6 - The Mutated Virus: “Islamic Revolution”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2009
Summary
A further reason for my hatred of National Socialism and other ideologies is quite a primitive one. I have an aversion to killing people for the fun of it. What the fun is, I did not quite understand at the time, but in the intervening years the ample exploration of revolutionary consciousness has cast some light on this matter. The fun consists in gaining a pseudo-identity through asserting one's power, optimally by killing somebody – a pseudo-identity that serves as a substitute for the human self that has been lost.
Eric VoegelinStealthy Borrowing
Prior to the twentieth century, the term revolution had never been applied to Islam or things Islamic. The juridical and theological framework of Islam radically preclude any notion of “revolution.”
Islam conceives of itself as the perfect political system, since it flows from a perfect revelation. It derives its entire body of law from God's expressis verbis prescription. There is no conceivable change in a system of that kind. As Ayatollah Khomeini famously said, “You have no need for new legislation; simply put into effect that which has already been legislated for you. This will save you a good deal of time and effort. … Everything, praise be to God, is ready-made for use.” Either a polity is ruled by God's law, Sharia, in which case it is Muslim, or it is an infidel, pagan, a jahili society.
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- Information
- The Mind of Jihad , pp. 256 - 294Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008