MUST READ: OLD JIHAD, NEW JIHAD

Excerpted from AL-AHRAM WEEKLY of EGYPT:


Old jihad, new jihad

The retractions of the old guard of Islamist militants will likely not touch the new generation of youth drawn to jihad, writes Amr Elshoubaki

The recent ideological retractions of Sayed Imam El-Sherif, founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, mark the beginning of a major departure from the theological underpinnings that governed the militant Islamist organisation's actions in the 1980s and 1990s. The ideological shift -- probably more than practical realities -- will make it extremely difficult for the organisation and those inspired by it to revert to violence and terrorism.

In Correct Guidance of the Jihad in Egypt and the World, Sheikh Imam refuted an earlier contention that rebellion was warranted against a ruler that did not apply Islamic law. Now he holds it is wrong to rise up in the name of jihad against a Muslim ruler in pursuit of the application of Sharia law. In general, he rejects ideas that lend themselves to the notion that "the ends justify the means". He writes, for example, "it is regrettable that some pursue forbidden means to obtain money, justifying their actions on the grounds that this money is needed for jihad. Thus, they kidnap innocent people in order to demand ransom, or they rob blameless persons in the course of which they might commit wrongful murder. It is a grave sin to attack the persons and property of blameless persons."

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There is a new order of terrorism at work, shaped by different motives. The above-mentioned incidents were carried out by small groups of individuals with no clear affiliation to a larger hierarchically structured jihadist organisation and with no intent of formulating an ideological project that clarifies a political end that the exercise of violence is aimed to accomplish. The bombing of the World Trade Center towers marks the transition from what we might term the era of "jihadist ideology" to the era of "jihadist action". Jihad now has a markedly individualistic quality: motives seem more immediate and emotional (revenge) and aims less idealistic and more personal (instant salvation through martyrdom). In addition, ideological formation/indoctrination is at once much easier (through some selective surfing on the Internet) and superficial -- a far cry from having to wade through the long, complex and scholarly argumentation of Sheikh Imam.

The chances are that the youths inspired by Al-Qaeda would have gone ahead with terrorist acts even if Sheikh Imam had issued his retractions five years ago. The members of the so-called London cell, which consisted of only five individuals, would never grasp what the Jihad leader wrote because they proceeded from an entirely different direction. Theirs was a reaction to a sorrowful political and social reality, a reaction that they dressed with a jihadist gloss that would turn their deaths into a gateway to paradise. Imagine the number of like-minded youths tragic conditions such as those in Iraq could create, youths ready to blow themselves up after barely two months of indoctrination.

Sheikh Imam's revisions are undoubtedly sincere and historic. But they will not influence the new terrorist generation, because they were written with the old style of jihad in mind. They, therefore, do not take into account the new youth, which is essentially an unknown quantity and which operates independently and who seldom read books exceeding 50 pages let alone voluminous philosophical or theological treatises.



Pertinent Links:

1) Old jihad, new jihad