allah, The Loving versus | al Qaeda, The Haters |
| Allah, The Giver of Life versus | al Qaeda, The Assassins |
| Allah, The Acceptor of Repentance versus | al Qaeda, The Unrepentant |
| Allah, The Exalter versus | al Qaeda, The Arrogant |
| Allah, The Light versus | al Qaeda, The Darkness |
If just one of the major Ulema were to undertake this unprecedented 99-part comparison, many other faithful scholars and jurists of authentic Islam would join in this truth-in-Islam initiative -- or would organize similar and cooperative truth-in-Islam searches of their own for the most appropriate antonyms possible.
Imagine, for instance, overlapping projects by the North American Fiqh Council, the Al Azar University scholars in Egypt, the distinguished Ulema of the "Amman Declaration" in Jordan, the Council of Senior Saudi Clerics in Saudi Arabia, the Fiqh Council of Great Britain and other such bodies worldwide.
With maximum Quranic precision, and with the prospect of eventual consensus via ijtihad, this unique consultative exercise will "draw a picture" -- not on paper but in the minds, hearts and souls of all Muslims -- which reminds the world in ultimate Quranic detail exactly who Allah is and who, in stark contrast, the AQ-style sinners, usurpers and abd'al-Shaitan transgressors really are.
Based on these findings, those faithful Muslims worldwide who care deeply about their beloved religion would have the word-by-word Quranic rationale by which to rise up in anger against those arrogant Pretenders of the Faith who are ruthlessly attacking and soiling the divine image -- the 99-part mosaic -- which Allah long ago (through the voice of the Angel Gabriel) painted of himself in the blessed and poetic words of the Quran.
Finally, at the level of the individual human soul, I have been intrigued by the fact that certain Muslim American friends whose devotion to Islam I have known and respected have become increasingly uncomfortable about how their and their friends' own relative passivity toward al Qaeda's vicious assault not only on America or even on "institutional Islam" but now on Allah's own blessed self identity, as well, might endanger their own eternal fates on Judgement Day.
It is then that an unalterably Just and personal Allah might well condemn them to eternal damnation for so passively (and even so cowardly) having allowed such a hate-driven apostasy as bin Ladenism to drag His Blessed Islam of peace, mercy, compassion and justice into Darkness -- and to distort it into nothing but a hyena-like killing machine of all Christians, all Jews and all Muslims who happen to disagree.
JIM GUIRARD -- TrueSpeak Institute 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com