Holy War: Killing Unbelievers, Apostates and Destroying Relics

We go from one act of horror to another.

Shabaab massacres dozens in attack on Kenyan university:

Shabaab terrorists attacked the Garissa University College in Kenya earlier today. Initial reports say that approximately 10 gunmen were involved in assault, which left at least 147 people dead and dozens more wounded.
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A spokesman for Shabaab, al Qaeda’s official branch in Somalia, said the gunmen deliberately separated Muslims from non-Muslims during the attack. “We sorted people out and released the Muslims,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab told Reuters.

We see the same sort of thing with ISIS, ISIS video appears to show beheadings of Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya, Iraq's Christians persecuted by ISIS.

Further, it is not enough, in some cases, to be a Muslim. You have to be the right kind of Muslim - 4 questions ISIS rebels use to tell Sunni from Shia:

Whether a person is a Shia or a Sunni Muslim in Iraq can now be, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

As the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has seized vast territories in western and northern Iraq, there have been frequent accounts of fighters' capturing groups of people and releasing the Sunnis while the Shias are singled out for execution.

ISIS believes that the Shias are apostates and must die in order to forge a pure form of Islam.

Ah, the joys of being on the "right" side in a holy war.

Of course, this form of holy war also wants to destroy the past, Priceless Iraqi Artifacts Destroyed by ISIS :

ISIS fighters are destroying symbols of pre-Islamic culture, including artifacts from the Assyrian Empire that are over 2,000 years old.

Should you be surprised by this destruction?

No, you shouldn't. In his book, The Crisis of Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis explained it, non-Islamic history is irrelevant to these holy warriors:

The Muslim peoples, like everyone else in the world, are shaped by their history, but unlike some others, the are keenly aware of it. Their awareness dates however from the advent of Islam, with perhaps some minimal references to pre-Islamic times, necessary to explain historical allusions in the Quar'an and in the early Islamic traditions and chronicles. Islamic history, for Muslims, has an important religious and also legal significance, since it reflects the working our of God's purpose for His community - those that accept the teachings of Islam and obey its law. The history of non-Muslim states and peoples convey no such message and is therefore without value or interest.

What is of no value may be destroyed without qualm.

Obviously, this includes non-believers, believers who are viewed as apostate, and "images" from the past before Islam.

More from Professor Lewis on "Muslim fundamentalists" -

The Muslim fundamentalists, unlike the Protestant groups whose name was transferred to them, do not differ from the mainstream of question of theology and in the interpretation of of scripture. Their critique is, in the broadest sense, societal. The Islamic world, in their view, has taken a wrong turning. ***

Such a perception of straying from the "true path" justifies pretty much anything, since being wrong-headed means you are resisting God's will and that means you are an enemy of "God's army."

"Holy" War. Brought to us by people who prefer a certain black and white clarity to having to deal with shades of gray.

The ultimate "if you aren't with us, you are against us."