The dust is beginning to settle after a terrorist attack in New Orleans, where a man inflicted with what can be described as “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” (SJS) decided to drive a truck into a crowd of people.
Naturally, many ask why a guy who seemed so stable in previous social media posts could suddenly go off the rails. References have been made to his life apparently falling apart, where he was recently living in squalor. But why should that make a person fall for SJS? After all, there are many whose lives fall apart for various reasons, and they don’t decide to go out and engage in a mass killing.
Actually, there is a rational, logic reason for this incident, and it’s buried within the doctrine of authentic Islam. It is an inconvenient truth that many, including those in the Islamic community, refuse to address, and it all revolves around the concept of “mizan,” or the scales of the final reckoning within Islam.
According to Islam, all Muslims will pass through the hellfire, at least to some degree. Surah 19:70-72 explains this, but points out that those who refrained from evil will be rescued. And thus, the balance on the scales between good and evil, for the recitations of the Qur’an state that Allah will come with truth and the Balance, and that he will bring a “just balance” on the Day of Resurrection, even weighing the deeds as small as a “grain of mustard seed.” (Surah 42:17 and Surah 21:47)[1]
And yet, a Muslim has a real problem, for he doesn’t where he is on the scales of good and evil. And as a consequence, he cannot be sure that he will be rescued from the hellfire.
Enter jihad. Through the process of engaging in a jihadi act, and especially dying in the process, the Muslim can ensure that they will enter paradise at once, even in what might be deemed a suicidal act. There have been many who have stressed that Islam is opposed to suicide, but while this is nominally correct, this does not cover jihadi acts. Indeed, engaging in a jihadi act can become a form of heart purification, that allows the one doing the act to go directly to paradise.[2]
Of course, there are many who hold to Islam who do not follow such a course. But, there are numerous historical examples of such jihadi acts in early Islam, and further examples all through the history of the Islamic movement. In recent history, Al Qaeda published a journal for several years, extolling the virtues of martyrdom and how one can quickly enter paradise because of it.
Chillingly, one issue had an article explaining how a large pickup truck could be the ultimate “mowing machine,” used to run down unbelievers in a jihadi act (the illustration above comes from that article). In describing how to use such a vehicle, the would-be jihadist should “weld on steel blades on the front end of the truck,” and that “you may raise the level of the blades as high as the headlights. That would make the blades strike your targets at the torso level or higher.” The writer stressed that in such an attack it would be nearly impossible to get away, and thus “it should be considered a martyrdom operation.”[3]
This issue of “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” has perplexed many Western analysts. I have had numerous conversations with intelligence colleagues who simply cannot wrap their minds around this, since they tend to evaluate Islam through the lens of pietistic Christianity (even if they are themselves not Christian believers). They look at Muslim jihadists, many who have messed up lives that don’t appear holy, and assume that they are not practicing authentic Islam. Moreover, these are nearly impossible to predict, for one will be hard-pressed to determine when a Muslim is moving in the direction of such a jihadi act.
And because of this, current analysts will not understand what happened in New Orleans a few days ago, or why an individual’s worldview even matters. What we saw in New Orleans is authentic Islam in action.
Expect to see more of it.
Russ Rodgers has several books published on Amazon.
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[1] My Qur’anic references come from the widely accepted “meaning” of the Qur’an done by Marmaduke Pickthall, an English convert to Islam. It is worth noting that he was the son of a Christian cleric. The term “meaning” is used regarding translations of the Qur’an, since Islamic scholars do not believe that the Qur’an can be translated into any other language than the current Arabic versions.
[2] For a more thorough review of this issue, see my chapter “Purifying the Heart: Suicide… or Jihadi Acts?” in Terrorism’s Unanswered Questions, Adam Lowther, ed. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2009. I also deal with this issue in my book, Understanding the Islamic Worldview, Create Space, 2015.
[3] Yahya Ibrahim, “The Ultimate Mowing Machine.” Inspire, Fall 2010, pp 53-54.