by Aimen Dean
If prophecies about our lives in this world were now coming to pass, then the promise of paradise for martyrs in the next world was surely guaranteed.
Both al-Qaeda and ISIS were intent on creating the conditions on earth for the glorious end phase of history foretold by the Prophet Mohammed, in other words on speeding up history through their actions. They would be the Victorious Vanguard and fly the Black Banners, a powerful religious symbol.18 According to that hadith I had heard so many times in Afghanistan, ‘If you see the Black Banners coming from Khurasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop them.’*
When Zarqawi’s group declared the ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ months after his death in 2006, its leaders believed its creation was necessary because the Mahdi’s arrival was imminent and he would need help in fighting epic battles against the infidel near the end-of-days. And the Mahdi would be anointed in Mecca, according to hadith predicting that ‘the armies of Iraq and the Levant will come and join him in Mecca.’ So overthrowing the House of Saud was a priority for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a theme to which he repeatedly returned.20
ISIS’s mission was to execute God’s strategy as ordained 1,400 years ago. It was (and to many still is) a powerful message: ‘The end-of-days is approaching, and if you want to be a true Muslim, on the right side of history, you had better join us soon.’21 Similarly, the prophecies about the location of ‘Five Armies’ destined to fight the epic battles explain why al-Qaeda has focused its efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, the Maghreb and especially Syria. Given Syria’s prominence in the prophecies, it’s little surprise that both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State were galvanized by its upheavals.
‘We wish to see the armies of Mujahideen setting out from al-Sham [Syria] to liberate al-Quds [mosque in Jerusalem],’ Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza said. ‘Everything in Jihad in al-Sham assumes a heavenly dimension.’22 Equally, at the beginning of the insurgency in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had said: ‘The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify – by Allah’s permission – until it burns the Crusader armies in Dabiq.’23
Dabiq is a nondescript village in northern Syria, but it is described in a hadith as the venue of an epic end-of-days victory for the armies of Islam against those of Rome (the West), after which they would conquer Constantinople before seizing Rome24 and witnessing the emergence of the Antichrist and the return of Jesus Christ.25 ISIS devoted considerable efforts to capturing and holding the village before being expelled by Turkish-backed fighters in 2016.
Months before declaring a Caliphate, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi goaded America. ‘Very soon you will be in the direct confrontation – you will be forced to do so, God permitting,’ he said.
The grisly execution of Western hostages was in part an attempt by ISIS to draw an invading force to northern Syria to help fulfil this prophecy. In one of their chilling videos, a fighter standing on a hill above Dabiq later identified as Abu Abdullah al-Britani declared: ‘We are waiting for you in Dabiq. Try, try to come and we will kill every single soldier.’26
It might seem perverse that ISIS would welcome the formation of a powerful coalition with immense aerial power that would inevitably destroy it. But the sight of aircraft only increased the belief that the longed-for epic battles were materializing.
‘Our Prophet (peace be upon him) has informed us of the Malahem (epic battles) near the end of time. He gave us good tidings and promised us that we would be victorious in these battles,’ stated al-Baghdadi.27
For three years, ISIS strived to build its shining city upon a hill, even if it was most people’s vision of hell. But it added a coda, using the prophecies to redefine what victory meant. Its chief ideologue, my old nemesis Turki Binali, indicated that according to the prophecies a handful of ‘righteous’ Caliphs might need to rule after Baghdadi before the Mahdi returned.28 ISIS brainwashed thousands of children so they would carry the mantle forward.
I have seen the power of prophecy. I have also seen its price. It impelled the Islamic State to throw wave after wave of men into battles they were destined to lose, as at Kobane. ISIS’s interpretations of the hadith were a recipe for absolute intolerance and alienated every other faction on the ground. But what need of strategic patience if the end of times is approaching and victory is assured?
Even the declaration of a Caliphate was tempting fate – a clarion call to the Islamic State’s enemies, al-Qaeda among them. God had promised there would be a Caliphate, ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani explained.* The time had come for Muslims to wake from their sleep and face the epic battles.29 But many Muslim scholars said the preconditions for the declaration of a Caliphate were not met. And in declaring the Caliphate, ISIS attached its legitimacy to the holding of territory. When it began to lose that territory it had to explain why.
As the dark grey on maps, denoting areas controlled by ISIS, shrank and disappeared, its leaders mobilized the prophecies again. True followers would fight many battles and endure much suffering, just as Constantinople had only fallen to the Ottomans after dozens of attacks over centuries. Tribulations were necessary to purify the faith of Muslims and make them deserving of ultimate victory.30
After rushing to declare war on the entire civilized world, Baghdadi stressed the need to be ‘patient in both victory and in defeat’.31 The will to fight was more crucial than the loss of this city or that province. There was a new fluidity to its ‘timetable’. As Will McCants wrote, ‘the “great battle” [at Dabiq] will come to pass because God has promised it would; but this isn’t that battle because all the other preceding prophecies haven’t come to pass.’32
As the battle for Mosul began, Baghdadi promised that the names of fighters who defended the city would be inscribed in the history of Islam with those of the Prophet’s earliest companions. ‘This is but a precursor to the victory and conquest that God has promised,’ Baghdadi said. And he quoted a prophecy:
‘God says, “Indeed, they were about to drive you from the land to evict you. And then they will not remain after you, except for a little.”’33
ISIS followers were fond of reciting one particular hadith:
‘A group of my Ummah will not cease to fight at the gates of Damascus and at the gates of Al-Quds [Jerusalem] and its surroundings. The betrayal or desertion of whoever deserts them will not harm them in the least. They will remain victorious, standing for the truth, until the Final Hour rises.’34
In other words, the rest of the world would confront and nearly vanquish them, but ultimately they would triumph amid desertion and against all odds. Of course, it’s easier to believe God is on your side when you are ‘remaining and expanding’ rather than being pummelled. But for the leadership and ideologues of the Islamic State the rhythm of seizing and losing territory was like breathing in and out.*
The ideology, postulated by Binali and Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir, the self-satisfied theological brain behind Zarqawi’s ultra-violent brawn, will unfortunately live on – even if the Caliphate is a memory. Ranging from ruminations on the merits of beheading, torturing or burning prisoners to thoughts on assassination, siege warfare and the use of biological weapons, Muhajir’s legacy is crucial to ISIS and indeed whatever follows it. In essence, it is a way to render practically anything permissible if it can be spun as beneficial to the jihad. ISIS has written itself a blank cheque for the future.
The Hare and the Tortoise
ISIS’s draconian ideology is inimical to al-Qaeda, whose priority is to entrench itself among guerrilla struggles and uprisings, to attract support and build grassroots allegiances rather than impose its rule through terror. Al-Qaeda has a buffet of aims; there’s only one item on the ISIS menu.
Their differences have been fuelled by animosity among leaders, but they are essentially philosophical. ISIS believes all jihadis must obey the Caliph. Al-Qaeda never believed ISIS acquired enough territory or support to found a legitimate Caliphate. ISIS has sweepingly embra
ced takfirism – the excommunication of all Muslims who don’t agree with it, while al-Qaeda has applied the doctrine in a limited and specific way. ISIS extended its draconian view of non-Muslims – Yazidis and Christians – to include the Shia. One reason that ISIS destroyed the al-Nuri great mosque in Mosul, from which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had declared the Caliphate, was because its demolition was preferable to seeing the Shia-dominated (and therefore in its mind heretical) Iraqi security forces occupy the pulpit and use it as a propaganda coup. Al-Qaeda, by contrast, historically had a more nuanced (though not exactly generous) attitude towards the Shia but it has hardened over time.
While al-Qaeda looks to the guidelines of ‘defensive jihad’ in its struggle to restore Muslim sovereignty (jihad al-Tamkeen), ISIS holds that their Caliph has sovereign power to set the rules in waging this struggle just like early Caliphs did in waging ‘offensive jihad’. ISIS seeks to model itself on armies of conquest in the early Islamic period and holds that the Caliph can sanction almost anything and everything, from taking slaves to confiscating property, as long as it does not contradict the group’s view of how these early Islamic armies behaved.*
In my view, and in the view of a good number of Islamic scholars, hadith that endorse the stoning of individuals or throwing homosexuals from rooftops are essentially fabrications. Al-Qaeda leaders have frowned on such practices, even if their foot soldiers have committed atrocities.** While some of the differences between al-Qaeda and ISIS might seem esoteric, they are unbridgeable to Salafi-jihadis.
In contrast to al-Qaeda, where celibacy was the norm, the taking of female slaves became an industry within ISIS. After the group swept through northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, it captured thousands of Yazidi women and girls. It was a cynical recruiting tool calculated to appeal to young, sexually frustrated recruits, and justified by interpreting the Koran and hadith as legitimizing the rape and sexual enslavement of non-Muslims, especially those regarded as polytheists.
Slavery, especially of non-Muslim women, was very much part of the eighth-century fabric proudly worn by the Islamic State. Al-Adnani before his death in 2016, said: ‘We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.’37
If al-Qaeda unleashed the inner psychopath among its recruits by dehumanizing non-Muslims, ISIS allowed it to run riot. The group’s use of sex slaves was sanctioned by none other than Turki Binali, the Bahraini jihadi who had issued a fatwah against me. A ruling by his ISIS fatwah department said it was ‘permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn’t reached puberty, if she is fit for intercourse’.* The sexual repression of the al-Qaeda era was, in fact, replaced by a sex-crazed jihad in which the basest of human instincts were given free rein. When Baghdadi repeatedly raped the American hostage Kayla Mueller, he viewed it as an act of worship.39
I simply can’t imagine that anyone with whom I fought in Bosnia could have subscribed to such a view. Some among us felt that no punishment was cruel enough for the Bosnian-Serb militia. But no one saw rape and slavery, nor burning offenders alive, as pillars of Shariah. While most of us in Bosnia had felt an impulse to liberate and to protect, ISIS wanted only to dominate and terrorize.
The future landscape of jihad is difficult to predict, so intense are the ideological disputes and so fluid the situation on the ground. However, given the many bitter differences between ISIS and al-Qaeda that I have outlined, I feel there is very little chance that al-Qaeda and ISIS will agree to form a jihadi behemoth. The two will continue to compete but neither will deliver a knockout blow. Some – a few – adherents may change sides, but the two groups will continue in parallel, probably never to coalesce. Al-Qaeda may gain the upper hand because of a strategy based on cultivating support rather than imposing force.
Al-Qaeda, the tortoise competing with the hare, has shown a grim-faced resilience. It found ungoverned spaces and picked up the scent of injustice – especially in Yemen and in Syria. The chaos and polarization that followed the Arab Spring in 2011 created opportunities that even al-Qaeda leaders would have scarcely believed possible a few years earlier. The emergence of Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, an al-Qaeda affiliate until a tactical and awkward parting of ways in 2016, gave the group renewed relevance. Al-Nusra and its successive rebrands became the most powerful rebel group in north-western Syria.
Twenty years after al-Qaeda initiated its campaign of global terror, its fortunes are reviving.40 Many thousands belong to aligned groups in Syria, Yemen, Somalia and the Sahel. Al-Qaeda is continuing to try to rebuild a presence in Afghanistan beneath the wings of a renascent Taliban. In the years after the Arab Spring, the organization’s goals shifted from plotting large-scale international terrorist attacks towards building up its presence in the Arab and Muslim world. Ayman al-Zawahiri had signalled the shift in focus when in 2015 he instructed al-Nusra leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani not to use Syria as a base to attack the West.41
In their drive to take advantage of the security vacuum, al-Qaeda-aligned groups are being guided by two strategic maxims long held by Zawahiri. The first is the need for the jihadi movement to gain the support of the Arab and Muslim masses (a priority that Abu Musab al-Suri had long stressed). The second is the need to take control of territory to create staging points for future expansion.
We have seen this play out in Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula reached out to Sunni tribes to make common cause against the Shia Houthis and rebranded itself as Ansar al-Shariah to broaden its support base. The same strategy was applied in Syria, where al-Nusra built up a proto-emirate in Idlib province and focused on winning support and allies on the ground, at least until it fell out with head office and embarked on an internecine fight with other rebel groups. In Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has doubled down on its allegiance to the Taliban while trying to establish a home-grown affiliate in the Indian subcontinent.
Al-Qaeda also perversely benefited from the far darker vision of ISIS in three ways. When Salafi clerics came together to call for jihad to be reclaimed, even rescued, from ISIS, they implicitly looked to al-Qaeda’s alternative. Secondly, the sudden emergence of ISIS drew the fire of the Western intelligence community; al-Qaeda was ‘yesterday’s threat’. Thirdly, al-Qaeda’s – in relative terms – ‘moderate’ approach to jihad better positioned it to raise funds from sympathizers in the wealthy Gulf countries. Al-Qaeda survived by holding true to its religious ideology and attacking the behaviour of the ISIS leadership.
In 2015, al-Qaeda began to groom a famous name to attract a new generation to jihad. Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza carefully avoided being dragged into a spitting contest with ISIS and instead called for jihadis to unify their ranks. But more than his father, he embraced aggressively anti-Shia rhetoric.42 A ploy to lure away the remnants of ISIS? Or a recognition of a new and brutally sectarian landscape?
If there is anything that might halt the al-Qaeda revival it is infighting. Staffed by middle-class revolutionaries and led by a pompous Egyptian far less charismatic than bin Laden, it has at times resembled a debating society, with minor differences of opinion fed by clashes of ego evolving into major rifts. Among ‘al-Nusra’ rebels in Syria a rift hardened between a larger faction, consisting of Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian fighters, which separated from al-Qaeda, and a smaller faction, made up of Saudis, Jordanians and others, which remained loyal.* Al-Qaeda will fight to the bitter end to maintain its black banners in Syria, which it views as the epicentre of the epic battles. It will seek to consolidate its rear base in Afghanistan and sustain its far-flung affiliates. While its strategy has been different in recent years to the one I heard bin Laden pronounce, al-Qaeda may be tempted to renew its campaign of terror attacks in the West. The arrival at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2017 of a president who has made inflammatory remarks about Muslims, targeted Muslim countries with travel bans and recognized Jerusalem as Israel’
s capital, fuelled the anti-Americanism that once made attacks against ‘the head of the snake’ such a unifying cause. President Trump’s embrace of the House of Saud added further octane.
‘The actions undertaken by the impudent Crusader Trump revealed the true face of America’, Zawahiri declared in the spring of 2018. ‘‘This is a moment of truth . . . let us fight America everywhere.’ Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen retains significant capability to launch attacks against Western aviation and other targets, despite a large increase in air strikes against it in the first year of the Trump administration.43
Given Russia’s role in Syria in support of the Assad regime, it is equally a target should al-Qaeda decide that an international campaign of terrorism suits its goals. Even China is in al-Qaeda’s sights, not least because thousands of Uighur Muslim fighters who have trekked to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in the past decade.
Sadly, I don’t see an end to the Muslims’ civil war anytime soon, nor an end to the different strains of jihadism advanced by al-Qaeda and whatever succeeds ISIS. Both groups have resources and years (in al-Qaeda’s case decades) of experience working underground. They have developed a talent for seeking out ungoverned spaces. The continuing impossibility of securing and governing Afghanistan and Yemen provide the best opportunities of all.
To the Afghans victory is defined by your patience outlasting that of your enemy. I recall during a trek through the Afghan province of Nuristan twenty years ago coming across a stooped farmer with a face hardened and wrinkled by the elements. He was tending to saplings on a mountain slope, tenderly gathering soil around their roots.
I stopped to talk to him in my broken Dari.
‘What are you growing?’ I asked.
