Al-Liby on Jihad as Blood Sacrifice

Abu Yahya al-Libi

Al-Qaeda Member

(Image from MEMRI Special Dispatch Series - No. 1349)

(November 7, 2006)

As a preface leading into an observation that I intend to make about Abu Yahya al-Libi, I want to note that some of my older postings still get an occasional comment, such as my initial post on the Pope's Regensburg talk, which received this comment yesterday:

Anonymous said:

hi, i am a student at the american university in cairo and am doing a presentaion on the pope's speech and am a muslim. i have to admit that people might have misunderstood the pope's speech or even as u mentioned the translation wasnt accurate but in both ways it would probably still sound abit insulting because muslims look at the prophet mohammed as an ideal human being, so the pope should never have mentioned mohamed in his speech cuz its a sensitive isuee. like did u ever hear a shakh mention any prophet of any other religion in a speech with any negative words or anything like that ? no .and a pope should be fair and respectiable of other religions and not bias thats what i think a pope should be like. so i think the pope should have thought twice before bringing up this issue and i do admit that some muslims use violence but that is because they dont understand religion or islam well enough cuz islam should be representing peace and all good. but i still also think that the viloence is in the character not related to religion at all like there are violent christians, jews...etc... so islam doesnt have anything to do with it. and those people who claim to be muslims do nothing but harm islams repitation which used to be a good one among the countries long ago. plus i just wanted to clarify that my best friend is a christian and christains do not live in hell in egypt. if u ever visited egypt you would find the people very friendly and helpful and am seriously not being bias or anything. thanx.

I didn't address all of the points raised by Anonymous, for I don't know if he'll check back, but I did say this:

Anonymous, in the West, criticism of religious leaders has been allowed, more or less openly, since the Enlightenment, and I hope that this right to free speech remains uncurtailed.

As for the Pope's actual words, they were in German and show that the Pope expressed himself very carefully, far more carefully than the English translation.

If you haven't yet looked at my other posts on this issue, then you might want to look at the posts that follow this one that you've commented on.

As for violence and Islam, while I think that most Muslims are peaceful individuals, Islam does officially sanction violence in the cause of religion. I'm no expert, and limits to the acceptable kind of violence or to the degree of violence within the acceptable kind remain unclear to me.

My impression, however, is that the limits are rather broadly set.

To take one example, suicide bombing of Israelis seems to be widely accepted, both by religious leaders and by Muslims generally.

If suicide bombings of civilians is considered acceptable in Islam, then Islam has a very big problem with violence, one that Muslims themselves need to face up to and solve.

Okay, now that this long preface is finished, I'm ready for a brief observation on Abu Yahya al-Libi -- and, yes, I will make a connection to the comment by Anonymous and my reply.

In perusing words from the transcript of a statement by Al-Qaeda Member Al-Liby, I've come across another one of those jihadist remarks that seem to cast suicide jihadism in terms of human sacrifice, as indicated by this money quote:

"this form of worship [i.e. jihad] can only exist through the blood of those who sacrifice their souls for [Islam]..."

In effect, Al-Liby seems to be saying that the external, military jihad is a type of worship that takes the form of blood sacrifice through its martyrs.

Anonymous would perhaps argue that Al-Liby is not a scholarly spokesman for Islam, and I'd be willing to concede this point (if it's correct), but Al-Liby does appear to be a spokesman for a significant percentage of Muslims, and this is the central issue -- regardless of whether Islam is intrinsically peaceful or not -- that moderate Muslims such as Anonymous will have to deal with.