All knowledge springs from Divine Unity

See but One, say but One, know but One,
In this are summed up the roots and branches of faith.

Shaykh Mahmud Shabistari, Mystic Rose Garden, pp 84

Can al-Qaeda be destroyed if we kill Usama?

It is a tragic mistake to believe that al-Qaeda refers to a solid and uniform group whose very existence can be undone by the death of one man. As the execution of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein proved, the demise of a criminal does not necessarily remove the crime. In fact, Iraqis believe that their lot is worse now than when Saddam's Baath party had been in power.

The mistaken belief about al-Qaeda is simple as it is attractive, but stems from a very real misunderstanding of what the term al-Qaeda had meant to Muslim militants in the past and what it means in the present. The word itself is constituted by three Arabic characters: Qaf, which is pronounced with a guttural emphasis on the K; Ayn, which is pronounced with a heavy dip in the AY; and Dal, which is pronounced with a thickening of the DA, usually achieved by filling up a cheek with air and releasing it when DAL is uttered. Al-Qaeda literally means 'the base', and may refer to three things:

• Base, as in an outpost
• Foundation, as in what supports a home
• Principle, as in a formula, maxim or template

Abdullah Azzam, the chief ideologue of the non-Afghans (for a discussion on this predominantly Arab contingent, see Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, & the Fundamentalism in Central Asia) who took part in the 'holy war' against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, wrote:

Every principle needs a vanguard to carry it forward and, while focusing its way into society, puts up with heavy tasks and enormous sacrifices. There is no ideology, neither earthly nor heavenly, that does not require such a vanguard that gives everything it possesses in order to achieve victory for this ideology. It carries the flag all along the sheer, endless and difficult path until it reaches its destination in the reality of life, since Allah has destined that it should make it and manifests itself. This vanguard constitutes the strong foundation (Al-Qaeda al-Sulbah) for the expected society.

Azzam's use of the phrase al-Qaeda al-Sulbah led many commentators to believe that the group, al-Qaeda, had already existed during the early days of the Afghan jihad, but this is untrue. In writings and speeches, Azzam resorted to a very romanticized image of a small 'vanguard' fighting against the forces of evil. The vanguard was a term popularized by Syed Qutb, a leading intellectual of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who was later executed by his own government. Thus, by Al-Qaeda al-Sulbah, Azzam was really referring to a didactic mode of activism, based on clear and very specific principles. He was, in short, discussing a tactic.

Al-Qaeda continues to be an elusive entity whose cohesive structure and tentacle reach is highly exaggerated. In the wake of 9-11, regimes like Russia, China, Uzbekistan and to a limited extent, Israel, have benefited from reconciling their various border wars with the US' war on terrorism. Often, the rebels would even be characterized as al-Qaeda operatives. This ensured that international criticism over war tactics and social policy is as limited as it is selective. Thus, civilian casualties imposed by state actors are called "collateral damage", and those imposed by non-state actors are called "terrorism".

Besides the eclectic value judgments that come to play when the word 'terrorism' is thrown about, there is a clear and present danger in overemphasizing the threat of al-Qaeda. Killing Usama bin Laden will not destroy al-Qaeda, per se, because the plethora of extremist movements that currently riddle the global arena are linked not by a physical network, but by a common maxim and world-view. A useful glimpse into this world-view can be derived from an article written by Ayman al-Zawahiri, entitled "Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet". In it, al-Zawahiri mentions the tools through which so-called Western imperialism is deployed [1]; they include:

• The United Nations
• The friendly rulers of the Muslim
• The multinational corporations
• The international communications and data exchange systems
• The international news agencies and satellite media channels
• The international relief agencies

It is interesting that all of al-Zawahiri's points take political and economic dimensions as their reference points.

On past occasions, US President George Bush had been fond of characterizing Muslim extremists as people "who hate our freedoms". This is a mistake, because the rhetoric of extremist leaders like the Saudi-born Usama bin Laden and the Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri are inherently rooted in the notion of liberating Muslim countries from very real, very unforgiving dictatorships. The US President panders to a self-assured Western audience without calculating how condescending, foolish and downright hypocritical his speeches sound in the Orient.

Some western commentators also make an unforgivable lapse when they call al-Qaeda "a gang of evildoers" because the phrase sets up a false goal. Destroy gang, destroy problem. The war on terrorism is a ridiculous anachronism because terrorism is not an object, it is a tactic. Success in overcoming terrorism through policies that pursue individuals, contain money and human trafficking, widen police arrest powers and conduct pre-emptive action has been significant, but only in the short-term. It does nothing, for example, to deter new recruits from adopting the extremist ideology. To take a leaf from history, where was Zionism before European anti-Semitism eventually convinced almost all Jews that Israel was a reality that had to be forced with one's hands instead of simply waiting for the anticipated Messiah to lead them there? If anything, Zionism's evolution should serve as a warning to all myopic governments. Social and political pressure coming from the outside can and do contribute to increasing the relevance and currency of ideological movements, no matter how extremist they are.

So, al-Qaeda is but a tiny player in a market where the real commodity is that of ideas, not personalities or groups. Hunting down and eventually killing one man, Usama bin Laden, will not purge the world of extremism. People who continue to believe that are on their way to bitter disappointment. Worse, once these same optimists realize that the hopes they have been entertaining are false, they will then turn on the Muslim community at large. After all, if Usama's death does not remove terrorism, then surely Islam's death will. Signs of this trend are already abundant in parts of Europe, where radical political groups like the Danish People's Party openly declare that, "To a great extent, we are anti-Muslim."

The way forward is to visibly engage the extremists at a social, political and theological level. Yes, the tangible manifestations of extremism need to be curtailed. Men and women clearly out to do harm must be pursued to the fullest extent of the law. Here, both Muslim and non-Muslim nations have sometimes made blunt decisions on stemming the movement of people and money to stop extremism in its tracks. But initiatives are getting better-informed. Governments, for the most part, know enough not to turn the state's full attention on the entire Muslim community, but to a small section of it who subscribe to clear and well-defined trends (see my previous article, The Great Commission of Mussulman).

More than this, however, has to be done, and I suggest some signposts that ought to be followed, not least because they make common sense. Stop business interests from influencing international relations. Engage dictatorships, even if they govern strategically-sensitive and oil-rich countries, and persuade them to reform. Adopt a wide-ranging and human-centered approach to stopping disease. Adopt policies that orientate toward real global threats, like environmental catastrophes triggered by pollution and deforestation.

And most important of all, stop the hypocrisy! The so-called tactic and logic of terrorism is deployed by both Muslims and non-Muslims, and should be condemned for what it is, not who commits it.

---

[1] Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda- The True Story of Radical Islam, pg 23-24

Japan sorry for offending Muslims

Japan says Muslim offense at cartoon "regrettable"

The government said in a statement Friday that it is "regrettable" that a section of a Japanese cartoon has sparked an outcry in the Muslim world and stressed the need to foster understanding to prevent similar incidents in the future. "While it resulted from carelessness, the Japanese government considers it regrettable that Muslims' feelings were hurt by the content of some of the cartoon..."

The Catastrophe- sixty years and counting

Daoud Kuttab: Sixty Years of the Palestinian "Catastrophe"

As the state of Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, Palestinians remember the Nakbeh, or "catastrophe"- their story of dispossession, occupation, and statelessness. But, for both sides, as well as external powers, the events of 1948 and what has followed- the occupation since 1967 of the remaining lands of historic Palestine- represents a tragic failure.

Theodor Herzl and the Israel of today

Benny Morris: A prophet perplexed

Beholding Israel today, Theodor Herzl - Zionism's fin-de-siecle prophet and founding organiser - would have alternatively beamed and frowned.
...
Perhaps the deeply secular, anti-theocratic Herzl would have been most flummoxed and incensed by the (burgeoning) numbers, and correlated political power of the orthodox and ultra-orthodox (some 20-25% of the country's Jews). He believed that God was dead, and religious Jews a dying breed.

Herzl's liberal sensibilities would have been shocked by the Israeli occupation of much of the West Bank and the displays of insensitivity and occasional brutality that are the common fare of most military occupations. More generally, he would certainly have been taken aback by the spectacle of Arab-Israeli conflict, of which the occupation is one of the byproducts.

Neo-Salafists win Kuwaiti poll

Sunni Islamists gain in Kuwait poll

Sunni Islamists have made a strong showing in Kuwait's legislative election, while minority Shia gained one more seat, according to results released on Sunday. Official results from four districts and unofficial returns from the fifth showed that the Islamic Salafi Alliance and its allies won at least 10 seats in Saturday's poll.

A dangerous precedent in a country whose neighbor, Iraq, has Sunni Muslims currently engaged in a life-or-death struggle against neo-Salafist elements. Those well-organized and well-funded elements had been warmly welcomed into the Sunni insurgency against the US-backed government in the beginning, but eventually outlived their welcome through their overt extremism and careless targeting of fellow Muslims in attacks. The Sunni Awakening Council was thus formed with the singular purpose of ridding Iraq of its neo-Salafist cohort, though Nuri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq, reportedly dislikes these tribal formations because of their refusal to co-operate more fully with the Shia regime.

Kuwait's Islamic Salafi Alliance is closely affiliated with the Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage (RIH), or Jamiat Ihya at-Turaz al-Islami, that has been implicated in numerous terrorist attacks in countries ranging from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to Azerbaijan, Albania, and Bosnia. More ominously, the RIH promotes what Christopher Deliso identifies as a pro-Wahhabist, pro-Saudi agenda that is inimically hostile to the traditionalist, moderate and far larger constituency of Muslims.

In Kuwait's election, the Islamic Salafi Alliance won seats at the expense of a marginally more tolerant form of neo-Salafism, represented by the Islamic Constitutional Movement. The latter is affiliated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (for more on the different strands of neo-Salafism, see Three flavors of Salafism), a movement that its founder, Hassan al-Banna at the very least tried to portray in a more inclusive light:

[The Brotherhood is] a Salafiya message, a Sunni way, a Sufi truth, a political organization, an athletic group, a scientific and cultural union, an economic enterprise and a social idea.

There is little doubt that pan-Arabism has been replaced by a stateless, pan-ideological movement toward puritanism which would not necessarily be a bad thing if not for the political violence it anticipates for its enemies (Muslim and non-Muslim). Worse, these enemies are often painted as 'enemies of Islam'.

Political ascendancy figures largely in the overall strategy of such ideological groups, as I discussed in an earlier article, Plotting Islamism's success.

Empowering radicals is never a good idea. All in all, bad news for Kuwaiti women, the Shia minority and most importantly, the entire region.

Animated film on Sabra and Shatila massacre- Waltz With Bashir

Israeli film at Cannes explores 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre

A daring new animated documentary follows Israeli director Ari Folman as he tries to piece together memories of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila camps.

One of the most surprising aspects of the film was the parallel a psychiatrist drew between the Sabra and Shatila massacre and the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews perished.

"The response [to the massacre] in Israel was so huge, in my point of view, because immediately after we had the press release of the first photos of the massacre," he said, when asked about the parallels. "For us Israelis, it was a direct connection to our Jewish history."

Academic flogged for sipping coffee with woman

Saudi prof faces flogging for having coffee with woman

Muhammad Ali Abu Raziza, a psychology lecturer at the university of Mecca, has been sentenced to 150 lashes and eight months in jail after the religious police caught him with a woman in a coffee shop...

Enchanting music from Nass Marrakech

I really, really like the music that the Morroccon group Nass Marrakech dishes out. This is a song from their excellent album "Bouderbala", entitled L_Ham. You need an updated version of Flash to view the widget below.



Nass Marrakech represents a new generation of musicians dedicated to keeping the Gnawa tradition alive and true to its roots. The Gnawa are Sufis descended from black Africans enslaved by Arabs centuries ago, which lends their music a very heartfelt and endearing strain.

A human rights crime in Gaza

Jimmy Carter: A Human Rights Crime In Gaza

The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air, or land. An entire population is being brutally punished.

This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006.

Former US President Jimmy Carter joins an ever-growing list of academics and influential people who know that the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) abuses in the Occupied Territories must be called out.