AL QAEDA'S PATH OF DESTRUCTION

NY Post ^ | 9/10/06 | DAVID KLINGHOFFER

[Valin]

September 10, 2006 -- THE LOOMING TOWER: AL QAEDA AND THE ROAD TO 9/11 BY LAWRENCE WRIGHT KNOPF, 469 PAGES, $27.95

IT may seem impious to nominate Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower" as the perfect 9/11 book, in the same way you might hail a Michael Crichton novel as the perfect summer thriller. But I don't know of a book that does a better job - indeed, a thrilling job - of illuminating the main human factors that went into producing the horrendous attack of five years ago (minus one day).

A staff writer for The New Yorker, Wright has done extraordinary research, interviewing a huge list of the main players on both the jihadist and the American sides.

He also knows how to tell an unflaggingly compelling story, starting with the intellectual roots of al Qaeda, such as they are, in the writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian radical and literary man hanged by that country's dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1966. Wright's "characters," chiefly Osama bin Laden and the FBI agent John O'Neill who pursued him, emerge as vividly as any novelist could accomplish with fictional material.

So what or who produced 9/11?

Bin Laden's hubris and twisted moral vision were obviously essential. But that vision was drawn from a strain in Islam going back at least to the 13th century. It was neither bin Laden nor Qutb who invented the theological rationalization for the slaughter of innocents, including of women and children professing Islam as their faith. That innovation, expressed in a fatwa seven centuries ago, may be traced to a venerated religious scholar, Ibn Taymiyyah. So much for the idea that "Islamism" is nothing more than a modern heresy, deviating from the trunk of classical Islam.

[ClaireSolt]

Saw him on c-span. He says clinton's cruise missles were aq boon to bin Laden who was broke. He sold the unexploded ones to china and Pakistan who reengineered them. A doubly bad policy.

[Valin]

A doubly bad policy

Understatement of the day.

[Txsleuth]

I keep hearing a LOT of people on TV reference this book lately...even Brit Hume, yesterday, was using it as a "reference" when discussing the 9/11 movie.

I guess this is a must buy for me.

Thanks for the article.

[Valin]

I'm not a big fan of "MUST READ", as my 1st response is 'No I Don't!' but if you get this book you will not be disappointed. Loaded with facts and the guy knows how to write, it's a real page turner.

[Txsleuth]

Thanks for the personal recommendation...I usually try to get personal recommendations before I buy non-fiction...

[Cicero]

I googled this brief bio of Ibn Taymiyyah:

http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/islam/blfaq_islam_taymiyyah.htm

But it should be pointed out that this fanatic thought he was returning to the roots of Islam, and I think he was right. Murder, violence, conquest, and enslavement of innocents began with Muhammed himself. Ibn Taymiyyah merely reminded Muslims of that fact.

[Valin]

Yes he his really big with the Salafist/Wahhabist. However even from the start there was...controversy with him and what he was teaching.

Something I found a couple of days ago
The Sunni Articles

by Mawlana al-Hafiz al-Muhaddith al-Shaykh
‘Abdullah al-Harari as-Shaf‘i ar-Rifa’i,
may Allah preserve him.
http://village.flashnet.it/users/fn034463/maqalat.html