The difference Between Frogs and Tadpoles
Anyone with a decent education can tell the difference between a frog and a tadpole. We all know that eventually all tadpoles will morph into frogs; what is less well known is that moderate Muslims will eventually morph into jihadists.
That is, just as a frog is an organism that was once a tadpole, a jihadist is an organism that was once a moderate Muslim. However, there is a difference: in the case of tadpoles and frogs it doesn't take an expert to easily differentiate between the two biological forms; however, in the case of moderate Muslims and jihadists, even Muslims themselves cannot always easily differentiate between the two, see my article How to differentiate Moderate Muslims from Extremists. My readers will readily find examples from news stories where members of a mosque are stunned to find out that this or that Ahmed harbored thoughts that eventually turned into acts of terrorism.
Some of my readers may disagree with my view that eventually all moderate Muslims will turn into extremists; that while it is true that all tadpoles eventually turn into frogs because it is a biological imperative, they believe there is no such analogical mechanism in Islam to turn moderates into jihadists. Those readers would be wrong. The truth is, all Muslims, if they are true to their faith, must become jihadists if they live among the kuffar (unbelievers) because Allah's instructions are quite explicit: strike the Kuffar, kill them, and fight them by all means necessary until all religion is for Allah.
But Not All Muslims are Jihadists
But wait, you may ask, how come the majority of Muslims around the world today aren't jihadists? As I explained in my article The Myth that not all Muslims are Terrorists, the majority of Muslims already live in countries that are Islamic and so jihad is superfluous.
For example, Morocco is 99.9% Muslim - so there is little need to go on jihad to turn Morocco into a Muslim-majority country - it already is; the same can be said of 47 other Muslim-majority countries.
So the reason that the majority of the world's Muslims are not jihadists is that the majority of the world's Muslims live in countries where jihad has already succeeded. In countries where Muslims are the minority, moderate Muslims are turning into jihadists in alarming numbers.
Hold it Bernie, what about jihadists in Iraq and Syria? Aren't those countries already Muslim-majority? You just wrote that jihad is unnecessary in Muslim-majority countries. Yes, jihad is unnecessary if the goal is to turn Dar al-Harb (non-Muslim countries) into Dar al-Islam. However, the jihad in Iraq and Syria has a different goal: to establish a Caliphate.
And for that Global Jihad we see thousands of seemingly moderate Muslims in western countries racing into Iraq and Syria to become Mujahideen in that struggle.
The difference between a tadpole and a frog? Just a matter of the right environment and time.
The difference between a moderate Muslim and a jihadist? Just a matter of the right environment and time.
Related: At one time I raised over a thousand frogs.
