By
Aniruddha Bahal
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by Aniruddha Bahal
"So
after the truth, what else can there be, save error?" [Quran
10:32]----abridged
from the book: The 'Wahhabi' Myth
"The 9-11 tragedy was perpetrated by al Qaida, the vanguard
of a
violent Muslim revivalist social movement, which I call the
Global
Salafi Jihad…. The movement has its roots in Egypt. It is the
violent
culmination of Muslims' attempts to come to terms with their
fallen
glory. Western cultural, social and technical achievements have
eclipsed past Muslim grandeur and now challenge core Islamic
beliefs.
Over the past three centuries, revivalist Islamic movements have
tried
to answer this challenge. One of their answers is to return to
pure
and authentic Islam, as practiced by the Prophet and his
companions.
To them, "Islam is the answer" and only a recreation
of the practices
of the devout ancestors, salaf in Arabic, will bring glory and
prominence back to Muslims. Salafists advocate a strict
interpretation
of the Quran and they view with skepticism any later innovation,
for
it might be a heretical corruption of the original
message."--------Marc Sageman author of Understanding
Terror Networks
and adjunct professor of psychology at Penn's Solomon Asch
Center for
Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict testifying to the National
Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
Since the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan there has been a
gradual
growth of the Salafists around the globe. They are everywhere
enthralling the masses with strains of Islam that are a tempting
alternative to the dismal picture of development in their
societies.
They promise correcting the current bafflement of the people by
taking
a route to an ancient form of Islam practiced by the Prophet and
the
first two generations succeeding him. The Salafis hold the view
that
the further we move from the time of Prophet Mohammed the more
impure
Islam has become due to the clever innovations in religious
matters.
The Salafis reject all schools of law, going a step ahead of
even the
hardline Wahabbis (who follow the Hanbali school of law).
The Salafis diffuse the landscape in a wide arc from Europe to
Algeria
to Indonesia preaching hatred for the west, specially the US,
and
giving calls for arms besides attracting the ire of government
forces
even in the Islamic states.
A few examples:
* Hamed al-Ali, a
Salafist preacher in Kuwait calls Osama Bin Laden's
recent tape telecast just before the US election as a timely
reminder
of the choice Muslims face. Says he, "Just as Mr Bush says
that people
must be for or against his war on terror, Muslims must be for
the
jihad or for the "Zionist-crusader enemies of Islam."
* Algerian security
sources mounted an air and ground military
operation against a
stronghold of the Salafist Brigade for Combat and
Call in the Babour mountains in eastern Algeria. The sources
said the
mountain stronghold contains the Salafist leadership. The
Algerian
military has been pounding Salafist positions since Sept. 12. So
far,
more than 180 Islamic insurgents have been reported killed in
the
Satif province in the largest Algerian counter-insurgency
operation
ever.
* Salafi-Jihadists
recently posted a recording by the Islamist Arab
fighter Abu-Omar Al-Seif on the Chechen website www.qoqaz.com.
Abu-Omar Al-Seif calls for help from Muslims to the Mujahideen
in
Chechnya in preparation for battle against the Russians
following the
election of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The message also
advised
Islamists in Saudi Arabia to direct attacks at American troops
in Iraq
rather than clashing with the Saudi regime.
* Dyab Abou Jahjah , the Salafi leader of the Dutch-Belgian Arab
European League (AEL) has come out in support of killing Dutch
troops
serving in Iraq. In an
interview with Flemish newspaper Het Laatste
Nieuws, he says: "I consider every death of an American,
British or
Dutch soldier as a victory." There are currently 1,376
Dutch soldiers
serving on peacekeeping duties in southern Iraq and two have
been
killed since the mission started in the summer of 2003. The
troops are
scheduled to return home in March 2005.
*A new radical Islamic organization called the Jam'iya
al-Salafiya
al-Mujahida has recently
joined the opposition forces active against
American forces in Iraq. It has many points in common with the
Al-Qaeda headed by Bin Laden. It rejects any and every ideology
not
based on Islam including democratic parties, nationalist parties
(Ahzab Wataniya) including Arab nationalists (Qawmiya),
communists,
Baathists, and socialists. All are viewed as "deviations
from Islam".
Al-Salafiya also opposes any Islamic parties that cooperate with
regimes that are based on the infidel "religion" of democracy, and
considers participation in parliamentary elections as forbidden.
The above is just a
sprinkling. In fact, the Salafi
movement's
initial indignation was directed against the Islamic regimes
themselves for being insufficiently Islamic. Lead by the Egyptian
Salafists, Qutb and
Faraj their fury is against some Muslim
states
for refusing to impose
Sharia, the strict Quranic law and true
Islamic way of life. The leaders of these states, according to
the
Salafis, deserve death and their regimes deserve a violent
overthrow
because their repressive nature obstructs the Salafi way. The
main
concern is to reinstate
Islam at home, the "close foe," before
defeating the
"distant opponent," US-Israel.
Subsequently, as this
strategy became somewhat controversial as it meant taking on
"Muslim
Brothers" it evolved into another, the foremost exponent of
which
became Osma Bin-Laden. Says Sageman: "First proclaimed by
Osama bin
Laden in his 1996 fatwa.It reverses the previous strategy. Now
the
priority is fighting the "far enemy," the West and
specifically the
U.S. and Israel, before turning against the "near
enemy," which
survive only because of Western support. This strategy has
evolved
from ending the U.S.'s "occupation" of the Holy Land
to engaging it
anywhere, as best articulated by Ayman al Zawahiri . The goal is
to
establish a Muslim state, reinstate the fallen Caliphate and
regain
its lost glory. As the United States would never allow this to
happen,
the global jihad must
defeat this country."
The Global Salafist ideology, of course, incubated in the
conservative
Saudi Arabian atmosphere and piggy-backed abroad on Saudi oil
money,
which no government institution was monitoring. Says Dr. Anthony
Cordesman, military analyst for ABC and a Professor of National
Security Studies at Georgetown, quotes a US diplomat in a report
(Saudi Arabia: Opposition, Islamic Extremism, And Terrorism
paper) in
GulfWire, "The rulers of Saudi Arabia today do not face
major
political challenges from domestic progressives, human rights
advocates, or democratic reformers—nor from the local versions
of
socialists, Marxists, ethnic or liberal political groupings that
inhabit other Arab landscapes. Saudi ruling challenges come,
instead,
from an Islamic environment that the rulers themselves have
created,
shaped, and maintained. It is a remarkable Saudi phenomenon that
a
regime unrivalled across the Islamic world in its conservatism
presides over a body politic that for the most part is even more
conservative."
A study conducted by Sageman on 130 members of the Global Salafi
Jihad is more instructive. Says Sageman: "They are a
heterogeneous
group. Three large patterns emerged: about 60% come from core
Arab
countries, mostly Saudi Arabia and Egypt; 30% from Maghreb Arab
countries and 10% from Indonesia. In terms of socio-economic
status,
two thirds came from solid upper or middle class backgrounds.
Most of
the rest came from the "excluded" Maghreb immigrants,
or second
generation in France, as well as Western Christian converts.
They came
from caring intact families. The Indonesians were uniformly
religious
as children, 60% of the Core Arab children were, but almost none
of
the Maghreb Arab children. As a group, the terrorists were
relatively
well educated with over 60% having some college education. Only
the
Indonesian group was almost exclusively educated in religious
schools.
Most had good occupational training and only a quarter were
considered
unskilled with few prospects before them. Three quarters were
married
and the majority had children. I detected no mental illness in
this
group or any common psychological predisposition for
terror."
But, interestingly, a
common mindset in the Salafi brigade is
an
anti-Shia feeling most recently illustrated by the exchange of
prisoners between Israel and the Hezbollah on January 29,
2004. The
consequent triumphant imagery of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah,
created much resentment in parts of the Arab world, particularly
in
West Bank and Gaza. The sternest vocal attacks against
Hezbollah's
deal, however, emanated amidst
Saudi Jihadi-SALAFI elements.
The
Lebanese Shiite group has never been popular among the Salafi
preachers of Global
Jihad, given their fundamental hatred towards
Shiaism.
The current conflict of interests in Iraq between the Shia
majority
and the Sunni minority
has provided an extra edge to the enmity.
Since the establishment of the Coalition Provisional Authority
and the
installation of the Allawi government in Iraq, Salafi web sites and
forums on the Internet have stepped up their attacks against the
Shias. There are also severe criticisms of Iran on their websites
alongwith growing attempts by Saudi Salafi scholars and laymen to
link the Shiites to Jews, both in history, and in present times.
It should be recalled that in the last two decades, with the
flowering
of extreme strains of Islam there emerged an unhealthy
competition
between Iran and Saudi Arabia as to which state was `more'
Islamic.
The beef between the Salafis and the Shias also colors the
Salafi
leadership as personified by groups headed by Zarqawi and Bin
Laden.While both men follow the strict code of Salafi Islam,
which
considers Shias as the
spoilers, Bin Laden prides himself on being a
figure above the `fray' so to speak and has made strategic
alliances
with Shia groups, meeting several times with Shia militants. Zarqawi,
by contrast, favours butchering Shias, calling them "the
most evil of
mankind . . . the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious
scorpion,
the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom". Zarqawi's terror group
is, in fact, the prime suspect for the multiple bombings
near the
Shia religious shrine in Karbala and also in Baghdad which killed 143
worshippers in March, 2004.
Adds Gilles Kepel, author of The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and
the
West, about Zarqawi: "The pamphlets of Abu Musab al–Zarqawi,
now
circulating in Iraq, similarly view the Ottoman failure to
capture
Vienna in the siege of 1683 as a crucial setback in the Muslim
effort
to Islamicise Europe – one they attribute to contemporaneous
Shi'a
betrayal of the Ottomans in Iraq. For such people, the
reconquest of
Europe is the completion of a centuries–long task."
But it's not as if all is lost. There are many positives. The
strongest, according to some,
coming from the very fact that in a
strict religious interpretation religious Salafism itself might
be the
biggest bulwark against terrorism.
According to a recent report issued by the International Crisis
Group
(ICG) titled "Why Salafism and Terrorsim mostly do not
mix", the
strictest Salafis in Indonesia are religious and not political
activists. The report lists several Indonesian Salafi
organizations
like the at-Turath network, the Indonesian Council of Islam
Propagation, the Institute for Islamic Sciences and Arabic etc
It also goes onto say that for genuine Salafis it is not
allowable to
organize a rebellion against a Muslim state, no matter how
dictatorial
or unjust it may be. It's because of this that the traditional
Salafis
are opposed to the so called Salafi movements like the Jamaah
Islamiyah (JI) and the Darul Islam movement because they split
Muslim
societies by promoting rebellion against the Indonesian state.
They
also deflect attention from the actual study of the faith
besides
indulging in innovative practices like oath-taking to a leader
(a
practice indulged in by Osama Bin Laden as well) which is
considered
un-Salafi.
The ICG report says that whereas people like Muklas, one of the
Bali
bombers, claim to be salafi they don't belong to a broad based
movement and therefore don't pose the same security risk as they
are
sometimes said to be.
The ICG goes on to argue: "Pure Salafis are a more potent
barrier
against jihadis like the JI than pluralist or moderate muslims.
If
Salafi jihadis believe they are making bombs to destroy the
enemies of
Islam, strict Salafis may have more success in convincing them,
using
the same texts, that their interpretation is wrong."
A common trait in all these pseudo-Salafis, to use a much
aligned
Indian adjective, is to be strict and partial in their
interpretation
of the Koran—picking quotations which suit them or of which a
sufficient ambiguity can be created to gain advantage from.
Even the Salafi-Jihadist ideology of Abu-Omar by failing to
adapt to
or reconcile differences amongst different ethnic groups and
cultures
has lead to a rejection of the same by Chechen nationalists. But
while
the oratory of the Salafis might not attract many people to
their
world view it is enough to energise young Sunni Iraqis to derail
efforts to fostering democracy.
The French muslim reaction to the kidnapping of two French
journalists, Christian Chesnot
and Georges Malbrunot, in Iraq on 20
August 2004 is also illustrative of some hope. Says Gilles
Kepel: "A
so–called "Islamist army", after buying them from
the group of thugs
responsible for their seizure, announced they would behead the
journalists unless France rescinded its secular ban on the
wearing of
the hijab (and other religious apparel) in French schools. The
"army"
was convinced that this would mobilise the masses of the umma in
their
favour, and were supported in this expectation by various French
Islamists on Arabic “speaking satellite TV. Much to their dismay,
French people of Muslim descent
“ regardless of the degree of their
Devotion” adamantly denied the kidnappers the right to speak in
their name, and affirmed a primary solidarity with the
journalists, not to
whoever claimed to speak in the name of Islam."
Another resource to be tapped with discretion is Iran. Says
Mahan
Abedin, editor of Terrorism Monitor, and who is currently
researching
a book on Iranian intelligence services: "The terrorist
attacks on
September 11, 2001 did not come as a surprise to the Iranian
intelligence community, primarily because they had been engaged
in
their own covert war against the Taliban and its international
Islamist allies for many years. Indeed, under different
political
circumstances, Iranian intelligence could have provided valuable
help
to the U.S. in the war against Salafi Islamist terrorism.
Iran's Ministry of Intelligence & National Security (VEVAK)
and the
intelligence directorate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps
(IRGC) arguably have a better understanding of Wahhabi/Salafi
terrorist networks and their institutional and ideological roots
in
Saudi Arabia than most other major intelligence organizations.
They
have gained such knowledge through the penetration of Wahhabi
missionary/terror groups in Pakistan, which has been a priority
for
Iranian intelligence over the past 20 years. This priority stems
not
only from Iran's self-perceived responsibility to protect
Pakistan's
Shi'a community, but more importantly from a desire to pre-empt
Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi subversion amongst Iran's tiny Sunni
minority."
Abedin goes on to add that even before the emergence of the
Taliban,
the VEVAK, the Iranian intelligence agency, designated Salafi/Wahhabi
terrorism as the primary threat to Iranian national security in
1994
and, contrary to unsubstantiated reports in Arab and western
media,
has never had any friendly contacts with the al-Qaeda.
Experts also put much hope by the Algerian example where the
initial
allurement of the people with the Islamists weakened after the
accesses of the Salafis. And that this could happen in Iraq as
well,
eventually. Says Kepel: "The example of Algeria in the
1990s is
relevant here. Until 1996, militant Armed Islamic Group (GIA) or
Islamic Salvation Front (FIS)movements controlled large parts of
Algeria, and the regime seemed doomed; then, for disputed
reasons –
military security operations, infiltration activities and other
provocations, the internal dynamics of the GIA – the Islamists
suddenly seemed to have alienated the bulk of the Algerian
population.
They even lost support among those who had previously voted for
them.
Today in Iraq, there are daily images of hostages being beheaded
as
traitors, of corpses of policemen in the rivers – a spectacle
of
horror designed to convince that jihad is on the rise and that
the US
will never prevail. Yet jihadi Islamism in Iraq can draw on only
the
17% of the population who are Sunni Arabs. The Iraqi Kurds and
Shi'a
are beyond their reach."
On a more operational level, military strategists are in favour
of a
more pro-active policy than has been forthcoming so far. Says
General
Abizaid, the second highest ranking US military officer in Iraq:
"The
key is to treating people who contribute money to the Salafist
movement no differently than people who carry out beheadings.
The
truth of the matter is we have to be bold in our discussion and
we
need to make liable the people who are financially contributing
to
this organisation as the criminals they are."
Abizaid goes on to add: "What makes this element so
dangerous today I
think is really two things that are new to the modern world.
Number
one is the speed in which information can be transmitted, and
the way
it can be transmitted without regard to borders. Number two is
the
potential ability of a movement like this to obtain weapons of
mass
destruction. Though Al Qaeda and other groups have moved no
closer to
obtaining weapons of mass destruction, but they would surely use
them
if they did. It's a very, very dangerous problem for the entire
international community, and that's why it is so important that
people
cooperate against it."
Ultimately, however, it's for progressives in the Arab world to
put
their views forward more aggressively to counter the Salafi
menace.
They have to not only advance a more secular ethos, but also
question
the vision of Salafi organizations which are resisting of
modernity of
any kind. We need intellectuals like Dr Amr Isma'il. A progressive
Egyptian thinker
Dr.Isma'il's articles are regularly published on the
secular Arab website www.rezgar.com. Says he in one of them:
"Why are
we the only nations in the world that still use religion, Islam,
and
the name of Allah in everything - in politics, economics,
science,
art, and literature. We kill in the name of Allah, blow up cars
in the
name of Allah, and slit throats in the name of Allah and Islam,
and
then we protest when others depict the Muslims as terrorists. We
do
not ask ourselves why no other religious group perpetrates these
acts
of atrocity, and when a terrorist country like Israel does so,
it does
not say it is killing in the name of the Lord or in the name of
Allah,
but claims it is doing so out of self-defense. Why Allah is
[held
responsible] for our bad deeds and for our desire for
revenge... Why
don't we act like [Israel] and say that these acts are for
self-defense or for defense of the homeland, without bringing
Allah
and Islam into it? We have reached a crossroad… If we want
Islam
as a political solution, not as a religion ... we must be strong and
admit honestly that Islam -
according to the belief of groups of
political Islam that follow bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri's
organization -
stands in utter contradiction to democracy in its true
meaning... Let
all the political Islamic groups, and first and foremost the 'Muslim
Brotherhood,' cease their policy of concealing [their real
opinions]
and show their true faces [and reveal] that they are trying [to
bring]
an Islamic rule that at best will be no different from Iran, and
at
worst, [no different] from the Taliban..."
Such an approach might also help in distinguishing between pure
religious movements and ones that use religion to chase a
demented
approach to political change.
(Cobrapost News Features)