DAR AL HARB - U.S.A. - VERMONT: 9TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FATWA LEGITIMIZING JIHAD AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Legitimizing jihad
By MARIA WALSH
Friday, February 23

Feb. 23 is the ninth anniversary of the fatwah, a formal declaration, signed by a group (later known as al-Qaida) of clerics, bin Ladin and Zawahiri, legitimatizing jihad under Quranic and Shariah laws: "Killing of Americans and their allies, civilian and military is an individual duty of every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."

Three grievances were cited:
1) American troops and bases in Saudi Arabia;
2) America's intention to destroy Iraq;
3) America's goal of propping up Israel.

This fatwah has been heeded; all of us are suffering the killing of the innocent, and yet there has been no massive outcry from the majority of so-called moderate Muslims. Why?

The Quran is open to individual interpretation -- it has been so since Mohammed died in 632 AD; there is no pope, no singular, infallible voice of Allah.

Muslim spokesmen are caught between their individual beliefs (which may not favor jihad) and their empathy for their passionate brother communities around the world, especially when these communities live in poverty and oppression.

Third, in their hearts, these silent Muslims would rejoice at the re-ascendancy of Islam; the prophet Mohammed tied Muslim prosperity to proof that Muslims were living according to Allah's will. Muslims have waged war on neighboring tribes under this mandate since his time in Medina in 624 AD. The ascendancy of Islam under the Ottoman Caliphs by the 16th century reached as far west as Spain, north to Vienna, all of North Africa and east into India, larger than any empire to date.

Islamic nations that eschew growth and prosperity through modernization and are still stuck in the 7th century mold of succeeding at other people's expense.

In other words, conquering is mandatory for the political and material well-being of their community. With the end of World War II, most of the West had given up colonialism with the growth of an educated and successful middle class. Loss of life and war for the sake of conquering other nations is not a price most people will pay any longer.

Fundamentalist Muslim states have no other choice. They cannot admit that their economic policies and their stifling of freedom have failed their youth; instead, they point a finger at the "haves," the West and nearby Israel.

Even oil-rich Saudi Arabia is still so unproductive the majority live in poverty and are illiterate.

Today the United Nations will not tolerate overt war on neighbors. Instead, terrorist subversion, suicide bombers, nuclear threat as in Iran, or threat of biological weapons are the only tools these militants and the nations that harbor them can use today to gain ascendancy and please Allah. For the hopelessly impoverished and disheartened Muslim, martyrdom is a welcome escape especially when it guarantees an idyllic life in heaven.

With the material as well as spiritual prosperity of the community so central to Islam, politics and religion are inseparable, the end often justifies the means, jihad is rationalized, no Muslim can speak out against it. The young are indoctrinated in mosques not only in Islamic countries but in hotbed pockets in London, Paris and Germany, maybe even in the United States.

While our efforts at democratization of the Middle East are noble, we cannot force our system on people who are not culturally ready for it.

This will be a slow process requiring the growth of the middle class that may take decades again because of the stranglehold of a reactionary religion, and or corrupt leaders. It takes people who truly enjoy life to value life.

We can only assist with Peace Corp-like efforts as invited.

As for what we do in Iraq? Call a summit of Iraq's neighbors to craft a solution that includes a U.S. pullout or at least a pullback while a partition or new government takes route. We do not have to like the solution; Iraq and its neighbors have to like it.


There is something else we could do but we won't, in the end we will end up doing it, but not before we are made to pay with blood of hundreds of millions...


Pertinent Links:

1) Legitimizing Jihad