The article published last Friday is a very interesting one because the Associated Press reporter has really played up the dual personality angle about the would-be bomber Mohamed Osman Mohamud. For me, there isn’t much of a mystery—permission is granted by the Islamic “faith” to use deception and lying for Allah. It is as much a part of the “religion” as is praying five times a day. And, is indeed a partial explanation why most Americans cannot see the goals of the Islamists among them.
It is hard to wrap our minds around the concept of Taqiyya*. Our Judeo-Christian heritage teaches us that lying is sinful, not so for Muslim Jihadists.
Here is the AP at the Washington Post on the Christmas tree bombing trial going on in Portland:
PORTLAND, Ore. — At some point just before 5:40 p.m. on Nov. 26, 2010, the illusion that Mohamed Osman Mohamud created was still intact.
He was still, according to prosecutors, an Islamic soldier in a war against the West, ready to kill and maim thousands at a busy Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. He was still, according to friends, a shy, suburban 19-year-old who had written and read a Kwanzaa poem about religious unity with two Christian college students three days before his arrest.
These conflicting lives were juggled, managed, even perfected.
Then, at 5:40 p.m., Mohamud pressed a button on a cellphone he thought would set off a bomb and FBI agents descended, tossing him in a police car while he shouted “Allahu Akhbar.” God is great.
Go to the WaPo if you want to read about all of the witnesses for the defense who describe Mohamud as a happy go-lucky college student.
Mohamud’s double-life revealed by prosecutors:
Just months earlier, prosecutors say he had authored an article in an English-language magazine called “Jihad Recollections” under the pen name Ibn al-Mubarak, advocating physical fitness for the mujahideen in places where they couldn’t find exercise equipment. He would go on to write three more stories for the publication, his work appearing alongside contributions from Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida higher-ups.
And, then the end:
In the seconds before 5:40 p.m. on Nov. 26, the illusion of Mohamud’s dual lives was still intact.
At Portland’s Union Station, he pressed a button on a cellphone he thought would detonate a bomb. Sixteen blocks away, a cavalcade of city leadership was congratulating itself on another year at Portland’s Christmas tree lighting.
Nothing happened. Mohamud pressed the button again. Agents from the FBI took him into a waiting car as he kicked at them and shouted. [shouted Allahu Akhbar!–ed]
Surprise! A refugee who didn’t assimilate!
Mohamed Osman Mohamud is from a refugee family, he must have been at most a young child when he came to the US. He was given a privileged upbringing. He was not poor and destitute, he didn’t need a job(!), yet he wanted to kill thousands of American men, women and CHILDREN for Allah. Here is the New York Times said about the “confused” young man in 2010:
Mr. Mohamud, his younger sister and their parents had long lived in the Portland area, including in Beaverton, a suburb that has a small Somali population.
Mr. Mohamud’s family fled Somalia in the early 1990s, and his father, Osman Barre, a well-educated engineer, worked to establish them in Oregon.
“Osman was very sophisticated,” said Chris Oace, a former refugee worker for Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon who helped the family resettle here in the early 1990s. “Some refugees are afraid of having Christian churches help them. But it wasn’t an issue with his family at all.”
So much for that melting pot mumbo jumbo we hear so much about from the naive defenders of bringing in third world Muslims and dropping them off in your town.
For new readers: All of our references to the ‘Christmas tree bomber’ are here.
* See Taqiyya’ s use in rules of war discussion here:
Taqiyya offers two basic uses. The better known revolves around dissembling over one’s religious identity when in fear of persecution. Such has been the historical usage of taqiyya among Shi’i communities whenever and wherever their Sunni rivals have outnumbered and thus threatened them. Conversely, Sunni Muslims, far from suffering persecution have, whenever capability allowed, waged jihad against the realm of unbelief; and it is here that they have deployed taqiyya—not as dissimulation but as active deceit. In fact, deceit, which is doctrinally grounded in Islam, is often depicted as being equal—sometimes superior—to other universal military virtues, such as courage, fortitude, or self-sacrifice.