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Following are excerpts from an interview with Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum of the Jordanian Tahrir Party, which aired on JoSat TV on December 8, 2011:
Interviewer: Should the Muslims fight the People of the Book [i.e., Jews and Christians], in order to force them to pay the jizya poll tax? Should the Muslims fight all the People of the Book worldwide?
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: This fighting is in order to remove obstacles. It is waged against countries, not against individuals. When we declare Jihad against Germany, for instance, it is declared against the German state, for refusing to allow Islam to spread to the people of Germany. We give them a choice: Either to convert to Islam, or to pay the jizya and submit to the laws of Islam. The jizya is the only tax paid by non-Muslims, whereas the Muslims pay the zakkat, the kharraj, and the rikkaz, as well as other taxes, if there is not enough money for the army…
Interviewer: So why does it come as a surprise that the Europeans fear you, when you say that we should fight them all…
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: We should fight the states and the armies, not the people…
Interviewer: Exactly, you want to fight the states…
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: We will not fight the people, we will not kill the people, but if a certain state insists on preventing the spreading of Islam on its soil, we will fight that state.
Interviewer: So Samuel Huntington's book The Clash of Civilizations, and even before that, Fukuyama, who predicted that the next conflict would be between Islam and the West… What you are saying means that they were right…
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: There is indeed a clash of civilizations. They brought colonialism to us… If not for Jihad, Islam would not have reached us and all the other places. Within a quarter of a century, Islam reached most of the ancient world by means of Jihad. The common people want Islam. Anyone who doesn't can stick to his own religion. Here in the Levant, most of our forefathers were not Muslims, but they converted to Islam because of its goodness and justice. The small minority in the Muslim countries that remained…
Interviewer: Fine. Let me just ask you an important question. So, we are commanded to fight in order to spread the religion of Allah…
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: Yes, this is Islam's way of spreading.
[…]
Interviewer: If you come to power, will you liberate Palestine?
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: Yes, yes. Jihad should be declared in order to annihilate Israel. This is a monstrous entity that must be eradicated.
Interviewer: Would you agree to a Christian becoming finance minister, for example?
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: No, I wouldn't. For starters, there are no ministries in Islam. There is an official who is empowered [by the imam]. This is one of the ruling positions, which are exclusively for Muslims. Anyone who is part of the rule – the head of state, who is the Caliph, the empowered official, the executive official, the wali, or the governor – must be a Muslim. Moreover, he must be a man.
[…]
European countries live in prehistoric, prehuman times. Gay marriage – women with women and men with men… Is that your secularism??!
Political activist Omar Abu Rassa: Is that all you've seen in the West?!
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: The millions who took to Wall Street shouted: "The people want to topple the regime." Don't you cut me off.
Omar Abu Rassa: The only thing you saw in the West was homosexuals? That's the West for you?
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: What else do they have?
Omar Abu Rassa: Scientific accomplishments, freedom of thought…
Sheik Ahmad Abu Quddum: What scientific accomplishments?! We [Muslims] brought them there.
[…]
The future belongs to Islam. The Islamic caliphate is bound to come, as was foretold by our Prophet Muhammad. That there will be a caliphate following the path of the Prophet Muhammad.
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