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Authors: Robert Spencer
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during which violence was forbidden—violating the sacred month.
Muhammad, it is said, at first received them coldly—until Allah revealed to him the phrase, “persecution is worse than slaughter.” The Muslims were persecuted by the Quraysh, or claimed they were, and so slaughtering them even in the sacred month was acceptable: the prohibition against fighting in the sacred month could be set aside for extenuating circumstances.
Zawahiri was thus anticipating that Zarqawi would object to his request to rein in his jihad by pointing out enemy atrocities and justifying his response with the Qur’anic phrase. And he stood by his statement that public opinion in this case would trump even the directive from the Muslim holy book, for their supporters, he said, did not comprehend this principle, and Zarqawi’s actions would be vulnerable to “a campaign by the malicious, perfidious, and fallacious campaign by the deceptive and fabricated media. And we would spare the people from the effect of questions about the usefulness of our actions in the hearts and minds of the general opinion that is essentially sympathetic to us.”
This was the core of the difference between al-Qaeda and what would become ISIS: al-Qaeda believed that the tactics practiced by Zarqawi, which he would pass on to the Islamic State, were counterproductive, arousing the horror and revulsion of the world, which could backfire by stirring the infidels to fury against the Muslims—an infuriated foe is harder to defeat than a complacent one.
Of course this was a bit rich coming from the masterminds of the single event most responsible for sparking the present round of the conflict between the West and the Islamic world: the September 11 attacks. Nothingaroused the anger of the world in the way that 9/11 did, and both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State read the Qur’an, which directs them to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (8:60). As Zawahiri conceded, Zarqawi would be “justified” in objecting to his letter by pointing to this divine imperative. He could also have pointed to the fact that al-Qaeda and his group shared the same goals and the same beliefs, but differed only in tactics.
And on tactics, who turned out to be right? The problem with prudential arguments is that who’s right depends on what actually happens next. You can never tell for sure who has the better end of the argument until you see how things turn out in practice. Zawahiri warned Zarqawi not to put too much stock in “the praise of some of the zealous young men and their description of you as the shaykh of the slaughterers.” He thought that “the Muslim populace who love[d] and support[ed]” Zarqawi wouldn’t ever find hostage-murder snuff videos “palatable.” But as we’ll see, Zarqawi and his successors in ISIS, aiming their PR campaign straight at the “zealous young men” demographic that Zawahiri discounted, were able to find a mass audience that would be inspired by those murders, so inspired that they would flock from all over the world in the tens of thousands to join ISIS’s jihad—when they weren’t undertaking jihad attacks at home in Europe and America. Ironically, bin Laden’s organization apparently underestimated the appeal of the strictest Sharia and the most violent jihad—and overestimated the resolve of the United States to oppose it. So today, history seems to have passed al-Qaeda by, and ISIS is in the ascendant.
Zarqawi won the argument.
Chapter Eight
IS THE ISLAMIC STATE ISLAMIC?
(IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?)
I t would be patently obvious to everyone that the Islamic State is Islamic—were it not for the fact that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, David Cameron, and virtually every other authority in the Western world insist that it’s not.
----
Did you know?
• Islamic State beheading victims appear calm in the videos because they are told they’re just going through a
Muhammad, it is said, at first received them coldly—until Allah revealed to him the phrase, “persecution is worse than slaughter.” The Muslims were persecuted by the Quraysh, or claimed they were, and so slaughtering them even in the sacred month was acceptable: the prohibition against fighting in the sacred month could be set aside for extenuating circumstances.
Zawahiri was thus anticipating that Zarqawi would object to his request to rein in his jihad by pointing out enemy atrocities and justifying his response with the Qur’anic phrase. And he stood by his statement that public opinion in this case would trump even the directive from the Muslim holy book, for their supporters, he said, did not comprehend this principle, and Zarqawi’s actions would be vulnerable to “a campaign by the malicious, perfidious, and fallacious campaign by the deceptive and fabricated media. And we would spare the people from the effect of questions about the usefulness of our actions in the hearts and minds of the general opinion that is essentially sympathetic to us.”
This was the core of the difference between al-Qaeda and what would become ISIS: al-Qaeda believed that the tactics practiced by Zarqawi, which he would pass on to the Islamic State, were counterproductive, arousing the horror and revulsion of the world, which could backfire by stirring the infidels to fury against the Muslims—an infuriated foe is harder to defeat than a complacent one.
Of course this was a bit rich coming from the masterminds of the single event most responsible for sparking the present round of the conflict between the West and the Islamic world: the September 11 attacks. Nothingaroused the anger of the world in the way that 9/11 did, and both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State read the Qur’an, which directs them to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (8:60). As Zawahiri conceded, Zarqawi would be “justified” in objecting to his letter by pointing to this divine imperative. He could also have pointed to the fact that al-Qaeda and his group shared the same goals and the same beliefs, but differed only in tactics.
And on tactics, who turned out to be right? The problem with prudential arguments is that who’s right depends on what actually happens next. You can never tell for sure who has the better end of the argument until you see how things turn out in practice. Zawahiri warned Zarqawi not to put too much stock in “the praise of some of the zealous young men and their description of you as the shaykh of the slaughterers.” He thought that “the Muslim populace who love[d] and support[ed]” Zarqawi wouldn’t ever find hostage-murder snuff videos “palatable.” But as we’ll see, Zarqawi and his successors in ISIS, aiming their PR campaign straight at the “zealous young men” demographic that Zawahiri discounted, were able to find a mass audience that would be inspired by those murders, so inspired that they would flock from all over the world in the tens of thousands to join ISIS’s jihad—when they weren’t undertaking jihad attacks at home in Europe and America. Ironically, bin Laden’s organization apparently underestimated the appeal of the strictest Sharia and the most violent jihad—and overestimated the resolve of the United States to oppose it. So today, history seems to have passed al-Qaeda by, and ISIS is in the ascendant.
Zarqawi won the argument.
Chapter Eight
IS THE ISLAMIC STATE ISLAMIC?
(IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?)
I t would be patently obvious to everyone that the Islamic State is Islamic—were it not for the fact that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, David Cameron, and virtually every other authority in the Western world insist that it’s not.
----
Did you know?
• Islamic State beheading victims appear calm in the videos because they are told they’re just going through a
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