A interesting, and yet troubling post. Much is said here, a real nest of knots. The idea of islamic extremist is a key, to truly define this would aid in people's understanding of this enemy.

If by focus on Islam, you will see the enemy jump out at you.

Also, bad marks for throwing alah in with the only true god Jehovah, as this can be shown to be in error based on the message from the texts. They who are saying this needs to read both, and compare them to see this, before stating such untrue statements. Robert is spot on here.

Posted by: Islofob IS-1 at June 23, 2006 3:04 PM

There is a part of me that says if these different terms define those that we call jihadists in a more negative light to the umma than it cannot be totally a bad idea. Maybe we could refer to them as the mufsidun jihadists, or the hirabah jihadists? Whatever works! We certainly don't want jihadist portrayed as positive role models in the lslamic community if that be the case.

During WWII we had our own slang words for the enemies that we where confronting that pretty much PC negative now:

HIRABAH WATCH; There you go?

Posted by: Mackie at June 23, 2006 3:11 PM

Well, these "brilliant translators of arabic" called "al qaida" = "the base". Come and ask any oaf in persia, pakistan and India who is remotely familiar of urdu and persian. It means "The (right) way". And now they have a brilliant translation of "jihad". How many years have these "translators" have spent in lands that have a miniscule muslim population, leave alone a major one ?

Posted by: arjun.sevak at June 23, 2006 3:46 PM

Really don't like the Allah/God thing, as that's just simply wrong, but there is something that I like about turning some of the terminology around. Why should we accord Islamists any sort of respect by using their references? I particularly like dumping caliphate for global totalitarian state, as that's far more accurate, and I find caliphate too much of a loaded, romantic word for some people. It's too easy to use it to harken back to the Andalusian myth.

Mostly, though, I guess I'd prefer using the old Islamic terms alongside explanations of what they really mean. For example "Jihadis want to establish a caliphate based on the totalitarian statues set forth in Sharia law." Something like that.

Posted by: OutOfAqaba at June 23, 2006 3:57 PM

There is a good deal to be said about the reasoning behind, the justification offered, for the deliberate promotion of a false understanding, among the American military of all people, the very people who must, under no conditions, be mislead or given pabulum, in order to make the task of apparently inarticulate civilians, who cannot conceive of a way of dealing with Muslims other than carefully avoiding confronting them with reality, not only with their own reality, but more importantly, with the new understanding that we, the Infidels, can not be fooled. Yet Streusand and colleague are doing the fooling -- fooling themselves, and attempting, apparently with success (is there no one in the American military able to stand up and declare what they are proposing as dangerous?). And of course, they are thinking of how to talk to Muslims, how to get Muslims on our side. And that might be a more legitimate consideration if it were possible, if it were necessary to appeal to Muslim self-esteem and to Muslim filial piety about Islam to obtain, here and there, coooperation (which always and everywhere has been prompted by the self-interest of particualr ruling families and regimes, and not based, for it cannot be based, on any heartfelt sympathy or friendship for us or any other Infidels).

And Streusand is wrong in his understanding of the word "Jihad" -- or rather, in his understanding of how Muslims have always understood it. He can, in an appearance on Voice of America -- scarcely a month after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- together with a Mr. Nyang whom he soothingly describes as a "friend" with whom he had recently had lunch, which Muslim friend, by not eating, was conducting a "jihad" to keep fit. Not meant entirely as a joke, and certainly a highly revealing story from Douglas Streusand.

Streusand forgets, in a way that at a much more scholarly level Bernard Lewis forgets or chooses to overlook, that one cannot talk about Islam truthfully to two audiences at the same time -- Muslims and non-Muslims, Believers and Infidels. And the audience that the people Streusand is attempting, apparently with some success (one hopes that success can be undone, for his views are catastrophic in their effect on the fashioning of policy) to persuade of what "Jihad" means are Infidels, those military men to whom his articles are given and who no doubt are reluctant to question. After all, isn't Streusand an "Islam expert" and didn't he write that 1997 article, and doesn't that article have all kinds of footnotes, and why would an American "{military man" and "expert on Islam" mislead? Ignorance. Illogic. Stupdiity. Timidity. Failure to comprehend the full scope of Jihad, for example in failing to even notice the growing islamization of Western Europe through Da'wa and demographic conquest? How about those for reasons?

Every misunderstanding of Islam, even if the desire to dissemble is prompted by the idea tha t "if only we evade reality, and use their apologetic escape-word "hirabah," then we and those "good, moderate, trustworthy" Muslims and we can appeal to this construct, this pretend-Islam, and convince Muslims everywhere to believe it really is, to ignore their texts, to ignore the example of Muhammad, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, and to believe that yes, it is really just a matter of a few extremists and misinterpreters of Islam, with their "sinful violence" (hirabah). Plausible, yes, for about five seconds. But not if you begin to think.

For if we ignore the centrality and true meaning of Jihad, that is the meaning not that Douglas Streusand's nice Muslim friends may suggest to him over lunch, or that people who cnanot quite break with Islam, whether out of filial piety, embarrassment, ethnic identificiation (to be an Arab, some thing, one must be, or at least one must defend, Islam from Infidel prying eyes), those "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims who also are obstacles, not sinister in intent, but their ultimate effect can be dangerous to Infidels if they prolong miscoprehension by the latter, then we will inevitably make policies that will go wrong from the beginning. Nothing but the truth and the whole truth about Islam, its texts, and its history of conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims over 1350 years, and the observable behavior of Muslims all over the world, toward non-Muslims discriminated against or persecuted or murdered in Muslim-ruled lands, toward non-Muslims in their own lands, where Muslims exhibit hostility, make demands for changes in the laws and institutions of the Infidels to accommmodate the quite different world-views of Muslims (for whom the collective and not the individual, matters, and the only collective to which a Muslim's loyalty can be given -- to the extent that he is a good Muslim -- is to the umma al-islamiyya, the Community of Believers, nad never to the Infidel nation-state. Fortunately, a few Muslims are very bad Muslims indeed, and are able to offer that loyalty -- but how many? And for how long? And will their children or grandchildren necessarily feel the same, when the belief-system of Islam remains unchanged to teach them quite otherwise?)

Policies in Iraq, and elsewhere, have been made without an understanding of the nature and scope of the menace of the Jihad, and above all of the non-military instruments of Jihad -- which, of course, entirely disappear if one carefully denies the relevance of the word "Jihad" and instead adopts this "haraba" which focusses attention on combat, qital, and other forms of violence, and prevents our military and our civliian leaders from comprehending the long-term (or, alas, not so long term -- perhaps a matter of two or three decades) danger, above all in the countries of Western Europe, of inexorable islamisation (which does not require that the majority be Muslim, merely that a powerful, unified, and self-assured Muslim population be populous enough to impose its will on fragmented, uncertain, fearful, confused, and ready-to-submit Infidels) through Da'wa and demographic conquest.

The word "Jihad" makes room for, accommodates, all the various instruments of the "struggle" to spread Islam until it dominates everywhere, and everywhere Muslims rule. It can usefully draw attention, if we list the "instruments of Jihad," to the targetted and well-financed cmapaigns of mosque-and-madrasa building, the hiring of propagandists directly or indirectly to defend, and promote, the interests of Islam. The word "haraba" does none of those things.

All over the world a staple of Muslim apologetics is that surrounding the word "jihad." Again and again we are told by the people who insist that Islam is a "religion" of "peace" and "tolerance" (not one of those words in quotation marks is endowed with the same meaning by Muslims as they are by non-Muslims). And now comes Douglas Streusand, a member of the American military, and echoes those apologists. He is not John Esposito, the friend of Hamas-supporter and would-be suicide bomber Azzam Tamimi, and of Al-Farooqi, the sinister figure whom Esposito called his "ustadh." But this misleading --which may be a function of Streusand's incomplete study of Islam, especially his failure either to have rad sufficiently the Qur'anic commentators (they would set him straight), and the most distinguished Western scholars of the subjecdt, those who wrote between 1880 and, roughly, 1970, after which time it became almost impossible for truths about Islam to be told, and the Arab money essentially, and academic fashion (Said's"Orientalism" silenced many who lacked the self-assurance to see right through it, and through the rest of the nonsense thrown up by memberws of MESA Nostra, an academic Mutual Promotion Society and Protection Racket, the consequences of which are still with us).

Policy in Iraq, tarbaby Iraq, went awry becuase it was based on an initial failure to see that Islam, or synecdochically, Jihad, is the problem. Jihad is the duty, the supreme duty (so much so that some commentators call it the Sixth Pillar of Islam) incumbent on all Muslmis, to spread Islam until it covers the globe. They are not always and everywhere required to participate directly, but they must support the effort of those who do. Nor must Jihad always and everywhere take the form only of qital, combat, though the Streusands of this world apparently think so, and would prefer to use a vocabulary ("haraba") that makes it more difficult to focus Infidel attention on the non-military means of spreading Islam until it everywhere dominates and Muslims rule.

Had this been understood, then the Adminstration might years ago begun warning about the "varied instruments of Jihad." It might have signalled a rapprochent with the people of Western Europe, a signal that we understood their dangers, their plight, and would work to reduce the Muslim threat to them -- the threat within their countries, and not some "threat" supposedly posed by Saddam Hussein.

Furthermore, had Islam, had the Jihad, been understood -- and that should have been a full-time acitivity of military and civlian leaders afer 9/11/2001, and when one high-ranking Pentagon official told me that since that date he had "not read a single book, not a single book in four years" (apparently he was working so hard on planning for Iraq's post-war period) I was horrified, but not surprised. One would like to know what articles, what books, the generals, and Rice, and Rumsfeld, and Bush have read, what advisers on Islam (well, we already know about this David Forte, a professor of law at Cleveland State University, and his terminally naive pollyannish views on Islam -- views that Bush apparently found quite convincing)they have been listening to. Just how bad is it?

But Streusand deserves a longer treatment. Until that can be prepared, the article below by Andrew Bostom on what Jihad is (and on the frantic attempts by some, such as Reuven Firestone, to find textual justification in the Hadith for the notion of Jihad as primarily a spiritual struggle, and Firestone and others coming up empty) should be enough.

Furthermore, one may recall that favorite of Karen Armstrong's, that supposed story of Muhammad returning from war to the domestic hearth, from the "Lesser Jihad" to the "Greater Jihad." Nice story, nice Hadith, always trotted out by apologists such as Armstrong.

Only one problem with that story. That is one of the "inauthentic" Hadiths according to the authoritative muhaddithin. It has no persuasive effect on Muslims, but is useful in trying to mislead Infidels about what Muslims believe.

Here is Bostom's article:

When Is Jihad Not Jihad?
By Andrew G. Bostom
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 17, 2006

There is an old, dry pun on the query “When is a door not a door?”—the answer being, “When it is ajar.” But dry humor is clearly preferable to deluded and dangerous censorship of the lexicon which leads to this question, and requisite answer, “When is jihad not jihad?”—“When it is spiritual struggle.”

Witness the latest European Union (EU) pronouncement which advocates an exclusive definition of jihad as “spiritual struggle” in the public discourse lest the tender sensibilities of Muslims be offended. According to the wise and courageous EU leadership, non-Muslim Dorothys and Scarecrows and Tin Men and most appropriately, Cowardly Lions, should simply ignore the jihadists fulminating behind their civilizational veil, endlessly invoking an authentic and uniquely Islamic institution—jihad war—which has shaped human history for over 13 centuries, through the present. And they will be rewarded for this polite obliviousness to such ceaseless calls for (and resultant acts aimed at) their destruction, by the massive efforts of otherwise marginalized moderate Muslims struggling—indeed “jihading”—so desperately, so “spiritually” (the evidence of their struggle is all around us—haven’t you noticed?) to expel the hijackers of Islam.

The EU apparatchiks are thus insisting that only a marginal Sufi notion of the so-called “greater” spiritual jihad be accepted in defining jihad. Unfortunately this much ballyhooed, but anesthetizing definition has a very flimsy theological foundation. Even the Islamophilic scholar Reuven Firestone (pp. 139-40, n. 19) has acknowledged the dubious nature of the oral tradition (i.e., hadith) upon which this potential interpretation of jihad rests: "Its source is not usually given, and it is in fact nowhere to be found in the canonical collections [of hadith]."

Of course, devout Muslims and influential 20th-century scholars of Islam like the Shi’ite leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) or the brilliant Sunni ideologue Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) always recognized the marginal Islamic foundations of this putative Sufi construction in their seminal writings and lectures and dismissed it outright. These orthodox modern Muslim authorities base their own traditional and bellicose understanding of jihad not on a disputed hadith as espoused by some Sufis, but a readily identifiable, canonical hadith, wherein jihad by force assumes highest priority, not lowest. Specifically, this tradition from Sahih Muslim-Book 001, Number 0079:

I heard the Messenger of Allah as saying: He who amongst you sees something abominable should modify it with the help of his hand (i.e., by force); and if he has not strength enough to do it, then he should do it with his tongue (i.e., by preaching or propaganda), and if he has not strength enough to do it, (even) then he should (abhor it) from his heart (i.e., soul), and that is the least of faith.

Indeed, Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), the famous theologian, philosopher, and paragon of mystical Sufism, who as noted by the eminent scholar W.M. Watt is, “…acclaimed in both the East and West as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, and he is by no means unworthy of that dignity”, wrote the following in the Wadjiz, (dated 1101, i.e., in the last decade of his life) about jihad war and the treatment of the vanquished non-Muslim dhimmi peoples:

[O]ne must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year…one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them…If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book – primarily Jews and Christians] is enslaved, his marriage is [automatically] revoked…One may cut down their trees…One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide…they may steal as much food as they need…

[T]he dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle…Jews, Christians, and Majians must pay the jizya [poll tax on non-Muslims]…on offering up the jizya, the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits [the dhimmi] on the protruberant bone beneath his ear [i.e., the mandible]… They are not permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or church bells…their houses may not be higher than the Muslim’s, no matter how low that is. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule; he may ride a donkey only if the saddle [-work] is of wood. He may not walk on the good part of the road. They [the dhimmis] have to wear [an identifying] patch [on their clothing], even women, and even in the [public] baths…[dhimmis] must hold their tongue….

Thus, the latest EU strategy of dhimmitude—denial and obfuscation through pious-sounding, yet Orwellian manipulation of language and history—reflects a more profound capitulation illustrated by the recent analysis of Dutch policy researcher Jan Schoonenboom. Mr. Schooneboom now openly advocates Shari’a and chastises Dutch politicians who speak out against this brutally repressive theocratic code as being “spastic about the Sharia.”

A perverse, depressingly real-life scene from the “Wizard of Oz” fantasy is now unfolding in Western Europe. EU bureaucrats—playing the well-known aquiline-nosed, broomstick-riding character from movie version—have cast a spell (“Sleep…Sleep”) on their non-Muslim constituent Dorothys, Scarecrows, Tin Men and Cowardly Lions, hoping to keep them slumbering in fields of poisonous poppies. Regardless of whether they awaken, it may already be too late."

That's a start with the problem posed by misleading analysts deep within the American military. But not a finish.

Posted by: Hugh at June 23, 2006 4:13 PM

Its Islam and the Koran..the Writings of Mohammad (Shit be on him)Last week two America fighting men were I.D. by DNA because of Islam. My P.C. died that day...Islam is Evil it must be stopped. Nazi Germany was not Allowed to spew after Hitler was defeated and Islam must stop...How by telling the TRUTH AT ALL TIMES ABOUT ISLAM...Do not help the Enemy by helping him lie about Islam.

Posted by: storagemanager at June 23, 2006 4:19 PM

On October 25, 2001, six weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, "two experts" on Islam, Douglas Streusand and Suleyman Nyang, appeared on a Voice of America broadcast. The transcript is below.

One notes with particular interest that the very first story that Douglas Streusand tells the millions of listeners to Voice of America is the following:

"Streusand: The word jihad means "striving"; it means "making an effort." And as a religious concept that word is tied to the expression fi-sabilu'llah: "in the way of God" or "in the path of God." And for the majority of Muslims, jihad is an aspect of everyday life, something that they do every day. I have seen my colleague Professor Nyang carrying out jihad in his own way. We met for an extensive discussion some years ago at a restaurant during Ramadan, and I saw him exerting himself in the path of God by not eating while I was eating. So I have seen Professor Nyang as a mujahid, a person who carries out jihad."

Does that inspirte your confidence in Douglas Streusand as someone who comprehends Islam?

No? Then what about what follows, when the interviewer, David Aikman, says

"Host: That's in a moral sense."

and this is the reply:

"Streusand: In a moral sense. But that is what jihad means in the everyday life of the majority of Muslims. In the canonical connections of Hadith, which is...."

Happy so far? Content that American military officers are learning about Islam and about what Islam is all about, and why the term "hirabah" so helpfully suggested by Muslim scholars themselves, only trying to help of course, should be carefully employed instead of the word "Jihad," a word which if used might offend Muslims, and we can't have that, so we will employ instead a word suggested by Muslims as a "true" description of what is occuring -- "hirabah." Since "hirabah" is the word favored by corrupt Muslim regimes fighting domestic battles with assorted al-Qaeda or Muslim Brotherhood groups, and who of course must use a word to describe what those groups are doing, and have hit on the word "hirabah," it is not much of a leap, Douglas Streusand and his colleague may think, to use the same word "hirabah" that the Al-Saud, for example, use to describe Al-Qaeda members in Saudi Arabia for the world-wide campagin to spread Islam until it dominates all Infidel lands. But this fails to take account of the still widespread and dangerous, nearly suicidal, ignorance of many Infidels about Islam. For Infidels, and especially for the members of the Western military, to be mislead about the nature, promptings, scope of the Muslim menace, that comprehended by the word "Jihad," and to insist on employing instead the misleading word "hirabah" -- which is about warfare in the military sense, so the word itself prevents recognition of the instruments of Jihad most dangerous to Infidels -- the weapon, Da'wa, and demographic conquest. Of course, the word "hirabah" is used by the Al-Saud and other Muslim rulers to describe their violent opponents, whether members of the Muslim Brotherood (as in Egypt) or members of Al-Qaeda or some other group (the names hardly matter). For while the most fanatical Muslims will of course describe their violence directed at the regimes they oppose -- often oppose out of fury at the theft of national wealth or of foreign aid by those rulers (e.g. Mubarak) or ruling families (e.g. the Al-Saud), but because they are Muslims, they must cloak or express their opposition always in Muslim terms. Those on the attack describe themselves as fighting nominally Muslim but really "Infidel" regimes, and they call their war a "Jihad." But Mubarak, and the Al-Saud, can't let them do that, so they have come up, for their own protection, in the war of words, the word "hirabah."

But the notion that American military men should be asked to describe the war of Muslims against Infidels by that same term, "hirabah," is dangerous. For that word, as noted in my first posting above (this needs to be repeated) hides the nature of Jihad, reduces it to merely a matter of the military, of combat or terrorism, and so works -- as perhaps Streusand simply failed to realize, or did not wish to realize -- to prevent a necessary recognition of the other, even more effective, and at this point far more dangreous insttuments of Jihad that have nothing to do with traditional warfare, the kind implied by the word "hirabah."

The instruments of Jihad include "the wealth weapon," and "pen, speech" (i.e. propaganda on behalf of Islam, or campagins of Da'wa). More and more, Muslims have been writing openly, in Muslim lands, about demographic conquest, though they haven't exactly been hiding their expectiations from the Infidels either. After all, if the Algerian ruler Boumeddienne can predict the conquest of Europe by Muslms through the "wombs" of muslimahs, as he did back in 1974, and at the U.N. (not exactly keeping it from the Infidel public), and if one can find complacent discussion of demographic ocnquest as an instrument of Jihad in the pages of "Dawn," Pakistan's leading English-language newspaper, not to mention the tens of thousands oftimes this matter is discussed at Muslim webistes or in the Muslim press, or among Muslims living in Europe (does Streusand need examples of this? Does anyone? Just go to the English-lanague Muslim websites, for god's sake).

"Hirabah" is the wrong word. It is a word supplied by those who do not wish us to see, with full clarity, what is going on. If some American "experts on Islam" have fallen it for it, and failed to see what is wrong with such words, then those who have been asked to follow their lead should, instead, demonstrate an intelligent skepticism about the prescriptions, verbal and otherwise, of such people.

Satisifed with what you now know about what is being taught, with a gloss of plausibility, at Fort McNair or West Point or circulating at TRADOOC or at the Army War College? Did you think that everyone from Kansas to Fort Monroe understand the problem perfectly, but are being held in check by civilian leaders who can't quite figure out how to discuss, much less check, the Jihad and all of its instruments?

Think again.

Here is that Voice of America program, with Douglas Streusman and Suleyman Nyang. Judge for yourselves.

DATE=10/25/2001

Anncr: On the Line -- a discussion of United States policy and contemporary issues. This week, "Whose Islam Is It?" Here is your host, David Aikman.

Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line. Osama bin Laden has cited Islamic law and tradition to justify his terrorist attacks against the United States. But Islamic scholars say that bin Laden's violence cannot be justified by the doctrine of jihad, or holy war. Islam forbids both suicide and the killing of innocents, which is what terrorist attacks like those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are all about. Although much has been said about Osama bin Laden's life and his terrorist network, Al-Qaida, less attention has been paid to the roots of the Islamic extremism he champions.

Joining me today to discuss "Whose Islam Is it?" are two experts. Douglas Streusand is a professor of history at the American Military University, and Sulayman Nyang is a professor of African and Islamic Studies at Howard University. Welcome to the program.

Professor Nyang, do you think that it's only a minority of the Islamic world that shares a great deal of the belief in holy war and so forth that Osama bin Laden appears to profess?

Nyang: Yes, I think most of the Muslims would certainly condemn the terrorism associated with Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network. What is most important for us to recognize is the fact that in Islam, the kind of terrorism that we now see perpetrated by the Osama bin Laden network is unacceptable, because it does not really go in accordance with traditional and classical Islamic understanding of jihad. They throw the word around, jihad, but the jihad concept is certainly not what we are now seeing. This in my view really is anarcho-fascist behavior.

Host: Anarcho-fascist behavior.

Nyang: Yes, because you see the point is, the manner in which these people organize themselves is certainly not Islamic. And secondly, the manner in which they try to use weapons in secrecy -- because in Islam you fight in the open; you don't hide.

Host: Yes, but how do you account for the fact that all over the Middle East, people are said to be naming their children Osama; something like twenty-six percent of Palestinians within the Palestinian Authority area are saying that they support the terrorist acts, and about twenty-four percent in Pakistan. There does seem to be a huge resonance in at least some parts of the Islamic world.

Nyang: What you have to recognize, really, is that in most of the Muslim world, and more specifically in the Middle East, they do have grievances, popular grievances, against their own governments. And many of these societies are autocracies: they are either monarchical autocracies or military dictatorships, that are now projecting themselves as civilian rulers -- whether it is in Egypt, in Syria, in Libya, in Algeria, in Tunisia, etc. So this creates a problem for legitimacy. And what you really see are people who are desperadoes, who now find themselves identifying with whosoever lashes out against either their own regime or those they perceive to be backing their regime. This is what is happening. Many Arabs name their kids after Saddam Hussein.

Host: Right.

Nyang: And many other Muslims elsewhere, outside of the Arab world, did the same.

Host: Douglas Streusand, you have written and studied extensively the concept of jihad. Could you explain in simple terms what the different understandings of jihad are.

Streusand: The word jihad means "striving"; it means "making an effort." And as a religious concept that word is tied to the expression fi-sabilu'llah: "in the way of God" or "in the path of God." And for the majority of Muslims, jihad is an aspect of everyday life, something that they do every day. I have seen my colleague Professor Nyang carrying out jihad in his own way. We met for an extensive discussion some years ago at a restaurant during Ramadan, and I saw him exerting himself in the path of God by not eating while I was eating. So I have seen Professor Nyang as a mujahid, a person who carries out jihad.

Host: That's in a moral sense.

Streusand: In a moral sense. But that is what jihad means in the everyday life of the majority of Muslims. In the canonical connections of Hadith, which is one of the major sources of Islamic law. . .

Host: The Hadith are the sayings.

Streusand: The sayings and actions, descriptions of the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. The vast majority of references to jihad refer to jihad as warfare, for the expansion of the political control of the Islamic authorities. The goal of jihad, even when it is jihad as warfare, is never forced conversion. It is always the extension of political authority, political power. And in fact if you look at all of the restrictions on jihad, which essentially subsumes the Western concepts of both just war and justice in war, you find that it is very difficult to meet those standards. One reference which certainly would disqualify the actions of September Eleventh is that jihad must be preceded, an expedition must be preceded by a call on the enemy either to surrender politically or to accept Islam religiously.

Host: Professor Sulayman Nyang, do you agree with that, that most Muslims would accept that understanding of jihad?

Nyang: Yes, I think if you go back and you look at the historical record -- except for instances of political opportunism, when some element or some individual, out of political opportunism, wanted to create a kingdom of his own -- it's exactly what he just said, that what he laid out is precisely the classical understanding of what jihad is.

Host: But why is it -- and many observers would say that not many people in the Middle East, not many Islamic scholars, seem to have spoken up very forcefully -- that the definition of what Osama bin Laden did in New York and Washington really shouldn't be considered legitimate jihad?

Nyang: I think what has happened really is that most of the statements that come out of Muslim organizational leadership are not widely disseminated in the media. Many hours after the September Eleventh tragedy in New York and at the Pentagon, the national organization, Muslim organizations in America came out with a joint statement against that.

Host: Condemning the attack.

Nyang: Condemning the attack. And then you had people, so many people who signed off on that, scholars themselves -- Doctor Muzamil Siddiqi, who was with the President at the National Cathedral, he's a jurist, he's a faqih himself; he has a Ph.D. from Harvard, where he is also a student of Islamic law -- and he condemns this. So I mean from an American point of view we had Muslim scholars, like Taha Jaber and others, who came out against this. But the point is, those people are not usually covered by the media. One thing that is very interesting as a result of developments now, is that many of the leaders of the American Muslims are beginning to receive attention from the media, and attention which was not forthcoming in the past. But Sheikh [Yusuf] Qaradawi and many other leaders from Saudi Arabia and other places came out strongly against. Now of course Qaradawi is in Qatar. And his statement -- he is one of the leading Muslim jurists. I mean, the tragedy in the Islamic world is that you don't have a central body like the Catholics, where you can issue a statement that goes out. But despite this limitation in the Muslim world, we do have in the Muslim world international organizations, such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which came out very strongly against. Now of course Osama bin Laden will just dismiss them, that these are flunkies of America. But they came out against the September Eleventh attack.

Host: How much resonance do you think the ideas of Osama bin Laden have? Obviously not necessarily meaning how much support is there for crashing airlines into buildings, but the overall concept of a war of civilizations, a war against the Jews and the Crusaders, as Osama bin Laden says.

Streusand: Well, resonance is a difficult thing to measure. There was just an item in the Washington Post about the strength of the image of the Crusades in the Islamic world as a memory of victimization. So, resonance? -- there is a great deal. But resonance is an odd thing. If we think back to the Islamic Revolution or what became the Islamic Revolution in Iran, [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini's ideas had enormous resonance because he was the symbol of resistance to Muhammad-Reza Pahlavi.

Host: To the Shah.

Streusand: To the Shah. He was seen almost as the anti-Shah, the exact opposite. He had enormous support from people who had no interest in or knowledge of his political theories. And I think that much of the resonance that Osama bin Laden has had is that he appears to be doing something, and responding to many grievances that exist.

Host: I want to come back and ask Professor Sulayman Nyang about that. But first let me remind our audience that this is On the Line and I'm David Aikman. Today we are discussing "Whose Islam Is It?" with Douglas Streusand and Sulayman Nyang.

Sulayman Nyang, do you think there's a continuity between the sort of extreme anti-Americanism of the Khomeinist revolt in Iran and what Osama bin Laden is trying to propagate?

Nyang: If there is any element of continuity, it is the similarity or identity of grievances. But I don't think there is any kind of continuity institutionally between the Khomeini movement and the Taleban and Osama bin Laden. The Khomeini movement grew out of a peculiar Iranian situation. Here you had in Iran a monarchy that was restored to power in the fifties, in a clash with [Muhammad] Mussadegh, by the United States. And since the restoration, the Shah of Iran was increasingly perceived, even by some elements in the upper classes and middle classes of Iran, as too authoritarian and autocratic. And of course the embrace of the Shah by Western corporations and Western governments did not endear him to the masses of his people, even though he came over the White Revolution, which was designed to give land to the poor people. . .

Host: Modernization.

Nyang: And modernize society. So I don't see any kind of institutional continuity or organizational continuity between the Iranian Revolution and what we now observe in Afghanistan. What we have to recognize is that the Iranian Revolution grew out of peculiar Iranian realities, a Shiite tradition, and what is happening with the Taleban and with the al-Qaida is a peculiar Sunni phenomenon that is the result of America's involvement in Afghanistan against the Soviets. And what we are now seeing really is these are the bad children of the Cold War.

Host: So this is really, in some ways -- would you agree with this, Douglas Streusand -- part of the fallout from the end of the Cold War?

Streusand: Well, it's difficult to find anything in the world that isn't to a certain extent, because even if events have nothing to do with the Cold War they come to the surface because of the absence of the Cold War. And I would also hasten to say, and to say emphatically, that even if the events of September Eleventh were a direct consequence of the U.S. support for the resistance to the Soviets in Afghanistan, that doesn't mean that that support was a mistake.

Host: Right.

Streusand: But I think that certainly the Taleban phenomenon is very peculiarly Afghan and Pashtun. But I think that we also have to recognize that the sense of grievance, the sense of a thousand years of victimization in the Middle East and the Islamic world is -- although very powerful and not to be changed -- I would say that in many cases it's also erroneous.

Host: Professor Sulayman Nyang, you are of course of Muslim background yourself, and President Bush and many other American officials have made it clear that the United States is not at war with Islam, but as a Muslim what would you do to encourage people, moderate Muslims, to say that the brand of Islam being put forward by Osama bin Laden is neither mainstream nor healthy for the religion of Islam as a whole?

Nyang: I think many of us who are actively involved in the Muslim community and in the academy have put out the statement, through writing and through speeches and through interviews like this, that Islam clearly is not being done a service by elements resorting to terrorism, because terrorism historically has not been the most effective way of bringing about the resolution of human problems and the addressing of grievances. I think what is fundamental about the Middle East and the Muslim world is the absence of democratic rule in most of these societies, because people will be able to reason out their differences and they will then create the institutional structures to address their bread and butter issues. I think unless and until American leadership is willing to support pro-democracy movements and push for that -- that's one reason why even though I'm American, I live here, I am very much now actively involved in promoting democracy in Africa. I mean, we have an organization which I serve as the chief adviser -- they are the only ones doing it -- called Alliance for Democracy in Africa, to make sure that in all the African states, Muslim and non-Muslim, the democratic seeds are planted, and that you have U.S. support for this institution-building effort. The same thing must be done in the Middle East. During the Cold War, authoritarian regimes were supported either by the West or by the East. Now that the Cold War is over, the seeds of democracy must be planted.

Host: Would you agree with that, Douglas Streusand?

Streusand: Well, I would agree with it, but I would also tend to be very cautious.

Host: Cautious about what?

Streusand: Well, the expectations that people in the Middle East have for democracy are extraordinarily high -- and so high in fact that even democracy, which Winston Churchill first called the worst form of government except for all the others, has difficulty meeting them. In particular, representative institutions are in many ways a precondition for economic growth, but they do not guarantee economic growth and they do not make it immediate. And when Sulayman spoke of bread and butter issues, in many of the countries of the Middle East it is in fact very much bread and butter that really matters. And that's not something that's easy to deliver.

Host: Professor Sulayman Nyang, some people have said that if you implemented democracy throughout much of the Arab world, particularly where you have rather autocratic regimes now ruling, that you would in fact bring to power sort of theocratic tyrannies that might even be worse that the authoritarian monarchies and other systems that currently rule over there. Do you agree with that?

Nyang: No, I don't think so. I think, I agree with my friend here, saying that you have to be careful, because you see one of the big problems in the Middle East and in many [countries] of the Muslim world is that the bread and butter issues -- what I call, elsewhere, the politics of the belly and the politics of the head -- in the Muslim world, the primary politics is the politics of the belly. Now democratic regimes historically have been able to reduce violence, in terms of getting the politics of the belly going -- because economic development tends to be reinforced by the democratic process. But democratic governments of poor people are not likely to be very effective, because your point is that people may be very impatient. And I think that's one of the words of caution we have to give to anyone who is promoting democracy in the Muslim world, or anywhere else. The last point I want to make on this issue is the fact that if one is really interested in creating a democratic society in the Middle East, it has to be done piecemeal. You don't have to stampede the ruling classes, because you could easily fall into the hands of the only opposition in existence right now. See, the democratic forces, pro-democracy groups in the Middle East and in the Arab world have been, to some extent, marginalized. And people find in Islam the only tool, the only symbol, the only slogan you can employ to rally the masses. That's the sad thing. So you link the bread and butter issues with Islam.

Host: In just a very few seconds that we have left, Douglas Streusand, do you think that Islam is capable of bringing forth the kind of democratic governments that would solve many of these problems?

Streusand: At length, yes. Immediately, only with very great difficulty. But though this would surprise many people, I regard the history of Islam in the long run as a history of political adaptation and compromise.

Host: Well, thank you very much for that thought. I'm afraid that's all the time we have for this week. I would like to thank our guests -- Douglas Streusand from the American Military University and Professor Sulayman Nyang from Howard University -- for joining me in a discussion of "Whose Islam Is it?" This is David Aikman for On the Line."

There. Happy? Relieved to know who's minding the store in the military? Or are you feeling some other emotion at this moment, and you need to sit quietly, and wait, before attempting to express it?

Posted by: Hugh at June 23, 2006 4:57 PM

My PC of Muslims died on 9/11.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at June 23, 2006 4:59 PM

Most of us have been here long enough to know we offend them anyway. The only way not to offend one is to cave into them. I say piss them all off, any way you can and as much as you can. I would also like to say for the record, islam offends me. In order not to be offended I will list my demand.

Get off my planet.

Posted by: Ronin at June 23, 2006 5:03 PM

Westerners like to create new terms for everything. Just make things complicated. In the process, they become confused. Why don’t they practice a little Zen from the Far East. A Zen man would just call Muslim extremists “Muslim scums” instead of "hirabah" -- and he says things as the way they are. The famous French Interior Minister called rioting Muslim youths “scums” last year. So Muslim extremists, young and old, are really scums!

Posted by: brooklyn_guy at June 23, 2006 5:17 PM

As long as these dunderheads spout the Theologically Correct nonsense about Jihad being some sort of touchy feely spiritual yoga we will continue to waste time and energy.

Posted by: amana39 at June 23, 2006 5:29 PM

I agree with Ronin, anything we say or do offends them. So why don't we say the problem IS with islam and let them get mad, riot, kill each other and get it over with so we can get on with our lives?

What is wrong with using a little common sense, stop sidestepping the issure and nip it in the bud?

If you went to a doctor with what you thought was a skin cancer and he said "oh, no it's nothing", and then went to another and another and they all said the same thing, and when you finally went to a specialist when your entire arm was infected and was near death....wouldn't you be pissed?

Same thing. The cancer of islam is spreading.

Posted by: freewoman at June 23, 2006 5:33 PM

Once again, this is all just more proof that we are being lead by people bent on denial of the truth, appeasement of an Islamic enemy at any cost to keep the oil flowing, the corporations happy, etc.

I'm disgusted right now. So, this taskforce is basically coming up with more ways to cloud an issue that already is not being talked about in the correct language. Just great. Wonderful.

Idiots abound and they get paid by the government.

I find zero solace in any of this rhetoric.

Posted by: Foehammer at June 23, 2006 5:58 PM

"The men [Douglas Streusand and Harry D. Tunnell IV] also want officials to stop using the term "caliphate" as the goal of al Qaeda and associated groups. The Caliphate came to refer to the successors of the Prophet Mohammed as the political leaders of the Muslim community. 'Sunni Muslims traditionally regard the era of the first four caliphs (A.D. 632-661) as an era of just rule, the men wrote. 'Accepting our enemies' description of their goal as the restoration of a historical caliphate again validates an aspect of their ideology.'
-- from the article above

Robert makes the point in his comments above that, however, restoration of a Caliphate in fact mentioned as a goal and to pretend that it is not, convinces no one that the goal does not remain, for many, a vividly immediate goal.

However, it is also a goal so impossible of achievement at this moment (and we immediately think not of the West as barring the way, but rather of a powerful, self-assured East Asia, especially China -- which itself is a telling commentary on how Westerners have lost faith in their own ability to resist) that there is another and good reason for de-emphasizing this "caliphate" business.

When one is attempting to educate large numbers of Infidels, many of whom will not read the texts, will not read the relevant history, will not follow the examples of Muslim behavior today, around the world, toward non-Muslims, but will wish to deny the menace and believe, whatever it costs, that Islam in the West will somehow be "reformed" and somehow Muslims will lose their hostiity, will jettison or come to permanently ignore much of what Islam inculcates (and pass down such ignoring to their children, in a remarkable late validation of Lamarck), and will fit right in, just as if they were Andeaan Indians, or Indian Hindus, or Buddhists from Vietnam or Thailand. That is, Islam would be an alien creed, at that point, but not an alien and a hostile creed. There is no evidence to support this, no logical reason why it should come to be. If Islam could have been reformed, surely over the past 1400 years someone would have managed to reform it -- especially during the last two centuries. But no one has, not in the slightest, and in fact, the Islam that is practiced and preached is more aggressive, more violent, than it has been since Europeans first entered the modern Middle East in 1798, and second and third generation Muslims in Europe's Infidel lands are far more militant than the first generation. Should one ignore this, or worry about it?

Talk about the "caliphate," however, should be limited because it fails to convince. It seems so crazy, so far-fetched. And it is crazy, and it is far-fetched. What is not crazy, and what is not far-fetched, is the inexorable islamization of the countries of Western Europe and possibly even of Canada. That is, through clever use of the money weapon, through sustained and well-financed and cleverly targetted campaigns of Da'wa (directed at prisoners, and college students, and certain immigrant groups -- all seen as vulnerable to the appeal of Islam as a vehicle of protest, expressing alienation, falsely hinting at "social justice") and demographic conquest (there are about 2 million Muslims now in America, but suppose there were ten or 20 million? Imagine what it must be like in France or Germany today, with that rising Muslim population, and you, a citizen, not knowing how to stop it, how to urge others to halt and reverse this disturbing, unsettling, expensive, dangerous presence).

In order to instruct people one must have their attention. Invoking plans for a "world-wide caliphate" simply loses an audience. It is not necessary. It gives more than a whiff of the empty alarmist. For that reason, but only for that reason, that goal of a world-wide caliphate should be infrequently mentioned, and then in a way that quietly introduces the theme.

For example, one can say that the texts of Islam clearly impose a duty of Jihad on all Muslims, whether an active or passive duty of support depends on the circumstances. Jihad is merely the "struggle" to remove all obstacles to the spread of Islam throughout the world, so that Islam may rule and Muslims dominate. And at that point, one may add that some Muslims dream of a world-wide caliphate, and certainly those in Al-Qaeda do. However, that is not the main worry, because it seems so unlikely. What does worry, what is realistic to worry about, are the gains to be made on the path to attaining that seemngly unattainable goal. And there, what is happening in Western Europe is most disturbing, and most in need of attention.

Posted by: Hugh at June 23, 2006 8:55 PM

Let's resolve to just call them "psychopathic, theocratic c*cksuckers using the violent verses of the Koran as their murderous excuse".

Or how about "diseased homicidal heartless bastards who utilize Islam's own intolerant dogmas to terrorize humanity"?

Or, for Bush, who doesn't like polysyllabic thought:

"Islamically-fueled mass-murderers".

If you want to oppose maniacs, call them maniacs.

Don't quibble about their private lingo, let's just use our own.

English is a flexible tongue when it comes to invective.

Use it, or lose.

My preferred terminology for the jackasses of the jihad:

"Loathesome little mindless scum who slaughter, the same as their pedophile 'prophet' did, in their quest to conquer the world and turn it into a global gulag under an absolutely intolerant 'God'."

Posted by: profitsbeard at June 23, 2006 9:43 PM

If you were a military analyst in the research organization I worked for, you more than likely would get sent to NDU for specialized training sometime in the latter part of your career; some of our more brilliant analysts taught there too. From what I observed some of the analysts sent for training were brilliant, some were plodders, a few were, in my humble opinion, pretty bad. I never noticed any radical jump in their capabilities when they came back from NDU.

Posted by: GaryK at June 23, 2006 10:10 PM

The sober voice (of GaryK) offering a slice of observable reality in the posting just above is most welcome.

Posted by: Hugh at June 23, 2006 10:49 PM

Maybe they should get with those EU linquists who are coming up with PC words for "Islamic terrorists" and "jihad." I vote for rebellious child and scuffle.

Let me say this. Anyone who says Allah is the same God as Christianity and Judaism gets an F. There is no inspiration in the Quran except those of an evil murderer. Vlad the Impaler had nothing on MO. The Quran is a mess, a mess of hate.

I thought these military schools were not diseased with PC and ignorance. Wrong.

Posted by: John Sobieski at June 24, 2006 12:49 AM

Hugh-mungous thread -- like anyone actually read that!

Posted by: champ at June 24, 2006 2:00 AM

Hugh

In India, they actually have an All-India Khilafat Movement, which is their tribute to Gandhi's campaign on behalf of the Sultan Mehmet VI in 1919 after WWI. I don't know whether that's just a symbolic organization, or whether they actually hope to one day restore India to the Caliph (whover that is), which would essentially mean annexing India to dar ul Islam.

Do you know of any Islamic countries that have actual movements for the restoration of the Caliphate? Was Mullah Omar's title - Amir ul Momineen (Commander of the Faithful) - the equivalent of being the Caliph?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at June 24, 2006 3:13 AM

You can call a diamondback a daisy, but that won't keep it from biting you.

Posted by: Eisenhund at June 24, 2006 3:16 AM

Vlad Tepis made his name sending mohammedans to collect their virgins. Clone him, give him a couple of stars and a few divisions, and let him do what he did best.

Posted by: Eisenhund at June 24, 2006 3:18 AM

"Talk about the "caliphate," however, should be limited because it fails to convince. It seems so crazy, so far-fetched. And it is crazy, and it is far-fetched."

As has usually been the case with horribly tragic episodes of political pathology in history, the problem is not in the realization of a pathological & fantastic desire, but in the attempt to realize it. Hugh's point about the caliphate could easily be made about Hitler's vision of a Fourth Reich, or Napoleon's vision of a Roman Empire Redux, or Lenin's and Stalin's vision of the World Revolution that would usher in an immanentized paradise; and so forth.

All of these visions were also crazy and far-fetched; does that mean they did not inspire and galvanize people to attempt to realize them, in the process wreaking widespread havoc, misery and mass murder?

The dream of a caliphate as the proper and just expression of Islam is part of the psychology of most Muslims, and it is one factor among many inspiring their overall project that is threatening the world now. Whether that one factor, or even their overall project, is realizable or not, fanciful or not, is perfectly beside the point.

Posted by: Television at June 24, 2006 4:45 AM