Rapping for Terrorism

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from The London Observer, February 8, 2004, with the headline: “It’s Rap, Jihad Style—A music video with bloodcurdling images, fronted by a young British Muslim rapper brandishing a gun and a Qur’an is the latest hit in radical Islamic circles. The rap song is called ‘Dirty Kuffar,’ Arabic for ‘dirty non-believer,’ and it praises Osama Bin Laden and the attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

“The video has recently been posted on the British website run by the Islamic extremist Mohammad al-Massari, the UK-based Saudi Arabian dissident who has lived in Britain since 1994. Al-Massari claims that the video has been selling in large quantities at mosques to the younger generation and is in heavy demand overseas.

“The rapper fronting the video calls himself Sheikh Terra and the Soul Salah Crew, a take on the rap group, So Solid Crew. Salah is Arabic for ‘faith.’ The song starts with images of US Marines in Iraq cheering as one of them shoots a wounded Iraqi lying on the floor. At the end of the video, it features shots of the hijacked planes flying into the twin towers, with sounds of the rappers laughing. There is then a list of 56 countries they claim have been the victims of American aggression since 1945.

“The four-minute rap is essentially a diatribe against ‘the dirty non-believers, Tony Blair and George Bush,’ urging listeners to ‘throw them on the fire.’

“One of the most brutal images shows a jihadist fighter in Chechnya, riddling a captured Russian soldier with a Kalashnikov. Another image labels Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf a traitor and shows photographs of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice with the words ‘still slaves’ superimposed across their bodies.”

Tom: Well, Dave, I can’t stand rap, but I especially can’t stand this kind of rap. I thought this was a religion of peace and….

Dave: Well, they would say these are extremists, Tom.

Tom: Yeah, well they certainly are, nevertheless.

Dave: Well, they’re only following what Muhammad did. I mean was Muhammad an extremist? He began is his career with twenty murders, attacked caravans and so forth. Well, we’ve been through that. What is amazing is that the freedom that we have in the West, which there is nothing—no freedom, no freedom of content—you couldn’t do this in a Muslim country talking about them. They would take your head off in a minute. And this guy, he has this freedom to do this in the West. And yet he still thinks that this an evil country? That allows him to do this? Tom, it doesn’t make sense. I mean, you could almost become discouraged. How can we even reason with these people? You can’t reason with someone who says, “You either confess there’s no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet or off with your head.”

But I think there ought to be a law against this. Isn’t he advocating violent overthrow of the British government and of the American government? How should someone be allowed to arouse insurrection (that’s what it is)? They would do it if they could, and he’s advocating killing Blair and Bush and anyone else who stands in their way. Tom, that, to me, is astonishing—that we will continue to give these people freedom, and I’m going to say it once again, and see if any of our listeners object. But we allow them to build thousands of mosques in the West. You can’t build a non-Muslim place of worship in Saudi Arabia. And in a few countries where you can, like Pakistan, they’ll roll a hand grenade in, or they’ll shoot up your Christian school, or whatever.

So, what I think we ought to do, really, and I’m serious about this: Shut down every mosque in the Western world—and if any Muslims are listening, you tell me why this is not fair—shut down every mosque in the Western world, and tell them, “You can reopen them once you give a comparable freedom in your country to non-Muslims.” Why should it be a one-way street? It’s not right. I wish I could sit down with President Bush and his cabinet and say this. It’s because of oil—that’s why justice has fallen in the street. That’s why we don’t put pressure on them to clean up their civil rights like we have on Russia and China and so forth.

Tom: Dave, there’s another point here. You know, I started out saying…talking about the religion of Islam, and we’re being told every which way that Islam is a religion of peace. And you said, “Well, these are extremists.” Well, wait a minute….

Dave: No, I didn’t say they were. You said they were, and I said that’s what people will say.

Tom: Okay. But my point here is that the name of this rap song is “Dirty Kuffar,” which is Arabic for “dirty nonbeliever,” and this is “selling in large quantities…”—I’m quoting from the article—“selling in large quantities” where? On street corners? you know, black market kind of thing? No, at mosques!

Dave: Of course.

Tom: So, you have the younger generation. Dave, there’s a book that you have—I don’t know if you’ve been all the way through it, but the title of it is Tea with Terrorists. And in that, the man points out that there are two type of Islamic terrorist. Political and religious. The political ones have an agenda. Land for Palestinians and so on. But what about the religious Muslims?

Dave: They simply seek to be true to their religion, to Islam, to follow Muhammad. Muhammad said, I’ll say it again, we’ve said it a number of times: “The last day will not come until the Muslims confront the Jews and the Muslims destroy them. And in that day Allah will give a voice to the rocks and the trees, and they will cry out, Muslim there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.” You will find that taught in Muslim schools throughout the United States as well as in the Muslim world. Not only that, but Muhammad said, “Allah has commanded me to fight against all people, until all people confess there’s no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.”

And there are more than 100 verses in the Qur’an using violence. Surah 9:5: “Pursue the infidels [that’s the unbelievers], pursue the kuffars, pursue the infidels, wherever you find them, and off with their heads.” Okay? More than a hundred verses about that. So how we can continue to close our eyes to the truth, Tom, it’s at our own peril. We’re going to pay for this one of these days. We’d better start acting rationally with regard to this threat right now.