Islamic Parodies of the Christian Faith

Baghdadi is Not Insane

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the acknowledged Caliph of Islamic State, has taken to the airwaves once again.  One supposes the idea is to gee up the troops.  Some have suggested that it has been prompted by a number of reverses and setbacks suffered by Baghdadi in recent days.  Who knows?

The Guardian summarised his address as follows:

Islamic State has released a new message purportedly from its reclusive leader, claiming his self-styled caliphate is doing well despite an unprecedented alliance against it.  In the 24-minute audio posted Saturday, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi says airstrikes by the international coalition only increase Isis’s determination and resolve. He also mocks a recently announced Saudi-led Islamic alliance against terrorism and warns Israel “we are getting closer to you every day”. He says Israeli Jews “will hide behind trees and stones” from Isis.

Al-Baghdadi urges Muslims worldwide to join the fight, saying it is their Islamic duty to rise up everywhere.

We are always interested in the West's reaction to Baghdadi.  In any war, the adage "know your enemy" is not just apt, but strategically imperative.   The secular West struggles with Baghdadi.  He is a religious man.  This puts him in the West's lexicon perilously close to feeble mindedness at best; insanity, at worst.

ISIS has faced a number of military reversals in recent weeks; its shock troops are said to be shocked, dispirited, and thinking of a white Christmas back home.  But Baghdadi is not worried.  Nor does he wish his followers to be in a flap.

In a desperate call for support the terrorist leader admitted that Western and Russian airstrikes have had a “calamitous” toll on ISIS, but brushed off the death and mutilation of thousands of its fighters as a “blessing from Allah” which are simply part of a “pre-destined ordeal”.

He also bizarrely welcomed the recent widespread desertion amongst ISIS ranks, branding deserters “hypocrites and agents” and insisting that the numbers of fighters abandoning the jihadis every day is actually making the group stronger.  The unhinged message, which was circulated amongst jihadi fighters online, is the latest evidence that the increasingly fragile hate group is falling apart amid reports it is desperately short of both fighters and weapons.

He paints the seemingly impending collapse of the terrorist group as a "battle of all the infidels against all the Muslims", adding that "each time that the number of nations against us grows, so too does the certainty of the help of Allah and the fact that we are on the right path".  He says: “O Muslims, the current battle is not a simple crusade, but a war of all the nations of the infidel nations against the Islamic State. It has never happened in the history of our people that the world has gathered in a single battle like the one taking place today." [The Express]

These statements and claims are not the ramblings of the insane.  They are rather the ramblings of someone mistaken, even deluded.  But perfectly understandable and consistent, when seen in the lights of Baghdadi and the Caliphatistas.  They believe they are living in the end times.  They believe that the more they suffer reversals and hardships, the closer will be the Advent of Allah, the great unveiling, whereby Allah will come to their aid to vanquish their enemies.

If you believe in such an eschatology, Baghdadi's response is perfectly understandable.  All his provocations of ethnic cleansing, terrorist attacks, mass rapes--all of it has been an attempt to put fear into the hearts of his enemies.  All of it has been to subdue the infidels and make them submit to the pure will of Allah.  He believes that the reversals of fortune meted out by the infidels against him will arouse Allah to come to his aid.

Such beliefs are a Satanic parody on the Christian belief that the more we suffer for Christ, the closer God is to us.