Al Qaeda To Attack--Now They Tell Us

Artuz Sheva reports Al-Qaeda Issues "Offer that Can't be Refused"

An Al-Qaeda video released on Saturday called on Americans and the rest of the Christian world to "repent" and convert to Islam. Expert: "This is the invitation that precedes the attack."

The newly released video, posted on an extremist Islamic website, contained footage of Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri and a man identified as Adam Yehiye Gadahn. Gadahn is an American convert to Islam, wanted by the FBI for his alleged role in developing Al-Qaeda propaganda in Pakistan.

“To Americans and the rest of Christendom we say, either repent [your] misguided ways and enter into the light of truth," Gadahn threatened, "or keep your poison to yourselves and suffer the consequences in this world and the next... But whatever you do don’t attempt to spread your misery and misguidance to our lands.”

“Muslims don’t need democracy to rid themselves of their homegrown despots and tyrants. What they do need is their Islamic faith, the sprit of jihad and the lifting of foreign troops and interference from their necks,” Gadahn stated. He read verses from the Koran in Arabic, and then translated them into English, calling on Muslims to strengthen their faith and expel their rulers.

Robert Spencer, director of JihadWatch and author of several popular books on Islam, explained to Arutz-7's Nissan Ratzlav-Katz that the tape "appears to be the call to Islam that the Muslim Prophet Muhammed requires to be extended to infidels before they can be lawfully attacked by Muslims."

"Once that call is rejected," Spencer feels, "Muslims are required to begin hostilities in order to subjugate the infidel population in question and bring it into the Islamic social order. Thus it seems likely that terror attacks and/or attempted terror attacks will follow Gadahn's 'invitation' - although there is no certainty that they will follow within a certain time frame."

Al-Zawahri, also speaking on the tape, urged viewers to heed Gadahn's “Invitation to Islam. He stated ominously, "To the American people and the people of the West in general ... Allah sent his Prophet Muhammad with guidance and the religion of truth ... and sent him as a herald."

If Spencer is correct, then this call to 'accept Islam or face attack':

1. is a warning--unlike 9/11. How would Al Qaeda explain that--Practice?
2. amounts to 'convert or die'--what about "there is no coercion in religion." Religion no, Islam yes?

According to Answering Islam

S. A. Rahman makes the distinct claim:

This verse is one of the most important verses in the Qur'an, containing a charter of freedom of conscience unparalleled in the religious annals of mankind.... [1]

Compare that with what Raphael Patai writes in The Arab Mind about

the doctrine of Din Muhammad bi'l-sayf (literally, "The religion of Muhammad with the sword"), which required all Mulsims to spread Islam by the force of arms. [p.155]

After all, Islam's massive occupation during its heyday reached as far as Russia.

Rahman does admit that some commentators minimize the area covered by the 'no compulsion' verse, and claims with a straight face:

Such an interpretation can perhaps be attributed to the unconscious pressure of orthodox tradition. [emphasis added]

Have Rahman and his fellow apologists ever heard of Al Qaeda?

Technorati Tag: Al Qaeda and Terrorism and US and Islam.