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BOOK
REVIEW
The fanatic's mindset
Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on
Terror by Mary Habeck
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
In every crime scene, the intelligent detective tries to
establish the motive by deciphering the mindset of the
assassin. After September 11, 2001, analysts offered a
multitude of explanations for the root causes of the
terrorist acts of that date. Unfortunately, socio-economic
and secular biases in the liberal media ensured that
belief-centered understandings of terrorism were trashed as
"right-wing obsession".
Resurrecting an obvious cause that has not been given its
due, military historian Mary Habeck brings to the
overwritten topic of September 11 a remarkably insightful
explanation based on the ideology of extremist Islam. "It
would be wrong to conclude that the hijackers, al-Qaeda and
the other radical groups have nothing to do with Islam.
These extremists explicitly appeal to the Koran and the
Hadith; find endorsement among respected interpreters of
Islam and win disciples by their piety." (p 3) Poverty,
oppressive governments, colonization, imperialism, etc may
be underlying issues, but the jihadis choose their actions
primarily on religious grounds.
A core belief in jihadist lore is that Islam is the only way
of life for humanity and that Muslims are "divinely destined
to lead mankind" by diffusing the true faith. (p 8)
Christian and Jewish domination of world politics, finance
and popular culture is a terrible "inversed fact" that is
attributed to apostate rulers from the Abbasids to Hosni
Mubarak, Pervez Musharraf and the Saudis. Others fault
deliberate assaults of unbelief (kufr) and falsehood
(batil), such as Mustafa Kamal's abolition of the
Ottoman
 Caliphate
in 1924, for Islam's inferior position. Imperialism, by this
theological perspective, is an attempt "to destroy Islam and
kill as many Muslims as possible". (p 12)
The jihadist solution to Islam's decline is rejection of
"blind imitation of Western ideas and a return to the Koran
and Hadith as the only authorities". (p10) Fanatics advocate
reopening the doors of ijtihad (interpretation),
allowing every Muslim the right to fit the sacred literature
to his own reason. September 11 was meant to be a stunning
blow "to begin the ultimate destruction of falsehood" and to
be a consensus (ijma) mechanism that lines up the
entire ummah (Muslim community) behind the jihadist
vision of eternal warfare.
Habeck discusses the legacies of prominent Islamist jurists
for modern jihadis. Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) argued that
Islam required state power and urged "resumption of armed
struggle against anyone outside the fold of Islam". (p 20)
For him, jihad was a war to convert unbelievers to Islam, a
task "even better than the hajj" (pilgrimage). (p 21)
Abd al-Wahhab (1703-92) prescribed relentless jihad against
secular lawmakers who dared to defy God's law (sharia). His
"Al Muwahiddun" movement smashed images, tombs and shrines
of Sufi and Shi'ite saints.
Rashid Rida (1865-1935) condemned modernizers as heretics
and insisted that "Islam does not really exist unless a
strong Islamic state is established". (p 28) Hasan al-Banna
(1906-49) conceived the West as an intellectual as well as a
physical threat that Muslims had to overcome. After
unseating unbelievers that occupied Islamic land, jihad had
to "invade the Western heartland until all the world shouts
by the name of the Prophet". Resort to violence was "to save
humankind and illuminate the whole planet with the sun of
Islam". (p 33) Banna's Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (Muslim
Brotherhood) produced Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), a giant in the
jihadist pantheon who rejected democracy as a "false
religion, not just a false political idea". (p 36) Abul A'la
Maududi (1903-79) asserted that warfare with infidels was
inexorable. His "sovereignty of God" (hakimiyyat Allah)
concept heralded totalitarian regulation of Muslim personal
and public activities. Today, his followers wage jihad in
Kashmir "to free this 'Islamic' land from 'Hindu'
domination". (p 37)
Jihadis place much weight on the literal words of
scriptures. Citing the principle of abrogation (naskh),
they demand that Christians and Jews have to accept Islam
and submit to Muslim rule or die. Hindus "have only the
choice of conversion or death". (p 44) The pages of the
Koran are considered sufficient to understand the plans and
intentions of enemies. The story of Moses and his
confrontation with the Egyptian king is taken as an
infallible prediction of the downfall of the "newest
pharaoh", the US, at the hands of Muslims. The archetypal
battles of Badr and Ahzab promise victory to Islam against
more powerful forces. Koranic descriptions of Jews as
betrayers and traitors who incur God's curse and transform
into monkeys and pigs are widely quoted in jihadist circles.
In the essentialist fanatic vision, democracy is "the
ultimate expression of idolatry". People, legislatures,
representatives or nations have no inherent sovereignty,
which belongs to God alone. International organizations such
as the UN are conspiracies to destroy Islam. International
law is a digest of "exclusively Christian norms" that
suffocate the ummah. The foreign policy of the
Islamic state should be "perpetual jihad because the sacred
texts compels it". (p 52)
To jihadis, a true Muslim has to put the sharia into
practice or risk being declared an unbeliever. With the
expiry of "the real Islamic state", authentic Islam vanished
in jihadist estimation. So-called Muslim societies today are
actually pagan (jahil) and as illegitimate as the
"filth of man-made religions". (p 66) Osama bin Laden
describes all Islamic states as mired in ignorance (jahiliyya),
thanks to government-appointed clergy (ulama), who
are likened to "Pentagon Muslims".
Capitalism, especially charging of interest in finance, is a
central focus for jihadist criticism of Jews. Bin Laden
often emphasizes the injunction to wage war on usury, be it
in the US or Saudi Arabia. Personal freedom and human rights
are seen as contradictions to Islam that have been injected
as poison by the unbelievers. The jihadist attitude is that
liberalism is a satanic influence that should be destroyed.
Habeck characterizes jihadist foreign policy as dictated by
the dichotomy between incompatible foes - true Islam (al-Haqq)
and kufr. "Islam must expand to fill the entire world
or else falsehood will do so." (p 84) The US is to most
jihadis the leading spirit of kufr, which has
established a bridgehead within the Islamic heartland
through the "artificial crusader state of Israel". (p 91)
For al-Qaeda, the US and Israel are so intertwined that to
talk about one is to talk about the other. Secular Muslim
intellectuals are excoriated as implants of the West to ruin
Islam deliberately and lead the believers astray. The very
notions of "moderate Muslim" and "fundamentalist Muslim" are
seen as Western inventions to divide the ummah.
Scientific ideas such as evolution, psychology and sociology
are limned as "purposely disseminated to sow doubts in the
minds of Muslims". (p 100)
Since a majority of Islamic scriptures refer to jihad in the
sense of fighting (qital), "the extremists are not
outside the bounds of traditional Islam". (p 108) Jihadis
interpret warfare as the peak of the religion and compulsory
on true Muslims. Justifying "defensive jihad", they envisage
aggression as the mere existence of competing ideologies,
rather than a physical attack by an enemy state. A country
does not have to be majority Muslim to be an Islamic
territory - "it need only have a large number of Muslims or
have been under an Islamic state at any point in history".
(p 114) Therefore, jihadis take it as their duty to
"restore" Muslim rule to the Balkans, Hungary, Romania,
Austria, Crimea, Poland, Spain, India and Russia. Renouncing
"offensive jihad" is a sign to jihadis that "Muslims have
surrendered" to defeatism. They advocate retaining the right
to spread the rule of Islam even if not attacked by the
unbelievers. In Maududi's language, Islam had to spread
"through word if possible or through the sword when
necessary".
Habeck elucidates distinctive characteristics of jihadist
warfare such as deception, ambiguity, misleading the
unbelievers and outright lying, all contained in the
Prophet's dictum - "war is deceit". The definition of
combatant is sufficiently broad to allow intentional killing
of women, children and other Muslims if they help the enemy
by word or deed. Torture of captives is argued from the
Sunnah (the way of the Prophet) as helping the Muslim cause.
Terrorism, or "striking fear into the hearts of God's
enemies", is also claimed to be permissible, based on one
verse in the Koran and a few Hadith collections.
Jihadis count on a massive uprising of the worldwide Muslim
ummah and use da'wa (missionary activity) for
this end. Until the full-scale mobilization of all Muslims
fructifies, jihadis prioritize enemies by learning from the
life of the Prophet Mohammed (sira). The sira is an integral
part of the jihadi aqida (creed of Islam) and an
inspiration to fight for the supremacy of the faith.
Mohammed's migration (hijra) to Medina shows jihadis
the importance of relocating to a "safe haven", far from the
forbidden indulgences and sins of unbelievers. Some true
believers can remain behind enemy lines as "subversive
cells", but in general, migrating to states or regions
within states where the sharia reigns is deemed necessary.
This accounts for mass movements of jihadis to Afghanistan
after the Taliban came to power in 1996.
The Prophet's raids on caravans of tribes hostile to Islam
signals to jihadis the need for offensive warfare on
unbelievers. Mohammed's success in Mecca to attract
primarily young people to his side informs jihadi targeting
of universities in non-Islamic countries for constituting
the elite vanguard (jamaa) of future takeovers. The
author notes how, lacking detailed plans or programs,
jihadis trust the "method of Mohammed" to solve all the
problems of the world - economic, political, social and
cultural.
Habeck unravels internal differences among jihadis about the
triage of enemies. Bin Laden has been trying to persuade
other jihadis not to get distracted by smaller tempting
targets and aim at the "greater unbelief" of the US first.
The Hizb-al-Tahrir group, however, calls for killing "near
enemies" (apostate "agent rulers", Shi'ites, Ahmadiyyas et
al) before taking on the US, "even if this means the death
of millions". (p 158) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's declaration of
war on Iraqi Shi'ites reflects this line of thought. Mufti
Khubiab Sahib recommends attacks on wealth and worldly
possessions of Hindus as the correct strategy, while Maulana
Masood Azhar cites the Sunnah to claim that "the most
efficacious targets are the wealth and economy of the
infidels". (p159)
Jihadis live and enact a literal clash of civilizations in
which good, virtuous and true Islam is expected to triumph.
Bin Laden's exhortations against the superpower's "most
cowardly people" who can be defeated stems from a conviction
that, if not the full ummah, a small band of
dedicated Islamic warriors are adequate to win in this
cosmic clash.
Habeck concludes with recommendations for the world to
defeat jihadis. Taking away territory where the jihadi
version of Sharia can be applied is a strong blow to their
ideological confidence. Expulsion of extremist ulama
from mosques can dent jihadist da'wa. Equitably
resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict "will not stop
the violence from al-Qaeda, but will deprive it of means for
winning new recruits". (p174) To concretize the face of the
enemy, the author suggests renaming the "war on terrorism"
as "war on jihadism" or "war on khawarij" (heterodox
Muslims).
In an otherwise brilliant book, Habeck naively labels
democratization of Muslim countries a long-term solution to
the jihadist threat. One would have expected her to reflect
on the empirical reality of democratic lacunae in much of
the Islamic world, except occasional outliers. Her
projection that a jihad-cleansed Islamic democracy can
evolve runs against facts and is a leaf taken straight out
of the daft neo-con blueprint of the George W Bush
administration.
Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on
Terror by Mary Habeck. Yale University Press, January
2006. ISBN: 0-300-11306-4. Price: US$25, 243 pages.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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