[The Montana Professor 15.1, Fall 2004 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin
New York: Oxford UP, 2002
392 pp., $29.95 hc
Paul Trout
English
MSU-Bozeman
The Rubins have performed an invaluable service. They have put into a single volume almost eighty translated statements by Arab jihadists, along with a number of other official documents relating to terrorism against the United States. Here you can read, without mediation (save for the translator), what the Islamists want, why they want it, and what they are willing to do to get it. Here, on display, is the mentalite of the Holy Warrior in all of its menacing Manichean starkness.
Included are Khomeini's "Islam is Not a Religion of Pacifists" (1942), the charters of Hizballah (1985) and Hamas (1988), the training manual of al-Qaida, al-Zawahiri's "Why Attack America" (2002), bin Ladin's "Declaration of War" (1996), Muhammad Atta's suicide note, the World Islamic Front's "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders" (1998), and Atallah Abu al-Subh's rhapsodic ode to "Anthrax." (I follow the spelling of Arabic names and terms used in this collection.) In addition there are a number of government documents, from an FBI Most-Wanted list to speeches by Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush.
The documents are divided into eight sections, each with a brief introduction. There are also two longer essays, "The Islamist View of Life as a Perennial Battle" (David Zeidan) and the other "The Truth about U.S. Middle East Policy" (Barry Rubin). All together there are almost 100 entries, rounded out by a chronology of Middle-east terrorism against Americans (starting in 1969), a glossary of terms, a glossary of names, and an index. This book has plenty of "bang" for the buck.
Since there is not space to review each document, I will focus on the salient points made by the jihadists themselves about their motives and goals. By "jihadist" I mean a soldier in the army of Allah. An "Islamist" is one who seeks to make Muslims and even non-Muslims obey Islamic law (sharia). An Islamist is not necessarily a jihadist, but a jihadist is an Islamist.
For jihadists, the war against the West and Israel is a religious obligation. As bin Ladin puts it, "This war is fundamentally religious;" the "enmity" between Islam and the infidels "is based on creed" (256-57). For another, the war against the West represents the "decisive battle between infidelity and faith" (252). The killing of infidels "is a religious duty" required by Allah, and for which jihadists "hope to be rewarded...by God" (bin Ladin, 217). For Ayatollah Khomeini, "Islam is a religion of blood for the infidels" (29; 27, 32-33). Not surprisingly, Western secularists are inclined to dismiss this "language of the religious zealot" as a rhetorical smoke screen justifying deranged bloodlust (e.g., The Weekly Standard, 24 May 2004, 27). But this secular-centric view flies in the face of what the Islamists themselves say. For them, the spilling of infidel blood is a religious obligation imposed by the Koran (on this, see 13, 14,15, 57, 59, 66, 249). Islamists must carry out the words of Allah, which command: "So if you meet those who reject, then strike the necks" (147). This divine demand will not change with the passage of time or with the change of policies or administrations in the Western world.
For jihadists, the ultimate goal of religious war is an entirely Islamic world. The religion of Islam divides the world into the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War (Dar al-Harb). The "enmity" between the two will end only when the world is entirely Dar al-Islam. The goal of Islamists is not merely to rid the world of Israel, drive Westerners from Arabia, and humiliate and destroy the United States: it is to wage Holy War until Islamic law is observed by everyone on earth, as Allah Himself has willed it. While this may sound fantastical to pragmatic Westerners, Islamists make perfectly clear that this is, indeed, their objective. In the words of al-Qaida, the mission is "establishing the religion of majestic Allah on earth" (158). Bin Ladin believes that he has been ordered by Allah "to fight the people until they say there is no God but Allah" (244). The goal of Abdullah Azzam (a Palestinian jihadist) is "the establishment of Allah's rule on earth." Jihad must be conducted until the "light of Islam may shine on the whole world" (63; see 31, 58).
For Jihadists, the social and political policies of Western nations are fundamentally irrelevant to the Islamist goal of world Islamic dominion. For Islamists, true social justice and true political freedom can only be enjoyed under Islamic sharia. "The purpose of jihad in Islam is to secure complete freedom for every man throughout the world...so that he may serve Allah" and enjoy the "justice of Islam" (Sayyid Qutb 31). "Safety and security can prevail only under the shadow of Islam" (58). Only Islam can establish a "just and equitable social order among human beings" (22). Outside Islam there is only slavery and oppression, by definition. The only thing the West could do to appease jihadists would be to convert en masse to Islam. Naturally, Western pragmatists find it hard to accept this stark situation, and some still believe that the right alignment of programs and policies eventually will calm jihadist hatred and violence. But, as I read the words of jihadists, this belief is the opposite of the truth. The more the United States supports Arab regimes and alleviates the miseries of Muslims, the more Islamists (but not all Arabs and Muslims) will want to kill us. The logic of this horrible dilemma is simple: Arab-friendly American policies and actions are viewed by Islamists as evil blandishments meant to shield the Satanic Dar al-Harb from destruction. As Lenin might have put it, the better the worse (for us). Western values of "freedom" and "democracy" are despised by Islamists as the lures of the Devil. True "freedom" for them is absolute submission to Allah's law. The more the West attempts to justify its opposition to Islamism in these terms, the more heinous it becomes to jihadists. Quite simply, whatever delays the imposition of sharia exacerbates human suffering, and so is evil. This is why the Islamists have no option in their minds but to wrest authority from all wicked governments. The only debate within Islamist groups is whether to begin by attacking Arab/Islamic regimes (all of which are seen as apostate from true Islam, including, apparently, the fledgling one in Iraq) or by attacking the Great Satan that supports them. What is not debatable is that it must be "Jihad until all the oppressed peoples are freed" (63). (The notion that there should be no compulsion in religion, Qutb successfully argued, does not apply to societies, and any Muslim who associates with an apostate regime can be killed without guilt, as Iraqis are learning [21]).
For Jihadists, there can be no compromise with the forces of Satan. How can God, Islamists ask, make deals with the Devil? As an influential theorist of jihad bluntly insists, "Islam cannot accept any compromise with jahiliyya" (any system not based on strict adherence to Islamic law). "The mixing and coexistence of the truth and falsehood is impossible" (Qutb 13). For Qutb and his followers, the violent missionary work of Islamicizing the globe will continue "until we are martyred or become victorious" (31). The success of the 9/11 attack, says an al-Qaida official, has opened a door "that will under no circumstances be shut" (252). "We combat abomination, and we shall tear out its very roots, its primary roots, which are the United States" (Hizballah 51). As another says, "jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences, and no dialogues" (63; 131). It is delusory--as well as suicidal--to think that their hunger for slaughtering could be slaked by a policy change here and a policy change there.
It follows that for Jihadists there can never be peace with Israel. The only "just peace" acceptable to Hamas, Hizballah, and other Islamists entails the total annihilation of the "Nazi Zionist entity" (59). The "banner of Allah" must be raised "over every inch of Palestine" (54). Israel must be destroyed not only because it is an obstacle to establishing world Islam but because it occupies holy ground given to Muslims by Allah. The establishment of the "Zionist entity" was, for Islamists, the primal "terrorist act" (311), justifying, indeed demanding, a campaign of total counter-terrorism, which to them is not "terrorism" at all but "defense" of Islamic land.
For Islamists, any effort to broker a deal with Israel is evil. The United States is hated by Islamists--please listen up--precisely because it has attempted to facilitate peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians (another horrible dilemma). Woe to the United States should it ever succeed! Islamists make clear that they will never permit peaceful co-existence with Israel (51, 53-54, 79, 94, 131, 260, 288). Even should the United States completely end any support of Israel, jihadists will not be content, for Israel, like the United States, is merely an obstacle--an embittering one, that is true--in the path to world Islam.
There are probably better and worse things this country could do in the Middle East, but what they are is difficult to determine. The more we appease established groups and regimes, all of which are seen by Islamists as jihiliyya, the more Islamists want to destroy us. The more we try to destroy Islamists first, the easier it is for them to recruit fervent martyrs for its Holy War against us. A double-bind if I have ever seen one.
Maybe we should have sent bin Ladin a little "Thank-You!" note for the Death Package of 9/11? But not even this act of abasement would have gained us peace and good-will; it would only have provoked more attacks from Islamists, since they would have seen this Multicultural Moment as more evidence that America was indeed dithering and feeble, the very perception that encouraged such an audacious attack in the first place (before Afghanistan, bin Ladin said that America's tough talk "induces a grieving mother to laughter," 139; see 40, 43, 66, 102, 104-05, 107, 118, 123, 155, 181, 266, 275, 288, etc; this anthology was published before the invasion of Iraq).
Westerners wanting more "root causes" for jihad should read the courageous analyses in this anthology by two Arab/Islamic scholars living in the Middle East. Al-Hamid al-Ansari, a Qatari law professor, traces the woes of so many Arabic regimes to a "fanatic culture that the people absorb in doses.... This is a culture of terrorism, which is [easily] absorbed by those who have been exposed to inappropriate education" (315). Ahmad al-Baghdadi, a Kuwaiti political-science professor, traces the roots of this fanaticism to the political and social oppression and intolerance inflicted on the Arab people by their own regimes. "One cannot complain to the West for what it is doing to them, because the Arab and Muslim world, everyone--governments and peoples--are lying about terrorism" (312).
I cannot comment on the accuracy of the translations, but note that they have been gleaned from a variety of agencies and groups (more statements from Islamists and jihadists can be found at <http://www.memri.org>). Unfortunately, within these documents it is not clear which of the many bracketed words and phrases are supplied by the original translator and which by the editors. Interpretations and paraphrases of deleted material are not signed. Almost every piece has ellipses, but it is not clear how much has been deleted or who has done the cutting. Moreover, this publication by Oxford University Press is riddled with typos, one page having three (181). Ironically, editor Barry Rubin's meandering and error-filled essay badly needs editing. The brief introductions for the sections are unsigned. While every other contributor is identified, the identity of David Zeidan remains a mystery to me.
Islamists are convinced that they can win an asymetrical war with the United States if they use unconventional weapons, including cyber-attacks on economic infrastructure (274, 252, 266, 276, and 289-90). They are prepared for a long war which they are determined to win by any means necessary (180, 251, 255, 266-67). As one boasts, "The end of America is imminent" (266). This sobering collection of primary documents makes clear that the Holy Warriors of Islamism intend a bloody future for the jahili, infidel regimes of Western civilization.
[The Montana Professor 15.1, Fall 2004 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]