Making Work for America

J. Michael Waller

n the “war of ideas,” words matter. By accepting the enemy’s ter- minology and adopting its definitions as our own, we cease fight- Iing on our terms and place our ideas at the enemy’s disposal. We would never fight a military engagement under such conditions; we have highly trained personnel who know the enemy’s order of battle and how to apply exactly the technologies, weapons and timing to ensure rapid victory at the lowest cost. We have doctrines for doing so. Yet we currently have no cor- responding doctrine for public diplomacy and its action-oriented cousins. This shortcoming has crippled the war effort. By not understanding the nature of the battle, and by not appreciating the meanings of words, we reward the enemy and demoralize our friends and potential allies. Such is very much the case with one of the terms central to today’s debate on the war: jihad. These days, most Americans, including national leaders, tend to use the word as a synonym for terrorism. But speakers of and adherents of are not at all in agreement about this definition, even—or perhaps especially—within the Muslim world. Jihad, in short, may be defined in any number of ways. The terrorist enemy is using it effectively as a political weapon. It has redefined not only the word, but the idea embodied by it. When U.S. officials use the word, they should be certain about what the enemy takes it to mean, how the non-enemy (neutral, potential ally or friend) understands its American usage, and how the U.S. wants

J. Michael Waller is the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor of Political Communication at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, where he teaches courses on public diplomacy, propaganda and political warfare. J. Michael Waller its target audience and the rest of the lims see jihad mainly as a struggle for world to understand it. By doing so, personal moral improvement, but one we can make jihad work for us. that can include warfare on behalf of the faith when “necessary and appro- Americans and jihad priate.” Reformist traditionalists, for Muslim terms are relatively new their part, define jihad as a personal, to the United States. Most Americans moral journey; only in cases of life or first learned ofmujahideen , or Islamic death, or in case of attack or when holy warriors, with the Soviet take- the survival of Islam is at stake, does over of Afghanistan in 1979. They jihad become “holy war,” according to viewed the as heroes, and a dominant view.5 By contrast, Islamic with strong bipartisan majorities they moderates refer to jihad exclusively funded and armed the Muslim fight- in terms of personal spiritual devel- ers battling the Soviet invasion. opment. Secularists, meanwhile, tend At about the same time, the word to view jihad as a historical phenom- jihad entered the common lexicon, to enon in holy wars of old, and though an entirely different response. Web- they accept the term to refer to spiri- ster’s definition of the time shows how tual improvement they tend to avoid it the public understood jihad: as “a because of its controversial underpin- holy war waged on behalf of Islam as nings and overtones.6 a religious duty” and “a bitter strife or With so many accepted mean- crusade [sic] undertaken in the spirit ings, both within and outside of Islam, of a holy war.”1 Webster’s updated the the United States has the opportu- second definition, matter-of-factly nity to decide how to make the word and without irony, to mean “a cru- work for its national interests. Ironi- sade for a principle or belief.”2 Most cally, both Islamic extremists and the recently, Webster’s has preserved the United States government currently holy war and crusade definitions and are content with sharing the narrow, added a third: “a personal struggle in revisionist definition of jihad as ter- devotion to Islam especially involving rorism, to the exclusion of the rest of scriptural discipline.”3 To most Amer- the Islamic world. icans, however, jihad is a horror com- But should they be? After all, mitted by Muslim sociopaths. which idea of jihad does the United In truth, the reality is a good deal States wish to see prevail: the more complex. Today, the meaning of benign and charitable idea of self- jihad is so controversial, even within improvement and self-discipline, Islam, that some interpretations are or the idea of total warfare against irreconcilably opposed to one another. civilization? The extremists know Among radical fundamentalists there what they want both Muslims and are three levels of jihad, one of which “the infidel” to believe. Indeed, among is an obligatory armed struggle for a most Americans, they succeeded global Islamic order (as the Embassy long before al-Qaeda ever surfaced. of Saudi Arabia in Washington has pronounced in its Wahhabi interpre- Hijacking jihad tation).4 For scriptural fundamental- In the late 1970s, Yasser Arafat’s ists, jihad has substantially different Palestine Liberation Organization meanings, and can refer to childbirth (PLO) dominated the Middle Eastern for women and a struggle for spiritual terrorist scene. Secular-nationalist in betterment. More traditionalist Mus- nature, it included many non-Muslims

16 The Journal of International Security Affairs Making Jihad Work for America

(and even an anti-Islamic Marxist- The document explained the Leninist faction). But while members Islamic Jihad ideology in careful and appeared not to mind the killing of legalistic terms, citing archaic theo- those deemed to be collaborators, logical tracts that repeatedly call for most Muslim members drew the line subjecting oneself to “martyrdom,” at the idea of murdering their co- not merely by personal sacrifice but religionists. Over time, however, new by “giving up one’s life.” Al-Zumur and more extreme groups carried spelled out the group’s ideology the war beyond Israel to advocate the clearly, refuting traditional norms killing of other Muslims, including by stressing the un-Islamic methods women and children, and developed the group embraced in the quest for an ideology to justify these tactics in political power. He broke some wide- heavily religious terms. spread taboos, arguing that Muslim One of the most infamous called fighters did not need the support of itself Islamic Jihad. Founded in Egypt their spiritual leaders, that they could in the late 1970s, Islamic Jihad dedi- indeed attack non-Muslim civilians, cated itself to the establishment of that they could strike offensively and Islamic rule by force.7 Its founders not just in self-defense, and that they chose the group’s name purposefully, could seize political power in foreign not to frighten Americans but to con- countries. In an assault on the sanc- vince other Muslims of the holiness tity of the family, the Islamic Jihad of their war, even though the methods document said that young Muslims were antithetical to the virtues that could join the fight against their par- most believers valued. The name was ents’ will and without consent of a a conscious effort to justify terrorism duly recognized political authority. in the name of Islam, at a time when Al-Zumur went even further, most “Muslim terrorists” were terror- arguing that any person or authority ists who happened to be Muslim. who attempts to stop the rogue fighter In a manifesto entitled “The is himself thwarting the will of God Methodology of the Islamic Jihad and, by implication, is an infidel who Group,” written in the Turah Peni- must be killed. The document pre- tentiary in Cairo in 1986, Islamic pared people that most members of Jihad “group leader” Aboud al-Zumur the movement would be expected to outlined the organization’s seman- die on their mission, either in combat tic strategy.8 “[W]e chose the term or by suicide, and receive supernatu- jihad to be part of our name and that ral pleasures in return. The “jihad” people know us by that name, given would be permanent; it would break the fact that ‘to struggle’ is an essen- traditional discipline between young tial matter to our movement,” Zumur people and their families and spiritual wrote. Basing its ideology on the leaders; it would slay Muslim politi- teachings of 13th century theologian cal leaders whom the Islamic Jihad Ibn Taymiyya (considered the inspi- would deem insufficiently Muslim ration of Wahhabi extremist thought), (the group had already assassinated the group was careful to establish the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat) religious justifications for its name and would install Islamist clerics in and actions by getting religious lead- their place, under the moral author- ers to approve what normal Muslims ity of Shaykh Abu al-Tayyib, a 10th- considered un-Islamic tactics of sub- century Muslim poet. version and violence.

The Journal of International Security Affairs 17 J. Michael Waller

This new concept of jihad was United States began its post-9/11 radical. It rejected traditional beliefs counterattack at a political disad- about family authority and unity, as vantage, largely because the enemy well as filial responsibility to parents had already framed the terms of the and siblings, all the while using medi- “war of ideas.” In the four-and-a-half eval militant Ibn Tamiyya as its source years since, the United States has of moral authority. It demanded a per- only exacerbated this problem. It has manent revolution “until the Day of undermined “moderate” Muslims who Judgment” under an elite shock force oppose but fear the extremists by effec- to overthrow the established politi- tively declaring that all practitioners of cal and cultural order. “All Muslim jihad—and not merely the extremists scholars have agreed,” the document who had hijacked the word—were the claimed, that good Muslims should sworn enemies of the United States. fight and oust present-day govern- It has validated the enemy’s ideologi- ments and “install in their place cal worldview by appearing to declare Muslim spiritual leaders.” war on Islam (even as it has taken The Islamic Jihad’s methodol- pains to stress the opposite). And it ogy paper serves as a telling indica- has given undue power and prestige tor of a bitter internal battle within to the enemy leadership, enhancing the Muslim religion. That clash was their reputations and inspiring more a struggle for legitimacy between recruits to their cause. the extremism of a fringe group and adherents of traditional Islam. It was Toward a new a battle that the extremists effectively vocabulary won, shaping words for their own If not jihad, then what? If foreign political purposes and creating a new terrorists are not, in truth, holy war- belief system for an emerging genera- riors but rather mass murderers, what tion of the faithful who would break do we call them, and what should our from their families and the bonds of message to the rest of the Muslim their established religious leaders world be? to perform missions, mainly against True political warfare requires fellow Muslims, that would result in undermining the enemy and destroy- their own physical destruction. ing its ideas—not merely refuting A decade later, Osama bin Laden them or “competing” with them in an would use the same terminology in intellectual “marketplace.” So far, the his declaration of war against the 9 United States has fallen far short of United States. Today’s terrorists this objective, contenting itself with have adapted extremist medieval trying to convince Muslims world- interpretations of jihad to suit their wide of its good intentions. Such an political agendas. In the process, approach is profoundly self-defeating; they have hijacked the terms of reli- the objective should not be to try and gious discourse in the Muslim world. convince skeptical Muslims that the The resulting propaganda victory U.S. is not engaged in a “war against has silenced more moderate Islamic Islam,” but to show, relentlessly and voices—and imposed a false defi- in the most vivid terms, that the nition upon American political dis- extremists are un-Islamic and that course regarding the Middle East. the nations of the great Abrahamic The results have been predict- religions are united against a common able. Without even realizing it, the mortal enemy.

18 The Journal of International Security Affairs Making Jihad Work for America

By necessity, the American willfully abuse it. The Qur’anic political counterattack in the “war and classical notion of jihad sig- of ideas” should be geared toward nifies a continuing enterprise on the part of the religious to depriving radical elements of the abil- uphold what was good and resist ity to dominate religious semantics what is evil: this enterprise, is, and rhetoric. In so doing, the U.S. after all, at the root of every will be helping to destroy the image civilized society and thus ulti- of the enemy as hero and martyr—a mately conducive to true peace.10 crucial mechanism currently fueling the fight against the United States The United States, then, must and its Coalition partners. find ideas already in the Arabic lan- Doing so means adjusting U.S. guage and Muslim culture that can be rhetoric so as not to hinder civilized applied to describe Islamist terror. For- Muslims in the recovery of their tunately, a thousand years of Islamic ideas. If the current idea of jihad as jurisprudence have already provided terrorism is offensive to the average us with the proper word: . Muslim, who sees the same word As Layla Sein of the Association of as a just and good action blessed by Muslim Social Scientists explains: God, then the U.S. must find another word to describe its enemy and its Since the concept of jihad comes deeds. Working with Muslim clerics, from the root word jahada Arab scholars and regional experts, (to strive or struggle for self- betterment from an ethical-moral American policymakers should perspective) and that of hirabah develop a new vocabulary that, if comes from the root word hariba used boldly and consistently, could (to fight, to go to war or become shift the terms of debate in the Arab- enraged or angry), an etymo- speaking and Islamic worlds and logical and theological examina- marginalize the terrorists from their tion of these words provides a support networks, diminishing their valid framework through which the religious legitimacy of sui- stature and their appeal to young cide bombings in today’s global prospective recruits and sowing community can be analyzed … . uncertainty among recruits about one another and about their cause. To delve into a comparative Such an approach would help study of these Islamic con- our allies and would-be allies in the cepts is to expose how hirabah Arab and Muslim worlds. Carnegie is being paraded by terrorist groups as jihad. By defining Scholar Asma Afsaruddin, Associate hirabah as jihad, such terrorist Professor of Arabic and Islamic Stud- groups as al Qaeda and others ies at the University of Notre Dame, promote their terrorist agendas is studying the semantic content of by misleading young, religiously jihad. She observes, motivated and impressionable Muslims to believe that killing The important battle of semantics unarmed and non-combatant is not about window-dressing but civilians are activities of jihad, about reclaiming the true mean- and hence a ticket to paradise … . ing of jihad—which refers to the noblest human “struggle” or If activities of fear and terror “endeavor” to realize God’s will associated with hirabah are used for a just and merciful society on to define the meaning of jihad earth—from those who would in hopes of recruiting Muslim

The Journal of International Security Affairs 19 J. Michael Waller

youth to undertake suicide bomb- of demonizing those we call “jihadis.” ings and other criminal activi- Moreover, many Muslims, both those ties, Muslim theologians need one would consider “moderate” and to define the nature of what is happening to stop the hijack- even some who have sympathized ing of Islam by terrorists.11 with those the U.S. considers extrem- ist, readily accept the idea of hirabah “Given the all too common ten- as a proper means of demonizing dency to employ jihad and terrorism “jihadis.” Immediately after the Sep- as synonymous,” says Antony T. Sul- tember 11th attacks, Dr. Ezzeddin livan of the Center for Middle East- Ibrahim, the former chancellor of Al ern and North African Studies at the Ain University in Abu Dhabi, United University of Michigan, “there is now Arab Emirates, made the point that: perhaps no traditional Islamic con- cept that cries out louder for revival What occurred on Septem- 12 ber 11, 2001, is one of the most than hirabah.” loathsome of crimes, which in Hirabah would be more appro- Islam goes under the name of priate and useful, not only for public al-hirabah. Hirabah is the most diplomacy or political reasons, but for abominable type of murder, the purpose of destroying terrorist net- in that it involves killing with works. U.S. federal law enforcement terrorism and intimidation.14 officials refer to Islamist terrorists as “jihadis,” as do the Armed Forces and Professor Akbar Ahmed, Chair counterterrorism strategists. This, of at the American writes University of Michigan Pro- University, concurs: fessor Abdul in an important article on terrorism, is a misnomer: Properly understood, this is a war of ideas within Islam—some of them faithful to authentic Islam, Hirabah appears … to paral- but some of them clearly un- lel the function of terrorism as Islamic and even blasphemous an American legal category … toward the peaceful and compas- hirabah actually goes beyond sionate Allah of the Qur’an … As a the FBI definition of terrorism, matter of truth-in-Islam, both the inasmuch as hirabah covers both ideas and the actions they produce directed and coincidental spread- must be called what they actu- ing of fear … Hirabah, as it turns ally are, beginning with the fact out, is the most severely pun- that al Qaeda’s brand of suicide ished crime in Islam, carrying mass murder and its fomenting mandatory criminal sanctions. of hatred among races, religions and cultures do not constitute Hakim writes that “the severest pun- godly or holy “jihad”—but, in ishments … are explicitly outlined in fact, constitute the heinous crime Qur’an 5:33-34, virtually the begin- and sin of unholy “hirabah” … ning and end of all juristic discussions such ungodly “war against soci- ety” should be condemned as on hirabah.” The punishments include 15 execution, , or amputation blasphemous and un-Islamic. of hands and feet, the latter for humil- iation in this life and for “grievous Even some Saudi-associated chastisement” in the next.13 Muslim organizations are in agree- One finds little doubt, then, that ment about the use of the word. One the idea of hirabah is a proper means such group is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), one of the

20 The Journal of International Security Affairs Making Jihad Work for America most influential Muslim groups in kill themselves and a handful of so- the United States and Canada—and called ‘infidels’ along the way.”18 reportedly an important promoter of more fundamentalist, even extremist, A linguistic offensive forms of Islam, with extensive Saudi It takes little effort and no money Arabian funding.16 According to ISNA to change the rhetoric and the think- Secretary General M. Syeed: ing about jihad, hirabah, and related Islamic terminology that shape and The Qur’an and the sayings of define ideas. There need be no bureau- the prophet emphatically dis- cratic restructuring, no congressional tinguished the term jihad from hirabah, a destructive act of rebel- appropriations or approval, no turf lion committed against God and battles; just awareness from public mankind. Hirabah is an act of ter- officials and a substitution of words. rorism, a subversive act inflicted To that end, the president and by an individual or a gang of other senior officials can and should individuals, breaking the estab- take the lead in changing the rheto- lished norms of peace, civic laws, ric of the War on Terror, generating treaties, agreements, moral and ethical codes … . While as [sic] headlines, controversy, and ultimately different forms of jihad are highly reflection around the world. They commendable acts of virtue, should also help to properly define hirabah is respected as a despica- jihad and hirabah in U.S. govern- ble crime… Individuals and groups ment glossaries and directories, and indulging in hirabah are con- enforce such a rhetorical change demned as criminals, subjected to throughout the United States govern- severe deterrent punishments under Islamic law and warned of far more ment, including the Departments of punishment and humiliation in the Defense, State and Justice, as well life after life.17 (Emphasis added). as the counterterrorism and law- enforcement agencies within them. Syeed’s statement is especially Elected officials should also under- important. His organization is the take to promote a similar transforma- largest supplier of Saudi-funded tion abroad. In particular, they should Islamic literature in more than 1,100 challenge the Saudi government and North American mosques, and the Saudi-funded entities like ISNA to source of much of the ideologically renounce the pro-terrorist interpreta- extreme interpretations of Islam tions of jihad, revive the concept of including the Salafist/Wahhabi inter- hirabah, and then identify and margin- pretations of jihad. alize practitioners of hirabah and those “Think of the disincentive to who support them. The U.S. is entitled young, hungry, cynical Muslims— to make this challenge because Saudi angry at their own governments and propaganda has fueled the justifica- angry at ours for bolstering theirs,” tion of terrorism in the name of jihad notes Anisa Mehdi, a journalist who around the world, and especially in and produced the documentary “Inside against the United States. Simultane- Mecca” for National Geographic Tele- ously, Washington should make a point vision. “If they heard ‘hirabah’ instead of highlighting the works of journal- of ‘jihad,’ if they heard ‘murder’ ists, commentators, clerics and others instead of ‘martyr,’ if they heard they worldwide that denounce Islamist ter- were bound for hell not heaven, they rorism as hirabah—and promote simi- might not be so quick to sign up to lar steps among Muslims at large.

The Journal of International Security Affairs 21 J. Michael Waller

If we are indeed engaged in a East Media Research Institute Special Report global war of ideas, then words are the no. 23, November 26, 2003. 5. Cheryl Benard, Civil Democratic Islam: principal armaments. Words define Partners, Resources and Strategies (Santa ideas, and ideas govern how people Monica: RAND Corporation, 2003), 12-13. think. The enemy has succeeded in 6. Ibid. redefining certain key words, and con- 7. U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, “Chap- sequently changed much of the world’s ter 6—Terrorist Groups,” Country Reports on perceptions by warping the language Terrorism 2004, April 27, 2005 (http://www. of the Qur’an and of historical Islam. state.gov/s/ct/rls/45394.htm). The results have provided the principal 8. Aboud al-Zumur, Jama’at al-Jihad al-Islami (The Methodology of the Islamic Jihad Group) justifications for terrorists to murder (Cairo, Egypt: Turah Penitentiary, 1986). innocents—mainly Muslims—in their Translated by the U.S. Department of State. war against society. 9. “[J]ihad against the infidel in every part Yet the linguistic and cultural of the world, is absolutely essential,” Bin Laden declared in his 1996 communiqué foundations of the societies in which demanding the ouster of U.S. forces from terrorists are raised and operate offer Saudi Arabia. That mission, the terrorist powerful weapons that civilization financier said, was to be carried out by “my can use against them. Islamic words, brothers, the mujahideen, the sons of the nation.” Osama Bin Laden, “Declaration of ideas, laws and customs can be the War against the Americans Occupying the United States’ best ally in the war, if Land of the Two Holy Places,” published in only the U.S. would recognize and Al Quds al Arabi (London), August, 1996. deploy them. 10. Asma Afsaruddin, letter to Jim Guirard, President of the TrueSpeak Institute in Alex- andria, Virginia. Guirard solicited and col- lected quotations on jihad and hirabah from Arab and Islamic scholars, and is considered 1. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary the principal figure behind taking back the of the English Language Unabridged (Spring- language from the extremists. The author field, MA: G&C Merriam Company, 1971). acknowledges and thanks him for providing 2. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (Spring- many of the quotations used in this article. field, MA: G & C Merriam Company, 1979). 11. Layla Sein, “Editorial,” Association of 3. Merriam-Webster Online, August 2005; Ency- Muslim Social Scientists AMSS Bulletin 3, clopædia Britannica adds, “In the 20th and no. 4 (2002), 2. 21st centuries the concept of jihad has some- 12. Antony T. Sullivan, letter to Jim Guirard. times been used as an ideological weapon 13. Sherman A. Jackson (a.k.a. Abdul Hakim), in an effort to combat western influences “Domestic Terrorism in the Islamic Legal and secular governments and to establish Tradition,” Muslim World 91, no. 3/4 (2001), an ideal Islamic society.” Britannica Concise 293-310. Encyclopædia, retrieved August 17, 2005 from 14. “Interview: Ezzeddin Ibrahim,” Middle East Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. Policy VIII, no. 4 (2001). 4. The Islamic Affairs Department of the 15. Akbar Ahmed, letter to Jim Guirard. Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington 16. Matthew Levitt, “Subversion from Within: issued the following exhortation on jihad on Saudi Funding of Islamic Extremist Groups its website (www.iad.org), in 2003: “Muslims Undermining U.S. Interests and the War are required to raise the banner of Jihad in on Terror from Within the United States,” order to make the Word of Allah supreme in Testimony before the Subcommittee on Ter- this world, to remove all forms of injustice rorism, Technology and Homeland Security and oppression, and to defend the Muslims. of the Committee on the Judiciary, United If Muslims do not take up the sword, the evil States Senate, September 10, 2003. tyrants of this earth will be able to continue 17. Sayyid M. Syeed, letter to Jim Guirard, cited oppressing the weak and [the] helpless.” The by Guirard, “Properly Condemning the al wording no longer appears on the Islamic Qaeda Blasphemy,” The American Muslim, Affairs Department site, but the Middle April 21, 2003. East Media Research Institute preserved the 18. Anisa Mehdi, “Let’s Rescue a Once-Beautiful wording for posterity. See Steven Stalinsky, Word from Its Captors,” Star-Ledger “The ‘Islamic Affairs Department’ of the (Newark), December 29, 2004. Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC,” Middle

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