Maute group is ‘un-Islamic’?

Veteran Moro activist Macabangkit C. Lanto is up to his old tricks in telling Inquirer readers the actions of dead Islamists — Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute — are “un-Islamic” because they were not killed in a “defensive war” undertaken “for the sake of Allah.”

To the knowledgeable observer, Lanto’s first loyalty is to his Islamic religion. His real agenda is sugar-coating Islam to make it seem less sinister and dangerous than it actually is.

In labelling dead Maute leaders “un-Islamic,” Lanto either doesn’t know his own religion, or is lying.

Islam divides the world into Dar-al-Islam (house of submission) and Dar-al-Harb (house of war). Muslims are in a perpetual state of war with the inhabitants of Dar-al-Harb until they all submit to Islam or are killed by Muslims for refusing to do so. This renders any aggressive action a Muslim might undertake against non-Muslims “defensive.”

In the Philippines, Islam has already been directly “attacked.” We conveniently overlook that the peaceful Malay tribes of the Philippine archipelago were first raided for slaves, then forcibly colonized by 13th Century Muslim invaders who brutally murdered thousands to force sword-point conversions to Islam. Once dominant, Muslims eradicated local cultures and their Buddhist, Hindu, and animist religious beliefs in order to impose an alien culture that was Arabic and Islamic.

Islam holds that once a place has been ruled by Muslims, it is “Islamic land” forever. Mindanao, Sulu, Mindoro, Cebu, and Central Luzon as far as the “Kingdom of Maynila” had fallen to Muslim invaders over the two centuries or so before the Spanish arrived and drove them out.

Right-believing Muslims, thus, have a holy duty to reconquer these lands to Muslim rule, as Koran 2: 191-193 makes clear: “And kill them (non-Muslims) wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out.

“…And fight them until there is no more fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others apart from Allah) and worship is for Allah alone.”

Within this theological context, it cannot be disputed that the actions of the Maute group were undertaken in “defense” of Islam. Those killed fighting government troops are, to a right-believing Muslim, shaheed (martyrs).

Why do Lanto and other Moro apologists repeatedly tell us otherwise?

Their apparent condemnation of Maute jihadists is temporary and tactical. Whenever Muslims fear for their safety at the hands of non-Muslims, they are permitted to feign peaceful intentions and goodwill toward them outwardly, but never inwardly. Since 92 percent of Filipinos are Christian and only around 5.6 percent Muslim, Moros might well consider it imprudent to openly state their religion and mandate perpetual warfare against non-Muslims.

Muslims lie when it is in their interest to do so. A lie in defense of Islam is approved, even applauded, in Islamic scripture. This is called taqiyya, or “holy deception.”

Every right-believing Muslim must hold that Allah’s religion will one day supplant all other religions, and that Allah’s Sharia law will one day supplant all man-made systems of law and governance. I challenge Lanto to tell readers whether this is indeed his own belief.

If his answer is affirmative, history shows mass-scale conversions to Islam have only ever occurred at sword-point. Given that hundreds of millions worldwide prefer to follow other religions or no religion, perhaps Lanto might also explain just how he expects all these people to be brought to Islam?

ISHMAEL WARNER,
[email protected]