I just heard former New York Police Department Commissioner Howard Safir aptly characterize San Bernadino, CA Muslim jihadist murderer Syed Farook, and his accomplice Saudi Muslim wife, Tafsheen Malik, as “true believers.” Indeed Safir’s description comports neatly with this candid assessment of Farook by the murderer’s own father:

He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.

These revealing words by Farook’s father and even more importantly Safir’s apposite characterization recall the late Eric Hoffer’s (d. 1983) observations on Islam from his seminal study of fanatical mass movements, The True Believer.

Islam obtained from its coerced converts ‘a faith ever tending to grow stronger.’ Fanatical orthodoxy is in all movements a late development. It comes when the movement is in full possession of power and can impose its faith by force as well as by persuasion.

A daily example of such mainstream “devout” Muslim fanaticism is the multiply repeated recitation of the Koranic verse, sura (chapter) 1, verse 7. Pious Muslims repeat Koran 1:7 up to 17 times a day, as part of the five daily prayer sessions, consistent with this admonition, recorded by the great medieval Koranic commentator and historian Ibn Kathir (d. 1373):

 [R] eciting the Opening of the Book [the Fatiha, verses Koran 1:1 to 1:7], during the prayer by the Imam and those praying behind him is required in every prayer, and in every Ra’kah [unit of prayer]”)

Koran 1:7, specifically, is where Muslims ask Allah to guide them rightly, not in the path of those who provoke and must bear His wrath. An authoritative modern Koranic translation by Drs. Muhammad al-Hilali and Muhammad Khan (p.12) of the Koran 1:7 includes parenthetical references to the Jews (after the word “anger”), and the Christians (after the word “astray’):

 “The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians).”

More here.

H/T: Andy Bostom