THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 29, January 24, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE MIND OF JIHAD -- A BOOK REVIEW
By Raymond Ibrahim
WHAT DRIVES THE ISLAMIST MOVEMENT & THE GLOBAL JIHAD IT IS WAGING AGAINST THE U.S.A. & THE WEST:
ISLAM & ISLAMIC CULTURE AS COMPRISING THE SOURCE OF THE CONFLICT -- ISLAM AS LEADING TO AGGRESSION
TOWARD NON-MUSLIMS, OR "INFIDELS" -- TO UNDERSTAND ISLAMISM & JIHADISM, ONE MUST EXAMINE ISLAM'S OWN
PECULIAR IDEOLOGICAL WORLDVIEW, AS OUTLINED IN THE KORAN & THE HADITH, ARTICULATED BY THE
ULEMA (MUSLIM THEOLOGIAN-SCHOLARS), & CODIFIED IN SHARIA (ISLAMIC) LAW
FULL STORY:
For some time now, there has been a raging debate regarding what fuels Islamic terrorism -- whether grievances
against the West have caused frustrated Muslims to articulate their rage through an Islamist paradigm, or whether (all
grievances aside) Islam itself leads to aggression toward non-Muslims, or "infidels."
Laurent Murawiec's book, The Mind of Jihad, offers a different perspective. Discounting both the grievance
and Islam-as-innately-violent models, Murawiec explores certain untapped areas of research in order to show
correlations between radical Islam and any number of uniquely Western concepts and patterns, both philosophical
and historical.
While this approach is admirable, it also proves to be overly ambitious, and thus problematic, specifically in its
insistence that radical Islam is merely the latest manifestation of phenomena rooted in the Western experience.
Murawiec is no apologist; neither, however, is he interested in examining Islam's own peculiar Weltanschauung -- as
outlined by the Koran and Hadith, articulated by the ulema (theologian-scholars), and codified in Sharia
law -- in order to better understand the jihad.
Instead, according to Murawiec, radical Islam is an ideological heir to Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Nazism, Marxism, and
nihilism; jihadists are duplicates of otherwise arcane characters from Christian history, such as the Millenarians.
Indeed, any number of European concepts and personages permeate The Mind of Jihad, often presented as
prominent factors contributing to the rise of radical Islam -- betraying, perhaps, the author's vast erudition concerning
Western, not Islamic, paradigms.
Again, while these are interesting observations and worthy of exploration, Murawiec goes too far: The words
"Gnosticism" and "Millenarianism" appear prefixed to Islamic terminology and figures repeatedly; this does not help
and can distract -- especially the lay reader who is trying to understand jihad within a strictly Islamic milieu.
Consider Murawiec's millenarian thesis. He argues that jihadists are Islamic versions of heretical Christians who,
driven by "superman"/Gnostic impulses, wrought havoc in Europe at the turn of the first millennium, often murdering
and pillaging indiscriminately. Yet the dissimilarities would appear greater. The Millenarians were a product of an
already lawless age. Modern-day jihadists are not; they live in the modern era which, while managing to appease
violent "millenarian" tendencies in Christians, has evidently not managed to sate Muslim impulses.
If all things are equal, why aren't modern Christians behaving like their predecessors, whereas modern Muslims are?
The response cannot be that the modern Muslim world is in a state of dislocation and disarray: Today's Islamic world
is much more prosperous and structured than the Dark Ages in Europe, which directly influenced the savagery of the
Millenarians. Moreover, whereas the Millenarians were anathematized as heretics, often persecuted by the Church,
modern jihadists have yet to be condemned by any serious Islamic authority. Indeed, they are often validated by
them.
After describing the jihadists' "bloodlust" and disregard for innocents as representative of a chaotic and heretical
millenarian spirit, Murawiec reveals that Sheikh Al Azhar, the equivalent of the Pope in Sunni Islam,
". . . demanded that the Palestinian people, of all factions,
intensify the martyrdom operations [i.e., suicide attacks]
against the Zionist enemy. .??.??. [H]e emphasized that
every martyrdom operation against any Israelis, including
children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act
according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic
commandment."
This alone is enough to dismantle the millenarian thesis, since, unlike millenarian violence, which had no
scriptural/church support, modern day jihadist violence (including "suicidal bloodlust") is backed by Islamic law and
is a commandment.
For that matter, why does Murawiec insist on examining jihad(ists) through Christian paradigms and precedents, when
Islam itself affords plenty of both -- and centuries before the Millenarian movement? Moderate Muslims often portray
al-Qa'ida as duplicates of the Kharijites. Breaking away from mainstream Islam in the 7th century and slaying not
infidels, but fellow Muslims accused of apostasy, the jihadist Kharijites present a much more useful paradigm to
understanding radical Islam than does anything Christian.
This, then, is the ultimate problem with The Mind of Jihad: It tries to explain jihad by largely ignoring or
minimizing Muslim precedents and doctrines in favor of Western precedents and philosophies. This is further evident
in the latter half of the study, where the case is made that radical Islam is heavily influenced by Nazism, Communism,
and the "Western" concept of revolution.
While it would be folly to deny that such concepts influenced 19th-century and 20th-century Islam, overemphasizing
them also implies that Islam is a passive receptacle to the West, that it only reacts, never creates. At any rate, only
those Western ideologies comporting with Islam ever found acceptance, indicating that the former were subsumed to
the purposes of the latter, not vice versa. Murawiec agrees: "What borrowing took place almost exclusively concerned
the authoritarian, dictatorial, and totalitarian ideologies" -- aspects innate to Islam.
But even the concepts of revolution and revolutionaries are not imports to the Islamic world, semantic quibbling aside.
Consider the life of the Islamist leader Maududi, who was out to "re-create Islam," "politicize religion," and
whom Murawiec paints as Lenin:
A déclassé semi-intellectual with a powerful, charismatic personality sets himself up as a figure of messianic qualities
whose cosmic mission is to establish perfection on earth on behalf of and according to the prescriptions of God. He is
the quasi-peer of the great prophetic figures, and is possessed of extraordinary abilities. He is also possessed of a
complete knowledge of how to move the world from its present, desolate nadir to the zenith of perfection: He is a man
with a plan .??.??. which encompasses all aspects of life. .??.??. He is in charge of the immense bloodshed God requires
for the Plan to be implemented.
While this is meant to portray Maududi as an Islamic aberration, it perfectly describes the Prophet of Islam: Muhammad.
Yet, if Muhammad was a "revolutionary" who brought a "plan .??.??. which encompasses all aspects of life" (Sharia
law) and which requires "immense bloodshed" (jihad), is the behavior of Maududi or any other radical -- all of whom are
commanded to emulate the sunna (example) of their prophet, including by revolting against infidelity -- unprecedented
within the Islamic paradigm? Modern radicals are not so much out to "re-create" Islam as to reassert it. As for
"politicizing religion," Muhammad is responsible for that.
Muhammad was a "revolutionary" who violently overthrew the "oppressive" Meccans. His successors, the Caliphs,
reshaped the world through the Islamic conquests. Even the Shia and Kharijites, who revolted against the last righteous
Caliph, were "revolutionaries." Today's radicals see themselves as following in their Prophet's footsteps, trying to create
the society he created through blood and conquest, as he did.
At one point, Murawiec stresses that, according to Sharia, Muslims are forbidden from revolting against their rulers,
even if the rulers are tyrannical. While true, there is one caveat: Rulers must fully implement Sharia law; if they fail, even
in part, they become infidel; and the same Sharia that commands Muslims to obey tyrants also commands them to revolt
against secular rule. This is precisely the justification jihadists use to attack "apostate" governments in the Islamic
world.
The bottom line is that "Gnostic bloodlust" finds a precedent in Muhammad, who had 800 men decapitated after they
had capitulated to him; who had no compunction about besieging infidel cities with fire and catapults, even if women
and children were sheltered there; and who had poets, including women, assassinated for offending him. "Suicidal
nihilism" finds precedent in the Koran and the deeds of the earliest jihadists, who actively sought martyrdom, as
well as the words of Muhammad, who said he wished to be "martyred and resurrected" in perpetuity. Islam's
"Manichean" worldview, which splits the world between good and evil, is a product of Islamic law and jurisprudence.
We need look no further than to Islam itself to understand jihad.
That said, it cannot be denied that parallels exist between Muslims and non-Muslims: Such is human nature, which
reacts similarly to similar stimuli, irrespective of race or creed. But this raises the question: If Christian Millenarians,
without scriptural/churchly support, behaved atrociously, how much more can be expected of jihadists who, while
sharing the same violent tendencies inherent to all men, are further goaded by direct commandments from God and his
Prophet to kill or subjugate infidels to Islam?
Short of examining how jihadists understand jihad, short of examining its juridical and doctrinal origins, short of
studying the sunna and biography of Muhammad, short of appreciating jihad as a distinctive element in Islam; in other
words, short of doing what Muslims past and present do -- that is, go to Islam's sources -- we can never hope to
understand "the mind of jihad."
For those readers, however, who are firmly aware of the above, Murawiec's book, especially its detailed historical
accounts, can serve to augment their knowledge.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Raymond Ibrahim is the Associate Director of the Middle East Forum and the author of The Al-Qa'ida Reader.
The foregoing article by Raymond Ibrahim was originally published in the Weekly Standard, January 26, 2009.
and can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which
seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical
Islam, working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to
promote constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East,
more robustly asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/2055)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
January 24, 2009
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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