THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 118, May 7, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
WORDS MATTER IN THE WAR ON TERROR
By Raymond Ibrahim
ACCURATE LANGUAGE & ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE IN THE FOURTH WORLD WAR: ACQUISITION & USE OF
ACCURATE LANGUAGE ESSENTIAL TO ACQUISITION & USE OF ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE -- AQUISITION & USE OF
ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE ESSENTIAL TO OUR VICTORY IN THE GLOBAL TERROR WAR THE ISLAMISTS ARE WAGING
AGAINST US -- THE UTTER FOLLY OF THE U.S.A. & THE WEST IGNORING THE TRUE MEANING & SIGNIFICANCE OF "JIHAD" &
"ISLAMIC JIHAD" -- JIHAD AS AS OFFENSIVE WARFARE TO SPREAD ISLAMIC HEGEMONY
FULL STORY:
Knowledge is inextricably linked to language. The less accurate words are, the less accurate the knowledge they
impart; conversely, the more precise the language, the more precise the knowledge. In the war on terror, to acquire
accurate knowledge — which is pivotal to victory — we need to begin with accurate language.
Would the Free World have understood the Nazi threat, if, instead of calling them what they called themselves,
"Nazis," it had opted to simply call them "extremists" — a word wholly overlooking the racist, expansionary, and
supremacist elements that are part and parcel of the word "Nazi"?
Unfortunately, the U.S. government, apparently oblivious to this interconnection between language and knowledge,
appears to be doing just that. Even President Obama alluded to this soon after taking office when he said, "Words
matter in this situation because one of the ways we're going to win this struggle [war on terror] is through the battle
of [Muslims'] hearts and minds."
According to an official memo, when talking about Islamists and their goals, analysts are to refrain from using Arabic
words of Islamic significance ("mujahidin," "salafi," "ummah"); nor should they employ helpful English or anglicized
words ("jihadi," "Islamo-fascism," "caliphate"). Instead, vague generics ("terrorists," "extremists," "totalitarians")
should suffice.
A renewed defense of this disturbing trend was recently published by one Colonel Jeffrey Vordermark and deserves
examination. After suggesting that Americans "love to throw around foreign words," Vordermark writes:
"We have fallen into the 'jihad' trap. The term is used
in casual banter, yet most remain clueless regarding its
origin or meanings. We think, therefore we know.
Pundits, academics, and laymen profess to know its
meaning, and the term is daily news in the mouths of
reporters and in the banners of headlines. Unfortunately,
its very use assumes that Islam is simple and monolithic.
… As a nation and society, we could not be more
incorrect."
While lofty sounding, this view is riddled with problems. First, by seeking to excise the word "jihad" from public
discourse, due to the erroneous notion that that term is apparently unknowable, this position is self-defeatist.
"Jihad" has a very precise, juristic definition; more to the point, Sunni Islam — which accounts for nearly 90% of the
Islamic world — is, in fact, "simple and monolithic," thanks to the totalitarian nature of Islamic law (Sharia), which
categorizes all possible human actions as being either forbidden, discouraged, legitimate, recommended, or
obligatory. Indeed, of the major religions of the world, none is perhaps so black and white, so clear cut as Islam,
which meticulously delineates to Muslims the correct "way" of living ("way," incidentally, being the literal definition
of the word "Sharia").
Thus, to try to portray Islam and its institutions as somehow "otherworldly" and unfathomable — so let's just not
bother trying to understand in the first place — is not only folly, but precisely what the Islamists themselves most
desire: to guard Islam's more troubling doctrines, such as jihad, from infidel scrutiny.
Vordermark continues:
"Historically, the term [jihad] applied to the concept of
either a 'greater jihad,' or a 'lesser jihad.' The former
denoting the daily struggle of the believer to overcome
'self'' in the pursuit of Allah's will, and the latter
traditionally meaning defense of religion, family, or
homeland."
Let's, for the time being, overlook the hackneyed stress on the socalled greater-lesser jihad dichotomy — which,
semantics and sophistry aside, does not invalidate the lesser jihad (i.e., armed warfare). The real problem here is that
Vordermark's assertion that the military "jihad" has been "traditionally" limited to "defensive warfare" is totally false.
Even so, Vordermark is to be excused; he warns us about accepting definitions of "jihad" from "pundits, academics,
and laymen," and, surely, he falls into this category. Thus, let us dispense, once and for all, with infidel-based
definitions — including my own — and see what Islam's own most revered authorities have to say about what
"jihad" really means:
First, it needs to be borne in mind that Sunni Islam is wholly dependent on the various rulings (ahkam) of the socalled
four schools of jurisprudence (al-madhahib al-arba'). I am currently reading an Arabic manual called Al-Tarbiya
al-Jihadiya fi Daw' al-Kitab wa al-Sunna (The Jihadi Upbringing in Light of the Koran and Sunna), a manual
written by one Sheikh Abd al-Aziz bin Nasir al-Jalil. After closely examining the word "jihad," he concludes that "jihad
is when Muslims wage war on infidels, after having called on them to embrace Islam or at least pay tribute [jizya] and
live in submission, and then they refuse."
The book also contains terse summaries of the word "jihad" from each of the four schools of jurisprudence, which have
the final say as to how Islam — or in this case, jihad — is articulated: According to the Hanafis, jihad is "extreme and
strenuous warfare in the path of Allah, with one's life, wealth, and tongue — a call to the true religion [Islam] and war to
whoever refuses to accept it"; according to the Malikis, jihad is "when a Muslim fights an infidel in order that Allah's
word [Sharia] reigns supreme"; according to the Shafi'is, jihad is "fiercely fighting infidels"; and, according to the
austere Hanbalis, it is "fighting infidels." (Note: "infidels," or kuffar, simply means non-Muslims.)
In short, the "traditional" meaning of jihad is offensive warfare to spread Islamic hegemony — period. This is doctrinally,
textually, historically, and consensually demonstrable. At any rate, who probably better understands what jihad means,
the non-Muslim Jeffrey Vordermark or the Muslim Abd al-Aziz bin Nasir al-Jalil? More to the point, whose definition will
Muslims actually take seriously?
While the U.S. government is busy censoring itself, only the above "legal" definition of jihad provided in al-Jalil's book
carries any weight with Muslims — "radical-moderate" dichotomies not withstanding. And since that is the case, so too
should it be the only definition that non-Muslims rely on in their formal analyses — that is, if they are ever permitted to
incorporate words like "jihad" again.
But what is the point of all this equivocation? The government memo explains:
"Never use the terms "jihadist" or "mujahideen" in
conversation to describe the terrorists. A mujahed, a
holy warrior, is a positive characterization in the
context of a just war. In Arabic, jihad means 'striving
in the path of God' and is used in many contexts
beyond warfare. Calling our enemies jihadis and their
movement a global jihad unintentionally legitimizes
their actions."
Aside from the fact that, once again, we are offered a false definition of jihad — the equivalent of the Christian notion of
"just war," which it is not — the apparently widespread assumption that the words we use can ever have an impact on
what is and isn't legitimate for Muslims and within an Islamic context is beyond ludicrous.
Muslims are not waiting around for Americans or their government — that is, the misguided, the deluded, in a word, the
infidel — to define Islam for them; much less will subtle word games and euphemisms emanating from the West manage
to confer or take away Islamic legitimacy on the Islamists of the world. For Muslims, only Islamic law, the antithesis of
international law, decides what is or is not legitimate, or, in legal terminology, what is mubah or mahrum.
Furthermore, the U.S. government would do well to worry less about which words appease Muslims — the memo also
warns against "offending," "insulting," or being "confrontational" to Muslims — and worry more about providing its
own citizenry with accurate and meaningful terminology.
Words matter. Whom those words are directed at matters even more. The world's Muslims aren't holding their breath to
hear what sort of Islamic legitimacy the U.S. government is about to confer on any given Islamist group, since it is not
for non-Muslims — the despised infidels — to decide what is and is not Islamic in the first place. Americans, on the
other hand, who still wonder "why they hate us," are in desperate need of understanding. Using accurate terminology is
the first step.
Finally, as this article is dedicated to "words," know that there is a reason that the words "knowledge" and "acknowledge"
are etymologically related: without doing the latter — in this case, without acknowledging the true nature of the Islamist
enemy and his goals — one can never possess the former: requisite knowledge for victory.
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
American Foreign Policy -- Political & Psychological Warfare
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, a historian of Islam, Islamism and the Middle East, is the Associate Director of the Middle East Forum
and the editor of The Al-Qa'ida Reader, a collection of tranlations of key texts and documents of the Islamist
movement. Ibrahim's translations of the religious texts and political propaganda comprising this collection help readers
comprehend the origins, development, history, and serious danger of the Islamist war doctrines of Usama bin Laden and
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Founders of Al-Qa'ida and implacable enemies of the U.S.A. and the West.
The foregoing article by Raymond Ibrahim was originally published in the Pajamas Media, May 4, 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/2134/words-matter-in-the- war-on-terror)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
May 7, 2009
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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