ISIS Executes Its Executioner For Smoking

This is yet another video from The Young Turks internet news show. In it, the anchors John Iadarola and Cenk Uyghur discuss the bizarre killing by the terrorists of one of their chief executioners. The man was found beheaded, with a cigarette stuffed into its mouth, and the words ‘This is evil, you sheikh’, scrawled on the body.

They link the death to an edict promulgated by the organisation denouncing smoking as a ‘slow way of committing suicide’, and warning that smoking and getting into a trance state is ‘disobedience against God’. The Turks make the point that if ISIS are serious about enforcing the death penalty, then they’re going to have to kill 70 per cent of the Middle Eastern population as ‘everyone smokes out there’. They also make the point that ISIS’ standards are so high, they’re completely unrealisable. If the regime continues on its path of executing everyone for even the most trivial of crimes, then eventually it’ll just implode as they murder and butcher their way through their own members.

Now the Turks are right in that it is highly ironic that ISIS should have executed their executioner. It probably couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. But he committed far worse crimes than merely enjoying a ciggie. This actually looks to me like part of a sectarian campaign against Sufism.

The word ‘sheikh’ has a number of meanings. Apart from that of tribal chief, it’s also used in Pakistan to describe the bonded labourers working in the brickyards. They’re the lowest caste of Pakistani society. It clearly doesn’t mean that here, though there might be a similar meaning in Arab society, of which I’m unaware. However, it also means the leader of a Sufi order.

Sufism is Islamic mysticism. Its organised in a series of orders roughly similar to the monastic orders in Roman Catholicism and their confraternities for the laity. They are under the spiritual directions of sheikhs, or saints, who may be believed to have supernatural or mystical powers themselves. These orders aim at achieving ecstatic union of the individual with God, using methods like chanting, music, dancing and sometimes other, more extreme methods. The whirling dervishes of Istanbul are probably the best known example of a Sufi order in the West. Other orders may juggle hot coals, or slash themselves with swords in the belief that the sheikh presiding over the ceremony has the power to heal.

When I studied Islam at College, I was taught that most Muslims today belong to a Sufi order. When it emerged in the 7th century or so, Sufism was intensely controversial within Islam, and its followers often viciously persecuted as heretic. The ecstasies experienced by the Sufis in the dhikr, or ‘circle’, the term given to their mystical worship, was seen as violating the commandment in the Qu’ran against becoming intoxicated. It’s the passage that bans Muslims from drinking alcohol. In past centuries the passage was also cited in debates over whether it was permissible to use coffee, because of its effect as a stimulant.

I’ve blogged before about the possible influence of Wahhabi Islam in the destruction of tombs by ISIS. Sufi rituals are frequently conducted at the graves of the orders’ founders, a practice which is condemned by the Wahhabis. The Islamic reformers Rashid Rida and Sayyid Qutb also hated Sufism, because they believed it was the source of the fatalism that prevented Islam from once again becoming a great power.

The judicial murder of ISIS’ judicial murderer thus strikes me not so much as a punishment for smoking, but as part of a crackdown on Sufi mystics. In several of the videos I put up yesterday, the point was made in that ISIS does not only persecute and kill non-Muslims, but also other Muslims, simply because their beliefs don’t match those of ISIS. One of the videos was a news report from RT reporting on the murder of opposition ulema – Muslim clergy – in Syria. So far 20 of them have been murdered, and 800 mosques closed by the terrorists.

This is further proof that ISIS are intent on killing everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim, in their quest for power. The westerners, who join them, won’t just be complicit in murdering and butchering Christians and Yezidis, but also for the mass killing of their co-religionists.

The 16 Things the Mirror Learnt from Farage’s New Book

Today’s Daily Mirror also carried a story about Farage’s book. After reporting the hilarious reviews on Amazon in yesterday’s edition, they felt they had to buy a copy of it. The article begins

Yesterday, the internet piled on to write ‘hilarious’ reviews of Nigel Farage’s new book – and arguably it was our fault. So we bought a copy and actually read it.

Everyone’s got an opinion on Nigel Farage’s latest work. Amazon now has over 300 reviews – equally distributed between one and five star ratings, from his friends and foes.

But none of them seem to have actually READ it. You can tell because they don’t have the verified purchase tick.

We thought it was only fair if we bought the damn thing. See it as penance.

The 16 things they learnt were:

1. He credits YouTube for his rise!

2. It’s UKIP councillors who say the bad things, not the higher-ups.

3. Maybe women are a blind spot for him, he mentions boy (28) far more often than girl (6).

4. True to his brand values he mentions smoking 11 times and fags 4.

5. But is he really as keen on beer as he says?

6. He’s eaten at least three curries.

7. Farage mentions David Cameron 45 times.

8. Is Nigel obsessed with Nick Clegg?

9. He even opens the book with an anecdote about Clegg.

10. He bangs on about Europe a fair bit

11. But blimey – an odd turn here, he complains about HIV charity the Terrence Higgins Trust.

12. 31 mentions for immigration, 10 for racism.

13. Because it’s all about the ‘banter’ with Nigel.

14. He distances himself from Britain’s most famous fascist by pointing out that Mosley was pro-Europe.

At 15 the Mirror said they were ‘getting a bit bored by now’.

16. And finally, dedicates the whole book to his ‘long-suffering family’,

They conclude that he doesn’t apologise to the long suffering reader, and the Mirror apologises to their readers for wading through this stuff.

The article’s at http://www.mirror.co.uk/usvsth3m/bought-nigel-farages-new-book-5355449. Go there for the proof, and their appropriate comments on what they learned.

Among the points to emerge is the fact that Farage is very careful about his constructed image of a man, who likes his ciggies and beer. He wishes to appear as an easy-going, approachable bloke with whom you can banter.

He doesn’t like the Terence Higgins Trust, because they campaign for foreigners with AIDS to be treated free on the NHS. And of course, he puts a much lower premium on anti-racism than immigration.

As for Oswald Mosley supporting Europe, that’s true. However, Mosley’s conception of a united Europe was basically that of the Nazi party when they were trying to appeal to a common European culture that they were supposedly fighting to protect against the threat of Jews and Communists. It doesn’t have anything in common with the idea of the modern EU, no matter what UKIP and the Eurosceptics say to the contrary. And it also doesn’t stop Farage’s party of swivel-eyed loons having more in common with Fascism than they want people to realise. The Fascists and Hitler were aggressively anti-Socialist, anti-working class and anti-trade union, not excluding their incorporation of the unions into their corporate state. This was done to control them, and give Mussolini’s regime the façade of having more to it than merely his personal dictatorship.

As for the lower ranks of the party being responsible for embarrassing mistakes, this is just flannel and propaganda by Farage. He has said his fair share of embarrassing comments, such as his remarks on the privatisation of the NHS. The Kipper rank and file wanted him to shut up that time.