During recent court hearings in the U.K., a pair of Islamic terrorists threw temper tantrums and resorted to asinine name-calling.  They are Hashem Abedi, who was found guilty of "22 counts of murder, attempted murder and plotting to cause an explosion likely to endanger life over the terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017," and Ahmed Hassan, "who planted the Parsons Green Tube bomb in September 2017 that injured 51 passengers."

According to the report:

Hashem Abedi called a prison guard a 'filthy pig' in court today as he denied assaulting him.  Abedi ... entered a not guilty plea to assaulting Paul Edwards [by cutting his head, kicking him, and leaving him with permanent hearing loss] at Belmarsh prison in south-east London[.] ...  Asked to enter a plea to the first charge on Thursday, Abedi ... told Westminster Magistrates' Court: 'I did assault that filthy pig, but I don't see any harm in doing that.' ... Ahmed Hassan, who also appeared in court, pleaded not guilty to assaulting Mr Edwards[.] ... [A]ddressing the chief magistrate, he said:  'I want you to know that I hate you very much because you are a judge, judging by other than the law of Allah.'

Of some interest is the fact that, while to the unsuspecting reader, the behavior and words of Abedi and Hassan appear childish, immature, and downright silly, so too do they perfectly conform to Islam's own words and behavior. 

Calling non-Muslims "pigs," for example, is virtually as old as Islam itself, finds roots in the Koran, and is all but synonymous with "non-Muslims" as described in Muslim histories and chronicles.  (King Alfonso VI of Castile-Leon, who inaugurated the Reconquista in 1085 by liberating Toledo from Islam, was known among his Muslim contemporaries as "that Great Pig.") 

Similarly, saying "I did assault that filthy pig, but I don't see any harm in doing that," as Abedi said, is in keeping with Islamic doctrine: not only was the man he attacked an "infidel," but, as a guard, he was exercising authority over the Muslim, Abedi — a scandalizing scenario from an Islamic point of view, since the natural place for all infidels (i.e., "pigs") is to be at the feet of Muslims, not vice versa.  As such, certainly Abedi didn't "see any harm" in beating Edwards.

As for Ahmed Hassan's assertion to his judge — "I want you to know that I hate you very much" — no doubt, everyone present, including the judge, assumed that Hassan was merely expressing his anger and sense of powerlessness against the one passing judgment upon him.

The reality is that hating non-Muslims is an Islamic command.  In the words of Koran 60:4, "[w]e [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims].  Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us — till you believe in Allah alone."  Such sentiments are to be applied to all non-Muslims — "even if they be their parents, children, siblings, or extended family," says the Koran (58:22; see also 3:28, 4:89, 4:144, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23).  Based on such verses, any number of fatwas, authoritative Islamic decrees from venerable sheikhs, call on Muslims  to do things like hate their non-Muslim wives (while "physically" enjoying or benefiting from them) and to hate and be disloyal to the Western nations they reside in.

In short, and as the Islamic State once explained in an unambiguously titled article, "Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You," "[w]e hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers."  

Perhaps the ultimate lesson here is not that seemingly silly words and volatile behavior from Muslim terrorists have Islamic antecedents, but rather that Islam — particularly in the guise of its doctrine of jihad — has always attracted the immature and criminal-prone.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Sword and Scimitar, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Image: Haytham Fox

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