March 28, 2024

Please follow & like us :)

Twitter
Facebook
RSS

Caliphaters: A 21st Century Millennial Movement

http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2019/09/18/caliphaters-a-21st-century-millennial-movement/

CRichard Landes

The following article was published by MERIAMiddle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 2017). For some reason it is not available at that site, so I post it here. F

Caliphater: one who
believes that in our day, Islam will triumph over all other religions and
establish a global Caliphate
.

Among the currently active apocalyptic movements in the
world today, none has had the success of Caliphaters in promoting their
rhetoric and mobilizing action in pursuit of their millennial goal: Islam’s
global dominion. Caliphaters believe that now is the time for Islam to fulfill
its disrupted destiny, and where there was Dar
al Harb
(realm of war, of free kufar/infidels),
there shall be Dar al Islam (realm of
submission to Allah and his servants, of dhimmi
kufar
). With this global victory, Caliphaters believe, Islam will redeem
humanity through Allah’s/their dominion.

Like all millennial movements, it is salvific. Indeed, one
finds among the faithful of all monotheistic traditions those who believe that the
ultimate salvific destiny of humanity is either to convert to their religion
(whatever that means), or to serve their religion. And, as long the faithful
believe that those dramatic moments are far off (say, the year 6000 Annus Mundi),
such beliefs have a limited impact on the lives of non-believers. In practice
it can even encourage deep passivity in believers who patiently await a
promised redemption.[1]

But when activated by an apocalyptic sense of “now, at long
last, is the time!” millennial dreams gain momentum and can become historical
movers.[2]
Driven by a sense of cosmic urgency, drawn together with goal of transcendent power
and glory, millennial movements are (hyper-)active.
The Deeds of God through the believers
will transform the current world along its destined arc of perfection.[3]
People who enter apocalyptic time, whether they are violent or not, lose their
conventional inhibitions and fears; they stop committing to long-term
strategies (“planting trees”), and instead commit to active, daring, radical,
agendas whose success they fervently believe will change and transform the
(unjust) rules and conventions, that they, apocalyptic warriors, so readily
violate.

When the Muslim Brotherhood formed in the 1920s CE/1340s AH,
Hassan al Banna judged the time not yet right. So he set in motion a
multi-generational millennial project of first restoring Dar al Islam where it
once was, and then moving onto the unfinished conquest of Dar al Harb.[4]
In technical terms, Caliphaters have a triumphalist millennial goal (world
dominion), an apocalyptic time horizon (our lives), and an active scenario
whereby their deeds would bring on redemption: either cataclysmic, Jihad and/or transformative, Da’wa.[5]

Caliphaters first caught the attention of the outside world with
the advent of the mujaddid/renewal at
the Muslim century mark, in this case, 1400 (1979)[6]
– most notably in Khoumeini’s stunning victory in Iran, but, to those paying
attention, also in the assault of followers of a Mahdi on the Grand Mosque of
Mecca on the first day of 1400,[7]
and the emergence of the Maitatsine in Nigeria.[8]
From the perspective of several decades since, that Mujaddid became a key
moment in the emergence of Caliphaters in this century (1500/2076). Yussuf
al Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood preacher turned the Mujaddid of 1400 into a generations-long process.

This is what I prefer in understanding this noble hadith [mujaddid]and its implementation in our century which we parted from [the fourteenth Hijri century which ended in 1980] in order to receive a new century; in which we ask Allah to make our today better than our yesterday, and our tomorrow better than our today.[9]

Five years later, al Qaradawi made it clear what this “better tomorrow” would look like: Da’wa conquers the Crusaders’ in their own lands.[10]

From the perspective of several decades since (late teens of the 21th century CE), the Caliphater energy released by that Mujaddid of 1400 became a key moment in the emergence of a Caliphater movement in this century, the one ending in 1500/2076.[11]

Like many other millennial movements, Caliphaters view the
current state of the world as irredeemably evil and corrupt: it must pass away
to make way for the coming redeemed world. Among their apocalyptic signs of
growing corruption and evil, are key Western cultural tendencies and values: women’s
liberation, freedom of speech and press, equal rights for all (including LGBTs,
atheists, Jews, other infidels), freedom of speech and assembly for all.[12]
For them, the permissiveness involved has corrupted morals (sexual freedom,
especially for women) and equality between Muslims and infidels undermines
social structures (end of patriarchy, triumphalist religiosity).[13]
Indeed, for them, the West’s very scholarship, with its critical analysis of
holy documents and the intellectual movements that produced them, constitutes
an unacceptable blasphemy against the one true faith, Islam.

On the millennial
question of what this coming heaven on earth, this world of Dar al Islam, of Islam triumphant, will
look, Caliphaters like to remain vague, just as Marx and communists were vague
about the workers’ paradise. The vaguer, the more people can be drawn into the
apocalyptic excitement. Actual attempts to realize it, like ISIS, may
disappoint, but, as with communists, they don’t dissuade.[14]

Once inside the apocalyptic time of Caliphater circles, however,
major disagreements prevail on four major questions: 1) How fast will the
redemption occur? 2) Where are we in the process? And, 3) How much of what is
to come is due to the active work of the faithful, and, if so, 4) What actions
do the times demand? The answers to these apocalyptic questions give a wide
range of potential groupings within the movement. At the two extremes stand:

Jihad: Active cataclysmic apocalyptic: The global
Caliphate will happen rapidly because of the
faithful. By destroying evil (the unjust world that now prevails) they will bring on Allah’s promised
redemption. Thus, mujahideen
(jihadis)are Allah’s soldiers on
earth to destroy evil and pave the way for the Caliphate. For some, like Hamas,
this means implementing the promise of the Hadith of Rock and Trees, and
exterminating the Jews.[15]
Tribal jihad has had a remarkable success in the 21st century,
especially in the Muslim majority world, where whole regions have melted down
into states of chronic war, dislocating millions of victims and tens of
millions of refugees.[16]
They have also penetrated Western societies with dramatic acts of suicide
terror. These Shahids have turned
warriors into apocalyptic weapons, creating a new and extremely potent weapon
of 21st century jihadi warfare: “The demons released by this age of
chaos and war in the Middle East have become an unstoppable force,” warns Patrick
Cockburn.[17]

Da’wa: Active transformative apocalyptic: At
the other end of the range are Caliphaters who believe the process will happen
more gradually, through persuasion rather than force. Da’wa – summons to the faith – they insist, is how Islam should
spread: the faithful summon, the infidels will respond, and if they do not
become Muslims, they become proleptic
dhimmi (accept subjection before
conquest).[18]
The global Caliphate might come now, but it might also take another generation,
it might take till the end of this 15th century, so auspiciously
begun in 1400 (1979) and destined to conclude with a global Caliphate in 1500
(2076). For Qaradawi, Da’wa is an
alternative form of conquest: “political Jihad.”

A Jihadi forces infidels to convert or die; a Da’ī summons infidels to conversion. Both are Caliphaters striving for
global Muslim dominance. Despite their vast and all too often, murderous
differences, they share an ultimate and fervent cause – the dominion of the
Umma. For them, Wala wa bara, “one of
Islam’s main foundations” means: “al-Wala’
is a manifestation of sincere love for Allah, his prophet and the believers; al-Bara’ is an expression of enmity and hatred towards falsehood and its adherents [i.e. infidels].”[19]
Those Muslims who fail to keep this perspective can end up having real friendships
with infidels – a profound infidel hope, and a cardinal Muslim sin that, to the
outrage of the Caliphaters, proliferated in modern times.

Declared Jihadi ideologue, Ayman al Zawahiri: “We believe
that the greatest challenge facing Islamic belief in this age is the threat of
deviation from allegiance to believers and animosity of the kuffār.”[20]
Al Wala’ wa’l Bara’, here, is the
religious equivalent of the tribal code of solidarity (asabiyya): my side right or wrong.[21]
By nature triumphalist, it rejoices in “lording it over” the infidel. For
British Muslim Abu Walid, for example, Muslims should humiliate Christians into
converting.[22]

Of course, as with all such movements, the scenario with
which one enters apocalyptic time never pans out, and all believers end up
having to negotiate the inevitable disappointments. But the zealous rarely give
up: they shift scenarios in order to maintain apocalyptic time (hope). In this
apocalyptic jazz, they are capable of moving back and forth from violence to
pacifism, from Da’wa to Jihad as they feel appropriate.

Caliphater War on
Infidels: Aims, Targets, Strategies

For Caliphaters, Occidens
delendus est
: everything that the West prides itself on, and every technical
advantage that they have over Muslims and Islam, must either be seized or
destroyed. Indeed, for some Caliphaters, Western technologies prepare their
way; globalization, the internet, transportation, open borders, are all vehicles
of their victory, salvific vehicles, their
messiah’s donkey. Just as Eusebius declared the Roman Empire a praeparatio evangelica (empire laid the
groundwork for the spread of the Gospels), so is globalization in the 21st
century, a praeparatio califatae. Our
technology enables their global dominion, if only they can seize control. From
a Western (infidel) point of view, this is obviously a crazy ambition, based on
a wild overvaluation of their capabilities. But for people moved by “outrageous
hope,” nothing is impossible; and right or wrong, like the Taiping and many
other messianic movements, they can do immense damage in the process of
failing.[23]

Ironically, this Western incredulity at their ambitions has worked
greatly to the Caliphaters’ advantage. Westerners hearing of Caliphater goals
in the later 20th century – Queen in a burkah, Green Flag of Islam flying
from the White House – could not take the movement seriously. Anyone warning
about the problem was told to stop the bad joke; those who persisted got
labeled Islamophobes.

For Caliphaters, the two crucial global targets in the
battle for world dominion are Israel, the invader of (current) Dar al Islam, and the West, the most
powerful civilization of Dar al Harb.
Both constitute successful autonomous infidel entities, therefore, as insults
to Muslim triumphalism, what Shi’i Caliphaters like to call the “Great and
Little Satan.” By their insulting defiance they are therefore inhabitants of
the realm of the sword, harbis
destined to the sword. Israel, an autonomous Jewish state into the heart of Dar
al Islam, makes the global humiliation unbearable,[24]
and as a result, in the apocalyptic literature of the 15th century
AH (1979-2076), Israel is the heartland of evil from which the Dajjal (Antichrist) will appear.[25]
Caliphaters do not fight local wars; they grapple with cosmic evil.

Asymmetrical warfare’s
cognitive campaigns: Caliphater Da’wa

Under modern conditions, however, an open war with the West is
impossible. So like all asymmetrical wars, the early stages largely take place on
the cognitive battlefield: convince your more powerful foe not to use its superior
force, while mobilizing your own side to place their faith in promised violence.
And in the invasive cogwar that Caliphaters wage, convince your more powerful
enemy to stand down and not resist your invasion. Thus while Mujahideen attract the most attention
from specialists and do spectacular damage where they cannot be controlled (from
Afghanistan across the Middle East to Nigeria), by far the most active arm of
the Caliphater movement in the West wages cognitive war (Da’wa).

Da’wa caliphaters
living in Dar al Harb, however, need
to disguise their real goals since people tend to resist when they know they’re
being invaded. Thus the primary Caliphater concerns while operating in enemy
territory are, by their very nature, deceptive. They have to hide their
intentions from the people they target; spread dissension in their enemy’s ranks;
and leverage Jihadi attacks into concessions, even as they publicly condemn the
Jihadis. In order to do so, Da’īs must find allies within target cultures,
culture leaders who (like dhimmi leaders throughout the history of Islamic
rule) suppress criticism of Islam among their people, and instead attack fellow
infidels who criticize the Caliphaters.[26]

In early 2000, shortly after the Y2K bug had passed without
incident, with the West leading the global community into a new millennium of
civil society, the likelihood of a global Caliphate seemed, even to some
wannabe Caliphaters, like an awfully tall order: impossible militarily,
ridiculously quixotic as a cogwar. Only the most fervent of true believers
could think that, even with Allah’s help, the global Caliphate was possible.

At the dawn of the Kuffār
millennium, a prayer for Caliphaters, for fervent believers, for participants
in the redemptive conquest of the West by Da’wa, for the warriors of the
Mujaddid:

Oh Allah, the all Merciful, give us enemies who submit to our will of their own accord…

Give us enemies who help us to disguise our ambition to subject them, who muffle our acts of war, and ignore our deployment among them.

Give us enemies who believe that, “except for a tiny minority,” the “vast majority” of Muslims are moderate and peaceful; a “Religion of Peace.”

Give us enemies who accept those of us who fight for the Caliphate with Da’wa, as “moderates” who have “nothing to do” with “violent extremists.”

Give us enemies who engage us as advisors and consultants in intelligence and police work, as prison chaplains, community liaisons, college teachers and administrators.

Give us enemies whose journalists and scholars will present our war propaganda as reliable information.

Give us enemies who attack those who criticize Islam (including Muslims) as xenophobic and racist Islamophobes.

Give us enemies who adopt our apocalyptic enemy, so that they join us in an attack on one of their key allies.

Give us enemies who legitimate our terrorism as “resistance” and denounce any recourse to violence in their own defense, as “terrorism.”

Give us enemies who respect the dignity of our beliefs even as we heap disdain on theirs.

Give us enemies who believe our sincerity when we invoke human rights when, in reality, we despise those rights for women, slaves, and infidels.

Give us enemies who welcome our angry “Street” in the heart of their capital cities.

Give us useful infidels prepared to behave like dhimmi without being forced.

And may those among our enemies who act as they should, play prominent roles in their public sphere.”

Unfortunately for infidels, the last decade and a half, the
opening decades of the 21st century, have seen this prayer answered…
in spades.

Progressives and policy makers have adopted the tropes Islam is a “religion of peace,” and
consider discussions of terrorism as a manifestation of “radical” Islam, as an
insult to peaceful Muslims. They insist that there should be “no lumping”
between the “vast majority of moderate Muslims” and violent extremists – pas d’amalgames![27]

This in turn has allowed Da’wa Caliphaters to claim
inclusion among the moderates seeking peace, among the progressives seeking
social justice. Intelligence and security services in the (infidel) West have
(how often unwittingly?) partnered with Da’wa Caliphaters. James Clapper,
National Security Advisor, for example, described the Muslim Brotherhood as
“moderate,” and “largely secular,” encouraging that the US favor them at the
time of the “Arab Spring” (2011).[28]

Caliphaters have greatly expanded the presence of a “Muslim Street”
in Western capitals, first seen in the anti-Zionist and “anti-War”
demonstrations of the early aughts, then taking the initiative by burning
suburbs across France (Fall 2005), protesting the Cartoon Blasphemy and Papal
Insult controversies (Winter and Spring 2006), more recently seen setting fires
to cities across Europe in the summer of 2014 in the wake of another wave of
lethal journalism about the IDF in Gaza.[29]

Among activist information professionals – journalists,
academics, NGO researchers, policy-makers – there is a marked reluctance to
identify violence qua Muslim
violence.[30]
Even shame murders get reclassified as domestic violence and the religious
dimension obscured or even denied.[31]
At the same time, these same professionals showed much greater enthusiasm for
attacking those who criticize the Caliphaters. These they accuse of
Islamophobia/racism, the provokers of the conflict, and, far from making any
accusations against Muslims, instead portray them as, as they view themselves,
as victims.[32]

Perhaps the most extensive and spectacular victory for
Caliphaters, one that involved major failures on the part of a demotic
culture’s defenses, was getting the progressive left to adopt as their own
enemy, the Jihadi apocalyptic foe, Israel.[33]
From the worldwide demonstrations about Muhammad al Durah (October 2000), to
Durban (August/September 2001) through the heights of the “anti-war” movement
(February 2003), progressives enthusiastically adopted the Caliphater narrative
that Israel is the global evil which must be destroyed for world peace. The
ferocious anti-Zionism of the left in the 21st century corresponds
exactly to the wave of success in Jihadi war propaganda, getting Western
journalists to report Palestinian lethal narratives as news.[34]

This meant that Westerner progressives could not – refused
to – see the attack on Israel in 2000 as part of a larger Muslim triumphalist
assault on sovereign infidels everywhere (including them). Instead, thinking
they were siding with the little guy, progressives, led by their lethal
journalists, cheered on the Palestinian “resistance.” In 2002, in response to a
powerful round of fake news about Israeli “massacres” at Jenin, progressives
demonstrated their solidarity with the Palestinians, cheering on the new and
terrible apocalyptic Jihadi weapon of the 21st century, suicide
attacks on civilians (2002).[35]

Given that the global Jihadis would soon (had already)
turned suicide terror on other infidels (USA, 2001), why would progressives
cheer on the weapon of their own destruction? Because they, trusting their
media, believed Israel – not them! – deserved that punishment at the hand of
their angry victims: “What choice did the Palestinians have?” asked
progressives, assuming that if the Palestinians did such terrible things, the
Israelis must have done even more terrible things.[36]
By 2006, members of the “global progressive left” welcomed Hamas and Hizbullah
into their anti-imperialist movement.[37]

Under cover of anti-Zionism, Caliphater violence (jihad)
against infidels made inroads in the West in the aughts (‘00s) without arousing
alarm or defensive measures.[38]
Since initially the Jihadis attacked primarily Jews in Europe, especially
France,[39]
Western thought-leaders fell prey to the amalgame they rejected in thinking about
Muslims: they misidentified Muslim attacks on the Jews of Europe, as attacks only on Jews (because of Israeli sins).[40]
When Jihad targeted non-Jews, the misinformed infidel public asked in pained
bewilderment, “Why?”

Paris, Place de la République, January 2015, after Charlie Hebdo Massacre.

There is, alas, a significant overlap between my fictitious
Jihadi prayer above and the plan laid out by Sa’id Ramadan (son-in law of
Hassan al Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and father of Tariq), in his
1982 plan for conquering the West.[41]
It’s not clear how long Sa’id Ramadan thought his plan would take, but after
2000, the timetable speeded up notably.

Lumpers vs.
Splitters; Ideology vs. Strategy

The association of Da’wa and Jihad as part of a larger
millennial project challenges a number of currently prevailing approaches to
the problem of religious “terrorism.” Experts prefer splitting, differentiating
various groups according to specific characteristics and actions, whereas the
notion of Caliphaters lumps a much larger range of believers into a single
problematic dynamic.

Splitting Between Jihadi Groups

Take the case of Hamas and ISIS. When the UN condemned ISIS
for its barbarity, Israeli PM Netanyahu said, predictably, “Hey, ISIS and Hamas
are the same.” “Oh no they’re not, they’re totally different,” said the
pundits, emphasizing that “localized” groups like Hamas, “adopt a strong
nationalist agenda that separates them starkly from the global jihadist aspirations
entertained by Al Qaeda.”[42]
And yet, both these movements feed and feed off of a generation of seekers who
have come to their Caliphater shores, there to expend their triumphalist
passions. Seekers on both sides of any organizational divide share a common
vision. ISIS learned its cyber-savvy from Palestinian cyber-jihadis.[43]
And when the two movements actually cross paths, they recruit from the same
pool of seekers.[44]

In fact, far from being some local, nationalist movement,
Hamas holds a place of special honor in the world of global, Caliphater Jihad.
Certainly in their own minds, they see themselves as fighting on the key front,
against the blasphemy of Israel, invader and desecrator of Dar al Islam. In launching the “Intifada” against Israel from the
river to the sea in 2000, they announced that the time for the apocalyptic
hadith of the Rocks and Trees, for the extermination of the Jews had come.[45]
With the image of Muhammad al Durah, broadcast everywhere in Muslim world by al
Jazeera,[46]
they awoke the Umma to the threat of
Western infidels and aroused a thirst for revenge that literally legitimated
suicide terror.[47]
Cheered on by Western progressives, Palestinian Jihadis legitimated and refined
the weapon with which global Jihadis intend to conquer the West in this
Mujaddid.[48]

Whether other Caliphaters shared the same opinion of their
centrality, Hamas certainly shared their global vision. A PA cleric commenting
on the genocidal hadith about when the rocks and the trees, explained the
larger apocalyptic scenario of a millennial conquest that began with this
slaughter:

We believe in this Hadith. We are
convinced also that this Hadith heralds the spread of Islam and its rule over
all the lands… Oh Allah, annihilate the Jews and their supporters… Oh
Allah, raise the flag of Jihad across the earth… Oh beloved, look
to the East of the earth, find Japan and the ocean; look to the West of the
earth, find the country and the ocean. Be assured that these will be owned by
the Muslim nation, as the Hadith says, ‘from the ocean to the ocean.’[49]

Bin Laden and Caliphaters the world over who saw the video
applauded every word.[50]
One can forgive a “Palestinian” Caliphater like Sheik Raed Salah, head of the
Islamic Movement in Israel for cherishing the hope that “Inshallah, Jerusalem
will soon become the capital of the global Caliphate.”[51]

All Caliphaters Jihadis,
whether operating locally or globally, share four fundamental beliefs that
dwarf any differences:

  • they teach that all kuffār (infidels) and murtadd (apostates, backsliders) are guilty,
    and, therefore, legitimate targets;[52]
  • they preach the paranoid
    imperative: the enemy wants to annihilate Islam, we must annihilate the enemy;
  • they teach absolute hatred
    of their apocalyptic enemies and call for genocidal Jihad against them.[53]
  • they have a special
    apocalyptic fear of Jews (anti-Semitic Judeophobia), who, must be exterminated
    not only because of the hadith, but because they are “sons of pigs and apes,”
    and yet also at the heart of an international conspiracy to destroy Islam and
    enslave mankind;[54]
  • they use suicide martyrs to
    target their enemies, including, increasingly, fellow Muslims, and random
    kuffār in the West.[55]

Caliphaters are fighting a generational war, and their ranks
are fed by waves of Muslim seekers, youth like Maajid Nawaz or Ed Husain,
attracted to Caliphater identity-entrepreneurs, like Hizb ut-Tahrir, who
promised to restore their honor by galvanizing their hostility and promising
them cosmic rewards for attacking the enemy.[56]
Caliphater groups come together, develop, succeed briefly or longer, fail or
lose steam, at that point seekers will improvise apocalyptic scenarios, they
will either regroup or get replaced by other fresher groups; Caliphater seekers
go from leader-driven to acephalous and back again with ease.[57]

For varying periods and at different times, these global
currents coalescence in religious warlords and their wars, like Hamas’ Oslo
Jihad, al Qaeda, Muqtada al Sadr, ISIS: they rise, do damage, and morph into
other shapes, all with the same millennial goal.[58]
This surge of triumphal millennialism has deep roots.[59]
Such assaults on the West will continue to come in waves for decades at the
least. 

Part of the power Caliphaters exercise over Muslim seekers
is a discourse is that, within its belligerent parameters, is ecumenical: its
adepts have many visions of the Caliphate and many options on how to get there
and when. Whatever path one chooses, some combination of/ alternation between
Da’wa or Jihad, one holds firm to the faith that the sum total of the efforts
of all Caliphaters will lead to ultimate triumph. Caliphaters may wonder: “who
is the Mahdi who will lead the final assault? on Israel? On Rome? On
Washington?” And messianic candidates do and will appear all the time,
bottom-up. Islam’s 15th century (1400-1433/1979-2012) has already
produced more than its share of jihadi warlords with messianic pretensions. And
the world will probably see still more at the approach of the 15th
Mujaddid, in 2076.[60]

Splitting between Jihadis and Da’īs

If Western policy experts tend to overestimate distinctions between Jihadi groups like Hamas and al
Qaeda, how much the more do they do so with Caliphaters who (for the time
being) restrict themselves to Da’wa
and claim to renounce violence. Indeed, since 9-11, the dominant Western consensus
has been to treat Da’īs and Jihadis as fundamentally different. Western
infidels may and should want to handle various Jihadi and Da’wa groups
differently, but to fail to see the deep solidarity – the asabiyya of a cosmic tribe – is a potentially lethal conceptual
error.

Caliphater da’īs
think in terms of (apocalyptic) strategies: When
is the time to say and do what, to whom? …to Muslims? …to infidels? In
apocalyptic time, scenarios can change dramatically, and ideologies serve
primarily as narrative jazz to prolong the apocalyptic experience.[61]
Viewed retrospectively, the apocalyptic “ideologies” appear as rationalizations
for behavior driven by the desire to bring on the millennium as fast as Allah
will allow it.[62]

The choice of violence or non-violence, of appropriate relations
with varying kinds of infidels (wala’ wa
bara’
) and dissenters (takfir),
all these concerns reflect more the perception of an apocalyptic (redemptive) timeline
than they do matters of principle: the more urgent and imminent the anticipated
apocalyptic change, the more coercive the Caliphater (strike terror!); the more
extended the time horizon, the more seemingly patient (speak softly). Of course
the perception of apocalyptic time – how close the redemptive victory – depends
not only on psychological need, but also on the perception of relative strength
or weakness of the Muslim forces.[63]

Little in these differing assessments of a given seeker’s
place in the present timeline, prevents Caliphaters of all styles from cooperating,
often best at a distance. They have mastered the tough-cop, nice-cop, routine,
especially successful with those infidels who have difficulty discerning
demopathy.[64]
Ironically, da’wa is actually easier after terror strikes: in his “strong
horse” speech, Bin Laden exulted in how, after 9-11, the Western conversions
poured in.[65]

But even Da’īs
have limits to their patience. Disappointed transformative expectations (e.g.,
an insufficiently compliant infidel response to “summons”), inevitably lead to
shifts in attitude: some might extend their timeline and become more patient,[66]
while others, exasperated, might turn to violence and coercive purity; still
others, convinced they now hold the upper hand, might turn on their targeted
neighbors: your expiration date is up.[67]
The key question about Caliphaters is: when do they think the time has come no
longer to conceal (taqiyya) what they really think, namely: Islam is here to
dominate.[68]

Says the Caliphater to the infidel: “Jihadi phase or Da’wa
phase? Your choice. An end to Caliphater aggression? Not your choice.”

Case Study: Hizb ut-Tahrir

Hizb ut-Tahrir offers a good look at a Caliphater
organization occupying the hinge from normative Islam to the Jihadi extreme. Its
teachings began in the early 1950s in reaction to Israel’s creation, renouncing
Arab nationalism as a divisive Western plot and Muslim “nation-states” as part
of a degenerate Westernization. The true Muslim path was a unified Caliphate
spanning all of former Dar al Islam.

A generation later, with Israel still going strong, and the
Caliphate not restored to Muslim lands, Hizb ut-Tahrir expanded in Europe,
shifting their focus from conquest of former Dar al Islam, to the conquest of
Dar al Harb. In the words of Maajid Nawaz, Hizb al-Tahrir in Britain in the 90s
saw “‘the Khilafah,’ a Muslim superstate, as the answer to all the injustice
meted out to the Muslim populations of the world.”[69]
This Caliphater identity provided a powerful scapegoating meme, attracting a
generation of seekers, humiliated by their elders’ disgrace and desirous of
revenge.

Under the leadership of Omar Muhammad Bakri (1986-96), Hizb
ut-Tahrir “swept across the UK,”[70]
where it recruited youth ready for cyber-Islam among second generation
immigrants. They had particular success in the universities, where they used
the Al Durah lethal narrative as an introductory trope.[71]
They turned a Middle Eastern Caliphater movement into a global one; they
prepared the final generation.

During this period of strong influence, Hizb ut-Tahrir
stayed scrupulously on the non-violent side, even as its rhetoric encouraged
Jihadi violence. Maajid Nawaz describes the modus operandi: “We disguised our
political demands behind [freedom of] religion and multiculturalism, and
deliberately labeled any objection to our demands as racism.”[72]
This strategy paid off. Western infidels focus almost exclusively on the open
denunciation of terrorist violence as a litmus test for moderation.

Here Da’ī groups split: some refuse to denounce at all, like
Anjem Choudary after 7-7, or Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Australian spokesman Wassim
Doureihi.[73]
Others take advantage of Western naiveté to denounce the killing of “innocent
civilians,” meaning innocent Muslims, since kuffār are, by definition, guilty.[74]
At this hinge of hatred for the infidel, a group like Hizb ut-Tahrir could
serve as a way-station to Jihadi organizations, whose (exclusively) Musl im
right to wage war on the country they lived in was only suspended by their agreement
not to be violent right away.[75]

Hizb ut-Tahrir, in response to the 7-7 London bombings in
2005, denounced the infidel outrage at Muslims attacking innocent civilians, an
assault on Islam:

These latest [angry] comments [from
infidels]… have clearly exposed the reality of this so-called war on terror….
These offensive comments about the
Shariah and the Caliphate will leave no doubt in the Muslim world that this is
a war against Islam and not about
individuals or groups committing acts of violence.[76]

The West is to blame and every act it takes in its defense
aggravates the situation.  Note the bottom-line
message to the infidel here: “do not offend Muslims (even when Muslim beliefs
and deeds offend you), for we will take it as a declaration of war and strike
back (Jihad).”

Here is the authentic voice of Caliphater Da’wa, complement to Jihad: raw, completely unreciprocal,
Muslim triumphalism. And, astonishingly (?), it gets the desired response from
many infidels: “We can’t go to war with 1.6 billion Muslims, so let’s show them
some consideration.”[77]
After 9-11 an extensive consensus among progressive infidels emerged:
criticizing Islam feeds the fires of Jihad; suppressing criticism of
Caliphaters makes it possible for dialogue. In 2017, in response to a vicious
Jihadi attack on infidels in Barcelona, good Spaniards and Catalonians marched
to show their grief and outrage at the attack with signs saying “NO A LA ISLAMOFÒBIA!”

Honest Caliphaters tell a different story within the Umma: the “dialogue” this infidel
consideration so earnestly seeks, opens up the gates to Da’wa, summons to the
true faith. The West will cooperate in its conversionSuch infidel compliance
suggests that with the right display of Jihadi terror, infidels will accept
Da’wa and either convert or submit “voluntarily” (dhimmi). “Jihadi phase or
Da’wa phase? Your choice.”

Instead of provoking sound Western responses that resisted
this Muslim effort to scapegoat the West for sins actively being committed by
Muslims, rather than point out how Caliphaters embody everything progressives
reject in Western culture, infidel thought leaders, obsessed with their own
society’s “evil” – Bush! Sharon! – allowed Caliphater groups like Hizb
ut-Tahrir to wage flourishing anti-Western war campaigns within Western
society.[78]

This technique of accusing the West and exonerating Jihadis,
picked up by Western (and Westernized) radicals, has become a staple of
Caliphater discourse in no small part because of its success with Western
infidels.[79]

I remember how we used to laugh in
celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic
acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign
policy… they did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped
to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence:
Islamic theology.[80]

Under the guise of moderation (defined by renouncing
violence) and anti-imperialism (defined as fervently opposing American
imperialism), Caliphaters have invaded the Western public sphere – journalism,
academia, even policy and intelligence circles. No invasive cogwarrior could
ask for better cooperation from the target. Infidels shouted “We are Hamas!” in
European capitals.

Policy Implications:

The response of productive societies committed to tolerance
of diversity and individual freedoms (Western/Central Europe, America, democratic
countries, including Israel), to this kind of military and cognitive pre-modern
religious assault, needs to engage on many fronts. This is not a war on terror,
but on an imperialist-totalitarian apocalyptic drive that damages and devours
everyone in its path, including (so far, especially) Muslims.[81]
However well or poorly the West has done on the military front, its work on the
cognitive front has been consistently, some might say, spectacularly weak.
Caliphaters have had great success in dominating what is (not) said about them
in the Western public sphere.[82]

Dealing with an invasive cognitive war plan of this
magnitude, is unfortunately relatively unknown terrain and parallels to the
invasive cognitive war waged by Communists and their useful idiots in the West
in the 20th century, however strong, are only partial.[83]
Certainly suicide bombing has changed the dynamics today. Since Rushdie (1989/1410),
the sharia of blasphemy can strike fear anywhere in the world, a fear
reinforced by the Danish Cartoon riots of 2005-6/1426-7, and the executions at
Charlie Hebdo in January of 2015/1436. Thus the combination of intimidation and
blandishments for Western thought-leaders who adopt the narrative Da’īs want
Westerners to adopt, has a particularly strong force in the new
century/millennium. Perhaps that explains why today’s useful infidels behave
much as did the useful idiots of yore, but in much greater numbers, and with
far less ideological justification.[84]

Most Western infidels don’t even have vague notions about key
questions. How many self-conscious Caliphaters are there? How susceptible is any
Muslim to the appeal of the Caliphater dream? What will redirect Caliphaters into
more sane, demotic forms of millennial religiosity, so that non-triumphalist Muslims
can live in peace with members of other religions?

“Caliphater” is an inherently frightening term. Once one
looks for them, one finds levels of Caliphater numbers in the Muslim world far
greater than any infidel would like to acknowledge, and a much wider range of
sympathy for them and their dream among “mainstream” Muslims, who almost all
share the triumphalist millennial anticipation (shared by many monotheists,) that
someday, all humanity will “submit” to Allah (God). When infidels say, “We
can’t go to war with 1.6 billion Muslims,” they seem to forget that Caliphaters,
however many or few they might be, can
and do go to war with us. When infidels
comfort themselves with the thought that the violent ones are “only a tiny
minority of extremists,” they also delude themselves.

Nor do infidels who confront the inconvenient truth that
Caliphaters have gone to war with them, have to go to war with Caliphaters, at
least kinetic war. Presumably most, hopefully the “vast majority” of Muslims,
are people capable of, if not
necessarily inclined at the moment, towards the peaceful and tolerant relations
with infidels that a free society (dare one say, humanity and a merciful God)
requires. Western progressives have every right to demand such a change in
religiosity, and every right to confront the religious ideology that assaults
them, indeed that seeks their submission if not annihilation. When they cease
to view Muslims as stable items they can slot into factitious categories like
moderate and extremist, and begin to see them as people making faith
choices, they can begin to adopt strategies for peaceful relations between
Muslims and infidels.

Progressive infidels need to learn to think as do
Caliphaters, not so they become like them, but so they can counter them. They
need to consider not only what they think they’re doing (sincerity, said my
father, is the cheapest of virtues), but how Caliphaters read their behavior.
That will rapidly lead to realizations about how much their conflict aversion
is based on fear rather than principle. And yet, courage is what the times
demand: western progressives need to oppose non-violent Caliphaters in the
cogwar battlefield in which they operate, not by targeting them as they would
Jihadis, but by refusing the Da’ī’s demand that they become proleptic dhimmi.[85]
Rather than adopting their demopathic demands – carefully cleaned up for them
in the language of “human rights” – progressives need to demand reciprocity.

Of course, this pushback will frustrate no small number of
Da’īs who, aggravated, might then become Jihadis. But then, in such cases, it
may be better to force early recognition than to make concessions to people who
respond by upping their demands. It’s one thing to go after hate-speech when
it’s a definition that applies to all; if you go after targets identified (in
their exquisite sensitivity) by Da’īs, you go after anyone whom they consider a
threat to the coming Caliphate. Hard to get stupider. Auto-immune deficiency reaction.

Take the case of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. In response to a proposed
ban, one Australian academic criminologist warned about alienating the
“mainstream” Muslim community.[86]
These concerns underline the infidel dilemma: they tacitly acknowledge the
hinge that joins the Muslim community on the issue of violence, even as they
try to pretend it’s a divide which they can discourage “moderates” from
crossing over, by appeasing them. Hence the dilemma’s horns: if Western
infidels ban Caliphater groups, they help them proliferate; if they do not ban
them, they help them proliferate. Says the Caliphater to the kuffār: “Jihadi
phase or Da’wa phase? Your choice.”

Insisting on reciprocity, of course, means challenging al wala’ wa’l bara’ which in its
Caliphater formulation rejects any reciprocity between Muslim and kuffār, and whose tribal nature clashes
fundamentally with the ecumenical thrust of progressive values and global civil
society. If this means holding Muslims accountable like anyone else (not to
mention how Caliphaters hold their enemies accountable), if it means asking of
Islam what civil society asks of all the religions to which it gives so
precious a gift as freedom of worship, then so be it. In a civil society, every
religion renounces religious triumphalism and its hate speech; and they most
certainly renounce the religiosity that demands public displays of its
superiority.

After an epic, millennium-long, battle against this kind of
belligerent zero-sum political religiosity from their own religious traditions,
Western infidels have certainly earned the right to demand reciprocity from
others who wish to share in the bounty of civil polities. Freedom is not an
entitlement; it’s earned, and it takes long periods of preparation. The
alternative attitude, that considers Muslims a force of nature from which one
cannot have any moral expectations, insults all true Muslims, Caliphater and Tolerant alike. It’s a Western moral
abdication that works to the benefit of the Caliphater (who knows how to
exploit useful infidel stupidity), and undermines the Tolerant (whom it betrays
by belittling their accomplishments).

Westerner analysts are highly attuned to how Western “Islamophobes” fuel Jihad, driving
recruits their way. They pay less attention to how much the most vocal voices
denouncing “Islamophobic hate-speech” target precisely those
warning about Caliphater intentions. Were they ponder, on the contrary, how
their well-meaning appeasement fueled
Caliphater Da’wa, they might actually
fight the fire with water, rather than, as is the current wont, pouring on
accelerants.


[1] On
the role of millennial dating systems in depressing apocalyptic expectations,
see Richard Landes, “Lest the Millennium be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of Western Chronography, 100-800
CE,” The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. W.
Verbeke, D. Verhelst, and A. Welkenhuysen (Katholieke U., Leuven, 1988),
137-211.

[2] Millennial Dreams in Action; Studies in
Revolutionary Religious Movements
, ed. Sylvia Thrupp (New York: Schocken
Books, 1970).

[3] The
medieval historian Guibert of Nogent entitled his account of the apocalyptic
first crusade, Gesta dei per francos [The
Deeds of God through the Franks]
. On the apocalyptic dimensions of that
crusade, see Jay Rubenstein, Armies of
Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse
(NY: Basic Books,
2011).

[4]
“The realities of today
are the dreams of yesterday, and the dreams of today are the realities of
tomorrow.” Banna’s original plan had three stages: 1) propaganda, 2) formation,
and 3) execution, the final “active stage out of which the perfected fruits of
the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood will appear.”  Richard Mitchell, The
Society of Muslim Brothers
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 13f.

[5] On
apocalyptic and millennial types, see Richard Landes, Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2011), chs. 1-2.

[6] The Mujaddid is a Muslim tradition going
back to at least the second century, that anticipates a major renewal, even
messianic transformation at the turn of the century, Annus Hegira (AH). Because
the Muslim (lunar) calendar loses three years per century. Hence 1300 AH = 1882
CE, 1400=1979, 1500=2076. See discussion in Landes, Heaven on Earth, pp. 434f.

[7]
Yaroslav Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca:
The 1979 Uprising at Islam’s Holiest Shrine
(London: Penguin, 2007).

[8]
Rosalind Hackett, “Theorizing Radical Islam in Northern Nigeria,” in McGhee and
O’Leary, War in Heaven/Heaven on Earth
(NY: Equinox, 2005), pp. 143-62; Abimbola O. Adesoji, “Between Maitatsine and
Boko Haram: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Response of the Nigerian State,” Africa Today 57:4 (2011): 98-119. Note
also that the aggressive Da’wa of the older Muslim expansionist, Sidy Modibo
Kane; see, B.F. Soares, “Muslim proselytization as purification: religious
pluralism and conflict in contemporary Mali,” in Proselytization and communal self-determination in Africa, ed. A.A.
An-Na’im (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 1999), pp. 228-45.

[9] Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Awalawiyyat al-Haraka
al-Islamiyya fi al-Marhala al-Qadima [The preferences of the Islamic movement
in the next stage] (Cairo: Maktabat Walraba, 6th ed., 2005 [originally
1990]),  pp. 13-14. NB: the text was
composed ex post facto but not defectu, a decade after the passage of
the Mujaddid in 1979, which set off a redemptive movement that, ten years
later, was still gaining steam.

[10]
Yussuf al Qaradawi speaking in 1995 to a gathering of the Muslim Arab Youth Association
(MAYA) in Toledo, Ohio; exerpts
at The Investigative Project.

[11] On
the impact of 1400, see Jean-Pierre Filiu, Apocalypse
in Islam
(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011), chap. 4;
Landes, Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of
the Millennial Experience
(NY: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 445-51.
Note that “The Project” for the conquest of the West by Da’wa to which Qaradawi refers, originates in a famous meeting in
Switzerland in 1400/1979 of Muslim Brotherhood exiles from “secular” Arab
countries. Sylvain
Besson, La conquête de l’Occident: Le projet secret des Islamistes (Paris: Le
Seuil, 2005), 35-37; Besson calls Qaradawi “the spiritual father,” pp. 75-93. The
“Project” document available in
Arabic and English
.

[12] For
the best introduction to the apocalyptic Caliphater imagination, see David
Cook, Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic
Literature
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005).

[13] On
triumphalist religiosity, see Landes, “Triumphalist
Religiosity: The Unanticipated Problem of the 21st Century
,” Tablet, February 10, 2016.

[14] On
Marx’s response to disappointment, see Landes, Heaven on Earth, chap. 10. To this very day, believers in the
millennial dream will still say, “communism has never really been tried.”

[15] “And the end will not come until the Muslims rise up and kill the Jews. And the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will say, ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come kill him’.” Sahih Muslim, The Book Pertaining to the Turmoil and Portents of the Last Hour, Book 41:6981-85.

[16] On
tribal Jihad, see Laurent Muraviec, The
Mind of Jihad
(New York: Oxford, 2008), chap. 4.

[17]
Patrick Coburn, The Rise of the Islamic
State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution
(London: Verso, 2014).

[18] See
Natana DeLong’s post-Orientalist treatment of Da’wa among the Wahhabis: “a more
positive and inclusive approach of dialogue and discussion geared toward
reconciliation and cooperation whenever possible,” Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (New York,
Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 201.

[19]
Muhammad Saeed al Qahtani, Al
Wala’ wa’l Bara’: According to the
Aqeedah of the Salaf
1401/1980. On the doctrine, see Harold
Rhode, “The Concept
of Brotherhood in Islam: How Muslims View Each Other and How They View
Non-Muslims
,” Gatestone
Institute
, November 9, 2011; David Bukay, “Islam’s
Hatred of the Non-Muslim
,” Middle
East Quarterly
(Summer 2013): 11-20.

[20]
Zawahiri wrote an extensive treatise on the subject in 1422/2002, “Loyalty and
Enmity, An Inherited Doctrine and a Lost Reality,” available in The Al Qaeda Reader, ed. Raymond Ibrahim
(NY: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 63-114.

[21]
Laurant Murawiec calls it “Manichaean tribalism,” The Mind of Jihad (NY, Oxford, 2008), chap. 4.

[22] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKimvdO2qHc.

[23] On
the Taiping, see Landes, Heaven on Earth,
chap. 7.

[24]
Landes, “The
emotional Nakba
,” Tablet,
June 24, 2014.

[25]
David Cook, Contemporary Muslim
Apocalyptic
, chap. 5; Filiu, Muslim
Apocalyptic
, chap. 5.

[26] See Bat-Ye’or on both the Muslim
identification of criticism with blasphemy, and a mimicry complex in which
dhimmi adopt the beliefs of their masters in order to ingratiate themselves, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations
Collide
(Philadelphia: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001), pp.
106-10.

[27] In
France, the expression “pas d’amalgames (no lumping)” has become so common,
especially after Jihadi atrocities, that it has become a subject of derision, padamalgame.
See below, n. 37.

[28] On
the US government working with “Islamists” (i.e., Da’wa Caliphaters), see
Daniel Pipes, “The
US Government’s Poor Record on Islamists
,” MEF  June, 2004. For the
British cases, see Melanie Phillips, Londonistan
(NY: Encounter Books, 2006). In February of 2011, National Security Advisor
James Clapper characterized the Muslim Brotherhood as “moderate…
and largely secular
,” showing a stunning level of uninformed naiveté
one does not normally expect from the head of an intelligence agency. See
Joshua Muravchik, “US
‘Intelligence’: Blinded by Ideology
,” World Affairs, February 11, 2011.

[29]
Robert Wistrich, “Summer in Paris,”
Mosaic Magazine, October, 2014.

[30] To cite only two of the countless examples of this
Omertà, see the case of expurgating any mention of Islam in the case of Major
Hassan’s attack on Fort Hood in 2009 (Andrew McCarthy, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America [NY:
Perseus Books Group, 2010], pp. 357-66); and the taharush (mob harassment/rape) of the Sylvester in Köln, the night
of December 31, 2015, which went unmentioned in the mainstream news until
discussions on Facebook forced it into the open (Justin Huggler, “‘Cover-up’
over Cologne sex assaults blamed on migration sensitivities
,” Daily Telegraph, January 6, 2016.

[31] See
Unni Wikan, Generous Betrayal: Politics
Of Culture In The New Europe
(Chicago: University of Chicago, 2001). For a
good example of this kind of argument, watch Rebecca Traister (to loud
applause) on the Bill
Maher show
(starting at
46:50).

[32] A
recent example comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center which, in the name of
fighting hatred, condemn Maajid Nawaz and Aayan Hirsi Ali for their efforts to
fight Muslim hate-mongering as “Islamophobes.” SPLC, “A
Journalist’s Manual: Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists
,” October
25, 2016.

[33] This is an explicit goal of “The Project” (above, n.
9):
“To adopt the Palestinian cause as part of a worldwide
Islamic plan, with the policy plan and by means of jihad, since it acts as the
keystone of the renaissance of the Arab [Muslim] world today… To create a link
between the moujahadin in Palestine
and those throughout the Islamic world. To nourish a sentiment of rancor with
respect to the Jews and refuse all coexistence.” See Landes, “Fatal Attraction: The shared antichrist of
the Global Progressive Left and Jihad,” in The
Case Against Academic Boycotts Of Israel,
ed. Cary Nelson and Gabriel Brahm
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2014), chap. 20.

[34]
Landes, “The Wages of Moral Schadenfreude in the Press: Anti-Zionism and
European Jihad,” in From Antisemitism to
Anti-Zionism: The Past & Present of a Lethal Ideology
, ed. Eunice G.
Pollack (Brighton MA: Academic Studies Press, 2017), pp. 186-214.

[35]
Oriana Fallaci, “I Find it
Shameful
,” Panorama, April
12, 2002.

[36]
Landes, “‘What
Choice do they Have?’: Meditations on Liberal Folly, Jenin 2002
,” Augean Stables,.

[37]
Michael Totten, “The
Anti-imperialism of Fools
,” World
Affairs
, August 28, 2012.

[38]
Landes, “Wages of Schadenfreude.”

[39] From Salem (2003) and Ilan Halimi (2006), to Sarah
Halimi (2017): Nidra Poller, “The Murder of
Ilan Halimi
,” Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2006.  By the late teens, it had become clear to at
least some observers that this was not just about attacks on Jews, Guilllaume
Goldnadel commented on the Sarah Halimi coverup, “The issue is not so much
about covering up antisemitic crimes than about covering up any crime against
white, Judeo-Christian people, for fear of political consequences,” Michel Gurfinkiel, “Why
France Turned a Blind Eye to the Murder of Sarah Halimi
,” The Jewish Chronicle, August
24, 2017.

[40] For an example of this attitude, see BBC’s Tim Wilcox
interviewing a French Jew after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the
Hyper-Cacher: Nick Cohen, “The
BBC: Blaming the Jews for attacks on Jews
,” Spectator, 12 January 2015.
According to Cohen, the attitude is widespread among the British educated
class.

[41] Besson, La conquête de l’Occident, pp. 193-205. Besson calls it a 100 year
plan (which it may have been) but the only reference to 100 years in the
document, refers to the previous 100 years. Note that for Muslims in 1982, the
year is 1402, and references to a century would mean 14th
(1882-1979) and 15th (1979-2076). The important point, however, is
that the Muslim Brotherhood can and does think in generational terms, which
very few Westerners do. Should circumstances change, members are always capable
of concluding that, Allah willing, things are happening even faster than
expected.

[42]
Assaf Moghadam, The Globalization of
Martyrdom: Al Qaeda, Salafi Jihad, and the Diffusion of Suicide Attacks

(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), p. 59; see Table 1.1 for a list of
differences. See also: “…totally distinct… ideologies,” Max Fisher, “No
Netanyahu, ISIS is not Hamas,” Vox,
August 25, 2014; Allesandria Massi, “What
Is The Difference Between ISIS And Hamas?
International Business Times, July 19, 2014. See also lengthy
analysis at a site, apparently dedicated to splitting: tapas, “Differences
between ISIS and Hamas
,” DifferencesBetween,
July 18, 2014.

[43]
Patrick Kingsley, “Who
is behind ISIS terrify online propaganda operation?
Guardian, June 23, 2014.

[44]
Asama al-Goul, “Gaza
Salafists pledge allegiance to ISIS
Al Monitor, Şubat 27, 2014.

[45] See
Safar Ibn ‘abd al-Rahman al-Halawi, “The Day of Wrath: Is the Intifadha of Rajab
[October 2000] only the beginning?

[46]
“[Al Jazeera] played and replayed the
heart-rending footage of 12-year-old Muhammed al-Durra, who was shot in Gaza
and died in his father’s arms. The images’ ceaseless repetition signaled the
arrival of a new, sensational breed of Arab journalism.” Fouad Ajami, “What
the Muslim World is Watching
,” NYT, November 18, 2001. “Al-Jazeera
ran repeatedly the clip of the boy being shot, and for several days the picture
of his dying became the network’s emblem of the intifada. This had a deeply
galvanizing effect on the wider Arab public.” Hugh Miles, Al-Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel that is
Challenging the West
(NY: Grove Press, 2006), p. 73. See above n. 33.

[47]Suicide
Bombing Terrorism during the Current Israeli-Palestinian Confrontation

(September 2000–December 2005),” 2, 5. On the theological debate, see Haim
Malka, “Must
Innocents Die? The Islamic Debate over Suicide Attacks
,” Middle East Quarterly, 10:2 (2003),
pp. 19-28. For a representative sample that cites the excitement that traversed
the Arab world at the suicide bombing of children at Sbarro Pizza in Jerusalem,
Fahmi Huweidi, “I
cannot hide my happiness
,” Al
Ahram
, August 14, 2001.

[48] See
Cockburn, Rise of Islamic State,
above, n. 11.

[49] Sheikh
Ibrahim Mahdi, Friday
Sermon
, PA TV, April 12, 2002. On the hadith, see n. 12.

[50] For
Bin Laden’s use of the al Durah footage in his recruiting video for
global Jihad
.

[51] Raed
Salah, “Jerusalem
will be the Capital of the Global Caliphate
,” Nazareth, November 7,
2014.

[52]
Daniel Pipes, “Can
Infidels be Innocents
?” Lion’s
Den
, August, 2005.

[53]Kill a Jew,”
Palestinian Media Watch.

[54]
Cook, Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic,
chap. 5.

[55] With some, the imperative to sow terror among
infidels overrides concern for collateral Muslim damage, Yoram Schweitzer, Aviad Mendelboim, Yotam Rosner, “Suicide
Attacks in 2016: The Highest Number of Fatalities
,” INSS Insight No.
887, January 5, 2017.

[56]
Excellent analysis of the role of identity entrepreneurs and cognitive warfare,
Stuart Green, Cognitive Warfare, pp.
86-108. Nawaz rose in the movement by becoming an identity entrepreneur
himself, rallying the intimidated Pakistani students at his London college, Radical, pp. 72-3.

[57]
After mentioning the hate-filled rivalries between Salafis and Hizb ut-Tahrir
in London in the early 1990s, Nawaz notes: “A few years later, this would
change: Salafism and Islamism would fuse to form Jihadism, most famously seen
in the eventual rise of al-Qaeda.” Maajid Nawaz, Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism (London: Lyons Press,
2013), p. 68.

[58]
Connie Cass, “Al-Qaida’s
heirs thrive in Mideast, Africa chaos
,” AP, September 16, 2014.

[59] For
critical insights into the psychology of Jihadis, see Nancy Kobrin, The Jihadi Dictionary (Mamaroneck, NY:
Multieducator Press, 2016).

[60] See
the work of Timothy Furnish, Holiest
Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden
(NY: Prager, 2005);
Sects, Lies, and the Caliphate: Ten Years
of Observations on Islam
(2016).

[61] John
Gager argues that that was the role of the Book of Revelation in the early
Christian movement, to revive apocalyptic time in the imaginary, Kingdom and Community: Social World of Early
Christianity
(Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975), pp. 49-57.

[62] For
a discussion of the role of apocalyptic (imminent) expectations in setting
millennial dreams into action, see Landes, Heaven
on Earth,
chap. 2.

[63]
Raymond Ibrahim, “How
Circumstance Dictates Islamic Behavior
: Preach Peace When Weak, Wage
War When Strong,” Middle East Quarterly,
January 18, 2012.

[64]
Landes, “Demopaths
and their dupes
,” Augean
Stables
, 2005.

[65]
Brendan Bernhard, White Muslim: From L.A.
to New York…to Jihad?
(NY: Melville Press, 2006).

[66] See
the role of redating the End several centuries into the future (Filiu, Apocalypse in Islam, p. 80-83; Landes,
“Lest the Millennium,” above, n. 1.

[67] Leyan Saleh
tweets
: “Happy Hanukah to my Jewish neighbors. Bas ballah jan. I
think it’s time you moved out, no?” and “May god ruin the homes of the Jews.
Ya5rib bait al yahud.”.

[68] Haitham
Ibn Thbait of the American chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, speaking at the Khilafah
2016 conference
, held in Chicago on May 15: “Islam is here to
dominate! This was an ideological struggle, the sole purpose of which was to
organize Man’s affairs in accordance with a system revealed by Allah.”

[69] Nawaz,
Radical, p. 61.

[70] Nawaz,
Radical, p. 71.

[71] On
the al Durah blood libel, see Nidra Poller, Al
Durah: Long-range Ballistic Myth
(Paris: authorship international, 2014);
evidence and analysis available at Al Durah.com.
According to one former radical, recruited in the later aughts, Al Durah’s
picture adorned the cover of the recruiting video, and played a key role in the
introduction to the world of global Jihad: as Bin Laden argued, they kill our
innocent children; we must, in self-defense, kill theirs, The al Qaeda Reader, ed. Raymond Ibrahim (New York: Doubleday,
2007), pp. 137-71.

[72] Nawaz,
Maajid. Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism, p. 69.

[73]
Doureihi immediately went to the “context” of Western guilt: “ISIS doesn’t
appear in a vacuum; it’s a response to Western crimes (like interference in the
Muslim world). In fact what the West does in Iraq is far worse than ISIS.” Emma
Griffiths, “Islamic
State: Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman says allied mission in Iraq and Syria
‘infinitely greater in barbarity’
,” ABC, October 8, 2014.

[74] See
the remarkable
exchange
between Steven Sackur of BBC’s Hardtalk and Anjem Choudary; Pipes, “Can Infidels be innocent?”
(above, n. 52).

[75] On
the “covenant of peace” the British thought they had with their Jihadis, see
Melanie Phillips, Londonistan, chap.
3.

[76]Communiqué
from Hizb ut-Tahrir – America and Britain declare war against Islam and the
Muslims
,” uploaded 14 Oct 2001.

[77] Hillary Clinton represents this trend, explaining that she refuses to use the term ‘radical Islam’ because it “sounds like we are declaring war against a religion. It doesn’t do justice to the vast number of Muslims in our country and around the world who are peaceful people… No. 2, it helps to create this clash of civilizations that is actually a recruiting tool for ISIS and other radical jihadists who use this as a way of saying, ‘We are in a war against the West — you must join us’.” Eric Bradner, “Clinton Explains why she won’t use radical Islam,” CNN, December 7, 2015.

[78] Ed Husain, who knew Hizb ut-Tahrir from the inside, marveled at the folly of the Western progressives in giving the Caliphaters a free hand. On the anti-war marches and the politicization of the Muslim community in Britain, see Pickerall, “New Social Movements, Coalitions and Religion: Muslim Anti-War Activists in Britain,” April, 2006; . The Muslim Association of Britain, formal co-sponsor of the march was dominated at the time by the Muslim Brotherhood; a later government investigation found all the features described here as Caliphater. MAB is a classic case of taqiyya Caliphaters who condemn terrorism even as they work to protect terrorists and promote Jihad within the ranks: in 2002, at the height of their respectability they sponsored a tour for Al Qaeda recruiter Anwar Al-Awlaki, who “radicalized a generation of Muslims on his grand tour,” Duncan Gardham, “Al-Qaeeda’s leaders tour of Britain revealed,” The Telegraph, July 20, 2017. Two years later they invited Da’wa Caliphater, Yussuf al Qaradawi to England.

[79] For
an excellent example of this aggressive victim rhetoric, see Linda
Sarsour’s address to the ISNA Conference
, in which, invoking the
victim status of Muslims, and in solidarity with intersectional
revolutionaries, she called for Jihad against the president of the US.

[80]
Hassan Butt, “My
Plea to Fellow Muslims: You Must Renounce Terror
,” Guardian, July 1, 2007.

[81]
Despite the enthusiasm of Muslims for suicide bombing when Israelis were the
target in the early aughts, Muslims are now, by far, the largest number of
victims of suicide terror.

[82]
Andrew McCarthy, Willful Blindness: A
Memoir of the Jihad
(NY: Encounter Books, 2008)Philip Haney, Art Moore, See
Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s
Submission to Jihad
(Washington: WND Books, 2016).

[83]
Stefan Posony, Waking up the Giant: A
Strategy for American Victory and World Freedom
(New Rochelle, NY:
Arlington House, 1974). On the useful idiots/fellow travelers, see Paul
Hollander, Political Pilgrims: Western
Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society
(NY: Harper, 1981);

[84]
Landes, “From Useful Idiot to Useful Infidel: Reflections on the Folly of 21st
century Intellectuals,” : in Intellectuals
and Terror: the Fatal Attraction
, ed. Anna Geifman and Helena Rimon, special
issue of the journal Terrorism and
Political Violence
, 25:4 (2013): 621-34.

[85] In
response to a concocted outrage sparked by fake “Danish Cartoons” forged by
Caliphater Imams, UN and EU officials came out with a declaration: “We
understand the deep hurt and widespread indignation felt in the Muslim world.
The freedom of the press, which entails responsibility and discretion, should
respect the beliefs and tenets of all religions.” Javier Solana, “Joint
UN, European Union, Islamic Conference Statement Shares ‘Anguish’ of Muslim
World at Mohammed Caricatures, but Condemns Violent Response
,”
February 7, 2006; Jytte Klausen takes appeasement of Muslim
sensitivities as a given: The Cartoons
That Shook the World
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), and yet
when Yale UP decided not to print the cartoons in the book, she expressed
surprise: Patricia Cohen, “Yale Press Bans
Images of Muhammad in New Book by Jytte Klausen
,” New York Times, August 12, 2009.

[86]
Adrian Cherny, “Why
Australia shouldn’t ban Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir
,” The Conversation, October 9, 2014. 

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*