The Manchester Synagogue Attack Exposes Islam’s Three Most Dangerous Doctrines

The Manchester synagogue attack — like all such seemingly “random” terror attacks — is a reminder of Islam’s three most dangerous and problematic doctrines. To understand this, we must trace its logic, which, as usual, the Islamic State has forthrightly delineated.

On October 2, Mr. “Jihad the Syrian” — yes, that’s the actual translation of his name — crashed his car near the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation before emerging and stabbing two Jews to death. Less than two months earlier, the Islamic State had called on Muslims in Europe to engage in precisely such attacks.

In August, ISIS published an editorial in its Arabic language newsletter, al-Naba’, praising the Islamic slaughter and beheadings of Christian “infidels” in Africa, specifically in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It then called on the “knights of Islam” to engage in the same behavior in Europe:

May Allah illumine your paths and preserve your jihad, and assist you in carrying and delivering it to the shores of Europe, that it might invade them and disperse their security and turn their‑streets and‑capitals into another Ituri [devastated province in Congo] and another Cabo Delgado [devastated province in Mozambique]! For [Muslim] hearts still burn for revenge against the Christians of Europe, and the call is still open for the champions of Islam to repeat the [same] acts upon them, invade their homeland, and bring down the judgments of Allah upon them as, their brothers did in Africa.

The reason that ISIS says “the call is still open” to slaughter infidels is because it made an even more graphic call — with detailed instructions — on how to kill Western infidels earlier in 2024. After killing over a 100 people in a terror attack on Kerman, Iran, it issued an audio recording titled “And Kill Them Wherever You Find Them” (a reference to Koran 9:5).

Kill Civilians Before Soldiers

After urging Muslims not to attack Israel now, as that would only empower PA and Hamas, which are not, according to ISIS, “true Muslims,” it called on its followers, the “Lions of Islam,” to:

Chase your preys whether Jewish, Christian or their allies, on the streets and roads of America, Europe, and the world. Break into their homes, kill them and steal their peace of mind by any means you can lay hands on. Understand that you are the arm of the Islamic State hitting in the kuffar’s [infidels’] homelands, and are avenging the Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Sham, and other Muslim countries.

Solidify your plans and diversify the attacks: detonate explosives, burn them with grenades and fiery agents, shoot them with bullets, cut their throats with sharp knives, and run them over with vehicles. A sincere person will not lack the means to draw blood from the hearts of the Jews, the Christians, and their allies, and thus ease the suffering in the hearts of the believers.

Come at them from every door, kill them by the worst of means, turn their gatherings and celebrations into bloody massacres, do not distinguish between a civilian kaffir, and a military one, for they are all kuffar [infidels] …. Intentionally seek easy targets before hard ones, civilian targets before military ones, religious targets like synagogues and churches before others, for this will satisfy the soul and will demonstrate the characteristics of the battle, as our battle with them is a religious one and we kill them wherever we come upon them in response to Allah Almighty’s command.

Behind these calls of slaughter — in ways that everyone in Europe should be familiar, including driving vehicles over, blowing up, and stabbing infidels to death — ISIS spent much time delineating the three Muslim doctrines that most support this frenzied bloodlust.

Fight Jews and Christians Until They Grovel at Your Feet

All non-Muslims would do well to familiarize themselves with these three doctrines, which ISIS summarizes accurately. ISIS’s most recent editorial begins by quoting Koran 9:29: "Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day, nor comply with what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth from among the people of the book, until they pay the jizya, willingly submitting, fully humbled."

The mainstream Muslim understanding of this verse has always been that Muslims must fight “the people of the book” — a reference primarily to Christians and Jews — until they either convert to Islam, pay jizya (tribute), and embrace second-class status, or die. The fashionable claim nowadays that this verse means fight them only when they initiate aggression is a lie.

And so, after quoting Koran 9:29, the ISIS editorial continues by telling the Christians of Africa that, “if they want to emerge from a state of death and displacement, they must know that Islam grants them the freedom among three choices:

1. Accept Islam and they will become our brothers, equal in rights and duties.
2. Pay the jizya in humiliation and submission, and their blood will be spared.
3. If they refuse both, then death, which is what they have suffered for years.”

A Religious Duty of Hatred

Calls for jihad and jizya should, by now, be familiar, including to those few in the West who are moderately informed. But ISIS also invoked the overarching doctrine of al-wala’ w’al bara’ — loyalty and enmity.

This little known doctrine is the root source of all Islamic hostility. Its first part (al-wala’) commands all Muslims to be loyal and helpful to one another; its second part (al-bara’) commands all Muslims to disavow and even hate all non-Muslims.

It is, in fact, what fuels jihad (warfare) and jizya (mistreatment of conquered infidels).

Although there are many Koran verses that support this doctrine (3:28, 4:89, 4:144, 5:51, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23, 58:22), Koran 60:4 is its lynchpin. Allah informs Muslims that "You have an excellent example in Abraham [Ibrahim] and those with him, when they said to their people, 'We totally dissociate ourselves from you and what you worship besides Allah. We reject you. Enmity and hatred has arisen between us and will last until you believe in Allah alone.'"

You Must Hate Your Infidel Wife

The hate is intrinsic; it is so final and so total that even if a non-Muslim is genuinely good and kind to a Muslim, the Muslim must still hate him, or her. Yes, while Islam allows Muslim men to marry women “of the book,” Christians and Jews, he must, nonetheless, hate them — and show them he hates them. Here, for example, is how Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Yassir al-Burhami, responded to any one puzzled by the idea that Islam requires Muslim men to hate their Christian or Jewish wives:

Where’s the objection? Do all men love their wives? How many married couples live together despite disagreements and problems? Huh? That being the case, he [Muslim husband] may love the way she [non-Muslim wife] looks, or love the way she raises the children, or love that she has money. This is why he’s discouraged from marrying among the People of the Book — because she has no [real] religion. He is ordered to make her hate her religion while continuing marriage/sexual relations with her. This is a very standard matter….

Of course he should tell her that he hates her religion. He must show her that he hates her because of her religion, and because she is an infidel. But if possible, treat her well — perhaps that will cause her to convert to Islam. He should invite her to Islam and call her to Allah….

In fact, let me tell you: whoever rapes a woman, does he necessarily love her? Or is he just sleeping with her? He’s sleeping with her for her body’s sake only, and he does not love her in reality, because if he loved her, he wouldn’t have hurt her. Therefore it is possible to have sexual relations [between a Muslim man and a Christian or Jewish woman] without love. This is possible, but as we said, he is commanded to hate her.

No Non-Muslim Friends Allowed

Or consider the simple, straightforward and highly authoritative words of Ibn al-Taymiyya (1268-1328), who’s great influence down the centuries has earned him the singular honorific Sheikh of Islam among Muslims:

The believers are loyal to Allah, and so they are [naturally] one another’s allies. The infidels are the enemies of Allah and thus the enemies of the believers…. He prohibited befriending the infidels, making it clear that this is impermissible for the believers…. The believer needs to reflect on the difference between these two ways…

He needs to know that he is obligated to befriend a believer — even if he is oppressive and violent toward you, while he must be hostile to the infidel — even if he is liberal and kind to you. Allah Almighty sent prophets and revealed scripture so that all religion would be Allah’s alone; that there would be love for His allies, hatred for His enemies; honor for His allies, contempt for His enemies; rewards for His allies, punishments for his enemies.

In short, Muslim hatred for non-Muslims is an expression of faith. It is a direct commandment of Allah — with the weight of heaven and hell attached to it — and thus nonnegotiable.

What Islam Offers Outsiders: War and Enslavement

Now let’s see how this doctrine complements and even actuates its two more popular counterparts—jihad and jizya:

1) Hate for “the infidel,” that is, constant spiritual or metaphysical hostility against all non-Muslims, naturally manifests itself as

2) jihad, that is, physical hostility against and attempts to subjugate the non-Muslim whenever and wherever possible. And successful jihads beget

3) dhimmitude, the inhuman position that all non-Muslims who refuse to forfeit their religious freedom by converting to the victor’s creed must live under in an Islamic state.

Put differently, Jihad — war on non-Muslims simply because they are non-Muslims — is the physical manifestation of the hate Muslims should feel for all non-Muslims — again, just because they are non-Muslim.

Incidentally, not only is it natural to attack and seek to subjugate those whom one is bred to hate, but the doctrine of jihad, including to spread and enforce Sharia around the world, is — let no one deceive you — part and parcel of Islam.

What “Jihad” Really Means

Before it was subverted in the name of political correctness, diversity, and all that, when it was still an authoritative source, the Encyclopaedia of Islam stated following under its jihad entry: "The spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general … Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam … Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated."

But as infidels are to be hated per se and not merely in the context of jihad, the hostility continues even after the cessation of successful jihads. Other conquerors generally permit the conquered to go on unmolested so long as they do not challenge the new order — some even try to appease and win over their new subjects. But whenever and wherever Islam conquers, that old metaphysical hostility which fueled the original jihad remains to mistreat its subject infidels. Thus, not only must the Christians and Jews pay extortion money (jizya) and accept second-class citizen status — according to the juridical texts, they must also be reminded and made to feel inferior, including as a way to “inspire” them to convert to the “true” faith.

Either way, Islam wins: If the infidel continues in his faith, Islamic society continues to extort him; if the non-Muslim eventually “surrenders” to Islam, the umma gains a new recruit (with death as the penalty should he later entertain second thoughts and apostatize).

Incidentally, none of this is limited to doctrine or theory. All the above is a perfect description of historic Islam: it preached undying hate for infidels, invaded and conquered their lands, and placed those who refused to convert in a state of degradation and bondage.

Nor, and returning to the most recent expression of Islamic hate and jihad, the Manchester synagogue attack — to say nothing of the ongoing genocide of Christians throughout Africa — is any of this limited to the past. It is all very alive and well in the present.