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Infidel Awareness Month
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Remember + Honor + Stand Together

Day 3 — September 13

Why They See Us as Targets

There's a real doctrine dividing humanity into “us” and “fair game.” Once you see it, the pattern of who gets targeted stops looking random.

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In brief

September 13

There's a real doctrine dividing humanity into “us” and “fair game.” Once you see it, the pattern of who gets targeted stops looking random.

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Back to the month

Remember + Honor + Stand Together

Day 3 — September 13

Why They See Us as Targets

There's a real doctrine dividing humanity into “us” and “fair game.” Once you see it, the pattern of who gets targeted stops looking random.

9/11 was driven by a specific idea: that non-Muslims are, by default, legitimate targets — not accidentally, not as collateral damage, but deserving of death as a matter of a hardline religious teaching.

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Today's editorial

This day proposes an uncomfortable exercise: really try to see the world the way the most extreme, supremacist voices in this movement see it.

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Daily context

September 13

There's a real doctrine dividing humanity into “us” and “fair game.” Once you see it, the pattern of who gets targeted stops looking random.

Read the day

Sources

Readings & sources

  • Glossary: kafir, takfir, dar al-Islam, dar al-harb, dhimma, da'wa, al-walā' wa-l-barā', hijra, taqiyya
  • Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (on Sayyid Qutb)
  • Bat Ye'or, “Islam and Dhimmitude,” Middle East Quarterly, 2002
  • + 6 more sources
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Get involved

Get Involved

Bring awareness to your community.

Host an event
Volunteer