The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
Issue 11 of the Islamic State (ISIS) English-language magazine Dabiq features an article on racism in America, titled "Wala and Bara' Versus American Racism." The issue of race surfaces frequently in ISIS publications and communications by its fighters and supporters, particularly among its Western recruits, who are influenced by popular youth culture and relevant current affairs. ISIS has also exploited the issue of race in numerous ways to attract Western fighters (for more on this, see MEMRI JTTM report The Issue Of Race In The Discourse Of The Islamic State (ISIS) And Its Supporters).
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The Dabiq article pointed out that race-related issues have recently dominated headlines in the U.S., and that the Muslim minority in the country has, unlike the "crusader" mainstream media, paid attention to these problems. While lauding the fact that Muslims are not ignoring such a serious issue, the article condemns how the Muslim community is addressing it: It sees championing coexistence and promoting Islam as a religion of peace as two major problems, and states that doing so serves an infidel agenda. It states:
"Deluded by the open-ended concept of 'tolerance,' they cite numerous āyāt and ahādīth that – rightfully so – serve to demonstrate that racial hatred has no place in Islam, but they do so for the purpose of advancing an agenda that attempts to 'Islamize' more 'liberal' concepts that the kuffār apply across the board for achieving evil, such as political pluralism, freedom of religion, and acceptance of sodomites."
Stating that Western Muslims have forgone the concept of wala and bara (i.e. loyalty and disavowal for the cause of Allah), the article adds that Muslim leaders have not properly educated their followers on a Muslim's obligation to reject infidels, "separate himself from infidels, and to abandon their lands, harbor enmity and hatred towards them, and wage war against them until they submit to the truth."
The correct way to tackle racism from an Islamic perspective, it says, is to "reassert the importance and significance of, and to state in clear and unequivocal terms that those who wage war against Islam and the Muslims will not be spared on account of their skin color or ethnicity. The fate of a kāfir waging war against the Muslims is one and the same across the entire racial spectrum – slaughter."
Muslims, the article says, must reject racism in the same way that nationalism should be rejected – and nationalism is a construct that is divisive, like racism: "For just as nationalists would never wage jihād beyond their borders to spread Islam to the corners of the earth and wipe out shirk, likewise racists would not be inclined to disavow any members of their race except for those whom they deem 'self-hating,' let alone fight them for the sake of raising high the word of Allah."
The article concludes by encouraging Muslims of varying races and backgrounds to band together in order to fight against their shared common enemy: "So let every Muslim who wishes to taste the sweetness of walā’ and barā’ follow the example of Ibrāhīm n and declare enmity towards the kuffār amongst his own people – whether black, white, Arab, or non-Arab – and then march forth and wage war against them with whatever means are available to him."
