Terrorists in our midst

The new year arrived with a devastating terrorist attack in New Orleans.

According to an FBI report, at 3:15 a.m. local time, a man named Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, deliberately drove a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street. The FBI is officially treating the attack “as an act of terrorism,” after Jabbar barreled through the celebrating crowd for more than three blocks before getting out of the truck and opening fire on police officers.

At least two police officers were shot and wounded before they returned fire and killed Jabbar. The attacker is now accused of killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens of others—and the death toll is expected to rise.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday night that the FBI discovered videos posted on social media where Jabbar said he was inspired by ISIS and wanted to kill people. The FBI also confirmed that Jabbar had an ISIS flag attached to his vehicle. While this flag reflects his clear sympathies for the terrorist organization and its Islamic ideology, Jabbar’s full name indicates his Arabic-Islamic heritage. Although he was born in Texas, his name is clearly Arabic with a distinctly Islamic meaning, as “Shamsud-Din” means the bright star of the religion, while “Jabbar” is a name of Allah, which means “the mighty one.”

Although we will hopefully know more about Jabbar’s motives in the days to come, especially as the FBI doesn’t believe he was solely responsible, we can probably conclude that ISIS is not dead, and it continues to recruit sympathizers and cultivate soldiers.

How should we understand this Islamic terror group?

We need to recognize that ISIS is a terrorist organization grounded in Salafist and jihadist agendas. Both words are necessary to understand why its members hate anything non-Muslim.

First, ISIS is Salafi, which means that it pines to imitate the earliest days of Islam as recorded in its history, seeking to apply the religion by the letter. For a Salafi Muslim, modernity is evil, and any innovation is a heresy, as the best days of Islam were those of Muhammad and his companions, who are hailed as bright human models to imitate.

The logic of a Salafi Muslim is simple: If Muhammad and his early followers launched attacks against non-Muslims, occupying lands and massacring enemies, then these actions are not despised but rather sacred and to be emulated by believers. For Salafi Muslims, the world must become Muslim by all means, whether peaceful or nonpeaceful.

This is why in 2014, ISIS declared itself a caliphate, using a distinctively Muslim term, and took over vast swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, declaring it would seek to invade Rome, which, according to Islamic texts, is the heartland of Christianity. A Salafi group seeks to link anything it does to sacred Islamic terms and holy religious meanings.

ISIS is also a jihadi group—an executor of jihad. According to Islam’s historical writings and scripture, jihad is an armed war against non-Muslims for the sake of Allah. While many Muslims in the West attempt to describe jihad as merely an activity to be godly or an endeavor to maintain an attitude of self-control against lustful worldly desires, there is no doubt that the original Muslim sources use the term jihad as a synonym for holy war for Allah’s cause to subjugate the world under Islam.

For jihadi Muslims, fighting for Allah’s sake is not only a religious duty but is precisely their most notable religious act. When Muhammad, according to Muslim texts, attacked Jews and Christians, he was not marauding people and seizing their possessions but rather applying the sacred duty of jihad to please Allah.

But why did Jabbar, as an American, identify with this ideology?

We don’t know one’s heart, but many Muslims find ISIS and its ideology appealing, especially as it insists on applying Islam as originally conceived. While many Muslims in the West want to live and let others live, the existence of Salafi-jihadi preachers in our neighborhoods is a huge alarm. With the affirmation of religious freedom in our societies, ISIS has followers in our midst waiting for the opportune chance to fulfill what they see as Allah’s prescriptions.

Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are sacred in Western societies. This is commendable, but unless the preachers of hate and the ISIS sympathizers—who clearly support the destruction of our societies—are identified and controlled, and at times deported, we will always live with a bomb ready to detonate.