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Authors: Robert Spencer
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non-Muslim world to the degree that it might take more severe action against the jihadis than it otherwise would.
In response to Zarqawi’s robust defense from Islamic law of the slaughter of innocents and fellow Muslims, Osama’s lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri—the scholarly and bespectacled Cairo surgeon, a man of wealth and education, in contrast to Zarqawi’s hardscrabble upbringing and education in the school of hard knocks—was reduced to arguing on prudential grounds that the kind of bloodthirsty jihad Zarqawi was waging would not make his group popular with the larger Muslim population.
In the same July 9, 2005, letter in which he had laid out al-Qaeda’s four-step plan for reviving the caliphate, Zawahiri, who became the leader of al-Qaeda after bin Laden’s death, praised Zarqawi’s successes and very gently remonstrated with him for doing things that could turn public opinion against him. 62 Zawahiri is exceedingly polite and deferential in the letter, but cannot help allowing a hint of condescension to slip through now and again.
“I want to be the first to congratulate you,” Zawahiri wrote, “for what God has blessed you with in terms of fighting battle in the heart of the Islamic world, which was formerly the field for major battles in Islam’s history, and what is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era, and what will happen, according to what appeared in the Hadiths of the Messenger of God about the epic battles between Islam and atheism.” He praises Zarqawi in fulsome terms, writing that “God has blessed you and your brothers while many of the Muslim mujahedeen have longed for that blessing, and that is Jihad in the heart of the Islamic world. He has, in addition to that, granted you superiority over the idolatrous infidels, traitorous apostates, and those turncoat deviants.”
Only then does he begin to upbraid Zarqawi gently for the ferocity of his jihad in Iraq. He warns:
Among the things which the feelings of the Muslim populace who love and support you will never find palatable—also—are the scenes of slaughtering the hostages. You shouldn’t be deceived by the praise of some of the zealous young men and their description of you as the shaykh of the slaughterers, etc. They do not express the general view of the admirer and the supporter of the resistance in Iraq, and of you in particular by the favor and blessing of God.
Zawahiri anticipates Zarqawi’s objection:
And your response, while true, might be: Why shouldn’t we sow terror in the hearts of the Crusaders and their helpers? And isn’t the destruction of the villages and the cities on the heads of their inhabitants more cruel than slaughtering? And aren’t the cluster bombs and the seven ton bombs and the depleted uranium bombs crueler than slaughtering? And isn’t killing by torture crueler than slaughtering? And isn’t violating the honor of men and women more painful and more destructive than slaughtering?
These are Qur’anic references that Zawahiri knew Zarqawi would understand. The Qur’an directs Muslims to “make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the enemies of Allah” (8:60)—hence Zawahiri’s anticipated question from Zarqawi, “Why shouldn’t we sow terror in the hearts of the Crusaders and their helpers?”
Likewise, his refrain about various alleged Western atrocities being “crueler than slaughtering” is a reference to the Qur’an’s declaration that “persecution is worse than slaughter” (2:191, 2:217). Islamic traditionexplains that this statement from the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad after he ordered a group of Muslims to raid one of the trading caravans of their enemies, the Quraysh, at Nakhla, a settlement near Mecca. In order not to lose their chance at the caravan altogether, the raiders struck during one of the sacred months of the Arabic calendar,
In response to Zarqawi’s robust defense from Islamic law of the slaughter of innocents and fellow Muslims, Osama’s lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri—the scholarly and bespectacled Cairo surgeon, a man of wealth and education, in contrast to Zarqawi’s hardscrabble upbringing and education in the school of hard knocks—was reduced to arguing on prudential grounds that the kind of bloodthirsty jihad Zarqawi was waging would not make his group popular with the larger Muslim population.
In the same July 9, 2005, letter in which he had laid out al-Qaeda’s four-step plan for reviving the caliphate, Zawahiri, who became the leader of al-Qaeda after bin Laden’s death, praised Zarqawi’s successes and very gently remonstrated with him for doing things that could turn public opinion against him. 62 Zawahiri is exceedingly polite and deferential in the letter, but cannot help allowing a hint of condescension to slip through now and again.
“I want to be the first to congratulate you,” Zawahiri wrote, “for what God has blessed you with in terms of fighting battle in the heart of the Islamic world, which was formerly the field for major battles in Islam’s history, and what is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era, and what will happen, according to what appeared in the Hadiths of the Messenger of God about the epic battles between Islam and atheism.” He praises Zarqawi in fulsome terms, writing that “God has blessed you and your brothers while many of the Muslim mujahedeen have longed for that blessing, and that is Jihad in the heart of the Islamic world. He has, in addition to that, granted you superiority over the idolatrous infidels, traitorous apostates, and those turncoat deviants.”
Only then does he begin to upbraid Zarqawi gently for the ferocity of his jihad in Iraq. He warns:
Among the things which the feelings of the Muslim populace who love and support you will never find palatable—also—are the scenes of slaughtering the hostages. You shouldn’t be deceived by the praise of some of the zealous young men and their description of you as the shaykh of the slaughterers, etc. They do not express the general view of the admirer and the supporter of the resistance in Iraq, and of you in particular by the favor and blessing of God.
Zawahiri anticipates Zarqawi’s objection:
And your response, while true, might be: Why shouldn’t we sow terror in the hearts of the Crusaders and their helpers? And isn’t the destruction of the villages and the cities on the heads of their inhabitants more cruel than slaughtering? And aren’t the cluster bombs and the seven ton bombs and the depleted uranium bombs crueler than slaughtering? And isn’t killing by torture crueler than slaughtering? And isn’t violating the honor of men and women more painful and more destructive than slaughtering?
These are Qur’anic references that Zawahiri knew Zarqawi would understand. The Qur’an directs Muslims to “make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the enemies of Allah” (8:60)—hence Zawahiri’s anticipated question from Zarqawi, “Why shouldn’t we sow terror in the hearts of the Crusaders and their helpers?”
Likewise, his refrain about various alleged Western atrocities being “crueler than slaughtering” is a reference to the Qur’an’s declaration that “persecution is worse than slaughter” (2:191, 2:217). Islamic traditionexplains that this statement from the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad after he ordered a group of Muslims to raid one of the trading caravans of their enemies, the Quraysh, at Nakhla, a settlement near Mecca. In order not to lose their chance at the caravan altogether, the raiders struck during one of the sacred months of the Arabic calendar,
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