Making Sense of Jihad

A Shariah Grows in Takoma Park

Published in 1996, the excerpt of the following article calls for the implemention of shariah into community arbitration services as a means of "improving" the current legal system in the United States. Today it offers a fascinating peek into the pre-9/11 mindset of an American Islamist:  "The time to begin conceptualizing our social and judicial institutions is now."  The United States and Canada appear to offer endless opportunities for future implementation of Islamic law.

The article, "Community-Based Arbitration as a Vehicle for Implementing Islamic Law in the United States," begins with the premise that

we must not be content to cling to the predominate legal system, as it continues to slowly lapse deeper into semi-paralysis, choking on its own obstructive litigiousness…Through mediation and arbitration, the Muslim community may be able to design and implement a modified system of justice that would be responsive to its concern and the might evolve into a more comprehensive one in the future.

And then goes on to offer a method of employing community arbitration services as a means of introducing Shariah into the current legal system which the authors describe through analogy as "atrophying."

The article appears in the Spring/Summer 1996 issue of The Journal of Islamic Law, a quarterly published through the Takoma Park, MD-based non-profit called the Institute for Intercultural Relations. Sometime after 2000, the title changed to The Journal of Islamic Law and Culture, and it appears to have stopped publication after 2004, only to restart in 2008 as a monthly, and only to vanish again after an October 2009 issue.

Information on the Institute is more elusive than the publication.  Originally operating in Takoma Park, MD, the organization had a DC-based address in 2009. Its  editor appears to have held the position of General Counsel for the Corporation for National and Community Service, but his name no longer appears on the group's website.

I don't want you to think I'm cueing some ominous music to explain an Islamist group's maniacal plot to take over the US legal system.  I have no analytical opinion on the issue of various Islamist plot and plans for domination -- they're so numerous they should count as their own genre.  However, I do find the ideas expressed in this article, and in other articles from the same journal, to be fascinating.  They provide a window into a "mainstream" American Islamist's mindset and intent long before September 11th altered the playing field for everyone.

Jihad Vault: Building an Archive of American Online Jihad (Link fixed)

Update: I've updated the BestofthePest link.  It should work now.

Update(2): Not fixed! Working on it!

Update(3): Link fixed?

Little did I know that deleting the BestofthePest from my Box.net directory would cause such a fuss.  I received four requests from four different academics in the past two weeks asking me to restore the files. Unprecedented for this blog.  Honest, I didn't even know that many people read it! 

The study of online radicalization is very much the fad in academic circles right now, and as a service to my academic readers who have theses to write and crappy undergrad essays to grade, I am reposting BestofthePest.

However, I am also posting the directories from several other blogs that were active in 2007 and 2008.  The first is http://www.forpeopleofunderstanding.blogspot.com/.  Mostly active in 2007 and 2008, this appeared to be an online jihadi who was/is located in New Jersey.

Also in the collection: an archive of Tarek Mehanna's wordpress blog, iskandrani.wordpress.com.  Mehanna is a former Boston blogger arrested in October 2009.

There is also an archive of jihadi files associated with muslimpad.com hosting site, unavailable as if this writing.  This is mostly Samir Khan's (aka The Pest) works when his blog was hosted at muslimpad.

And then there are two collections of files associated with The Pest's web content.  Some of these files are copies, no doubt, but I am making it all available just in case there's value in the total:

inshallahshaheed collection 2
bestofthepest

Please don't stop with my work, folks.  There's plenty to grab and analyze still out there.  Archives exist of many salafi/salafi-jihadi blogs that came and went with their creator's enthusiasm.  I found this one tonight -- Islam is the Sunnah and the Sunnah is Islam.  My eagle eyes apparently missed this one when it was active in 2007-08.  While there, check out the links on the right.  Mexico City?  Really?  I had a "senior security advisor" recently tell me that there were no Salafists in Mexico.

Wasting a Little Time

Why?  Because I'm off tomorrow.

 

What's Old is New Again

I came across a complete work called The Qurâanic Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society.  Written in 1973, it falls squarely into the Pakistani genre of Quranic-based study of "good governance."  Its two volumes are filled with the kind of victim-centered woe that's so typical of the jihadi media we read today whether it be MB or AQ media: it's an Israeli conspiracy against Islam, Western world is keeping us down, etc. It's all there.

A brief excerpt:

The collective effort of the Millat for the moral perfection and happiness of the individual cannot, however, gain its ends truly and comprehensively unless it transforms itself into a free theo-democratic state, whose function should be to enforce the Islamic Way of Life in its totality and to act as a condition for the natural flowering of the ideals of Islam. Hence the establishment of the Islamic State, whenever and wherever possible, forms, according to the Holy Qur’Én, the duty of the Millat, not only towards Islam but also towards the individual.

Around the Web - I’m Back!

Well, sort of.  I’m trying to be “back.”  After a crazy 2010 in which I married a real life Frog and really turned 40.  Not sure what my 40s will bring, but a few things are certain -- it will include counter-jihad, vulgar French idioms, petanque, and plenty of very fine wines.  Unfortunately, it will also include English Premier and Ligue 1 “fuutbawl,” but that’s for a different post.

The two Aaron’s

Aaron, did some excellent work not too long ago  exploring the connections between the online world of Swede suicide bomber, Taimour al-Abdaly and the online world of The Pest, aka Samir Khan. 

Meanwhile, if you were reading Aaron Zelin’s Jihadology you would know that...

-- Bin Laden’s recent message to the French had nothing to say about the burqa law.

-- Daveed Gartenstein-Ross gives a strong defense of  applying jihadi ideology in the analysis of jihadi behavior.  [BTW: Congratulations]

-- There is an emerging Salafist-jihadist movement in Nigeria called the “Brigades of the Tawhid.”

-- And that there is a new study of Salafist-jihadism in Germany, by F.W.Horst, called, of all things,  "Salafist-jihadism in Germany."

It is also through Aaron Z -- retweeted by the estimable Mr Orange -- that Mark Stout just posted a fascinating analysis of an early EIG (Egyptian Islamic Group) counter-intel piece. 

One last thing...

I forgive you, Jarret...

...for employing any ideas that spring forth from the demented mind of 1998 Bad Writing contest winner, Judith Butler in your noble struggle against online jihadis.  I admire your work.  I loved your book.  But the Butler reference is beyond the pale.  She’s Lacan without the pen.  Come back to us, Jarret, come back!  Come back to the real world of applied jihad analysis! Sigh, well, if you insist on wasting your time in the dark chambers of post structuralism, just remember this: Sometimes a pen is just a pen.

Where the Jihad Meets the OB/GYN's Office

The other day I was performing a search on a topic unrelated to jihad when to my surprise I ran into a jihadi website.  This wasn't just any jihadi website, however.  This blog has the title "Best Mobiles" and is hosted on a site adorned with various gynecological key words.  The root site also contains links to sonogram imagery. I've provided screen caps below just in case you think I'm kidding.

It's hosted in Russia, and is dedicated to one "Abu Omar," the target of a rendition case in Italy back in 2003. It contains a combination of "shaheed" videos, intermixed with Western news clips, nasheeds and other media, originating mostly from EU countries: Italy, Germany and the UK predominate. 

Now, there are some inconsistencies with the usual strict codes of Salafist-jihadi media content.  In some media clips women's faces are shown, unblocked. Other clips are clearly Shiite preachers. 

Not sure what to make of it all, but I thought you may find it interesting. 

---------

http://ectropicinteractive.com/index.php?key=Abu+Omar

Checking server [whois.PublicDomainRegistry.com]
Results:
Registration Service Provided By: REGNAME.BIZ
Contact: +1.2014674681
Website: http://www.regname.biz

Domain Name: ECTROPICINTERACTIVE.COM

Registrant:
seotyphoon
seotyphoon (capepovorotny@gmail.com)
Pushkina 22
Moscow
Moskovskaya oblast,734000
RU
Tel. +7.9265623254

Creation Date: 08-Sep-2008
Expiration Date: 08-Sep-2011

Domain servers in listed order:
ns1.kompuroki.ru
ns2.kompuroki.ru


Administrative Contact:
seotyphoon
seotyphoon (capepovorotny@gmail.com)
Pushkina 22
Moscow
Moskovskaya oblast,734000
RU
Tel. +7.9265623254

Technical Contact:
seotyphoon
seotyphoon (capepovorotny@gmail.com)
Pushkina 22
Moscow
Moskovskaya oblast,734000
RU
Tel. +7.9265623254

Billing Contact:
seotyphoon
seotyphoon (capepovorotny@gmail.com)
Pushkina 22
Moscow
Moskovskaya oblast,734000
RU
Tel. +7.9265623254

Status:ACTIVE

=========

Green Birds Sited

The Emerson Begolly IM transcripts (and other evidence) submitted into the court record on 13 January, is an excellent, if incomplete, picture of the online habits of contemporary American self-radicalized jihadis.  The transcripts have provided Rusty with sublime consumation of his endless years of online toil. On the other hand, Jarret points out how Begolly exploits a harmless redneck teen video as a learning experience for future terrorist plots.

The part that caught my eye comes somewhere in the middle of an 28 October 2010 IM session.  Begolly, using the ID "abunancy@almanhajribat.net" mentions the audio collection I profiled here last week: Azzam Publication's In the Hearts of Green Birds.

(7:20:44 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: so u know what he sees
(7:20:44 PM) khalidabdalhakim@almanhajribat.net: I hadn't heard that
(7:20:46 PM) khalidabdalhakim@almanhajribat.net: mashallah
(7:20:57 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: he sees paradise as soon as he is killed
(7:21 :04 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: it is a promise to the shaheed
(7:21: 10 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: that si why requently shaheeds
(7:21: 14 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: r seen smiling
(7:21: 16 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: or as i mention
(7:21 :23 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: with a buldge on their pants
(7:21 :31 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: anyway
(7:21 :38 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: have u ever listen to
(7:21 :45 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: in the hearts of green birds?
(7:21 :49 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: by azzam pubs?
<SNIP>
(7:24:25 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: anyway
(7:24:31 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: did u ever listen to that cassette?
(7:24:38 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: hearts of green birds?
(7:24:42 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: it is maybe like 15 yrs old
(7:24:48 PM) khalidabdalhakim@almanhajribat.net: no, I have not
(7:24:59 PM) abunancy@almanhajribat.net: its about the martyrs of bosnia

What's equally interesting is how Begolly picked up on the cues and details so common in jihadi media, like his comment on the "smiling shaheeds." It's common to find death mask images of dead jihadis in videos and still images.  It's clear that Begolly believed it and took it to heart.

Counterterrorism à la Française

I came across this April 2009 Le Figaro report on the FBI’s new-found interest for things French.  In it, Yves Jannier, a French counterterrorism judge, crows about French influence in FBI’s evolving CT approach.

“There has been an increase in the number of technical meetings between ex[perts from the two countries,” the report notes.  “Last week French teams were at the American embassy in Paris to exchange information directly with their colleagues during the course of an encrypted videoconference...”

I have mixed emotions after reading this report.

US and French cooperation goes back a long time.  And there’s been innumerable articles in the US press  (random one here) on our post 9-11 Atlantic partnerships with the UK, France and other EU countries.  However, I’ve never read one specifically about the Bureau before, and in the French press no less!  Without knowing it, the article provides a good clue to the Bureau’s changes in CT approach.  More sting operations, more arrests earlier in the radicalization "cycle."

I’m more than happy to see the Bureau finally grasp on to some strategy.  When I was there in 2003, the Bureau and its phalanx of NSLU and DOJ attorneys were still drifting without a clear mandate, let alone a means of achieving it.  Someone, at some point, grabbed the reigns and has sought solutions. 

But did they have to be French solutions?  With their draconian detention laws, and their unhealthy reliance on individual magistrates, the French way provides few checks against abuse of judicial power.  Regardless of how many times Kepel condescendingly reminds his American audiences that France has not experienced a terrorist attack since the '95 Metro bombing, is this really what we want for the US?

Hooray, sort of.

Best of the Pest is Gone

Administrative note: I have deleted the "Best of the Pest" material from the Box.net server.  If you're looking for them, please contact me via e-mail.

Jihad Vault IV: In the Hearts of Green Birds

This cassette contains some of the thought provoking, and at times, miraculous biographies of the Shuhadaa.

Last year I decided to dedicate a few posts to Salafist-jihadi texts that emphasize the movement's mysticism and spiritualism.  Part IV profiles In the Hearts of Green Birds, a 90s-era English-language martyrology of individuals who died during the Bosnian War. The product of UK-based Azzam Publications, it  came to my attention back in 2006 when it was distributed around the then-limited English-language jihadi web.  It’s part of  a popular genre in the Salafist-jihadi media that highlights the sacred qualities of the deaths of young men who die during what Abu Musab al-Suri called “open front” jihads.

Azzam Publications was a close-knit network of UK-based e-hadis (some of the earliest examples we have) who distributed Salafist-jihadi multimedia often used in recruitment and fund raising for the various open front jihads of the pre-9/11 era.  NEFA Foundation has a screen capture from the group’s website before it was shut down after 9/11.

The current version -- still active on (where else?) Archive-dot-org  -- was posted on 08 Feb 2007 by someone employing the uploader ID, "caravansofmartyrs@yahoo.fr"  It carries a comment by a member of the ozooo media group, posted on 22 Feb 2008.  It lacks the transcript.

http://www.archive.org/details/In_The_Heart_Of_Green_Birds

My copy of the file, however, was posted to a commercial server probably by someone active on the Ummah.com forum, where I first came across it, back in Feb 2006. The Ummah.com post includes the transcript.  I also found the audio file and transcript on Archive around the same time.  The current Archive file lacks the transcript.

Here is an excerpt drawn from the Ummah.com transcript:

Abu Musa at-Turki, "Camera-man of the Mujahideen." Operation Miracle, July 1995

Born of Turkish parents in Germany, his parents did not have enough money to bring him up and so they sold him to a German family. He was brought up as a non-Muslim by a German family. He was a model student and a very well behaved child, and no one could see the difference, as he was very fair in skin color. All of a sudden when he reached the age of 15, things began to go wrong for him. He began to mess around in school, and he became confused. He knew there was something different about him. He knew he was different than these people and that he was not German. Once he had an argument with his German mother, and she told him: "You are not my son!" And he went back and said that: "...That statement reverberated in my mind, and I went back and asked my mom what does this mean? She refused to tell me. After much battery, she told me the whole story, and that she was still in touch with my Turkish parents. My real parents, I went to see them and I began to live with them...." So he began to live with them and after a number of years, at the age of 21, he traveled to Bosnia.

---more anasheed---

And this brother, he had some experience in how to make video-films and mix videotapes. So in Bosnia, they made him the cameraman in the Operation. So, along with a Kalashnikov and his weapons, he’d carry a camera. And this brother; I witnessed this brother, he would be in the front of the attacks, with his camera, fighting and even reaching the Serb bunkers before the rest of the brothers, and he’d be standing on top of the bunkers. The Serbs would still be shooting from out of the window of the bunker and he’d be filming on top. And he said to me; he reached the bunkers and he said to me: "I felt: should I throw a grenade inside or should I put a camera inside?" And then he said he’d put the camera inside so he could get the best possible pictures, so he could mix the best film, so that he could send it back to the other brothers that don’t know anything about Jihad so that they could see the Jihad in their TV’s so that they could find out and learn about Jihad. That was his intention, he wanted to make the best possible tapes, that’s why he was always in the front with his camera. In the second operation, Allah took him as Shaheed inshaAllah.

---more anasheed---

....many people who knew Abu Musa, described him like a walking cartoon character. And you’d look at this man and you’d think that he is dumb or that he’s mental, but he is, and was, very clever.

---more anasheed---

Friday Evening Palate Cleanser

Because fundamentalists can be (unintentionally) funny.

Ain't Your Grandfather's Egypt...

Oh, wait, it was your grandfather's Egypt.

 

 

No longer.

Still a cesspit after all these years

I drop off the face of the earth for a year only to return to discover that Archive-dot-org is still a wretched hive of evil media.  Just type "ansar1.info" in the search box at the top, and look at the crap that comes up.  I was looking for some texts to add to MSJ's growing stash.  I found only one, but what a one it is.

http://www.archive.org/details/AMEF_Signatories-Lord-Worlds-in-Yemen_English

Posted by one "lal.masjid@yahoo.com" on Oct 9 2010, it is a meditation on jihad with imagery common in the more mystical jihad writings, regardless of how artless that imagery is employed. 

While the ten horses neigh waiting for their bit and while the smith blows the bellows and strikes the white iron and the sparks fly, and while the weaver calls his friend to give him the thread to finish the remaining saddles, the horseman whispers an important matter in the blacksmith’s ear and says: “Reinforce the shield and armor.” This whisper deserves its reward and consideration.

And this whopper.

The fingertips long for the trigger and the ear grows accustomed to the sound of swords clashing. Likewise, the heart yearns to see the Merciful One and paradise. The breast longs for the 70 virgins, and the eye for Allah’s waving banners on top of the minaret. The ear hopes for the blessed sound of “God is Greater!”, so where are those who are rolling up their sleeves for the Lord of the Kaaba?

Wow!  What comes first the triggers or the sword clashes?  Awesomely bad stuff that is.  Stick to engineering they should.

Get the Complete "Nawai Afgan Jihad Set" Right Now!

The "Moqatel Islamic Forum" and Archive-dot-org bring you the "Nawai Afgan Jihad: Complete Set Of Nawai Afghan Jihad Magazine 2010."  Yours free for just searching "jihad" at Archive-dot-org!

http://www.archive.org/details/Nawai-Afghan-Jihad_Complete-Set-2010