by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n A<\/span>l-Qaeda has shrewdly seen to it that, along with the sword, they also employ the pen in their Holy War. In order to vindicate their actions and rally support, they have orchestrated a series of carefully constructed messages. These messages fall into two distinct genres, each revealing a different goal.<\/p>\n The West is familiar with one of these genres: those many al-Jazeera communiqu\u00e9s and internet statements.\u00a0 Strategically directed towards the West, the gist of these messages is always the same: all the injustices inflicted upon the Muslim world by the West, every conceivable grievance Muslims have experienced at the hands of their adversaries.\u00a0 The litany always includes: unqualified support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the Western occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the deaths of one million Iraqi children due to sanctions, U.S. support for dictatorial regimes in the Muslim World, and so forth.\u00a0 Every message sent to the West by al-Qaeda always includes these core grievances.<\/p>\n This first sort of message usually culminates with al-Qaeda stating that it\u2019s the Islamic world\u2019s duty, in the face of this unprovoked aggression, to defend itself.\u00a0 Osama bin Laden commonly makes statements as follows:\u00a0 \u201cAfter all this, does the prey not have the right, when bound and dragged to its slaughter, to escape?\u00a0 Does it not have the right, while being slaughtered, to lash out with its paw?\u00a0 Does it not have the right, after being slaughtered, to attack its slaughterer with its blood?\u201d<\/p>\n The point of this first type of message is twofold: to demonstrate to the world that, by retaliating, al-Qaeda is merely trying to defend Muslims from unjust persecution; and to show the world exactly what injustices and humiliations the Muslim world suffers.\u00a0 On the one hand, they are meant to vindicate retaliation, on the other, weaken Western resolve.<\/p>\n S<\/span>o much for the messages to the world.\u00a0 But there\u2019s another genre of writing, directed solely to Muslims, and whose clandestine nature rarely makes front-page headlines in the West.\u00a0 Here the theme is not so much how bad the West is but what Muslims, according to their faith, are required to do. To that end, the two fundamental sources of Islam, the Koran and Tradition (the Word of Allah and the example of the Prophet), are tirelessly cited in al-Qaeda\u2019s writings to remind Muslims of their religious duty \u2014 unlike the messages directed to the West, which contain emotional appeals and arguments evoking Western standards of universal justice.<\/p>\n In these writings, Muslims are reminded of the history of Muhammad and his warrior-companions in the glorious first years when Islam was launched by the sword.\u00a0 Militant verses are continuously hammered out.\u00a0 Muslims are reminded that these verses are not just historical, but contain literal Truth that transcends time.\u00a0 Moreover, in contrast to the messages directed to the West, the tone here is much less compromising and concerned with trying to find an amicable and peaceful solution with the West. Far from depicting the Islamic world as a wounded and hunted animal fighting back for its very life, statements such as this by bin Laden are much more aggressive and uncompromising:\u00a0 \u201cDid the Prophet, his Companions after him, and the original forefathers of Islam wage jihad against the infidels [all non-Muslims] besieging them all over the world in order to place them under the suzerainty of Islam, to live in submission and humility, or did they try to make an amicable peace, convenient for both parties?\u201d Since al-Qaeda always makes it clear that its only motivations are to fulfill the teachings of Islam, clearly, if and when the Islamic world is capable, it will eventually launch an offensive war.\u00a0 For the same infallible sources that instruct Muslims to wage defensive war also instruct them to launch an offensive war.\u00a0 Thus if Islam\u2019s ubiquitous apologists tell us that jihadists like al-Qaeda misinterpret Islamic teaching about offensive war, then surely it must misinterpret Islamic teaching about defensive war.<\/p>\n I<\/span>n light of this fact, Westerners should always be cognizant of what al-Qaedaultimately<\/i>\u00a0wants as they consider the long list of alleged wrongs the Islamic world has suffered at the hands of the West. In other words, if al-Qaeda\u2019s demands are met \u2014 if Israel ceases to be, if the U.S. evacuates Iraq and Afghanistan, if the West keeps its nose out of the Islamic world\u2019s affairs \u2014 will that be enough to satisfy al-Qaeda?\u00a0 Certainly, it would be a start.\u00a0 But based on their words and convictions that\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0injunctions of the Koran must be fulfilled, it seems that their jihad would merely shift from being defensive to being offensive.<\/p>\n The only reason there hasn\u2019t yet been an offensive jihad is simply because the Islamic World is currently incapable of initiating one \u2014 not because they have consciously forfeited the command to establish Islam all over the world by any means necessary.\u00a0 The last time an Islamic people was capable, it fully engaged in conquest, as memories of the Ottoman Empire\u2019s religiously sanctioned invasions and genocides attest.<\/p>\n So, in a sense, the infidel West is damned if it does, damned if it doesn\u2019t. If the West voluntarily concedes to the demands of al-Qaeda, that will be perceived as a weakness and will eventually only encourage an offensive jihad. And if the West actually loses the War on Terror, that too will provoke an offensive response, one seen as the natural next stage in the struggle towards the total victory of Islam.\u00a0 Either way, that lethal combination of revenge and religion will ensure jihad from the Islamic World in order to fulfill what was started in the 7th<\/sup>\u00a0century.<\/p>\n This is an important reminder to those many who, while condemning al-Qaeda\u2019s methods, agree or sympathize with their grievances.\u00a0 The current battle at hand may ostensibly revolve around those grievances; but the eventual war will ultimately be about militarily establishing Islamic supremacy over the entire globe.<\/p>\n Some will discount this possibility as implausible since it seems so distant.\u00a0 But the wild vicissitudes of history prove otherwise, and we owe it to posterity to be vigilant now, when the threat\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0distant and hardly realizable \u2014 if in fact it is \u2014 and to take actions to ensure that it never have the capacity to come to fruition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers Al-Qaeda has shrewdly seen to it that, along with the sword, they also employ the pen in their Holy War.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[227,784],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1s8","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5425,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-two-faces-of-al-qaeda\/","url_meta":{"origin":5588,"position":0},"title":"The Two Faces of Al Qaeda","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Chronicle for Higher Education When the September 11 attacks occurred, I was in Fresno, Calif., researching my M.A. thesis on the Battle of Yarmuk, one of the first yet little-known battles between Christendom and Islam, waged in 636 A.D. That battle, in which the Arab invaders were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5390,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/an-encouraging-revelation-bin-ladens-latest-message-in-context\/","url_meta":{"origin":5588,"position":1},"title":"An Encouraging Revelation: Bin Laden’s Latest Message in Context","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers Full of the same old complaints, threats of retaliation, and victim status role that have become mainstays of al Qaeda propaganda, Osama bin Laden\u2019s latest release would seem to offer nothing new. It dwells on the many \u201ccrimes\u201d the West insists on visiting upon the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5352,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/jihad-studies-as-trivia\/","url_meta":{"origin":5588,"position":2},"title":"Jihad Studies as Trivia","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers This article was first published in Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard. A\u00a0new article\u00a0by Thomas Hegghammer in the\u00a0Times Literary Supplement, entitled \u201cJihadi studies: the obstacles to understanding radical Islam and the opportunities to know it better,\u201d lives up to its title \u2014 not so much by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1020,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/swedish-jihad-revelations\/","url_meta":{"origin":5588,"position":3},"title":"Swedish Jihad Revelations","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York Back in 2004, in one of his most recognized messages to America,\u00a0Osama bin Laden, responding to then President George Bush Jr.'s claims that\u00a0al Qaeda hates freedom, rhetorically asked, \"If so [if al Qaeda hates freedom], let him [Bush] explain to us why we have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5561,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lying-defying-and-demoralizing\/","url_meta":{"origin":5588,"position":4},"title":"Lying, Defying and Demoralizing","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"OBL's three-fold strategy to defeat the West by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers Like all of Osama bin Laden\u2019s previous messages to the West, his most recent communiqu\u00e9 contains three Ladenese trademarks \u2014 lying, defying, and demoralizing \u2014 that are always present whenever the al Qaeda chieftain addresses the West. 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\nThus while al-Qaeda tells the West that it is launching a defensive war, that is definitely\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0the culmination of Islamic teaching on jihad.\u00a0 The fact is, defensive war \u2014 that is, \u201cterrorism\u201d \u2014 is all that they are capable of for the present.\u00a0 But just as they justify defensive war through the Koran and Tradition, so too do these sources justify\u00a0offensive\u00a0<\/i>war, until the whole world either embraces Islam or lives under its authority in complete submission and humility [Koran: 9:29].<\/p>\n