Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The Meaning of the Black Flag of Jihad

The Black Flag of Jihad

A reader emailed this morning and asked me to post the meaning of the text shown on the Black Flag of Jihad. I don’t read Arabic myself, but I’ve been told that the flag displays the shahada, the basic statement of the Islamic faith:

“La illaha ila Allah, wa Muhammadun rasul Allah.”

Or more fully (including the implied affirmative declaration):

“[’ašhadu ’an] la ilaha illa-llah, wa [’ašhadu ’anna] muhammadan rasulu-llah.”

Which means:

“[I testify that] there is no god (ilah) but Allah, and [I testify that] Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”

If any of this is inaccurate, please feel free to correct me in the comments.

The recitation of the shahada in front of witnesses is necessary and sufficient to announce conversion to Islam. Once you have declared it, you are a Muslim for life. Under sharia, there is no way to reverse the shahada. Those who attempt to are considered apostates, and must be killed.

A few years ago two Fox News journalists were kidnapped in Gaza and recited the shahada — declaring their conversion to Islam on camera — to earn their release. Once one of the journalists was safely home, he said he didn’t mean it, that he was forced to convert just to save his neck and get out of Gaza.

He may not realize it, but he is now a Muslim forever. If he should ever publicly reverse his conversion, his life will be forfeit, and under sharia he may (and should) be lawfully killed by any faithful Muslim.

That’s what the Black Flag of Jihad is all about.

18 comments:

Henrik R Clausen said...

"Come join the Army of Allah"...

Gregory said...

Well, I think that there is no allah but allah, and mohammad is its slave.

Unknown said...

Everybody who read this article is now muslim...if anybody was nearby. Ah, i'll have the pope figure it out.

Van Grungy said...

Repeat the following.

Ashhadu an la ilaha illallahu wa ashhadu anna Muhammad Abduhu wa rasuluhu.

You're now a Muslim revert! Now say this.

I deny the existence of Allah and Muhammad is not a prophet.

You are now a Muslim apostate! Careful who you tell, because in the Quran, Mohammed says that apostates should be killed. Any Muslim may kill you, and their local mosque is supposed to protect them.

Fun with superstitious assholes!


========


Found this floating around in the interether...

Anonymous said...

That looks about right. What makes it difficult is that the script shown is a stylized form of arabic. In this art form, letters are permitted to be transposed, stretched, bent and reordered in order to create an aesthetically pleasing image. Just so long as people can still make out enough of hte letters to understand what it is supposed to be.

You see this style a lot in architecture and mosaics, but not in newspapers.

Van Grungy said...

Ashhadu an la ilaha illallahu wa ashhadu anna Muhammad Abduhu wa rasuluhu.

How about a flag for us with this written in arabic in black on a white flag?...

Zenster said...

It is important to remember that there are several preconditions which must be met before a recitation of the shahada establishes any genuine conversion to Islam.

From Wikipedia: (salt to taste)

One such list of seven critical conditions of the shahadah, without which it is considered to be meaningless, are as follows: [citation needed].

Al-`Ilm (العلم): Knowledge of the meaning of the Shahadah, its negation and affirmation.

Al-Yaqeen (اليقين): Certainty – perfect knowledge of it that counteracts suspicion and doubt.

Al-Ikhlaas (الإخلاص): Sincerity which negates shirk.

Al-Sidq (الصدق): Truthfulness that permits neither falsehood nor hypocrisy.

Al-Mahabbah (المحبة): Love of the Shahadah and its meaning, and being happy with it.

Al-Inqiad (الانقياد): Submission to its rightful requirements, which are the duties that must be performed with sincerity to God (alone) seeking His pleasure.

Al-Qubool (القبول): Acceptance that contradicts rejection.

The second part of the Shahada carries several conditions as well:

To believe in the Prophet and in whatever he said and conveyed in his message as the seal of the prophets.

To obey him in whatever he commanded.

To stay away from or avoid whatever he commanded Muslims not to do.

To follow or emulate him in our ʿibādah (عبادة; worship), ʾaḫlāq (أخلاق; manners), and way of life.

To love him more than you love yourself, your family and anything else in this world.

To understand, practice, and promote his sunnah (habits) in the best way possible, without creating any chaos, enmity or harm.


Clearly, it is rather likely that the captured Fox reporters did not meet numerous criteria as set forth above.

Of far greater importance is, with the foregoing assumed to be rather well known doctrine (which I am sure it is), these forced conversions are meaningless save for their propaganda value. Debasing one's most fundamental articles of faith for the sake of showmanship reveals just how deeply flawed and morally void the terrorists are, along with the entire Islamic doctrinal superstructure that countenances such utter manure.

Anonymous said...

And here I was all this time thinking that it translated to:

"Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together try and love one another right now."

Not a sheep said...

In October 2007 I posted photos of banners containing the same wording hanging over The Mall to 'celebrate' the visit of King Abdullah on his State visit.

Henrik R Clausen said...

How about a flag for us with this written in arabic in black on a white flag?...

If I'm not mistaken, that'd be the white flag of the Khaliphate, signifying the area where Islamic conquest is already complete.

Anonymous said...

spackle: Fun to imagine, but per Allah per Mohammed, Muslims only consider other Muslims to be human (people). We infidels are simply sub-human obstacles in the way of Muslims' owning infidel property - including unlimited infidel women and children sex slaves.

Not a sheep: Surreal picture - but "why to worry?" - England hung the green Saudi national flag instead of the black Islamic war flag....

My interpretation would be that the black war flag is intended for use in the dar al-Harb (infidel world of war that has yet to submit to Sharia Law) whereas the green Saudi national flag is a flag intended for use in the already conquered dar al-Islam (universal Islamic caliphate ruled by Sharia Law).

Presumably, England has accepted its role as a valued colony in a Saudi-ruled universal Islamic caliphate.

What could possibly go wrong?!

From Wikipedia:

"Green is considered the traditional color of Islam. Islam used/uses this shade of green symbolically because the tribe of the prophet Muhammad had a green banner and because to them green represented paradise (the Persian word for garden) to desert-dwelling Bedouin tribes when they gathered at an oasis."

"The color in this form is the shade of green used in the Flag of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Many flags of the Islamic world are green, as the color is considered sacred in Islam."

----

"Khidr or Al-Khiḍr (Arabic: الخضر‎ "the Green One", also transcribed Khidr, Khidar, Khizr, Khizar and (Persian: خضر), Turkish: Hızır) is a figure in Islam, who according to some sources, was a ‘Abdan Ṣālih (righteous servant of God), while according to others he was a prophet."

"Al-Khiḍr replies, 'This shall be separation between me and you [Moses]; now I will inform you of the significance of that with which you could not have patience.' Many acts which seem to be evil, malicious or somber, actually were merciful."

goethechosemercy said...

I believe that the Black Flag should be burnt on a routine basis in the West. We must show, in the strongest terms possible, our negation of Islam and our validation and protection of Western Civilization.
The green flag, I would leave alone.
But this Black Flag is one of battle, conquest, rape, murder and chaos.

Hesperado said...

On the Shahada, we Unbelievers have been on a learning curve.

One detail, for example, that I find people still don't fully grasp, is that Muslims do not merely follow the Koran -- they also follow the Sunnah.

The Shahada is a pithy expression of that: The first part of it encodes the Koran -- the sayings and doings of Allah. The second part encodes the Sunnah -- Mohammed's sayings and deeds as recorded in the Hadiths and the Sirat (biographies).

This is very important, because there is a lot of damning data in the Sunnah that is not explicitly, or not at all, in the Koran.

Profitsbeard said...

Black Flag is a good bug spray, too.

Apt.

Amusing Bunni said...

If only we could use black flag to get rid of all of them. Worse than cockroaches!

Freyja's cats said...

I have a question.

Is not the "black flag" in question just the party flag of Hizb ut-Tahrir? (Islamic Party of Liberation)

Here is the entry for Hizb ut-Tahrir on GlobalSecurity.org.

Or is this a more universal flag in the Islamic world?

Zenster said...

Freyja's cats: Is not the "black flag" in question just the party flag of Hizb ut-Tahrir? (Islamic Party of Liberation) …

Or is this a more universal flag in the Islamic world?


Why should the two be mutually exclusive? Islam is the world's most historically violent entity.

The raya is a universal symbol of Islam's constant war against dar al harb (all non-Islamic countries, anywhere). Why do you think Muslims around the world display it so proudly?

Next question.

Anonymous said...

Muhammed doesn't say anything about killing of those who revert. And especially he doesn't say that in Kur'an because Kur'an is not a speech of Muhammed but speech of God himself. So, why are you lying? Did you ever read Kur'an?