Making Sense of Jihad

Save this for later

I'll be referring back to this passage in my next post on the 2d edition of Zawahiri's 2d spiritual autobiography, Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet:

Ultimately, for Al-Muqrin, the strategic goal of any just war has to be an eschatological and ethereal -- albeit distant -- one of promoting Islam’s ultimate global victory or, as he puts it, “to fight for the sake of God to make the shari’a the law of the land and for the word of God to become supreme.” A religiously based - state an Islamic Caliphate - would be established as the institutional framework for these changes.  Although it may only occur in the distant future, he projects light overtaking the present darkness, when “the sun of the truth, Islam, and the Sunnah will shine.”  This may occur slowly, but it will occur, until one day God established the rightly guided Caliphate, which will fill the world with righteousness and justice.  The jihad will continue until final victory:  “Let all know that our jihad will continue until God curbs the power of the infidels...and until there is no more discord and God’s religion prevails.” In fact, Al-Muqrin believed that the jihad would be a permanent condition, ending only on Judgement Day.  (CIGAR, 16)

A Study of Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (2d ed) - Part 6

Zawahiri's Enemies, Friends and Family

Note (January 8): Thanks to Mr. Orange for pointing out the incongruity noted in the first quote. My guess is this was a translator's error.

In the second edition of his spiritual autobiography, Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (Knights2), Ayman al-Zawahiri's personal narrative slowly winds its way to Afghanistan.  After he leaves Dagestan, he and his companions meet up once again with Usama bin Laden and others:

After a long trip, we reached Dagestan [sic] and met Shaykh Usama bin Ladin, may God preserve him, and Shaykh Abu-Hafs, the leader, may God's mercy be upon him, and the rest of the beloved ones, who we have missed for so long. A short time afterward, we realized that Afghanistan has always been the castle of Islam.

Then, he takes a turn from his personal narrative to build a picture of the only Afghan antagonist to the Taliban and "jihadists," in late 90s-era Afghanistan: Ahmad Shah Mas'ud.  Quotes from the 9/11 Commission Report, Michael Scheuer's Imperial Hubris, and other post 9/11 works, set this section squarely in the 2d edition.  Zawahiri argues of Mas'ud:

He made himself, his movement, Europe, and the United States on one side, and the fundamentalists, including the Islamic Emirate and Al-Qa'ida, on the other side.

Knights2 isn't a tight narrative. Zawahiri sometimes moves off to discuss loosely related topics. But, it is far from being a stream-of-consciousness rant.  Knights2 isn't an internal monologue like so many autobiographies (unfortunately), rather, its his life's story told for the sake his readers.  His occassional moves away from the personal into the political or historical are meant to provide context (within the Salafist-jihadi milieu) for his autobiographical narrative, and in the process suggests to his readers a way of thinking about events in their own lives.

Later on, Zawahiri describes Usama bin Laden,  offering a foil to Mas'ud (another - ancient - didactic technique):

People very much liked the personality of the shaykh; he stole their hearts. He was a person who left everything behind, and lived a simple and humble life. He treated people with magnanimity, morals, and generosity. He is also the one challenging the strongest tyranny in the world, calling people powerfully to fight this power and confront it with its infidel and apostate agents, with no blandishing or consideration, and with no going round or about. He is also the one who proved his honesty in his call; everything he called for, he did it himself before. He called upon people to leave the world behind, to emigrate, and to carry out jihad, after he left the world behind, emigrated, and carried out jihad. He called upon them to support the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after he fought in its ranks and under its banner. He called them to pledge the Amir of the believers after he pledged him, and he called them to fight the biggest infidel after he did himself and after he declared war against this infidel.

In the middle of all this, Zawahiri describes his reunion with his wife, Um Muhammad, offering up to his readers a near utopian vision of married and communal life in Afghanistan:

In this good and blessed village I reunited with my family after a separation for one and a half years. They lost any contact with me when I was in Dagestan jail for six months, and the burden of the issues of this emigrant, hiding and chased family that lost her breadwinner in these tough and horrible circumstances, basically lies on my wife Um Muhammad, may God have mercy on her, and my respectable brothers who help her. Um Muhammad, may God have mercy on her, is the type of superior and unique person that combined between goodliness and elevation of the Shari'ah rulings and calling for it, besides the high ethics, sensitivity, honor, humbleness, pity, care, and compassion with all whom she knows. She supports and defends the oppressed and the poor. She continuously gives and sacrifices in the cause of God with all that she possesses, in addition to her culture, education, morals, politeness, free opinion, and self-respect.

I remember when I called her , may God be merciful upon her, after I had arrived in Kandahar; she said to me: "Do not to leave us , if you lived in a hole, We would live with you."

In this sweet and blessed village, we lived in a three-room house; two rooms were for us, and one for visitors. There was no water or electricity. We only had water from a well in the courtyard of the house. I give my word before God I have never lived in my life in a better place than that house, or a neighborhood better than that. It was a village embracing good migrants of the mujahidin. The village embraced before abandoned residences of an old agriculture project, and was later occupied by the borders' guards. Then, it was left abandoned; only a few Bedouins lived there.

The Afghanistan chapters offer a mishmash of old and new narrative material that will take more time to study.  By this point in Knights2, however, it should be clear that this isn't a "rant" or a "manifesto."  With passages like the one above, a Western reader should put down the post-modern ironic lens we tend to view any text through. Understand Zawahiri is not post-modern. When he writes, then, he's writing from his heart.

A Study of Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (2d ed) - Part 5

A Study of Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (2d ed)

The Dagestan Bookend

“In this way we started our trip of moving among countries.”

Zawahiri’s Dagestani interlude in the second edition of Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (Knights2) -- his spiritual autobiography -- offers a stark contrast to his first prison experience in Egypt’s prison complex fifteen years earlier.  Zawahiri is in his mid-40s by the time he steps through his Dagestani prison doors. No longer an angry young man, idealistic and inexperienced, (“I was transferred to the Discipline Ward because I incited the prisoners to carry out strike”) he’s more willing to live and learn in the moment.

Though, it’s impossible for me to critique any literary merits to Zawahiri’s personal narrative - I don’t know Arabic - it is possible to understand his narrative frames.  The prison experience one of those frames.  Zawahiri's interludes in prison (Egypt and Dagestan) bookend the first part of his life. As he writes,

And I was thinking a lot that it is the second time that I was unexpectedly captured and then facing the sentence of execution or life imprisonment, but set free in spite of my enemies and against their willing.

Knights2 is - as the first edition probably was - Zawahiri’s attempt to make sense of his life for the sake of his readers. In 2001 (when Knights1 was probably written), Zawahiri turned 50, a significant personal milestone for many men and probably a key inspiration for his writing the original. 

Salafi-jihadist life, lived to its fullest, tends to be a movement for the young. Blood of willing youth spilled on a battlefield, is one of two primary requirements for successful jihad operations.  The other is money, usually in the form of direct contribution or laundered zakat donations, and more recently, criminal activity.  This “blood and money” requirement once guided much of the pre-9/11 jihadi media that focused on recruitment and support for jihads in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, and Bosnia. 

Zawahiri no doubt sees the lessons of his life providing much needed wisdom to a movement where the young seek out hardship (ie. their emigrations to lands of jihad) without much historical or spiritual context.  See Al Qaeda's Foot Soldiers: A Study of the Biographies of Foreign Fighters Killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan Between 2002 and 2006 and my study of Martyrs in a Time of Alienation for examples of such personal “emigrations.”

Zawahiri begins his journey to Afghanistan when, as he writes, 

Since the spring of 1996 a new wave of pursuits has started, against the Arab mujahidin generally, managed by the United States and carried out by the yielding systems. 

Bin Laden heads to Afghanistan “through a trip of danger.” Zawahiri, on the other hand, sought other countries to find, in his words, “a stable base for the mujahidin.”

At the beginning of autumn in 1996, we realized that the risk of such relocation would be higher than its benefits, and that we would be unable to serve the jihad movement unless we move to a stable base for the mujahidin where we can work there under freedom and security for our benefit and to support our brothers.

Forced to make a decision between Afghanistan and the only other accessible region, Chechnya, Zawahiri choses Chechnya via Dagestan. Eventually he and the men with him are arrested for having no entry visas.  What follows next is a Zawahiri’s dark, almost comical descriptions of security bureaucracy.  Stuck in a bureaucratic morass (one incompetent enough to eventually let him go) Zawahiri spends the next six months in prison, making the best of it:

The period of those six months that I had spent in prison in Dagestan had frequently inspired my thinking and meditation...

As always, Zawahiri puts his personal experiences into the broader historical context.  This is a common element of jihadi narrative. For example, Issa al-Hindi employs it when describing his experiences in Kashmir.  Though its history is distorted, such narratives give the reader an insight into how individuals within the Salafist-jihadi milieu contextualize world events.  In this case Zawahiri uses copious footnotes to support his historical narrative of Chechnya, including:

Al-Shishan- Al-Siyasah Wa Al-Waqi' (Chechnya – Politics and Reality) , p. 10 

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2005 – Chechnya

Chechnya – Prepared and Organized by Abi-Muhammad Al-Philistini, Scouba diver@hotmail.com

Chechnya – Tombstone of Russian Power, p. 305-306.

(NKVD): People Commission for the Interior Affairs. [Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2005 – KGB]

Riwayat Sakhinah Min Ard Al-Shishan (Hot Stories from the Land of Chechnya), p. 53.

Da'wat Al-Muqawamah Al-Islamiyah Al-'Alamiyah (Islamic International Resistance Call), p.1080.

Al-Madkhal Lilthaqafah Al-'Askariyah (Introduction to Military Culture), p. 77.

Al-Thamar Al-Mustatab Fi Sirat Al-Qa'id Khattab (Delicious Fruits in the biography of Commander Khattab), p.40.6.

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2005- Guerilla Warfare

Harb Al-Mustad'afin (The War of the Oppressed People), p. 9.

Akhbar Al-Qalam Wa Al-Sayf Fi Rihlat Al-Shita' Wa Al-Sayf (News of pen and sword in the Trip of Summer and Winter), Volume 7, p. 43.

Note, too, some of the footnotes place much of this section well after 2001, making it unique to Knights2.  By lauding mujahidin of the post 9/11 period, Zawahiri also hints at his own continued monitoring of the global movement.  Such attentive analysis (even if factually wrong) counter conventional Western assessments that the various jihadi movements that make up the Caucasus Emirate (Imirat Kavkaz) are in opposition or competition with al-Qaeda. Probably not, when Zawahiri writes passages like this:

In addition, there is another serious factor; which lies in the fact that the Chechens have a leadership with a highest level of resistance, determination, and pride of their religion, history and people. When an observer to the Chechens’ leaders -- during the period of this study -- can see men like Dzhokhar Dudayev, Zalim Khan Yandarbi, Aslan Miskhadov, and Shamil Basayf, God have mercy on them all, glory to Lord who chose them as martyrs, that this group of the highest leaders was an important reason that rushed the heroic jihadist Chechens to confront an oppressive force not equivalent to them.

One of highlights of the prison narrative is Zawahiri’s efforts at “methods of missionary,” or dawah.

The prison's phase was also a training stage on the methods of missionary, especially the methods of calling upon the common people that were mostly not practiced by the mujahidin, but it is a vital element and essential in calling upon people within a public warfare field.

From the moment he is led into a cell, the efforts begin. Later on, one in his group makes the call to prayer, creating a ruckus:

When the time for the evening prayer came, one of us stood up in the middle of the room and performed the call to prayer -- it was just like an electric current -- with the call to pray in a reverberating voice drew the attention of the inmates inside the room and when we started spreading a carpet on the floor to pray on it, we heard a strange move in the room.

Some of them rushed to us and said: the ground is not clean and you shouldn't pray on it, but you can come and pray on our upper beds and we are going to pray too. We prayed together with them and they made me an Imam; they never performed the group prayer before.

Efforts at regular prayer pay off, and Zawahiri gains the trust of many of his cell mates.  This, in turn, led to many interactions, what I call his “little moments,” that clearly have deep meaning for him.

Zawahiri derives deep spiritual meaning from his 1996-7 interlude in a Dagestani prison, framing his experiences as signs of God’s personal attentiveness to his situation.  This sentiment is common enough among people who experience a personal relationship with God, where little moments -- a chance meeting, a lost item, words spoken by another -- are given enormous meaning in the context of an entire lifetime.  In Catholic (auto)biographies it is common enough. One example that comes to mind is Augustine’s stolen pears. In much the same way, Zawahiri’s “little moments” teach him personal lessons that he shares with his readers.

I said, also, it may be a training course for dealing with the innocent and simple people and call on them to the general Islamic rules far from the jurisprudence, doctrinal and political arguments, and this religious obligation is prescribed on us as well as the fighting in the course of Allah. And I said: May God is willing to bring us much good or send us to assist others, or may there is a good thing that we did not realize or understand it yet. And the amazing thing is that we received this training course inside a fortress belong to one of our worst enemies. 

These lessons then become the stepping off point for his subsequent decision to move to Afghanistan. 

Monday 010212, 8:10 PM: I made a few edits to the text in order to correct a few minor editorial offenses

Zawahiri in Dagestan

A Study of Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet, Part IV, Zawahiri in Dagestan

Well into Chapter 3 (subtitled, “Return to the Field”) of the second edition of his Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (original, here - http://www.archive.org/details/frsan2010), Zawahiri turns his attention to his experiences in a prison in Dagestan.  The full account (minus footnotes), and the following interlude regarding a family friend are reproduced below.

Preface

Part 1: A Look Back at the Past / Chapter 3: Return to the Field/ Section 5: Dagestan – Relief after Despair

“Or, who listens to the distressed when he calls on him, and who relieves his suffering, and makes you (mankind) inheritors of the earth? (Can there be another) god besides Allah? Little it is that ye heed” [Koranic verse; An-Naml, 27:62]

A boy may be fed up with a tribulation and God has the way out, Tightened, and just when its loops were firmly well-knit it was widely opened, while I thought it wouldn't, Those are days and lessons while the act of God is waiting, Would you give up hope while God and predestination are there?

Since the spring of 1996 a new wave of pursuits has started, against the Arab mujahidin generally, managed by the United States and carried out by the yielding systems. As to Shaykh Usama bin Ladin, may Allah protect him, had to emigrate to Afghanistan through a trip of danger, while we preferred to try moving through the countries so that we might find a chance to secure a suitable location where we can mange work, using our experience in disguise and moving. In this way we started our trip of moving among countries.

Asking where we should depart to and who would ask a poor man where his creeds are, Roads would be broad if his relatives would be grudge to him, So that he may take revenge or catch big loot this epoch have a lot of wonders, As long as I'm alive I wouldn't let brothers down as a thirsty man never leaves water, Let alone a bad companion as you would be quite aware of their affliction and practices.

At the beginning of autumn in 1996, we realized that the risk of such relocation would be higher than its benefits, and that we would be unable to serve the jihad movement unless we move to a stable base for the mujahidin where we can work there under freedom and security for our benefit and to support our brothers.

There was no way for us other than Afghanistan or Chechnya. As for Afghanistan, we had a little information on what was going on there, and we were worried about it because of the civil war broken out in the country, and we were so concerned that we might find ourselves reluctantly involved in this war or we might be attacked by a party involved with the United States or the Pakistanis, especially after Burhan-al-Din Rabbani had declared his inclination to extradite whom he called terrorists upon his visit to Egypt, in despite of the fact that he was in need of a protection, but it was a competition for offering services to gain satisfaction and benefits of the new world master.

So, we decided to head for Chechnya. The rout passed through Dagestan where we infiltrated, yet we were arrested through the way at Darbandi City in Dagestan as we had no entry visa to Russia where Dagestan is considered a part of the country. The police referred us to the Ministry of Intelligence which sent us to the Border Guard. So, within few hours we found ourselves at the detention camp of the Border Guard Command in Dagestan under the grasp of the Russian Army.

The investigation started with us because we entered the lands of federal Russia without visa, and they didn't find with us what might make them suspicious of our relationship with the mujahidin. We were facing two problems; the first was the legal crime of entering the country without visa, and the second, which could be more dangerous, was the probability to be revealed in addition the consequences.

We decided to endure whichever would be easier, and to simulate merchants who were deceived by someone who brought them in the country without visa for some money, and that we were business owners who came to Afghanistan seeking trade opportunities. We actually told the investigators the details of our trip along with some evasion and mentioned true information about the route we passed through, and investigators were convinced with the story, and filed a criminal legal issue against us. Then, the issue evolved upon their decision to refer us to the central prison at the Capital, Makhachkala, then, the Police started a legal investigation with us where we repeated the same story. After that, we were called in by the Ministry of Intelligence in the Capital and investigated us severally, we repeated the only same story, and the investigators were content of the artlessness of our case so that it was just a case of an entry without visa to the country, and then our documents were referred to the courts where we were sentenced to a 6-month prison term out of which four and half months had elapsed.

Over this period we had passed by so many favors of God for our protection, graciousness and safekeeping that we could not express our thanks for, (Verily my Lord is gracious to whom he wills for verily he is full of knowledge and wisdom).

How much is the concealed clemency of God which cannot be realized by an intelligent man, And how much relief to come after difficulty to release a sad heart from distress, And how much misfortune we may have in a morning and then happiness comes in the evening, If you, one day, could not bear up with your troubles you should have to rely on the One and Only God,

Ali Bin-Abu-Talib, may God dignify him, said:

If despair would prevail in hearts so a large heart is fed up with distress, And adversities have settled in serenity while troubles have anchored, Then you could not find a way out even with the help of a man of the world, When disheartened, you receive succor bestowed upon you by who is ever close and responding, As all incidents once aggravated are linked to the imminent relief,

The period of those six months that I had spent in prison in Dagestan had frequently inspired my thinking and meditation, so that one of the brothers once called my attention asking me about the reason I was excessively mentioning its events, and I answered him that was because of the big deal of lessons we passed through over that period.

With the reader's permission, here, I would like to discuss some of my meditation through this period, so that I would start with the discussion about Caucasus, then discussion about the prison in Dagestan, as the picture of my experience at Dagestan prison cannot be framed without understanding a brief historic, jihadist and political background of the Muslim Caucasus.

Subsection 1

My First Personal Approach to the Muslim Caucasus

My first personal approach to the Muslim Chechens was through a serious person known to my family by the name Bakir Bey. I was introduced to him at the house of some relatives, then he became a friend of my father to be invited on occasions like breakfast in Ramadan. Bakir Bey was from the Muslim Caucasian and I did not know exactly where he was from? As I had no detailed idea at that time about the Muslim Caucasus, and Bakir Bey was one of the mujahidin who fought against the Russians in Caucasus, then he escaped to Turkey during the World War I. He expressed to us his shock when he had seen the Christian forces occupying the Caliphate center, after that he immigrated to Egypt where he settled down and shifted between several jobs, the latest was the silver ornaments trade. Bakir Bey was a venerable dignified man, white-haired with big mustache, proud of himself, big-bodied and strong. He was speaking fluent Arabic but similarly to the accent of the Egypt- populated Turks. Although his age was falling between seventy and eighty, he used to challenge us with his strength while we were young men.

Sometimes he came to visit my relatives in his Caucasian distinguished dress, and he was not bored talking about the Muslim Caucasus tragedy and the Muslims fight against the Russian Tsars then the communists thereafter, and possibly giving out some pamphlets about Muslims oppression in Caucasus. He used to chant the prophetic anthem, peace and blessings be upon God’s messenger, with his strong voice, then to stand up with his dagger pulled out and start strong dancing while shouting: There is no god but God, There is no god but God.He lived in a small apartment at Al-Atabah Square beyond "Dhu al-Uqud" Market which was known as (Arcades of Al-Atabah), and I remember when I visited him for once at that flat where he signaled to a window overlooking upon the Square, then said:

"A day will come when Islam will be prevailing, then I will mount a machine-gun on this window and shoot miscreants while shouting: There is no god but God."

The reason Bakir Bey was introduced to my family was its friendship with Al-Amrusi Bey, who was a serious man who worked at the Egyptian Embassy in Saudi Arabia, and that was during the period when my maternal grandfather, Scholar Abd-al-Wahhab Azzam, was the Egyptian Ambassador thereto. At the Medina, Al-Amrusi Bey got married to one of Imam Shamil granddaughters, named Lady Zubaydah. So, Lady Zubaydah became a friend of my grandmother and aunts, and she was a grave woman strongly proud of her grandfathers and their heritage, talking redundantly about them. Therefore, Bakir Bey was introduced to my family through Al-Amrusi Bey and Lady Zubaydah, and Bakir Bey was behaving as an obedient dependant to Lady Zubaydah despite his gravity and reverence.

Bakir Bey, at the end of his life, departed to Turkey where his family gathered after a long separation, and he passed away, may God rest him at mercy, before he could witness the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dependence of Chechnya.

I frequently was recalled Bakir Bey during my imprisonment in Dagestan, and thought that he had to come to Caucasus and participate in the Chechen battles against Russians, may Allah have mercy on this immigrant Mujahid and all the Muslims.

I would see myself unable to clear up the picture of my experience at Dagestan prison without briefly presenting the historic, combative, political and psychological backgrounds of Russia's conflict with the Muslim Caucasus in general as well as with Chechnya in particular, especially just before my imprisonment, that is what I would attempt through the second, third and fourth subsections of this demand.

A Study of Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (2d ed) - Part 3

Zawahiri Settles A Few Scores

(Find previous posts in the study go here)

The Introduction to the second edition of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet, begins with a verse of secular poetry.

Cutting forest trees is not useless, They are for a pulpit or for a cross.

The verse comes from a poem of Mohammed Iqbal.  A secular poet and champion of the Islamic revival, Iqbal is the second secular poet Zawahiri turns to, and like al-Kawakbi, Iqbal advocated for broader Islamic revival.  Iqbal was also an advocate for the Pakistani state, and an ideal choice if Zawahiri had in part a Pakistani audience in mind.  Iqbal would appeal to the tastes of many of his Pakistani supporters and protectors.

He formally opens Knights 2 with a prayer of repentance.

All praise is due to God. We worship Him, We seek His help and His forgiveness and we turn to Him in repentance. We seek refuge in God from the evil within ourselves and our ill deeds. Whoever God guides cannot be led astray and whomever He leads astray, for him there is no guide. There is no god but God. He is alone, He has no partner and Muhammad is his servant and messenger.

A few paragraphs down he’ll note that the book isn’t a history (my word) or an analysis (my word).  And it certainly doesn’t leave a knowledgeable reader with the impression that its an ideological “manifesto."  Then what is it? This prayer of repentance suggests that Zawahiri primarily intends Knights 2 as a confessionary work.  It’s unknown whether that was the original intention for Knights 1, but it comes through clearly in the opening prayer for Knights 2:  We seek refuge in God from the evil within ourselves and our ill deeds.  It ends, appropriately, with an assertion of the mystical foundation of Salafist-jihadist thought: tawhid, the oneness of God. 

He goes on:

"Ye who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared, and die not except in a state of Islam,” [Koranic verse, Al Imran, 3:102]. “O mankind! Reverence your Guardian-Lord, who created you from a single person, created, of like nature, his mate, and from them twain scattered (like seeds) countless men and women; reverence Allah, through whom ye demand your mutual (rights), and (reverence) the wombs (That bore you): for Allah ever watches over you” [Koranic verse, Al-Nisa, 4:1]. “O ye who believe! Fear Allah, and (always) say a word directed to the Right, that He may make your conduct whole and sound and forgive you your sins: He that obeys Allah and His Messenger, has already attained the highest achievement” [Koranic verse, Al-Ahzab, 33:70, 71].

Three passages from the Quran (drawn from three Medinan suras, if you keep track of those things) represents a three-fold paradigm of worship within the Salafist-jihadi milieu: fear of God, reverence for life given you, and the practice of righteous conduct accompanied with a penitent heart.  Even though practically all Zawahiri's work include some religious context, that context will change from work to work.  He chose the words to this prayer, probably because they emphasize significant and recurring themes throughout the book, and place its historical accounts in their appropriate context.

Zawahiri begins his “re”-introduction of Knights with the intention of correcting the record and settling a few scores associated with Knights 1.  But first he offers personal context and motivation for the second edition:

Thereafter, I chose to publish this first part of the second edition of the book "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner" before the completion of the second edition, due to the circumstances that the mujahidin pass through. I hope to complete the second edition if God, to Whom is ascribed all perfection, prolongs my life, grants me support, and facilitates the circumstances.

In this edition, I expanded on a number of passages in the book, particularly those relating to the blessed raids on Washington, New York, and Pennsylvania. However, I stopped there, choosing not to elaborate on the events that followed these raids, because the battle is still violent and the enemy seeks any information. Moreover, many Muslim brothers are captured by the enemy and may be influenced by what I might mention.  Therefore, I preferred to talk only about the blessed raids, and as I mentioned in the introduction of the first edition:

The reader might expect to find in this book a history of a certain period or a narration of the incidents of a certain phase. He might also expect to find an analysis of policies, evaluation of certain methodologies, or critique of some systems. However, I draw the honorable reader's attention to the fact that the book -- even if it deals with any of that -- has not been written for such purposes, nor can its writer fulfill it.

The reason why this book has not been written for such purposes is in fact a message from the writer to his ummah. It is nothing like what the honorable reader might expect, even if the book includes a history or an analysis.

As for why the writer cannot fulfill it, there are many reasons. One of the reasons is that the writer does not have enough stability to ‘gather enough documentation necessary for this kind of analytical writing.’ Furthermore, the author possesses only his testimony which he cannot provide in detail because many of its characters are still in the midst of battle, and many of its events are still interacting in the field."

Thus, I ask the reader to accept this book (message) from me as it is, and this book is enough for a goal and a success.

What I want from this book is to deliver a message and a loyalty. It is not just a historiography and analysis, for I am not nor can I be, in my circumstances, a historiography or an analyst, even if I was one of these two.

A Study of Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (2d ed) - Part 2

Front matter matters

If Knights 1 contained front matter, then we may never know if it corresponds with the material found in Knights 2.  The Al-Sharq al-Awsat serialization of Knights 1 contains no information on front matter. 

A book’s front matter usually includes things like dedications, tables of content, and expressions of gratitude.  Authors chose favorite poetic or prose passages in their front matter as an expression of their book’s overall themes.  The front matter in Knights 2 includes a hadith and a verse of secular poetry that encapsulate Knights 2 basic themes: self-sacrifice in the face of unjust rulers (hadith) and the inevitability of revolution (the secular poetic verse).  It also represents the first of many sacred and secular pairings throughout the book.

Zawahiri choses a hadith that retells the story of the personal sacrifice of the disciples of Isa bin Maryam:

In the authority of Mu'adh Bin-Jabal, the messenger of God, prayers and peace be upon him, said: "Take the present as long as it is a present; but if it becomes bribery, do not take it. Verily the millstone of Islam is in action; then it goes with the book of God wherever it goes; verily the book and authority will depart, then never depart the book. Verily there will be on top of you rulers who do for themselves what they do not for you, and if you disobeyed them, they would kill you, and if you obeyed them, they would misguide you.” They said, “Oh messenger of God! What are we to do then?” He said, “The same thing the companions of Isa Bin-Maryam (Virgin Mary) did; they were sawed with saws and were carried on the wood, dead for obeying God, and it is better than a life while disobeying God."

Meanwhile, the poetic verses comes from one of the early Islamic revivalist - Abd-al-Rahman al-Kawakbi (alt Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi). 

This is a word of truth and a shout in a valley, If it is gone with the wind today, Tomorrow, it will be forced on everybody

Zawahiri will return to these themes, often reemphasizing them with other sacred texts and poetic verses. He begins each chapter with poetic verse, and will often interrupt his narrative with poetry or sacred text, emphasizing his intended lessons.  He tells the story of a time in history -- his youth -- spent in self-sacrifice against what he perceived to be an unjust government.  In so doing, he creates a paradigm of Salafist-jihadist vocation in action, offered as a personal narrative to readers sympathetic to the cause.

Through Knights 2, Zawahiri attempts to communicate Truth, not facts in a temporal order, like a traditional biographic account.  Thus, lessons are key, because they help turn complex theological ideas into tangible ideas, not unlike the role of parables in Christian sacred texts and literature.  This is a point that many Western analysts appear to overlook in their search for al-Qaeda’s "ideology." 

The story being told begins with front matter.  And here, like in so many of the nooks and crannies of the Salafist-jihadist milieu, the sacred and secular meet uneasily, creating a personal narrative that grasps for heaven while all the while remaining rooted on earth.

A Study of Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (2d ed)

Introduction

Part 1 of the second edition of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (Knights 2) appeared on the jihadi forums in late November 2010.  Zawahiri wrote the first edition of Knights (Knights 1) during a time of "worrying circumstances and changing conditions."  Taliban-sanctioned safe havens were disintegrating around al-Qaeda’s leadership.  Members were left, in the words of one militant, “moving between safe houses and hideouts...”  The book surfaced in the midst of this “maelstrom” in December 2001.

The London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat serialized excerpts of Knights 1 in December 2001.  According to its editors (December 2, 2001):

The book was smuggled by an Egyptian fundamentalist called "A.S." who is a close aide of Al- Zawahiri out of an Afghan cave in the Kandahar region to the border city of Peshawar and then to London.

I’m skeptical of this account.  In the succeeding years militant media networks produced numerous stories of escape and evasion from the US invasion of Afghanistan, and though some mention cave complex here or there, few senior leaders appear to have had extended stays in caves, let alone the amount of time needed to write such a lengthy book.  Zawahiri offers a different account:

In fact, the first edition has been subject to distortion and elimination of some parts by the Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, which grasped it from the US intelligence. The US intelligence got  the first edition from my laptop in Afghanistan and tried to hide the complete version of the text.

His account suggests that the Al-Sharq al-Awsat edition came from one of his own laptops.  How did they obtain it?  Could it be the same laptop inadvertently acquired by journalist Alan Cullison in liberated Kabul?  I’ve been unable to substantially connect the release of Knights 1 to Cullison’s laptop.  Still, provenance is important in this case, because there are so many and fundamental differences between Knights 1 (as we know it) and Knights 2.  It becomes impossible to gain clear, accurate insights into the changes in Zawahiri’s thinking over time without a full and complete comparison of both texts.

Since the release of Part 1 of Knights 2, Usama bin Laden was killed in the Abbottabad, Pakistan raid, and Zawahiri is now al-Qaeda’s emir.  In retrospect, the book closes out a decade of struggle on both sides.  Perhaps Zawahiri originally intended the second edition to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11.  Perhaps he thought it was just time to readdress the unanswered questions surrounding Knights 1.  Only he can explain his motivations. 

Zawahiri has been the strategic mind behind many West-centered plots uncovered since 9/11, and has dedicated innumerable hours to establishing the foundations of al-Qaeda’s movement at strategic locations in Africa, Europe, and Central Asia.  He's 60 years old now.  A smart man, wise with years, and no doubt hardened from personal loss, physical hardships, and many years subduing his own ambitions for the greater movement.  Knights 2 offers the first hints of what al-Qaeda's movement will be under his leadership.