The Muslim Practice of Beheading
Reactions to the grotesque jihadist decapitation of yet another "infidel Jew,"
Mr. Berg, make clear that our intelligentsia are either dangerously uninformed, or simply
unwilling to come to terms with this ugly reality: such murders are consistent with sacred
jihad practices, as well as Islamic attitudes towards all non-Muslim infidels, in
particular, Jews, which date back to the 7th century, and the Prophet Muhammad's own
example.
According to Muhammad’s sacralized biography by Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad himself
sanctioned the massacre of the Qurayza, a vanquished Jewish tribe. He appointed an
"arbiter" who soon rendered this concise verdict: the men were to be put to
death, the women and children sold into slavery, the spoils to be divided among the
Muslims. Muhammad ratified this judgment stating that it was a decree of
God pronounced from above the Seven Heavens. Thus some 600 to 900 men from the Qurayza
were lead on Muhammad’s order to the Market of Medina. Trenches were dug and
the men were beheaded, and their decapitated corpses buried in the trenches while
Muhammad watched in attendance. Women and children were sold into slavery, a number of
them being distributed as gifts among Muhammad’s companions, and Muhammad chose one
of the Qurayza women (Rayhana) for himself. The Qurayza’s property and other
possessions (including weapons) were also divided up as additional "booty" among
the Muslims, to support further jihad campaigns.
The classical Muslim jurist al-Mawardi (a Shafi’ite jurist, d. 1058) from Baghdad was
a seminal, prolific scholar who lived during the so-called Islamic "Golden Age"
of the Abbasid-Baghdadian Caliphate. He wrote the following, based on widely accepted
interpretations of the Qur'an and Sunna (i.e., the recorded words and deeds of Muhammad),
regarding infidel prisoners of jihad campaigns:
“As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial
action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their
necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their
sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and
fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, 'When you
encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks' (Qur'an
sura 47, verse 4)”....Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah."
[The Laws of Islamic Governance, trans. by Dr. Asadullah Yate, (London), Ta-Ha Publishers
Ltd., 1996, p. 192. Emphasis added.]
Indeed such odious “rules” were iterated by all four classical schools of
Islamic jurisprudence, across the vast Muslim empire.
For centuries, from the Iberian peninsula to the Indian subcontinent, jihad campaigns
waged by Muslim armies against infidel Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists and
Hindus, were punctuated by massacres, including mass throat slittings and beheadings.
During the period of “enlightened” Muslim rule, the Christians of Iberian
Toledo, who had first submitted to their Arab Muslim invaders in 711 or 712, revolted in
713. In the harsh Muslim reprisal that ensued, Toledo was pillaged, and all the Christian
notables had their throats cut. On the Indian subcontinent, Babur (1483-1530), the founder
of the Mughal Empire, who is revered as a paragon of Muslim tolerance by modern
revisionist historians, recorded the following in his autobiographical
“Baburnama,” about infidel prisoners of a jihad campaign:
"Those who were brought in alive [having surrendered] were ordered beheaded, after
which a tower of skulls was erected in the camp." [The Baburnama -Memoirs of Babur,
Prince and Emperor, translated and edited by Wheeler M. Thacktson, Oxford University
Press,1996, p. 188. Emphasis added.]
Recent jihad-inspired
decapitations of infidels by Muslims have occurred across the globe Christians in Indonesia, the Philippines, and
Nigeria; Hindu priests and "unveiled" Hindu women in Kashmir; Wall Street
Journal reporter, and Jew, Daniel Pearl. We should not be surprised that these
contemporary paroxysms of jihad violence are accompanied by ritualized beheadings. Such
gruesome acts are in fact sanctioned by core Islamic sacred texts, and classical Muslim
jurisprudence. Empty claims that jihad decapitations are somehow "alien to true
Islam," however well-intentioned, undermine serious efforts to reform and desacralize
Islamic doctrine. This process will only begin with frank discussion, both between
non-Muslims and Muslims, and within the Muslim community.
The Sacred Muslim Practice of Beheading By Andrew G. Bostom FrontPageMagazine.com
Andrew G. Bostom, MD, MS is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Brown University Medical
School, and occasional contributor to Frontpage Magazine. He is the editor of a
forthcoming essay collection entitled, "The Legacy of Jihad". |
