New Islamic Caliphate Declares Jihad on … Muslims
by Raymond Ibrahim
July 18, 2014

The new "caliphate" of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—the Islamic State, formerly "ISIS"—recently made clear that it means to follow in the footsteps of the original caliphate of Abu Bakr al-Sadiq (632-634), specifically by directing its jihad against fellow Muslims, in Islamic parlance, the "hypocrites" and "apostates," or in Western terminology, "moderates."

This came out in the context of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, with some Muslims asking the newly formed "caliphate" when it would launch a jihad on the Jewish state.


The Islamic State's response? "Allah in the noble Koran does not command us to fight Israel or the Jews until we fight the apostates and hypocrites."


On one of the Islamic State's question-and-answer websites, some asked why it was "not fighting Israel but instead shedding the blood of the sons of Iraq and Syria." The new caliphate responded:

    The greater answer is in the noble Koran, when Allah Almighty speaks about the near enemy. In the majority of verses in the noble Koran, these are the hypocrites, for they pose a greater danger than the original infidels [born non-Muslims, e.g., Jews and Christians]. And the answer is found in Abu Bakr al-Sadiq, when he preferred fighting apostates over the conquest of Jerusalem [fath al-Quds], which was conquered by his successor, Omar al-Khattab.

.....After the prophet of Islam died, a great number of Arabian tribes that had submitted to his rule by becoming Muslims—the word muslim simply means "one who submits"—thought they could now renege, and so they apostatized in droves. This sparked the first Ridda, or "apostasy wars," waged by Abu Bakr al-Sadiq, who became the first caliph on Muhammad's death in 632. For nearly two years, till his own death in 634, his caliphate's entire energy was focused on waging jihad on all the recalcitrant Arab tribes, forcing them by the edge of the sword to return to the fold of Islam.

....Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the most influential Islamic clerics today, while once discussing the importance of killing any Muslim who apostatizes from Islam on Al Jazeera, correctly stated that "If the [death] penalty for apostasy was ignored, there would not be an Islam today; Islam would have ended on the death of the prophet."

In short, and as the Islamic State is now arguing,

the first and greatest enemy of Islam—the "nearest" enemy—is the "apostate" and "hypocrite,"

for they are the most capable of subverting Islam from within.