Inside the Revolution

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  But there was another, competing analysis too. It was less prominent in the region at the time but nonetheless more compelling to many who heard it. Radical Islamic preachers argued that the Arabs were losing to the Jews—as well as failing in so many other areas of life—not because they were bad people or bad soldiers but because they were bad Muslims. They had wandered from the true path of Islam. They had become weak, even secularized. They had put their faith in the Arab states, not in God. Their only hope, these clerics argued, was for Muslims throughout the region to purify themselves, recommit themselves to Allah, and wage an Islamic jihad based on the principles of the Qur’an, not a secular political revolution based on the principles of Karl Marx, Gamal Abdel Nasser, or anyone else. Only then would Allah show them favor again. Only then would they regain the glory of their history. Only then would they regain their honor and their pride.

  “I can tell you what the war of ’67 did to the region,” observed Essam Deraz, an Egyptian army reconnaissance officer at the time who would later join the mujahadeen (Islamic jihadists) in Afghanistan and fight with Osama bin Laden. “We saw the army of our country destroyed in hours. We thought that we could conquer Israel in hours. . . . It wasn’t Israel that defeated us, but it was [Nasser’s] regime that defeated us, and I started to be against the regime. It wasn’t a military defeat. It became a civilizational defeat. We didn’t know that we were so backward, we were so retarded, so behind the rest of modern civilization. There was an earthquake in the Arab-Islamic personality, not only in Egypt but in the entire Arab world.”58

  “Why were we defeated in 1967?” asked Sheik Yussef Al-Qaradhawi, head of the Islamic law faculty at Qatar University and a spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. “Officers stated that we had vast amounts of weapons, but we did not provide the warrior with mental preparation. We did not prepare him to fight for religious belief and for defending religious sanctuaries.”59

  It was precisely this conclusion that Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, himself an Egyptian, came to as well. And this was a central reason that in the aftermath of the “setback” of the Six-Day War he founded a terrorist organization known as Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which would later merge with bin Laden and al Qaeda. “[A] serious factor that affected the march of the Jihad movement [was] the 1967 setback,” he would write. “The myth of the Leader of Arab Nationalism who would throw Israel into the sea was destroyed. . . . This movement spawned a new generation a few years after the 1967 defeat. This generation returned to the field of Jihad.”60

  Their Mantra

  In 1973, Arab fortunes went from bad to worse.

  The Israelis were nearly destroyed by a surprise attack from Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. But with the help of a round-the-clock American airlift of arms to the Israelis, the Jewish state decisively turned the tide. Soon, the Soviet-armed, -trained, and -supplied Arab forces were being routed and demanding a cease-fire at the United Nations. Their defeat further compounded the humiliation of secular Arab nationalists. But it simultaneously added fuel to the Radicals’ argument.

  As long as the Muslim world continues to embrace corrupt Arab dictators and refuses to return to the principles of the Qur’an and ways of violent jihad, they will never defeat the Zionists, the Radicals argued. What could be more humiliating than losing to Jews again and again and again? they taunted. When will the Muslims learn and turn back to Allah?

  “We have arrived at the end of the world,” warned Mohammed Taki al Moudarrissi, an Iraqi-born Shia terrorist leader operating out of his headquarters in Tehran, as the Radical movement was gaining strength. “The presidents and the ministers [in the Islamic world] are devouring themselves. The armies are traitors. Society is corrupt. The privileged, the notables do not concern themselves with the poor. Only Islam can give us hope.”61

  “We must wipe away the shameful stain whereby some people imagine that violence has no place in Islam,” concluded Muhammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a high-ranking Iranian cleric who would later become a spiritual advisor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “We have decided and are determined to argue and prove that violence is at the heart of Islam.”62

  In a fatwa (religious ruling) issued by an Islamic conference in Sudan, Hassan al-Turabi, Sudan’s spiritual leader, declared, “Those Muslims who . . . try to question or doubt the Islamic justifiability of jihad are hereby classified as ‘hypocrites’ who are no longer Muslims, and also ‘apostates’ from the religion of Islam; and they will be condemned permanently to the fire of Hell.”63

  More and more, Muslims in the region began listening to the Radical preachers and shifting their allegiances away from what they saw as reprobate politicians. The jihadist movement was growing, and they now had a mantra, which was in essence: “Islam is the answer, and jihad is the way.”

  This mantra was repeated across the Middle East from Egypt to Iran, among Sunnis and Shias alike, and it spread like wildfire. The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood—emblazoned on its literature and publications—became “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. [The] Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”64 Al-Zawahiri fanned the flames, writing one manifesto after another that declared, “There is no solution without Jihad”65 and “the only solution is to confront the tyranny . . . and perform Jihad in the Path of Allah. We shall only be able to live in honor if we learn how to die as martyrs.”66

  But what changed the fortunes of the Radicals was not Sunni strategists like those in the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. What poured gas on the fire and changed the destiny of the modern Middle East—and the history of the Western world—forever was the rise of an obscure Shia cleric in Iran by the name of Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, who declared, “By means of Jihad, [we] must expose and overthrow tyrannical rulers.” It was not just a threat. It was a promise.

  In chapter four, we will examine Khomeini’s dramatic rise to power and the effect it had on Radicals throughout the region. First, however, it is important to better understand just what the Radicals believe theologically and how these beliefs drive them to use violence to achieve their objectives.

  Chapter Three

  The Theology of the Radicals

  What they believe, verse by verse

  On September 17, 2001, just six days after the horrific terrorist attacks that killed nearly three thousand Americans, President George W. Bush traveled in a heavily guarded motorcade to the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. There he made a statement to reporters that would be carried across the nation and around the world.

  “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam,” said the president, surrounded by an extraordinary phalanx of well-armed and highly alert Secret Service agents. “That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war. When we think of Islam, we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace.”

  The president went on to note that “America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.”67

  Three days later, the president told a joint session of Congress that “the terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.”

  During a November 15, 2001, message to American Muslims in celebration of Ramadan, the president stated unequivocally that “the Islam that we know is a faith devoted to the worship of one God, as revealed through the Holy Qur’an” and “teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy, and peace.”

  The following year, during a discussion with Muslim leaders at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C., the president reiterated, “All
Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It’s a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It’s a faith based upon love, not hate.”68

  During a November 2003 press conference, Bush was asked, “Mr. President, when you talk about peace in the Middle East, you’ve often said that freedom is granted by the Almighty. Some people who share your beliefs don’t believe that Muslims worship the same Almighty. I wonder about your views on that.” The president replied, “I do say that freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every person. I also condition it by saying freedom is not America’s gift to the world. It’s much greater than that, of course. And I believe we worship the same God.”69

  These were not anomalies. President Bush continued to describe Islam as a religion of peace throughout his tenure in office and argued consistently that the Radicals were “hijacking” true Islam.

  And he was not alone. Other Western leaders have made similar arguments. British prime minister Tony Blair, for example, often discussed the “monumental struggle going on worldwide between those who believe in democracy and moderation, and forces of reaction and extremism” and insisted that the “forces of extremism” were basing their convictions regarding jihad against the West “on a warped and wrongheaded misinterpretation of Islam.”70

  Likewise, French president Nicolas Sarkozy argued that “those who kill in the name of Islam and want to push the world into a global religious war smear Islam by speaking its name.”71

  A Religion of Peace, or of Jihad?

  Such statements have been enormously controversial in the West.

  So let me be clear about my own views: The vast majority of the 1.3 billion Muslims on the planet are not Radicals. They do not believe in waging jihad against the West. They do not condone sending their sons and daughters to be suicide bombers to kill Christians, Jews, and apostate Muslims, among others. They do not want to annihilate Judeo-Christian civilization as we know it or take over the world. They are, by and large, quiet, peaceful people. They want to raise their children in decent schools to get decent jobs and live respectable, productive, God-honoring lives.

  Second, Western leaders should be commended—not condemned—for affirming the peaceful nature of most Muslims. Why insult Muslims who are unengaged in jihad?

  Third, critics should keep in mind that Western leaders are making these points, in part, both to build and to strengthen political and military alliances with government leaders throughout the Muslim world who are willing to side with Western governments against the Radicals.

  That said, let us now consider the central question. While it is certainly accurate to say that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people, is it also true that Islam itself is an intrinsically peaceful religion? In other words, are Muslim and Western leaders accurate in asserting that Islam is a religion of peace, not a religion that calls for jihad against the infidels? Are the Radicals, in fact, “hijacking” Islam and in the process “smearing” its good name? If so, how can the Radicals claim that “Islam is the answer, and jihad is the way” if there is no basis for their beliefs in the Qur’an, the guidebook for all Muslims?

  In Part 2 of this book, I will explain the moderates’ case in detail. I will give the Reformers the opportunity to explain in their own words the theology that drives them and the verses in the Qur’an they use to justify their notion that Islam is a religion of peace, not violence. But for the moment, let us examine the case the Radicals make, consider the theology that drives them, and learn the verses from the Qur’an and other Islamic writings that inspire them to wage jihad.

  Greater Jihad versus Lesser Jihad

  Many Islamic scholars teach that there are two different forms of jihad. There are, therefore, two different definitions of jihad. One is considered the “greater” form; the other is the “lesser” form. This dual nature is attributed to Muhammad himself, who is believed to have said on his return from a battle, “We are finished with the lesser jihad; now we are starting the greater jihad,” although this saying was not recorded in the Qur’an.72

  To these scholars, Greater Jihad—also known as “inner jihad”—represents the highest and most important form. It can best be defined as a spiritual and intellectual striving to do the will of Allah and abstain from sin and temptation. It is, in other words, an internal battle or “holy war” against one’s sinful nature, and it can be a fierce battle at that. It is to many Muslims the most important form of jihad because it involves a daily, ongoing, never-ending battle between the Muslim and his all-too-human desires to lie, steal, commit adultery, or commit other forms of sin.

  Islamic theology teaches that a person can go to heaven only if his good deeds outweigh his sinful deeds. Waging an effective jihad against one’s sinful nature is thus a matter of eternal life and death. Sura 29:6 of the Qur’an, for example, teaches that whoever “strives hard” or wages jihad against his carnal nature “strives for the good of his own soul.” Likewise, speaking in Sura 29:69, Allah assures the reader that “those who strive hard for Our sake, We will most certainly guide them to Our ways. Most assuredly, God is with those devoted to doing good, aware that God is seeing them.”

  This, then, is the peaceful version of jihad. It is the one many Muslims point to in saying that Westerners misunderstand the notion of jihad. When my first novel, The Last Jihad, was published in November 2002, I was speaking at an event at the Tattered Cover, a major independent bookstore in Denver, Colorado. During the Q&A session, a Muslim man from the Middle East stood up and chastised me for misusing the word jihad. It did not, he insisted, signify a violent man-versus-man battle between Muslims and the infidels. Rather, it spoke of a man-versus-himself conflict regarding purification and self-control. I appreciated his comments and readily conceded that this was certainly one of the definitions of jihad. But it is not the only one.

  Lesser Jihad—also known as “outer jihad”—can best be defined as Muslims using violent means or “holy war” to accomplish the will of Allah in punishing infidels and expanding the kingdom of Allah on earth. To many Muslim scholars, this form of pleasing Allah, while vitally important, is not as important as the Greater Jihad or “inner jihad.” Nevertheless, as I explained to the man in Denver along with the rest of the audience that was listening in on our discussion, it is this definition—violence in Allah’s service—that Radicals such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and others have used to justify their actions.

  The Radicals also use this definition to persuade members of the Islamic Rank-and-File—particularly young people—to join their movement and engage in the Revolution. This form of violent jihad is particularly critical, according to one form of Muslim eschatology, in the end of days as the Day of Judgment approaches, something I will explain in more detail in chapter twelve, which discusses the coming of the Islamic messiah known as the Mahdi.

  Even a brief survey of the writings and speeches of Radicals reveals numerous citations of verses from the Qur’an, some taken out of context. Consider the following passages, which Radicals draw upon to call Muslims to violent action:

  “Prescribed for you is fighting, though it is disliked by you. It may well be that you dislike a thing but it is good for you.” —Sura 2:216

  “[Jews and Christians] are the ones whom God has cursed, and he whom God excludes from His mercy, you shall never find one to help and save him.” —Sura 4:52

  “The recompense of those who fight against God and His Messenger . . . they shall either be executed, or crucified, or have their hands and feet cut off alternately, or be banished from the land.” —Sura 5:33

  “O you who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for guardians and confidants. . . . Surely God does not guide such wrongdoers.” —Sura 5:51

  “Kill them [infidels, namely Christians and Jews] wherever you may come upon them, and seize them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every
conceivable place.” —Sura 9:5

  “Fight with the leaders of unbelief.” —Sura 9:12

  “Fight against those among the People of the Book who do not believe God and the Last Day . . . until they pay the jizyah (tax of protection and exemption from military service) with a willing hand in a state of submission. And those Jews say, ‘Ezra is God’s son’; and the Christians say: ‘The Messiah is God’s son.’ . . . May God destroy them!” —Sura 9:29-30

  “For those who disbelieve, garments of fire are certain to be cut out for them, with boiling water being poured down over their heads, with which all that is within their bodies, as well as their skins, is melted away.” —Sura 22:19-20

  “Pay no heed to (the desires of) the unbelievers, but engage in a mighty striving against them.” —Sura 25:52

  “When you meet those who disbelieve in war, smite them at their necks.” —Sura 47:4

  Regarding enemies, “God only forbids you . . . to take them for friends and guardians. Whoever takes them for friends and guardians, those are the wrongdoers.” —Sura 60:9

  “O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern against them. Their final refuge is Hell.” —Sura 66:9

  Clearly, then, according to the Radicals, the Qur’an is adamant about certain things:

  • Violence is good.

  • Jews and Christians are cursed and are not supposed to be helped or saved or befriended.

  • Actually, Jews and Christians are to be killed—whenever and wherever Muslims find them—because they are loathsome, filled with evil, and destined for hell.

  • Infidels can (and sometimes should) be crucified, beheaded, have their hands and feet cut off, or tortured in all manner of ways.

  Radicals and the Hadiths

  The Qur’an is not the only source of inspiration and justification for the Radicals. They also draw on the “hadiths”—the sayings of Muhammad and oral traditions of the events of his life that were collected and written down for posterity by several of his devoted followers. Douglas Streusand, a respected scholar of Islamic history, has noted that “in hadith collections, jihad means armed action; for example, the 199 references to jihad in the most standard collection of hadiths—Sahih al-Bukhari—all assume that jihad means warfare.”73