Editor’s note: The following account was written for RaymondIbrahim.com by an American teacher in the Muslim world.

Even though I have been living in the Islamic world for almost three years, the events in this story surprised even me. I guess the idea of being betrayed by a friend or a co-worker with whom I have had a long and cordial relationship is still hard for me to accept. So, when I heard that a group of Muslim women double-crossed their Christian colleagues to secure permanent positions for their co-religionists nurses, I was stunned.

The events that led to this betrayal began in March 2014 in a government hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, where Muslim and Christian nurses had worked together for several years without any major problems. In an attempt to save money, the government decided to not renew the contracts of the nurses classified as temporary (the nurses were either classified as permanent or temporary – with renewable yearly contracts).

For obvious reasons, the entire nursing staff was unhappy by that announcement. The temporary nurses would be out of a job while the permanent nurses would have to add the workload of the laid off nurses to their own without extra compensation. In a move of solidarity, the Muslim and Christian nurses decided to protest the staff cuts in the front of the hospital (Ruth and Sandra represented the Christian nurses).

Shortly after the protest began, the police arrived and asked the protest leaders the purpose of the manifestation. Ruth explained the situation to them, but was told that they were in the wrong and that they should all go home. Then, the representatives of the Muslim nurses told the police officers that they were only bystanders and not part of the protest. Upon hearing that, the police captain ordered the arrest of the Christian nurses, who in complete shock by their Muslim co-workers betrayal shouted, “Look around! You can see that they were protesting with us.”

The police ignored the obvious and arrested the 17 Christian nurses for disorderly conduct. The next day, local Muslim politicians visited the nurses (who had been released on bail) and told them that if they resigned, the charges against them would be dropped. The Christian nurses then realized that somewhere down the line, the protest turned into a plot to replace the Christian nurses on permanent status with Muslim nurses on temporary status. They refused to resign and said they would fight this injustice in court.

Interestingly, their unfair treatment got the attention of some people in the Muslim media who sympathized with them. They joined forces with Christian organizations and succeeded in pressuring the government to immediately drop the charges and give the Christian nurses their jobs back. A week later, the Christian nurses were back at the hospital and everything seemed normal (the government also renewed the contracts of the temporary nurses).

Sadly, the Muslim nurses were angry that their Islamic sisters with temporary status did not get permanent status and spread rumors that Ruth and Sandra blasphemed against Islam. Within an hour, the two women were forced to leave the hospital because of the violent threats they received from staff members. Sandra's husband, who worked as a lab technician at the hospital was also forced to leave.

Knowing very well what was about to happen, they withdrew their children from school and emptied their bank accounts. During that time, Ruth's husband phoned to tell her that he had just been fired from the hotel management job he had held since 1999.

That night, while sitting around a table at Ruth's house and trying to make sense of the day's events, they received a phone call from a friend warning them that a mob was heading their way to kill them. They took all of their valuables and fled to one of Ruth's relatives in the countryside. There, they applied for visas to Thailand and a week later, they joined the more than 7000 Pakistani refugees now living in Thailand who have also fled Pakistan because of religious persecution.

As Amnesty International reported back in 1994:

Several dozen people have been charged with blasphemy in Pakistan over the last few years; in all the cases known to Amnesty International, the charges of blasphemy appear to have been arbitrarily brought, founded solely on the individuals’ minority religious beliefs. . . . The available evidence in all these cases suggests that charges were brought as a measure to intimidate and punish members of minority religious communities . . . hostility towards religious minority groups appeared in many cases to be compounded by personal enmity, professional or economic rivalry or a desire to gain political advantage. As a consequence, Amnesty International has concluded that most of the individuals now facing charges of blasphemy, or convicted on such charges, are prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their real or imputed religious beliefs in violation of their right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. (Crucified Again, p.136)

Author’s note: The names of the individuals in this article were changed to protect their relatives who remain in Pakistan.

Alors que plusieurs personnes ont critiqué avec raison la récente affirmation du président américain Barack Obama que l'État Islamique "n'est pas islamique", certains de ses autres commentaires prononcés dans le même discours (curieux et subtils) ont été largement ignorés.

Considérons l'invocation du président sur les "griefs" pour expliquer le succès de l'État Islamique: ”En ce moment, les plus grandes menaces viennent du Moyen-Orient et de l'Afrique du Nord, où des groupes radicaux exploitent des griefs pour leur propre gain. Et l'un de ces groupes est ISIL – qui a adopté le nom d'État Islamique".

La logique d'Obama est renforcée par plusieurs apologistes professionnels qui prétende la même chose. Comme le professeur de Georgetown John Esposito – dont les excuses se transforment parfois en mensonges absolus – a récemment déclaré, "Les principaux moteurs [de la violence de l'État Islamique] se trouvent ailleurs", signifiant pas dans l'islam, mais dans une "longue liste de griefs".

En d'autres mots, et encore une fois, c'est apparemment "de notre faute" que les muslumans de l'État Islamique se comportent comme des sauvages – la crucifixion, la décapitation, le massacre et l'asservitude du monde seulement parce qu'ils sont des "infidèles": ainsi, quand l'État Islamique rassemble et massacre des "infidèle" et/ou des hommes chiites (en citant l'exemple du prophète) – c'est parce qu'ils sont en colère contre quelque chose que l'Amérique a fait; quand l'État Islamique capture des "infidèles" comme les yazidi ou les chrétiennes avec leurs enfants, et les vend sur le marché d'esclave – sexuel pour les femmes – (se référant aux enseignements islamiques), c'est parce qu'ils sont en colère contre quelque chose que l'Amérique a fait; quand l'État Islamique bombarbe des églises, détruit leurs croix, et force les chrétiens à se convertir ou mourir (se référant aux écritures islamiques), c'est parce qu'ils sont en colère contre quelque chose que l'Amérique a fait.

Malgré le fait que leur “grief” traditionnel n'a aucune logique, il est devenu particulièrement populaire après les attaques d'al-Qaïda sur l'Amérique le 9/11. Les médias traditionnels, suivant la propagande islamique d'al Jazeera, ont diffusé (sans esprit critique) les cassettes vidéo d'Ossama ben Laden où il affirme que la campagne de terreur d'al-Qaïda a été motivée par des griefs contre l'Occident – allant du soutien américain à Israël jusqu'à l'échec des États-Unis à signer l'accord de Kyoto concernant le changement climatique.

Bien sûr que c'est absurde. J'ai écrit plusieurs fois à propos de leurs communiqués internes aux autres musulmans qui n'ont jamais été traduits en anglais, où al-Qaïda et la quasi-totalité des organisations islamistes insistent sur le fait que le djihad est une obligation islamique qui n'a rien à voir avec les griefs.

Considérons les mots propres d'Ossama dans une lettre interne à des camarades saoudiens:

Nos discussions avec les infidèle de l'Occident et notre conflit avec eux tournent autour d'une seule question – qui exige notre soutien complet, avec la puissance et la détermination d'une seule voix – : Est-ce que l'islam force le monde par le pouvoir de l'épée de se soumettre à son autorité corporelle ou spirituelle? Oui. Il y a seulement trois choix dans l'islam: [1] la soumission volontaire [conversion]; [2] le paiement de la jizya, la soumission à l'islam n'est pas spirituelle, mais corporelle; [3] ou l'épée – car il n'est pas juste de le [l'infidèle] laisser vivre. Les choix pour chaque personne vivante sont: soit se soumettre, ou de vivre sous la suzeraineté de l'islam, ou mourir. (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 42)

La conversion, ou la soumission, ou l'épée est bien sûr, la mission de l'État Islamique – pour atténuer leurs "griefs".

Le pire est, contrairement à al-Qaïda, l'État Islamique, dès le premier jour de son existence, a été très clair – dans les mots d'Ossama, "avec puissance et détermination d'une seule voix" – que ses massacres, ses crucifixions, ses décapitations et l'esclavage des "infidèles" sont basées sur la loi islamique (charia) et non pas sur leurs stupides "griefs" contre l'Occident. Contrairement à al-Qaïda, l'État Islamique est assez confiant pour éviter le jeu des griefs en affirmant sans équivoque son hostilité pour l'homme sur la base de son identité religieuse.

Pourtant, en glissant le mot "grief" pour expliquer les sauvageries de l'État Islamique (basées sur la charia), Obama espère que l'Amérique a été soigneusement conditionnée (comme le chien de Pavlov) à associer automatiquement la violence du monde islamique avec le mot "grief".

Ce que Obama ne parvient pas à comprendre – ou omet de mentionner – c'est que l'État Islamique, al-Qaïda, et d'innombrables musulmans en colère à travers le monde sont souvent invités à des actes de violence pour soulager leurs "griefs". Mais comme il est expliqué ici, ces "griefs" ne sont pas fondés sur des normes universelles d'égalité ou de justice, mais sur une vision de la suprématie islamique du monde.

A foto acima apareceu recentemente em vários meios de comunicação social árabes e websites. O subtítulo diz: "primeiro mercado de escravos do sexo feminino em Deir ez-Zur," uma região da Síria que é 20 por cento cristã e atualmente é ocupada pelo Estado Islâmico do Iraque e da Síria. Independentemente de sua origem ou autenticidade, o verdadeiro significado é que ele perfeitamente transmite o que sabemos está acontecendo na Síria – a partir de fatwas que permitem que os homens estuprem mulheres, a fatwas chamando as mulheres para se engajar na jihad do sexo, inclusive contra sua vontade. Os jihadistas estão exigindo satisfação sexual e recompensas para os seus sacrifícios, e eles estão conseguindo. Este é um lembrete de que Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini, um pregador salafista popular no Egito, disse na Hikma TV em 2011 ele explicou que após conquistas jihadistas, as propriedades e as pessoas de habitantes "infiéis" devem ser apreendidos como Ghanima, ou "despojos de guerra", distribuídas entre os jihadistas muçulmanos ou levadas para "o mercado de escravos, onde escravas e concubinas são vendidas." Huwaini referiu a essas escravas sexuais pela denominação desumanizante que o Alcorão as dá: ma malakat aymanukum, que significa "o que [não quem] a sua mão direita possui", ou seja, escravas sexuais: "Você vai ao mercado e a compra, e ela se torna como a sua companheira, muito embora sem um contrato, um tutor, ou qualquer uma dessas coisas, e isso é acordado pela ulemas. Em outras palavras, quando eu quero uma escrava sexual, eu vou ao mercado e escolho qualquer mulher que eu desejo e a compro. " Mas é claro que essa noção não se origina com Huwaini. No Alcorão 4:3 Alá ordena aos homens muçulmanos que se “casem com essas mulheres como aparenta ser bom para você, duas, três e quatro ... ou o que a sua mão direita possui." Como Huwaini aponta, a ulema do Islã, ou "estudiosos", são concordam unanimemente que "o que sua mão direita possui" é simplesmente uma escrava sexual tomada durante uma incursão jihad. Evidência lingüística sugere ainda que uma escrava sexual é vista mais como um animal ou uma possessão do que como um ser humano, daí seu tratamento desumano, como bens a serem comprados e vendidos (e como foi recentemente confirmado por um importante salafista egípcio).