He cites several recent examples of devout Muslims who murdered their own kin because they were insufficiently pious:
Most recently, a 30-year-old Muslim man stabbed his own mother in the throat with a knife in France. After characterizing the incident as an “attempted murder,” local authorities said that the “accused has admitted to the crime,” which he “committed for personal and religious reasons.”There's more at the article including citations and links to the claims Ibrahim makes in his piece.
Further underscoring the latter reason — “religion” — the Muslim would-be matricide was heard crying, “Allahu Akbar.”
Two months earlier, also in France, a Muslim man, 25, beheaded his own father, 60, with a knife. When police arrived on the scene, the Muslim patricide was also heard crying, “Allahu Akbar” while fleeing the scene.
That the Muslim men in both of these examples from France deemed it fit to cry Islam’s ancient, jihadist war cry — which literally means “my god is greater than your x, y, z” — indicates that, whatever their quarrel, these Muslim men at least believed that, in slaughtering their parents, they were acting on behalf of or vindicating Islam.
This was certainly the case of another, well-documented case of Muslim parricide. In September 2022, a Muslim man bludgeoned his mother and father to death in Nigeria.
The reason? “My parents don’t like the prophet Muhammad because I adore him, [and] they called me a mad [crazy] person,” Munkaila Ahmadu, 37, explained in a video recorded by police. “[So] I killed them, because they refuse[d] to accept the truth concerning the prophet Muhammad. I killed them because they abused the prophet and their punishment is death — there is no repentance for any person who abused the Prophet.”
He is certainly not alone in such logic. After a Muslim mob stoned and burned to death a Christian college student, Deborah Emmanuel, who was accused of blaspheming Muhammad, a Muslim cleric justified the atrocity by saying, “When you touch the prophet we become mad [crazy] people...Anyone who touches the prophet, no punishment — just kill!”
Showing no remorse whatsoever for murdering his father (70) and mother (60), Ahmadu instead boasted of how “I will [soon] be free because Allah is with the righteous person; that is why I am not worrying over my action...I am now in police custody because, by human thinking, I did a wrong thing but in the sight of Allah and the Prophet what I did is the right thing” (emphasis added).
Is this true? Unfortunately, yes. “Executing” those who “blaspheme” against the prophet of Islam is as old as Islam itself and traces straight back to Muhammad, who was the first to call for the slaughter of those who mocked or called him “mad.”
But even beyond the issue of blasphemy, another of Muhammad’s doctrines — that of al-wala’ w’al-bara’ (which can be simply translated as “love and hate”) — requires Muslims to hate anyone perceived to be in opposition to Islam.
Koran 60:4 is the cornerstone verse of this doctrine. As Osama bin Laden once concluded after quoting that verse: "Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred — directed from the Muslim to the infidel — is the foundation of our religion."
Similarly, after citing Koran 60:4, the Islamic State confessed to the West that “we hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers.” As for any and all political “grievances,” these are “secondary” reasons for the jihad, ISIS said:The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizya and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you (emphasis added).
To be sure, not all Muslims harbor such hatred in their hearts for those who don't feel about their religion the way they do, but consider: There are almost two billion Muslims in the world today. If only 10% of them hold to a strict view of their religion that's 200 million people who would eagerly kill you and your family for religious reasons and probably several hundred million more who would not mind seeing it happen even if they wouldn't do it themselves.
Does this intense hatred make prospects for some future rapprochement between Islam and the West, particularly Christianity, an illusory hope? We should certainly hope not. Our hope should be that the majority of the world's Muslims prevail in their wish to live in peace with the rest of humanity, including those who do not hold to their religious beliefs.
For those who enjoy history, or who believe that the conflict between Islam and the West is the product of Western exploitation and oppression, I highly recommend two of Ibrahim's most recent books, Sword and Scimitar and Defenders of the West. They both read like novels, and they're both very enlightening.
