When Taliban came to power in Afghanistan (with generous help from CIA, ISI and Saudi Arabia), we didn't have to coin a term to describe them. In Iran, we already had a religious term for such intellectually-challenged creatures. Actually, we had such a gang of irrational idiots over the first century of Islam. They were called Khawarij. So, we simply called these guys the Khawarij of 20th century. The similarities are not limited to their backward narrow views of Islam, rather to practicalities as well. A brief overview of history sounds in order.
Early years of Islam were wrought with unrests and wars. After our Prophet died, people came into disagreement about whether he'd appointed somebody as his successor to guide Muslims (which he had actually done: Imam Ali). Eventually, people decided that they could choose somebody from among themselves. And Imam Ali, although the rightfully appointed successor of the Prophet, submitted to the rule of majority to avoid sectarianism over those early years.
People continued to choose 2 more people as successors of the Prophet before coming back to Imam Ali as the fourth caliph. By this time (25 years after the Prophet's death), the Islamic society was already in trouble. The third caliph had been killed by an angry mob who were unhappy with his favoritism, cronyism and not-so-modest lifestyle (which was in stark contrast to his predecessors and also the Prophet).
Given such an atmosphere, Imam Ali made it clear that if chosen as caliph, he would be very strict about his principles, among them, egalitarianism. He knew well that people who had enjoyed privileges over the time of the third caliph would not be happy with that. Still, people insisted and he accepted to be the caliph. And as he was true to his words about his principles, problems began soon afterwards. People who couldn't get along with his strict egalitarianism, felt unhappy and gathered together in rebellions.
As he wanted to avoid bloodshed among Muslims as much as possible, he wouldn't stay the course after defeating a rebellious group. And those people who had not been completely crushed would reorganize and rouse unrest again. And out of these rebellions, a group of extremely radical Muslims developed who revolted against Imam Ali, whom they found too compromising.
Interestingly enough, Imam Ali's compromise over the Battle of Siffin, the biggest longest civil war over his short rule of less than 5 years, with Muawiyah (a leader of disgruntled corrupt people), was made under fierce pressure by the same group who were later known as Khawarij.
Imam Ali tolerated Khawarij and tried to pacify them and correct their misunderstandings, but deranged as they were, he was not so successful. And when you have a very high opinion of yourself and your righteousness, you might resort to any means; Khawarij expanded their rebellion to terrorism and killing innocent people. And this was too much even to Imam Ali's threshold of tolerance. He crushed them in the Battle of Nahravan and all but a few were killed. Eventually, he was assassinated by the remnants of Khawarij while he was leading a prayer in the mosque over the first of Qadr Nights and died 2 nights later as a result of the poisoned sword used by the assassin.
Khawarij did not survive as a group long afterwards (except for a branch of them who diluted their extremism and are still present in parts of Middle East and North Africa, known as Ibadiyya, but these people are not much like their predecessors). However, Khawarij's stupidity, derangement and narrow interpretation of Islam never died and showed up in one form or another.
Taliban and al-Qaida are the latest examples of Khawarij in our time. Although they cannot be historically traced back to Khawarij, they have very similar mentalities and practices. And just like their predecessors, they favor terrorism and killing innocent people as a justified means to implement what they consider to be pure Islam.
Even before this war on terrah, they used to butcher Shia people (or even other Muslims who simply disagreed with them) in Pakistan and Afghanistan in various ways. And they were having fun at it (just think about how they enjoyed videotaping their feats and putting them on the Internet).
And their American friends were real quick to recognize their reign of terror in parts of Afghanistan back in 1990s and even to support their getting a seat in the UN. And that was while nobody other than Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and UAE had recognized their drug-funded quasi-government in Kabul (which couldn't survive a day without help from their patrons in Islam Abad, Riadh, Dubai and Washington DC). And now, thanks to neocons and their War of Terror, these kids have found a new playground in Iraq to enjoy slaughtering even more poor civilians on a daily basis. An amenity they couldn't have dreamed of a few years ago.
And it appears that they cannot limit their terrorism to the body; they've expanded it one step further to the realm of thought and mind. Yesterday, they launched a mass defacement attack, hacking about 300 Shia websites simultaneously, putting their propaganda and a Youtube video mocking one of the great religious scholars on the main page of those websites (most of them have recovered by now).
I'm not surprised by all this. What strikes me is the timing of their cyberterrorism; they chose the dawn of the first of Qadr Nights, the anniversary of their spiritual forefathers' assassination of Imam Ali, a man well known even by non-Muslims as embodiment of justice, compassion, wisdom and above all, staying true to his moral principles in governance. And he paid the price dearly by his own life.
Early years of Islam were wrought with unrests and wars. After our Prophet died, people came into disagreement about whether he'd appointed somebody as his successor to guide Muslims (which he had actually done: Imam Ali). Eventually, people decided that they could choose somebody from among themselves. And Imam Ali, although the rightfully appointed successor of the Prophet, submitted to the rule of majority to avoid sectarianism over those early years.
People continued to choose 2 more people as successors of the Prophet before coming back to Imam Ali as the fourth caliph. By this time (25 years after the Prophet's death), the Islamic society was already in trouble. The third caliph had been killed by an angry mob who were unhappy with his favoritism, cronyism and not-so-modest lifestyle (which was in stark contrast to his predecessors and also the Prophet).
Given such an atmosphere, Imam Ali made it clear that if chosen as caliph, he would be very strict about his principles, among them, egalitarianism. He knew well that people who had enjoyed privileges over the time of the third caliph would not be happy with that. Still, people insisted and he accepted to be the caliph. And as he was true to his words about his principles, problems began soon afterwards. People who couldn't get along with his strict egalitarianism, felt unhappy and gathered together in rebellions.
As he wanted to avoid bloodshed among Muslims as much as possible, he wouldn't stay the course after defeating a rebellious group. And those people who had not been completely crushed would reorganize and rouse unrest again. And out of these rebellions, a group of extremely radical Muslims developed who revolted against Imam Ali, whom they found too compromising.
Interestingly enough, Imam Ali's compromise over the Battle of Siffin, the biggest longest civil war over his short rule of less than 5 years, with Muawiyah (a leader of disgruntled corrupt people), was made under fierce pressure by the same group who were later known as Khawarij.
Imam Ali tolerated Khawarij and tried to pacify them and correct their misunderstandings, but deranged as they were, he was not so successful. And when you have a very high opinion of yourself and your righteousness, you might resort to any means; Khawarij expanded their rebellion to terrorism and killing innocent people. And this was too much even to Imam Ali's threshold of tolerance. He crushed them in the Battle of Nahravan and all but a few were killed. Eventually, he was assassinated by the remnants of Khawarij while he was leading a prayer in the mosque over the first of Qadr Nights and died 2 nights later as a result of the poisoned sword used by the assassin.
Khawarij did not survive as a group long afterwards (except for a branch of them who diluted their extremism and are still present in parts of Middle East and North Africa, known as Ibadiyya, but these people are not much like their predecessors). However, Khawarij's stupidity, derangement and narrow interpretation of Islam never died and showed up in one form or another.
Taliban and al-Qaida are the latest examples of Khawarij in our time. Although they cannot be historically traced back to Khawarij, they have very similar mentalities and practices. And just like their predecessors, they favor terrorism and killing innocent people as a justified means to implement what they consider to be pure Islam.
Even before this war on terrah, they used to butcher Shia people (or even other Muslims who simply disagreed with them) in Pakistan and Afghanistan in various ways. And they were having fun at it (just think about how they enjoyed videotaping their feats and putting them on the Internet).
And their American friends were real quick to recognize their reign of terror in parts of Afghanistan back in 1990s and even to support their getting a seat in the UN. And that was while nobody other than Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and UAE had recognized their drug-funded quasi-government in Kabul (which couldn't survive a day without help from their patrons in Islam Abad, Riadh, Dubai and Washington DC). And now, thanks to neocons and their War of Terror, these kids have found a new playground in Iraq to enjoy slaughtering even more poor civilians on a daily basis. An amenity they couldn't have dreamed of a few years ago.
And it appears that they cannot limit their terrorism to the body; they've expanded it one step further to the realm of thought and mind. Yesterday, they launched a mass defacement attack, hacking about 300 Shia websites simultaneously, putting their propaganda and a Youtube video mocking one of the great religious scholars on the main page of those websites (most of them have recovered by now).
I'm not surprised by all this. What strikes me is the timing of their cyberterrorism; they chose the dawn of the first of Qadr Nights, the anniversary of their spiritual forefathers' assassination of Imam Ali, a man well known even by non-Muslims as embodiment of justice, compassion, wisdom and above all, staying true to his moral principles in governance. And he paid the price dearly by his own life.
5 comments:
The closer historical analogy for al-Qaeda is the Hashshashin.
Not very close. They were not so much motivated by religious beliefs and their interpretation of religion to do what they did. It's a matter of chicken and egg.
Hassan Sabbah started his movement primarily on political reasons and used religion as a tool. Religion was part of Hashashin's indoctrination of their Fedayeen but not the fundamental. A major component of their ideology as a movement was allegiance to Hassan Sabbah as the leader. That's not the case with Khawarij, nor al-Qaida. Neither was/is based on allegiance to a person/leader; rather, allegiance to a religious ideology (however twisted it be). Eventually, people might gather around a leader, but the person is not the reason.
Simplistic assumptions about Islamic fundamentalism (past or present) is part of the problem in Western world. That's why they cannot deal with the root-cause of the problem. Making such poor analogies make people assume that if they take out Bin-Laden (or his top lieutenants), the problem of Islamic fundamentalism will be solved for good. That worked for Hashashin, but it won't work for al-Qaida. Losing their leaders, their functionality might be disrupted temporarily, but as long as there are reasons to nurture the ideology, it will never die.
AQ and H started from different origins, but while al-Qaeda's ideology remains firmly based in Qutbism, there's no doubt that al-Qaeda's stated goals are primarily political and have been for a long while: reestablishment of the Caliphate, destruction of Israel, removal of the secular governments in the Islamic world, etc. As you say, its a matter of the chicken and the egg, and in the end the fundamentals aren't that different between the two.
All members of al-Qaeda central take an oath of loyalty to bin Laden. You're underestimating his symbolic importance to AQ, however neutralized he's been rendered from an operational and logistical standpoint. Look at how AQ and its predecessor organization has always been led by a central charismatic figure: first Azzam, and then OBL. It isn't like Hezbollah, which has a large infrastructure and can survive the loss of leaders like Mughnieh or Nasrallah.
To be sure, eliminating one leader won't change the underlying environment which allowed the leader to emerge in the first place. Unfortunately for the West, combating the Qutbist ideology has to be done within Islam, and its ability to influence that debate is limited (though they aren't doing enough of even what they could - topic for another day). Fortunately, though, there's indications that this is happening in many places, such as Yemen. Things are looking hopeful.
I disagree on a few points.
1) Not all Islamic fundamentalists (even Sunni ones) build their ideology around so-called Qutbism. Zawaheri and his ilk may be classified as such, but Bin Laden is not a Qutbist; he's closer to Salafis (although not exactly). Some brands of fundamentalism develop in secular environments, some within religious communities. Even the same environment won't produce the same kind of fundamentalism. They may build alliances, but their ideology may not be exactly the same. Simplifying/stereotyping is another common problem in the Western world (even academia).
2) The ideology cannot be fought from within as long as it's fueled from without. Even looking at the spiritual forefathers of Taliban, Khavarij, they came into being as a reaction to Muaviyah rule which exemplified corruption. It may sound political to outsiders (non-Muslims), but it isn't; it's a matter of religious fervor.
3) Bin Laden, although charismatic, is at the top of the pyramid and people are loyal to him just because he exemplifies fundamentalist ideals, not the other way around. Even for al-Qaida which is an umbrella organization, as long as the ideology persists (and receives fuel from outside), it doesn't matter who exemplifies it at the top.
One more point: do you really believe this reverse indoctrination of some folks in captivity is a sign of progress? and people who are not experiencing the same dialogue environment will follow suit just because some big names have written papers/books recanting their dark past?
Such in-prison repentance/enlightenment has not worked successfully for non-Muslim extremists in other countries. What makes you think it will work with Islamic fundamentalism?
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