ji·had·ica

The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 13 (Final)

Sayyid Imam wraps up his new book today.  Much of his final criticism is aimed at Bin Laden, whom he describes as incurious and incapable of holding himself accountable for his errors.  Regarding the latter, Imam compares Bin Laden negatively to Hassan Nasrallah, who apologized and offered compensation to the Lebanese civilians whose homes had been destroyed by Israeli bombing in the 2006 war (paging Andrew Exum).   Sayyid Imam ends by explaining why his attacks on Zawahiri and Bin Laden have become more personal: he felt obliged to do it after Zawahiri accused him of being an Egyptian tool before Imam’s first book had even been released.  Zawahiri’s more pointed personal attacks in the Exoneration prompted an even more personal response. Concluding… The Denudation is divided into four sections:   Exposing the lies of Zawahiri Exposing his jurisprudential errors Exposing the ways he misleads the reader Exposing his search

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The Impact Of The Denudation

When Sayyid Imam’s first book was released serially last year, CT pundits were split.  Some, like Lawrence Wright and Peter Bergen, said it was evidence of a serious fissure in the Jihadi Movement and would further divide it.  Others, like Michael Scheuer, said it was neither evidence of a fissure nor would it divide the movement because Sayyid Imam was being coerced, which instantly discredits his book.   From the beginning, I took issue with both sides.  I didn’t like the war-within position because I don’t believe that most Jihadis will change their minds upon reading Sayyid Imam; they’d require a lot more than that (family intervention, etc).  But I also didn’t like the nothing-to-see-here position because it too easily adopted a Jihadi talking point and because it, like the war-within position, did not see that the most important audience for Sayyid Imam’s book was the pious, educated Arab public,

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The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 12

  Sayyid Imam has some surprising things to say about Sayyid Qutb and some interesting speculation on Zawahiri’s tenuous position in al-Qaeda.  He also observes that Libyan and Mauritanian students serve as Zawahiri’s primary research assistants.  I don’t know about their nationalities, but there’s no doubt Zawahiri has research assistants (as do many productive academics).  Moreover, Zawahiri talks about Mauritanian seminarians coming to visit him and Bin Laden in his Exoneration, so it makes sense that some stayed on to help him write. Continuing… Zawahiri says in Knights that he joined al-Qaeda to unite the efforts of the Muslims.  That’s not true.  Zawahiri knew Bin Laden for 14 years, from 1987 to 2001, and never joined with him.  Rather, he criticized Bin Ladin harshly as a Saudi intelligence agent for merely reducing donations to his (Zawahiri’s) group in 1995.  To this end, Zawahiri wrote an article critical of Bin Laden called

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The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 11

In today’s installment, Sayyid Imam issues another mubahala, this time concerning the publication of his Compendium.  You’ll have to look at Zawahiri’s Exoneration to really understand what Sayyid Imam is reacting to, but in short he believes that Zawahiri plagarized his book.  There’s also some pointed barbs about Zawahiri’s hunger for media attention.  Imam connects the two lines of attack by saying that Zawahiri is largely talentless and instead relies on the hard work of others to attract the limelight.  Doubtless some of Jihadica’s readers know the type. Continuing… I am writing this book to warn people, especially the youth, who are being led by deviant ideas and fiery sermons to their doom.  These ideas and sermons have no avail and achieve nothing on the groud.  They are just media noise. Bin Laden has used Zawahiri to do his dirty work, which is distorting religion to justify Bin Laden’s ideas.

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The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 10

  Amidst the personal attacks on Zawahiri in part 10, Sayyid Imam mentions a few more interesting historical tidbits.  First, he notes the opposition of two prominent Jihadis, Abu Mus`ab al-Suri and `Abd al-Rahman al-Kindi (died in 2003), to the attacks on the U.S.  He also discloses that Zawahiri’s imprisoned brother, Muhammad, has been trying to cut a deal with the Egyptian authorities.  Finally, Sayyid Imam claims that Bin Laden told him that the Sudanese had encouraged him to turn against Saudi Arabia in 1994.  Whatever the truth of this last bit, it reminds us that states have frequently used al-Qaeda to their own ends. By the way, Nathan Field has a review of Sayyid Imam’s book.  His take: it’s lame.  I’ll withhold my final judgment until the whole book has been published but I like what I’ve seen so far.  It may be less theoretical than the first book and engage

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The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 9

Today, Sayyid Imam treats the issue of Palestine, arguing that a peace treaty with Israel is Islamically legitimate.  Although Imam also indicates that he wants it to be under Muslim control again, he argues that it won’t happen until the caliphate is reestablished.   In addition to the Palestinian issue, Sayyid Imam also explains more about the immediate context that produced the Document and now the Denudation: Islamist prison politics in Egypt.  His speculation on the use of terrorist attacks to increase the bargaining power of prisoners is interesting in light of the statement released by the Deccan Mujahideen which says that their principle demand is the release of Islamist militants in India. Continuing…  Palestine was not occupied until after the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate and it won’t return unless the caliphate returns.  Jihad in Palestine is obligatory on those who are able to do it, but it will

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The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 8

In part 8, Sayyid Imam continues to hammer al-Qaeda for bringing disaster to the Middle East and for the hypocrisy of its leaders.  He puts forward the odd claim that AQ lied to the U.S. about WMD in Iraq and about AQ ties with Iraq to push the U.S. to invade observes that Iran and Syria have been the primary beneficiaries of AQ’s antics in Iraq notes what any observer of the region already knows but rarely says: bashing the U.S. and Israel and talking about the Palestinian issue is great PR offers an excellent explanation as to why AQ will not get a foothold in the Palestinian territories claims that Bin Laden gave Saudi donations for jihad to Nawaz Sharif in support of his candidacy against Benazir Bhutto Continuing… Z claims that only the mujahids have thrawted the plans of the U.S.  That’s like Gamal Abdel Nasser’s slogan after the

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The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 7

In today’s installment, Sayyid Imam begins section three of his rebuttal in which he surveys the rhetorical tricks Zawahiri employs to misguide his readers.  Imam continues to portray Zawahiri as the student of Bin Laden, the inverse of the common description of their relationship.  To this end, Imam says that Zawahiri has adopted UBL’s obsession with oil.  The inversion may be pure invention, but it’s worth thinking about. Continuing…. In the first section, I demonstrated that Zawahiri is a liar, making him unfit to give religious opinions.  In the second section, I showed how he distorts the Sharia to justify mass murder.  He should call his book The Justification rather than The Exoneration. In this third section, I will expose the deceptions Z uses.  Z asks around one hundred questions in the Exoneration but does not offer any answer.  He does this to confuse the reader, leaving him in a thick

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The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 6

Sayyid Imam continues his rebuttal of Nasir al-Fahd; this time it’s for Fahd’s failure to differentiate his enemy.  In this regard, Imam adduces anti-war protests and British priests as examples of diverse political views in Western nations.  The most interesting bit comes toward the end when Imam takes up the subject of cursing the Prophet, which he did not cover in his first book.   Continuing: In the Exoneration, Zawahiri quotes Fahd as saying that a visa is a pact of safe passage that must not be violated by attacking the country that granted it.  But, Fahd says, America is like Ka`b b. al-Ashraf [see part 5] who harms God and His messenger Muhammad, so an American visa can be violated. Fahd has confused the subject of states giving pacts of safe passage to other states and states giving them to individuals.  He also misunderstands the story of Ka`b.  Moreover,

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The Denudation Of The Exoneration: Part 5

In part 5, Sayyid Imam takes up one of the more clever arguments of his earlier book: visas are the equivalent of an Islamic pact of safe passage (aman), which means that Muslims on visas in foreign nations cannot attack the citizens of those nations.  Of course, Imam throws in a little spice as well, disclosing that Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, Abu Hafs, and a mysterious third person were the only people who knew the specifics of the 9/11 plot. To continue: Only three people know of the 9/11 operation before it happened: Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, Abu Hafs al-Masri, and a third person–not Zawahiri–who found out about it only 24 hours before it happened.  Everyone else knew there would be an operation against the U.S. but didn’t know the specifics.  The Sharia Council objected on Sharia grounds because Bin Laden had not sought the permission of Mullah Omar.  It also objected

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