FP: Mary Habeck, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Habeck: Thanks. It's great to be here.
FP: What inspired you to write this book?
Habeck: I became interested in Islam--especially medieval Islamic law, theology and history--during the 1990s. When 9/11 happened, I began to read about modern Islam, Islamism and jihadism, and could see that the extremists had a certain very narrow place in Islamic history and theology. So I waited for the "real experts" to write something about the connections between what al-Qa'ida was saying and this narrow section of Islam. While I waited, I began to give a lecture based on my understanding of these connections in an attempt to explain why 9/11 occurred. After two years of waiting, I decided that academia wasn't interested in this issue and if a book on the subject was going to be written, I'd have to do it.
FP: Why do you think academia wasn’t interested in the connections between what al-Qa'ida was saying and the “narrow” section of Islam you refer to?
Habeck: I think that there is a huge disconnect between the two sections of academia that study this sort of thing. On the one hand are the religious studies experts, who are genuinely interested in understanding religion in its own place and context, but who are not very concerned about modern political developments or current events. On the other hand are the political scientists who are interested in modern political developments and current events, but who don't take religion seriously (it's all rhetoric to win public support for some political reason). So there are no academics who have the training, intellectual tools and desire to put together religion and 9/11.
FP: So what exactly is jihadism and what drives it?
Habeck: It's a particular view of Islam, which makes three separate arguments: first, they believe that all other Muslims have fallen away from the real faith and that they, therefore, are the only true believers left in the world. The reason they are the only true believers is because they follow the only authentic definition of "tawhid." For most Muslims, tawhid means that there is one God and only he should be worshiped. Jihadis saw that this definition is incomplete: tawhid requires also that only God should be obeyed. Anyone who is not obeying God's laws, or who is attempting to create "manmade" laws that contradict God's revealed laws, is engaging in polytheism and is no longer a Muslim. This definition of tawhid implies that Muslims must have a state (the Caliphate) that correctly implements God's laws and also that liberalism and democracy are antithetical to "true" Islam.
Second, they believe that the world is controlled by hostile unbelievers who desire the destruction of Islam. By this they mean that the unbelievers are attempting to prevent the "true believers" from setting up an Islamic state (since it is only in the Caliphate that true Islam can be correctly practiced). This is their definition of a "war on Islam."
Thus, Muslims are allowed to fight these unbelievers in a just jihad. Their definition of jihad is quite different from that generally accepted by Muslims today. Most Muslims say that jihad is first and foremost an internal struggle to control one's desires or, if it is about fighting, jihad is a defensive just war. These extremists make jihad into the central tenet of their religion, arguing that it is primarily about fighting both defensively and offensively (to spread the just laws of Islam). They also say that any Muslim who does not participate in their jihad is not a "true believer," and is at most a sinner and at worst an unbeliever and can therefore be killed with impunity.
FP: Why are “moderate” Muslims so silent, in general, in the face of jihadism?
Habeck: There are probably many reasons for this, but I can give at least three. First, many Muslims have spoken out against jihadism, but they have been ignored by Western media. There was, for instance, a huge demonstration against violence carried out in the name of Islam is Morocco not too long ago (late 2005), but I don't remember reading anything about this is in the mainstream media. I read memri.org and see many, many moderate Muslims speaking out against these guys every day. Second, in many countries these guys control the public arena and intimidate or even murder anyone who speaks out against them. The intimidation carried out in Western countries recently shows the power that just a few fanatics can have. Finally, there is a peculiar dynamic going on in the Islamic world: most people do not trust their governments or media to be reporting the truth, so they refuse to believe that the jihadis are carrying out these terrible atrocities. It's far more satisfying to believe that the government/US/Zionists are lying about all this rather than to confront the fact that someone has hijacked your religion for their own purposes.
FP: You are right, when moderate Muslims rise up against extremism, the mainstream media does seem particularly silent. Recently in Pakistan and Turkey, masses of Muslims showed up to reject Islamic extremism. Yet the media was almost completely silent about this. You would think they would pump something like this up, seeing that moderate Muslims are our great hope in the war against terror. What explains this silence of the mainstream media?
After you answer this question, I would still like to stress that, despite these demonstrations, which are a hopeful sign, they do seem to be seldom. My experience with my own conversations with many “moderate” Muslims is that, deep down inside, they hate George W. Bush and the West more than they do the extremists and that, on several realms, they prefer the defeat of American forces and of democracy in the face of their vision of a Muslim victory, which often makes them sympathetic to the extremists. There is a huge problem here no?
Habeck: We don't hear about this positive news for the same reason we don't hear much about positive developments in Iraq. People think that the reason we're not hearing good news from Iraq is due to media hostility to the war there and to Bush. This is only partially true. The other factor is truly "if it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead."
And my sense is that the other problem you mention is caused by two factors: one, most Muslims truly do feel oppressed and aggressed against. To them, it seems as if the entire world is against them and their fellow Muslims worldwide and that the only people who are doing anything sincere to help them out are the mujahidin. How do they deal then, with news of the atrocities committed by these holy warriors? This is the second factor: by believing that it's all propaganda by the governments, either the US or Iraqi or Pakistani or etc. They have to have these pure fighters for "truth, justice and Islam," or their world doesn't make much sense. I'm not saying this to excuse or justify this support, just to explain it.
FP: If you look at all the victims of jihad and count them, it is Muslims that feel oppressed and aggressed against? I suppose. If Muslims feel oppressed, then their oppressors are the extremists amongst them and their ideologies.
So what are the key strategies of the global jihadis, especially al-Qa’ida?
Habeck: I believe that al-Qa'ida has a fairly sophisticated long-term strategy for creating the Caliphate, their objective for the next twenty years. Their specific military, ideological, economic and political strategies have, by the way, changed since 9/11, but not their grand strategic vision. They believe that they can still drive the US out of the Islamic world; that they can then take on the "tyrants" of the Islamic world one by one and take down their regimes; and that then they will be able to create the Caliphate in one of these states and expand it until it encompasses the entire Islamic world. Their particular military strategy for achieving this is to gather all jihadis under their umbrella and globalize the jihad against the US and the "tyrants." Defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan will convince the US to retreat to America while multiple wars in battlefields around the world (N. Africa, Somalia, Darfur, Chechnya, Pakistan, etc) will simultaneously put pressure on every Islamic regime, forcing them into prolonged guerrilla wars and their collapse.
FP: Where do Iraq and Afghanistan lie in terms of al-Qa’ida’s strategic thinking?
Habeck: Afghanistan is far more important for this vision, since Northern Pakistan is the new center for al-Qa'ida and the Taliban (Bin Ladin and Zawahiri have sworn fealty to Mullah Omar), for hijra (migration to perform jihad), for training camps, and eventually for an Islamic state (they've already created an Islamic Emirate there). The rising violence in Afghanistan is a direct result of this process. They believe that Afghanistan has always been the graveyard of superpowers and that, just like the USSR, defeat in Afghanistan could lead to the complete collapse of the US. Iraq, meanwhile, has been explicitly compared to Vietnam, and is seen as an opportunity to defeat the US and take over a state in the very center of the Islamic world. They have already created an Islamic Emirate there as well, which they want to expand to include the entire region and which will begin churning out thousands of global jihadis as soon as we leave.
FP: How can the United States defeat the jihadis?
Habeck: Patience, persistence, and a global effort. We need to be thinking about the long term and about the ideological battlefield--how do we win over 1.2 billion Muslims and thus keep them from joining the extremists? How do we help to strengthen Islamic states around the world, states that will carry on the bulk of the fighting with these extremists, even while we pressure them to reform, end corruption, and become more liberal? We also need to see that leaving Iraq will only embolden global jihadis to attack us more, not less, and that our security depends on security and reform over there.
FP: But isn’t the danger of making more Islamic states more “liberal” is that the extremists within these states will use the increased freedom to take power and create Islamist states?
Habeck: That is entirely possible. But sometimes, the only way to show the failure of a fantasy ideology (Lee Harris' term) is to let it play out in reality, where it cannot succeed (see communism, fascism and Nazism). Otherwise, there will always be some part of the Islamic world that believes this sort of authoritarian theocracy is a viable alternative, able to truly create a paradise on earth.
FP: Yep, and as the 20th Century tragically revealed in mass pools of human blood, the effort to create paradise on earth always spawns the flames of hell.
Mary Habeck, thank you for joining us today.
Habeck: It was my pleasure.