Last week in the central Pennsylvania hamlet of St. Marys, a 25-year-old man named Joshua Lee Coffey did what no 25-year-old who is still living with his mother should ever do: he expressed his dislike for the dinner she served him. It was pork, you see, and as a pious convert to Islam, Coffey considered pork unclean, and his mother inconsiderate for having served it.

But “inconsiderate” is understated. A war of words escalated quickly – at least as far as young Coffey was concerned. He complained to his mother that she was trying to “poison” him with the pork, reminding her that Islam forbade the consumption of The Other White Meat. His fury rising, he soon threatened to kill her, as well as her boyfriend, Mark Blair, who was also present for the fateful pork dinner.

It wasn’t an idle threat. In a righteous rage, Coffey went to the kitchen and found a ten-inch knife, which he then took to his mother’s bedroom, where she and her beau had been dining, and brandished it in front of the terrified pair. He then held it to Blair’s throat, threatening to strike the neck of the hapless Infidel (in accord with the command enshrined in Qur’an 47:4) if Ma Coffey dared to call the police.

His terrified mother jumped out the bedroom window onto the roof. Having enough presence of mind to grab her cellphone, she swiftly called the cops and then climbed down and fled to a neighbor’s home to await their arrival. Coffey then apparently decided not to slit Blair’s throat; police found the righteously angry young Muslim in the family backyard, still holding his big kitchen knife. He is apprehended and is currently being held on $5,000 bail.

Coffey’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. The most interesting aspect of his case, however, will not be discussed there, or at any subsequent legal proceeding involving him: the intersection between his Islamic piety and violence. Once again we see a Muslim link the two, which is something that we are constantly told is done only by “Islamophobes.” Coffey was enraged that his mother would dare to serve him a meal that violated the tenets of his Islamic religion; he did not, however, appear to think that threatening to kill her and Mark Blair because of this infraction was inconsistent with his Islamic observance in the way that eating the pork would have been.

This is the element of Islamic jihad terrorism that so many find difficult to understand. American civil religion assumes that any and all religions are benign and beneficial, teaching the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, as well as universal charity and benevolence. The concept of a religion, particularly an established, venerable, and global one, that teaches that one should be “merciful” to fellow believers but “harsh” to those who do not believe (Qur’an 48:29), and that violating food laws is beyond the pale but threatening to kill an infidel – even if that infidel’s is the believer’s own mother — for causing one to violate those food laws, is inconceivable to most people.

And yet it exists. The Qur’an commands Muslims to shun even their own family members if they are not Muslim: “O believers, take not your fathers and brothers to be your friends, if they prefer unbelief to belief; whosoever of you takes them for friends, those—they are the evildoers. Say: ‘If your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your wives, your clan, your possessions that you have gained, commerce you fear may slacken, dwellings you love—if these are dearer to you than Allah and His Messenger, and to struggle in His way, then wait till Allah brings His command; Allah guides not the people of the ungodly’” (9:23-24).

Thus as we saw that Mujahid Adebolajo, one of the London jihad murderers who beheaded a British soldier on a Woolwich street on May 22, no longer considered himself a British citizen, but rather solely as a citizen of the umma, so also Joshua Coffey no longer considered his affection for and loyalty to his mother to be as important as his loyalty to Islam – a loyalty for which he showed himself willing to kill.

Pork is forbidden, but the blood of the infidel is not. Until Western authorities understand that fact and its implications, more serious jihads than that of Joshua Coffey will continue to explode upon free societies.