Source: FamilySecurityMatters.org - December 28, 2006
Editor's Note: An enormous challenge facing the West today is trying to understand all there is to know about Islam. Key to this is comprehending the many meanings of the words the Jihadists themselves use vs. what the West uses to describe the terrorists and their nefarious deeds. While the "Hirabah vs Jihad" issue has not been settled, this piece by FSM Contributing Editor Jim Guirard is presented on its own merits -- and may be followed in due course by a responsible contrary point of view.
Author : JIM GUIRARD
Earlier "TrueSpeak" articles in this truth-in-language and truth-in-Islam series have regretted the failure of US Public Diplomacy, led by Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes, to aggressively attack and to de-legitimize al Qaeda's fraudulent "Jihad Against America and the West" -- and to do so not in Western secular terms only but in Osama bin Laden's own language, his own culture and, especially, his own religion.
Clearly, the State Department's euphemistic language of diplomacy -- which does not even permit the President to call bin Laden and his suicide mass murderers "evildoers" -- will never rise to the occasion of condemning genocidal terrorism by its real names. That would be far too "politically incorrect."
And nor even will the tough Western secular language of law enforcement (thugs, criminals, killers, bring to justice, etc.) ever succeed in turning the Muslim World and the Arab Street against young "holy warriors" and "martyrs" on their way to Paradise.
In a recent essay, this writer has sharply lamented the failure of the Baker-Hamiltom Iraq Study Group to address this religious and "hearts, minds and souls" element of the War on Terrorism at all.
In the ISG's 79 Recommendations, neither the vital role of Public Diplomacy in general nor the "war of words" deficiencies in today's PD programs in particular are given any mention whatever -- implying that no corrections or improvements are needed in either.
To pose the fundamental two-part question around which all other questions revolve, "What exactly is going on in the world today? And who are the instigators and fomenters of this global crisis?"
Is it the holy "jihad" by the "mujahedeen" and the "martyrs" claimed by bin Laden, or is it an unhloy war of Satanic proportions? And if it is the latter, what are the several Arabic and Islamic words and frames of reference which most clearly define and condemn it as such?
Call it "Hirabah" -- forbidden "War Against Society"
The essential term for the sinful criminality of these AQ killers is the 10th Century -- and, therefore, not in the 7th Century Quran -- Islamic word "Hirabah" (hee-RAH-bah). It means "unholy war" and forbidden "war against society" and is what we today call "crimes against humanity."
Here is how the renowned scholar of Islam Abdul Hakim (a.k.a. Sherman Jackson) of the University of Michigan explained the matter -- with virtually no-one listening, of course -- in the Fall 2001 issue of Muslim World:
"In the end ... Hirabah assumes its place as an effective super-category hovering above the entire criminal law as a possible remedy to be pressed into service for the more sensational, heinous or terrifying of these and other crimes. In this capacity, Hirabah appears, again, to parallel the function of terrorism as an American legal category. Its function is not so much to define specific crimes but to provide a mechanism for heightening the scrutiny and/or level of pursuit and prosecution in certain cases of actual or potential public violence."
This was only one paragraph in a twelve-page, highly footnoted justification for the Hirabah label -- which has fallen far behind the false "Jihadi" label but is quietly gaining acceptance from such other clerics and scholars of Islam as Professors Akbar Ahmed of American University, Khaled Abou el Fadl of UCLA, Imam Yahya Hendi of Georgetown and over twenty others -- whose current attitudes are expertly represented by the following (privately communicated) analysis analysis from Prof. Ahmed:
"Properly understood, this is a war of ideas within Islam -- some of them faithful to authentic Islam, but some of them clearly un-Islamic and even blasphemous toward the peaceful and compassionate Allah of the Qur'an... As a matter of truth-in-Islam, both the ideas and the actions they produce must be called what they actually are, beginning with the fact that al Qaeda's brand of suicide mass murder and its fomenting of hatred among races, religions and cultures do not constitute godly or holy "Jihad" -- but, in fact, constitute the heinous crime and sin of unholy "Hirabah"...
According to this distinguished Islamic scholar and interfaith leader, "In its worst excesses, particularly in the wanton killing of innocents -- both non-Muslim and Muslim alike -- as a method of terrorizing the entire community, such ungodly "war against society" should be condemned as blasphemous and un-Islamic."
Urgently, therefore, the civilized world must begin to reshape its "know thine enemy" lexicon and basic frames of reference -- and to discard al Qaeda's patently false language of "Jihadi martyrdom" which currently glorifies and sanctifies the bin Laden miscreants who are trying to rip not only America and Western civilization but so-called "moderate" Islam, as well, to pieces.
In this regard, a closely related discovery Secretary Hughes has surely made by now in the "hearts, minds and souls" arena is the ugly fact that in much of the Muslim World (the Umma) America is perceived as "the Great Satan." For who, indeed, other than the Great Satan would be going about killing a bunch of "holy guys" and "martyrs" on their way to Paradise?
(Imagine if you will the consequences during World War II if the language of the day spoke incessantly of the "Satanic Allies," the "Holy and Compassionate Gestapo" and the "Blessed NAZI Saviors.")
Call it "Irhabi MURDERdom" -- and "The AQ Apostasy"
But in the truthful frames of reference of Hirabah ("unholy war"), of "Irhabi MURDERdom" and of "the al Qaeda Apostasy" much of that pro-al Qaeda imagery would be changed.
Clearly, those who are willfully fomenting and waging today's sinful criminality against the Iraqi society, against Quranic Islam and against civilization itself could no longer pose as the saintly Servants of Allah -- the Abd' al-Allah -- they so falsely claim to be.
They are, in fact, the ruthless "evildoers" -- which President Bush correctly called them for over two years before the State Department in late 2003 persuaded him to drop such words (i.e., particularly sharp-edged terms with Islamic religious implications) from his vocabulary.
Including those used above, here are ten such words of condemnation: Hirabah -- Unholy War, forbidden war against society; mufsiduun -- evildoers, sinners, corrupters; irhab and irhabis -- terrorism and terrorists; istihlal -- the arrogant sin of "playing God;" khawarij -- outside the religion; munafiq and munafiquun -- hypocrisy and hypocrites; irtidad and murtadduun -- apostasy and apostates; Shaitan and shaitaniyah -- Satan and satanic; abd' al-Shaitan -- Servants, Slaves of Satan; Jahannam -- Eternal Hellfire.
In full justification of such condemnatory language and of the "al Qaeda Apostasy" label in particular, here is a list of ten (among many more) willful and ruthless transgressions by bin Ladenism against the Allah of "peace, mercy, compassion and justice" who is repeatedly so described by the Qur'an:
Unfortunately, almost all of these words and proofs of apostasy would violate an unwritten Government-wide "guidance" or admonition which says, in effect, that "Thou shalt not discuss matters Islamic religious or use words which have serious religious implications" -- for fear of making some mistake which either outrages or humiliates certain parts of the Muslim World.
And it may be why neither the current ISG Report nor the recent Quadrennial Defense Review's 55-part Strategic Communication Roadmap contains not a single "war of words" initiative -- nor a call for a maximally accurate and fully sufficient glossary of the Arabic and Islamic religious terms needed to wage such a war agressively and successfully.
Under this well-motivated but tongue-tied standard, the President and his spokespersons are at full liberty to call the al Qaeda-style terrorists "mujahideen-types" and "Jihadists" and their suicide mass murder "martyrdom operations."
But never, ever are they to condemn the al Qaeda terrorists in Islamic religious terms as the "mufsiduun" (evildoers), the "murtadduun" (apostates) or the "abd'al-Shaitan" (Servants of Satan) they really are.
Mon dieu! We might upset the Hollywood activists, the foreign policy elites, the hate-Bush media, the European intellectuals and even bin Laden and his murderous ilk by daring to say the truthful word "evildoers." Recall, please, the early-1980s opposition by these same euphemistically inclined and detente-minded diplomats to President Reagan's labeling of the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire."
But imagine, if you will, how much more difficult it would become for al Qaeda and its clones to recruit suicide mass murderers once these young Muslims begin to perceive themselves as waging not a holy "Jihad" but an ungodly Hirabah against Allah Himself -- and as being destined, therefore, not for Allah's Paradise but for Satan's Jahannam, instead.
In this ugly context, al Qaeda's much-ballyhooed 72 black-eyed virgins would presumably become 72 evil-eyed porcine and canine demons. And is this not a long-overdue and a truly "nightmare" disincentive to al Qaeda-style suicide mass murder?
PD Analyses All Miss The Target
Of course, one would search in vain for such a hard-nosed recommendation among the dozen or more major Studies, Reports and Analyses which have been done of the US Public Diplomacy effort over the last several years. Now, the same blindspot is a prominent omission of the ISG Report, as well. All of these learned critiques considered (and expertly so in most cases) only two of the three major areas of concern -- Reorganization and Resources -- but none of them ventured more than skin-deep, and most of them not at all, into the complex issue of what appears to be the basic insufficiency and overly cautious misdirection of the PD message itself.Clearly, it is in this context that a most able, well-connected and increasingly experienced Karen Hughes and her PD experts must now begin waging a far more aggressive "war of words" and "war of ideas" -- one that is equal in intensity to those of the deadly serious anti-NAZI and anti-Communist campaigns of World War II and of the Cold War.
This must be in ways which not only paint an accurately positive picture of America (which she is doing more ably than her recent predecessors did) but which finally, belatedly begin to demonize the bloodthirsty "Irhabi MURDERdom" al Qaeda-style -- and Hizballah-style -- terrorists in ways which are at least as effective as the ways in which they are so falsely demonizing us.
JIM GUIRARD -- TrueSpeak Institute 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com
A DC-area attorney, writer and anti-Terrorism strategist, Jim Guirard was longtime Chief of Staff to former US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His TrueSpeak Institute is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-Islam in political discourse.