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24Dec15
Go to The Origin of Jihadism (II)
The Origin of Jihadism (I)
The origin of jihadism is prohibited from being reported truthfully - this truth is prohibited by all of the Establishment 'press,' including almost all 'alternative news' sites - in the West, because it challenges all of the «sensitive» buttons (all of the bigotries, to put the matter in plain terms); and, though this fact (the Establishment's bigotries, and its hypocrisy to preserve and protect the bigotries even while condemning them) will prevent almost all of the news-media that I send this to from publishing it, nothing prevents me from writing it; so, here that is (in whatever media turn out to be gutsy enough to publish this Western cultural and political samizdat):
First, here's what the origin of jihadism isn't: It's not the «Arab-Israeli conflict», nor is jihadism a response to the West's support of the barbarous way that Israel's apartheid government (and the vast majority of Israel's Jews) treat, and historically have treated, Palestinians. Even without that Israeli-Jewish barbarism and its support by Western countries, jihadism would exist, not much different than it today is.
In order to understand where jihadism really comes from, what's necessary first is to understand the relationship that the Sauds, who are the royal family of Saudi Arabia, have with their clergy, who are the Wahhabist Islamic preachers, a relationship between the aristocracy and clergy in that area, which began in 1744, and which was subsequently combined with the oil-for-weapons trade and an alliance with the United States, that began in 1945, and that then was ignited by the petrodollar after Richard Nixon's de-dollarization of gold in 1973. That's what laid the ground for it.
And then, US President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, a born Polish nobleman whose family hailed from the most anti-Russian part of Poland, and who was also a protégée of the oil-and-banking baron David Rockefeller, advised Carter in 1978 to import pro-Saudi fighters or «mujahedeen» (later called «Taliban») into the then-Soviet-allied Afghanistan, in order to create there a wave of terrorism that would drain Soviet resources necessary to preserve the Soviets' Afghan ally, and thus help to bring down the Soviet Union.
It is, in short, an anti-Soviet operation that the West subsequently continued as an anti-Russian operation (especially in Chechnya but also in other predominantly Muslim parts of Russia), but that got out of control, and now bites the hands that fed and that continue to feed it.
Here is a video of Brzezinski, in 1979, in Pakistan, telling the Wahhabist Taliban encamped there, who had recently been driven out from Afghanistan by the new secular and Soviet-allied government there, to go back into Afghanistan, this time with US weapons and support, to fight again as mujahedeen there, because «God is on your side».
Here is Brzezinski, in 1998, bragging that he had done that, and saying: «Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border [into Afghanistan, to defend the new secular government in that land], I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.» The interview continued:
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense!»
It wouldn't exist without the ideology, which is distinctly Wahhabist, known as «Salafist» outside of Saudi Arabia. But whatever it's called, this Sunni branch of Islam is the religion that is held by all jihadists. The US built upon that Saudi base (and the very term «Al-Qaeda» means «the base»). And so, this ideology must be understood, because it is significant not only within Saudi Arabia, but wherever jihadists carry out their war against «the infidels» - against anyone who fails to adhere to all of the rituals and commands of this very severe faith.
Here is from the US Library of Congress's 1992 book Saudi Arabia: A Country Study, by Helen Chapin Metz:
The Saud Family and Wahhabi Islam
The Al Saud [dynasty] originated in Ad Diriyah, in the center of Najd, close to the modern capital of Riyadh. Around 1500 ancestors of Saud ibn Muhammad took over some date groves, one of the few forms of agriculture the region could support, and settled there. Over time the area developed into a small town, and the clan that would become the Al Saud came to be recognized as its leaders.
The rise of Al Saud is closely linked with Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (died 1792), a Muslim scholar whose ideas form the basis of the Wahhabi movement. He grew up in Uyaynah, an oasis in southern Najd, where he studied with his grandfather Hanbali Islamic law, one of the strictest Muslim legal schools. While still a young man, he left Uyaynah to study with other teachers, the usual way to pursue higher education in the Islamic world. He studied in Medina and then went to Iraq and to Iran.
To understand the significance of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab's ideas, they must be considered in the context of Islamic practice. There was a difference between the established rituals clearly defined in religious texts that all Muslims perform and popular Islam. The latter refers to local practice that is not universal.
The Shia practice of visiting shrines is an example of a popular practice. The Shia continued to revere the Imams even after their death and so visited their graves to ask favors of the Imams buried there. Over time, Shia scholars rationalized the practice and it became established.
Some of the Arabian tribes came to attribute the same sort of power that the Shia recognized in the tomb of an Imam to natural objects such as trees and rocks. Such beliefs were particularly disturbing to Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab. In the late 1730s he returned to the Najdi town of Huraymila and began to write and preach against both Shia and local popular practices. He focused on the Muslim principle that there is only one God, and that God does not share his power with anyone - not Imams, and certainly not trees or rocks. From this unitarian principle, his students began to refer to themselves as muwahhidun (unitarians). Their detractors referred to them as «Wahhabis» - or followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab», which had a pejorative connotation.
The idea of a unitary god was not new. Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, however, attached political importance to it. He directed his attack against the Shia. He also sought out local leaders, trying to convince them that this was an Islamic issue. He expanded his message to include strict adherence to the principles of Islamic law. He referred to himself as a «reformer» and looked for a political figure who might give his ideas a wider audience.
Lacking political support in Huraymila, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab returned to Uyaynah where he won over some local leaders. Uyaynah, however, was close to Al Hufuf, one of the Twelver Shia centers in eastern Arabia, and its leaders were understandably alarmed at the anti-Shia tone of the Wahhabi message. Partly as a result of their influence, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab was obliged to leave Uyaynah, and headed for Ad Diriyah. He had earlier made contact with Muhammad ibn Saud, the leader in Ad Diriyah at the time, and two of Muhammad's brothers had accompanied him when he destroyed tomb shrines around Uyaynah.
Accordingly, when Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab arrived in Ad Diriyah, the Al Saud was ready to support him. In 1744 Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab swore a traditional Muslim oath in which they promised to work together to establish a state run according to Islamic principles. Until that time the Al Saud had been accepted as conventional tribal leaders whose rule was based on longstanding but vaguely defined authority.
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab offered the Al Saud a clearly defined religious mission to which to contribute their leadership and upon which they might base their political authority. This sense of religious purpose remained evident in the political ideology of Saudi Arabia in the 1990s.
Muhammad ibn Saud began by leading armies into Najdi towns and villages to eradicate various popular and Shia practices. The movement helped to rally the towns and tribes of Najd to the Al Saud-Wahhabi standard. By 1765 Muhammad ibn Saud's forces had established Wahhabism - and with it the Al Saud political authority - over most of Najd.
After Muhammad ibn Saud died in 1765, his son, Abd al Aziz, continued the Wahhabi advance. In 1801 the Al Saud-Wahhabi armies attacked and sacked Karbala, the Shia shrine in eastern Iraq that commemorates the death of Husayn. In 1803 they moved to take control of Sunni towns in the Hijaz. Although the Wahhabis spared Mecca and Medina the destruction they visited upon Karbala, they destroyed monuments and grave markers that were being used for prayer to Muslim saints and for votive rituals, which the Wahhabis consider acts of polytheism. In destroying the objects that were the focus of these rituals, the Wahhabis sought to imitate Muhammad's destruction of pagan idols when he reentered Mecca in 628.
If the Al Saud had remained in Najd, the world would have paid them scant attention. But capturing the Hijaz brought the Al Saud empire into conflict with the rest of the Islamic world. The popular and Shia practices to which the Wahhabis objected were important to other Muslims, the majority of whom were alarmed that shrines were destroyed and access to the holy cities restricted.
Moreover, rule over the Hijaz was an important symbol. The Ottoman Turks, the most important political force in the Islamic world at the time, refused to concede rule over the Hijaz to local leaders. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Ottomans were not in a position to recover the Hijaz, because the empire had been in decline for more than two centuries, and its forces were weak and overextended. Accordingly, the Ottomans delegated the recapture of the Hijaz to their most ambitious client, Muhammad Ali, the semi-independent commander of their garrison in Egypt. Muhammad Ali, in turn, handed the job to his son Tursun, who led a force to the Hijaz in 1816; Muhammad Ali later joined his son to command the force in person.
Meanwhile, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab had died in 1792, and Abd al Aziz died shortly before the capture of Mecca. The movement had continued, however, to recognize the leadership of the Al Saud and so followed Abd al Aziz's son, Saud, until 1814; after Saud died in 1814, his son, Abd Allah, ruled. Accordingly, it was Abd Allah ibn Saud ibn Abd al Aziz who faced the invading Egyptian army [on behalf of Turkey's Muslim ruler].
Tursun's forces took Mecca and Medina almost immediately. Abd Allah chose this time to retreat to the family's strongholds in Najd. Muhammad Ali decided to pursue him there, sending out another army under the command of his other son, Ibrahim. The Wahhabis made their stand at the traditional Al Saud capital of Ad Diriyah, where they managed to hold out for two years against superior Egyptian forces and weaponry. In the end, however, the Wahhabis proved no match for a modern army, and Ad Diriyah - and Abd Allah with it - fell in 1818.
[Source: By Eric Zuesse, Strategic Culture Foundation, Moscow, 24Dec15]
Go to The Origin of Jihadism (II)
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