By STAN ESCUDERODAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The defeat of radical Islamic jihad will not prove to be a simple matter. The most obvious counter measures will not be enough.
In our long war with radical Islamic jihad we must rally Islamic and other allies and together crush the jihadists militarily. Drone kills produce limited benefit but “Whack – a – Mole” will not change the nature of the conflict.
We must deny them control of any territory which they might call a caliphate. This especially includes the areas of Iraq, Syria and the Levantine Strip which they call al-Shaam, and which are fundamental to Muslim end times prophecies, because their control serves to legitimize the radicals.
We must deny them control of economic resources, particularly oil, which they use to finance their rule and their terrorist activities.
We must work with Russia, Turkey and others to put an end to the Syrian Civil War and then return the refugees to their homelands.
We must use human intelligence, cyber and other surveillance capacities to closely monitor jihadist planning and communications in the many countries which have been infected with this evil. This includes surveillance of Islamic activities and, temporarily, profiling of Muslims within our own country to detect and defeat terrorist planning.
And more besides.
Our goal is not only the obvious one of observable defeat, it is also to convince the bulk of the Islamic world that the favor of Allah is no longer with the radical jihadists. Most Muslims are not much more observant than the average Christian. And if they are honest they will admit that, in politics, they follow what the Iranians call Hezb-e-Badi, the Party of the Wind. Muslims the world over need to be brought to understand that the wind is with the West, not the radicals.
All of this will take time and resources. The measures listed above will involve political controversy at home and abroad. They will all be necessary if the West is to prevail in its struggle against radical Islamic jihad. But they will not be sufficient. Muslims must be offered an Islamic alternative to either conflict or acceptance of Western superiority.
Our goal is not only the obvious one of observable defeat, it is also to convince the bulk of the Islamic world that the favor of Allah is no longer with the radical jihadists. Most Muslims are not much more observant than the average Christian. And if they are honest they will admit that, in politics, they follow what the Iranians call Hezb-e-Badi, the Party of the Wind. Muslims the world over need to be brought to understand that the wind is with the West, not the radicals.
All of this will take time and resources. The measures listed above will involve political controversy at home and abroad. They will all be necessary if the West is to prevail in its struggle against radical Islamic jihad. But they will not be sufficient. Muslims must be offered an Islamic alternative to either conflict or acceptance of Western superiority.
The jihadist fanatics might be defeated but the concept of jihad will remain, as it has over the centuries. One day it will re-emerge and once again the West is likely to be its primary target. The jihadists cannot finally be defeated unless the concept of violent jihad is itself discredited or modified and this can only be done by recognized and revered Islamic theologians and leaders.
Jihad cannot simply be dismissed. Those who characterize jihad as a perversion of Islam are badly mistaken. In fact the concept of jihad is sanctified in a number of Quranic verses. It was originated by the Prophet himself as a way to rally the people of Yathrib to help him in his conquest of his home city of Mecca, which had cast him out. Jihad is not one of the pillars of the Faith but it is strongly recommended and, in the writings of the later jihadic theologians, it is made out to be an obligation upon every Muslim brought on by the military, economic and cultural aggression of the West.
But it is important to realize that there are several kinds of jihad and all but one are non-violent.
The Greater Jihad is the internal struggle which each Muslim must endure to submit to the disciplines of the Shariah and to submit his or her will entirely to that of Allah. A Muslim must also help to shore up the commitment of others who find it hard to live up to the disciplines of the Faith and approve the efforts of those who succeed in doing so.
But jihadist conflict is something else entirely. It was originally directed at the conversion of pagans, was extended to include struggle against bad Muslim rulers, and was modified many times over the centuries. Always it became more violent and expanded its list of permissible targets as the circumstances facing the Islamic empires and the world of the Faith (Dar ul-Islam) changed.
By the end of the First World War, with the elimination of the Caliphate as the recognized Islamic authority, the target of jihad shifted to the struggle against colonialism. And, with no Caliph, any self-proclaimed Islamic scholar or political leader came to feel entitled to issue an Islamic edict, or fatwa, which would be binding on Muslims. The end of the British Raj in the sub-continent, the creation of Pakistan, the successful guerilla fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the radicals’ reaction to the First and Second Gulf Wars, combined with astute use of modern means of communication and social media drove recruitment of young Muslims as holy warriors (mujahideen). Those events also provided the philosophic underpinning for justifying jihadic terror against Russia, the United States and the West.
By the end of the First World War, with the elimination of the Caliphate as the recognized Islamic authority, the target of jihad shifted to the struggle against colonialism. And, with no Caliph, any self-proclaimed Islamic scholar or political leader came to feel entitled to issue an Islamic edict, or fatwa, which would be binding on Muslims. The end of the British Raj in the sub-continent, the creation of Pakistan, the successful guerilla fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the radicals’ reaction to the First and Second Gulf Wars, combined with astute use of modern means of communication and social media drove recruitment of young Muslims as holy warriors (mujahideen). Those events also provided the philosophic underpinning for justifying jihadic terror against Russia, the United States and the West.
The latest redefinition of jihad includes terror action against civilians in western lands, not just as revenge for invasion of Islamic territory but because the West – what Islam classifies as the Dar ul-Harb or World of War -- had come to dominate the Dar ul-Islam economically, militarily and culturally.
It is this most recent extension of the requirements of the faithful under what is now termed an Islamic obligation which ensures that a fresh generation of jihadis will emerge to commit acts of terror against the United States and the West even if the current set of radical jihadis are all slain. New fanatics will continue to arise unless the concept of jihad can be authoritatively redefined to shift the focus away from violence.
Instead Muslims could be urged toward greater emphasis on the internal battles of all Muslims as they live the tenets of the Faith, do that which pleases Allah and avoid that which does not, and confidently await the day when Islam, through what they regard as the superior wisdom of the words of Allah as received by his Messenger, will prevail by their merit.
Clearly this cannot be accomplished by the United States or other Western nations. It can only be done by Muslim authorities whose Islamic education, mastery of Islamic law and overall worthiness are widely recognized throughout the Islamic world. I suggest that those in the Sunni world best placed to undertake this task, if they can be quietly convinced to do so, would be a conclave of the Council of Scholars of al-Azhar University in Cairo.
Al-Azhar is the most prestigious institution of learning in the Sunni Islamic world. It is already somewhat antagonistic toward conservative and radical movements. Members of the Council might be supplemented by other worthy Islamic scholars recruited by the Saudi King in his capacity as the Guardian of the Two Holy Mosques. Other Islamic governments threatened by the rise of the radicals may also wish to contribute reliable scholars to such an effort.
Their task would be to redirect the jihadist energies of the Faithful internally while proclaiming that, had Allah wished jihadist violence to succeed, it would have done so. Once ISIS is overwhelmed militarily, scholars could proclaim that, while Allah has promised that one day all the world will accept Islam, those leaders who demanded that the Islamic world conquer now through violence were bad Muslim leaders who departed from the will of Allah and are therefore themselves objects of jihad. The proof would be that they failed.
The scholarly conclave might declare that, in the absence of a Caliph, only they, as the true inheritors of the understanding of Islam, are qualified to issue binding fatwas and those issued by the failed radicals are without standing. Rather the assembly of senior Islamic leaders and scholars might determine that the ultimate superiority and victory of Islam is indisputable. Thus the good Muslim need but devote himself to the pillars of the Faith and await with certainty the ultimate triumph of Islam through example and prosyletizing. Violent jihad could then be reserved only for those instances in which Muslim nations are invaded from outside the boundaries of the Faith.
There would of course be some risk to the participating scholars from the radicals, but the governments involved could offer protection, as they would also have offered direction. And the current violent concept of jihad would still exist, perpetuated by the writings of the radicals who redefined it and any who might follow. But there would also have been created an authoritative alternative to the most recent idea of jihad which would be taught in madrassahs throughout the Islamic countries and which would in time become an accepted challenge to the present meme of unceasing conflict. Over time this would weaken the appeal of violent jihad which at present faces no coherent philosophic opposition.
The United States cannot be seen to be involved in any such attempt at what would be viewed as western interference with the tenets of Islam. But a wholly clandestine effort to promote an Islamic conclave along these lines would be in the interests of both western and conservative Islamic governments and might usefully be undertaken.