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| Europe |
| Taqiya, or the terrorist ‘art of deception' |
| 2013-03-13 |
| A year after the Toulouse attacks by Mohamed Merah (pictured), French counterterrorism experts are monitoring the practice of "taqiya" - or deceiving society by concealing one’s faith – and its uses in jihadist circles. Nearly a year ago, as one of France’s longest-ever police sieges was about to end on the morning of March 22, 2012, Mohamed Merah – also known as “the Toulouse gunman” – uttered a cry that seemed enigmatic to the uninformed, but was weighted with meaning for counterterrorism experts. “It’s not the money, it’s the deception that’s critical,” said the 23-year-old French-Algerian shortly before he jumped off his Toulouse apartment window and was gunned down by an elite French anti-terror unit. The somewhat cryptic cry was a likely reference to “taqiya” – a form of religious dissimulation or legal dispensation in which believers deny their faith or even commit blasphemous acts as a deception if they are seriously threatened or at risk of persecution. "Concealment is a technique as old as the world," explained French anti-terrorism judge Marc Trévidic in an interview with FRANCE 24. “It’s also an essential component of any war strategy, regardless of the people involved.” In Islam, taqiya dates back to the time when Shiite Muslims were hounded and persecuted by the Sunni caliphs following the 7th century schism between the followers of the Prophet’s son-in-law, Ali, and the Sunni caliphate. For the traditionally persecuted Shiite minority, deception – or taqiya – was considered a matter of survival. Although the term does not exist in Sunni jurisprudence, there have been rare cases of Sunnis practicing taqiya in extraordinary circumstances. But it was not until the term was recovered by Sunni jihadists trained in the Afghan terror camps that it began to get the attention of counterterrorism experts as trained and radicalised young men began practising taqiya as a means of integrating and disguising themselves in Western societies “Taqiya, as it’s understood today, is actually a radicalized version of concealment, in the sense that some religious extremists have found 'dalils' (or 'evidence') in the Koran that would justify their actions,” said Trévidic. From Afghanistan to Europe and Canada |
| Posted by:tipper |