A global assortment of radical Islamists held an online conference last weekend, calling for the destruction of the West and the violent implementation of Islamic law.
It isn't clear how many people tuned in to the Rise of Islam Conference 2011, but many of the speakers are considered fringe elements, even among Islamists. They represented English-speaking Islamist groups from all over the world. Jamaican Islamist Abdullah al-Faisal and British leaders Abu Izzadeen and Anjem Choudary hammered home their views about why and how Islam will dominate the world. But American Abdullah Younus Muhammad, currently living in Morocco, took the spotlight with his open endorsement of al-Qaida's war on the West.
"O Muslims, there is no honor, there is no dignity, there is no victory, unless Islam is a complete system established," said Muhammad, of islampolicy.com. "We do not believe in mass protest movements. We do not believe in each one teach one as the way forward. We believe that when a sufficient amount of Muslims have might to take all the powers that be, they go out and march forth in the way of Allah."
He cited Osama bin Laden's 1996 "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" in calling on Muslims in the West to do more.
America considered the defeat of the Soviet army in Afghanistan and the fall of communism to be "a victory over the entire world" and a victory for liberal democracy, Muhammad said. "And it is this system that they continue to try to perpetuate, and to try to force down the throats of people all over the world, that is the true enemy, that is the true empire that Islam is waging a war against today."
In bin Laden's 1996 declaration, he called for a combination of "operations" with political and economic moves, Muhammad said, describing how American Islamists could aid al-Qaida's cause. They should "pay more attention, give more effort to propagation, spend more time promoting and defending the message of the mujahideen wherever they may be … Publish their words; don't just call yourself jihadi and say 'I am allying with them,' speak as if you are speaking on their behalf."
In practical terms he advised that Muslims boycott American goods to open an economic front to coincide with al-Qaida's military front. "If the economic boycott is coupled with the mujahideen's strikes, then the enemy's defeat is imminent, Insha'allah [if Allah wills]. And vice versa, if the Muslims do not cooperate with and support their mujahideen brothers by severing economic deals with the U.S. enemy, then they are paying him money which is the foundation of wars and armies, hence promoting the war and the Muslim suffering from it."
Other speeches, although militant in their own right, paled in comparison.
Abdullah el-Faisal, a Jamaican Islamist militant who has been deported from Kenya and Britain, explained why Islam is destined to dominate the world. "If communism is dead in the grave, what makes you think capitalism will survive? What makes you think capitalism will survive? It can't survive. Allah says … Truth has come and falsehood has vanished, and falsehood is by nature a vanishing thing."
Abu Izzadeen, a British Islamist who once called bin Laden "the only true leader of Muslims" and was convicted of terrorist financing charges, talked about shaking British society through Muslim pressure.
"We are not aiming to control a mosque in East London or South London or West London. No! We are aiming for the society to bow down to La Illah Illa Allah [This is no god but Allah]," Abu Izzadeen preached to calls of "Allahu Akbar" from the crowd. "To see the Queen bow down to La Illah Illa Allah, Prince Harry and William to bow down to La Illah Illa Allah. Even his new wife to wear the hijab and the khimar, and the niqab. We aim higher, akhi [my brother], because this deen [religion] is superior and nothing will supersede Islam."
Anjem Choudary, a leading British Islamist who tried to spark a new American movement called "Shariah4America," reinforced the idea of bringing Islamic law to America and the West. "That Rasul Allah [the messenger of Allah] said, that before the Day of Judgment, Islam will enter every single household, whether with dignity or whether humiliation, dignity because they will embrace Islam, and humiliation because they will be Kuffar [non-believers] but they will be under the Sharia."
Supporters of freedom and democracy, he said, ultimately are doomed because of God's will. "The messenger Muhammad (saws) came with the guidance and the Haq [truth], the Deen [religion] of truth, for it to be dominant on all other ways of life, no matter how much the polytheists, the disbelievers, those Kuffar, dislike it or hate it. Our objective, therefore, is the domination of the world by Islam."