Letters from a Mujahid
Charles Johnson
Fri May 12, 2006 at 6:44 pm PDT • Views: 478
Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, the University of North Carolina student who drove an SUV into a crowd trying to kill as many people as possible (and fortunately, only injuring a few), has sent several letters to the school’s student newspaper, the Daily Tarheel, explaining his motivations for his attempted act of mass murder.
The letters are on the Dailly Tarheel site (in PDF form) here, here, here, here, and here.
Robert Spencer examines the Islamic rationale of Taheri-azar’s letters: Letters from a mujahid.
There is a strong apologetic content to these letters. He is engaging in da’wa, trying to convert those who read them to Islam. They are also revealing of the jihadist mindset. He also describes what he did on the day of the attack in great detail, including which sections of the Qur’an he read at which hours leading up to his attack. He also says that he rises at 3AM in his jail cell to…read the Qur’an.
A few other observations about them:
1. Taheri-azar is not insane. He is articulate and perfectly in control of what he is saying.
2. He was not motivated by poverty or deprivation. Nor was he an ignorant bumpkin manipulated by sophisticated machiavels.
3. He firmly believes that he acted in obedience to Qur’anic dictates — see the image above. (Yet in response we will no doubt get another flat statement from Islamic apologists, to the effect that the Qur’an absolutely condemns what he did and yet quoting no Qur’an, or if quoting any then only 5:32.)
The implications of this must be faced, and soon, by both non-Muslims and Muslims in America.
Frank says: