Al Qaeda is at war with the Muslim world, too.

The next essay in the Al Qaeda Reader was written by Ayman al-Zawahiri. It is entitled Sharia and Democracy. To understand this essay, it is important to understand that under Sharia, the punishment for a sane adult male apostate is execution.

In this essay, al-Zawahiri makes plain his beliefs about the current rulers of the Muslim world. In his typical style, he repeats and restates this belief, over and over again:

The current rulers of Muslim countries who govern without the Sharia are apostate infidels. It is obligatory to overthrow them, to wage jihad against them, and to depose them, installing a Muslim ruler in their stead.

The Koran, the Sunna, all demonstrate that exchanging the Islamic Sharia with something else is infidelity -- especially in the despicable manner that we see today in the lands of Islam. These regimes that exchange the Sharia of Allah are outcasts . . . .

Al-Zawahiri also makes it clear that support Democracy is infidelity to Islam. As usual, he repeats the point many times:

. . . democracy is an infidel religion . . .

. . . we summarize the many faces of blasphemy that are inherent to democracies . . .

The bottom line regarding democracies is that the right to make law is given to someone other than Allah Most High . . . . whoever agrees to this is an infidel . . .

In the process of enumerating one of the many sins of democracies, al-Zawahiri makes perfectly plain his beliefs regarding the status of women.

[Allah] said: "Men have authority over women, for Allah has made the one superior to the other." But in a democracy, women have the right to emulate the dignity and legal status of men.

In his final summing up, al-Zawahiri restates the main point one more time, in case the reader has missed it:

whoever claims to be a "democratic-Muslim" . . . . is an apostate infidel.

Remember that under Sharia, the penalty for apostasy is death. This is always true for sane adult men, and often for women as well. It is because of this principle that Al Qaeda believes that attacks such as the following are justified:

Iraqi Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha murdered by al Qaeda shortly after he meets with Bush

Several hundred Yazidis murdered in four bombings shortly after an al Qaeda front group circulates leaflets warning that an attack is imminent because Yazidis are "anti-Islamic"

Car bomb kills 18 in quiet Shiite Baghdad neighborhood. Bombing bears hallmarks of Al Qaeda.

Suicide bombings on 11/9 (which is 9/11 in Jordan since they put the day before the month) kill at least 60 in three hotels in Amman, Jordan. Al Qaeda in Iraq takes responsibility.