Roger Kimball;

We were told that the 9/11 terrorists, though Muslim, did not speak for Islam. OK, maybe they didn’t. But how about the London subway bombers? They claimed to be murdering people in the name of Allah or Mohammed. But maybe they were wrong. Maybe they read the wrong parts of the Koran or Hadith, or interpreted those eyebrow-raising passages too literally or something. Maybe.
Yet here’s my puzzlement. Let’s agree, for the sake of the discussion, that the 9/11 bombers did not speak for Islam. Ditto the London murders. Indeed, let’s say that neither the Boston marathon bombers nor the people who murdered a total of 16 people in Paris last week (the 12 at Charlie Hebdo and four at the kosher market), let’s say that they did not speak for Islam either. Like Major Hasan, who murdered 13 people at Ft Hood in 2009 while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” they were just “lone extremists” who carry out murder and mayhem while shouting “Allahu Akbar.” But that has nothing to do with Islam. OK. Got it.
But here’s my question: Who does speak for Islam? We are assured that it’s not the group that now calls itself Islamic State, but which, following Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, I am considering calling Daesh, a name they apparently dislike. Anyway, we know that they don’t speak for Islam because our political leaders and our media have told us so. It’s the same with Boko Haram, the Nigerian Muslim group. This morning, quoting the Australian journalist Andrew Bolt, I noted that they had kidnapped and sold into sex slavery 300 Nigerian school girls. That was before I saw the story that Boko Haram had just invaded another town killing as many as 2000. Boko Haram appears to believe that they represent Islamic teaching, but no: our leaders have assured us that that is not the case. Ditto about Syria: this summer an adulteress or two were stoned to death, but that, of course, was the work not of Islam but of “extremists,” if not quite “lone extremists.”
So who, according to the establishment gospel, does speak for Islam? The Ayatollah Khomeni was the spiritual leader of Iran, a great Shia Muslim country. Did he speak for Islam? He didn’t like a novel by Salman Rushdie and told his followers to kill him for insulting Islam. Did the ayatollah speak for Islam?

Read it all. (h/t Ed Driscoll)

Hey, Sting – we need a song for this! The video, which is too graphic to share, portrays a young child executing two men accused of being spies for Russia.

Hey Sting, we need a song for this.

German paper that printed Charlie Hebdo cartoons hit by arson attack

A good week to recall Khomeini's time in France as a "refugee" from the Iran of the 1970's #FullCircleIslam pic.twitter.com/Am7OjmNHBH

— Katewerk (@katewerk) January 9, 2015

And as the smoke clears from the first two, another hostage taking at a French jewelry store. (Update – appears to be unrelated.)

As another terror attack unfolds in Paris…

The Independent that Badawi, who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes, received the first round of 50 in a public flogging after Friday prayers, which it says continue every Friday for 20 weeks.
A witness told the human rights organisation that Badawi was removed from a bus in shackles and taken to a public square in front of the al-Jafali mosque in Jeddah. He was then flogged in front of a crowd and security guards for 15 minutes, before being put back on the bus and driven away.
Amnesty says Badawi, who started the “Free Saudi Liberals” website, was arrested in June 2012 for creating an online forum for public debate and over accusations that he insulted Islam. His website has also been shut down.

Related: “… you almost get the impression, you almost get the impression now that the Western appeasement crowd are in fact willing to be Islam’s enforcers in the West. And that’s very dark and very disturbing, and bad things will flow from that if we cannot even honestly talk about this.”

Timely reminder: Letting Muslims move to the West after 9/11 is like hiding Nazis in your attic during World War 2

— Kathy Shaidle (@kshaidle) January 9, 2015

12 dead in an attack on a satirical magazine;

Two masked gunmen stormed the offices of the controversial publication, which has previously been attacked over its portrayal of the Prophet Mohammed.
They were armed with Kalashnikov rifles and are also believed to have had a rocket-propelled grenade.[…]
It is reported both the publication’s editor and lead cartoonist were among those killed, as well as two police officers.
Some 20 people have also been injured, at least four seriously.
A manhunt is under way for the gunmen, who escaped after a shootout in the street with police.
Shocking footage has emerged of a wounded police officer being shot in the head as he lies on the ground, holding his hands up.
The killers then calmly return to their getaway car, which was later found abandoned.

Probably mental illness.

ISIS targets young mothers to groom ‘jihadi babies’
Related!