Sometimes the answer to a difficult question is obvious. In this case, the question that has befuddled Western politicians and military minds is this: Why do violent jihadists seem to hate us?

The answer is the same one Thomas Jefferson and John Adams heard from the Muslim ambassador from Tripoli in 1785: “It was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

First, we go back to November of 2015 for an interview with Dr. Timothy Furnish, a scholar of Islamic history, expert on political Islam and Mahdism, and author of the books Ten Years’ Captivation with the Mahdi’s Camps and Sects, Lies, and the Caliphate. He explains why the roots of the Islamic State reach back much farther than America’s recent military adventures in Iraq.

Here are links to articles by Dr. Furnish. Note that he predicted the rise of a group like ISIS almost ten years before it declared its caliphate:

* Beheading in the Name of Islam (Spring 2005)

* What’s Worse than Violent Jihadists? (July 25, 2005)

Then we bring back an interview from earlier this year with historian Raymond Ibrahim, who was recently invited to speak at the US Army War College—until the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Muslim activist Linda Sarsour complained. It seems they have a problem with American soldiers hearing about Raymond’s latest book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West.

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