Fault Lines in Global Jihad

Organizational, Strategic, and Ideological Fissures

Assaf Moghadam, Brian Fishman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136710575
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book deals with the causes, nature, and impact of the divisions within the jihadi movement, and the splits between jihadis and other Islamic groups.

Fault Lines in Global Jihad offers a systematic and comprehensive examination of the broad range of divisions that contribute to the weakening of the jihadi movement. It separates these divisions into two broad categories, namely fissures dividing jihadis themselves, and divisions separating jihadis from other Muslim and Islamist groups. The first part of the book covers intra-jihadi divisions, highlighting tensions and divisions over strategic, tactical, and organizational issues. The second part of the book addresses several important case studies of jihadi altercations with other Muslim and Islamist groups of non-jihadi persuasion, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Shii community. More than simply an enumeration of problems and cracks within al-Qa'ida and its cohorts, this book addresses critical policy issues of relevance to the broader struggle against the global jihadi movement. The editors conclude that these divisions have and continue to weaken al-Qa'ida, but neither in an automatic nor in an exclusive fashion—for these divisions render the global jihadi movement simultaneously vulnerable and more resilient.

This book will be of much interest to students of jihadism, terrorism and political violence, Islamism, security studies and IR in general.

Part I

Intra-jihadi fault lines

1 Takfir and violence against Muslims

Mohammed M. Hafez

My brother Usama, who is responsible for activating many of the concepts of takfir, and the explosions and killing that have spread within the one [Muslim] family, and according to which the son sometimes judges his father to be an unbeliever, judges his brother to be an infidel, kills his relatives in cold blood, and thinks that he is closer to God through such deeds?

Shaykh Salman al-‘Awda¹

Introduction

Since the ascendance of radical Islamism in the 1970s, the violence of its adherents has become progressively cruel and indiscriminate, especially toward their coreligionists. Consequently, advocates of jihadism have had to defend themselves against charges of extremism, terrorism, and internecine bloodletting.² Two ideological predispositions in particular, reflected in Sheikh Salman al-‘Awda’s rhetorical question to Usama bin Ladin, have put extremists on the defensive. The first of these is takfir (the act of Muslims declaring other Muslims to be infidels, which is analogous to excommunication in Catholicism). Takfir is an important stepping stone to engaging in violence against secular Muslim rulers and others who are perceived to be supportive of those rulers. The second is the use of mass-destruction tactics that result in the killing of innocent Muslims.

These two issues have generated intense debates among radical Islamists, as well as between jihadists and mainstream Islamic scholars. Historically, these debates have taken place inside prisons and in the confines of a radical milieu.³ In recent years, however, disagreements have been airing publicly in online publications, Internet forums and on satellite television. Jihadists’ use of new media technologies to proselytize supporters, foster linkages between radicals and their potential recruits and publicize their so-called victories against the West has, ironically, exposed profound internal divides within their ranks. We are beginning to know more about these debates and the events that trigger them, but their impact on the unity and cohesion of radical Islamists is not yet understood, much less measured.

At the heart of these debates is a central paradox. On the one hand, radical Islamists must anchor their violence in classical Islamic texts and traditions in order to uphold their image as bearers of authentic Islam and as followers of divine commandments. On the other hand, the classical Islamic tradition imposes constraints on many aspects of these same radical Islamists’ violent activism. One such constraint is that Muslims should not kill themselves intentionally (suicide).⁴ Another is that Muslims should not kill their fellow Muslims.⁵ Yet another is that Muslims should not intentionally harm non-combatants (civilians).⁶

These clear prohibitions have not prevented radical Islamists from killing themselves through suicide attacks in which most of their victims are either fellow Muslims or non-Muslim civilians.⁷ From Morocco to Indonesia, extremists have conducted mass-destruction “martyrdom operations” in which ordinary Muslims are the primary targets. However, to engage in this type of violence, the extremists have had to interpret away the prohibitions in the inherited tradition by unearthing exceptions to general rules and elevating some classical rulings and opinions over others. Thus, it is no surprise that their operations and the justifications that accompany them have unleashed intense criticisms by Muslim scholars, as well as by Islamists that sympathize with the jihadists.

The revulsion toward Islamists killing their coreligionists became evident in December 2007, when Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qa’ida’s deputy commander, issued an open invitation to answer questions posed to him through online forums. In that year, bloodshed in Iraq, Algeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan – mainly targeting Muslims – reached new heights. Al-Qa’ida and its affiliates came under intense criticism by friends and foes alike for shedding the blood of believers. More disconcerting for Zawahiri is the ideological retreat of his former Egyptian colleague and jihadist ideologue Sayyid Imam al-Sharif.⁸ In response to these developments, the Sahab media outlet, in coordination with the Fajr media center, announced Zawahiri’s invitation on December 16. The questions, and Zawahiri’s reply to them, appeared in two installments on April 2 and April 22, 2008.

The first three questions presented by participants reflected their rage at the criminal negligence with which radical Islamists target their own people. A person with a forum name of “Geography Teacher” asks: “Excuse me, Mr. Zawahiri, but who is killing the innocent in Baghdad, Morocco and Algeria with Your Excellency’s blessing? Do you consider the killing of women and children jihad?” Another participant with a forum name of “University Student, Medicine, Algeria” asks: “I want al-Zawahiri to answer me about those who kill the people in Algeria. What is the legal evidence for killing the innocent?” Another with the online name of “For Public Information” asks: “Does the doctor have assurances that those who were killed in the Algerian operations were unbelievers? And what is it that makes legitimate the spilling of the blood of even one Muslim?”⁹

These are tough questions, indeed. They are at the heart of the ideological conflict within the radical Islamist movement. This chapter will not explore the historical antecedents of the intra-radical debates over takfir and the killing of Muslims, which are beyond the scope of this chapter.¹⁰ Instead, the focus will be on the re-emergence of these disputes in recent years due to the internecine nature of the Iraqi insurgency that began in 2003 and the wave of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of Muslims in places like Afghanistan, Algeria and Pakistan in the last few years.

The debates over the intentional and accidental killing of Muslims by radical Islamists revolve around three issues:

1. The meaning of piety and apostasy in Islam, and the permissibility of intentionally killing those who are deemed apostates and heretics by Islamists.

2. The permissibility of unintentionally killing innocent Muslims in warfare.

3. The advisability, from a public relations perspective, of engaging in operations that harm Muslims.

Takfir and the debates over killing “apostates”

The principle ideological mechanism that enables extremists to justify killing their coreligionists is takfir – the act of Muslims declaring other Muslims to be infidels. Central to takfir is the distinction between genuine and nominal Muslims. To outside observers, radical Islamists appear to be killing their fellow Muslims. To the extremists, however, their violence is not against coreligionists but people who have betrayed their creed and, therefore, should no longer be considered Muslims. Specifically, radical Islamists divide their coreligionists into at least four categories:

1. Tyrants (tawaghit, singular taghout) – Muslim regimes that do not rule in accordance with Islamic law (sharia) and are obstinate in their refusal to heed calls to return to Islam. They cease to be members in the community of the faithful. Their crime is compounded by the fact that they repress the true believers that work toward establishing Islamic states.

2. Apostates (murtadin, singular murtad) – Muslims who have violated the principle of Al Wala’ Wal Bara’, loyalty to Muslims and disassociation from unbelievers, by working for the tyrants and other infidels such as foreign powers. These include members of the military and security services, government employees, local police and anyone who sustains the ruling regime directly and even indirectly.

3. Heretics and polytheists (mubdi‘een and mushrikeen) – Muslims who violate the principles of monotheism (tawhid) upheld by orthodox Sunnis (such orthodoxy is usually claimed by Salafists and Wahhabists). This label mainly applies to Shi’a, but it also encompasses Baha’is in Iran, Ahmadis in Pakistan and Sufis in many countries.

4. True believers – Muslims who support the Islamist project or at least abstain from supporting tyrants and engaging in heresies. This usually applies to Sunni masses in the Muslim world.¹¹

It is fair to say that radical Islamists agree on what is the proper conduct toward the first category – tyrants. Extremists cite the Qur’anic verse 5:44 as proof that secular rulers are infidels indeed: “and whoever did not judge by what Allah revealed, those are they that are the unbelievers.” Their impiety is clear to all and they have been told over and over to repent or abandon their thrones, yet they refuse to do so and, instead, repress true believers. Their punishment is death and they could be targeted directly without moral compunction. This, of course, does not mean that it is advisable to attack such rulers anywhere and anytime without regard to capabilities and circumstances, but at a minimum, there is ideological agreement that such individuals are outside of the Islamic creed and killing them does not entail violations of Islamic law. On the contrary, it is a religious obligation to pronounce their infidelity and remove them from power. Failure to denote them as infidels is itself a cardinal sin.¹²

The second and third categories – apostates and heretics – are more problematic for radical Islamists. The debate revolves around who could be deemed an apostate and how to proceed to deal with his or her apostasy. Here we have at least three views among radicals. The first maintains that Islamists should avoid collective takfir and, hence, it is impermissible to indiscriminately target nominal Muslims, even if they are suspected of apostasy and heresy. Individual takfir is permissible, but it involves a rigorous process of verification and adjudication before punishment is meted out. The second holds that it is permissible to engage in the collective takfir of those who directly support secular regimes or foreign forces because their actions make them unbelievers, no different than the tyrants and infidels they support. According to this view, the prohibition against collective takfir applies when Muslims are in a position to adjudicate degrees of culpability, but not in the context of a defensive jihad when Muslims are besieged by external and internal enemies. The third view argues that whoever supports secular regimes and foreign forces, directly or indirectly, ceases to be a Muslim and thus it is permissible to shed his or her blood. Adjudicating degrees of culpability or the circumstances that brought about one’s behavior is not necessary in a defensive jihad. In this view, the blood of heretical Shi’a does not deserve the same Islamic protection as that of Sunnis.

Interestingly, each of these positions is defended by reference to classical textual sources and traditions associated with the pious ancestors (al-Salaf al-Salih). It is worth exploring each argument in detail.

Arguments against the collective killing of apostates

Those who promote the first view – avoid killing nominal Muslims even if they appear to be apostates – make a distinction between general infidelity (kufr al-‘aam) and individual impiety (kufr al-mu‘ayen). The most comprehensive work on this issue comes from Abu Basir al-Tartusi in his 1994 treatise Foundations of Takfir.¹³ Al-Tartusi argues that Muslims have an obligation to point out that certain categories of beliefs and behaviors constitute cardinal sins (kufr ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Political Violence
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction Jihadi “endogenous” problems
• Part I Intra-jihadi fault lines
• 1 Takfir and violence against Muslims
• 2 The near and far enemy debate
• 3 Jihadis divided between strategists and doctrinarians
• 4 Classical and global jihad Al-Qa'ida's franchising frustrations
• 5 Arab and non-Arab jihadis
• 6 Jihadi recantations and their significance The case of Dr Fadl
• Part II Fault lines dividing jihadis and other Muslims
• 7 Islam divided between jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood
• 8 Al-Qa'ida and Shiism
• 9 Jihadists and nationalist Islamists Al-Qa'ida and Hamas
• 10 Fault lines in cyberspace
• Conclusion Jihadi fault lines and counterterrorism policy
• Selected bibliography
• Index