A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 4)

As we saw in the previous parts of this series, the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza wrote a book that can be described as a “crash course” in jihadi theory. In part 1, I described how the council used the term taghut (idol, pl. tawaghit) to accuse the rulers of the Muslim world of unbelief and why they were adamantly against both democracy and secularism. In part 2, we saw that the council believes Muslim rulers should be overthrown because of their man-made legislation but that something beneficial for Muslims should replace them, with the obvious favourite being a truly Islamic imamate of course. Finally, in part 3 it became clear that, its radicalism notwithstanding, the council did not believe any sinful Muslim should simply be fought by means of jihad but that one should be careful in applying takfir (excommunication). The “infidel” rulers, though, should preferably be fought since they cannot possibly claim ignorance of the major tenets of Islam that they are apparently violating so clearly.

Loyalty

This final part of the series on the council’s “crash course” deals with several subjects that are closely related to previous ones. The first of these is “loyalty” (wala’), which the authors state Muslims should always show towards each other but never towards non-Muslims, whom they should stay away from through disavowal (bara’). The concept of al-wala’ wa-l-bara’, the authors state, is “among the most prominent beliefs” of Islam. The authors distinguish between tawalli to “infidels”, which is a form of wala’ that is kufr akbar (major unbelief, which expels the culprit from Islam), and muwalat, which only amounts to kufr asghar (minor unbelief, which is sinful but does not expel one from Islam). This way, the authors link up their description of al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ with the various types of kufr dealt with in other parts of their book (see here).

The authors move on to describe what forms of wala’ to non-Muslims amount to tawalli (and therefore justify takfir and jihad) and what forms are simply muwalat, which do no just legitimise such measures. Not surprisingly, the “sins” that irritate the council most (the rulers’ support for non-Muslims and their adherence to “un-Islamic” legislation) are in the more serious tawalli category, while relatively minor issues such as resembling non-Muslims in manners and celebrations are only labelled muwalat. Thus, the authors again use their interpretation of a new concept (in this case al-wala’ wa-l-bara’) to show that their views on the unbelief and “un-Islamic” legislation of the rulers are completely accurate.

The “Abodes”

The next section of the book deals with an age-old subject, namely “the abode of Islam” (dar al-Islam) and “the abode of unbelief” (dar al-kufr). While most readers of Jihadica will be familiar with these terms (or similar ones such as dar al-iman and dar al-harb), the authors specify them in a way that seems much too detailed for a “crash course”. They define “the abode of Islam” as the land where Islamic legislation and power rule supreme, even if the majority of its inhabitants are non-Muslims; “the abode of unbelief”, on the other hand, is the land where “infidel” rules are applied, even if Muslims are the majority of its population. This latter term is specified into three different terms: the original abode of unbelief (dar al-kufr al-asli), such as the U.S. and Europe; the unusual abode of unbelief (dar al-kufr al-tari’), which was once under Muslim rule but not anymore, such as Spain and Israel; and the abode of apostasy (dar al-ridda), which obviously includes Muslim countries whose rulers have supposedly abandoned Islam.

The authors continue by distinguishing a number of other “abodes”: the dar al-kufr may, for example, be dar al-harb (the abode of war) or dar al-‘ahd (the abode of the treaty). The former is obviously a country or part of the world that is formally at war with the Muslims while the latter is not dar al-Islam but has established a treaty with it, hence its name. In order to complicate things further, the authors add – crisscrossing the abodes already distinguished – “the abode of security” (dar al-amn) and “the abode of chaos” (dar al-fitna), referring to the lands where Muslims are safe and those where they are not, respectively. The council comes up with more terms and asks questions such as: “Can the dar al-kufr become dar al-Islam and vice versa?” The answer is obviously “yes”, since even cities such as Mecca and Medina once used to be part of the dar al-kufr and, considering the allegedly “infidel” nature of the Saudi regime, may be so again.

Emigration and International Relations

Strongly related to the different “abodes” is the question of emigration (hijra) from one abode to the other. The authors state that, with regard to Islamic law, hijra can be described as either a) moving from the dar al-kufr or dar al-fitna to the dar al-Islam or dar al-amn; or as b) moving away from one’s sins and starting a new and more pious life. Concentrating on the former, the council discusses whether hijra from the dar al-kufr to the dar al-Islam is compulsory (wajib), deplorable (mandub), neither, or forbidden (muharram). This is a complicated discussion that not only involves texts but also questions such as whether Muslims are able to “show Islam” (izhar al-din) in the lands in which they live. Since exact definitions of what “showing” Islam really means are often lacking, the authors simply provide all points of view, showing that there is no clear-cut answer but that each situation needs to be looked at separately.

Expanding further on the distinction between the two abodes, the council states that international relations in Islam are really about conflict and that war is actually the basis of the ties between the dar al-Islam and the dar al-kufr. There can be treaties between the two abodes, as mentioned above, but there can never be true peace. It should perhaps be mentioned that this discussion on the different abodes, how they should interact and what Muslims living in the West should do is obviously not only relevant to jihadis but is also frequently discussed by more irenic Muslim scholars in the U.S. and Europe as well as the Muslim world itself. Unlike the latter group of thinkers, the members of the council claim that war is the constant state in which the two abodes exist and come up with a large number of verses from the Qur’an such as Q. 2: 193 (“Fight them, till there is no persecution is God’s”) that they believe support this claim.

Coherence

The rest of the “crash course” deals with “miscellaneous subjects,” such as whether photography is allowed or not, but does not go into any depth on either of them. Of course, detailed analysis was probably never the intention of the authors since this book can, after all, justifiably be called a “crash course”. The strength of the book therefore lies not so much in its comprehensive treatment of the topics dealt with but in its clear-cut answers, the fact that it’s to-the-point and offers lots of seemingly convincing evidence. As such, the book displays a great deal of ideological coherence, making this “jihadi catechism” perhaps more dangerous than it looks.

A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 3)

In the first part of this series on a book written by the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza, we saw that its authors were highly critical of the rulers of the Muslim world and employed their Islamist terminology to accuse these rulers of kufr (unbelief), the details of which are dealt with in the second part of this series. Knowing this, you might expect the Council’s treatment of excommunication (takfir) to deal entirely with the legitimacy of excommunicating Muslim rulers and why they may be called “infidels” and expelled from Islam. Well, this is actually not the case. Apparently, the authors believed they had made a strong enough case against Muslim rulers in the previous chapters because chapter 4 is virtually entirely dedicated to giving a theoretical description of what takfir is, what its conditions and obstacles are and when it may or may not be applied. Perhaps surprisingly for a group advocating takfir of Muslim presidents, kings and (prime) ministers, they come across as extremely careful in applying the practice of excommunication.

Conditions and obstacles

Although this book is by no means the most detailed study on takfir in existence, it is pretty meticulous for a “crash course”. The authors define takfir as “the judgement against a Muslim to expel him from the religion of Islam for his kufr belief, speech or action”. (These latter words show that the authors adhere to what one may refer to as the orthodox Islamic idea that faith (iman) is found in one’s beliefs, one’s speech and one’s actions. Muslim scholars have had some extremely interesting debates on this issue for centuries but most seem to have settled on this position.) Then, the authors start by mentioning the conditions that have to be met before one can apply takfir to another Muslim: the Muslim supposedly guilty of unbelief should be legally capable of being charged with this (i.e. he should be an adult in his right mind), it should be clear that he actually intended to act in the sinful way he did and he must have acted out of his own free will. Moreover, the act of alleged kufr is also subject to certain conditions. There should be a clear indication that it’s really about unbelief and there should be some proof of that.

After listing some more conditions, the authors mention that there are also certain obstacles to takfir that must be overcome in order to apply it. If a Muslim is forced to commit a sin that can be classified as unbelief, takfir may not simply be applied to him, nor can this be the case when the supposed sinner simply made a mistake. The culprit may also have made a wrong interpretation, leading to honest and well-intended but faulty conclusions. In none of these cases may takfir be applied. The same is the case, the authors claim, if the allegedly sinful deed is unclear, if the evidence against it is not full-proof or if the witnesses who claim a Muslim committed a sin are unreliable. Although the authors make clear that takfir is not a dirty word, that it has firm roots in Islam and that none of these conditions and obstacles should make the reader excuse Muslim rulers for their supposed unbelief, the overall impression one gets from reading all this is that the book’s authors are relatively careful not to apply takfir too broadly. Much of the chapter is dedicated to keeping people from applying the concept and the authors even list a number of “widespread mistakes” regarding takfir, which include declaring entire (Muslim) societies to be “infidel” or excommunicating people who do not belong to a certain group or organisation.

Ignorance

At this point, the reader might wonder: is it really reasonable to expect supposedly apostate Muslim rulers to know all of this? In other words, if President Husni Mubarak, King ‘Abdallah II, President Bashar al-Asad and their colleagues simply don’t know about the precise details of what constitutes kufr, might their ignorance (jahl) perhaps excuse them? This is the subject of chapter 6 of the book, which discusses what jahl is and when ignorance can be used by a Muslim to excuse his supposedly sinful behaviour. If he didn’t know certain acts or words were sinful, how can he be blamed for them?

The authors of the book define jahl in this case as “not knowing about Islamic legal rulings and their underlying precepts”. They claim there are two schools of thought regarding ignorance as an excuse for kufr: those who do not accept jahl as an excuse at all (associated with early-Islamic extremist groups such as the Khawarij) and those who accept ignorance as an excuse without looking at the context. The right way to think about this subject lies, of course, somewhere between these two extremes. Although the subject is too complicated to deal with in detail here, a highly important point about this issue is whether the person using ignorance as an excuse has been reached by a messenger bringing the message of Islam or not. If they have not, jahl may excuse their sinful deed. If they have been reached by such a messenger, however, they cannot claim ignorance since they were given the chance to learn about Islam.

The authors are careful to point out that – and this is where their true political colours come shining through again – jahl cannot be used as an excuse in cases where a Muslim claiming ignorance is actively shunning the search for Islamic knowledge, has been reached by a messenger bringing the message of Islam, has been in contact with missionary activities etcetera. Although it is not pointed out very specifically, it is clear that the political leaders these radicals are so adamantly against have all the Islamic literature they could possibly wish at their disposal, making them utterly unable to claim ignorance of Islam as an excuse for their “infidel” actions.

By dealing specifically with ignorance and its inapplicability in certain situations as an excuse for kufr, the authors implicitly return to their original premise that the rulers of the Muslim world are apostates and are indeed worthy of the judgement of takfir, in spite of their carefulness to express this. How this is connected to other themes will be dealt with in the next installment of this series.

To be continued…

A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 2)

In the first part of this series on a book describing what every jihadi ought to know, we saw that the authors of the book, the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza, initially seemed to give a purely religious description of things but quickly moved on to the political relevance of what they were saying. In a response to this post, one reader stated that their words were “just a rehash of Qutb”. He has a good point. In Qutb’s famous Milestones (Ma’alim fi l-Tariq), the author does indeed point out that those who fail to rule according to the shari’a and use man-made laws instead are claiming God’s sovereignty (hakimiyya), thereby turning themselves into gods or idols (tawaghit), just like we saw in the previous post. The scholars of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad go further, however, and show that they have much more detailed ideas than Qutb ever wrote down about such issues, as we will see below.

Judgement and Legislation

Unlike Qutb, the book dealt with in this post gives a much more detailed description of “un-Islamic” rules, laws and legislation and what judging “according to what God has sent down” (Q. 5: 44, an important verse for Qutb and other Islamists) means and distinguishes between “judgment” and “legislation”. The authors point out that, whereas a wrong judgment can be made for several reasons and therefore does not automatically amount to unbelief (kufr) of the person responsible for it, the term “legislation” denotes a system of laws that – when applied in the service of anyone or anything other than God – means that its legislator is placed outside Islam.

After discussing the exact definition of “legislation” and several other issues, the scholars move on to one of the major questions related to the issue of “un-Islamic” legislation: when can something be called “major unbelief” (kufr akbar) and when is it simply “minor unbelief” (kufr asghar)? The difference between the two is that the former places the culprit outside Islam, while the latter merely entails that he is guilty of something awful but not so bad as to expel him from the religion altogether. Perhaps not surprisingly, the list of legislative sins that amount to “major unbelief” is much longer than the list of “minor unbelief” categories. Although the discussion is more detailed and nuanced than can be discussed here, most forms of “major unbelief” entail that the legislator shows that he actually believes “man-made laws” to be superior to the Islamic shari’a, which is a blatant form of kufr. While other Muslim scholars often state that one cannot possibly know a person’s real intentions, that one should therefore be extremely careful in ascribing “un-Islamic” motives to rulers and legislators and that, subsequently, the application of the label “major unbelief” to sinful acts should be highly limited, the authors have different ideas. They contend that certain actions betray a ruler’s true beliefs, making it possible for others to determine whether his “man-made laws” are simply mistakes or are actually forms of unbelief. One example of this (mentioned on p. 81 of the book), is when rulers exchange the shari’a for an entirely different system of laws. This, according to the authors, makes it obvious that the legislator doesn’t want to have anything to do with the shari’a anymore, which constitutes a form of “major unbelief”.

Overthrow the rulers, unless…

The authors’ conclusion of this discussion on different types of kufr is that the rulers of our day and age are guilty of acts of unbelief and apostasy (ridda) because they, among other things, supposedly apply legislation on the basis of “other than what God has revealed” (bi-ghayr ma anazala llah), use constitutions and adhere to international law. This, in turn, means that they may be overthrown. The authors, however, set two conditions for overthrowing the rulers, of which especially the second one is interesting. The first condition tells the reader that the ruler must be guilty of clear (major) unbelief that can be proven. The second condition, however, states that overthrowing the ruler should “cause the strength that enables the Muslims to overthrow [the ruler] to increase”. In other words, the authors seem to point out that radicals wanting to topple a regime should not do so unless they will actually be strengthened by it and replace the “infidel” president or king by “a Muslim ruler who governs them according to the Qur’an and the Sunna”. This apparently excludes simply killing a president or king, since such random actions are unlikely to create an Islamic state. The authors do state, however, that if Muslims’ power is increased by toppling a ruler, they really have no other choice than to do so.

The Imamate

Quite conveniently, the authors also provide an alternative to the regimes that ought to be overthrown: the imamate (Islamic leadership). Quoting the great Ibn Khaldun to point out the difference between Islamic leadership and ordinary kingship, they state that the imamate is meant to establish Islam by spreading, propagating and defending it on the one hand and applying it through the application of the shari’a on the other. The imam himself (i.e. the leader of the Muslims, not to be confused with a prayer leader in a mosque) also needs to fit a certain profile: he should be a Muslim who has come of age, should be in his right mind, must be knowledgeable of the shari’a and he should also be just, among other things. He also has duties and enjoys certain rights, among them the right to be obeyed and advised.

Possibly in order to complete the picture, the authors also include the possibility that the imam himself is overthrown, which may be done if he is guilty of the major unbelief mentioned before, and list the conditions under which this may be done. Although the authors list four different groups willing to overthrow the rulers, of which only one would do so justifiably, they nevertheless leave open the possibility that even the imam himself may not be up to scratch. This brings us to the option of declaring the ruler to be an unbeliever (kafir), i.e. the issue of excommunication (takfir), which will be discussed next time.

To be continued…

A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 1)

Throughout the years, the number of jihadi writings has grown enormously. Nowadays, books and fatwas on any given subject related to jihadi thought can easily be found and downloaded from the internet. As a service to those who can’t see the forest for the trees anymore or to those people who simply want a brief overview of what every budding jihadi theorist should know, the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza (not to be confused with the Shari’a Council of the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, on which I wrote previously) produced what can be described as a crash course in jihadi theory some time ago. The book, entitled The Gift of the Unifiers on the Most Important Issues of the Basics of Islam (also available here), describes the theoretical underpinnings of jihadis’ animosity towards Muslim states and their policies in a mere 273 pages. This post is the first of a series in which I discuss this book.

Taghut

The book starts by focusing on one of the central terms of jihadi discourse, namely taghut (pl. tawaghit). Traditionally used to refer to idols, the authors of this book describe it as something that makes you cross the proper boundary of worship and obedience. In other words, a taghut is anything “one appeals to (yatahakamuna ilayhi) besides God and his Messenger or worships besides God”. The authors go on to state that “every human being needs to disbelieve in all types of taghut because that is the precondition of Islam”, which should be expressed by one’s heart, tongue and limbs (i.e. actions).

So far so good, one might think. The authors, however, continue by listing three types of taghut and this is where their true intentions become clear. Besides mentioning actual idols and other objects of what can clearly be described as worship, they also name “the idol of judgment” as a type of taghut. This category encompasses “the rulers, princes, kings, ministers, deputies, heads of tribes and judges […] if they do not judge by what God has revealed”. The idea is that following another type of legislation besides the shari’a amounts to accepting another legislator apart from God. Since God is believed to have the sole right to legislate, allowing another person to do this effectively means that one permits someone else to do part of God’s job, thus treating him/her like God. This way, the authors imply, a legislator is turned into another god, an idol. The concept of taghut thus gives these scholars the tools to equate political rulers and their governments with idols, making them fair game for the jihad they advocate.

The authors list the most important idols that tend to be “worshipped”. Interestingly, while Satan is mentioned first as the one who “calls [people] to worship [others] besides God”, “the despotic ruler who changes the rule of God” and “the one who rules on the basis of something other than what God has revealed” are listed as numbers 2 and 3, even before actual idols that people worship, which indicates how important politics and politicians are to the authors. Other tawaghit include lusts, magicians, (non-Islamic) laws and legislation, the nation and all other religions besides Islam. It speaks for itself that the authors believe that people who do “worship” such idols cannot be seen as Muslims but should be labelled “helpers of the idols” (ansar al-tawaghit) and excommunicated as infidels, for which they offer several pages of “evidence” from the Qur’an and the Sunna (the example of the Prophet Muhammad). While they certainly present many verses that condemn polytheism, these only seem to focus on the actual worship of concrete idols, not political rulers. The clever part of their reasoning is, however, that because the authors have just equated “un-Islamic” rulers with idols, they can bring down the full weight of the Qur’an and the Sunna on these political leaders every time those sources mention the word “taghut” unfavourably.

The authors subsequently analyse whether the wives and children of these political tawaghit or their helpers may also be seen as infidels. Their answer to this question is that It depends on whether or not they are aware of their husbands’ and fathers’ unbelief. If they know and agree, they are infidels too; if they don’t, they are excused. The Shari’a Council also points out that not everyone who works for a taghut is automatically an unbeliever. Economic jobs for the government, for example, or making deliveries are not necessarily forms of unbelief (kufr) but should be seen as forbidden (haram).

Democracy

A special chapter is dedicated to the concept of democracy. Because democracies are ultimately ruled by the people, the latter become the source of legislation instead of God, turning the people themselves into idols. The authors are clearly against democracy and list their grievances about that system, including freedom of conscience, the right to become an apostate, freedom of expression, equality and other things that the authors consider incompatible with Islam. Interestingly, the authors also compare the concept of democracy with the Arabic shura (consultation). While some Muslim scholars have argued that shura is a pre-modern, Qur’anic and therefore authentically Islamic form of democracy, the writers of this book disagree, primarily because the (nominal) head of a shura is God, while this is not the case in a democracy.

Because democracy is so awful according to the Shari’a Council, the authors claim that it is a taghut that actually hurts and damages Islam. They state that it pervades Muslim rule and gives unbelievers power over Muslims. This is also why the authors reject setting up one’s own political party or entering parliament. Although these scholars leave themselves some room to be able to deny that all politicians are inbelievers, they are pretty sweeping in their judgement, allowing only MPs who are willing to ignore and actively disavow the constitution and other “un-Islamic” legislation to run for parliament, which basically excludes most if not all of them.

Secularism

Another taghut the authors pay special attention to is secularism. Although not as strong a trend in the Arab world as a century or so ago, the writers apparently still feel the need to spend some time on this subject. They see the “worship” of the idol of secularism as responsible for moral decay in the Muslim world’s educational facilities, believe it hampers the spread of Islam’s message, leads to the persecution of Islamic preachers and, interestingly, leads to the cancellation of the duty to perform jihad.

Although this duty of jihad is not mentioned very often throughout the book, it is clear that the condemnation of political rulers in the strongest Islamic terms possible is expressed in order to show the governments’ illegitimacy and justify fighting against them. What other ways the authors of this book use to achieve the same goal will be dealt with in the next parts of this series.

To be continued…