Inside the Revolution

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  The collection Streusand was referring to is the writings of Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, who in the ninth century recorded one of the six most trusted Sunni collections of hadiths. (Shias have separate collections.) Al-Bukhari recorded, for example, one of the Radicals’ most often quoted passages, in which Muhammad said, “The Hour [of the end of days] will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him’” (Bukhari, 52:177).

  Sunan Abu Dawud recorded another of the six most trusted Sunni collections of hadiths, including a passage central to Radical theology: “Jihad will be performed continuously since the day Allah sent me as a prophet until the day the last member of my community will fight with the Dajjal (Muslim version of the Antichrist)” (Abu Dawud, 14:2526).

  In 1968, shortly after Egypt’s crushing defeat to Israel in the Six-Day War, Sheikh Muhammad Abu-Zahra—a Radical theologian based at al-Azhar University, the Harvard of the Sunni world, located in a suburb of Cairo—used this verse to urge Muslims around the world to follow the path of jihad, not the path of Arab nationalism, to realize their dreams and ambitions, and to never surrender. “Jihad will never end,” he declared, drawing inspiration from the hadiths. “It will last to the Day of Judgment.”74

  To what extent do these teachings influence the way young Muslims view the world in general and the Jews in particular? Consider what Walid Shoebat, a one-time Palestinian Radical and author of Why I Left Jihad, told the producer of the Epicenter documentary film:

  We learned many things about the Jewish people in the [Islamic] school and the religious curriculum. [We were taught that] the Jews first of all were prophet killers, the Jews spread disease, the Jews put infertility drugs [in the water supply] for the Palestinians so they’ll not have children, the Jews caused tsunamis, the Jews run the Congress, the Jews own the media, the Jews created the protocols of the elders of Zion. Everything under the sun was always accused towards what is called international Zionism, which has its tentacles all over the whole globe in which they influence the West and they run America, and they run Europe and they run everything. So basically, that the Jew was a conspirator that needs to be destroyed and eliminated. And then the eschatological teaching in the Islamic studies department focused [on] the Jews gathering in Israel and the surrounding nations [so that] the Muslims [could] attack them [more easily]. And then the trees will cry out and the stars will come out—there is a Jew hiding behind me; come, O Muslim, come and kill him. That’s a well-known thing in all our schools that we learn. So the elimination of the Jew finally will happen in Israel, and it will be carried out by the Muslims. And this is what we see—[Iranian president] Ahmadinejad calling for the destruction of Israel, [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah calling for the destruction of Israel. All of a sudden the fantasy has become reality. All of a sudden they are carrying out this eschatological dogma that is being taught all over the Middle East to fruition, when you see Nasrallah and his military war machine marching with goose steps on the streets of Beirut and all over Lebanon, exactly as the Nazis were doing, you know, the same gestures of Nazis. . . . What has been a dream to us and what we’ve learned in the schools have all of a sudden become real. And what that does, it builds the confidence for the Muslims, that this is not a dream anymore; this is real. So the confidence level builds up in Iran, the confidence level builds up in Lebanon, the confidence level builds up among the Palestinians [that we will] force the Jews to leave Israel.

  It should be noted that some prominent Radicals completely reject the notion of the two different forms and definitions of jihad. They insist there is only one definition: violent action to advance Allah’s kingdom. For example, Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian cleric who was an early intellectual mentor to Osama bin Laden, once wrote, “The saying, ‘We have returned from the lesser jihad (battle) to the greater jihad (jihad of the soul)’ which people quote on the basis that it is a hadith, is in fact a false, fabricated hadith which has no basis. It is only a saying of Ibrahim Ibn Abi ’Abalah, one of the Successors [of Muhammad], and it contradicts textual evidence and reality. . . . The word jihad, when mentioned on its own, only means combat with weapons. . . . Jihad is the zenith of Islam. . . . Jihad today is individually obligatory by self and wealth, on every Muslim, and the Islamic community remains sinful until the last piece of Islamic land is freed from the hands of the Disbelievers, nor are any absolved from the sin other than the Mujahideen [wagers of jihad].” Azzam went on to write that violent jihad “is a collective act of worship.”75

  The Ayatollah Khomeini, however, was one who both believed in the concepts of inner jihad and outer jihad and taught them to his disciples. Indeed, during one nationally televised sermon he delivered after returning to Iran in February 1979, Khomeini told the millions of Iranians watching him, “Those who engaged in jihad in the first age of Islam advanced and pushed forward without any regard for themselves or their personal desires, for they had earlier waged a jihad against their selves. Without the inner jihad, the outer jihad is impossible. Jihad is inconceivable unless a person turns his back on his own desires and the world.”76

  Radicals and Assurance of Salvation

  Religiously driven Radicals believe their violent actions will bless their families and neighbors. They believe that the only way of economic, political, and social salvation for the Muslim Ummah, or Islamic nation at large, is to return to the purest form of obedience to the teachings of Muhammad as expressed through the Qur’an and the hadiths. If Muhammad tells them to kill infidels, then they want to obey faithfully because they believe only then will Allah once again show mercy on the Muslim people and once and for all establish a global Islamic government to complete all of human history.

  But Radicals are not driven simply by a desire to bless all Muslims. They are also driven by the belief that obedience to the way of jihad is the only path to personal salvation.

  As you study the Qur’an, you will find that Islam is a works-based religion. Therefore, Radicals—and all religious Muslims who take the Qur’an seriously—constantly have to be thinking about a “51 percent solution.” They must constantly strive to do more good works than bad, lest they be damned for eternity.

  The problem is that the Qur’an does not provide a way for Muslims to assess how they are doing throughout their lives. There are no quarterly report cards. There are no annual performance reviews. How, then, can a Muslim—Radical or otherwise—know for certain whether he will go to heaven? How can he find the assurance of salvation that every thoughtful soul seeks before death? This lack of clarity about the quality of their earthly performance—and thus the lack of assurance of their eternal salvation—is a source of great angst, fear, and insecurity for many Muslims, Sunnis and Shias alike.

  To better understand this works-based salvation system, consider the following verses from the Qur’an:

  “Every soul is bound to taste death. So you will be repaid in full on the Day of Resurrection (for whatever you have done in the world). Whoever is spared the Fire and admitted to Paradise has indeed prospered and triumphed . . . if you are patient, steadfast, and keep within the limits of piety.” —Sura 3:185-186

  “God has promised those who believe and do good, righteous deeds that for them is forgiveness and a tremendous reward.” —Sura 5:9

  “O you who believe! If you keep from disobedience to God in reverence for Him and piety to deserve His protection, He will . . . blot out from you your evil deeds, and forgive you.” —Sura 8:29

  “He responds with acceptance to those who believe and do good, righteous deeds. . . . However, as to the unbelievers, for them is a severe punishment.” —Sura 42:26

  “We will set up balances of absolute justice on the Day of Resurrection, and no person will be wronged in the least. Even though it be a deed so much as the weight of a grain of mustard seed, We will bring it forth to be weighed. We suffice as reckoners.” —Sura 2
1:47

  “Those whose scales (of good deeds) are heavy, they are prosperous, while those whose scales (of good deeds) are light, they will be those who have ruined their own selves, in Hell abiding. The Fire will scorch their faces, their lips being displaced and their jaws protruding.” —Sura 23:102-104

  These last two verses give us a clear image of the divine scales of justice. On the Day of Judgment, Islamic theology teaches, Allah weighs a Muslim’s good deeds and bad deeds and determines who will spend eternity in paradise and who will be cast into the fires of hell to be punished and tortured for all of eternity. It should not be surprising, therefore, that Radicals—who at their core are purists—take the verses about waging jihad and killing infidels very seriously. Why shouldn’t they? To disregard the command to jihad would be to disobey, and such disobedience could tip the scales of justice against them in the final reckoning.

  But continue with this theological logic for a moment. Even if a Muslim is fully obedient to the command to wage jihad, this alone is not a guarantee of eternal salvation. According to the Qur’an, it adds more deeds to the “good” side of the scales. But what if a Muslim’s life before becoming a jihadist was filled with sin? What if he commits sins during his time waging jihad? What if he commits sins that he does not even fully realize he is committing? Or what if certain sins weigh more heavily than certain good deeds? The truth is, even a fully devoted follower of jihad knows in his heart of hearts—if he is truly honest with himself—that he will not know for sure if his good works will tip the scales in his favor until the Day of Judgment itself. But who wants to wait until then? That really is gambling with one’s eternal security.

  Which brings us to the only way in the theology of the Radicals that a Muslim can be sure of his eternal destiny.

  The Supremacy of Martyrdom

  Radicals believe the only true assurance or secure promise of eternal salvation for a Muslim is to be a martyr—and ideally a suicide bomber—in the cause of jihad.

  “The call to Jihad in God’s name,” wrote Osama bin Laden and his colleagues in 1984 in the first issue of their recruiting magazine, Jihad, “leads to eternal life in the end, and is relief from your earthly chains.”77

  “A martyr will not feel the pain of death except like how you feel when you are pinched,” bin Laden told his followers in 1996 in his formal declaration of war against the United States. “A martyr’s privileges are guaranteed by God; forgiveness with the first gush of his blood, he will be shown his seat in Paradise, he will be decorated with the jewels of [belief], married off to the beautiful ones . . . assured security in the Day of Judgment . . . [and] wedded to seventy-two of the pure [virgin women of Paradise].”78

  Bin Laden went on to assert that “without shedding of blood, no degradation and branding can be removed from the forehead.”79

  Put another way, bin Laden both believes and preaches that if a Muslim sheds his blood and loses his life in the cause of jihad, then he will have all his bad deeds removed from the scales. What’s more, he uses the concept of the assurance of salvation through martyrdom as a recruiting tool, offering hope to Muslims who fear hell more than death.

  Bin Laden is not the only one preaching this. Many Radicals do.

  “Blessings to those who wage [jihad] with their body,” proclaims Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris, a leading Radical preacher in Gaza. “Blessings to our Shahids [martyrs] who sacrifice their souls easily for the sake of Allah. . . . Blessings to the happy Shahids within the entrails of the green bird in Paradise. Blessings to the Shahids whose sins are forgiven with the first drop of their blood.”80

  Some clerics go even further and argue that a martyr not only attains his own forgiveness and eternal salvation but can save the souls of as many as seventy of his family members. “The martyr, if he meets Allah, is forgiven with the first drop of blood,” proclaims Sheikh Isma’il Aal Radhwan, another leading Radical preacher in Gaza. “He is saved from the torments of the grave; he sees his place in Paradise; he is saved from the Great Horror [of the Day of Judgment]; he is given seventy-two black-eyed women; he vouches for seventy of his family to be accepted to Paradise; he is crowned with the Crown of glory, whose precious stone is better than all of this world and what is in it.”81

  To be clear, the Qur’an does not actually promise seventy-two virgins to suicide bombers and other martyrs. The number seventy-two comes from various sayings ascribed to Muhammad that were recorded by ancient Islamic scholars. Still, there are verses in the Qur’an that bin Laden and other Radicals cite to make their point. Among them:

  “As for those who are killed in God’s cause, He [Allah] will never render their deeds vain. He will guide them. . . . He will admit them into Paradise that He has made known to them.” —Sura 47:4-6

  “For him who lives in awe of his Lord and of standing before his Lord [in the Hereafter], there will be two Gardens. . . . Reclining on beds lined with silk . . . are pure, chaste-eyed spouses whom no man or Jinn [devil] has touched before . . . maidens good in character and beautiful . . . pure maidens assigned for them in secluded pavilions.” —Sura 55:46, 54, 56, 70, 72

  “For the God-revering pious there will surely be triumph: Gardens and vineyards, and youthful, full-breasted maidens of equal age, and a cup [of wine] full to the brim. . . . A reward from your Lord, a gift according to [His] reckoning in full satisfaction.” —Sura 78:31-36

  “WWMD?”

  What would Muhammad do?

  That is the question the Radicals are asking. A casual examination of the Qur’an and the hadiths reveals that Muhammad commanded his followers to wage violent holy war in the name of Allah against infidels, be they Jews, Christians, idol worshipers, apostate Muslims, agnostics, atheists, or others who refused to confess that “Islam is the answer, and jihad is the way.” Muhammad conducted such wars during his lifetime. His disciples after him did so as well. It should not be surprising, therefore, that Radicals are waging the very jihad to which they are commanded in their sacred writings.

  “Allah wanted Muhammad’s life to be a model,” noted Sheik Yussef Al-Qaradhawi, head of the Islamic law faculty at Qatar University and a spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, just a few months before the 9/11 attacks in the United States. “Allah has made the prophet Muhammad into an epitome for religious warriors since he ordered Muhammad to fight for religion.” By contrast, the scholar noted, “the Christian is incapable of imitating Jesus regarding war . . . since Jesus never fought.”82

  Chapter Four

  “We Were Asleep”

  How Washington missed the Iranian Revolution

  On November 15, 1977, President Jimmy Carter hosted the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his wife, Empress Farah, at a sumptuous state reception on the South Lawn of the White House. Despite thousands of Iranian students protesting outside the White House gates, denouncing the shah’s human rights abuses and restrictions on personal freedom in the country of their birth, the president spoke warmly of his “close personal friendship” with the shah and called Iran “an island of stability” in the Middle East, reflecting on the personal and strategic ties between the two men and the nations they led.83

  Carter was the eighth American president to know the shah personally. The first was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had met the Persian monarch in the Iranian capital of Tehran in 1943 at a summit with Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill, seeking a way to stop Adolf Hitler and his Nazi war machine, which was rampaging through Europe and the Middle East.

  Since that summit and the subsequent conclusion of World War II, Iran had emerged as a key and trusted ally of the United States and the Western alliance, as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism in the Middle East, and as a major supplier of oil to American industries and families. Washington feared Moscow’s desire to seize the oil fields of the Middle East and control the Persian Gulf and the oil shipping routes to the West. It was a fear the shah and his top advisors shared. They had no desire to become a Kremlin sat
ellite, so they turned to the Americans for help, and Washington readily responded.

  Over the next three decades, the U.S. sold Iran advanced American fighter jets, naval assets, and all manner of others arms, in addition to a state-of-the-art radar system to safeguard Iranian airspace from Soviet bombers. The U.S. also trained Iranian pilots and built several intelligence-gathering outposts in the northern mountains of Iran, designed to track Soviet missile tests and intercept Soviet military communications. During the coldest years of the Cold War, the relationship with Tehran was one the White House and the Pentagon valued deeply.

  In December of 1977, merely a month after hosting the shah and his wife at the White House, President Carter and his wife, Rosalyn, accepted the shah’s reciprocal invitation to visit Tehran. Moments after Air Force One touched down in Tehran on New Year’s Eve, the president restated on Iranian television what he had expressed to the people of the United States.

  “Iran is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world,” Carter said without any apparent reservation and without any sense of what was coming. “This is a great tribute to you, Your Majesty, and to your leadership and to the respect, admiration, and love which your people give to you.”84

  A year later, the shah’s regime had been toppled, the Pahlavi family had fled into exile, a radical Islamic jihadist was in power and in command of billions of dollars’ worth of advanced American weaponry, and oil had stopped flowing into the U.S. from Iran.