Jihadi Curriculum, Part 1: Ideology

A blogger by the name of Shamil al-Baghdadi has created a curriculum titled “Method for Building the Personality of a Terrorist Mujahid.” The curriculum is divided into three parts: ideology, physical training, and ops. I’m only interested in the ideological bit, but those who are interested in the rest can easily find it on Shamil’s blog.

Shamil begins by explaining how to find a good recruit. First, you need to study the potential recruit before speaking freely with him. Make sure he is serious before approaching him or allowing him to approach you, even if he already knows about the aims and beliefs of the global Jihadi community.

Training is divided into three parts: Sharia, physical, and technical. Begin with the Sharia training.

The first thing to do is make sure your recruit has a good command of classical Arabic, not just colloquial Arabic. He should study one of the commentaries on the Ajurrumiyya (one of the classical Arabic primers), like al-Rawda al-Nadiyya. If he excels, he can read Ansari’s Sharh qatr al-nada.

The recruit should also learn to recite the Qur’an, memorizing and studying a section every day, and reading the relevant portions of the Tafsir (Exegesis) of Ibn Kathir, the Safwat al-Tafasir, or the tafsir by Sa’di (probably `Abd al-Rahman’s Taysir).

The recruit then begins to read the following list of books, in this order: (more…)