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| Volume XIII, Fall 2006, Number 3 |
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BOOK REVIEW
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Journey of a Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy, by Fawaz Gerges. Harcourt Press 2006. 320 pages, $25.00, hardcover.
Sanam Vakil
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)
There is a journey that has taken hold in the minds of many young Arab men. It is a call to cleanse, to fight the evil that they believe lies behind the reality of Arab disappointment. This disenchantment and frustration with the old order, the secular Pan-Arab elite, emanates from the 1967 Arab defeat, when dreams of nationalism and triumphalism were shattered at the hands of the infidel Israeli army. Arabs of this generation were demoralized, depressed and angered by the failure of the promises of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s pan-Arab dream.
Nationalism — an imported ideology — was then abandoned for the home-grown ideology and vision sought by some in the region. The goal was a pure Islamic state to replace the corrupt statist autocrats who had come to dominate Middle Eastern governments. The Islamist battle was designed to unseat the “near enemy” as a repressive failed state. So began the journey of many a jihadist as described by author and scholar Fawaz Gerges in his latest account of Muslim militancy written after years of interviews conducted with jihadists themselves. He succinctly clarifies what is often obscured: “The key to understanding the jihadist and his journey is politics, not religion” (p. 11).
The movement began as a slow night passage and over time took center stage in Egypt. Here, Gerges guides the reader through his conversations over the years with ordinary jihadists, recounting the history behind jihadist heroes ranging from the founders Hassan al-Banna and Sayid Qutb to Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden themselves. Gerges explains for the novice the evolution of this jihadist movement and its expansion.
While the ambition of many jihadists was indeed the destruction of the domestic political and social order and its replacement with an Islamic state, they were unable to realize any tangible success at home. However, many were galvanized by the triumph of the Iranian revolution, which — despite being Shia in ideological rhetoric — brought encouragement to many young Islamist hopefuls that other monarchies and autocrats could be toppled. “For both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, the Iranian revolution was nearly an apocalyptic event” (p. 85). Inspired by the victory against Communism in Afghanistan, mujahedeen returned to their native lands determined to target the “near enemy.” In Egypt, the assassination of Anwar Sadat signaled the “death of the Pharaoh” and the beginning of the quest for control of the region.
Gerges's conversations with Kamal, a transformed jihadist, and others cast light on the evolution of the jihadist movement. Kamal, inspired by Sayid Qutb's call to purge Egypt of ignorance, joined the movement to challenge the government. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded by al-Banna, had once cooperated with the Free Officers to overthrow the Egyptian monarchy. It had evolved into a massive political and military organization working locally and globally not only to assist Palestinians but also to establish a legitimate political representation. Like many of the brothers, Kamal, too, was imprisoned in the aftermath of Sadat's assassination. It was there, in the torture chambers of the infamous Egyptian jails, that he, like his brethren, experienced a further conversion. Some emerged speaking with a more moderate voice; others, like the notorious Dr. Zawahiri, surfaced breathing fire.
The task of pursuing these entrenched regimes proved too difficult, however. In the aftermath of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, many of these autocratic regimes eschewed the mujahedeen. Bin Laden and Zawahiri became marked men, blaming the United States for the political and security dilemmas of the Middle East. By empowering the dictatorships of many decades, the United States was deemed equally responsible for the moral and political corruption of the region. Indeed, Bin Laden's justification for September 11 was American hypocrisy. He believed that the United States had employed the mujahedeen only for U.S. purposes against their Cold War enemy and had no plan to seek a just peace in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In further targeting Islamists throughout the 1990s, Washington facilitated an increased militancy among a small group of fundamentalists. This small group splintered and relocated their movement and goals abroad in a transition away from the “near enemy to the far one.”
According to Gerges, a major evolution took place among jihadists from 1999 to 2005. It was then that other jihadist contemporaries, Kamal among them, considered a nonviolent path to achieve their goal of an Islamic state. Most jihadists, as revealed by Gerges, did not join the Bin Laden bandwagon, going so far as to criticize the new direction of the movement, because it took them off the track toward their objective. This division of the umma was not only considered counterproductive for the immediate goal of challenging the “near enemy” but also led to the global demonization of Islam.
The events of September 11 damaged the credibility of the Islamist movement by putting all groups into a global battle with the United States. This undoubtedly affected both moderates and radicals alike as they came under attack by their local governments and attracted international scrutiny. As suggested by Kamal,
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We all agree that the September bombings have a negative return but have different tones and different ways of expressing our opinion. While I fully agree that the attack on America did not serve the cause, I also view it in a broader historical sense-the culmination of the struggle between the United States and the Al-Qaeda organization. The war between them broke out in the early 1990s, not on September 11, 2001. The September bombings harmed the Islamist movement and dragged the umma into an uneven fight (p. 228).
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For al-Qaeda, the call to arms in the aftermath of September 11 was not received by an overwhelming army of jihadists. Conversely, the movement became isolated, abandoned and relegated to seeking refuge in the border caves of Afghanistan. Operation Enduring Freedom had succeeded in isolating Bin Laden, but the Bush administration's Iraqi ambitions revived the dying Leviathan.
What ensued after September 11 within the umma was a civil war for the soul of the community. Indeed, this internal struggle, or jihad, for the future of the Muslim world has been eclipsed by the Iraq War, which enabled the dying fundamentalist movement to revive itself. The differences that divided the umma could no longer be heard. However, as described by Gerges, "There is nothing uniquely Islamic about their internal governing style except the rhetoric and the symbolism" (p. 14). Nor has this movement proffered an original model of Islamic governance. Only seeking to emulate or recreate a patriarchal seventh-century interpretation of Islam, this Salafi concept simply misconstrues the Prophet's notions of society. “The fundamentalists finally discovered from their experience in Afghanistan something to which they remained oblivious for several centuries: that absolute authority is a hopelessly defective form of leadership, an obsolete way of organization that will end in nothing but defeat.”
Indeed, the two Islamic models of Iran and Sudan indicate that there are few specific differences between these governments and their autocratic counterparts. In Iran, the youthful population spurred on by Ayatollah Khomeini's encouragement to go forth and multiply is now rejecting the theocratic fusion their parents embraced in the 1979 revolution. The youth seek political choice, social freedom and economic opportunity — without the hypocrisy of religion. However, these Islamist fundamentalists have failed to realize that they too are corrupting the youth and the future of the region with their own flawed ambitions. In effect, the Bin Ladens, Zawahiris and Zarqawis of today have become the Gamal Abdel Nassers of yesterday, using their brand of Islamist ideology to fuel a regional fire. A movement that was effectively deemed lifeless before the Iraq War has been given life.
The bombs in Iraq broke the silence in the civil war that was raging between radicals and moderates. A global jihadi following poured out to fight the “far enemy” and purge their home territory of an infidel invasion. Al-Qaeda was given new life. As the "Great Satan" facilitated the link between Iraq and Afghanistan, the call to jihad was ever clearer. Even Kamal's opinions had altered as the war had pushed the umma into an unfair advantage. While he was no patriot of al-Qaeda, he agreed that “the jihadist who makes the supreme sacrifice to defend his religion and home is an exceptional human being, full of humanity” (p. 272).
The Iraq War not only allowed for the journey of many jihadists to continue, just when jihadism was dying a slow death; it also provided a venue for the infamous Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Indeed, Zarqawi enabled the movement to mushroom, reviving both regional and international recruitment and achieving global attention for his atrocities. Clearly, his death will bring no end to the jihadist fury bred by Zarqawi and his cadres in the fertile ground of Iraq.
Optimistically, Gerges points out that the sole political consequence of this schism between Islamists and jihadists is a chance for political moderation on behalf of the former group. As indicated by their tempered political dialogue and ambitions, Islamists have altered their tactics after years of alienation to engage in the political arena and soften the debate in the Muslim world in order to expand the area of activity. Recent political gains have been seen throughout the Middle East by Turkey's Islamist Justice and Development party, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas in Palestine and even in Saudi Arabia in recent Riyadh-based municipal elections. These victories, while small in number, signify the willingness of the former “warriors of God…to reassess their old ways…[revealing] a new course, one committed not to violent revolution but to political persuasion and dawa or religious calling.” If such moderation continues in the face of the Iraq War, Gerges’s optimism is well founded. Only Hamas seems to be an exception to the trend.
Political change is often sparked by extremism. Kamal's circle of moderation demonstrates the potential for moderation. While today we seem overwhelmed by this battle, it is important to remember that the Kamals outnumber the Osamas. Hopefully, in this vision of moderation, the journey of jihad can return to its origins as an inward spiritual struggle to attain perfect faith. Fawaz Gerges has done us a service in his timely attempt to bridge the growing divide between the West and the Middle East.
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