The Jihad is nothing unique.
It is the same, in practice, as the evangelical duty of the christian. Or the political redoctrination of communism. Both are expansionist authoritarian philosophies that seek to spread "the word" either by peaceful or by violent means.

We are separated from Islam not by a great ideological divide but by time. As christianity rose from its dark ages and into a a renaissance, a reformation (both within and without the catholic church) and into an enlightenment where humanist thought, democracy and several other idea systems influenced christianity towards its better modern incarnations, Islam's early middle age of comparative enlightenment descended into a very defensive position hostile to external influences. A dark age if you will. Not everywhere under Islam, but enough places that it held everyone back.

And with the Status Quo in places like Saudi Arabia being protected by Western powers, we are failing those within who seek a reform that might, it seems, incorporate more freedoms, a greater possibility of democracy etc.

I think this war on Terror will be won when it's the moslems of the middle east who rise up in unison and say : "This is not us. The children who blow up themselves and others do not glorify us or our god. We cannot allow this. With one voice we condemn it"

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. I think there's still too much schadenfreude attached to it, even from people who don't really believe in the goals of the terrorists. "ooh, look another car-bomb" "what the hell, they had it coming." That sort of thing.

"Knut, I would disagree with your characterization of jihad as an
expansionist doctrine."

I can understand why that terminology would be objectionable to you. Though to be fair, I compared it to christianity and communism as expansionist philosophies. Not doctrine.

Let me rephrase it : these idea systems all have the basic perspective that their views, if adopted, are good for everyone. So they seek to "spread the word". Communicate their ideas to others. It is not Isolationist/exclusive (meaning, it doesn't welcome new converts) in the way that (e.g.) Judaism has been.

See what I'm getting at? Expansionist versus Isolationist. Islam, in its early stages, expanded over large geographic territories. Often accompanied by warfare.

True, you may argue that it is purely defensive and that "outward agression or expansionism is a fundamental misappropriation of said terminology".

But nevertheless it has been used in such a way by moslems. Pure defense does not account for the tremendous expansion that occurred. It is the problem that often crops up in the discussion of the actions and policies under christianity and communism as well, the apparent contradiction between different interpretations of the faith or ideology.

Islam is not only peace just like it is not only war. From the outside, we can only judge Islam by the actions of moslems who claim to follow Islam. For good or bad.

Any assertion of what any ideology is that ignores its history and how it is applied in practice must be greeted with suspicion. You may say that Islam is not expansionist and outwardly aggressive, but the evidence of the past surely shows that moslems in power have acted as though it was.  

It doesn't matter as much to us who are not moslems what the true and proper interpretation of the Qu'uran and the Hadith is, as how it is put into practice. That is how we judge Islam. Just like any of us should be judged not by what we claim to believe in, but how we act.

This is odd. The thread started out as pointless name calling and did not did too kind of stuff and has morphed into an intelligent conversation. That hardly ever happens. Kudos.

The question as originally posed by Bosch is interesting in that why hasn't anyone taken advantage of the war on terror by using it as the backdrop of a comic book? Country music artists sold butt loads of discs by waving the flag and from a pure monetary standpoint it would have made sense to do so post 9/11. Why didn't that happen?

1. A lot of comic book writers are left wing and were very worried about the call to arms and did not want to participate in fanning the flames of war.

2. Publishers did not want to potentially narrow the audience by offending Muslims by making them the bad guy in their comics.

3. Using real world tragedy in a comic book adventure would seem to minimize the tragedy as just a story point. It could be done and done well but there is certainly a danger of it becoming insulting to the memory of those who died.

4. People have a hard time sorting out their feelings about 9/11 and to write a story where you don't have a strong, definite point of view is very difficult.

5. DC couldn't have done those kinds of stories because they wouldn't work in their world. Superman can't enlist. Superman can't battle terrorism without winning in a day.

6. Marvel has a soldier who could have reenlisted in Captain America (and that would have made for a lot of great stories) but the Captain America that I've been reading about for 20 years would not have re enlisted. And would not have battled islamic terrorists directly since it is a governmental matter. That isn't to say he wouldn't have participated but to me it would be all in or all out and I felt it was better for him to stay out (and I do think there were some stories, and they sold well if I recall correctly but I had no desire to read them so can't comment on the quality).

I bought the 9/11 comics that came out and I found them mostly heartfelt but also a bit insulting. America had just been punched in the gut and a few of the creators that contributed were telling stories about how America should be ashamed of the racism that some Muslims faced after (and before) the event. That was a warning that needed to be made, but lecturing others on proper behaviour during a time of grief seemed arrogant and condescending to me.

Again, very difficult task for the writers and it's hard not to offend someone.

Steve, I thought Captain America was a lifer? Even in his capacity of working with Shield or the Avengers he's still a soldier, just "on loan".  I can't see the US government releasing their Super Soldier from his commission, especially since there probably was a clause that as long as he had the Super Powers the US military gave him, he'd be not just legally bound but honor bound to serve (the latter being what would matter most to Cap.)

I don't know why Marvel hasn't had him moved out to Iraq, but I suspect it is partly because it is difficult to avoid either too much jingoism or insulting the troops by doing the "see how easily our Superhero resolves this". There are also a lot of messy, and probably necessary decisions made on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan that cannot attach to Superheroes.

A regular soldier in Iraq might find himself in a situation where he is heavily under threat and accidentally causes civilian casualties with some stray bullet. Let's say a kid, to make it really heartwrenching. That can be emotionally tough for a soldier, even if he is cleared of any wrongdoing and it's declared an accident.  If Captain America found himself in such a situation, his character might be forever crippled.

I don't want superheroes in this real war. But some good comics dealing with the war might be a good thing.

It's impossible to grasp jihad and jahiliyyah as understood and practiced by modern Islamic terrorists by simply invoking Quranic ideas without addressing how Qutbism significantly helped create a radically new phenomenon.

Zaki in italics, my responses in bold:

In reference to Abu Afak, there's a question as to the veracity of the account you reference, and ultimately there's no way to prove conclusively that Afak's death was at the order of Muhammad.  Obviously if one is inclined to believe so, as you are, then you'll believe what you believe. 

Well, Zaki, there are also those who have written books suggesting that Mohammed himself didn't really exist, so we have to take these accounts as they are and understand that there are people who accept it all as written and who act accordingly.

As far as Ka'ab ibn Ashraf, he was killed not because he "insulted" Muhammad, but rather because he had treatied with the Meccans to create an alliance and attack Medina.  Now, whether such a killing was justified or not is certainly a conversation that's worth having, but let's be very clear that it wasn't for, as you put it, "hurting his feelings."

By this point in time, Mohammed was already killing infidels for their infidelity, and justified that he was defending Islam against that infidelity, so whatever defensive precautions this Poet took would seem justified, no? And let me add that after Ka'ab bin Ashraf was assassinated after Mohammed asked his followers: 'Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?" [hurt]. And after the dirty deed, Mohammed cried out: 'Allahu Akbar!", and then he followed this by issuing a blanket command:

"Kill any Jew that falls into your power."

Moving on, the Battle of Badr.  Here was a battle waged because the Quraysh (the denizens of Mecca), had seized the properties of those Muslims who had migrated to Medina and excommunicated them.  Thus, what had been a plan on the part of the Muslims merely to seize back their possessions turned into a full-scale battle when word of their plan reached Mecca, and it turned into a full-scale rout thanks to their superior tactical maneuvering.  And indeed, this led to several more military conflicts, as this was a feudal time. 

You forgot to mention the fact that Mohammed and his early gangs began his 'profit'hood by raiding the Jewish caravans, so your attempt to make all of this theivery and violence seem justified doesn't cut it. And first blood was spilled by Muslims.

As to the concept of Jihad, I won't deny that there is an aspect of the concept that ties to armed or military conflict, but the interpretation you're quoting chooses only the narrowest of views.  The term jihad can best be summed up as "struggle," whether with external forces or internal (the soul).  In this case, the internal struggle with oneself is considered the greater jihad, as it's the more difficult. 

Yes, Jihad literally means struggle, and the conciet is that what Jihadists are doing when they cut an innocents head off is struggling against infidelity, that when Mohammed initiated violence and war against other tribes in Arabia was defensive. For only Non-Muslims can wage War is the idea, while Muslims are only engaged in a defense against that war. I

Now, as it pertains to the external jihad, the understanding by the majority of Islamic scholars is that its goal is not, as you mention, to kill and convert non-Muslims, but rather the defense of Muslim lives in Muslim lands.  Further, the expectation is that, in addition to being primarily defensive, jihad will be carried out following the Islamic rules of warfare, which state quite explicitly that there will be no killing of women, children and non-combatants, as well as no damage to farmland or residential areas. 

Zaki, until you come to terms that from day one, Mohammed initiated force against others in order to spread Islam, and that bloody fact condemns all that was and all that's come after. Islam's tainted to the core and was spread through war. What we call 'The Muslim World' today is a one that was created by brutal conquest, not by persuasion.

As to this idea that women and children were spared by the Muslim armies, they were not at times, for Mohammed at one point allowed it by saying that 'They are of them', meaning infidels. Ane the war booty, literally and figurutively, also played a part in keeping the infidel women alive.

As you can see, this creates a very limited field that eliminates such actions as, for example, the events of September 11, from the traditional concept of jihad, no matter how much Bin Laden and his followers might wish it.  Unfortunately, such people as he are able to exploit the desperation and ignorance of people to win them over to his misguided and politically-motivated goals.

In reality, Bin Ladin has broken no Islamic law in being who he is and is following his prophets example. As with Islam's definition of peace being that world peace is only achieved when all mankind is on their knees in praise of Allah, so to is Islam's definition of defense seen as a defense against Unbelief itself, and justifies all kinds of horrors against infidels.

Finally, regarding the punishment for apostacy, I'm assuming you're referring to the prevailing feeling among scholars that it should be punishable by execution.  This is not something I agree with, and there are some scholars who interpret the ruling of execution to apply to those who politically betray the Muslim community as opposed to those who commit general apostasy.  There are enough vagaries in this that there's room for discussion, but in all honesty I come down on the side of saying it should not be punished with death.

Glad to see that in your personal life you deviate from Islam on this matter and others, for death is the answer to apostacy and it's part of sharia law Today. If you recall a few years ago a former Muslim returned to Afghanistan from Europe to retrieve his daughters and word got out that he left Islam. He was arrested and about to be executed, By Law, for leaving Islam. Only when the world got wind of this, in a post 9/11 Afghanistan, allegedly free, did the Islamic courts get themselves out of this bind by declaring the man was insane for leaving Islam and so let him go. It is things like this that are clear reminders that we should not be allowing Sharia Law into governments we rebuild after Muslims have forced our hand.

I'm not a scholar, nor do I consider myself any type of religious authority, but these are what I've come to through my own process of research.

I'm no scholar either, but I've done my homework enough to know that Muslims, no matter their knowledge of Islam, always, some would argue naturally, put on a better face than Islam has, in order to make thsemselves feel better about their association with a religion that spread through death and destruction. This is a brutal fact that ALL Muslims must come to terms with because things will most definitely get far worse before they get better, and 9/11 was just the beginning.

Mike Murray wrote:

'If it doesn't reveal too much of the plot, I'm curious about the basic premise - does Pigman embark on his career and stay a Muslim in his personal life, or do the events of 9/11 turn him away from that religion entirely?'

Pigman survives a terrorist attack on his school as a boy, an attack similar to the Beslan atrocity, and from then on, studies the religion like never before and leaves it. He then dedicates his life to fighting Jihad through his writings, books, etc. Then 9/11 hits and Pigman is born, with his full realization that while his ideological battle is necessary, that the physical battle against Jihad is just as important.

Knut wrote:

The Jihad is nothing unique. [It is]
It is the same, in practice, as the evangelical duty of the christian. Or the political redoctrination of communism. Both are expansionist authoritarian philosophies that seek to spread "the word" either by peaceful or by violent means.

There is no other religion with a doctrine of warfare like Jihad. None. Jesus did not advocate expansion by force and did not engage in force. Mohammed did and his followers are merely following his lesson. A jewish friend attempted to tell me that Judaism had its own version of Jihad and I asked him to name it and he was stumped. So Knut, please stop your moral equivalency, it's embarrassing. Jihad is Mohammed's only true innovation, as most of the early Koran was merely stolen from the Jewish and Christian bibles.

I

Zaki wrote:

Knut, I would disagree with your characterization of jihad as an
expansionist doctrine. As I mention in my post, true Islamic dogma holds
jihad as primarily defensive in nature. Thus the use of jihad as a means
of justifying outward agression or expansionism is a fundamental
misappropriation of said terminology, I would argue.

Yes, you would argue this, and you'd be Islamically wrong. Let me ask you a very simple question:

How did Islam spread?

Steve,

One of the main reasons that comic books haven't taken on Jihad, besides PC gutlessness, is that one cannot take on Jihad without bringing Islam into the story. It's impossible, because without Jihad, there is no Islam. And then they would have to, if they're being honest in their storytelling, bring up the still very uncomfortable fact that Islam's prophet, Mohammed, was religion's version of Ghengis Khan.