Jihadi terror is not new – it has ancient roots. Though some in the West see themselves as ‘post-Christian,’ many in the Islamic world look back with longing for the ‘Golden Age’ when mujahidin (jihadi armies) terrorized North Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe – Muslim warriors on horseback, armed with sabers and black flags. That black flag traces its roots to the very beginning of Islam: it was traditionally carried into jihadi battle by Muhammad and his armies.
Magnus Ranstorp, an expert on Islamic fundamentalist movements and the Research Director of the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defense College, notes that modern jihadi groups – al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (active in Yemen and Saudi Arabia), and the al-Shabab group in Somalia – all use the same flag. “The most important thing is the color. This raya (راية), the solid black flag, was the Prophet Mohammed’s war banner. This flag compresses time and space – it harks back to where they came from and where they are going. It is not just the color of jihad and of the caliphate, but it represents the coming of what some believers see as the final battle and the day of resurrection.” There is an Islamic End-of-Days element in the flag, pitting the forces of Islam against the Christian West. “This symbol tells us where they have come from, the sacredness of their mission and what they want – a caliphate.” “In the contemporary Islamist movement, the black flag is used to symbolize both offensive jihad and the proponents of reestablishing the Islamic Caliphate.”
There is a connection between the Islamist desire for the return of the Caliphate, and the activist terror tactics of jihad – the return of the Black Riders of jihad. For some historical and literary context, see the Nazgûl, and the oprichniki.
The aching vacuum
Islam began not with a whimper but with a bang. There are four stages which can help us to understand the Muslim past and how many Muslims understand their future.
The first stage was the revelation Muhammad received from a demonic spirit-being who called himself ‘Jibril’ and conveyed teaching that God’s name is not YHVH; that the Jewish people’s calling has ended; that Yeshua is not the Son of God; that He did not die on the cross; that every knee must bow not to Yeshua but to allah through Muhammad’s message.
The second stage was that this message must be declared to the whole world (in Arabic, da’wah). If it is received, the hearers become Muslims. If it is rejected, jihad (Islamic holy war) is declared against those who have not bowed the knee to the Jibrilian revelation. The choices here are three: convert under threat; become a slave-status dhimmi (Arabic for ‘protected’, but in reality a second class citizens with few civil rights and needing to pay a punishing tax called the jizya); beheading or some other form of killing.
The third stage was the caliphate – the governmental and organizational solidification of the Islamist dictatorship in all the countries that Islam conquered.
The fourth stage was the blunting of jihadi expansion in such countries like France (Charles Martel and the Battle of Tours/Poitiers in 732 A.D.); Vienna (the Siege of Vienna in 1529, and the Battle of Vienna in 1683); the Reconquista or ‘Reconquering’ of al-Andalus/Spain between 722 and 1492 A.D.. Combined with a waning of jihadi zeal and the growth of Islamic prosperity, Islamic theology began to declare a new definition – ‘dar al-‘Ahd’/ ‘dar al-Sulh’ (‘the house of truce’ or ‘house of treaty/conciliation’) – instead of continuous military jihad leading to full Islamist conquest of the world. This breakdown in Quranic Islamist strategy was described and rebuked by Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328). He adamantly insisted that Islam’s weakenings and defeats were due to Muslim adoption of Western culture, ideas and practices and a slacking of prosecuting jihad. The modern Salafi movement agrees, believing that these former empires lost their greatness because they had fallen away from ‘authentic Islam.’ Only a return to strict (‘salafi’) interpretation of Islamic shari’a law and a restoration of caliphate government would make Islam great again. That was (and remains) their perspective.
Two strategic questions guide modern Islamist revivalists:
- Should Islam’s first priority be to re-establish the caliphate, or should its first priority be to rekindle jihad?
- Should Islamic jihad be targeted against the overwhelmingly non-zealous ‘apostate’ leaders of modern Islamic countries leaders, or should jihad’s target be the traditional ‘dar al-Harb’ (Arabic for ‘the house of war’) – the pagan, Christian and Jewish states of the West?
The Egyptian Godfather and his four-fold cord
The collapse of the Ottoman/Turkish caliphate in 1924 led to movements for a revival of the Caliphate. The first major one was the Muslim Brotherhood, spearheaded by Hassan al-Banna. The vision of the Muslim Brotherhood as per al-Banna: the formation of an Islamic state governed by shari’a and a return to a society modelled after that of Muhammad and his first followers. The purpose of the Muslim Brotherhood was and remains: to restore Islam to the global power and dominance over Christendom that it had wielded for more than a thousand years; and, to return Islam to its divine destiny – the unification of all regimes under the banner of the Caliphate, the universal Islamic state.
Four of Al-Banna’s disciples became the apostles of jihad: Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, Jordanian Abdullah Azzam, Yemenite/Saudi Osama bin Laden and Egyptian Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), an Egyptian political theorist and revolutionary, was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and is considered the ‘father of Salafi jihadism,’ and ‘intellectual godfather of Osama bin Laden.’ His philosophy underpins those of both al-Qaeda and ISIS. Here are four links to articles explaining his significant influence on jihadi thought and action:
Qutb was the founding father and leading theoretician of the contemporary extremist movement, and was one of the two most influential Muslim thinkers of this century (the other being Indian Abul A’la Maududi). Most Sunni Islamic revolutionaries base their models of revolution on Qutb’s epic book ‘Milestones.’ William McCants, of US Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, notes that the jihadi enemies of the West “cite Sayyid Qutb repeatedly and consider themselves his intellectual descendants. ”
Whereas Hassan al-Banna tried to build an Islamic society from the bottom up, Qutb developed a top-down approach, focused on removing non-Islamic rulers and governments. He advocated the use of violence to establish Islamic rule, inspiring thousands to take up the cause of “establishing God’s rule on earth” (i.e., the Caliphate). But Qutb struggled with the reality that most Muslims were not zealously committed to jihad. His perspectives can be condensed to the following three Arabic words:
Jahiliyya – originally meant to describe pre-Islamic ignorance and barbarism, Qutb expanded the term to include both the whole non-Muslim world and most of what is considered the Islamic world, since they are not ruled by a strict interpretation of shari’a (original Islamic law). Instead of adopting al-Banna’s dream of establishing an Islamic state in Egypt after a systematic and patient Islamization, Qutb called for a revolutionary vanguard which would first establish an Egyptian Islamic state by violent jihadi revolution.
Shari’a (original Islamic law) – Qutb scorned and spurned the Islamic scholars and medieval commentators, declaring that they had departed from the original early Islamic teachings of Muhammad. Their religious structures (and the states that support them) are all ‘takfir’ – heretical, and should be removed. A valid caliphate is only one which uncompromisingly holds to the teachings of Muhammad without compromise.
Violent jihad – Al-Banna and Qutb both advocated violent jihad. Qutb now provided an Islamist theological basis for violent jihad against Muslim governments as well. Specifically: Jihad is to encompass the entire world. All current Muslim governments are heretical, because they do not uncompromisingly obey shari’a. Therefore, jihad must be carried out in all countries that do not obey shari’a law. Any place where the Islamic shari’a law is not enforced and where Islam is not dominant is seen by Qutb and his followers as ‘dar al-Harb’ – the territory of war and hostilities.
Qutb’s blend of Islamist and Nazi anti-Semitism
Qutb was influenced by classical Islamist anti-Semitism, and he faithfully passed on what had been transmitted to him through his religious training. To this foundation he added classic Nazi racist teachings of Judenhass – Jew-hatred. Here are some examples of his teaching:
- “Explaining the purpose of man and his historical role in philosophical terms is one of the tricks played by world Jewry, whose purpose is to eliminate all limitations, especially the limitations imposed by faith and religion, so that Jews may penetrate into body politics of the whole world and then may be free to perpetuate their evil designs. At the top of the list of these activities is usury, the aim of which is that all the wealth of mankind end up in the hands of Jewish financial institutions which run on interest” [Qutb, ‘Milestones’, pp. 110-111]
- “At the beginning the enemies of the Muslim community did not fight openly with arms but tried to fight the community in its belief through intrigue, spreading ambiguities, creating suspicions. They do likewise today. They have plotted and they go on plotting against this nation. Hundreds and thousands have infiltrated the Muslim world, and they still do in the guise of Orientalists. The pupils of the latter fill today the positions of the intellectual life of the countries whose people call themselves Muslim. Their aim is clearly shown by the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion]. The Jews are behind materialism, animal sexuality, the destruction of the family and the dissolution of society. Principal among them are Marx, Freud, Durkheim and the Jew Jean-Paul Sartre.”
- The Jews have confronted Islam with enmity from the moment the Islamic state was established in Medina . . . The Muslim community continues to suffer the same Jewish machinations and double-dealing which discomfited the early Muslims. This is a war which has not been extinguished … for close on fourteen centuries its blaze has raged in all the corners of the earth and continues to this moment. (Sayyid Qutb, ‘Ma’rakatuna ma’a al-Yahud,’ (Our Battle Against the Jews) [essay written in 1951. Published in book of the same name [Ma’rakatuna ma’a al-Yahud], Jedda, Saudi Arabia, 1970). Just as Wagner and the Nazis insisted that the Jews had ‘corrupted’ ‘true’ Aryan and German culture, Qutb expounded on the idea that Jews had infiltrated and corrupted Islam. This idea may have begun from his efforts to discredit the ‘Israeliyya’ – portions of Islamic lore that were believed to have been inserted by Jews into Islamic tradition, but it bears an uncanny resemblance to Nazi propaganda.
- “Just as in the past, it was the Jews who had disrupted the early Islamic community… it was the Jews who had more recently undermined Islam by installing a generation of fifth-columnists in its midst, posing as true Muslims but in reality betraying the Muslim cause… The Jews have installed… a massive army of agents in the form of professors, philosophers, doctors, researchers… some even from the ranks of the Muslim religious authorities…intending to break the creed of the Muslims by weakening the Sharia in many ways… with this and that they fulfil the ancient rule of the Jews.” (Sayyid Qutb, ‘Our Battle Against the Jews’, Jedda, Saudi Arabia, 1970). Qutb’s virulently anti-Semitism is independent of any issues related to Israel or Zionism.
From Jordanian Jenin to Russian Jihad
Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam was born in 1941, in the village of Silat al-Harithiyah northwest of Jenin (then Jordan), just south of Afula in modern Israel. He studied Islamic Law (shari’a) at Damascus University’s Sharia College and at Cairo’s al-Azhar University. He later developed the slogan “Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences and no dialogues!”. In the mid-1970’s he lectured at King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where one of his reverent students and later aide-de-camp was Osama bin Laden. In 1981 Azzam moved to Pakistan, becoming one of the top figures in the Afghani jihad against the Russians in Afghanistan. The Islamic epicenter of Saudi Arabia heavily funded his jihad activities at that time. In 1984 he co-founded MAK (Maktab Khadamāt al-Mujāhidīn al-‘Arab), a pre-al-Qa’eda organization for recruiting jihadi warriors to face combat against Russian forces in Afghanistan. In November and December 1989 he established a vanguard jihadi organization known as ‘al-Qaidah al-Sulbah’ (Arabic for ‘the solid base’). Azzam wrote an article at the time in the monthly al-Jihad (April 1988) declaring a global Islamic jihad:
- “Every principle must have its vanguard that will carry it forth. [The vanguard] will pay a steep price and suffer many losses while paving the road for the [Islamic] society. There is no belief, either earthly or heavenly, that does not need such a vanguard, one that will give all it has for its belief to be victorious. This vanguard is the solid base (‘al-Qaidah al-Sulbah’) of the society we are awaiting.”
In December 1987 Azzam maintained close contact with Hamas as it was being established, as well as with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This was no surprise, since both groups were birthed out if the same parent movement – the Muslim Brotherhood. Both Azzam and Hamas founders had been Muslim Brotherhood members. Azzam called Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin “the symbol of the firm position of the Islamic movement.” Azzam’s closeness of heart to Hamas is seen in his book ‘Hamas: The Historical Roots and the Charter’, where he declares that only Hamas is capable of restoring Palestine into Muslim hands.
Abdullah Azzam worked with the CIA to arm and train Taliban jihadi fighters against Soviet Forces in Afghanistan. Azzam’s Islamic perspective was that three things were necessary for an Islamic End-of-Days scenario:
- World-wide jihad must be waged wherever possible, until Islam is victorious
- As countries would become exclusively Islamic territories and ruled by shari’a , Islamic sub-states could be established
- When Israel is destroyed and all Christians are subjugated or killed or converted to Islam, then a world caliphate would be established.
This apocalyptic Islamist scenario is the prime motivator for the jihadi terrorists of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank; for HTS (Hay’at al-Tahrir as-Sham) in Syria; for much of Turkey’s leadership; for Islamic State/Da’esh in Iraq and Syria; etc. The Muslim vision for the restoration of the Caliphate, for world Islamic control and for crushing defeat of Israel and the West, is something that most Westerners (and even many Israelis) do not fully grasp. Much prayer and dedicated intercession is needed on these matters.
How shall we then pray?
- Pray for revelation and courage to be given to Israel’s leaders in political, intelligence and military spheres – to understand and counteract strategies against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8) – as jihadi armies gather at our borders.
- Pray that enemy strategies against the Jewish people and their state, against Middle East Christians and other minorities – will be confounded, and that a great harvest would take place in all of these areas!
- Pray for the protection of Israeli and Jewish people from the assaults of jihadi terror organizations and Western fellow-travelers, and the return of the Jewish people to both the Land and the Messiah of Israel
- There are approximately 44 to 50 living Israeli hostages remaining, kidnapped by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP/PLO. Plans are tentatively underway to release a total of 33 out the 98 remaining Israeli hostages – half who are dead. Hamas is holding on to their corpses as cold storage bargaining chips. That would leave 65 hostages with Hamas, some dead, some alive. Pray for the release of all the hostages, and for YHVH’s justice to be brought on the heads of the Hamas kidnappers
- Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth
Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
Donations can be sent to:
FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES
BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA
Donations can also be made on-line (by PayPal or credit card) through: https://www.davidstent.org/
