Taqiyya: The "Invisibility Cloak" of Islamic Aggression

Continuing to work my way through Trencherbone's excellent "Understanding Islam" series I discovered this gem on the history of Mohammed and the origins and purpose of taqiyya.

During the first 13 years that Mohammed preached Islam in Mecca, his approach was peaceful and conciliatory. He gained barely 100 followers. But after Mohammed established himself in Medina he met with 75 Medinans and formed a group known as ‘The Pledge of War’. This group began the tribal activity of ‘razzias’ or caravan raids, basically pirate raids for spoils such as goods, animals, slaves and ransom. They were very "successful" and as Mohammed's reputation as a ruthless warrior grew, converts flocked to Islam. Not surprisingly, he decided that this was a far more reliable and efficient way of expanding his new religion.

The question naturally arises: If Mohammed was the "perfect man" to be emulated in all ways, what Muslim can justify choosing to live a "moderate" life in peace with his kuffar neighbors, when the Prophet's example demonstrates that war, terror, savagery, rapaciousness, force, and humiliation is the "proper" stance of the true Muslim towards the Dar-al-Harb?

However, since this approach does not go down as well in the modern world as it did amongst the desert savages of the Dark Ages, modern Muslims increasingly rely on the "cultural tradition" known as "taqiyya".


The Islamic Principle of Taqiyya

In order to understand the Islamic mind we have to understand the Arab Bedouin Tribal culture. This is a culture based upon tribalism and the hard nomadic values of tribal warfare by raiding neighbouring villages and taking over their women and children as slaves and concubines, their possessions, their stock and their grazing lands and killing their men with the exception of those who would accept Islam. The people are mainly illiterate, but cunning, and resourceful in order to survive. They are also extremely proud and arrogant people, especially the men. The masculine Arab culture placed a very high value on ‘honour and shame’ associated with his place in the social order of his family, his tribal group, or his society. It is important that he does not suffer ‘a loss of face’...

“Lying and cheating in the Arab world is not really a moral matter but a method of safeguarding honour and status, avoiding shame, and at all times exploiting possibilities, for those with the wit and cunning for it, deftly and expeditiously to convert shame into honour on their own account and vice versa for the opponents. If honour so demands it, lies and cheating may become absolute imperatives.”

Thus by skilful manipulations, by dissimulation, deceiving, lying, confounding, deflection of accusations, it is possible to foil or block or fend off an attack or accusation, and thus turn a humiliation into a positive outcome and the save one’s face or one’s life. This same skill is part of the tribal Bedouin life and it has been adopted into the Islamic way of life in the defence and protection of Islam. This skill is known as ‘Taqiyya’ and greatly enhances the capabilities of Muslims to defend and promote Islam. This skill, Taqiyya, comes so naturally to Muslims that they are not even aware that they are using it to communicate dissimulate Islamic information to the less informed. It is a part of their way of life since childhood. This trait can also be observed in many other cultures especially in the East.

To give a few examples of Taqiyya as an illustration, Muslims will deny that “terrorist suicide bombers killed innocent people” were Muslims who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers in New York. And they are right because Muslims do not approve of Suicide (Haram, so they could not have been Muslims) and wanton murder of innocent people (but Muslims do not consider non-Muslims as innocent. They are the enemy and so are legitimate targets.). So Muslims may safely say that they condemn any terrorist acts, because terrorists are not identifiable as Muslims. But Muslims knew that these were acts of Islamic Jihad, and thus were truthful in denying it was “an act of terrorism” by Muslims, because they were actually “acts of martyrdom” or Jihad not “terrorism.”

Muslims do not do “terrorism.” (Taqiyya)(Semantics) Yet this is what the Koran commands her followers:

Qur’an:8:12 “I shall terrorize the infidels. So wound their bodies and incapacitate them because they oppose Allah and His Apostle.”

Qur’an:8:57 “If you gain mastery over them in battle, inflict such a defeat as would terrorize them, so that they would learn a lesson and be warned.”

Those who prattle about "moderate Muslims" do not understand that, in Quranic terms, "moderate Muslims" are blasphemers and apostates. If they do know anything about their own "religion", they know that the sociopathic caravan raider who formulated it established the way of terror and war as the template for his followers. But to show that face of Islam to the kuffar is to risk a breach of the compact of "multiculturalism", arouse suspicions, and cause inconveniences. So, to protect themselves, they employ taqiyya to deflect suspicion -- because, in a sense, they too must "feed the crocodile" to persuade it to eat them last.

But in this case, we kuffar are the crococile and our job is to avoid being turned into luggage before we get to the end of the buffet.