According to a new West Point study, Al Qaeda has killed eight times as many Muslims as it has killed non-Muslims. (hat-tip, Erudito).
Lots to think about here, but two points come to mind straight away:
1. For all its innovations and agility, AQ is ultimately self-defeating. Its hard to pose as the knight of Islam if you cannot stop your movement continually slaughtering Muslims. Just ask Ayman Al- Zawahiri. He unsuccessfully implored Zarqawi, Al Qaeda’s prince in Mesopotamia, to stop his indiscriminate predations in Iraq. And he had to face angry questions from Algerian Muslims, angry that Bin Ladenists were attacking them.
2. Al Qaeda in practice is not solely an anti-American movement, and it is not exclusively driven by anger against American power. One reason why it is struggling, and hated, is that it has failed to confine and limit its war, and therefore failed to inspire and unite the Muslim masses against the great Satan. Its struggle, it seems, is deeper and more existential, a battle against what it sees as heresy, apostasy and impurity, a civil war within Islam as well as a struggle against infidel adversaries. History has a pretty harsh way of dealing with folk who try to fight everybody.
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On Point 1, it doesn’t appear to be a problem for AQ’s followers that it kills Muslims in vast numbers, whether they are secularists, or pious Sunnis, Shia or Sufis/Barelvis. Indeed, i’d say its often regarded as a more important fight than that against the West, particularly for the Takfiris.
AQ’s ideological ‘thinking’ and that of its affiliates is riven with contradictions, with constant refinement of internal debate to further justify the slaughter and reign in those such as Zarqawi who are attracting too much media attention (and in danger of usurping AQ’s isolated senior leadership).
In many ways this phenomenon (the killing of Muslims) is a weakness and a strength for AQ; on the one hand isolating AQ’s franchises from local communities (-ve for AQ, +ve for the West) while on the other deepening the cycle of violence (+ve for AQ, -ve for the West).
The big question i’m interested in is how one can best leverage those religious/tribal/community elements that abhor the killing of fellow Muslims by AQ and its affiliates? What examples, beyond Iraq, do we have for this?
Interesting as usual CT. As I mull this a bit more I would observe and add to the mix in terms of your final paragraph that such leveraging may be a long time in coming. What we have seen from the more out-spoken Muslim groups (CAIR and AAI in the US for example) is much equivocation if you look at all their pronouncements rather than the occasional rejection of the actions of some specific killer etc. when the jihadist motivation of the act cannot be denied or obfuscated (as with our recent US Army major).
Too often, these Muslim “leaders” give and take in the same sentence in that when they do have the temerity to speak out against islamic terror, there is almost always a following “but” that prefaces an often much lengthier and passionate indictment of the “west” (the US, its allies, the evil zionists etc.) in a context that either says outright or implies that the latter is the cause of the former.
On point 1, I’m not altogether sure that AQ is self-defeating if it continually slaughters Muslims. It’s more to do with how that that killing is presented, or indeed not presented. PR. And so long as the ultimate cause can be presented as tracing back to Western aggression, Western provocation, then Muslims dying at the hands of the knight of Islam is more blood on Western hands.
On point 2, it’s arguable that by not confining their enemy or the limit of their war to American power, AQ have made themselves attractive to a broader audience, and more sustainable in the face of a possible future weakening of anti-US sentiment. They don’t have to fight everybody, but rhetorically cover as many bases as they can, so to speak, when it comes to rallying support.
You said:
“It’s more to do with how that that killing is presented, or indeed not presented. PR. And so long as the ultimate cause can be presented as tracing back to Western aggression, Western provocation, then Muslims dying at the hands of the knight of Islam is more blood on Western hands.”
This is so true and another reason why the “information war” is so important but regrettably IMHO is another of those aspects of asymmetry that works in favor of the insurgent/terrorist. The “west” does not have a very good success record at countering the views of the Muslim street that are shaped by the carefully crafted information (some would say propaganda) that is fed to the masses and used to such good effect by the imams and others.
Indeed, IMHO when our fourth estate actually tries to act like journalists instead of their too-frequent current fawning at almost every government initiative it is often at cross purposes with the COIN strategy and any attempt (real or imagined) by the evil “west” (and especially the military in particular-recall the manufactured brouhaha several years ago when the ever-vigilant media castigated the US for “propagandizing” when military public affairs officers reminded the troops at a “town hall” about decorum etc.) to “manage” information that is positive is met with accusations of propaganda.
Terrorists generally kill at least a significant proportion, if not more than the opposing government, of the people they claim to represent. Whether or not this backfires depends of politics of the time. In Al Quaeda’s case the period of 2005-2008 in Iraq appears to have been a time of strategic blunders, whereas the same violence in Yemen might not be so mistaken. If I had to say something to differentiate myself from the other commentators, it’s that we shouldn’t be too hopeful in the short term.
thanks all, but just quickly for the skeptics:
how is AQ’s campaign to overthrow the apostate regimes in the Middle East going, since 2001? answer: not ONE overthrown. in almost a decade.
how welcome are they in the neighbourhoods of Anbar, Gaza or Algiers?
as Zawahiri warned, unless they can translate their violence into concrete political outcomes, it will be just violence that can be borne by their enemies. they are no closer to what he called the ‘Muslim nation’, ie. the Caliphate, nor to the intermediate steps that will lead to it (America’s withdrawal from the Middle East, a chain of Islamist revolutions, etc).
so for all the subtlety of your analyses, there seems to be a real problem at the core of their activities. granted, they have drawn the US into a crisis, but only at the expense of drawing themselves into a worse one.
Or as one CIA veteran recently described the state of AQ: “We must see jihadists for the small, lethal, disjointed and miserable opponents that they are.” if you were doing a strategic review as one of the AQ core, you wouldn’t be thrilled with these developments.
to KM: that’s an interesting point, but so far, Muslims around the world tend to be primarily blaming AQ, the actual killers, as a glance at the Pew opinion polls shows.
PP:
Just to be clear I am not at all disagreeing with your main point(s). That being said, as polling in the area also shows, the average Afghan or Iraqi wants security (in terms of being able to live their lives without having his or her door kicked in in the middle of the night by anyone (whether AQ, Taliban, US/UK forces or the national police for that matter).
As in many other insurgencies or terror campaigns, unless and until the people can feel secure in their homes when the security forces are not there–and in this context specifically from violence by insurgents or terrorists–whether the people “like” these violent killers continues to largely be a moot point.
Hey Cincin,
its not just that they don’t ‘like’ them – they believe they are threatened by AQ and its indiscriminate slaughters, and abhor their methods. (Plus the fact that unlike Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and others, they have no viable political vision or credible ‘counterstate’ to offer). AQ has emerged as a predator, and almost never as a provider. Its even got to the point where former ‘insiders’ have now renounced AQ theologically, as the work of Peter Bergen and Lawrence Wright shows.
I apologize for not being more clear–by “like” I meant in the broadest sense to include stronger emotions/perspectives to encompass your point. My point (that I managed to obscure badly it seems) is that if “average” Afghans or Iraqis are insecure (again in the broad sense), their resentment, disapproval etc. about AQ’s penchant for blood-infidel or otherwise may be suppressed and thus not especially effective in isolating and marginalizing the bad guys. I suppose such approbation could come from Muslims who are in more secure surroundings around the world but the real “value” is in such rejection coming from the people whose “hearts and minds” (the collective) we are trying to win.
Patrick,
Indiscriminate killing of the innocent and blaming the west is quite the common practice, especially after an intense battle or an airstrike. As long as there is a compliant media to uncritically report essentially all civilian deaths as the result evil western troops running amok, don’t you think the self-defeating premise of Point I might be delayed, if not indefinitely postponed? What I mean is, as the west continually plays defense by trying to appease an ignorant (if not hostile) press, doesn’t this gives the appearance of western guilt and draw attention away from the true murderers?
hey GR,
you’re right, that does work to a point, and there is an issue with media credulity.
but the reality that AQ repeatedly and indiscriminately kills Muslims still seems to have gotten through, and not just in Iraq:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-libya-fighters15-2009dec15,0,3852951.story
the main difference, it seems, between my post and the many folk here who disagree, is that I don’t see ‘narrative’ and ‘spin’ as all-powerful or as decisive as the rest of you think. Not everything is a text and repeated patterns of behaviour become known.
PP:
I would be interested in your assessment of the issue about the effect of a real or perceived lack of security among those Muslims who see AQ for what it is but are intimidated into silence at best and cooperation at worst.
AQ’s treatment of the ‘takfiri’ has, in my mind, always served to limit its appeal. But more broadly, I’d propose a general principle: insurgent groups that devote a significant share of their resources to attacking members of the group from which the insurgents attempt to draw support. In particular I am thinking about the MCP in Malaya, as well as the PKK in Turkey.
JR-I am intrigued but it appears the “punch line” of the principle you were stating was lost in the the ether. ;-)
Cincin,
good question: that is certainly one possibility. I suspect one difficulty for AQ (unlike more localised and permanent forces, such as the Taliban), is that they are more often perceived as the ‘outsiders’ or ‘interlopers’, or alien to indigenous society. It seems that locals more often think they can drive them out (Anbar as the most obvious case, but also the backlash in Saudi Arabia). the ‘turn’ away from AQ, whether it is bottom-up in some cases or more top-down in others (eg Libya), seems to happen more forcefully.
Indeed. It also is key (as in Anbar) for there to be a credible (in the sense of capability as well as “trustworthiness”) security presence to encourage the indigenous people to provide the intelligence, local security and other cooperation needed to effectively “drain the swamp” in which the AQ hide and operate.
I don’t know.
Without arguing that al Qaeda (brandname, not necessarily the bureaucratic, far-enemy fixated terror syndicate) will take over the lands of Islam, one might suggest that it can survive for quite awhile, based on if nothing else a steady supply of what it needs to subsist from endogenous and exogenous sources.
As the ME and related regions become more intertwined electronically, I’m also not so sure that AQ will be seen “interlopers” so much as branded internet djinns of some lethal distinction.
I also wouldn’t compare the various franchises to the NW Pakistan version because the causative forces that create their unique rebellions often are different from what animates OBL’s organization and their enemies, consequently, are different.
AQIM likely isn’t all that interested in bombing London, nor would the network necessarily be capable of doing so. AQAP on the other hand…
The other point I would make is that there are cultural and theological and historial (yada yada yada) barriers to al Qaeda unleashing total war on the globe beyond the pragmatic inability to do so. This includes the slaying of fellow Muslims. Volumes could be filled about the scriptural deciphering Salafi scholars have undergone since 9/11 to explain this.
To make it understandable to Kings of War, much of it depends on whether the war is “defensive” in nature or “offensive.” To paraphrase Clausewitz, al Qaeda’s operatives and theological enablers (and many of their supporters) see these terror acts as “a shield made up of well-directed blows,” keeping the apostates and their illegitimate puppet governments off balance on behalf of the believers.
So long as they might sell that IO, they have a shot. It plays well amongst the younger crowd.
Does that really surprise anyone ?
If you bomb indisriminately it’s an obvious result.
SNLII
AQ’s objective is not just to survive. It is to achieve specific political outcomes.
Freddie, I would have thought so, but there’s quite a bit of resistance to the idea, it would seem.
The first goal, of which, is to survive. Its very survival is what helps achieve those specific political outcomes, the chief one of which is removing US and allied support for the dynastic or secular despots of the ME, North Africa and South Asia.
If, as Thomas Rid suggests, al Qaeda is becoming more of an “idea” than a tangible military force or even a Salafi terrorist central command, then survival not only is paramount but the end in itself because the inability to kill it off both reflects the popularity of the brand and its danger.
You posit that the achievement of “specific political outcomes” is impossible because the human carnage accompanying al Qaeda-branded terror remains unacceptably high to the target populations. This might be so, but it depends on the population.
If the population is in, say, Spain, then a rail bomb that slays a great many people, including some Muslims, appears to work.
If the population is Jordan and the branded affiliate, AQIZ, stupidly kills a great many Muslims in Amman through spectacular acts of terror meant to bring down the Hashemite regency, then perhaps AQIZ didn’t measure up (although it’s also safe to say that for awhile it was poised to eclipse NW Pakistan’s AQ because it was the only game in a shot-up town).
If we consider that perhaps al Qaeda and the related franchises have a longterm strategy of many decades in length, then perhaps they’re learning from their past mistakes and using Salafi scholarship to either mitigate their idiocy or guide future operations (or both, which is what I think).
But it depends on the franchise and who is being slaughtered at which time, right? Part of our problem is that while it’s easy to name and measure bodies it’s quite hard to measure minds. Bernard Finel puts out an annual “Are we winning” report in DC and our regional commands do all sorts of internal polling and IO outreach, but we don’t often have good metrics on whether it matters whether AQ-branded proxies kill a slew of people or not.
AQIM certainly hasn’t been affected, apparently, because they’re gaining recruits, including those veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan returning to North Africa, and are proving quite adept at kidnapping, extortion, contraband trafficking and whatnot along to the way.
Al Shabab, which has been dancing with al Qaeda but hasn’t wed, doesn’t seem to be ruffled by some of its more indiscriminate murder.
AQAP, ibid. It’s actually a growing enterprise in Yemen.
almost a decade after 9/11, the Caliphate looks just as distant, the masses have not been inspired to overthrow the apostate regimes, and the core of AQ spend most of their time trying full time to stay alive, hoping just to make it through to the next day in one piece.
they have failed to inflict any complex mass casualty attacks on the West in very long time. they have been hounded out of town in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, two places at the centre of their cosmos. and the idea is increasingly unpopular in the Islamic world, at least according to just about every opinion poll and captured ‘insider’ material.
they have, in fact, degenerated into a nuisance. their latest deadly assault consisted of a young man setting his underpants on fire. not exactly the blow that shook the world.
if this isn’t profound failure, what is?
what’s clear from this discussion, though, is that for some reason, many observers will not be persuaded, and continue to adjust the criteria to persuade themselves that AQ can’t fail in a meaningful sense. I don’t know why. But over and out from me.
Perhaps because we realize that it doesn’t take much to succeed. We undertand that the endogenous and exogenous inputs necessary to feed the machine of terror are spare.
As I first mentioned, I don’t wish to get into the question of whether al Qaeda would ever succeed at erecting the Caliphate. To me, this is a dead end.
Rather, the question should be what yardsticks we use to suggest that we’re winning or losing the larger battle against the brandname “al Qaeda” wherever it surfaces or is, as bureaucrats put it, “operationalized” by agents or proxies.
It’s not a simple question to answer. I spent the better part of my morning talking metrics with AFRICOM on AQIM. There’s much that we simply don’t know. Is it gaining recruits or losing them? Are they spreading more propaganda to the nomads and sparsely settled (and ungoverned) tracts of desert or less? How much traction do these ideas have? Is our polling data reflecting these questions, or not? If not, why not?
How about the dispersion of former AQIZ volunteers to Yemen and North Africa? How many are coming? What are they doing when they get home? What tactical innovations are they spreading? How much are they communicating with other suitors such as AQAP or al Shabab?
So much we just don’t know, appears contradictory or otherwise might reflect bad ways of measuring influence, capabilities or direction.
But then this gets to the heart of the hearts & minds problem. What if our underlying theory about hearts & minds is wrong? What if we instead looked at the problem of CT or COIN in terms of economics? If our goal is to look to the causative forces of pro-AQ behavior by the various consumers of their ideology, I guess we could make an argument that demand remains relatively high.
If we’re having problems solving the demand problem, then what can we do about al Qaeda’s ability to supply it? How can we raise the costs of becoming a terrorist? How might we make it more expensive for them to gain the inputs (exogenous or endogenous) necessary to create the terror?
You assume that mass casualty events played out over different nations over a relatively long span of time that kill many Muslims hurt the brandname. I suggest that the better answer it “sometimes, yes; sometimes, no.” It depends on the audience, the tactics employed, the intended target, the mitigating explations or the post-carnage IO employed by the terrorist group to placate the potential or existing consumers of their ideology.
Before I make an apriori assumption, I want to see cold, hard facts, typically expressed in terms of measurements we can reliably analyze. I’m not sure that we have them.
You raise another issue, PP, that fascinates me. I’m calling it the Propaganda without a Deed: AQAP’s amazing ability to spin gold from the dross of failure.
The rectal bomb deployed against Prince Muhammed in KSA turned the wannabe assassin into a fleshy sort of firework but left his Highness with but a pair of scratches on his mitts.
The most recent diaper bomb flared and popped but managed to do little more than igniting the flash lad’s designer denims.
And yet within Yemen, many consumers of their ideology seem to believe that the acts were successful. Perhaps we’re blinkered by culture, history, caste, et al, to miss that the boldness of the caper is what’s captivating the audiences and not necessarily the success?
Perhaps what’s hurting far-enemy AQ in NW Pakistan is that they have to top 9/11 to be “successful,” but AQAP as upstarts don’t need to clear such a high bar to appeal to their target populations?
Just as I hope that we don’t conflate the propagandists without successful deeds into the second coming of the Soviet bear (as many COINdinistas apparently wish to do), we also shouldn’t assume that their consumers’ perspective on “failure” is our conception of “failure.”
Perhaps mere resistance is enough? Perhaps the amount of fear created can be justified, even with the paucity of puissance displayed?
Black September failed to achieve any of their immediate political goals when they took the Israeli olympic team hostage in Munich. But the act itself put Palestine back on the map.
AQAP’s diaper bomb fizzled and popped and probably wouldn’t have brought down the Airbus in the way the PETN was deployed. But maybe they didn’t need to bring the plane down. They brought American planes to Yemen instead.
That’s good stuff SNLII. Jon Robb has some thoughts about failure as a strategy here:
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2009/12/failure-as-a-strategy.html
Jon Robb obviously is a genius!
In the States, we have another way of perspective looking at a slightly different — but not unrelated — phenomenon of purported indispensability and subsequent proof otherwise.
We call it the Ewing Theory.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1193711
Just as we might argue that to certain target populations it doesn’t matter if the propaganda is accompanied by a successful deed, it might also not so much matter if a flash Nigerian bungler is doing the dirty work or AQ in NW Pakistan.
Doh. Nix “perspective.” Go with “way.” I need to proof these things.
maybe we are just applying different measures/threshold tests: you look at their capacity to cause trouble, draw attention to an idea, or have various uneven regional effects.
I look at what they are trying to do (incite theocratic revolutions that topple states), and find that not only have they failed to do so just about everywhere, but they have created a vast, hostile reaction against themselves. by Zawahiri’s own measure, that is a disappointing outcome for them.
Actually, PP, I would slant the purported al Qaeda strategy a bit differently.
First, we can’t confuse the affiliates with the franchiser handing out the brandname.
Might we safely assume that the genius behind formal, far-enemy al Qaeda was that 1) They determined that the best means to topple their hated near enemies of dynastic or secular despots was by forcing the US to quit supporting them; and, 2) The best means of reducing US support for them was by attacking our soft yet iconic targets through spectacular but not always mass casualty events.
These included several failures (such as the early attack on the Yemeni quayside warehouses nearly two decades ago), but also for al Qaeda some “successes,” to include the East African embassy bombings, the rupture of the USS Cole and, finally, the spectacular 9/11 jetliner explosions.
This isn’t to suggest that Qaeda is in stasis, nor that the brandname hasn’t evolved to mean other things, too. I’m just not so sure that strategically they’re incapable of eventually wearing us down or forcing us to abandon certain near enemies (I’m also not convinced that we shouldn’t do so in our own interest, such as Afghanistan or Yemen).
I would agree that these totemic raids proved in the short run ruinous to al Qaeda because it led to the investment of Afghanistan, the rolling up of many of their networks through successful police skullduggery and an international consensus to get ‘em.
At the same time, they’re still around. We’re still in Afghanistan and they’ve made gains in Pakistan.
AQIZ failed miserably in Iraq, but various regional actors rebranded by al Qaeda such as AQAP and AQIM don’t seem to be failing at all. At least, not right now. Rather than merely subsisting, they seem to be gaining recruits against their near enemies in Mali and Mauritania and Yemen, and, in the case of AQAP, launching a failed but still provocative attack against the US in a sector we thought was a well-funded counter-terrorist bulwark, air security.
ANother group very close to AQAP, Somalia’s al Shabab (in Arabic, it translates to “The Boys,” riffing on the Taliban’s lineage), is doing quite well, it seems. See also the various Taliban militias.
Some (most?) surely are accidental guerillas in the Kilcullenesque template, but they still pose a grave threat to the futures of these “nations” against which they’ve pitted their terrorism. They not only control earthly terrain, but they’re seizing “space” online.
Just as one might suggest that al-Zawahiri’s goals went unmet, that the 9/11 attacks were temporarily ruinous to al Qaeda, I would ask what would one say objectively about our efforts?
Have we created more terrorists? Have our iniatives, our wars, our torture, our IO, etc, etc, etc, sustained the brandname “Qaeda?” Have we electrified their message? Do we continue to make them relevant by reacting as we do?
Perhaps we need that Manichean foil in order to define ourselves.
Regardless, for every success the world has had against AQ or the regional franchises, I could name a nearly equal number of successes that they’ve had and one, AQIM, that’s probably a wash — evicted from Algeria, but increasingly networked in Europe and unfettered in the vast ungoverned wastelands of the Sahara.
Some of these failures likely involved the loss of public support because of mass Muslim casualties, but I suspect other motives were at play. For example, what if AQIZ had killed a great many Shiites but managed to protect their target population of Sunni Arabs in Iraq against JAM, the Ministry of the Interior, Badr death squads and the US?
Was not their real defeat brought by a failure to do that which they said that they could do (protect their population, defeat the Persian stooges, the Shiites, in a sectarian civil war), and not the collateral damage they initially inflicted?
Pardon me in advance if this is posted on the wrong thread but I thought this piece in the Middle East Quarterly was quite illuminating in terms of the perspective of some Muslims as to their “laws of war”:
How Taqiyya Alters Islam’s Rules of War
Defeating Jihadist Terrorism
by Raymond Ibrahim
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2010
http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war
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Islam must seem a paradoxical religion to non-Muslims. On the one hand, it is constantly being portrayed as the religion of peace; on the other, its adherents are responsible for the majority of terror attacks around the world. Apologists for Islam emphasize that it is a faith built upon high ethical standards; others stress that it is a religion of the law. Islam’s dual notions of truth and falsehood further reveal its paradoxical nature: While the Qur’an is against believers deceiving other believers—for “surely God guides not him who is prodigal and a liar”[1]—deception directed at non-Muslims, generally known in Arabic as taqiyya, also has Qur’anic support and falls within the legal category of things that are permissible for Muslims.
Muslim deception can be viewed as a slightly less than noble means to the glorious end of Islamic hegemony under Shari’a, which is seen as good for both Muslims and non-Muslims. In this sense, lying in the service of altruism is permissible. In a recent example, Muslim cleric Mahmoud al-Masri publicly recounted a story where a Muslim lied and misled a Jew into converting to Islam, calling it a “beautiful trick.”
Taqiyya offers two basic uses. The better known revolves around dissembling over one’s religious identity when in fear of persecution. Such has been the historical usage of taqiyya among Shi’i communities whenever and wherever their Sunni rivals have outnumbered and thus threatened them. Conversely, Sunni Muslims, far from suffering persecution have, whenever capability allowed, waged jihad against the realm of unbelief; and it is here that they have deployed taqiyya—not as dissimulation but as active deceit. In fact, deceit, which is doctrinally grounded in Islam, is often depicted as being equal—sometimes superior—to other universal military virtues, such as courage, fortitude, or self-sacrifice.
Yet if Muslims are exhorted to be truthful, how can deceit not only be prevalent but have divine sanction? What exactly is taqiyya? How is it justified by scholars and those who make use of it? How does it fit into a broader conception of Islam’s code of ethics, especially in relation to the non-Muslim? More to the point, what ramifications does the doctrine of taqiyya have for all interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims?
The Doctrine of Taqiyya
According to Shari’a—the body of legal rulings that defines how a Muslim should behave in all circumstances—deception is not only permitted in certain situations but may be deemed obligatory in others. Contrary to early Christian tradition, for instance, Muslims who were forced to choose between recanting Islam or suffering persecution were permitted to lie and feign apostasy. Other jurists have decreed that Muslims are obligated to lie in order to preserve themselves,[2] based on Qur’anic verses forbidding Muslims from being instrumental in their own deaths.[3]
This is the classic definition of the doctrine of taqiyya. Based on an Arabic word denoting fear, taqiyya has long been understood, especially by Western academics, as something to resort to in times of religious persecution and, for the most part, used in this sense by minority Shi’i groups living among hostile Sunni majorities.[4] Taqiyya allowed the Shi’a to dissemble their religious affiliation in front of the Sunnis on a regular basis, not merely by keeping clandestine about their own beliefs but by actively praying and behaving as if they were Sunnis.
However, one of the few books devoted to the subject, At-Taqiyya fi’l-Islam (Dissimulation in Islam) makes it clear that taqiyya is not limited to Shi’a dissimulating in fear of persecution. Written by Sami Mukaram, a former Islamic studies professor at the American University of Beirut and author of some twenty-five books on Islam, the book clearly demonstrates the ubiquity and broad applicability of taqiyya:
Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.[5]
Taqiyya is, therefore, not, as is often supposed, an exclusively Shi’i phenomenon. Of course, as a minority group interspersed among their Sunni enemies, the Shi’a have historically had more reason to dissemble. Conversely, Sunni Islam rapidly dominated vast empires from Spain to China. As a result, its followers were beholden to no one, had nothing to apologize for, and had no need to hide from the infidel nonbeliever (rare exceptions include Spain and Portugal during the Reconquista when Sunnis did dissimulate over their religious identity[6]). Ironically, however, Sunnis living in the West today find themselves in the place of the Shi’a: Now they are the minority surrounded by their traditional enemies—Christian infidels—even if the latter, as opposed to their Reconquista predecessors, rarely act on, let alone acknowledge, this historic enmity. In short, Sunnis are currently experiencing the general circumstances that made taqiyya integral to Shi’ism although without the physical threat that had so necessitated it.
The Articulation of Taqiyya
Qur’anic verse 3:28 is often seen as the primary verse that sanctions deception towards non-Muslims: “Let believers [Muslims] not take infidels [non-Muslims] for friends and allies instead of believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with God—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.”[7]
Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923), author of a standard and authoritative Qur’an commentary, explains verse 3:28 as follows:
If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims'] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] God has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers—except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.[8]
Regarding Qur’an 3:28, Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), another prime authority on the Qur’an, writes, “Whoever at any time or place fears … evil [from non-Muslims] may protect himself through outward show.” As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad’s close companion Abu Darda, who said, “Let us grin in the face of some people while our hearts curse them.” Another companion, simply known as Al-Hasan, said, “Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the Day of Judgment [i.e., in perpetuity].”[9]
Other prominent scholars, such as Abu ‘Abdullah al-Qurtubi (1214-73) and Muhyi ‘d-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240), have extended taqiyya to cover deeds. In other words, Muslims can behave like infidels and worse—for example, by bowing down and worshiping idols and crosses, offering false testimony, and even exposing the weaknesses of their fellow Muslims to the infidel enemy—anything short of actually killing a Muslim: “Taqiyya, even if committed without duress, does not lead to a state of infidelity—even if it leads to sin deserving of hellfire.”[10]
Deceit in Muhammad’s Military Exploits
Muhammad—whose example as the “most perfect human” is to be followed in every detail—took an expedient view on lying. It is well known, for instance, that he permitted lying in three situations: to reconcile two or more quarreling parties, to placate one’s wife, and in war.[11] According to one Arabic legal manual devoted to jihad as defined by the four schools of law, “The ulema agree that deception during warfare is legitimate … deception is a form of art in war.”[12] Moreover, according to Mukaram, this deception is classified as taqiyya: “Taqiyya in order to dupe the enemy is permissible.”[13]
Several ulema believe deceit is integral to the waging of war: Ibn al-’Arabi declares that “in the Hadith [sayings and actions of Muhammad], practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than the need for courage.” Ibn al-Munir (d. 1333) writes, “War is deceit, i.e., the most complete and perfect war waged by a holy warrior is a war of deception, not confrontation, due to the latter’s inherent danger, and the fact that one can attain victory through treachery without harm [to oneself].” And Ibn Hajar (d. 1448) counsels Muslims “to take great caution in war, while [publicly] lamenting and mourning in order to dupe the infidels.”[14]
This Muslim notion that war is deceit goes back to the Battle of the Trench (627), which pitted Muhammad and his followers against several non-Muslim tribes known as Al-Ahzab. One of the Ahzab, Na’im ibn Mas’ud, went to the Muslim camp and converted to Islam. When Muhammad discovered that the Ahzab were unaware of their co-tribalist’s conversion, he counseled Mas’ud to return and try to get the pagan forces to abandon the siege. It was then that Muhammad memorably declared, “For war is deceit.” Mas’ud returned to the Ahzab without their knowing that he had switched sides and intentionally began to give his former kin and allies bad advice. He also went to great lengths to instigate quarrels between the various tribes until, thoroughly distrusting each other, they disbanded, lifted the siege from the Muslims, and saved Islam from destruction in an embryonic period.[15] Most recently, 9/11 accomplices, such as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, rationalized their conspiratorial role in their defendant response by evoking their prophet’s assertion that “war is deceit.”
A more compelling expression of the legitimacy of deceiving infidels is the following anecdote. A poet, Ka’b ibn Ashraf, offended Muhammad, prompting the latter to exclaim, “Who will kill this man who has hurt God and his prophet?” A young Muslim named Muhammad ibn Maslama volunteered on condition that in order to get close enough to Ka’b to assassinate him, he be allowed to lie to the poet. Muhammad agreed. Ibn Maslama traveled to Ka’b and began to denigrate Islam and Muhammad. He carried on in this way till his disaffection became so convincing that Ka’b took him into his confidence. Soon thereafter, Ibn Maslama appeared with another Muslim and, while Ka’b's guard was down, killed him.[16]
Muhammad said other things that cast deception in a positive light, such as “God has commanded me to equivocate among the people just as he has commanded me to establish [religious] obligations”; and “I have been sent with obfuscation”; and “whoever lives his life in dissimulation dies a martyr.”[17]
In short, the earliest historical records of Islam clearly attest to the prevalence of taqiyya as a form of Islamic warfare. Furthermore, early Muslims are often depicted as lying their way out of binds—usually by denying or insulting Islam or Muhammad—often to the approval of the latter, his only criterion being that their intentions (niya) be pure.[18] During wars with Christians, whenever the latter were in authority, the practice of taqiyya became even more integral. Mukaram states, “Taqiyya was used as a way to fend off danger from the Muslims, especially in critical times and when their borders were exposed to wars with the Byzantines and, afterwards, to the raids [crusades] of the Franks and others.”[19]
Taqiyya in Qur’anic Revelation
The Qur’an itself is further testimony to taqiyya. Since God is believed to be the revealer of these verses, he is by default seen as the ultimate perpetrator of deceit—which is not surprising since he is described in the Qur’an as the best makar, that is, the best deceiver or schemer (e.g., 3:54, 8:30, 10:21).
While other scriptures contain contradictions, the Qur’an is the only holy book whose commentators have evolved a doctrine to account for the very visible shifts which occur from one injunction to another. No careful reader will remain unaware of the many contradictory verses in the Qur’an, most specifically the way in which peaceful and tolerant verses lie almost side by side with violent and intolerant ones. The ulema were initially baffled as to which verses to codify into the Shari’a worldview—the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims till they either convert, or at least submit, to Islam (8:39, 9:5, 9:29). To get out of this quandary, the commentators developed the doctrine of abrogation, which essentially maintains that verses revealed later in Muhammad’s career take precedence over earlier ones whenever there is a discrepancy. In order to document which verses abrogated which, a religious science devoted to the chronology of the Qur’an’s verses evolved (known as an-Nasikh wa’l Mansukh, the abrogater and the abrogated).
But why the contradiction in the first place? The standard view is that in the early years of Islam, since Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by their infidel competitors while living next to them in Mecca, a message of peace and coexistence was in order. However, after the Muslims migrated to Medina in 622 and grew in military strength, verses inciting them to go on the offensive were slowly “revealed”—in principle, sent down from God—always commensurate with Islam’s growing capabilities. In juridical texts, these are categorized in stages: passivity vis-á-vis aggression; permission to fight back against aggressors; commands to fight aggressors; commands to fight all non-Muslims, whether the latter begin aggressions or not.[20] Growing Muslim might is the only variable that explains this progressive change in policy.
Other scholars put a gloss on this by arguing that over a twenty-two year period, the Qur’an was revealed piecemeal, from passive and spiritual verses to legal prescriptions and injunctions to spread the faith through jihad and conquest, simply to acclimate early Muslim converts to the duties of Islam, lest they be discouraged at the outset by the dramatic obligations that would appear in later verses.[21] Verses revealed towards the end of Muhammad’s career—such as, “Warfare is prescribed for you though you hate it”[22]—would have been out of place when warfare was actually out of the question.
However interpreted, the standard view on Qur’anic abrogation concerning war and peace verses is that when Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they should preach and behave according to the ethos of the Meccan verses (peace and tolerance); when strong, however, they should go on the offensive on the basis of what is commanded in the Medinan verses (war and conquest). The vicissitudes of Islamic history are a testimony to this dichotomy, best captured by the popular Muslim notion, based on a hadith, that, if possible, jihad should be performed by the hand (force), if not, then by the tongue (through preaching); and, if that is not possible, then with the heart or one’s intentions.[23]
War Is Eternal
That Islam legitimizes deceit during war is, of course, not all that astonishing; after all, as the Elizabethan writer John Lyly put it, “All’s fair in love and war.”[24] Other non-Muslim philosophers and strategists—such as Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes—justified deceit in warfare. Deception of the enemy during war is only common sense. The crucial difference in Islam, however, is that war against the infidel is a perpetual affair—until, in the words of the Qur’an, “all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God.”[25] In his entry on jihad from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Emile Tyan states: “The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily.”[26]
Moreover, going back to the doctrine of abrogation, Muslim scholars such as Ibn Salama (d. 1020) agree that Qur’an 9:5, known as ayat as-sayf or the sword verse, has abrogated some 124 of the more peaceful Meccan verses, including “every other verse in the Qur’an, which commands or implies anything less than a total offensive against the nonbelievers.”[27] In fact, all four schools of Sunni jurisprudence agree that “jihad is when Muslims wage war on infidels, after having called on them to embrace Islam or at least pay tribute [jizya] and live in submission, and the infidels refuse.”[28]
Obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam’s dichotomized worldview that pits the realm of Islam against the realm of war. The first, dar al-Islam, is the “realm of submission,” the world where Shari’a governs; the second, dar al-Harb (the realm of war), is the non-Islamic world. A struggle continues until the realm of Islam subsumes the non-Islamic world—a perpetual affair that continues to the present day. The renowned Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) clearly articulates this division:
In the Muslim community, jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the jihad was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.[29]
Finally and all evidence aside, lest it still appear unreasonable for a faith with over one billion adherents to obligate unprovoked warfare in its name, it is worth noting that the expansionist jihad is seen as an altruistic endeavor, not unlike the nineteenth century ideology of “the white man’s burden.” The logic is that the world, whether under democracy, socialism, communism, or any other system of governance, is inevitably living in bondage—a great sin, since the good of all humanity is found in living in accordance to God’s law. In this context, Muslim deception can be viewed as a slightly less than noble means to a glorious end—Islamic hegemony under Shari’a rule, which is seen as good for both Muslims and non-Muslims.
This view has an ancient pedigree: Soon after the death of Muhammad (634), as the jihad fighters burst out of the Arabian peninsula, a soon-to-be conquered Persian commander asked the invading Muslims what they wanted. They memorably replied as follows:
God has sent us and brought us here so that we may free those who desire from servitude to earthly rulers and make them servants of God, that we may change their poverty into wealth and free them from the tyranny and chaos of [false] religions and bring them to the justice of Islam. He has sent us to bring his religion to all his creatures and call them to Islam. Whoever accepts it from us will be safe, and we shall leave him alone; but whoever refuses, we shall fight until we fulfill the promise of God.[30]
Fourteen hundred years later— in March 2009—Saudi legal expert Basem Alem publicly echoed this view:
As a member of the true religion, I have a greater right to invade [others] in order to impose a certain way of life [according to Shari'a], which history has proven to be the best and most just of all civilizations. This is the true meaning of offensive jihad. When we wage jihad, it is not in order to convert people to Islam, but in order to liberate them from the dark slavery in which they live.[31]
And it should go without saying that taqiyya in the service of altruism is permissible. For example, only recently, after publicly recounting a story where a Muslim tricked a Jew into converting to Islam—warning him that if he tried to abandon Islam, Muslims would kill him as an apostate—Muslim cleric Mahmoud al-Masri called it a “beautiful trick.”[32] After all, from an Islamic point of view, it was the Jew who, in the end, benefitted from the deception, which brought him to Islam.
Treaties and Truces
The perpetual nature of jihad is highlighted by the fact that, based on the 10-year treaty of Hudaybiya (628), ratified between Muhammad and his Quraysh opponents in Mecca, most jurists are agreed that ten years is the maximum amount of time Muslims can be at peace with infidels; once the treaty has expired, the situation needs to be reappraised. Based on Muhammad’s example of breaking the treaty after two years (by claiming a Quraysh infraction), the sole function of the truce is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup before renewing the offensive:[33] “By their very nature, treaties must be of temporary duration, for in Muslim legal theory, the normal relations between Muslim and non-Muslim territories are not peaceful, but warlike.”[34] Hence “the fuqaha [jurists] are agreed that open-ended truces are illegitimate if Muslims have the strength to renew the war against them [non-Muslims].”[35]
Even though Shari’a mandates Muslims to abide by treaties, they have a way out, one open to abuse: If Muslims believe—even without solid evidence—that their opponents are about to break the treaty, they can preempt by breaking it first. Moreover, some Islamic schools of law, such as the Hanafi, assert that Muslim leaders may abrogate treaties merely if it seems advantageous for Islam.[36] This is reminiscent of the following canonical hadith: “If you ever take an oath to do something and later on you find that something else is better, then you should expiate your oath and do what is better.”[37] And what is better, what is more altruistic, than to make God’s word supreme by launching the jihad anew whenever possible? Traditionally, Muslim rulers held to a commitment to launch a jihad at least once every year. This ritual is most noted with the Ottoman sultans, who spent half their lives in the field.[38] So important was the duty of jihad that the sultans were not permitted to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, an individual duty for each Muslim. Their leadership of the jihad allowed this communal duty to continue; without them, it would have fallen into desuetude.[39]
In short, the prerequisite for peace or reconciliation is Muslim advantage. This is made clear in an authoritative Sunni legal text, Umdat as-Salik, written by a fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar, Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri: “There must be some benefit [maslaha] served in making a truce other than the status quo: ‘So do not be fainthearted and call for peace when it is you who are uppermost [Qur'an 47:35].’”[40]
More recently, and of great significance for Western leaders advocating cooperation with Islamists, Yasser Arafat, soon after negotiating a peace treaty criticized as conceding too much to Israel, addressed an assembly of Muslims in a mosque in Johannesburg where he justified his actions: “I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.”[41] In other words, like Muhammad, Arafat gave his word only to annul it once “something better” came along—that is, once the Palestinians became strong enough to renew the offensive and continue on the road to Jerusalem. Elsewhere, Hudaybiya has appeared as a keyword for radical Islamists. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front had three training camps within the Camp Abu Bakar complex in the Philippines, one of which was named Camp Hudaybiya.[42]
Hostility Disguised As Grievance
In their statements directed at European or American audiences, Islamists maintain that the terrorism they direct against the West is merely reciprocal treatment for decades of Western and Israeli oppression. Yet in writings directed to their fellow Muslims, this animus is presented, not as a reaction to military or political provocation but as a product of religious obligation.
For instance, when addressing Western audiences, Osama bin Laden lists any number of grievances as motivating his war on the West—from the oppression of the Palestinians to the Western exploitation of women, and even U.S. failure to sign the environmental Kyoto protocol—all things intelligible from a Western perspective. Never once, however, does he justify Al-Qaeda’s attacks on Western targets simply because non-Muslim countries are infidel entities that must be subjugated. Indeed, he often initiates his messages to the West by saying, “Reciprocal treatment is part of justice” or “Peace to whoever follows guidance”[43]—though he means something entirely different than what his Western listeners understand by words such as “peace,” “justice,” or “guidance.”
It is when bin Laden speaks to fellow Muslims that the truth comes out. When a group of prominent Muslims wrote an open letter to the American people soon after the strikes of 9/11, saying that Islam seeks to peacefully coexist,[44] bin Laden wrote to castigate them:
As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by the Most High’s Word: “We [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims]. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us—till you believe in God alone” [Qur'an 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility—that is, battle—ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [i.e., a dhimmi, or protected minority], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! … Such then is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the Muslim to the infidel—is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them.[45]
Mainstream Islam’s four schools of jurisprudence lend their support to this hostile Weltanschauung by speaking of the infidel in similar terms. Bin Laden’s addresses to the West with his talk of justice and peace are clear instances of taqiyya. He is not only waging a physical jihad but a propaganda war, that is, a war of deceit. If he can convince the West that the current conflict is entirely its fault, he garners greater sympathy for his cause. At the same time, he knows that if Americans were to realize that nothing short of their submission can ever bring peace, his propaganda campaign would be quickly compromised. Hence the constant need to dissemble and to cite grievances, for, as bin Laden’s prophet asserted, “War is deceit.”
Implications
Taqiyya presents a range of ethical dilemmas. Anyone who truly believes that God justifies and, through his prophet’s example, even encourages deception will not experience any ethical qualms over lying. Consider the case of ‘Ali Mohammad, bin Laden’s first “trainer” and long-time Al-Qaeda operative. An Egyptian, he was initially a member of Islamic Jihad and had served in the Egyptian army’s military intelligence unit. After 1984, he worked for a time with the CIA in Germany. Though considered untrustworthy, he managed to get to California where he enlisted in the U.S. Army. It seems likely that he continued to work in some capacity for the CIA. He later trained jihadists in the United States and Afghanistan and was behind several terror attacks in Africa. People who knew him regarded him with “fear and awe for his incredible self-confidence, his inability to be intimidated, absolute ruthless determination to destroy the enemies of Islam, and his zealous belief in the tenets of militant Islamic fundamentalism.”[46] Indeed, this sentence sums it all up: For a zealous belief in Islam’s tenets, which legitimize deception in order to make God’s word supreme, will certainly go a long way in creating “incredible self-confidence” when lying.[47]
Yet most Westerners continue to think that Muslim mores, laws, and ethical constraints are near identical to those of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Naively or arrogantly, today’s multiculturalist leaders project their own worldview onto Islamists, thinking a handshake and smiles across a cup of coffee, as well as numerous concessions, are enough to dismantle the power of God’s word and centuries of unchanging tradition. The fact remains: Right and wrong in Islam have little to do with universal standards but only with what Islam itself teaches—much of which is antithetical to Western norms.
It must, therefore, be accepted that, contrary to long-held academic assumptions, the doctrine of taqiyya goes far beyond Muslims engaging in religious dissimulation in the interest of self-preservation and encompasses deception of the infidel enemy in general. This phenomenon should provide a context for Shi’i Iran’s zeal—taqiyya being especially second nature to Shi’ism—to acquire nuclear power while insisting that its motives are entirely peaceful.
Nor is taqiyya confined to overseas affairs. Walid Phares of the National Defense University has lamented that homegrown Islamists are operating unfettered on American soil due to their use of taqiyya: “Does our government know what this doctrine is all about and, more importantly, are authorities educating the body of our defense apparatus regarding this stealthy threat dormant among us?”[48] After the Fort Hood massacre, when Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-Muslim who exhibited numerous Islamist signs which were ignored, killed thirteen fellow servicemen and women, one is compelled to respond in the negative.
This, then, is the dilemma: Islamic law unambiguously splits the world into two perpetually warring halves—the Islamic world versus the non-Islamic—and holds it to be God’s will for the former to subsume the latter. Yet if war with the infidel is a perpetual affair, if war is deceit, and if deeds are justified by intentions—any number of Muslims will naturally conclude that they have a divinely sanctioned right to deceive, so long as they believe their deception serves to aid Islam “until all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God.”[49] Such deception will further be seen as a means to an altruistic end. Muslim overtures for peace, dialogue, or even temporary truces must be seen in this light, evoking the practical observations of philosopher James Lorimer, uttered over a century ago: “So long as Islam endures, the reconciliation of its adherents, even with Jews and Christians, and still more with the rest of mankind, must continue to be an insoluble problem.”[50]
In closing, whereas it may be more appropriate to talk of “war and peace” as natural corollaries in a Western context, when discussing Islam, it is more accurate to talk of “war and deceit.” For, from an Islamic point of view, times of peace—that is, whenever Islam is significantly weaker than its infidel rivals—are times of feigned peace and pretense, in a word, taqiyya.
Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum.
[1] Qur’an 40:28.
[2] Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi, At-Tafsir al-Kabir (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiya, 2000), vol. 10, p. 98.
[3] Qur’an 2:195, 4:29.
[4] Paul E. Walker, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam in the Modern World, John Esposito, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), vol. 4, s.v. “Taqiyah,” pp. 186-7; Ibn Babuyah, A Shi’ite Creed, A. A. A. Fyzee, trans. (London: n.p., 1942), pp. 110-2; Etan Kohlberg, “Some Imami-Shi’i Views on Taqiyya,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 95 (1975): 395-402.
[5] Sami Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam (London: Mu’assisat at-Turath ad-Druzi, 2004), p. 7, author’s translation.
[6] Devin Stewart, “Islam in Spain after the Reconquista,” Emory University, p. 2, accessed Nov. 27, 2009.
[7] See also Quran 2:173, 2:185, 4:29, 16:106, 22:78, 40:28, verses cited by Muslim jurisprudents as legitimating taqiyya.
[8] Abu Ja’far Muhammad at-Tabari, Jami’ al-Bayan ‘an ta’wil ayi’l-Qur’an al-Ma’ruf: Tafsir at-Tabari (Beirut: Dar Ihya’ at-Turath al-’Arabi, 2001), vol. 3, p. 267, author’s translation.
[9] ‘Imad ad-Din Isma’il Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Qur’an al-Karim (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiya, 2001), vol. 1, p. 350, author’s translation.
[10] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, pp. 30-7.
[11] Imam Muslim, “Kitab al-Birr wa’s-Salat, Bab Tahrim al-Kidhb wa Bayan al-Mubih Minhu,” Sahih Muslim, rev. ed., Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, trans. (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 2000).
[12] Ahmad Mahmud Karima, Al-Jihad fi’l Islam: Dirasa Fiqhiya Muqarina (Cairo: Al-Azhar, 2003), p. 304, author’s translation.
[13] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, p. 32.
[14] Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 142-3.
[15] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, pp. 32-3.
[16] Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 367-8.
[17] Shihab ad-Din Muhammad al-Alusi al-Baghdadi, Ruh al-Ma’ani fi Tafsir al-Qur’an al-’Azim wa’ l-Saba’ al-Mithani (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiya, 2001), vol. 2, p. 118, author’s translation.
[18] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, pp. 11-2.
[19] Ibid., pp. 41-2.
[20] Ibn Qayyim, Tafsir, in Abd al-’Aziz bin Nasir al-Jalil, At-Tarbiya al-Jihadiya fi Daw’ al-Kitab wa ‘s-Sunna (Riyahd: n.p., 2003), pp. 36-43.
[21] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, p. 20.
[22] Qur’an 2: 216.
[23] Yahya bin Sharaf ad-Din an-Nawawi, An-Nawawi’s Forty Hadiths, p. 16, accessed Aug. 1, 2009.
[24] John Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (London, 1578), p. 236.
[25] Qur’an 8:39.
[26] Emile Tyan, The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1960), vol. 2, s.v. “Djihad,” pp. 538-40.
[27] David Bukay, “Peace or Jihad? Abrogation in Islam,” Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2007, pp. 3-11, f.n. 58; David S. Powers, “The Exegetical Genre nasikh al-Qur’an wa-mansukhuhu,” in Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur’an, Andrew Rippin, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 130-1.
[28] Jalil, At-Tarbiya al-Jihadiya fi Daw’ al-Kitab wa ‘ s-Sunna, p. 7.
[29] Ibn Khaldun, The Muqadimmah. An Introduction to History, Franz Rosenthal, trans. (New York: Pantheon, 1958), vol. 1, p. 473.
[30] Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests (Philadelphia: Da Capo, 2007), p. 112.
[31] “Saudi Legal Expert Basem Alem: We Have the Right to Wage Offensive Jihad to Impose Our Way of Life,” TV Monitor, clip 2108, Middle East Media Research Institute, trans., Mar. 26, 2009.
[32] “Egyptian Cleric Mahmoud Al-Masri Recommends Tricking Jews into Becoming Muslims,” TV Monitor, clip 2268, Middle East Media Research Institute, trans., Aug. 10, 2009.
[33] Denis MacEoin, “Tactical Hudna and Islamist Intolerance,” Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2008, pp. 39-48.
[34] Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 220.
[35] Ahmad Mahmud Karima, Al-Jihad fi’l Islam: Dirasa Fiqhiya Muqarina, p. 461, author’s translation.
[36] Ibid., p. 469.
[37] Muhammad al-Bukhari, “Judgements (Ahkaam),” Sahih al-Bukhari, book 89, M. Muhsin Khan, trans., accessed July 22, 2009.
[38] Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice (Princeton: Woodstock Publishers, 2006), p. 148.
[39] Ahmed Akgündüz, “Why Did the Ottoman Sultans Not Make Hajj (Pilgrimage)?” accessed Nov. 9, 2009.
[40] Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law (Beltsville: Amana Publications, 1994), p. 605.
[41] Daniel Pipes, “Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad’s Diplomacy,” Middle East Quarterly, Sept. 1999, pp. 65-72.
[42] Arabinda Acharya, “Training in Terror,” IDSS Commentaries, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, May 2, 2003.
[43] “Does hypocrite have a past tense?” for clip of Osama bin Laden, accessed Aug. 1, 2009.
[44] Ibrahim b. Muhammad al-Shahwan, et al, “Correspondence with Saudis: How We Can Coexist,” AmericanValues.org, accessed July 28, 2009.
[45] Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 43.
[46] Steven Emerson, “Osama bin Laden’s Special Operations Man,” Journal of Counterterrorism and Security International, Sept. 1, 1998.
[47] For lists of other infiltrators of U. S. organizations, see Daniel Pipes, “Islamists Penetrate Western Security,” Mar. 9, 2008.
[48] Walid Phares, “North Carolina: Meet Taqiyya Jihad,” International Analyst Network, July 30, 2009.
[49] Qur’an 8:39.
[50] James Lorimer, The Institutes of the Law of Nations: A Treatise of the Jural Relations of Separate Political Communities (Clark, N.J.: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2005), p. 124.
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