A Religion Of Hate

It was in 2007 that Patrick Pouw joined a group of young Salafists in the Dutch city of Utrecht and followed a yearlong Salafist course given by Suhayb Salaam, son of the radical Salafist cleric Ahmed Salaam. Pouw managed to win Suhayb's trust and the trust of his Salafist fellow students, and they usually did not conceal their real views. Pouw recently published a shocking book about what he heard from Suhayb and his students. There is, for example, a wide gap between what they say in public and what they say and believe in private or when they are among themselves. Publicly, Suhayb condemned violence preaching tolerance and "multiculturalism" but when he was lecturing to his pupils in that small classroom in the city of Utrecht he said that those who "betray" Muslims must be beheaded. Such people are "spies" and decapitation is the only proper punishment for them, Pouw heard Salaam say. "I saw how his eyes were cold and full of hatred, just like they were on that other occasion when he called on his students to burn Bibles."

In another lesson Suhayb told his students that Allah had declared war on the infidels. All infidels are enemies of Allah. Muslims must hate the enemies of Allah, they must see them as their own enemies. That is an obligation, Suhayb emphasized. Those unbelievers who oppose Allah and Islam must be utterly detested. And those unbelievers who do not fight against Allah and his prophet, must be hated, too, yet they must be treated with respect. It is up to Islamic scholars to decide on the question who opposes and who does not oppose Allah and Islam. "We must follow their opinion on this issue," Suhayb told his students. After Patrick Pouw had written a summary of what Suhayb had said and handed this text over to him, he (Suhayb) just commented: "Very good." Suhayb was opposed to any attempt to organize a "dialogue" between Muslims and non-Muslims. That is "Haram", forbidden, and dangerous, he said. Do not discuss private matters with unbelievers, Suhayb advised his students. Select your friends with care, create more distance between you and your non-believing friends. Suhayb also said more than once that he distanced himself from any Muslim who lives among the infidels. He advised his students to leave Holland and go to a Muslim country. Yet, he and his father refuse to do so themselves. His father once refused to pay taxes, yet he did not object to receiving Dutch welfare money. Both father and son fled to peaceful and tolerant Holland after they felt persecuted in their home country Syria, and now they advise others to leave the very country that sheltered and protected them. This attitude is typical for the kind of hypocrisy among many Salafist Muslim clerics. They are quick to advise others to do or not to do certain things, yet they rarely set the example themselves.

Concealing your real feelings and views, or "takiyya," is also typical for the behavior and tactics of these fanatics. When Ahmed and his son Suhayb were interviewed on Dutch television, they said quite different things than what Pouw had heard from them privately. On TV they were not talking about hating the infidels or the obligation for Muslims to leave Holland. Instead, they suddenly emphasized "unity in diversity" and "integration."

The same thing happened when Salaam was interviewed by Dutch TV for the second time. The reporter asked him critical questions about Patrick Pouw's new book. "Did you say all these things (to your students)?" the reporter wanted to know. "No, I did not," Salaam said. The reporter then quoted from Salaam's written teaching material which he had used in his own classroom. Salaam quickly and lamely said that this material was not for public consumption.

...In another lecture Suhayb said that unbelievers who are living in an Islamic state have only three options: become a Muslim themselves, pay protection money or leave for another country. If they do not make a choice, the only option left for them is persecution by the Islamic state. When a student asked Suhayb: "Isn't there freedom of religion?" he resolutely replied: "No, there is not." This is the totalitarian mind of Muslim fanatics who publicly preach peace and harmony in the West where they are being sheltered but what they really want is nothing else but to abolish our democracy and freedom replacing it by a Taliban like state.