On Borrowed Time

by Robert Manne

  Zawahiri arrives now at a series of harsh and fundamental criticisms of Zarqawi’s leadership. The battle for the Islamic State cannot succeed without the support of the Muslim masses. They will never understand the disrespect Zarqawi has shown for the Sunni religious leaders. Zarqawi must not think of ruling on the basis of the mujahidin alone. Zawahiri reminds Zarqawi of the isolation the Taliban faced in 2001 following the American invasion. He must work now to create a broad-based Shura Council, based on the precedent of the Golden Age.

  Even more sternly, Zawahiri chides Zarqawi for his anti-Shi’a sectarianism. No doubt, he writes, many Shi’a have behaved treacherously during the American occupation. No doubt their understanding of Islam is deeply mistaken and will eventually have to be corrected. But the Muslim masses will never understand a program based on the destruction of holy sites or systematic killing, especially of ordinary Shi’a. They will ask: “Can the mujahidin kill all the Shi’a in Iraq? Has any Islamic state in history ever tried that? And why kill ordinary Shi’a considering that they are forgiven because of their ignorance?” Zawahiri continues with a discussion of Zarqawi’s public beheadings of hostages. They might “sow terror in the hearts of the Crusaders”. They might be a means of visiting upon the enemy a little of the suffering they have inflicted. But such scenes will never become “palatable” to the Muslim masses. Zawahiri urges Zarqawi not to be seduced by the praise of the zealous young who have described him as the “sheikh of the slaughterers”. He reminds Zarqawi that captives can be dispatched by a bullet. He ends his letter vaingloriously with news about his many publications, and rather pitifully with a request for $100,000.

  Clearly Zawahiri’s letter was ignored. Six months later, a senior al-Qaeda leader, Atiyatullah al-Libi, sent another, far blunter warning. If Zawahiri’s letter concerned Zarqawi’s political mistakes, al-Libi’s concerned the defects of his character. Although al-Libi’s letter is almost unknown in the scholarly literature, it is even more revealing about the future of the Islamic State than Zawahiri’s.

  Al-Libi’s letter contains a devastating catalogue of the dangers of Zarqawi’s style of leadership. Zarqawi is warned he must treat religious leaders with respect. “We address them with utmost kindness … they are the keys to the Muslim community.” He must work with tribal leaders and try to convince them they are not “going over their heads”. If religious leaders or tribal leaders are “obeyed and of good repute”, on no account are they to be killed. Zarqawi must strive to win the love of the Muslim people. “[Do] not be harsh with them or degrade them or frighten them.” He must learn to accept disagreement. It does “not require hatred, clashing, hostility or enmity”. He must not become “arrogant” because of praise. He must show “affection … and absolute, true sympathy” for his inner circle and teach them to avoid “injustice, arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, superciliousness, excessive harshness and violence”.

  Al-Libi reminds Zarqawi that Islam is a religion of “mercy, justice and good deeds”. A balance must be found “between severity and softness, between violence and gentleness”. “Let us not merely be people of killing, slaughter, blood, cursing, insult and harshness.” Al-Libi had seen such behaviour before with the Algerian mujahidin in the mid-1990s. “Their enemy did not defeat them, but rather they defeated themselves.” Zarqawi is warned: “You need to look deeply within yourself and your character.” If he fails to heed these warnings he will be replaced. How the al-Qaeda exiles hiding in Waziristan thought this might be achieved is very far from clear.

  As it happened, Zarqawi was killed by the Americans on 7 June 2006. No one had been more responsible than him for the ferocious Sunni–Shi’a civil war that was by now pulling Iraq apart. Shortly after Zarqawi’s death, his successors fulfilled his wishes by announcing the existence of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). For a time, the warnings al-Libi had issued about the dire political consequences of Zarqawi’s brutal behaviour seemed accurate. The Americans found eager partners among the Sunni tribes in the anti-insurgency movement called The Awakening. ISI was now forced to retreat to the arid lands of al-Anbar in the west. In 2008 the wife of one of the group’s new leaders, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, inquired, “Where is the Islamic State of Iraq you’re talking about? We’re living in the desert.”

  *

  In 2011, ISI, by now under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, emerged from the desert following the military and political withdrawal of the Americans from Iraq and the descent of Syria into civil war. ISI began taking territory in the Sunni triangle and dispatched to Syria a small force, led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, that became known as the Nusra Front. In 2013 ISI and the Nusra Front fell out spectacularly and bloodily after Baghdadi’s unilateral announcement that the two organisations would merge, under his leadership, to become the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). By this time, bin Laden had been killed by the Americans. Al-Qaeda’s new leader, Zawahiri, attempted unsuccessfully to arbitrate the differences between Baghdadi and Jolani. In February 2014 a mediator appointed by al-Qaeda was assassinated by ISIS operatives, and in that same month al-Qaeda severed all links with ISIS. In early June, ISIS conquered Mosul. Controlling territory in the east of Syria and the west of Iraq, an area as large as Belgium, the group announced in late June that the long-awaited caliphate had been restored. It now styled itself simply as the Islamic State.

  The Islamic State shortly after began publishing an elegant and glossy official online magazine, Dabiq, in several languages. (Dabiq is a town mentioned in one of the apocalyptic hadiths as the site of the final battle between the armies of the Crusaders and Islam.) Although no one appears to know who is responsible for the magazine’s production, its articles are obviously written by intellectuals steeped in the theological tradition of Islam, with a deep knowledge of the Qur’an, the hadiths and major Islamic scholars. Its spirit is murderous and martial. Each issue contains dozens of photographs that celebrate the dispatching of enemies by knife or bullet, and the great military victories or successful martyrdom operations of its noble mujahidin. At the time of writing, fourteen issues have appeared, amounting to perhaps half a million words. Although Dabiq is an indispensable source for an understanding of the Islamic State’s ideology, I am aware of no systematic analysis of its content in either the scholarly or popular literature.

  Dabiq is heir to the tradition of Salafi jihadism from Qutb to bin Laden and Zawahiri. Without some knowledge of that tradition, it cannot be understood. Yet what is most interesting about Dabiq is what it reveals about the changes in both the style and content of Salafi jihadism that have taken place in the years since the Iraq insurgency began. Zarqawi led the Iraq insurgency for only three years. He was not a theorist but a warrior, killed eight years before the declaration of the caliphate. Nonetheless, in a way that is difficult to understand or to explain, it is Zarqawi’s astonishingly brutal spirit and world view that shapes the ideology of the Islamic State. Zarqawism, as expressed in the pages of Dabiq, represents a new and perhaps final chapter in the ideological history of Salafi jihadism.

  The influence of The Management of Savagery seems clear. The first issue of Dabiq contains a short official history of the Islamic State. Here we learn that

  Shayk Abu Mus’ab implemented the strategy and required tactics to achieve the goal of Khilafah [Caliphate] … he strived to create as much chaos as possible with the means permitted by the Shari’ah, using attacks … that focus on causing the enemy death, injury, and damage. With chaos, he intended to prevent any taghut regime from ever achieving a degree of stability.

  Later issues of Dabiq congratulate the mujahidin of Libya for the way they have created “mayhem”, an ideal condition for jihad, and report the words of a Tunisian supporter of the Islamic State: “We wanted to create chaos.” All this represents the revolutionary methodology of Naji in a nutshell: the creation of savage chaos through vexation and exhaustion operations aimed to destabilise and then destroy taghut regimes.

  The influence of Naji
is also obvious in the attitude taken towards “paying the price”, through the kind of exemplary punishments even Zawahiri, one of the architects of September 11, could not stomach. In Dabiq there are scores of examples. Chilling photos of the beheadings of captured Crusaders following the decision of the United States and its allies to mount airstrikes against the Islamic State. In issue 3 we see the American journalist James Wright Foley grimacing in terror at the moment before his head is removed. In issue 4 there is a photo of the severed head of another American journalist, the “Jewish-Crusader” Steven Sotloff, and, as proof of his special perfidy, another of his Israeli passport. When Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan, decided to donate US$200 million in non-military aid for countries fighting the Islamic State, in issue 7 Dabiq published a photo of a Japanese hostage on the point of his execution by beheading. Dabiq asks, was Abe so foolish as not to realise that, when he made his decision, the Islamic State held two Japanese prisoners?

  Among those paying the price are the citizens in the countries at war with the Islamic State. On several occasions Dabiq has published a passage from its official spokesman, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani:

  If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging wars, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner.

  Even though the Islamic State did not plan the Charlie Hebdo killings, it had a cover photo that mercilessly mocked those hypocritical imams who supported the kuffar value of freedom of speech by protesting in Paris with “Je suis Charlie” placards.

  Dabiq of course cheered loudly the reprisal operations they did appear to plan: the downing of a Russian aircraft after its entry into the Syrian civil war, and the mass shootings and bombings in Paris and Belgium. It was also extremely enthusiastic about the Sydney siege of Man Haron Monis, especially delighting in the fact of his conversion from Shi’ism to Sunni Islam. No one should any longer describe these attacks as driven by envy of the Western way of life. They are acts of war. Citizens of countries not involved in the fight against the Islamic State are safe, unless of course one of them insults the Prophet.

  Perhaps the most shocking issues of Dabiq concerning the “paying the price” punishments are the ones that cover the death of a captured Jordanian pilot, Mu’adh Safi Yusuf al-Kasasibah, who participated in the airstrikes against the Islamic State. In issue 6 Kasasibah is asked in interview if he knows his fate. He replies, “I will be killed.” Issue 7 has an article that begins with a large photo of him being burned alive in a cage and concludes with another of his charred body. The authors admit that in one text a hadith seems to make it clear that punishment by burning is forbidden. “None should punish with fire except Allah.” Against this, however, they quote another, “And if you punish [an enemy], punish with an equivalent of that with which you were harmed,” and several passages from the hadiths involving punishments by burning alive, including those concerning Abu Bakr cited in The Management of Savagery. All of this reveals the rather grotesque role played throughout the fourteen issues of Dabiq by the authors’ undoubted scholarly credentials.

  The extreme cruelty that Islamic State’s victims experience is announced proudly and is deliberately made conspicuous, unlike the partial cloud of secrecy that surrounded most of the worst crimes perpetrated by the twentieth century’s most terrible regimes – led by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. Take one example. In several issues of Dabiq there are photos of the political or religious enemies of the Islamic State, before or after the moment of their execution. They are described as being “harvested”. The political logic is clear. The fate of the Islamic State’s victims is meant to instil paralysing fear into the hearts of their enemies, as Naji taught that it should.

  The turn to apocalyptic or eschatological themes is an even more significant Zarqawist addition to the Salafist jihadist tradition than the ones inspired by The Management of Savagery. According to the scholars of Islam, apocalyptic thinking is far more common among Shi’as than Sunnis and far more common on the Arab street than among the educated classes. Although brief apocalyptic references to the Day of Judgement can be found in the writings of bin Laden and Zawahiri, in the words of William McCants, the author of The ISIS Apocalypse, they are “languid” rather than “urgent”. By contrast, apocalyptic thinking is at the very heart of the Zarqawist version of Salafi jihadism.

  Every issue of Dabiq begins with words of his: “The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify – by Allah’s permission – until it burns the Crusader armies in Dabiq.” The reference here is to one of the Islamic State’s most favoured apocalyptic hadiths, whose first line reads: “The Hour [the Day of Judgement] will not be established until the Romans land at al-A’maq or Dabiq.” There are several similar hadiths, whose overall meaning is summarised in issue 4 of Dabiq. The Muslims will be at war with the Romans. There will be a truce. For a time they will fight a common enemy. The Romans will betray the Muslims and raise their cross. This will be followed by the final and bloodiest battle, known as al-Malhama al-Kubra. The Muslims will be victorious. They will conquer Constantinople and then Rome. Islam will then rule the world. The mind of the Islamic State cannot be understood unless one accepts that its leaders believe that the historical moment before the Hour has now arrived, and that the war being fought between the Islamic State and the Crusaders is the final battle in which Islam is certain eventually to prevail.

  A frozen mythic past centred on the medieval Crusades, and an imagined future foreseen in the apocalyptic hadiths concerning the final battle, provides the authors at Dabiq with a severely distorted grasp of reality in the present. Let one example suffice. In Dabiq there are several passages speculating on the possibility of a “truce” between the Islamic State and the United States, a prospect about as likely as the caliph being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. There is only one reason the possibility is discussed: it is mentioned frequently in the favoured eschatological hadiths. Zarqawist thinking is indeed drenched in apocalyptic prophecies, frequently occurring in unexpected contexts. As is well known, after conquering Yazidi territories, the Islamic State took the women as sexual slaves. For Zarqawists, this is a highly favourable omen. In several obscure apocalyptic texts, the increasing prevalence of slavery is associated with the final battle of history. The leaders of the Islamic State believe that when Islam defeats “Rome” American women will be sold in their slave markets. In perhaps the only joke in 800 pages of Dabiq, it is said that Michelle Obama will be lucky if she fetches even one third of a dinar.

  The attitude to non-Sunni Muslims is the second major addition Zarqawism has made to the tradition of Salafi jihadism. It is based on the introduction of two closely connected theological concepts: wala-and-bara and takfir. These concepts were of marginal significance to mainstream Salafi jihadism before the emergence of the Islamic State. They have now become central. While both wala-and-bara and takfir are subtle theological ideas with a long and complex history, in the world view of the Islamic State they have become exceedingly, indeed excruciatingly, simple. For Zarqawists, wala-and-bara means love of Muslims and hatred of non-Muslims, and takfir the belief that the fate of heretics and apostates should be death. The leaders of the Islamic State are frequently described by their Muslim enemies in a single word: takfiri.

  The Islamic State inherited Zarqawi’s hatred of Shi’a as expressed in his letter to bin Laden of January 2004. On several occasions, Dabiq has published long extracts from it; it is clearly regarded as a foundational text. Dabiq replicates all Zarqawi’s claims, time and time again. The Shi’a, who are routinely called by the abusive name Rafidahs (rejectors of the first three caliphs), are apostates, polytheists, betrayers of Islam in the past, secret plotters in the present, morally degraded, friends of the Jews, and so on. It adds, however, to the by now
familiar catalogue of charges a novel apocalyptic dimension. It has been observed by the authors at Dabiq that the Shi’a’s Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer, bears an uncanny resemblance to Dajjal, the Muslim version of the Antichrist, with reddish skin, big belly, curly hair, hiding his identity as a Jew. The conclusion they draw is straightforward: “The Rafidah are apostates who must be killed wherever they are to be found, until no Rafidi walks on the face of earth.”

  The Shi’a (and their Syrian cousins, the Alawites) are not the only people the Islamic State has destined for death. Issue 4 of Dabiq discusses the problem of the Yazidis, the worshippers of the fallen angel Iblis, whose “creed is so deviant from the truth that even cross-worshipping Christians for ages considered them devil worshippers and Satanists”. A Qur’anic verse is quoted: “Kill the mushrikin [polytheists] wherever you find them.” And a troubling matter of conscience is raised: “Their continual existence to this day is a matter that Muslims should question as they will be asked about it on Judgment Day.” Their fate is not in doubt. And not only theirs. Issue 10 of Dabiq discusses a recent massacre of Druze villagers by the Nusra Front, for which its leaders had apologised. The Druze are described as “worse than the Jews and the Christians”. The apology of the Nusra Front is mocked: “So … spilling the blood of the apostate and treacherous Druze is oppression!” And the opinion of the medieval scholar Ibn Taymiyyah is endorsed: “[The Druze] are to be killed wherever they are found.” Without conversion to Islam, all the Druze must die.

  Intentional killing of religious groups in whole or in part is one of the crimes covered by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Regarding Shi’as, Alawites, Yazidis and Druze, and also in reality Christians and Jews, the Islamic State has proudly announced its genocidal intent. The Islamic State does not care two hoots about a United Nations convention. It is, however, sensitive to the charge of Kharijism that Muslims increasingly have laid against it, a very serious accusation in the history of Islam. Named after an early Muslim sect, Kharijism now means fanatical and unjustified condemnation of fellow Muslims as heretics or apostates deserving of death. To refute this rather plausible and therefore damaging accusation, Dabiq announced in issue 6 the discovery of a secret Khawarij cell inside the Islamic State, whose members had pronounced takfir on the faithful Sunni masses of Syria and Iraq. The cell was said to be biding their time, waiting for successful enemy attacks before unleashing their plot to destroy the caliphate. It is the kind of discovery Stalin’s secret police routinely made.