CounterPunch is a gang of hard-Left fantasists, but since their ideological kin run the world today, it’s worthwhile to look in on their fever dreams from time to time.
The article below, which is a book review of a book that is clearly missable, contends that “modern jihad is exactly that—modern. It is not a revival of an ancient instruction from the Koran, nor is it even what the author of the Koran or its classical interpreters had in mind.” This confident and wholly unsupported statement is followed by the claim that “Instead, modern jihad as practiced by self-proclaimed Islamic organizations like Al-Queda [sic] and the Islamic State(ISIS) is a manifestation of this age of neoliberal capitalism.” This is apparently because “no longer is jihad carried out with an army of the Caliphate or even a state, but by a private group of individuals acting perhaps in concert, but just as likely as disconnected individuals angry at their lives and the society they exist in.”
It is true that in classic Sunni theology and law, only the caliph is authorized to declare offensive jihad. However, the article ignores the distinction between offensive and defensive jihad. Only the caliph can declare offensive jihad, and that jihad is an obligation on the community as a whole (fard kifaya); an individual is released from it if others are taking it up. But all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that when a non-Muslim force enters a Muslim land, defensive jihad becomes the individual obligation of every Muslim (fard ‘ayn) rather than a collective obligation of the entire umma, and need not be declared by anyone. Bulghah al-Salik li-Aqrab al-Masalik fi madhhab al-Imam Malik (“The Sufficiency of the Traveller on the Best Path in the School of Imam Malik,”) says this: “Jihad in the Path of Allah, to raise the word of Allah, is fard kifayah [obligatory on the community] once a year, so that if some perform it, the obligation falls from the rest. It becomes fard `ayn [obligatory on every Muslim individually], like salah and fasting, if the legitimate Muslim Imam declares it so, or if there is an attack by the enemy on an area of people.” The Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi’i schools of Sunni jurisprudence further declare that jihad, once it is fard ‘ayn, is no different from prayer and fasting — in other words, to engage in warfare with non-Muslims in that case is a religious devotion that cannot lawfully be evaded. Hashiyah Ibn Abidin, an authoritative text of the Hanafi school, says that jihad is “fard ‘ayn if the enemy has attacked part of the Islamic homeland. It thus becomes an obligation like salah [prayer] and fasting which cannot be abandoned.”
Today, in the absence of a caliph, jihadis cast all their jihads as defensive, and retail lists of grievances to justify them and bring them into accord with Islamic law, which only allows for defensive jihad without a caliph. Thus the terrorists, as long as they cast their jihads as defensive, need not have a declaration of war from any leader. Thus the jihads of al-Qaeda and ISIS and the rest are, unfortunately, perfectly justifiable within the strictures of traditional Islamic theology and law. Their advent has nothing to do with “neoliberal capitalism.”
The author of this nonsense is a certain Ron Jacobs, whose “latest offering is a pamphlet titled Capitalism: Is the Problem.” Of course it is. “He lives in Vermont.” Of course he does.
“The Privatization of ‘Jihad,'” by Ron Jacobs, CounterPunch, October 8, 2021:
Modern jihad is exactly that—modern. It is not a revival of an ancient instruction from the Koran, nor is it even what the author of the Koran or its classical interpreters had in mind. Instead, modern jihad as practiced by self-proclaimed Islamic organizations like Al-Queda and the Islamic State(ISIS) is a manifestation of this age of neoliberal capitalism. No longer is jihad carried out with an army of the Caliphate or even a state, but by a private group of individuals acting perhaps in concert, but just as likely as disconnected individuals angry at their lives and the society they exist in. Like those who shoot up high schools and those who murder dozens from hotel windows in Las Vegas or nightclubs in Orlando, the protagonist of this so-called jihad are symptoms of the economics and politics of their time and the atomized society of today.
This atomization is the result, if not the intention, of capitalism’s latest phase—neoliberalism. As the reader most likely knows, the main features of neoliberalism involve the destruction of the social element of human civilization. Services provided by the state are either privatized or just terminated. The process begins with services provided to the poor. From there, other services follow. Universities once generously subsidized by the state find their budgets reduced, causing them to raise tuition, hire part-time instructors, and farm out their research resources to the very industries benefiting from the end of state-funded education. Roads and other infrastructure are left to disintegrate while private developments and their financiers build private roads while state governments push through more and more tolls on existing and new construction. The wealthiest few pay little or no taxes to the state, which now serves them to a degree never before seen in recorded history. Indeed, the system for which Wall Street is a synonym is now the state in the USA, if not the world. Traditional forms of resistance seem increasingly futile; antiwar movements mutate into support for one of the war parties while social democrats and democratic socialists in power lead the rush to transform the government into another set of privatized entities funneling the public money to the bank accounts of that wealthy few….
mortimer says
Robert Spencer is correct: the CounterPunch writers are a gang of fantasists.
Jihad is the most tradition and central part of Islam. Mohammed called it ‘the hump of the camel’ … meaning jihad is the highest deed of Isalm.
Furthermore, Mohammed said that jihad was the ‘original religion’ of Islam
“Narrated Abdullah ibn Umar:
I heard the Apostle of Allah say: When you enter into the inah transaction (become businessmen), hold the tails of oxen (become cattlemen), are pleased with agriculture (become farmers), and give up conducting jihad, Allah will make disgrace prevail over you, and will not withdraw it until you return to your original religion.” – Sunan Abu Dawud Book 23, Number 3455
Moreover, the Koran has 164 jihad verses and the oldest Islamic texts are filled with exhortations to conduct jihad.
Fr. Henri Boulad (a lifelong student of Islam) commented: “The radical Islamism that has been loosed in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) is not a deviation or a perversion of an allegedly ‘true Islam’, whose orientation is purely spiritual and religious. In fact, it is the most traditional form of Islam.” (Fr. Henri Boulad SJ.)
The fantasists of CounterPunch are unconvincingly making up their own facts about Islam.
All the Islamic primary source texts unmistakingly endorse jihad, so does Sharia law and so do the most authentic Islamic scholars endorse jihad.
Jihadism is the ideology that teaches that jihad is the most valuable work for Muslims and the greatest in heavenly rewards.
The writers of CounterPunch are seen intentionally to be lying about jihad.
mortimer says
Ron Jacobs incorrectly argues that ‘private jihad’ is not Islamic, since a jihadists needs an Islamic state to give the order. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.
Islamic scholars say that private jihad was endorsed by Mohammed, so it has the endorsement of Islam’s foremost scholars and Al Azhar University.
Leading medieval Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya approved of vigilante jihadism in ‘The Sword Of Ikhlaas’ – (i.e. Muslims are permitted to kill without permission of an Islamic state. His conclusion: vigilante jihads are justified by Allah and Mohammed):
“Some deviants say we cannot apply the Hukm of killing unless we have an Islamic State (Khilafah). How ignorant is the one that talks like this. Umayr ibnu Adi (ra) (who was a blind man) said he heard that Asma the daughter of Marwan insulted Muhammad (saw) in the battle of Badr. He said, ‘Oh Allah. I have a vow on my neck: if I return I will go to Medina to kill her. He went to Medina without the permission of Muhammad (saw) and killed her whilst she was suckling her child. He came back and told Muhammad (saw). Muhammad (saw) said to his companions IF YOU WISH TO SEE SOMEONE WHO SUPPORTS ALLAH AND THE MESSENGERS BY THE GHAIB (WITHOUT INFORMING OR ASKING OR TELLING ANYONE) LOOK AT UMAYR IBN ADI. [Ibn Hishaam and Ibn Saads Kitaab Al-Tabaqaat Al-Kabeer]. In other words, you (only) need Allah’s (swt) permission, which has already been established and that is all you need.” – From ‘The Sword Of Ikhlaas” by Ibn Taymiyya
Ron Jacobs’s writing is inaccurate and unresearched.
gravenimage says
He has said that the fear in New York on 9/11 was not the act of Islamic terrorism that killed almost 3000 people, but a fear that “the powers in Washington, on Wall Street and in the Pentagon were going to kill some people somewhere”.
This fool has also claimed that what is going on in Karachi in Pakistan is “dystopian modernity”, and has nothing to do with Islam.
Another one of his articles is “Capitalism, Borders and the Damage They Do”. He also hates Israel. Nasty stuff.
mortimer says
Ron Jacobs makes up Marxist memes and then shovels this farm-fresh pile as Marxist propaganda against the nasty, old Capitalists.
Jacobs sees no evil in Islam … even when jihadism and the hatred against the Kafir are on virtually ever page of the Koran.
The main message of the Koran is that Allah hates the ‘wrong worship’ of the Kafirs and he commissions Muslims to subjugate and enslave the Kafirs.
mortimer says
Stalin’s Soviet historians analyzed Islam and referred to it as “TRADE CAPITALISM” … in other words, real communists saw Islam as a form of capitalism opposed to communism.
Ron Jacobs probably is uninformed about that as well.
Mike says
anything that will point to someone else. Modern life and evaluation of man and life’s modern wonders. Because they still think in the 7th century as the world has evolved Islam has not. Islam only embraces items that will help them conquer the world. If they ever get enough power the world and knowledge will come to a screaming halt
gravenimage says
CounterPunch: ‘Modern jihad’ of al-Qaeda and ISIS not in Qur’an, is ‘manifestation of age of neoliberal capitalism’
…………….
Just absurd–when have the Taliban or Boko Haram or Al Qaeda said that they are acting in the name of neoliberal capitalism? And if this is the case, why are Infidels in the west not waging violent Jihad themselves?
The idea that this must have nothing to do with Islam because there are many Jihad terror groups is absurd–this has happened many times in Islamic history–the claim that that there has always been a central Caliphate and that all Jihad terror has issued from that Caliphate is ahistoric claptrap..
Then, the claim that “the main features of neoliberalism involve the destruction of the social element of human civilization” is grotesque calumny. But what else would one expect from these hard-leftist thugs?
mortimer says
Islam has its own form of capitalism … it is slave-based and tribal capitalism. Whatever is good for the Ummah is considered ‘halal’ (permitted), no matter how illiberal.
Islam is entirely opposed to universal liberalism and Universal Golden Rule. Only Muslims (and male Muslims particularly) have actual ‘rights’ under Islam. The ‘others’ have ‘privileges’ which are temporary and subject to the whims of the Muslim ruling class.
Ron Jacobs has obviously not read Sharia law manuals, and yet, preposterously, he presents himself as an INSTANT, SPONTANEOUS EXPERT on Islam without a thorough study of Islam’s political teachings and political history. Another absurd, presumptuous, unstudied neo-Marxist.
mortimer says
Ron Jacobs seems to be the sort of Trotskyist who shows up at all the monthly rallies.
Dhimmi says
Modern jihad is indeed a consequence of the weakness of the so called neo liberalism
Dhimmi says
Mahomed carried jihad not as a state, but as a gang of dozens initially, these self declared neoliberal people know very little