The Curious Case of Mubin Shaikh, the “Undercover Jihadi”
I am a Canadian ex-Muslim male; I converted to Islam and stayed in the religion for approximately four years, before leaving it due to disbelief and moral disgust. Now I live every day with Islam's formal and informal death penalty for apostasy, hoping that my former Muslim friends don't recognize me on the street.
In this article, I critique the efforts of a Muslim activist in Canada and self-proclaimed counter terror expert named Mubin Shaikh. Mubin first achieved public notoriety in Canada in 2006 for helping law enforcement officials prevent a jihad attack hatched by a group of Canadian Muslims known as the "Toronto 18." The Toronto 18 had the goal of beheading the then-Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, as well as blowing up certain buildings in the cities of Toronto and Ottawa, Canada.
Mubin has since gone on to become a media commentator, appearing on ABC, NBC, CBC, and CNN, among others. Mubin has also been active in consulting with and training various law enforcement officials and military groups. Among other things, Mubin is currently busy on Twitter and with documentary film making, attempting to absolve the teachings of canonical Islam (the Quran, hadiths and Muhammad's sira) from being in any way responsible for the Islamic terrorism and Islam-related social and societal problems we see occurring throughout the world today.
In his recent Twitter posts and other public comments, Mubin states that he is in favour of killing ISIS members on the battlefield, claiming that they are evil "misunderstanders" of Islam, giving the good religion of Islam a bad name. Speaking as an ex-Muslim, I would say that ISIS and Al-Qaeda members are devout, fully obedient Muslims, unwilling to overlook or discount the many self-evidently cruel and highly violent commands contained within Islam's above mentioned canonical texts.
Strategically speaking, it doubtlessly benefits the Muslim Ummah (the community of Muslim believers - among whom Mubin counts himself), which continually strives for the growth of Islam, to have the most bloodthirsty jihadis among them killed off, as they would prove to be unstable and ineffective persons should larger hostilities break out between the Muslim and non-Muslim community. Mubin doubtlessly knows this, therefore his stance in favour of killing ISIS members is not necessarily praiseworthy and should be seen in the light of what has been mentioned above.
In addition to favouring the killing of ISIS members on the battlefield, Mubin has stated that ISIS members returning to countries such as Canada and the USA, etc., who fail to be disabused of their jihadist inclinations should be incarcerated in high security prisons. One of the severely important challenges faced when attempting to "deprogram" jihadists is that one has to try to get them to except a totally whitewashed version of Islam - an Islam devoid of the many harmful and violent texts and teachings contained within mainstream orthodox Islamic theology that jihadists are well aware exist, and are expected as devout and obedient Muslims to enact in the real world. Another equally difficult challenge when attempting to "deprogram" fully obedient Muslims is that those Muslims can simply lie to law enforcement officials, claiming that they disavow jihad activity in order to gain their freedom, all the while continuing to conceal their steadfast commitment to Islam and jihad.
Mubin Shaikh attempts to deny that Islamic texts are the main motivating factor involved in jihad terrorism, while placing all of the blame for Islamic terrorism on Muslim "misunderstanders" of Islam and on various grievances, as well as on what Mubin is now commonly calling "causation." He is attempting to prevent a needed critical examination of Islamic theology, which is in effect misleading law enforcement officials to a considerable extent, and leaving them woefully unprepared to understand the threat of Islamic terrorism and effectively defeat it.
If and when such a critical examination were to occur, Mubin and his Islam apologist cohorts are sure to sling false charges of "Islamophobia" and possibly demand that charges of " hate speech" be brought against those who perform this critical examination. This is part of the current playbook of Islamic activists. Furthermore, if the politically correct kid gloves were taken off and the many harms and dangers of Islam were to be revealed, Mubin and numerous other Muslim apologists would surely be waiting in the wings to spin all manner of Islamic Taqiyya in hopes of confusing and frustrating non-Muslims, and in turn deflecting attention away from the many falsehoods and injustices of Islamic theology proper.
What initially made me want to write this article was that I had noticed that Mubin was attempting to smear many of the Western world's great anti-jihadists and folks who may happen to be critical of Islam (not a crime in the non-Islamic world, as of yet).
People such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Ezra Levant and Tommy Robinson. By labeling these folks as bigots, racists, and Muslim haters, when they are in reality no such thing, Mubin and his ilk have effectively put a target on the backs of these people. And as an added bonus, Mubin is furthering his efforts of preventing the many negative aspects of Islamic theology from becoming known to the wider public and law enforcement officials. How curious and convenient for him!
The fact that "Undercover Jihadi" Mubin Shaikh has still not renounced Islam is big red flag for me. There is a certain line of differentiation that gets crossed in this crucially important matter, and Mubin has crossed way beyond that line. He knows very well the hideously dark contents contained within the Quran and Muhammad the prophet of Islam's Sunnah, and yet he is trying his best to prevent others from discovering them, and/or to convince others to disregard the vital role they play in Islamic jihad terrorism.