Messages for Useful Infidels

Raymond Ibrahim: The Two Faces of Al Qaeda.

Soon after relocating to Washington in order to attend Georgetown, I landed an internship, which later evolved into a full-time position, at the Near East Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress, where thousands of new books, serials, and microfilms arrive yearly from the Arab world.

Numerous Arabic books dealing with Al Qaeda passed through my hands in this privileged position. A good number contained not only excerpts or quotes by Al Qaeda but entire treatises written by its members. Surprisingly, I came to discover that most of these had never been translated into English. Most significantly, however, the documents struck me as markedly different from the messages directed to the West, in both tone and (especially) content.

Why would Al Qaeda target the West and the umma in such a way?

They were theological treatises, revolving around what Islam commands Muslims to do vis-à-vis non-Muslims. The documents rarely made mention of all those things — Zionism, Bush's "Crusade," malnourished Iraqi children — that formed the core of Al Qaeda's messages to the West. Instead, they were filled with countless Koranic verses, hadiths (traditions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad), and the consensus and verdicts of Islam's most authoritative voices. The temporal and emotive language directed at the West was exchanged for the eternal language of Islam when directed at Muslims. Or, put another way, the language of "reciprocity" was exchanged for that of intolerant religious fanaticism. There was, in fact, scant mention of the words "West," "U.S.," or "Israel." All of those were encompassed by that one Arabic-Islamic word, "kufr" — "infidelity" — the regrettable state of being non-Muslim that must always be fought through "tongue and teeth."

One has to admit that Osama is politically shrewd in this matter. He knows that ignorant Westerners will agree with him on the Kyoto treaty, the "victim" status of the "other", and all such grievances of the month. He's also fully aware that most Muslims don't give a fig about the environment. So, he reels them in with the vile theological core of Islam: Jihad is the glorious duty of the umma.

All one has to do is to carefully read what he has said and realize that they hate us for who we are -- not for something we might have done.

Link via Done with Mirrors.