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Fake Jihad - A New Term Coined By The Grand Mufti Of Saudi Arabia

Iqbal Latif - 7/22/2007

Two small words but a huge step forward emerging from the frozen barren intellectual landscape of Saudi Arabia. According to Orientalist Gilles Kepel, "fitna is sometimes translated by sedition, that is the fact that the Muslim community is fragmented because it has lost sense of proportions and realities, of maslaha, and that it is therefore delivered to the demons of extremism and is going towards its fall. It is the jihad which returns as a boomerang inside and weakens the community. The fitna is the ulemas' obsessive fear since Islam exist."

With new prominence of 'Fake Jihad' or Fitna by the Saudi grand Mufti one can safely assume that the battle of terror has helped create fissures in the edifice of the entire terror structure. This statement from closet sympathisers now turned moderates who never use to openly denounce the terror led slaughters. In its religious ocntext calling of the Alqaeda led terror by Grand Mufti as a 'fake Jihad' is equivalent to Papal led Roman Catholic Church ecumenical council considered infallible declaring guy marriage legitimate. In an interview, he said that there were large numbers of such elements, which were giving lessons of fake jihad to the youth and misguiding the common man.Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, have earlier also spoken out against those seeking to break out civil war in neighbouring Iraq.

When Al-Qaeda's number one in Iraq, the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared an all-out war against Shiites in 2005, the Mufti declared:

"Adding to the bloodshed and murder of innocents by planes and bombs are attempts by suspicious parties to trigger sectarian tension between the people of Iraq," said Al-Asheikh who was quoted by the Arab News daily. These jihadists were trying to stoke intra-religious clashes "to serve the aims of the enemies conspiring against Muslims," al-Asheikh argued. Additional reinforcement of views now by declaration such as 'Fake Jihad' or Fitna is a great leap forward.

It is generally argued that the post-9/11 US strategy was fatally flawed as it abandoned the traditional wisdom — authored by the grandees of old liberal Europe — of a measured response to terrorist attacks. The universally accepted response to terrorism featured a series of tactical attacks on terrorist assets, diplomacy and appeasement. As a consequence of the new policy, some say, an iron curtain has descended between the West and Islam. Even Salman Rushdie, the man who caused ripples with his Satanic Verses, has the cheek to suggest that 9/11 strategies have expanded the distance between nations of Islam and the West.

Such criticism represents an oversimplification. For the task before the architects of the war on terror was not easy by any stretch of the imagination: How were they to wage a war against a hidden enemy living within a free society as an undeclared combatant hell bent on destroying the very fabric of the society that sustained him? How were they to dissuade the terrorists, opposing everything an open society stands for, while upholding the basic tenets of democracy and civilised way of life?

"Self-claimed mujahideen with their version of jihad are only distracting Muslims," he said. Sheikh Abdul Aziz said that jihad, in present time, was to shun evil and follow the teachings of Islam. He said it was ironic that Muslims had divided into sects, and that each sect considered itself to be on the correct path and declared the other non-Muslim. The philosophical distance between' Jihad' and 'fake Jihad' is so enormous, it is actually calling Alqaeda movement in Quranic term as leading a 'Fitna.' Fitna signifies sedition, war in the heart of Islam, a centrifugal. force threatening the faithful with community fragmentation. That is what exactly happening in core of Islamic nations. This huge development is only possible as Bush led George Kennan like 'containment of terror' bears fruit. USSR imploded so will global terror outfits. It is long war but patiently pursued. Terror can only be controlled when their evil of slaughter will be felt by those who had remained silent as a matter of indifference and moral equivalence to political injustices.

The likes of Bin Laden believe in hegemony of the faithful over the infidel and a perpetual struggle until this goal is achieved. On the other hand, the West's response to terrorist attacks, from Munich and Beirut to the USS Cole, was conventional and stereotyped. Uncivilised behaviour was answered with an appeasing civility. It was the abandoning of this self-imposed restraint that made Bush such a hated man. Refusing to be held hostage to this liberal civility, he based the new strategy on: "Let them hate me as long as they fear me."

Before we chastise the policymakers in Washington, who had to deal with an unprecedented catastrophe in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, we must realise how technology and openness helped determined terrorists mount successful attacks. The primary US objective after 9/11 was to protect the country from further attacks. This has been accomplished. Terrorist attacks have also declined worldwide and once-enemy states are seen cooperating against terrorism.

As for political Islam, it has never remained calm as a minority. Zawahiris and Bin Ladens of the world will not rest until they see everybody bow before the pulpit. For them the struggle for dominance has to continue. Although they are a minority within the faithful — seen as those capable of bringing about the impossible — they attract a romantic following. Their infatuation with the dreams of Poitiers and Vienna does not let the 'moderates' in the nation of Islam denounce them wholeheartedly. Since the folklore of conquest has never really died despite the loss of leadership in arts and sciences, the rage of impotence has multiplied.

The misplaced ideas of conquest and dominance win the modern day extremists a lot of sympathisers. This is the root cause of the ambivalence of the 'moderates'. It is all in the mindset. And a change in mindset is possible only when reality of coexistence dawns on the rank and file of the faithful.The crucial issue between Islamic apologists was whether Iraq is the new land of jihad or of fitna, Indirectly Grand Mufti have referred to sectarianism and killing in Iraq as fitna. Although the grand Mufti lacks elected authority of Pope and its infallibility but it has great significance in light of continuous mutterings that new alienation and divide has been created as a result of war on terror. Containment of terror to' lands of pure' has led to realisation of entrenched ignorance. Grand Mufti statement is a big move forward within the frozen and barren landscape of Middle Eastern intellectuals. Every nation today should be searching for the enemy within.