On Tuesday, as international leaders met in London to discuss the future of Libya, the Libyan opposition’s Interim National Council published a statement unveiling its “Vision for a Democratic Libya.” The document enumerates the Council’s commitments to freedom and democracy, the separation of powers, “political pluralism,” the “supremacy of international humanitarian law,” the “empowerment of women,” the “denunciation” of terrorism, a “green environment,” and many other things. It makes no mention of Islam, except perhaps implicitly. As President Obama observed about the opposition leaders, “so far, they’re saying the right things.”
But before there was the Interim National Council, there was the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition (NCLO). It was the NCLO that called for the February 17 “Day of Rage” that would provide the spark for what the Interim National Council now calls the “February 17 Revolution.” As discussed in my PJM report here, the choice of date was not arbitrary. February 17 marked the anniversary of an earlier protest in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi: namely, a 2006 protest against the famous “Mohammed cartoons” that were published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
A commentator by the name of Andy Stone discovered further evidence of the Islamist inspiration of the “February 17 Revolution” on the NCLO website. On February 15, just two days before the “Day of Rage,” the organization published a text in Arabic titled “Gaddafi: Islam’s Enemy no. 1”. The text comprises of a sort of indictment of Muammar al-Gaddafi for a long list of alleged crimes against Islamic orthodoxy. Pajamas Media here documents the principal charges laid out in the NCLO’s “Gaddafi: Islam’s Enemy no. 1”. The English translation is by Tony Badran.
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This unbeliever has fought Islam with every possible means, he closed the Islamic University four months after his fateful coup, and then shut down religious institutes in 1982.
He forbade Islamic books from being circulated and from entering Libya, and Islamic books were being confiscated at airports and border checkpoints, and their owners were referred to the internal security apparatus for investigation.
He followed the same old ways of hypocrites, establishing a mosque which he named (The Islamic Da’wa Society), which, on its face, was meant to preach Islam, but secretly a cover for the work of Gaddafi’s secret services abroad, including spying and sabotage in Muslim lands.
He builds mosques in Africa and Pakistan and many places around the world in order to appear as the protector of Islam, while at the same time, his prisons were filled with thousands of young pure Muslim prisoners, which he then executed in a massacre unprecedented in modern history.
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In Libya, the Italian military governor Graziani never dared to say: Put the Qur’an on the shelf because it is no longer suitable for this age. But the impostor Gaddafi did say that.
Graziani never dared to say that afternoon prayer consisted of two kneels, but the impostor Gaddafi did. He also said that there’s nothing in the Qur’an that says that prayer consists of four kneels.
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Neither Graziani or any occupier dared to say that the prophetic Sunna did not exist, and that it was the invention of the Jews, or sarcastically deride Sayyida Aisha and the Sahaba and the scholars. But Gaddafi the unbeliever did say that.
The colonizer never dared to say that Jews and Christians are permitted to go to Mecca and walk around the Ka’ba. But the unbeliever Gaddafi did say it.
The colonizer never dared to mock the veil, describing it as a tent or a rag. But the unbeliever Gaddafi did.
The colonizer never dared to say that he achieved what the prophets failed to achieve. But the unbeliever Gaddafi said that his revolution achieved what the prophets were unable to.
Have you heard of any tyrant who has done to Islam and its people what the criminal Gaddafi has done?”
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