Shortly after the incidents recounted in the vicinity of the Lion’s Den, Yousef learned that Bin Laden intended to establish an organization that would soon be formally in operation, and that would promote jihad throughout the world, taking it from Afghanistan to other strategic points around the globe. Its name would be Al-Qaeda, or the Base, built on the foundations of the success achieved in Afghanistan.
A brief parenthetical aside to speak of Said. He went back to Saudi Arabia for a while. His father came in person to get him. However, one fine day he stole his passport from his home, and fled back to Afghanistan. He confided in Yousef that he never managed to feel comfortable back in Jeddah; that everything and everyone in Saudi Arabia now seemed strange to him, no matter how much he tried to see things differently, and that back home he was no longer able to be himself. To go back to a place where we once left part of our life forgotten and thoroughly buried in the mists of the past can be among the most arduous undertakings for any person. The journey through the black tunnel of returning is accompanied by veritable nausea, queasiness, numerous anxieties and other mental afflictions that can lead to despair as well as physical and spiritual breakdown. Said could not endure going back, taking the great step backward. He could no longer make himself fit in. He returned to Afghanistan and to the struggle for an Arab world free of infidel oppression, governed by law directly emanating from the sacred word of the Koran, Sharia, but according to the basic concepts established for it one thousand years ago. It was a struggle that was entrenched in his spirit, but more than that, a way of life that he could no longer leave behind. The atmosphere of war had become the only possible way of life, an addiction it was impossible to turn away from, as it proved for many who had taken part in those moments of fighting at the Lion’s Den. Said had abandoned his studies when he was only sixteen to go to Afghanistan and join Bin Laden, heeding the fatwa of Sheik Abdullah Azzam. There he had discovered a new world that had taken him in, where life made more sense, as, probably, death did, too. He found death in 1989 during the siege of Jalalabad, covering the retreat of a group of his fellow believers. In this attack, nearly one hundred Arabs died according to some accounts, somewhat more according to others. Some escaped, others fell by the wayside. Yousef was among those who got away, and the farther he got, the more impossible it became for him to go back some day to the life, his parents, his friends or his family – or even he himself, if he thought about it – imagined for him. Now more than ever he was a determined warrior, full of self-confidence and faith in the cause he fought for. The end was, increasingly, the only thing that really mattered, the means mattered less and less. Spilling blood had become more and more commonplace, the most intense red there is on the face of the earth. The death of Said made Yousef into an even mightier warrior, with even more reasons to fight and accomplish the purpose that everyone in his group strove for. He had heard directly through Sheik Omar that there was an important task to perform for the future Al-Qaeda. Sometimes he wondered why he had escaped and not Said. Or Nasser. Or so many others, whether on his side or the side of the enemy. Who went and who stayed was something that was way too arbitrary for him to begin to understand fully, but it was Allah’s law, and it only made sense to let these concerns and responsibilities rest upon His shoulders. It was up to him to fulfill his destiny just as Said and Nasser had done, and he promised himself that he would not shirk this duty.
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The goal was the transition of the jihad in Afghanistan to a global jihad. Concepts were in abundance, becoming mixed up in a cauldron that would create the magic potion providing the guidelines for Al-Qaeda and for the next actions of this organization. The concept of jihad turned up in this cauldron, understood as a fight against all infidels occupying Muslim lands, as well all those who were opposed to the imposition of Sharia as the sole variety of jurisprudence in the Arab world. The concept of Sharia, commonly known in the West purely as an Islamic law with characteristics that were at the very least medieval, goes way beyond this simplistic vision. The intention behind the concept hinges on the Muslim need to create a formal document of vast scope that would not only encompass fundamental rules, whereby jurisprudence is governed, but also to ordain a way of life that embodies the will of God, Allah, through citation, study and interpretation of the writings of the Koran and of the Sunnah (which contains words and practices attributed to the Prophet over the course of his life), including successive phases of questioning, answering and ensuing implementation over the course of time. In this way, Sharia has undergone a variety of evolutions in different Arab countries (or no evolution at all beyond a certain historic period in other countries), each one of them predominantly following the key ideas of one theologian or classic jurist or another with an impassioned vision of what Sharia should be like on the basis of the Koran and the Sunnah. Some countries even believe that the way that Sharia has been interpreted for more than a thousand years, since a few centuries after the death of Mohammed, is so definitive that even to question it at all is an abomination, since it perverts the purity of the classic vision that they understand to be closest to the divine will. It is this approach that the radical extremists take. It is this approach, for example, that jurisprudence in Saudi Arabia takes (which at the time of this book is already exhibiting a greater openness to the evolution of its laws). In other countries, however, Sharia is the result of constant questioning and evolution, not only throughout the past, but also in our own time, so that it can be adapted to humanity’s evolution. In Morocco, for example, there recently arose reinterpretations and reforms in Islamic law carried out largely by educated young people and women who helped to update the country’s theological spectrum.
Illustrating this vision of constant evolution of Sharia, it is said that, one day, when Mohammed had sent one of his faithful followers to Yemen as governor, he asked him how he planned to judge the more complex matters that might arise during his journey, to which the governor replied that he would always use the Koran as a foundation. The Prophet then asked him how he would proceed if he did not find an answer in the Koran. The faithful follower replied that he would look for an answer in the Sunnah. And if an answer to the problem still could not be found in the Sunnah, the Prophet persisted, what would the governor do? In that case, I would judge things using my own reason as a foundation, answered the governor, a reply that it is said to have made Mohammed very happy.[5]
The struggle of Yousef, of Sheik Omar and of the entire new organization, was to be mainly geared towards a replacement of regimes and structures of power in Muslim countries so as to return the empire of former times to the Muslims. To expel the infidels who occupied Islamic countries, such as the Soviets occupying Afghanistan, was of fundamental importance. Furthermore, this element of liberation from the invading oppressor in occupied Muslim countries and territories was the one that attracted the greatest attention to the actions of Bin Laden and his fellow Muslims throughout the Islamic world. Having reached the point of selecting key new theaters of action, the Egyptians surrounding Bin Laden, led by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, now sought to shift the struggle and resources deployed in Afghanistan to Egypt. At the third vertex of this triangle of relationships including Bin Laden and Zawahiri, was Sheik Abdullah Azzam. The Palestinian Azzam and the Egyptian Zawahiri had different views on what should be the near-term future of what they saw as a global jihad on the way to global Sharia, and with this disagreement, they demanded a firm decision from Bin Laden, in favor of one or the other. The Egyptian, who had endured a harsh period of imprisonment and torture in his country following the assassination of President Anwar Al-Sadat, and who had held fast since he was fifteen years old to his memory of the execution of Sayid Qutb, was inclined to carry out highly unconventional plans to bring about a regime change in Egypt in order to establish Islamic law in the country, that is, Sharia in its purest form, as interpreted centuries after the death of Mohammed, and that from the outset excluded democracy and the right to vote to choose
a political leader. He kept trained the group Al-Jihad which operated in Egypt, whence had come the group of men who had carried out the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat on October 6, 1981. In its aftermath, Zawahiri had undergone a series of the most traumatic experiences that can be endured in captivity. The punishment of Zawahiri and of everyone whom the Egyptian government believed to have had any kind of involvement in the assault perpetrated on Anwar al-Sadat gave rise to a veritable assembly line of men without mercy, nourished in prison on intense, unending doses of pain and hatred for the Egyptian regime of that time, and also for the West which they believed to be the hidden force manipulating and dominating things in the background. Torture is one of the most powerful instigators of hatred that man has ever invented, and in these as well as other prisons it must have been very terrible indeed not only to endure it but also to have to listen to the resulting screams of others.
For Azzam, the priority of the new organization and the natural extension of the global jihad movement would have to be the liberation of Palestine, where he had helped to form Hamas, that would become a structural point of departure for a logical continuation of what their efforts had been in Afghanistan.
Another decisive ingredient that fell into the ideological cauldron of these was the takfir. In the Koran it is written:
“And do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden [to be killed] except by [legal] right. This has He instructed you that you may use reason.” (Chapter 6, Verse 151).
“And do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden, except by right. And whoever is killed unjustly - We have given his heir authority, but let him not exceed limits in [the matter of] taking life. Indeed, he has been supported [by the law].” (Chapter 17, Verse 33)
The aforesaid Law of Equality is explained in the following verse:
O you who have believed, prescribed for you is legal retribution for those murdered - the free for the free, the slave for the slave, and the female for the female. But whoever overlooks from his brother anything, then there should be a suitable follow-up and payment to him with good conduct. This is an alleviation from your Lord and a mercy. But whoever transgresses after that will have a painful punishment. (Chapter 2, Verse 178)
In the words transcribed above (and others) it is noteworthy that the Koran insists that any aggressive action must always be carefully considered and carried out only in special situations such as the oppression and occupation of the Islamic territories by invasion and violence, or else to do justice, as in cases of homicide. There is even the recommendation that Muslims should be thoughtful and extremely circumspect in their aggressive actions. At the time that the Koran came into being, Muslim people, and the city of Medina in particular, were the target of heavy attacks by people of other religions, hence the need in the Koran for Muslims to be given liberty to defend themselves, waging war and ultimately, killing the enemy, to preserve their own physical wellbeing and that of their loved ones, so they could remain undaunted and serene in the face of invaders. Therefore, even if one is not a great scholar of religion, after some study of the Koran and the life of Mohammed, one can easily deduce that killing innocents is something that does not agree with the way of life endorsed by the Prophet. To use violence and homicide against innocents with Islamic religious justification requires the addition of some sort of amendment or new a posteriori interpretation such that for some reason, an innocent ceases to be innocent. Evidently in the case of Afghanistan, the Russians actually did occupy a vast territory of the Islamic faith with their military might, and accordingly, it was considered that they were oppressing the Muslims of the region. They even went so far as to prevent traditional Islamic celebrations. In the republics of the Middle East between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, there are reports, for example, of citizens who awoke in the small hours before dawn to celebrate marriages in secret with friends and family, based on the sacred precepts of Islam, and they celebrated and danced until it was time to go to work, then changed their clothes and went to work as though nothing had happened, so the communists authorities wouldn’t suspect a thing. In this light, whenever a foreign nation invades a Muslim land and imposes its law, it is much easier to defend positions that incite war, associating such an intention with Islamic religious concepts. A similar case could be made in the case of Iraq as a result of its invasion by the United States. However, to go beyond this to justify the killing of innocents who are also believers in Islam, there arose the concept of takfir, which opened the door to one’s being able to declare arbitrarily who was Muslim and who was apostate, including in this latter category all Muslims who needed to be included in it, on this or that occasion, based on a particular action of jihad. Zawahiri set out upon this road and managed to get Bin Laden to listen to him after the War in Afghanistan. Only they can know for certain how these concepts played out in their minds. It is believed that there lingered in Bin Laden’s view a partiality towards Sheik Abdullah Azzam, who saw takfir as a heresy, an imminent danger to Islam,[6] and this danger consisted of the imminent possibility of the struggle’s ceasing to focus only on the infidel oppressors and coming to be directed against their own Muslim brothers. For Azzam after liberating Afghanistan, the priority was to liberate Palestine. Yousef shared Azzam’s ideals, but admired above all the determination, sobriety and purity of spirit of Bin Laden and Sheik Omar, as well as the ideas that guided their worlds, such as the idea that Sharia should govern the world, the law that, in their understanding, flows in its purest form from the more than five hundred verses of the Koran. It should be borne in mind that the word Islam comes from submission or surrender of man before God in every sense. To this end, all that governs the life of man must yield to the teaching that comes from Allah. This means ultimately that an Islamic State should derive Sharia from the Koran, and hence derive its laws from Sharia to keep it always on the track of the divine will. Now then, to the most radical extremists, to manage affairs the way it is done in Turkey, for example, that democratically chooses its political leader and its laws, is tantamount to attempting to make man more powerful than god, to usurp His role.
The Koran says:
“O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. And if you disagree over anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger, if you should believe in Allah and the Last Day. That is the best [way] and best in result.” (Chapter 4, Verse 59)
For anyone who wants the entire Islamic world to be one and governed by Sharia after the fashion of Saudi Arabia, for example, it is imperative that all Arab people and lands – all without exception – must be free of communists, western capitalists or any other foreigners and infidels who are a constant military presence among them, seeking to manipulate their future. Now, Yousef was in perfect agreement with these principles. The takfir was an expedient that had become available at the operational level in what was understood to be a war to free Islam from the infidel oppressors. A necessary evil. A necessary crime, if we accept Hemingway’s definition, that any war, no matter how necessary it may be, will always constitute a crime. A poison that takes hold of men as it has done in all historical periods when certain men decide that the ends justify the means. The poison of the takfir went so far as to deem anyone who even had so much as a voter identification card, being complicit with a democratic system, could be killed for being an apostate. History is full of interpretations of this sort, seeking ideological permission to kill innocents, and their effects have been written down, including the effects on the aggressors themselves (merely by way of example, consider the state Germany was reduced to at the end of the Second World War). By what means does Israel justify the death of so many innocent Palestinians in its successive bombardments? By what means does the United States justify the invasion of Iraq, the occupation of Afghanistan or the bombardment of Baghdad in the unfolding of the Gulf War? By what means have men always justified the collateral damage of wars, the harvest of innocent lives?
/> For Yousef and Sheik Omar, a war was under way to free the Muslim world from all oppressors, a war that did not allow for half measures to achieve its ends due to the imperative of its greater goal. While the meeting was being held in Peshawar to define the principles that would govern Al-Qaeda, Sheik Omar told Yousef of the whole cauldron of ideas under discussion. He was above all a partisan of the ideas of Sheik Azzam and Bin Laden. He felt it was wrong to kill Arabs, for any reason whatsoever, so that from early on he disliked any sort of pending action involving coups d’états in Islamic countries, or fratricidal civil wars among Muslims. No, to him the war must be to expel the infidels from Arabs lands with the minimum possible shedding of Muslim blood. The idea that came to this man was that the war should be taken from the Arab world to the western world, and this would involve attacking them in the heart of their civilization. To bring the fight to them, without any concern for collateral damage, and there in the West, indeed, they were all apostates. It was this that would not leave his mind. In his communion with the ideals of Sheik Azzam, Sheik Omar agreed that the next great battle should be the liberation of Palestine, but he felt that it would be impossible to fight against Israel after the fashion of conventional wars between armies, at which Israel would always be stronger, and all the more so because of its powerful ally, the United States. Sheik Omar brooded and brooded, and always reached the conclusion that there was only one thing to do, to go into the heart of western civilization and inflict damage there, not with an army, but with just a handful of the right men who could be relied upon. He himself could never be the one in the limelight. He could not have any ties to these attempts to bring this war to the West. No one should ever be able to get at him. He needed someone he could rely on, and Yousef was the right man to begin this undertaking.
The Miracle of Yousef: Historical and political thriller Page 10