THINK-ISRAEL

JIHADIST TROPHIES OF WAR

by Dawn Perlmutter

severed heads


To fully comprehend how jihadists can abduct over three hundred schoolgirls for the purpose of selling them into sexual slavery and how they can behead, dismember and cannibalize their enemies, these incidents need to be understood as Islamist trophies of war. Human trophy taking is an ancient and widespread practice that appears in almost every culture throughout history. Historically, the classic example of trophies of war are human body parts, most often the head, but also skulls, teeth, fingers and soft body parts such as scalps, ears and genitalia. The second most common trophies of war are women who are taken as slaves or wives. Human trophies are material status symbols of the successful warrior. The origin of the term trophy is derived from the Greek tropaion referring to arms, property, human captives and body parts captured in battle that commemorate victory over a state, army or individual combatant. The abducted Nigerian girls are Boko Haram's war trophies in the Islamic global holy war (jihad). The practice of sexual slavery of apostates and non-Muslim women is justified by Islamic law, as is the practice of beheading, dismembering and mutilating the enemies of Islam.

Historically, for many cultures, the most important trophy was the human head. This is true of Islam where beheading has long historical and theological precedents. The trophy head still is the Jihadist's emblem of war, a sign of victory, martial prowess and power appropriated from the victim. It confers status and honor upon the jihadist warrior. From serial killers to Syrian jihadists, human trophy taking involves ritual behaviors that demonstrate dominance over the victim and commemorate the kill. Disarticulated human body parts obtained from fallen enemies historically were collected, exhibited, displayed, saved or worn. In the 20th century photography became another method of commemorating victory. Photos of the killing or posing with dead enemies replaced taking the actual body part. Photos of murders are often referred to as souvenirs and photos from combat as war porn. Traditionally human trophies required actual body parts as proof of the kill. However, mobile phone technology and internet video sites have introduced a new phenomenon in human war trophies: videotaped beheadings, dismemberment and mutilation. Instead of having a necklace of ears or a belt of scalps, jihadists preserve their kills on their cell phones. Similar to other warrior contests, a rivalry over who can videotape the worst atrocity escalates. The violent image that goes viral wins.

Videotaped beheadings and atrocities are the new trophies of war. The father of modern beheading, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was notorious for beheading dozens of Iraqi and foreign hostages and distributing videos of the beheadings on the Internet. Zarqawi's videotapes can be considered Beheading 1.0. They were formal ritual executions that involved a reading of offenses (transgressions), confession, judgment, last words, execution, praising of Allah and a statement of demands. Today, ten years later the Syrian jihadists, Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, Somali Al Shabaab, al Qaeda and Salafi jihadists around the world are engaged in Beheading 2.0, exemplified by savagery unleashed. Jihadist beheadings have devolved into primal feral warfare with cannibalism, feeding body parts to dogs, grilling heads on stoves, playing soccer with human heads and many other atrocities, videotaped and uploaded on the internet. These murders are always ritualized even if it is just the proclamation of Allahu Akbar to sanction the violence.

This type of violence is often misinterpreted by Western analysts as deviant behavior. It is often construed as similar to the actions of serial killers who photograph their victims to relive the experience or as aberrant soldiers who were predisposed to psychopathy. Indeed most of the general public can only comprehend these horrors as the actions of the mentally ill. Beheadings, cannibalism, dismemberment is not the result of psychopathology, it is authentic Islam. Violent atrocity committed for the cause of global jihad is Islam in its natural state, unveiled, without political correctness, voices of apology or revisionist history. It is also al Qaeda's stated ideological goal, the purification of Islam through violent struggle. Culturally sanctioned violence is not pathological it is the norm. The violence, no matter how inexplicable, is justified as purification rites to cleanse Islam from its exposure to Western influence.

Authentic Islam sanctions beheadings and sexual slavery. Trophy heads and women have always been the spoils of war. To understand how Islam permits men to buy and sell girls, captured in jihad, as sexual slaves read 'Islam, Slavery and Rape' in FrontPage May 7, 2014. In a recent video Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau arrogantly proclaims, "I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,".... "I abducted a girl at a Western education school and you are disturbed. I said Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married," he said. "I will marry off a woman at the age of 12. I will marry off a girl at the age of nine. "God instructed me to sell them, they are his properties and I will carry out his instructions,"... "There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women." During his video jihadists militants are firing rifles in the air and crying, "Allahu Akbar!" Shekau's message is not intended as a justification for his actions it is a recruitment video, a brilliant piece of propaganda that will appeal to sexually frustrated men who will join the fight just so they can engage in morally sanctioned sex.

Women and human body parts are traditional trophies of war. Videos that display the severing of body parts and depict men laughing and playing with human heads and holding up severed heads are the new trophies of war. Now technology allows jihadists to display their trophies to the whole world. These videos are badges of honor that demonstrate military prowess, bestow status and most significantly inspire others to join. Al Qaeda understands that sex, violence, heroism and other rewards of battle sells. The history of Islam is a history of trophies of war.


EDITOR'S NOTE:

Some of the comments that added useful information.

ObamaYoMoma

This type of violence is often misinterpreted by Western analysts as deviant behavior.

Because of its often extremely violent and brutal nature, it is often morally equated and conflated as being terrorism by PC multiculturalists, the so-called MSM, and even many people be on the right. However, jihad (holy war), both the violent and non-violent varieties, is a manifestation solely unique to Islamic culture alone as it is always and only waged by Muslims in the cause of Allah to make Islam supreme. Whereas terrorism, on the other hand, is always and only violent, in stark contrast to jihad, which manifests both violently and non-violently, is universal in that all cultures and societies produce terrorists, and terrorism has been perpetrated for all sorts of various reasons and various causes, in stark contrast to jihad, which is a holy war waged only in the cause of Allah to make Islam supreme.

Moreover, non-violent jihad by stealth and deception manifests astronomically far more prevalently today relative to the violent varieties of jihad, but for the most part goes undetected and unopposed because the violent variety of jihad is always morally equated and conflated as being terrorism. Hence, if it isn't violent, then it isn't construed as being terrorism, and if it isn't terrorism, then it doesn't represent a threat. This is a fatal mistake for the infidel world, because overall the non-violent varieties of jihad are doing far more damage to the infidel world relative to the violent varieties. Nevertheless, this kind of idiocy will continue to exist as long as people persist in morally equating and conflating what is really jihad as somehow being terrorism.

Indeed, conflating jihad as somehow being terrorism is as dumb as dividing Muslims into so-called moderates and so-called radicals and dividing Islam between so-called moderate Islam and so-called radical Islam. The reality is all Muslims are jihadists in one form or another, either violent or non-violent. Otherwise they are blasphemous apostates that must be executed according to the dictates of Islam. Furthermore, the texts of the Koran emanates directly from Allah as dictated to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel. Thus, there can only be one Islam, mainstream orthodox Islam, as any mere mortal man perceived as changing just one word of the Koran would be executed immediately for blasphemy.

Dawn Perlmutter

Nick Berg was the first beheading that came to the American publics attention and even then many people claimed it was staged. In the early 1990's the Bosnian Mujahideen who fought in the Bosnian war would decapitate the heads of Serb soldiers some keeping them as trophies. In the late 90's the Chechen Mujahideen were known for their brutality and infamous for the 1999 Dagestan Massacre where they beheaded 13 poorly-trained Russian conscripts. Photos and videotapes of these incidents were not broadcast widely in Western media until 2005. The beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 was filmed but not widely circulated on the internet until years afterward. In Iraq and Afghanistan there were dozens of videotaped beheadings, hundreds of civilians and soldiers decapitated and headless bodies frequently found by soldiers. Beheadings still occur and have escalated to include mass beheadings where jihadists will kill as many as 15 people at one time. Beheadings have increased among other jihadist groups including Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in Pakistan, Bersatu in Thailand, Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia, Al Shabaab in Somalia, al-Qaeda in Lands of the Islamic Maghreb in Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and other countries. Currently, the worst atrocities are in Syria.

ObamaYoMoma

If you have one Muslim family in a town, they won't be jihadists. If you have two, they can't help it. There is no place for Muslims in America, at least not beyond one family in a town. Muslim communities are jihadist communities.

You won't have just one Muslim family in a town, since Muslims always make it a point to form Muslim enclaves that in time morph into Muslim no-go zones ruled by Sharia that are in effect tiny Islamic statelets residing within the larger infidel state.

Not to mention that Muslims never ever assimilate and integrate into infidel society, as that would be exceedingly blasphemous and blasphemy in Islam, just like apostasy as well, is a capital offense.

Thus, it couldn't be any more obvious, the only reason that Muslims are migrating to the infidel world with all of their excess baggage is to eventually subjugate and dominate, as the sole fundamental purpose of Islam is the subjugation of all infidels and all religions into Islamic totalitarianism through both violent and non-violent stealth and deceptive jihad and the eventual imposition of Sharia, i.e., Islamic totalitarian law, to ultimately make Islam supreme throughout the world. Hence, mass Muslim immigration with all of its excess baggage is really non-violent stealth and deceptive jihad for the nefarious purposes of mass Muslim infiltration and eventual demographic conquest.



Dawn Perlmutter Director and founder of Symbol & Ritual Intelligence and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum is considered one of the leading subject matter experts (SME) in the areas of symbols, unfamiliar customs, ritualistic crimes and religious violence. This article appeared May 12, 2014 and is archived at
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dawn-perlmutter/jihadist-trophies-of-war/?utm_source= FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8bbe1e2690- Mailchimp_FrontPageMag&utm_term=0_57e32c1dad-8bbe1e2690-156515245



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