Know Your Enemy II.

This is coolbert:

Without question, there are many thinkers in the Islamic world that have observed the relative weakness of the nations of the Islamic world vis-a-vis the nation of the western cultural entity.

And, as I have said in a previous blog entry, there seems to be two schools of thought in the Islamic world concerning possible solutions to this dilemma that the Islamic nations of the world face.

One school of thought says that this weakness is due to the archaic culture followed by Muslim nations. That to be rivals and equals to the western nations the nations comprising the Muslim world must become MORE like the west. To become successful, it is necessary to discard the ancient mores and adopt and emulate western forms of behavior. Persons such as Ataturk in Turkey and Nasser in Egypt would subscribe to this school of thought.

The second school of thought says that this weakness is due to the nations of the Islamic world being TOO MUCH like the west. According to proponents of this second school of thought, the nations of the Islamic world, to an extent, have adopted western forms of behavior which corrupt them and make them weak. To become great, the world of Islam must be true to itself and it's roots. The Islamic nations are weak, but can become the dominant power in the world IF they go back to the ancient ways, ways ORDAINED by GOD that will allow the Islamic world to thrive and be successful. Adherents to this second school of thought are called the "revivalists".

Click here to see an entire web site about Islamic Revivalism.

I have taken excerpts from this web site I feel highlight the general thought as expressed by a whole host of revivalists [and there are a number of them over the decades and centuries].

The current wave of jihadists, those persons espousing violence against the "west" as a jihad that will bring about, in the long term, eventual Islamic domination of the world, have been greatly influenced by the various revivalists. It is this current group of jihadists that are ascendant in the Islamic world. The thought that Islamic nations can prosper and equal or surpass the west by becoming MORE like the "west" is on the descendancy.

And some interesting observations can be made regarding the revivalists.

These are not wild-eyed frothing-at-the-mouth-fanatics [from time to time it may appear to persons in the west that this is what these persons are, but this would be an exaggeration]. These are for the most part reasoning men that have given a lot of thought to the topic of Islamic weakness and potential solutions.

There IS a continuity of thought existing among the revivalists. Among others, Al-Banna influenced Qutb, who influenced Azzam, who influenced bin Laden. This is just one instance.

Most extreme among the revivalists there is an implacable hatred of the west. A very strong hatred of all things western, even the most mundane and to the westerner innocuous behavior. There is a complete and very STRONG rejection of things western. To the revivalist, the west is not only an enemy, IT IS AN ABOMINATION!!!

My comments to the extracts are of course in bold.

* Deobandi Muslims.

"While Deoband teachings do not advocate overt militancy, they do teach students to distrust other cultures. Deoband teachings, like those of the Wahhabis, are puritanical in tone: they seek to purge Islam of Western and modernist influences and institutions and to establish the Qur'an and Hadith ("sayings" of the Prophet Muhammad) as the sole guiding lights."

These are the Muslims of India. It must be remembered that Islam ruled the Indian sub-continent for about half a millennium. These were the Mughal rulers. Ruled on many occasion in a despotic manner, severely oppressing the Hindu majority. An Islamic minority ruled with a heavy hand over a Hindu majority. We see here the distrust of foreign influence and advocacy of a puritanical way of life.

* Afghanistan's Taliban Movement.

"On April 4, 1996, Mullah Omar appeared on a rooftop in Kandahar dressed in a relic known as the "Cloak of the Prophet Muhammad." . . . Mullah Omar was declaring his claim to rule not just Afghan Muslims but all Muslims."

Omar did not see himself as merely the ruler of a small Islamic sect in a small insignificant part of the world. He DID see himself as the vanguard of a world wide movement. Maybe STILL does?

Abdullah Azzam, 1941-1988.



"Azzam was a militant jihadist who preached that the jihad in Afghanistan was an obligation on all Muslims everywhere. After Afghanistan had been made safe for Islam once more, Muslims would then be duty-bound to carry the jihad into all other lands that had once been Muslim but had fallen away, including Spain (which he referred to by its Muslim name "Andalusia"). Other areas Azzam singled out for jihad were Palestine, Bukhara, Lebanon, Chad, Eritrea, Somalia, the Philippines, Burma, South Yemen, and Tashkent."

Azzam advocates not only jihad in the lesser sense. He advocates the spread of jihad on a world-wide basis and the "recovery" of "lost" Islamic lands. Azzam had a big influence on bin Laden.

* al-Jihad.

"The group's philosophy was based on views contained in a pamphlet written by Farag entitled al-Faridah al Gha'ibah, "The Neglected Duty." The "neglected" duty was jihad, which in this context was narrowly defined as armed battle against apostates from the Islamic faith. The broader interpretation of jihad as spiritual resistance against evil was denounced as a "fabricated tradition" invented to "reduce the value of fighting with the Sword"

This refers to a repudiation of the greater jihad of the Sufi. To advocates of this "philosophy", jihad is strictly jihad. There is not lesser or greater jihad.

* Takfir wa'l-Hijra.

"In Egypt in 1977, members of the Islamist separatist group Takfir wa'l-Hijra
("Condemnation and Migration"), also known as the "Society of Muslims," attacked night clubs in Cairo."

This is reminiscent of the attack on the "western" nightclub in Bali, where over two hundred "westerners", mostly Australians, were murdered. The stimulus here is the hate of sexes mixing, dancing, consuming alcohol, having fun TOGETHER.

* Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, 1902-1989.

"Ruhollah's education reflected a strong Persian dualist outlook on the world: a
tendency to draw sharp boundaries between the worlds of light and darkness, between black and white, between haq ("truth") and batel ("falsehood"). This approach to the world, under girded by a traditional Iranian Shia conviction that the world is unsafe for Shiites, that neither the Prophet Muhammad, his family, nor any of the twelve Shia imams died a natural death ("We are either poisoned or killed."), contributed to the construction within Khomeini of the uncompromising personality of one who feels relentlessly persecuted."

Nobody ever said Ruhollah ever had a low opinion of himself. This mentality contributes to what is commonly referred to as "megalomaniacs disease". Dictators who have a very high opinion of themselves are led to all sorts of excesses, excesses sometimes very much regretted later by their followers.

* Sayyid Abu'l-A'la Mawdudi, 1903-1979.

"Mawdudi concluded that diversity was the culprit: the centuries old practice of interfaith mixing had weakened and watered down Muslim thought and practice in that region of India. The solution was to purge Islam of all alien elements . . . Islam seeks the world. It is not satisfied by a piece of land but demands the whole universe...Islamic Jihad is at the same time offensive and defensive...The Islamic party does not hesitate to utilize the means of war to implement its goal."

"Mawdudi's goal was to wage jihad until the whole natural universe has been brought under the rule of Islam. He wrote: Islam wants the whole earth and does not content itself with only a part thereof. It wants and requires the entire inhabited world."

From this we can see that the Muslim fanatic is not concerned with a piece of land for the Palestinians. Nor is the jihadi concerned with American troops "defiling" the holy places of Islam. Islam desires to bring the ENTIRE WORLD and it's populace under it's domination. To the jihadi, this MUST be so. Jihad again is the "lesser" form. Again, to the jihadi, there is NO lesser and greater form, there is merely the militant form.

* Sayyid Qutb.

"It is necessary for the new leadership to preserve and develop the material fruits of the creative genius of Europe, and also to provide mankind with such high ideals and values as have so far remained undiscovered by mankind, and which will also acquaint humanity with a way of life which is harmonious with human nature, which positive and constructive, and which is practicable. Islam is the only system which possesses these values and this way of life."

An incident from Qutb's life is evocative of how the jihadi advocate sees the west in a manner that to the westerner is ABSURD. While studying the American educational system in the late 1940's Qutb, then in his forties, observed a sock-hop, a dance for teenage boys and girls, where the couples danced together while the lights of the dance floor were turned down low. This was extremely offensive to Qutb. So much so that this incident left a marked impression upon him. Keep in mind the nightclub attacks of the jihadists in Cairo and Bali. Once again, the sexes mingling and having fun is extremely offensive to the jihadist.

* Hasan al-Banna.



"One of the ways al-Banna himself contributed to the Brothers' reputation for violence was by teaching a more activist version of jihad, giving primacy to the minor jihad (fighting) over the major jihad (the inner spiritual struggle against evil)."

Again, greater jihad is totally rejected and lesser jihad chosen as the WAY.

* Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami ("HT").

"HT has been influenced by the Wahhabis uncompromising opposition to Shiism and to Sufism. But, HT differs from the Wahhabis in that it seeks to bring about change peacefully while the Wahhabis emphasize militant jihad."

Uncompromising opposition to the Sufi. The Sufi or course are the ones who primarily originated the concept of "greater" jihad. Peaceful, not violent. These HT are peaceful now, violent tomorrow??

* Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani .

"They [the materialists, influenced by the West] are the destroyers of civilization and the corrupters of morals...they are the annihilators of peoples...Their kindness is a ruse, their truthfulness a deceit, their claim to humanity imaginary, and their call to science and knowledge a snare and a forgery."

Westerners and westernism and it's adherents propose ABOMINATION!!

* Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328.

"Many twentieth century extremist militant movements have allowed their thought and behavior to be guided by Ibn Taymiyya's classic and literal interpretation of jihad as holy war against all non-Muslim infidels. The command to participate in jihad and the mention of its merits occur innumerable times in the Koran and the Sunna."

Classical and literal interpretation. NOT the greater form. The lesser form. Of course, as I have said repeatedly, the jihadist does not even recognize the lesser and greater form, to them, there is only jihad, the militant warlike form.

* The Wahhabi Movement, Eighteenth Century Arabia.

"Wahhabis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries went on an uncompromising campaign against Sufis, Shiites, and all others deemed unfaithful to the Wahhabis' strict interpretation of the sunna ("custom") of the Prophet Muhammad. The ways of Muhammad and his community at Medina were the only acceptable models for the Wahhabis, and, all Muslims, in their view, should be compelled to follow them."

This is the form of Islam being exported thanks to petro-dollars to all parts of the world for decades now from Saudi Arabia. A militant form advocating violent jihad and not even recognizing the greater form of the Sufi.

The entire world now finds itself at peril from jihad. Jihad that seeks to combine modern weapons of mass destruction with a motivation of the true believer. Very dangerous!!

coolbert.