What Is Really Behind Bin Laden's 'Letter to the American People'?
by Raymond Ibrahim • December 8, 2023 at 5:00 am
"Battle, animosity, and hatred — directed from the Muslim to the infidel — is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them." — Osama bin Laden, "Al-Qaeda's Declaration in Response to the Saudi Ulema."
"There are only three choices in Islam: either willing submission; or payment of the jizya, thereby physical, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; or the sword—for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live." — Osama bin Laden, "Al-Qaeda's Declaration in Response to the Saudi Ulema."
In his "Letter to the American People," however, bin Laden portrays Islam as "the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted."
When clarifying to the Saudis what Islam really has in store for infidels, bin Laden quoted many of the most militant verses, such as Koran 9:29: "Fight those among the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] who do not believe in Allah, nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued."
As the war between Israel and Palestinians rages on, an old "Letter to the American People" from the terrorist Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the murder of nearly 3,000 people in the United States on September 11, 2001, after his first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 failed, recently went viral on TikTok, where it is apparently "opening eyes" based on the sorts of reactions it has been receiving, such as:
