Recently German authorities felt compelled to close dawn a 'Multi-Cultural' Center because it was promoting armed "holy war". And makes the "all-religions-are-equally-violent" promoted by Islamist apologetics, comparable to pseudo-symmetries and moral equivalences. In fact Islam puts all of its emphasis not on individual salvation but on the collective, the communal, the umma, “to dominate and not to be dominated,” that insists that everyone in the world was actually born into that religion but fell away, that treats all believers, whether born into the religion or converts to it, as akin to soldiers in an army, and treats those who wish to openly declare their apostasy as deserters from the army who deserve to be killed. Obviously, some of those who call themselves Muslims are, on a personal level, friendly, affable, and so. But one cannot base policy on the continued ignorance, or continued indifference to the tenets of Islam. When that is better understood, there will be far less waste, financial and human, in such dismal efforts as the campaign in Iraq.

Jihad was declared by the early Muslim leaders as a sixth unofficial Pillar of Islam. It was conceived as an "instrument of Islam," a sufficient but not a necessary condition for the spread and defense of the religion. From historical accounts, including (but not only) religious texts and references, jihad was a state of mobilization in the interest of the Muslim umma (nation) as it developed its military and strategic dimensions. When Muslims fled Meccan oppression at the hands of Mecca's pagan political establishment, they defined themselves as an "umma." As they settled in Medina, north of Mecca, the followers of Mohammed organized themselves into a political and military institution. They decided to overrun Mecca's ruling institution and replace it with a dawla, a state. It was to become the dawlat al Islam: the state of Islam, soon to become the Islamic state. That theologically grounded choice to establish a government for the new religion was the basis on which the ruler­first the Prophet himself, then his successors-granted themselves the right of sovereignty to manage the affairs of the state for the nation. The protection of, expansion of, and management of the dawlat al umma (the state of the Muslim nation) led logically to the buildup of instruments of governance for war and peace. Jihad, as per all theological and historical references, is a state of juhd: a state of effort at the service of the umma, the state, and Allah.

Particular in Europe and the United States, however, political and intellectual forces were mobilizing to insert a new meaning into the concept and inject that new and reshaped concept into mainstream thinking. The question is: Why? Why would lobbies want to blur the meaning of jihad in the West, while those who called for jihad east of the Mediterranean had no intention of redefining it? What do they want to achieve, why didn’t we know about it, who obstructed our knowledge about it, are they planning future wars, are the governments in the United States and other western nations ready for these future wars?

Our goal in writing this particular article series and publish it on the internet on an immediate basis, is to help answer this and other questions. Our first objective is to show that the future is very much about the past. The future of Europe, Asia, and the U.S. depends on our understanding of the historical roots of jihadism. Having researched the subject in depth we see it as a central obligation to educate the public because the outcome of the conflict will largely be decided by how well people understand the threat. This is not a war with an enemy with whom governments can sign peace treaties or establish new frontiers. We are facing forces that link directly to ancient and mod­ern history.

Originally (be it Sunni or/and Shi’te Muslims) there was no jihad for one's personal interests. Jihad outside the global effort prescribed by the umma does not exist. According to Bernard Lewis “In Search of Islam’s Past” (Islam in History, 1993, p.103) Nida' al jihad, or the call for jihad, is the highest injunction to gather the forces of the community in the service of the Islamic umma.

These wars enabled the Muslim armies to defeat Mecca's rulers and de­clare Islam as the only religion in Mecca. From there on, the successes were lightning-quick; historical accounts show a rapid progress in all directions within the peninsula. The war for Arabia was the very first victory for Islam and was owed to jihad. By the time of the Prophet's death, most of Arabia had been unified under the banner of Islam. The next stage for jihad was after the passing of the Rasul (i.e., the Messenger of Allah). His companions and commanders had the choice between confining themselves to Arabia or resuming the jihad outside the realm of Islam's birthplace. They chose the latter.

However, it is interesting to note the differences between Arab and Muslim history textbooks compared to modern western and American academic texts with regard to these crucial developments. In most cases, the latter skillfully dodge the question of military conquest and talk about "propaga­tion" of Islam instead. Later on, the expansion of the religion of Islam went beyond the sovereignty of the caliphate: Both in Africa and in Asia, different types of conversions took place. But as the big sorties from Arabia began, the caliphate devised a doctrine of conquest so that religion and the umma would both expand, rationalizing that expansion with the concept of establishment of religion, or Iqamat al deen. Here again, future militants would base their action on past realities. It is strik­ing to see, a millennium later, jihadi groups such as al Muhajirun in Great Britain calling for a resumption of the conquests and referring to precisely this early stage in Muslim history. (The 9/11 Commission Report, "A Declaration of War," p. 47, and "Building an Organization, Declaring War on the United States," p. 59. )

Since the umma has a mission to expand so that the religion will be estab­lished around the world (Iqamatu eddine), the mechanics must come together. The principle was to expand religion, and the means was the Islamic state. And therefore the state (the caliphate in this framework) had to devise the techniques, the reasons, the arguments, and the doctrine for the expansion. Unlike the Huns or the Vikings, who marched at will with no self-explanation for con­quest, the Islamic conquerors were intellectually sophisticated. They wanted to achieve state expansion goals under a sound religious doctrine, and so they constructed one.

The scholars of the caliphate depicted the world to their followers as di­vided in two, on one side was the area where the Islamic state reigned and the Sharia of Allah was sovereign. It was called dar el Islam. Lit­erally it translates to "house (or abode) of Islam." This "zone" matched the borders of Islamic state control. It was also called dar el salam, meaning "house of peace." The idea was that wherever the Islamic state is found, peace will be prevalent and guaranteed. On the other side of the equation, there was dar el Harb, which translates simply as "house of War," or, technically, War Zone.

 

The Enemy Strikes

An ongoing debate on the relationship between the Islamic empire and Christian Europe revolves around the issue of whether the Crusades were a re­ligious war or not. Were they a response to aggression or a colonial enterprise? History is full of complexities and is always in the eyes of the beholder. To Arabs and Muslims, the crusaders were European Christian invaders landing on Arab Muslim shores in Syria and Palestine. To the Europeans of the time, the caliphate was an empire that invaded Spain and southern France after tak­ing control of the ‘Holy Land’ and was threatening to destroy Rome. In Jewish history, the crusaders massacred the Jews in Jerusalem. To Middle Eastern Christians, the Arabs were the invaders and the Christian Europeans the liberators. These conflicting visions of history will continue until, perhaps, a global and more scientific perception overrides them all.

To the Islamic states of the eleventh century-and they had become many by then-the military expeditions coming from Europe were infidel invasions against the caliphate and Islam. The Crusades were met by jihad, now on the defensive for the first time since the seventh century. After 636 the fatah had gone from one offensive to another. By 1099, the tables were turned. Not only were the kuffar back on the offensive, but they were winning the battles-at least at the beginning. The Crusades created a massive shock in the Muslim East. How were the infidels able to destroy the achievements of the army of Allah? A theological crisis ensued. The situation worsened when other kuffars arrived from east of Mesopotamia: the Mongols in the thirteenth century. Their hordes destroyed the Persian provinces of the empire and burned Baghdad to the ground. However, a dynasty out of Egypt, fighting on two fronts, defeated the Mongols, and the crusaders before expelling them from the Middle East in the early fourteenth century.

 

From Dimmis to Millet

The so called dhimmis (minorities ) under the Umayyads and the Abbasids were small mi­norities in the Levant. But with the conquest of Armenia, Greece, the Balkans, and beyond, the sultans were ruling additional millions of non- Muslims, mostly Christians. The Ottoman system, in contrast with the Arab dhimma, recognized the character of "community" experienced by the various Christian denominations, Jews, and other non-Muslim groups. The new characterization was less a liberalization based on political development than a practical measure to better organize the subdued populations. As a caliph, the Ottoman sultan was able to rule Arabs and other Muslims without challenge to his legitimacy. The master of Istanbul was, after all, the successor to the Prophet. That theological lineage assured the sultan of the faithfulness of half of the empire. The other half was populated with Christians.

The millet regime was a modernization of the dhimmi/minorities status. In some cases it served a bureaucratic purpose. The heads of the Milla communities became technically the agents of the sublime porte. They collected the taxes, kept an eye on the community, and reported to the wali, or regional governors. Again, the modem debate in Middle East studies about the millet has !ollowed the same intellectual confrontation. Most Muslim and some western scholars still insist that the Ottomans liberalized the status of the People of the Book, while most Mideast Christians, Jews, and some Muslim liberals see in the millet a "collaboration" system that better organized the control of the non­Muslim subjects of the empire. And Jihad could be used in the defense of the empire or of parts of the dar Islam and, depending on the geopolitical ambitions of the caliph, as a tool of invasion, annexation, and conquest (i.e., into dar el harb).

As a state policy, a doctrinal tool, and an instrument with which dozens of wars, invasions, conquests, and resistances were waged, it is part of world history. For thirteen centuries and at least until the fall of the sultanate and the caliphate in 1923, jihad and fatah were a public philosophy of the rulers east and south of the Mediterranean. Millions believed in launching them, and millions perished as a result of them.

Thus Islamist movements, like The Muslim Brotherhood in the case of Sunni’s and the Khumainist in the case of Shi’ite (the current President of Iran for example) for which the doctrine of jihadism flourishes, see themselves as a direct continuation of the Islamic state and strive for its reestablishment-including its past expansionist drive.

And although the jihadists constitute a direct threat to nations and governments in a way that can blaze up into world conflicts, the jihadist logic as we have seen, is historicist and theological at the same time. In the mind of its authors, leaders, and militants, the initial rissala (mission) bestowed on the Prophet, and carried on by the caliphs for more than thirteen centuries., is also theirs. Here lies the central power and enigma of the movement. The jihadists believe that what was initiated in Muslim history ages ago is still moving forward today. They also believe that Allah is still commanding them to perform these wajibat, or (5 + 1= 6-) duties, without interruption. And they are firmly convinced that the enemies of their ancestors perceived in those times are still the enemies of today.

Those who see the modern Islamists and jihad followers as mere freedom fighters, or national politicians or resistance militants, have totally missed the deep essence of who the Islamists and jihadists are, or what they have in mind.

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