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Murderous Monotheists
EFL from the Weekly Standard:

FACED WITH the series of beheadings and other grisly crimes committed in Iraq by the followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Westerners may wonder why this gang should call itself "Monotheism and Jihad." The group's Arabic name, Tawhid wa'al-Jihad, is often misleadingly translated "Unity and Jihad," which could lead English-speakers to suppose that Zarqawi and company are acting in the name of a united Iraqi nation, or of Arab unity, or of solidarity among jihadists or Muslims generally.

But Tawhid does not mean "unity," much less "unification"; it means "uniqueness," as in the uniqueness of God the Creator. To understand the theology behind this word is to appreciate the identity of the "foreign fighters" around Zarqawi--himself born in Jordan--and the purpose of their kidnappings and beheadings.

All Muslims, of course, are monotheists. Islam rejects the multiple gods and goddesses of the pagan religions, and proclaims the creation of the universe by a single God. But in the 18th century, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, founder of the Wahhabi sect, asserted that Muslims had fallen away from true monotheism back into pagan unbelief: worship of multiple gods, or polytheism. Wahhabism, now the state religion of Saudi Arabia, continues to assert that Islam as practiced in nearly the whole of the global Muslim community outside the Saudi kingdom is actually apostasy.

This is a pretty good read on the roots of the intolerance that runs rampant with the worshippers of the moon God, particularly that animal Zarqawi. It doesn't shed any new light for RBer's, but it bears a look.
Posted by: JerseyMike 2004-10-04
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=45028