The term "Quran desecration" is defined as insulting the Quran—which Muslims believe to be the literal word of God, in its original Arabic form—by defiling or defacing copies. Intentionally insulting the Quran is regarded by Muslims as blasphemous.
Most traditional schools of Islamic law require wudu (ritual handwashing) before a Muslim may touch the Quran. Muslims must always treat the printed book with reverence, which may even extend to excerpts of text.
Disposal of worn copies is also of concern to Muslims. Because
the Quran contains no specifics on how to dispose of a worn or defective
text, different and conflicting methods of disposal have been adopted
in different regions by different sects. According to Islamic historian Michael Cook
the Quran should be wrapped in cloth and buried on holy ground where it
is unlikely to be trampled on or "safely" placed where it is unlikely
to come into contact with impurity. According to Arab News,
Muslims are forbidden to recycle, pulp, or shred worn-out copies of the
text; instead, burning or burying the worn-out copies in a respectful
manner is required.
Respect for the written text of the Quran is an important element of religious faith in Islam. Intentionally desecrating a copy of the Quran is punishable by imprisonment in some countries (up to life imprisonment in Pakistan, according to Article 295-B of the Penal Code) and could lead to death in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Pakistan.
Notable instances
2005 - Guantanamo
In mid-2005, allegations of deliberate desecration of the Quran in front of Muslim prisoners at the United States military Guantanamo Bay detention camp,
Cuba fueled widespread controversy and led to ensuing Muslim riots. A
US military investigation confirmed four instances of Quran desecration
by US personnel (two of which were described as "unintentional"), and
fifteen instances of desecration by Muslim prisoners.
According to CBC News, "The statement did not provide any explanation
about why the detainees might have abused their own Holy books." In May 2005, a report in Newsweek, claiming that it was U.S. interrogators who desecrated the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay base, further sparking Muslim unrest.
2007 - Nigeria
In 2007, Nigerian Christian teacher Christianah Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin was stabbed to death after allegations that she had desecrated a Quran.
2010/2011 - United States
In 2010, Christian pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center, a church in Gainesville, Florida, provoked international condemnation after announcing plans to burn a Quran on the anniversary of the Islamic terrorist September 11 attacks on the United States. He later cancelled the plans;
however, on March 20, 2011, he oversaw the burning of a Quran. In
response, Muslims in Afghanistan rioted and 12 people were killed.
On September 29, an Islamic mob estimated at 25,000 vandalized and torched Buddhist temples, shrines, and houses, along with Hindu
temples as incited by an alleged Facebook Buddhist posting of an image
depicting the desecration of a Quran. The violence started in Ramu Upazila in Cox's Bazar District and later spread to other areas of Bangladesh.
2012/2015 - Afghanistan
In February 2012, protests broke out in various parts of Afghanistan over the improper disposal of Qurans at the US military Bagram Air Base. Protesters shouted "Death to America" and burned
US flags. At least 30 people were killed and hundreds injured. Also,6
U.S. soldiers were killed after members of the Afghan National Security
Forces turned their weapons on them and the Afghan protesters.
On March 19, 2015, Farkhunda Malikzada, a 27-year-old Afghan woman, was publicly beaten and slain by a mob of hundreds of people in Kabul. Farkhunda had previously been arguing with a mullah named Zainuddin, in front of a mosque where she worked as a religious teacher, about his practice of selling charms at the Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque, the Shrine of the King of Two Swords, a religious shrine in Kabul.
During this argument, Zainuddin reportedly falsely accused her of
burning the Quran. Police investigations revealed that she had not
burned anything. A number of prominent public officials turned to Facebook immediately after the death to endorse the murder. After it was revealed that she did not burn the Quran, the public reaction in Afghanistan turned to shock and anger. Her murder led to 49 arrests;
three adult men received twenty-year prison sentences, eight other
adult males received sixteen year sentences, a minor received a ten-year
sentence, and eleven police officers received one-year prison terms for
failing to protect Farkhunda. Her murder and the subsequent protests served to draw attention to women's rights in Afghanistan.
Others
Saudi Arabia destroys Qurans of pilgrims that fall short of state standards. The preferred method is by burning, to avoid soiling the pages.
In March 2013, the al Qaeda English-language magazine Inspire
published a poster stating "Wanted dead or alive for crimes against
Islam" with a prominent image of Terry Jones, known for public Quran burning events.
Iran's news agency, IRIB, reported on April 8, 2013, that Terry Jones
planned another Quran burning event on September 11, 2013. On April 11,
IRIB published statements from an Iranian MP who said the West must stop
the event and warned that "the blasphemous move will spark an
uncontrollable wave of outrage among over 1.6 billion people across the
globe who follow Islam." In Pakistan, protesters set the American flag
and effigy of the US pastor Terry Jones on fire, condemning the 9/11
plan, according to an April 14, 2013 article in The Nation.
In October 2013, a Turkish woman was arrested on suspicion of
blasphemy and inciting religious hatred after allegedly stepping on
Quran and then posting the picture on Twitter.
Proposals to recycle old Qurans in Pakistan have met with opposition.
On July 31, 2016, a couple of days after the Normandy church attack, several copies of the Quran at the multi-faith room of Mater Dei Hospital in Malta were desecrated when slices of pork were laid inside the book. The perpetrators also left a photo of Jacques Hamel, the Catholic priest murdered during the attack, with the caption "Victim of Islam".
Cygnus X-1 (abbreviated Cyg X-1) is a galactic X-ray source in the constellationCygnus, and the first such source widely accepted to be a black hole. It was discovered in 1964 during a rocket flight and is one of the strongest X-ray sources seen from Earth, producing a peak X-ray flux density of 2.3×10−23Wm−2Hz−1 (2.3×103Jansky). It remains among the most studied astronomical objects in its class. The compact object is now estimated to have a mass about 14.8 times the mass of the Sun and has been shown to be too small to be any known kind of normal star, or other likely object besides a black hole. If so, the radius of its event horizon has 300 km "as upper bound to the linear dimension of the source region" of occasional X-ray bursts lasting only for about 1 ms.
Cygnus X-1 belongs to a high-mass X-ray binary system, located about 6,070 light-years from the Sun, that includes a blue supergiantvariable star designated HDE 226868 which it orbits at about 0.2 AU, or 20% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. A stellar wind from the star provides material for an accretion disk around the X-ray source. Matter in the inner disk is heated to millions of degrees, generating the observed X-rays. A pair of jets, arranged perpendicularly to the disk, are carrying part of the energy of the infalling material away into interstellar space.
This system may belong to a stellar association called Cygnus OB3, which would mean that Cygnus X-1 is about five million years old and formed from a progenitor star that had more than 40 solar masses. The majority of the star's mass was shed, most likely as a stellar wind. If this star had then exploded as a supernova,
the resulting force would most likely have ejected the remnant from the
system. Hence the star may have instead collapsed directly into a black
hole.
Cygnus X-1 was the subject of a friendly scientific wager between physicists Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne
in 1974, with Hawking betting that it was not a black hole. He conceded
the bet in 1990 after observational data had strengthened the case that
there was indeed a black hole in the system. This hypothesis lacks direct empirical evidence but has generally been accepted from indirect evidence.
Discovery and observation
Observation of X-ray emissions allows astronomers
to study celestial phenomena involving gas with temperatures in the
millions of degrees. However, because X-ray emissions are blocked by the
Earth's atmosphere, observation of celestial X-ray sources is not possible without lifting instruments to altitudes where the X-rays can penetrate. Cygnus X-1 was discovered using X-ray instruments that were carried aloft by a sounding rocket launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. As part of an ongoing effort to map these sources, a survey was conducted in 1964 using two Aerobee suborbital rockets. The rockets carried Geiger counters to measure X-ray emission in wavelength range 1–15 Å
across an 8.4° section of the sky. These instruments swept across the
sky as the rockets rotated, producing a map of closely spaced scans.
As a result of these surveys, eight new sources of cosmic X-rays
were discovered, including Cyg XR-1 (later Cyg X-1) in the constellation
Cygnus. The celestial coordinates of this source were estimated as right ascension 19h53m and declination 34.6°. It was not associated with any especially prominent radio or optical source at that position.
Seeing a need for longer duration studies, in 1963 Riccardo Giacconi and Herb Gursky proposed the first orbital satellite to study X-ray sources. NASA launched their Uhuru Satellite in 1970, which led to the discovery of 300 new X-ray sources. Extended Uhuru observations of Cygnus X-1 showed fluctuations in the X-ray intensity that occurs several times a second. This rapid variation meant that the energy generation must take place over a relatively small region of roughly 105 km, as the speed of light restricts communication between more distant regions. For a size comparison, the diameter of the Sun is about 1.4×106 km.
In April–May 1971, Luc Braes and George K. Miley from Leiden Observatory, and independently Robert M. Hjellming and Campbell Wade at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory,
detected radio emission from Cygnus X-1, and their accurate radio
position pinpointed the X-ray source to the star AGK2 +35 1910 =
HDE 226868. On the celestial sphere, this star lies about half a degree from the 4th-magnitude star Eta Cygni.
It is a supergiant star that is, by itself, incapable of emitting the
observed quantities of X-rays. Hence, the star must have a companion
that could heat gas to the millions of degrees needed to produce the
radiation source for Cygnus X-1.
Louise Webster and Paul Murdin, at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and Charles Thomas Bolton, working independently at the University of Toronto's David Dunlap Observatory, announced the discovery of a massive hidden companion to HDE 226868 in 1971. Measurements of the Doppler shift of the star's spectrum demonstrated the companion's presence and allowed its mass to be estimated from the orbital parameters. Based on the high predicted mass of the object, they surmised that it may be a black hole as the largest possible neutron star cannot exceed three times the mass of the Sun.
With further observations strengthening the evidence, by the end
of 1973 the astronomical community generally conceded that Cygnus X-1
was most likely a black hole. More precise measurements of Cygnus X-1 demonstrated variability down to a single millisecond. This interval is consistent with turbulence in a disk of accreted matter surrounding a black hole—the accretion disk. X-ray bursts that last for about a third of a second match the expected time frame of matter falling toward a black hole.
This X-ray image of Cygnus X-1 was taken by a balloon-borne telescope, the High-Energy Replicated Optics (HERO) project. NASA image.
Cygnus X-1 has since been studied extensively using observations by orbiting and ground-based instruments. The similarities between the emissions of X-ray binaries such as HDE 226868/Cygnus X-1 and active galactic nuclei suggests a common mechanism of energy generation involving a black hole, an orbiting accretion disk and associated jets. For this reason, Cygnus X-1 is identified among a class of objects called microquasars; an analog of the quasars,
or quasi-stellar radio sources, now known to be distant active galactic
nuclei. Scientific studies of binary systems such as
HDE 226868/Cygnus X-1 may lead to further insights into the mechanics of
active galaxies.
Binary system
The compact object and blue supergiant star form a binary system in which they orbit around their center of mass every 5.599829 days. From the perspective of the Earth, the compact object never goes behind the other star; in other words, the system does not eclipse. However, the inclination of the orbital plane to the line of sight from the Earth remains uncertain, with predictions ranging from 27–65°. A 2007 study estimated the inclination is 48.0±6.8°, which would mean that the semi-major axis is about 0.2 AU, or 20% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. The orbital eccentricity is thought to be only 0.0018±0.002; a nearly circular orbit. Earth's distance to this system is about 1,860 ± 120 parsecs (6,070 ± 390 light-years).
The HDE 226868/Cygnus X-1 system shares a common motion through
space with an association of massive stars named Cygnus OB3, which is
located at roughly 2,000 parsecs from the Sun. This implies that HDE 226868, Cygnus X-1 and this OB association may have formed at the same time and location. If so, then the age of the system is about 5±1.5 Ma. The motion of HDE 226868 with respect to Cygnus OB3 is 9±3 km/s; a typical value for random motion within a stellar association. HDE 226868 is about 60 parsecs from the center of the association, and could have reached that separation in about 7±2 Ma—which roughly agrees with estimated age of the association.
With a galactic latitude of 4 degrees and galactic longitude 71 degrees, this system lies inward along the same Orion Spur in which the Sun is located within the Milky Way, near where the spur approaches the Sagittarius Arm. Cygnus X-1 has been described as belonging to the Sagittarius Arm, though the structure of the Milky Way is not well established.
Compact object
From various techniques, the mass of the compact object appears to be greater than the maximum mass for a neutron star. Stellar evolutionary models suggest a mass of 20±5 solar masses,
while other techniques resulted in 10 solar masses. Measuring
periodicities in the X-ray emission near the object has yielded a more
precise value of 14.8±1 solar masses. In all cases, the object is most likely a black hole—a region of space with a gravitational field that is strong enough to prevent the escape of electromagnetic radiation from the interior. The boundary of this region is called the event horizon and has an effective radius called the Schwarzschild radius, which is about 44 km for Cygnus X-1. Anything (including matter and photons) that passes through this boundary is unable to escape.
Evidence of just such an event horizon may have been detected in 1992 using ultraviolet (UV) observations with the High Speed Photometer on the Hubble Space Telescope.
As self-luminous clumps of matter spiral into a black hole, their
radiation will be emitted in a series of pulses that are subject to gravitational redshift as the material approaches the horizon. That is, the wavelengths of the radiation will steadily increase, as predicted by general relativity.
Matter hitting a solid, compact object would emit a final burst of
energy, whereas material passing through an event horizon would not. Two
such "dying pulse trains" were observed, which is consistent with the
existence of a black hole.
The spin of the compact object is not yet well determined. Past analysis of data from the space-based Chandra X-ray Observatory suggested that Cygnus X-1 was not rotating to any significant degree. However, evidence announced in 2011 suggests it is rotating extremely rapidly, approximately 790 times per second.
Formation
The
largest star in the Cygnus OB3 association has a mass 40 times that of
the Sun. As more massive stars evolve more rapidly, this implies that
the progenitor star for Cygnus X-1 had more than 40 solar masses. Given
the current estimated mass of the black hole, the progenitor star must
have lost over 30 solar masses of material. Part of this mass may have
been lost to HDE 226868, while the remainder was most likely expelled by
a strong stellar wind. The helium enrichment of HDE 226868's outer atmosphere may be evidence for this mass transfer. Possibly the progenitor may have evolved into a Wolf–Rayet star, which ejects a substantial proportion of its atmosphere using just such a powerful stellar wind.
If the progenitor star had exploded as a supernova,
then observations of similar objects show that the remnant would most
likely have been ejected from the system at a relatively high velocity.
As the object remained in orbit, this indicates that the progenitor may
have collapsed directly into a black hole without exploding (or at most
produced only a relatively modest explosion).
Accretion disk
A Chandra X-ray spectrum of Cygnus X-1 showing a characteristic peak near 6.4 keV due to ionizediron in the accretion disk, but the peak is gravitationally red-shifted, broadened by the Doppler effect, and skewed toward lower energies
The compact object is thought to be orbited by a thin, flat disk of accreting matter known as an accretion disk.
This disk is intensely heated by friction between ionized gas in
faster-moving inner orbits and that in slower outer ones. It is divided
into a hot inner region with a relatively high level of
ionization—forming a plasma—and a cooler, less ionized outer region that extends to an estimated 500 times the Schwarzschild radius, or about 15,000 km.
Though highly and erratically variable, Cygnus X-1 is typically the brightest persistent source of hard X-rays—those with energies from about 30 up to several hundred keV—in the sky. The X-rays are produced as lower-energy photons in the thin inner accretion disk, then given more energy through Compton scattering with very high-temperature electrons in a geometrically thicker, but nearly transparent corona enveloping it, as well as by some further reflection from the surface of the thin disk.[55] An alternative possibility is that the X-rays may be Compton scattered by the base of a jet instead of a disk corona.
The X-ray emission from Cygnus X-1 can vary in a somewhat repetitive pattern called quasi-periodic oscillations
(QPO). The mass of the compact object appears to determine the distance
at which the surrounding plasma begins to emit these QPOs, with the
emission radius decreasing as the mass decreases. This technique has
been used to estimate the mass of Cygnus X-1, providing a cross-check
with other mass derivations.
Pulsations with a stable period, similar to those resulting from
the spin of a neutron star, have never been seen from Cygnus X-1. The pulsations from neutron stars are caused by the neutron star's magnetic field; however, the no-hair theorem guarantees that black holes do not have magnetic poles. For example, the X-ray binary V 0332+53 was thought to be a possible black hole until pulsations were found. Cygnus X-1 has also never displayed X-ray bursts similar to those seen from neutron stars.
Cygnus X-1 unpredictably changes between two X-ray states, although the
X-rays may vary continuously between those states as well. In the most
common state, the X-rays are "hard", which means that more of the X-rays
have high energy. In the less common state, the X-rays are "soft", with
more of the X-rays having lower energy. The soft state also shows
greater variability. The hard state is believed to originate in a corona
surrounding the inner part of the more opaque accretion disk. The soft
state occurs when the disk draws closer to the compact object (possibly
as close as 150 km),
accompanied by cooling or ejection of the corona. When a new corona is
generated, Cygnus X-1 transitions back to the hard state.
The spectral transition of Cygnus X-1 can be explained using a
two component advective flow solution, as proposed by Chakrabarti and
Titarchuk.
A hard state is generated by the inverse Comptonisation of seed photons
from the Keplarian disk and likewise synchrotron photons produced by
the hot electrons in the Centrifugal Pressure-supported Boundary Layer (CENBOL).
The X-ray flux from Cygnus X-1 varies periodically every 5.6 d, especially during superior conjunction
when the orbiting objects are most closely aligned with the Earth and
the compact source is the more distant. This indicates that the
emissions are being partially blocked by circumstellar matter, which may
be the stellar wind from the star HDE 226868. There is a roughly 300 d periodicity in the emission that could be caused by the precession of the accretion disk.
Jets
As accreted matter falls toward the compact object, it loses gravitational potential energy. Part of this released energy is dissipated by jets of particles, aligned perpendicular to the accretion disk, that flow outward with relativistic velocities. (That is, the particles are moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light.) This pair of jets provide a means for an accretion disk to shed excess energy and angular momentum. They may be created by magnetic fields within the gas that surrounds the compact object.
The Cygnus X-1 jets are inefficient radiators and so release only a small proportion of their energy in the electromagnetic spectrum. That is, they appear "dark". The estimated angle of the jets to the line of sight is 30° and they may be precessing. One of the jets is colliding with a relatively dense part of the interstellar medium (ISM), forming an energized ring that can be detected by its radio emission. This collision appears to be forming a nebula that has been observed in the optical wavelengths. To produce this nebula, the jet must have an estimated average power of 4–14×1036erg/s, or (9±5)×1029W. This is more than 1,000 times the power emitted by the Sun. There is no corresponding ring in the opposite direction because that jet is facing a lower density region of the ISM.
In 2006, Cygnus X-1 became the first stellar mass black hole found to display evidence of gamma ray emission in the very high energy band, above 100 GeV.
The signal was observed at the same time as a flare of hard X-rays,
suggesting a link between the events. The X-ray flare may have been
produced at the base of the jet while the gamma rays could have been
generated where the jet interacts with the stellar wind of HDE 226868.
HDE 226868
An artist's impression of the HDE 226868–Cygnus X-1 binary system. ESA/Hubble illustration.
HDE 226868 is a supergiant star with a spectral class of O9.7 Iab, which is on the borderline between class O and class B stars. It has an estimated surface temperature of 31,000 K and mass approximately 20–40 times the mass of the Sun.
Based on a stellar evolutionary model, at the estimated distance of
2,000 parsecs this star may have a radius equal to about 15–17 times the solar radius and is approximately 300,000–400,000 times the luminosity of the Sun.
For comparison, the compact object is estimated to be orbiting
HDE 226868 at a distance of about 40 solar radii, or twice the radius of
this star.
The surface of HDE 226868 is being tidally distorted by the gravity
of the massive companion, forming a tear-drop shape that is further
distorted by rotation. This causes the optical brightness of the star to
vary by 0.06 magnitudes during each 5.6-day binary orbit, with the
minimum magnitude occurring when the system is aligned with the line of
sight. The "ellipsoidal" pattern of light variation results from the limb darkening and gravity darkening of the star's surface.
When the spectrum of HDE 226868 is compared to the similar star Epsilon Orionis, the former shows an overabundance of helium and an underabundance of carbon in its atmosphere. The ultraviolet and hydrogen alpha spectral lines of HDE 226868 show profiles similar to the star P Cygni,
which indicates that the star is surrounded by a gaseous envelope that
is being accelerated away from the star at speeds of about 1,500 km/s.
Like other stars of its spectral type, HDE 226868 is thought to be shedding mass in a stellar wind at an estimated rate of 2.5×10−6 solar masses per year.
This is the equivalent of losing a mass equal to the Sun's every
400,000 years. The gravitational influence of the compact object appears
to be reshaping this stellar wind, producing a focused wind geometry
rather than a spherically symmetrical wind.[72]
X-rays from the region surrounding the compact object heat and ionize
this stellar wind. As the object moves through different regions of the
stellar wind during its 5.6-day orbit, the UV lines, the radio emission, and the X-rays themselves all vary.
The Roche lobe
of HDE 226868 defines the region of space around the star where
orbiting material remains gravitationally bound. Material that passes
beyond this lobe may fall toward the orbiting companion. This Roche lobe
is believed to be close to the surface of HDE 226868 but not
overflowing, so the material at the stellar surface is not being
stripped away by its companion. However, a significant proportion of the
stellar wind emitted by the star is being drawn onto the compact
object's accretion disk after passing beyond this lobe.
The gas and dust between the Sun and HDE 226868 results in a
reduction in the apparent magnitude of the star as well as a reddening
of the hue—red light can more effectively penetrate the dust in the
interstellar medium. The estimated value of the interstellar extinction (AV) is 3.3 magnitudes. Without the intervening matter, HDE 226868 would be a fifth-magnitude star and, thus, visible to the unaided eye.
Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne
Cygnus X-1 was the subject of a bet between physicists Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne,
in which Hawking bet against the existence of black holes in the
region. Hawking later described this as an "insurance policy" of sorts.
In his book A Brief History of Time he wrote:
This was a form of insurance policy
for me. I have done a lot of work on black holes, and it would all be
wasted if it turned out that black holes do not exist. But in that case,
I would have the consolation of winning my bet, which would win me four
years of the magazine Private Eye. If black holes do exist, Kip will get one year of Penthouse.
When we made the bet in 1975, we were 80% certain that Cygnus X-1 was a
black hole. By now [1988], I would say that we are about 95% certain,
but the bet has yet to be settled.
According to the updated tenth-anniversary edition of A Brief History of Time, Hawking has conceded the bet due to subsequent observational data in favor of black holes. In his own book, Black Holes and Time Warps, Thorne reports that Hawking conceded the bet by breaking into Thorne's office while he was in Russia, finding the framed bet, and signing it.
(While Hawking referred to the bet as taking place in 1975, the written
bet itself (in Thorne's handwriting, with his and Hawking's signatures)
bears additional witness signatures under a legend stating "Witnessed
this tenth day of December 1974". This date was confirmed by Kip Thorne on the January 10, 2018 episode of Nova on PBS.)
Counter-jihad, also spelled counterjihad and known as the counter-jihad movement,
is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors,
bloggers, think tanks, street movements and campaign organisations all
linked by a common belief that the Western world is being subjected to invasion and takeover by Muslims. Several academic accounts have presented conspiracy theory as a key component of the counter-jihad movement. On a day-to-day level, it seeks to generate outrage at perceived Muslim crimes.
While the roots of the movement go back to the 1980s, it did not gain significant momentum until after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the 7 July 2005 London bombings. As far back as 2006, online commentators such as Fjordman were identified as playing a key role in forwarding the nascent counter-jihad ideology. The movement received considerable attention following the lone wolf attacks by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik
whose manifesto extensively reproduced the writings of prominent
counter-jihad bloggers, and following the emergence of prominent street
movements such as the English Defence League (EDL). The movement has been variously described as pro-Israel, anti-Islamic, Islamophobic, inciting hatred against Muslims, and far-right.
The movement has adherents both in Europe and in North America.
The European wing is more focused on the alleged cultural threat to
European traditions stemming from immigrant Muslim populations, while
the American wing emphasizes an alleged external threat, essentially
terrorist in nature.
Overview
Counter-jihad is a transatlantic "radical right" wing movement
that, via "the sharing of ideas between Europeans and Americans and
daily linking between blogs and websites on both sides of the Atlantic", "calls for a counterjihad against the supposed Islamisation of Europe".
While the roots of the movement go back to the 1980s, it did not gain significant momentum until after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
The authors of Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse describe the movement as heavily relying on two key tactics. "The first is arguing that the most radical Muslims – men like Osama bin Laden – are properly interpreting the Quran,
while peaceful moderate Muslims either do not understand their own holy
book or are strategically faking their moderation. The second key
tactic is to relentlessly attack individuals and organizations that
purport to represent moderate Islam...painting them as secret operatives
in a grand Muslim scheme to destroy the West."
Benjamin Lee describes the "counter-jihad scene" as one where
"Europe and the United States are under threat from an aggressive and
politicized Islamic world that is attempting to take over Europe through
a process of "Islamification" with the eventual aim of imposing Sharia law.
In this process, the threat is characterized by the perceived removal
of Christian or Jewish symbols, the imposition of Islamic traditions,
and the creation of no-go areas for non-Muslims. The construction of mosques
in particular is seen as continued reinforcement of the separation of
the Muslim population from the wider populous. As strong as the
threatening practices of Muslims in descriptions of the counter jihad
are images of a powerless Europe in decline and sliding into decadence,
unable to resist Islamic takeover. The idea that European culture in
particular is in a state of decline, while a spiritually vigorous East
represented by Islam is in the ascendancy in civil society, is a common
sentiment in some circles."
Two central counter-jihad themes have been identified:
the notion that Islam poses a threat to "Western civilisation",
with a particular focus on "Muslims living in Europe", that is, within
the European Counterjihad Movement (ECJM), "seen predominantly in terms
of immigration", particularly Muslim immigration.
a lack of trust in regional, political and economic "elites", with a particular focus against the European Union (EU).
Counter-jihad movement
Paul
Beliën, member of the board of directors of the International Free
Press Society (IFPS) and the editor of Counterjihad blog The Brussels
Journal
One of the first organizations of the Counter-jihad movement [CJM], the 910 Group was founded in 2006 and announced on Gates of Vienna,
"a principal blog of the CJM since 2004." Its stated purpose was to
defend "liberties, human rights, and religious and political freedoms
[that] are under assault from extremist groups who believe in Islamist
supremacy."
By April 2007, the counter-jihad current became visible as a movement
operating in northwestern Europe after a "counter-jihad summit",
organised by a transatlantic network of anti-Islam bloggers, was held in
Copenhagen, Denmark.
A March 2012 counter-jihad conference in Denmark drew 200–300
supporters from throughout Europe. Ten times the number of left-wing
protesters staged a counter-demonstration. The 2012 conference in Denmark, was alleged by its organisers, the English Defence League to mark the starting point of a pan-European movement. There have been no CJM conferences since 2013, pointing to a decline in the movement.
The International Free Press Society lists representatives from
many parts of the counter-jihad spectrum on its board of advisors. Eurabia theorist Bat Ye'Or is on the board of advisors, while owner of the blog Gates of Vienna, Edward S. May, serves as outreach co-ordinator on its board of directors.
American Counter-jihad movement
Robert Spencer, joint leader of Stop Islamization of America and editor of counter-jihad blog Jihad Watch
The U.S.-based Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) is led by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer,
as a programme under their American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI).
According to the AFDI website, the initiative aims, among other
activities, to:
Create state organizations that work towards the initiative's aims at a local level
Organize grass root small groups at the local level to fight what it
labels "specific Islamic supremacist initiatives" in American cities
Build strategic alliances with activist groups in Europe and Israel to engage in open and stealthy counter jihad measures
Promote candidates who "fight against the march of Islamic supremacists"
Host conferences "that educate Americans about Leftist indoctrination and Islam’s quest for domination"
promot[ing] a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the
guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears
by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence
of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy "American" values.
In 2010, a group dubbed "Team B II", patterned after the anti-communist 1970s Team B, published a report titled "Shariah: The Threat to America" which has been cited as influencing the movement's discourse and the public's perception.
With the election of Donald Trump
to the United States presidency in 2017, some have claimed that the
American wing has achieved some influence in the US administration.
In the words of Toby Archer, a scholar of political extremism and terrorism,
"Counter-jihad discourse mixes valid concerns about jihad-inspired terrorism
with far more complex political issues about immigration to Europe from
predominantly Muslim countries. It suggests that there is a threat not
just from terrorism carried out by Islamic extremists but from Islam
itself. Therefore, by extension, all European Muslims are a threat."
Arun Kundnani, in a report published by the International Centre for
Counter-terrorism, writes that the counter-jihad movement has evolved
from earlier European far-right movements through a shift from race to
values as identity markers: "In moving from neo‐Nazism to
counter‐jihadism, the underlying structure of the narrative remains the
same." Continuing on this note, he writes that comparing the
counter-jihadist worldview to the older, neo-nazi one, "Muslims have
taken the place of blacks and multiculturalists are the new Jews."
According to prominent counter-jihadist Edward S. May, writing under the pseudonym Baron Bodissey, the counter-jihadist movement is based on the belief that
"Islam
is above all a totalitarian political ideology, sugar-coated with the
trappings of a primitive desert religion to help veil its true nature.
The publicly stated goal of Islamic theology and political ideology is
to impose the rule of Islam over the entire world, and make it part of
Dar al-Islam, the 'House of Submission'."
Cas Mudde argues that various conspiracy theories with roots in Bat Ye'Or's Eurabia
are important to the movement. The main theme of these theories is an
allegation that European leaders allow a Muslim dominance of Europe,
whether by intention or not, through multicultural policies and lax immigration laws. According to Hope not Hate,
counter-jihad discourse has replaced the racist discourse of rightwing,
populist and nationalist politics in America and Europe "with the
language of cultural and identity wars".
English Defence League rally in Newcastle, UK, 2010
Toby Archer
detects a difference between the European and American wings of the
movement. The American wing emphasizes an external threat, essentially
terrorist in nature. The European wing sees a cultural threat to
European traditions stemming from immigrant Muslim populations. While
Archer notes that the perceived failure of multi-culturalism is shared
across much of the political spectrum, he argues the counter-jihad
movement is a particular conservative manifestation of this trend. He
acknowledges the movement’s conservative defense of human rights and the
rule of law but he believes by rejecting progressive policy it rejects
much of what Europe is today.
The views of the counter-jihad movement have been criticized as a
source of support for the anti-Muslim views of individuals inspired to
take violent direct action. Anders Behring Breivik, responsible for the 2011 Norway attacks, published a manifesto explaining his views which drew heavily on the work of counter-jihad bloggers such as Fjordman. Daniel Pipes
argues that a “close reading of his manifesto suggests” that Breivik
wanted to discredit and undermine the movement's dedication to
democratic change to further Breivik’s “dreamed-for revolution” as the
only alternative. Bruce Bawer
argues that the association of criticism of Islam with violence implies
that "to be opposed to jihad is, by definition, not only a bad but a
downright dangerous thing." Breivik has later identified himself as a fascist and voiced support for neo-Nazis, stating that he had exploited counter-jihad rhetoric in order to protect "ethno-nationalists", and instead start a media drive against what he deemed "anti-nationalist counterjihad"-supporters.
Executive director of the Institute of Race Relations,
Liz Fekete, has argued that although most of the counter-jihad movement
"stops short of advocating violence to achieve their goals", the most
extreme parts share much of Breivik's discursive frameworks and
vocabulary. She counterposits this with more mainstream
counter-jihadists, that warn of Islamisation as a result of naïvety or
indecisiveness, whom she identifies as a source of legitimacy for the
former.
Theologist and philosopher Marius Timmann Mjaaland has described the role given to Christianity
in some parts of the counter-jihad movement and has identified some
aspects of the movement's ideology that he says links it to fascism-like conspiracy theories:
The establishment of an allegedly continuous and coherent
connection between the present-day conflict between the Christian West
and Muslims, whereas analyses based on established historical science
will dismiss any such claim as unfounded.
A claim that mainstream politicians and media in Western countries
have in effect become internal enemies or "traitors", by respectively
allowing the creation of multicultural societies and advocating "marxism" and "political correctness".
This, in turn, has allowed Muslims to settle in Western lands, and thereby allegedly opened them to attack from within.
And, lastly, a Nietzschean,
post-Christian worldview where the distinction between good and evil is
given little attention, to the point where Christianity's ideal of "loving one's neighbour"
is entirely omitted. Christianity is reduced from a system of belief to
an identity marker, and a political mythology is built, that draws
heavily on the Crusades.
Counter-jihad has sought to portray Western Muslims as a "fifth column",
collectively seeking to destabilize Western nations' identity and
values for the benefit of an international Islamic movement intent on
the establishment of a caliphate in Western countries. Much of the Eurabia literature and Counter Jihad forums describe taqiyya as a manipulative strategy used by moderate Muslims to infiltrate and eventually overthrow society.
Supporters are often fiercely pro-Israel.
Comparison with anti-communism
The movement has been compared to the anti-communism of the Cold War. Geert Wilders, Dutch politician and speaker at counter-jihad events, argues that Islam is a political ideology that, like communism, is a totalitarian threat to a liberal social order. The Southern Poverty Law Center
compares both as similar exaggerated threats. “Like the communists that
an earlier generation believed to be hiding behind every rock,
infiltrated “Islamist” operatives today are said to be diabolically
preparing for a forcible takeover.”
The Cold War parallel is taken further by social commentator Bruce Bawer,
who not only compares counter-jihad with anti-communism, but also
compares those who criticize the counter-jihad movement with
anti-anti-communists. The latter damned anti-Communists as “fanatical,
paranoid conspiracy theorists” while “remaining all but silent about the
evils of Communism itself.” Today it is fashionable to hold that “the
good guys are the counter-counterjihadists – the journalists, activists,
and others who make a career of slamming” counter-jihadists. Author Roger Kimball agrees.
