[lit-ideas] Jihad and Fitna
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:51:15 -0800
The interview with Thomas Barnett that Brian cited
(http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=4873f1c5-9f
22-4559-89be-01181d7bad51 )
includes Barnett's take on why we invaded Iraq: "We're mad as hell after
9/11, we're not going to take it anymore, and we're going to go in and lay a
big bang on this part of the world, try to shake things up by taking down
the biggest, baddest actor in the region, and establishing the possibility
of a new order. And that was, to me, the most explicit and most logical
rationale behind our decision to topple Saddam."
I suppose when we read this we focus on ourselves if we are American. We
should or shouldn't have done this. But it is interesting (for a change) to
focus on those who attacked us and their motives. Gilles Kepel in The War
for Muslim Minds, Islam and the West, concludes his book with a discussion
of Jihad and Fitna. We all know what Jihad is but not so many know of
Fitna. "It has an opposite and negative connotation from jihad. It
signifies sedition, war in the heart of Islam, a centrifugal force that
threatens the faithful with community, fragmentation, disintegration, and
ruin. Whereas jihad sublimates internal tensions and projects them outward,
toward the land of unbelief, fitna undermines Muslim society from within.
This danger preys on the conscience of the ulema and scholars of religion,
motivating them to remain vigilant and prudent so that fitna can be
avoided."
The ulema and scholars of religion used to reserve the right to themselves
to declare jihad in order to assess the situation and avoid Fitna. Nowadays
a radical like Osama does it. What of 9/11 for example? Surely those
engaged in this operation were pursuing Jihad. Did they succeed, or did
Fitna result? Here is Kepel on page 289:
"The 9/11 attack on the United States, according to its perpetrators, was
the ultimate expression of Jihad striking at the heart of the faithless
Western enemy. It delivered the initial blow in a battle that was expected
eventually to conquer first Europe and then America, leading ultimately to
the West's submission to the one true faith. This would bring to its
apotheosis a process that had eaten away at Byzantium for centuries,
gradually taking over its empire and ending its civilization. While
awaiting this radiant future - evoked in messianic tones by online sheikhs
issuing fatwas - the holy war, as envisioned by radical Islamists, took as
its first goal the destruction of the nearby enemy through a ricochet
effect. Attacks on the West would topple evil regimes in Islamic countries
that drew their power and protection from Western hegemony.
"Beyond the circle of Bin Laden and Zawahiri and their supporters and
admirers, however, the majority of Islamists and salafists, let alone most
of the world's Muslims, no longer see the commando action carried out by the
'umma's blessed vanguard' against the twin towers and the Pentagon as
fulfilling the promise of jihad. On the contrary, after the first few
seconds of enthusiasm for this blow to America's 'arrogance,' most Muslims
saw the massacre of innocents on September 11 as opening the door to
disorder and devastation within the house of Islam. Not only did the U.S.
military promptly destroy the regimes of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, not
only were American troops camped on Islam's soil from Baghdad to Kabul, but
the holy war that was supposed to flare up and 'burn the hands' of the
infidel West, as Zawahiri put it, brought about only ruin and destruction in
the Middle East, at least for the near term. The uprising of the faithful
that was expected to seize power and reverse the decline of Islamist
political movements in the 1990s did not materialize."
In case someone is unfamiliar with Gilles Kepel, he ". . . is Professor and
Chair of Middle East Studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris
and the author of Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam." He is no fan of
either George Bush or the Neocons and was, in fact, one of the authorities
who convinced Fukuyama to distance himself from the Neocons. But Kepel is
an expert on the Middle East.
Lawrence
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