Ruling the wilderness

Amir Taheri

No one should feel safe without submitting, and those who refuse to submit must pay a high price. The aim of our movement is to turn the world into a series of "wildernesses" in which only those under our rule enjoy security.

These are some of the ideas developed by Shaikh Abu Bakr Naji, currently the chief theoretician of Al Qaida, in his new book Governance in the Wilderness (Edarat Al Tawwahush), copies of which were seized by the Saudi police last week as they arrested 701 alleged terrorists in overnight raids.

The alleged terrorists, men from a dozen different nationalities, were picked up in the Eastern Province that accounts for 85 per cent of Saudi Arabia's oil. According to General Mansur Al Turki who orchestrated the raids, the group planned to attack key installations to disrupt the flow of oil.

Naji's book is meant as a manifesto for jihad. It acknowledges the late Egyptian Sayyed Qutb and the late Palestinian Abdallah Al Azzam as ideological fathers of Islamist terror. Naji also uses theories formulated by Al Qaida ideologists such as Omar Mahmoud Abu Omar and Ubaid Al Qureshi in the 1990s.

He divides the jihadi movement into five concentric circles. The first, and largest, consists of Sunni Salafi (traditionalist) Muslims who, though not personally violent, are prepared to give moral and material support to militants.

The second is represented by the As Sahwah (Awakening) movement based on the teachings of Saudi clerics Salman Owdah and Safar Al Hawali. The third circle, according to Naji, consists of the Muslim Brotherhood, a global movement founded by Hassan Al Banna in Egypt in 1924.

The Brotherhood's "Supreme Guide" Mahdi Akif has praised Osama Bin Laden as a mujahed (warrior) and endorsed Al Qaida's operations.

Supporters of the Sudanese preacher-cum-politician Hassan Al Turabi represent the fourth circle. Finally, Al Naji cites a fifth circle: Islamist groups with national rather than pan-Islamist agendas, and names the Palestinian Hamas and the Filipino Moro Liberation Front as examples.

Naji claims that all five circles have reached an impasse.

Some accepted the status quo while hoping to reform it. Others tried to set up governments in a world dominated by "infidel" powers, and were forced to abandon Islamic values. Still others failed because they did not realise that the only way to win was through total war in which no one felt safe.

Naji claims that the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924 marked the start of "the most dangerous phase in history". Those events put Arab countries, the heartland of Islam, under "infidel" domination. With de-colonisation, the "infidel" continued to rule through native proxies.

According to Naji, in a world dominated by "Crusaders", it is not possible to create a proper Islamic state in a single country. He cites as example the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Although a proper Islamic regime, it did not survive "infidel" attacks and opposition by Afghan elements. The Islamic movement must be global, fighting everywhere, all the time, and on all fronts.

Naji claims that the idea of a world war took shape some 30 years ago, although the "infidel" took no notice until 9/11. In the "wilderness", Islamists create parallel societies alongside existing ones. They do not set up formal governments that could be vulnerable to economic pressure or even military attack.

Parallel societies

Naji says these parallel societies could resemble "liberated zones" set up by Marxist guerrillas in parts of Latin America in the last century.

But they could also exist within cities, under the noses of the authorities, operating as secret societies with their own rules, values and enforcement mechanism. Naji claims that Algerian Islamist groups had created such parallel societies under semi-autonomous "emirs".

The "wilderness" will provide cover for operational bases. Jihad would be everywhere rather than in just one or two countries that the "infidel" could hit with superior firepower.

Naji recommends "countless small operations" that render daily life unbearable rather than a few spectacular attacks such as 9/11. The idea is that the "infidel", leaving his home every morning, should not be sure whether he would be alive in the evening.

Naji believes that if subjected to constant intimidation and fear of death, most non-Muslims, especially in the West, would submit.

The only Western power still capable of resisting is the United States. But that, too, would change once President George W. Bush leaves office. In any case, Naji, quoting historian Paul Kennedy, has no doubt that "America is destined to fall."

He makes it clear that the US is the principal, if not the exclusive target, of jihad at this time. Israel is mentioned only once, and as "America's little female idol". Palestine is also mentioned only once, and then only in an historic context.

According to Naji, Al Qaida needs at least half a million "dedicated fighters". He identifies several Muslim countries as promising terrain of the establishment of "the governance of the wilderness".

These include Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, Turkey, Jordan, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco. The implication is that "wilderness" units already exist in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Somalia and Algeria.

Naji's theory is built on the concept of terror as the main organising principle of the mini-states he hopes to set up in preparation for the coming caliphate.

Naji cites examples of other Islamic leaders who created "wilderness" societies to wage asymmetric war against more powerful enemies.

Among these are Saladin, the Kurdish emir who re-took Jerusalem from the Crusaders, Nureddin Zangi, the Turkish emir who fought the Crusaders, and Osama Bin Munqidh, the Arab emir of the Chizar Castle who played a key role in driving the Crusaders out of the Levant.

Naji offers a synthesis of the themes that appeal to different jihadi groups. With anti-imperialist sentiments, missionary dreams, ethnic and class grievances, and puritanical obsessions, he mixes a deadly cocktail.

Naji's message is stark: Western civilisation is doomed. Its last bastion, America, lacks the will for a long war. The infidel loves life and treat it as an endless feast. Jihadis have to ruin that feast and persuade the "infidel" to abandon this world in exchange for greater rewards in the next.


* Published in the UAE's GULF NEWS on July 2, 2008. Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe.