Islamic Rules and suspected Fort Hood Shooter’s Motives

Hasan A. Yahya, a Professor of Sociology

This analysis is a response to the news about Nidal Malik Hasan, according to authorities, a 39-year-old military psychiatrist, went on the shooting rampage at Ft. Hood that left 13 people dead and at least 38 wounded before he was shot by two civilian police officers and remains hospitalized in stable condition with multiple gunshot wounds.

While authorities are trying to find a motivation for the attack, retracing the suspect's steps in the last days and months, interviewing colleagues, neighbors, friends and family to glean details about Hasan's life -- and whether he was moved, at least in part, by radical Islamic ideology.

While officials  warned the public against drawing conclusions about the attack until more facts are known. This all fine to investigate. President Obama said as much at the White House,  as did Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. at Ft. Hood. but what science and logic say?

 1400 years ago,  Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, knows better of human nature and culture, not to include ahl al-Themmah in the Army forces. America should learn that rule and apply it to the Arm Forces. This is not a call to hate Muslims or other religion followers. The Muslim tradition in fact says: that non-Muslims (the Themmis) cannot be members of army forces, period. This rule was not put without logic. Any devout person (for any religion) may follow his or her emotions and acts according to his/her religious and faith rules. This assumption cannot be rejected logically, whatever the proportion of those who negate that assumption. For example, in Israel this rule is followed, where no Arab Muslim can be recruited in the Israeli army. Conversely, in USA the rule is not followed, where sometimes, high rank Jews spy on USA for the interest of Israel.  

 America is an open political system, tries to demolish racism and hate by applying the principles of equality and justice to deal with citizens on equal basis. FBI was aware of this issue when they attempted to recruit persons belong to Islam as a faith few years back when they approached the Detroit Muslim community. But they forgot that applying equality to Muslims will not totally be respected from institutions as they are respected from individuals. This means, sociologically speaking, that if individuals accept to be full citizens, American institutions act to those citizens with disrespect, by not acknowledging the individual as full citizen.

 Last May, 2009 in my article titled: Is Muslims Loyalty is Doubtful in Western Nations? Published on articlesbase site, I wrote:  “To be a full citizen you have to abide with your auth when you become a citizen. In that auth every new citizen promised to respect the system and its associations including the army forces. Such auth then is broken if the trust comes to less than 20 percent loyalty to the arm forces of the nation.  In the Gallop Pull, 30 percent of Muslims in the Germany, France and Britain believe that Muslims actually [with complete loyalty]  belong to the countries they live in.  The negative side of the data, the 70 percent of Muslims believe that they do not belong to the nation they live in as citizens.” [http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/is-muslims-loyalty-is-doubtful-in-western-nations-917328.html]

 I also said in my article mentioned above: “In recent years there was a question about Muslims loyalty to the nations they live in, especially in Europe, [Germany, France, and Great Britain]which is closer to the Arab and Muslim countries, and North America [USA and Canada]. While research conducted in Great Britain, Germany and France shows that 75+ percent  of Muslims live in these countries consider themselves as part of the hosting society and its associations. The negative side of the research means that 25 percent still do not consider themselves in the social fabric of these nations. In other words, we have to accept the argument that governments policies in these countries are justified . Their justification is that the danger comes from the unreported quarter ( 25 percent) which present concerns toward security.  While security is highly respected, we do not want that practices of governments in terms of national security jeopardize the security of the 75 percent who are assimilated or semi-assimilated to the host countries.”

 In conclusion, and going back to Islamic rules, Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam (as well as Muslim leaders of his times), knows better not to include ahl al-Themmah (non-Muslims) in the Army forces. While Israel follows that rule, America should understand and learn that rule and apply it to the Arm Forces. Sometimes justice and equality is like the sword with two sharp edges. Safety of American citizens, civil or in army forces should be the supreme goal for any governmental practices. I think  lack of knowledge of other cultures when it comes to religion among FBI and CIA administration and personnel should be reevaluated by following and understanding the rule of Islam in recruiting arm forces personnel. Other wise, the 70 percent of Muslims who believe that they do not belong to the (European) nations they live in as citizens according to Gallop poll are expected to act according to their cultural mentality as assimilation theories tell us. (1120 words)  www.hasanyahya.com