Turns out that Shamsud-Din Jabbar kept Islamic scripture on, of all places, his internal profile page at Deloitte, where he was working as a “solutions specialist” — which sounds eerie now in light of the “solution” he had in mind when he rammed a rented Ford pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in the first hours of the new year, killing 15 and injuring dozens more.
The passage was drawn from the Quran, chapter 76, which is called Al-Insan, or “The Man.” As explained in The Holy Quran: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, a version of Islam’s highest scriptural source produced by the Saudi regime, the “theme” of the chapter (or sura) is “the contrast between the two classes of men, those who choose good and those who choose evil.” On his profile page, which said Jabbar’s top interests were hunting and prayer, he reportedly proclaimed verses 5 through 7, which explain that “the Righteous” — i.e., Muslims who comply with Allah’s law — will be rewarded in the hereafter for “performing their vows” and “fear[ing] a Day Whose evil flies far and wide,” meaning Judgment Day, on which horrible, everlasting punishment will be the fate of the class of men who have chosen evil — the nonbelievers who have spurned Allah’s law.
Comments