Bowing Our Necks To The Black Flag

From Syria ....

From Outside The Town Of Dabiq in Syria

To Iraq

To The Plains of Iraq

To Kenya

The Carnage Of A terror Attack

To Nigeria

Boko Haram Parading The Flag

To Tower Hamlets in London

Even Tower Hamlets Pays Homage ....

 
 ... the same black flag and the same Shahada message inscribed in white, displayed for the same reason. To strike terror in the enemies of the forthcoming world Caliphate that Islamists expect to come soon from a force that they consider to be not as a marauding band of terrorists but as brave defenders of Sunni Islam against the encroaching forces of Iran and its Shia allies. And its that goal that IS propaganda is aimed .. .... IS wants to project an image of itself as a group which has done away with nationalism. 

IS believes it is divinely commanded to adopt particularly savage tactics, because there is a verse of the Quran, which issues a command to "strike terror into [the hearts of] the enemies of Allah".  Its this easy literalism of the IS (and Boko Haram) approach to the Quran, which  explains why the group films and disseminates grisly videos and to such a wide audience amongst Muslims in Western Europe.

The basis of true Islamic identity, they want to argue, comes from the fraternity of faith ... the Ummah. For that reason the self-styled Caliphate of IS (and to a greater degree than its brothers in Algeria, Mali and Nigeria)  aspires to be a sort-of "United Nations of Islam", a melting pot for all Muslims - provided, of course, they are strictly Sunni Muslims, who subscribe completely to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's narrow construction of the faith. Any who don't are the wrong type of Muslim.

The Hadiths suggest that the Prophet Muhammad said that "the last hour will not come" until Muslims vanquish the Romans at "Dabiq or Al-A'maq" (which are both in the Syria-Turkey border region) on their way to conquer Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) .... now technically the Ottomans archived that aim but of course the last hour didn't come, so obviously the Turks are not the right sort of Muslims. 

Which is why the recent execution, of an American convert to Islam, was carried out in the IS controlled town of 'Dabiq' ... to both taunt the US, and send a subliminal message to all 'good' Muslims everywhere, for whom the significance of the town wouldn't fail to register. 

To put this threat into context, the BBC has reported that in just one month this year, Islamists have murdered over 5,000 people and maimed many many more ..... All the while the same black flag flutters over the conquered towns and villages in many areas in the Muslim world, and across the rest of the worlds video screens.

The Shape Of Things To Come?

With the turmoil in the Arab world apparently still flaring up, we may have to face a future where the Mullahs hold sway from Pakistan in central Asia to Morocco on the Atlantic .... a sort of 21st century version of the 8th century 'Caliphate'.


The "Caliphate" covered much the same lands
where the Mullahs could hold sway

This has been the dream of many Islamists since it collapsed .... Bin Ladin and others are still striving for its return and even to expand it in to Europe and beyond. At the moment its fair to say that the 'revolutions' could still produce a more 'democratic' Islamic world, but then again, a prudent man would look at what normally erupts from these deserts and consider the possibility that it will actually be more repressive.

As examples of what I mean, lets take two cases, Libya and Jordan .... one is fighting for its very existence as one state, and had laboured under what was generally acknowledged to be, a very corrupt and repressive regime under Gaddafi, while the other is generally reckoned to be governed by a benign (for the Arab world) centralised monarchy under King Abdullah, but which has also seen 'democracy' demonstrations.

In Libya, there has been some talk of restoring the old ineffective Royal family which came from the al-Sanusi blood line. This was nearly eradicated by Gaddafi, but as it was also a religious order/sect in Islam it survived. As you may have guessed the direct descendants of King Idris went to 'Londonistan' in exile, but the current head of the religious movement is one Sheikh Mohammed Sanusi .... who is still in Libya. 

Now some people (mainly Muslims) would describe the Sanusi (aka Senussi) movement as humanitarian and 'moderate,' movement, but a recent BBC interview suggests that there may be another Khomeini lying wait. He is quoted as starting the interview with a statement of his position:

"I'm angry with Christians and Jews, because the Christian and Jewish holy books have been changed many times over the centuries," he says. "The Koran has been *unaltered for 1,400 years. You should read the Koran, become a Muslim and earn your place in paradise."


The Man Who Would Be King (maker)

He then goes on to expound his biggest concern about all the fighting in Libya, this is that:

'If the violence in the region continues, so many men will lose their lives that the ratio of women to men will increase to 50:1 and this will lead to outbreaks of lesbianism and same-sex marriages that will represent a real problem for Muslim society.'  

... remember this 'moderate' man may well influence where Libya goes next.

Meanwhile in The Kingdom of Jordan, the demonstrations have not been so violent as elsewhere, but are a concern to the ruling family nonetheless, particularly as they have attracted the participation of the small but growing Salafist Jihadists in the country .... these are violent and extremist men, who ultimately want the 'Caliphate' restored, and will kill to achieve it.

This Salafist is one possible future for Jordan

There are groups like this around the Arab and Muslim World .... they rule by terror, and by simply claiming that anyone who denounces them in a mosque isn't a Muslim, and should be killed. This is why no moderate Islam ever develops, it is killed at its inception by bearded extremists and a 'fatwah'.

The jury is out on what all this will mean for the Muslim and wider world, but prudence says we should plan for this worst case scenario and hope for the best case .....

* Note: This claim is not actually true ... while modern Muslims often assert that the current Koran is identical to that recited by Muhammad, some earlier Muslims were more flexible. 'Uthman, A'isha, and Ibn Ka'b (among others) all insisted that much of the Koran had been lost. Even in the 10th century, after standardisations of the text had been achieved, under the influence of Ibn Mujahid. he admitted that he knew of at least fourteen versions of the Koran, which were not merely differences in recitation; they were actual written variations.