Dr. Michael Sakbani is aformer professor of economics and
Finance at the Geneva campus of Webster-Europe and Thunderbird-Europe. He is a senior international
consultant to the UN system, European Union and Swiss banks. His career began
at the State university of NY at Stoney Brook,then the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York followed by UNCTAD where he was Director of the divisions of Economic
Cooperation, Poverty Alleviation, and UNCTAD`s Special Programs. Published over
125 professional papers.
ISIS, al Qaeda, the Muslim Brothers and Salafists; the
Problematique of Political Islam.
By
Dr. Michael Sakbani
Al Qaeda
in Afghanistan Moves
into Iraq
The origins of ISIS are indeed murky. As far as one can ascertain, the
origins hail from al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which was created by the
US, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia with the help of Israel. A side of this can be
seen in the semi-documentary film "Charlie Wilson`s War".
After the fall of
the Talibans in 2001, elements of the Jihadis in Afghanistan ran away to both
Iran and Pakistan. Some important leaders were hosted by Iran; where we
know now was Bin- Ladden`s family.
There have been voices among commentators
accusing the USA of being the founder of ISIS. This confuses direct founding as
an explicit act with preparing the background that enables the emergence of
movements like ISIS. While the USA is guilty of founding the Mujahideen outfit in Afghanistan, in Iraq it prepared the grounds for its emergence. The invasion of Iraq on trumped-up grounds resulted in
erasing all its governmental institutions and tearing apart the Iraqi
social tissue. The US introduced under Proconsul Paul Bremmer, a
sectarian political system that excluded the previous regime millions of
supporters and collaborators (the Baath eradication law) and marginalized the
Sunni Arabs, who constitute 30% of
the population.and the majority of its middle class. The ensuing sectarian Governments,
especially under Nouri al Maliki drove Iraq into Civil War and created whole strata of aggrieved
citizens. This furnished an excellent soil for breeding potential recruits for
extremist groups which thrive on exploiting vacuums created by discrimination
and chaos.
After the US
invasion of Iraq, Iran was interested for obvious reasons to plant controllable
resistance elements in Iraq to pressure the US occupiers and so was Syria, which felt directly threatend by the US`invasion.
Syria had thousands of imprisoned fundamentalist Islamists (political Islam
advocates) and a large number of Saddam`s Republican Guards officers. In 2005, Syria released so many of these
fundamentalists knowing full well that
their destination will be Iraq. Saddam`s R.G. officers were the natural choice
to lead these elements and organize the resistance to the
American invasion of Iraq.
Thus,
Jihadis started entering Iraq with outside help from Iran and Syria throughout
2005 and 2006. Iranian and the Syrian Intelligence services lent arms and
organization to these al Qaeda remnants. In a short time, al Qaeda in Iraq became operational
in 2005 under the name " Bands of the Righteous People" and that is
when Abu Musaab al Zarkawi emerged as its leader. Zarqawi and his
outfit, which later became known as "al Qaeda in Iraq " became a major
challenge to the USA and they edged Iraq in 2006 towards
a sectarian civil war. Iraq was so enraged by this Syrian transgression that Prime Minister Maliki publicly threatened to bring the matter
to the UN Security Council.
General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, succeeded
in 2007-2008 in drafting the Arab Sunni tribes to fight al Qaeda. This was done
by putting many Arab Sunnis, especially tribal chiefs, on US`payrolls and
making some other promises regarding their future
in Iraq. The phenomena therein were known as "al Sahawat". The Arab
tribes indeed defeated al Qaeda by 2008. The idea of General Petraeus was to
merge these forces after the defeat of al Qaeda with the Iraqi security forces.
However, being Sunnis, the Iraqi sectarian Shitte politicians, led by Nuri al
Maliki, and naturally backed by Iran, did not want that. Even more, Maliki cut
off their salaries and put many of them in prison, leaving many of them as unprotected targets for al Qaeda`s vengeance. The US was feeble in its objections to what
Maliki did and Petraeus, the father of the idea, was transferred back to The US.
Radicalization in
camp Bucca
The Iraqi prisons were notorious for their
ill-treatment, and after the scandal of Abu- Gharib, the US decided to
establish a new prison for political detainees compatible with civilized
norms This was called camp Bucca. Camp Bucca was the place where the US put the
Iraqi prisoners transferred from Abu-Gharib and other
detainees imprisoned by Maliki. The vast majority of the detainees were Arab
Sunnis thrown into jail by arbitrary arrests and sometimes without evidence of
wrongdoing. During a couple of years, Sunni prisoners in the camp mingled with
the imprisoned remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq and both got indoctrinated by the
likes of Abubakre al Baghdadi, who was authorized by the USA to teach religion
to the camp prisoners.
Camp Bucca was in a sense a radicalization
laboratory. Many of its prisoners were gradually released and those that were
not, were
involved in the prison escape of 2012 during the post- US `s rule
of Mr. Maliki.
In 2008-2011, Maliki`s sectarian policies
reached their peak. He had his own secret prisons where thousands were
imprisoned without legal warrants. Hundreds were tortured and scores killed and
disappeared. This was in addition to overt discrimination in jobs,
opportunities, and public services. The 30 % Arab Sunnis of the population began
to think of open rebellion against Baghdad. In 2012 huge demonstrations took
place in the six majority Arab Sunni provinces of Iraq. The Kurds, another 16.5
%, of whom 90% are Sunnis, plus the Sunni Turkomans (Another 3.5 %) boycotted
Baghdad. Maliki responded with brutal armed suppression and massive arrests of
men and women. Thus, when it arrived on the scene, ISIS found
receptive grounds for militant Sunni action.
It should be recalled that the remnants of
Saddam`s Baath was present throughout Iraq, especially in the Northern areas.
Around Mosul, many of the cadres of officers of the old Iraqi army were
unemployed and living under constant security chase. Maliki`s government
inflicted abject discrimination upon the Sunni Arab population in these areas,
and, like in the rest of Iraq, provided no basic services. When ISIS showed up the for all the choice between it and Maliki was a Hobbesian choice.
An Islamist outfit as an objective ally of Asad.
By 2012, after the eruption of the Syrian
revolution, Iran and its ally, Maliki, were eager to form fighting forces to
support Asad who has become Iran`s critical allie. And it took no genius to think of the remnants of al Qaeda in
Iraq as candidates, Maliki staged a prison escape of some 2500 Jihadis
from Camp Bucca in what was perhaps the biggest staged prison evasion in
history. In addition, the Syrian securities released more imprisoned Jihadis
and more of Saddam`s Republican Guards ex-officers who fled to and
were given refuge by Syria. The Syrian security forces, with Iraqi help, merged
all these disparate elements into a fighting force now called “the Islamic
State in Iraq
and al-Sham”, ISIL. Asad had a genuine
interest in implanting a terrorist organization in the midst of the Syrian
revolution. It would bolster his claims that he was facing terrorists and not a
popular revolution and
would split further his opposition and provides him with inside information. In
fact, Asad publicly acknowledged in June 2013, to the newspaper al Quds -al -Arabi, that he has agents planted among the armed oppositions.
Armed and supported by the Syrian intelligence, the new
outfit started its activities by attacking the Syrian opposition i.e., the
Syrian Free Army`s liberated areas in northern Syria. For a whole year, this
pattern continued and there was not a single reported attack on the regime`s
units. In perfect symmetry, the regime did not once hit their positions. In
short order, this group attacked and captured Raqqa and expanded in North-East
Syria wich was abandoned by the regime. In 2013, it spilled into Iraq. In their
conquest, ISIL began to absorb into their ranks, more of the old Iraqi army
officers and many disgruntled Jihadis from Islamists defunct groups as
well as disaffected Sunnis from everywhere in the world.
Saddam`s officers gave ISIL a
professional military leadership and helped redefine their aims and tactics.
From an outfit fashioned by the intelligence services, ISIL morphed into an
Islamist independent fighting force capable of attracting thousands of Jihadis
from all over the world. Western intelligence estimated their number in
mid-2014 at 20,000 to 30,000. Thousands of them came through Turkey, which up
to 2015, looked the other way. The guilt in unleashing ISIL is
shared by the Gulf States who provided financing, the US who provided arms, Turkey who gave passage and other support and the Syrian regime who started them.. In 2014, the name changed to ISIS, DAISH in Arabic.
Al Qaeda v. ISIS: the Islamists`Problematique
ISIS ideology has the same Salafist-Wahabi
fundamentalist roots as does al Qaeda. and both of these movements are
ideologically related to the ideology of the Jihdists among the followers of
Muslim Brothers. While the MB appeared in the 1990s to accept democratic
alteration at the leadership level, the movement`s base in the prevailing condition has been far from cohesive and the organizational structure permited a wide spectrum of views including violent
Jihadism. Thus, both ISIS and al Qaeda are essentially evolved products of the MB. However, ISIS differs from al Qaeda in many respects.
Al Qaeda ideology is
an austere Wahhabi-Islam not contaminated by the historical and sociological
developments of the different Muslim communities. In its drastic historical
simplicity, it attempts to purge Islam of all cultural , sociological and other influences
subsequent to its first 35 years under the so-called “Four Successor Khalifs” of the Prophet. This Salafist understanding of Islam
is textual and literal and it takes selective elements of the text regardless
of the time and place they addressed. There is a dominance of the
"Madina" Soras in their selection, even though the Medina Soras have often specific and limited
relevance to their time and place.
On the intellectual side, the Salafist intellectual
base rests
on the political Islamist
thinking of the Pakistani Abualaa al Maududi, which rejects democracy and the
concept of a civil state and advocates a Sharia-based state, where the
sovereignty “hakimyah”, is for God , These
thoughts of al Maudoudi were held at the time of struggle in British India to
establish Pakistan. Later on, after Pakistan was founded, he changed some of his
old advocacies. But ironically, his Egyptian followers: Sayed Qutb and AR Yasin, advocated
Maudoudi`s old ideas in the Arab context
where the societies were essentially Muslim societies. In contrast, the al Qaeda Jihadis following Bin Ladden were focussed on outside powers occupying muslim lands. thus, the Salafists of Bin Ladden took aim outside their societies whereas the MB oushouts took aim at
these Muslim`societies and their respective rulers as the object of
Jihad.
Jihad, as informed by Islam, is a defensive strategy when Muslims are
attacked. However, the Jihadi Islamists made it a compulsory duty to be discharged against
those who do not accept their thought. The
Islamists adopted the Takfeeri ideas of the Qotb, who advocated violence and
disfranchising from Islam of anyone who has a different interpretation than his
and he further legalized their killing. This fundamental difference between the al Qaeada Jihadists and the universalist Salafist Jihdis ,like those of ISIS, is amajor defining charachteristic.
Salafist thinking suffers
many epistemological flaws. In the first place, it mixes up between the biographical
virtues of the “righteous predecessors” and their epoch. That the purity and
sincerity of those early followers of Islam are admirable, does not in any way
furnish grounds to bestow the same admiration upon their period and its practices. That period in
human history was to be sure, not a high mark of human civilization. Moreover, of necessity, it was less developed, and less enlightened than our
era.
In the second place, what we know about the successors`period are tales whose
veracity is largely suspect. The historians of that epoch did not have under the belt, the
rigorous standards of historical investigation and the data sources that we have now. Thus, our
knowledge of the historical example set by the epoch is rather the product of oral memory and
infused with imaginative details written many decades later. Furthermore, in view of the differences among Islamic schools of jurisprudence, that were contemporaries to the time of writing the hadith and the Seera (the Prophet`s biography), intra-religious politics highly colored the narratives and infused them with various distrtions. Even if we accept the proposed narrative,
that era was troubled and flawed. Three of the four righteous Khalifs were
assassinated and the community of believers at the time was not one of exulted history.
In the third place, overlooking 1350 years of subsequent
evolution in various countries and continents of Muslims is ignoring
sociological realities by which we must judge pragmatic phenomena. There is no
system of jurisprudence known to man, including that of the Islamic Shareeat,
that does not take sociological realities as one of the sources of law. Thus,
the Salafists drastic purification of Islam from its attendant transformations is
irrational and violates the logic of historical contextual jurisprudence.
In the fourth place,
invoking this restricted period as a historical example of success to emulate
in our current period is an exercise in pragmatic irrelevance; it is a fantasy
to think that we can recreate that epoch and re-establish its circumstances at
present. Our age is neccessarily different from the early Islamic age and the relevance of many specific texts wheather of the Quoraan, the highly disputed Sunna and tales of the prophet life are quite questionable.
The Suna and the tale of the Prophet life ( the Seera) were given a very important rank in developping the recieved jurisprudence by al Shafii, the dominant innovator of jurisprudence. However, the hadith, i.e., the sayings of the Prohet, was written several deccades after the Prophet`s life. And the bulk of these sayings turned out to be highly disputed in as much as it is reported that Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal had collected three hundred thousand Hadiths, it strains logic and credibility that the Prophet in his 20 years of prophecy could have produced such a quantum. let us also recall that about one third of the Hadith was sourced to Abu-Huraira, a man who was one year old when the Prophet died.
When it comes to the life of the prophet (the Seera), the situation is even more opaique. The first written source was done at the time of the Abasside khalif Abu Jaafar al Mansour by Ibin Ishak, more than 100 years after the passing away of the Prophet. But even this early work was lost, and the subsequent written version of it was that of Ibin Hisham, a genration after Ibin Ishak. This written Seera was based on Oral memory, wich can add imaginative detailes. If one does a critical reading of the received heritage; one finds that the tales of the Prophacy elevate the Prophet to a super human status beyond any questioning or wrong doing. The Quoraan insisted always on the human nature of the Prophet, yet the tales of the Prophecy place thim under a halo of untouched sacredness and infalability. Just like in previous religions: Christainity and Judaism, the authors of the Seera invoked miracles and supernatural phenomena. For example, the miracle of the Prophet`s ascendence (Meeraj) to the seventh heaven with all the lurid descriptions of a one -night trip is beyond secientific logic and human rationality and it is reasonable to classify its written details as an invention*
The Salafists followed Imam Ibin Hanbal who was more literal and textual than Imam al Shafii in his jurisprudence and excessivily dependent on al Sunna. They have also carried the unequal treatment of women to the extreem. The Fuqh, in all its schools, especially the Shafii and Hanbali schools, reflect the tribal traditions of the male-dominated Bedwin society of its time. It was an epoch where women had no economic independence and no skills to earn a living. Thus, even though Islam conferred great moral respect and protections upon mothers, sisters and women in general, its followers reflected their male-dominated sociological backgrounds. There is no doubt that gender preference for the male is present in all the Fuqh schools. All these schools gives the male twice the inheritance of the female, on the premise that the male is the economic provider. It is observed in our time, that it is quite possible that a woman might be less economicaly dependent by virtue of her education or natural talents than her male relative. Similarly, despite Islam`s much better view of women than Christianity or Judaism, it casts the female body as a source of sin and male temptation. While this view is understandable anthropologically, it makes little sense in modern societies where it relegates to the home and to an undecover existance, half of the labor force. It is a statistical fact that the rate of participation of women in the labor force in Muslim societies is a fraction of what it is in similarily developped non-muslim societies.
Another example, is the obsession of all fundamentalists with the concept of reestablishing one Muslim Khalif i.e. Prophet successor. The concept of Khalif, i.e. a Prophet successor from the Quraish tribe, became untenable in the centuries after the Abasides.
This idea of” Khilafat” has no historical basis in Islam. The first” Khilafat” of the "Sakifa", was a pure succession of the Prophet in a secular political sense; It was a transfer of political authority; there was not a single Quoraanic or Hadith invokation througout that. The two first Khalives: Abubaker and Omer marked a short period of 12 years under specific historical circumstances. After the third Khalif, Uthman, the legitamcy of the succession was disputed by the supporters of Ali ibin Abi Taleb and that of Ali , the fourth Khalif, by those supporting the Omayad Mouawya. Indeed, there was never an accepted Khalifah by all Muslims anywhere at any time. In the Abbasids era, there were two Khalifs one in Baghdad and one in Cordoba. In the late period of the Abbasids, there was one Khalifah in Baghdad and another in Cairo. At the Ottoman time, Sultan Salim the first who declared himself a Khalifah in 1516 was one of many rulers with Islamic credentials who had independent control of their own national territories, with a flag, an army, laws, and all other constituents of independent Sovereignty: “hakimyah”.
In our era, re-establishing the “Khilafat” for 2 billion
Muslims living on five continents with different backgrounds, languages and
cultures is a fantasy, a fiction, and an unplausible proposition. As amatter of fact, the Ottoman sultans never took this title seriously untill the 18th and 19th centuries when their state was in rapid decline. In recent times ,the first advocacy of Khilafah was voiced out by Hasan al Banna, when founding the Muslim Brothers in 1928.
This stand of merging religion with the state, a hallmark of Islamists thought, is now in evidence in the Shiite doctrine of "Willayatul Faqih", fashioned by Ruhulah al Khumayni in the 1960`s, and in similar thought of the M.B. It also emerged in instances of political exigencies such as those that faced Ibin Taymieh at the time of the Moguls invasion, and Maudoudi in British India. Indeed there is nothing in the Quoraan or in the reliable sayings and deeds of the Prophet that calls for this merger. When the Prophet established his state in Madinah, he addressed a basic proclamations, the "Yathrib Proclamation", to Muslims and others, Jews (beni Ouf), non- believing Quraishis and other different believers. laying down the basic law of a joint, non-discriminatory state: (Umma), a state with equal citizenry that stands neutral regarding religions and their paractices. This is the essence of both the civil state and moderate secularism in the US, the UK, and Germany.
It should be recalled that the
dominant Islamic theologians and scholars, draw up a distinction between the
State and Religion. Religion is in the realm of beliefs i.e. “Ibbadats”, whereas the ” State” is in the realm of pragmatic affairs “Muaamalats”. A state has to
have Sovereignty, with all the specific attributes of this term:
a frontier, equal citizenship franchise, its own territory, a flag
and its own laws. Naturally, the world is composed of numerous states.
The Oouraan explicitly states in one of the Souras, that God
created humans in different ethnicities, different colors, different
tribes so as to know and discover each other and live in peaceful coexistence. This
constellation of nations is rejected by the Islamists who advocate one Khilafat
worldwide with an unequal franchise for the followers of other different religions. In other words, a state not based on the priciple of equality of the citizenry. is really a concept that predates the modern state.
The Profile and Modus Operandi of the Islamists
In all countries where the
Islamists governed, they showed that they have no programs and no expertise in
governing. The records of Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan, Tunisia and Sudan provide ample
proof of that. The Islamists used Islam to gain power,
and after that, they tried to monopolize authority and in all other matters of
governance, they were demonstrable failures. Once again, when they tried to
claim intellectually an economic system, a banking system, a system of governance, or a
social order, they had nothing of substance to propose.
Despite the common source of
their ideologies, the various outfits had significant differences. The
M.B. is a multilayered association. There is a public Party in Egypt, an international circuit of Sister- Parties outside Egypt and a secretive underground organization that has an armed, violent manifestation. Al Qaeda` is an armed Jihadist organization. Its international posture is anti-Western, in particular anti-US, on the belief
that the West has been aggressing the Islamic World. It does not seek to
convert the West, rather avoids its influence and aggression. Bin Ladin
actually offered in January 2006 a truce if the West quits Muslim countries and
stops its aggression. Al Qaeda did not conquer territory and never faced the
problems of running a society.
ISIS, in contrast, is an international project for
establishing an Islamic World Order. It recognizes no boundaries and does not
respect any national separation, hence its latest name IS, the Islamic State.
ISIS` behavior, is more savage than that of al Qaeda and it has more
developed know-how of media and its use. It has also a developed
commercial sense of doing business through religion. The organization uses
Islam as a recruiting platform for those looking for a spiritual and
psychological refuge. In fact, so many of its practices like self-martyrdom and
spilling the blood of innocents, violate the basic tenants of Islam, The
recruits of ISIS are on the whole thinly educated and most do not even speak
Arabic and hardly know much about Islam.
Many of the recruits are from Western Europe. Some researchers put the total Europeas at 6000. with a Western European majority. The profiles of these recruits, according to
intelligence sources, are of social marginals
with police records for various minor crimes. Some (e.g. the terrorists of
Paris and Brussels attacks) had been drug dealers and owners of bars selling
liquor. Unlike those from the Arab world, their known profiles show that they
frequent no mosques or other public institutions and drift at the margin of
their communities. In contrast, the Arab Jihads
in ISIS, are largely unemployed victims of economic poverty and above all
blocked futures. The officers and leaders are overwhelmingly Iraqi with many
drawn from the ranks of Saddam`s army. Naturally, there are some exceptions to
this norm in the presence of some Europeans from not--deprived backgrounds who
are revolted by the materialism of their society and equally enraged by the
brutality of the Asad regime.. The eastern Europeans are mostly from the Russian Federation, victims of the Chechen prosecution. In conclusion, ISIS is not populated by religious
fundamentalists only, but by alienated social marginals, and by young Arabs for whom the
future holds neither economic nor personal prospects. Unlike al Qaeda, ISIS is
not led from the top; it is decentralized enough to be considered more
populist. Thus in its controlled territory, it has a decentralized structure.
These differences are revealed by their operational
modes. While the al Qaeda`s affiliate in Syria, Jabhatul Nusra, is willing to
fight under the umbrella of the SFA for the purpose of deposing the Syrian
regime, ISIS brooks no such alliance and has an Agenda distinct from that of
the Syrian revolution and is in complicity with the Syrian regime. Moreover, Jabhatul Nusra is overwhelmingly composed of Syrians, whereas
ISIS has a vast majority of non-Syrians.
In a short period after it came upon the scene,
ISIS secured fiscal independence, with the revenues accruing from levies imposed on local populations and
from selling oil after capturing oil wells in Syria and later on in Iraq. Among
its black-market customers were the Syrian regime itself as well as Turkish
contractors operating with partners in Iraqi Kurdistan and using the Turkish
ports to export the oil to third countries, among whom is Israel.
In June 2014, Mosul was attacked and the
Iraqi army led by Malikis`political officers and largely manned by former
Shiite militias ran away leaving their arms and supplies. Now, the ragtag
elements had more arms, more money, and greater numbers. With imparted
discipline from Saddam`s officers, they started a rampage in northern Syria and
Iraq displaying frightening and unprecedented savagery and killing hundreds of
people from all groups, including Sunnis. They culminated this rampage by
proclaiming Baghdadi as their Khalif.
The cascade of events conferred on ISIS new dynamics; it
started to feel its own wings for flying independently and developed its own
agenda, which cut into both the Iranian and Assad`s plans. When ISIS swept
through the Kurdish lines and threatened the survival of the Iraqi Kurdish
region, Israel and the US woke up. They realized the uncontrollable character
of ISIS and took measure of its barbarian savagery and danger to their
Kurdish allies.
As a new terrorist Islamist outfit, ISIS was exploited by
Asad to refurbish his credentials as a state force on the ground opposing
Islamists. Iran, the other initial sponsor, now felt that these ragtag forces
began to bite into its schemes in Iraq and acquired independence in their
action. Each of the initial God.-fathers, now offered their services to combat
ISIS: Iran to lubricate its nuclear negotiations and Assad to refurbish his
credentials.
The US quickly built up an international coalition
against ISIS, Many Arab countries, as well as Turkey and Iran, joined up, even
though they have different and contradictory agendas. General John Allen was
appointed Coordinator for this 61 -country alliance. It has indeed been an
alliance of strange bed-fellows.
* The Lady Aysha, the wife of the Prophet, who had a real public and religious presence in that epoch opinned that the "Meeraj" was a dream experienced by the Prophet.
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sakbani | 8:32 AM
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