The Two-Hundred-Year War

Going on five years since September 11, 2001, and many, if not most, Americans seem very uncertain about what it means that we are at war—or whether we really are at war. There is a nearly unanimous agreement that there are “terrorists” out there, and maybe some among us, and that they mean us harm; therefore we should be alert and take appropriate preventive measures. But there is still a puzzlement in public discussions about why they dislike us so much and how best to engage in dialogue in order to stop a minority of fanatics from hijacking the peaceful religion of Islam for their violent purposes. It is dangerously misleading, some say, to speak of our being at war. We do face a challenge, and it could assume ominous proportions, but the way to respond is by dialogue and, when dialogue fails, by police action to stop or punish criminal activity. But we must not let ourselves think that we are at war.

There have also been forceful voices rejecting that view as naive and potentially suicidal. Norman Podhoretz has been writing in Commentary about our being in the midst of World War IV (the Cold War was World War III). And, although many describe it as alarmist, Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is an unavoidable presence in these discussions, while others were awakened to the present danger by David Pryce-Jones’ The Closed Circle or Bat Y’eor’s writings on jihad, dhimmitude, and Europe’s continuing decline and fall into “Eurabia.”

Of particular interest also are the books of Fouad Ajami, Dream Palace of the Arabs and The Arab Predicament. The scholarly work of Bernard Lewis has received extended attention in these pages. His What Went Wrong? and The Crisis of Islam are invaluable introductions to the historical, cultural, and political origins of the resentments that feed radical Islam’s hostility to the West. Although these writers are not agreed on every aspect of what the phrase means, they are convinced that we are “at war.”

As almost always, there is another side to the argument. Popular on college campuses is John Esposito’s The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? The case for Islam as a “religion of peace” is pleasantly advanced in Karen Armstrong’s recent Islam. And then there are the anti-American tirades of Noam Chomsky, such as Hegemony and Survival and Imperial Ambitions. Leaving aside the many partisan rants against the Bush administration and all its works, there are thoughtful writers who are eagerly, even desperately, determined to resist the claim that we are at war.

Into this frequently confused and heated discussion comes a new book from Yale University Press. Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror is by Mary Habeck of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. The book, which is admirably accessible also to the nonspecialist, is particularly valuable in its careful distinction between Islam as such and those within Islam who have no doubt that they are at war with the rest of the world, including most of the Islamic world (which they view as the pseudo-Islamic world).

Some speak of “radical” or “fundamentalist” Islam, others prefer the terms “Islamism” and “Islamists.” Habeck suggests that the more accurate terminology is “jihadis” and “jihadism.” She leaves no doubt that, whatever the terms used, the threat is inextricably part of Islam. For perhaps understandable reasons, she wants to distance herself from the Huntington argument which critics depict—falsely, I think—as over-heated. She writes, “The conflict that jihadis believe is inevitable has nothing to do with Samuel Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations.’“ It is the jihadis, she contends, who believe in the Huntington thesis:

In their reading of history, the conflict between the United States and Islam is part of a universal struggle between good and evil, truth and falsehood, belief and infidelity, that began with the first human beings and will continue until the end of time. A literal clash of civilizations is taking place around the world and, in the end, only one system can survive: Muslims must rid the earth of democracy or else the supporters of democracy (especially the United States, but the entire “West” as well) will destroy true Islam.

A particular merit of Habeck’s book is that she takes with utmost seriousness the centrality of religion in the jihadist view of the world. Economic and political factors related to modernization and the history of colonialism of course play a part. But Habeck writes:

In contrast to Western critics of colonialism, who attribute European imperialism to capitalism, power politics, or greed, the jihadis argue that religion alone explains this hostility. The entire purpose of imperialism was, in this view, to destroy Islam. . . . The decline of Islam is thus not mainly the result of internal weaknesses or sin by the Muslims themselves, but is rather the deliberate policy of an external religious enemy whom jihadis can—and do—blame for all the evils suffered by Muslims around the world.

In this view, the Crusades have never ended. Habeck writes, “The five-hundred-year gap between the ending of the Crusades and the start of French and British incursions into Egypt is glossed over as if it does not exist. To eliminate Islam, the Christian colonizers used every wicked tool at their disposal.” Missionary and educational efforts, the imposition of European legal codes, and every other facet of colonialism were aimed at destroying Islam. “With the collapse of the European empires, the United States took up the cause and—through its ideology of liberalism—is now the leading spirit behind the attempts by falsehood to destroy Islam and kill or convert the Muslims.” For this reason, the United States is called the “Greater Unbelief,” worse even than the unbelief of apostate Muslims (of whom, in the jihadist view, there are many).

Sympathetic Western writers about Islam laud the period in which Islam was an advanced culture, integrating Greek philosophy and scientific curiosity, and employing the capacities of human reason to interpret sacred texts. “The jihadis,” writes Habeck, “will have none of this argument, since for them the intermixing of Greek and Western ideas with Islam only further polluted an already weakened religion.” The jihadist interpretation of Islam, she underscores again and again, is the traditionalist interpretation. They are not the innovators who have “hijacked” Islam for alien purposes but are the defenders of a faith that they believe has been lethally compromised by Muslims in thrall to the seductions of modernity. Here is Habeck’s central argument:

The consistent need to find explanations other than religious ones for the [jihadist] attacks says more about the West than it does about the jihadis. Western scholars have generally failed to take religion seriously. Secularists, whether liberals or socialists, grant true explanatory power to political, social, or economic factors but discount the plain sense of religious statements made by the jihadis themselves. To see why jihadis declared war on the United States and [try] to kill as many Americans as possible, we must be willing to listen to their own explanations. To do otherwise is to impose a Western interpretation on the extremists, in effect to listen to ourselves rather than to them.

It is the great merit of Habeck’s book that she compels us to listen to them rather than to ourselves. Extreme jihadist thinking goes way back, certainly long before the modern period, colonialism, and developments such as the establishment of the State of Israel. The ideological lineage is traced from the thirteenth century up through Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792) of Saudi Arabia’s officially promoted Wahhabism, Mohammed Rashid Rida (d. 1935), Hassan al-Banna (d. 1949), and the powerfully influential Egyptian theorist Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966). Although there are variations and disagreements among these figures, this is the religious-ideological lineage claimed by al-Qaeda and figures such as Osama bin Laden.

If one asks what they want, the answer is that they want the world to submit to Islam, which is to say, to Allah as revealed in the Qur’an and authoritatively interpreted by what they consider to be authentic tradition. The generally accepted Muslim belief is that “the Torah and Gospels were sent down for a particular people at a particular time, while the Qur’an is for all of humanity throughout all time.” While all Muslims believe that Islam is intended for the entire world, jihadis believe the world “must be brought to recognize this fact peacefully, if possible, and through violence if not.” Habeck says there is hope “that a more tolerant vision of orthodox Islam can win out, using the very traditions and texts that the extremists claim to honor,” but it would appear that that more tolerant vision is today on the defensive.

In the jihadist vision, “Islam becomes a sort of liberation theology, designed to end oppression by human institutions and man-made laws and to return God to his rightful place as unconditional ruler of the world.” In this connection, Christians may recognize similarities not only with liberation theology but also with the “theonomist” or “reconstructionist” ideology associated with the late R.J. Rushdoony, a Calvinist of a theocratic bent. In jihadi eyes, the most fundamental error of Western liberalism is the distinction, even division, of the sacred and profane, resulting in what the very influential Qutb termed a “hideous schizophrenia.” Christians misread (or perhaps invented) the words of Jesus about rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, which resulted in the Christian failure to seize and hold state power. Muslims, they say, must not make the same mistake.

Western apologists routinely point out that “jihad” can mean not warfare but a personal spiritual struggle. However, by far the dominant meaning of jihad, Habeck notes, is warfare understood not as “holy war” but as “just war”—”a war that is justified for Muslims because it means to free other people from falsehood and lead them to truth.” This just war is open-ended. In the words of al-Banna, “Moreover, we will not stop at this point, but will pursue this evil force to its own lands, invade its Western heartland, and struggle to overcome it until all the world shouts by the name of the Prophet and the teachings of Islam spread throughout the world.” Islam is nothing less than a universal “army of salvation” to conquer the world.

There are, to be sure, passages in the Qur’an suggesting that “people of the book,” meaning Christians and Jews, can be peacefully tolerated. But the Qur’an was “sent down” to Mohammed over twenty years, and the tradition to which the jihadis subscribe holds that the later passages “abrogate” the earlier. As Habeck writes, “There is thus no longer any need to accept Christians and Jews as fellow believers. They have only the choices outlined in the later verses of the Qur’an—either to accept Islam, to submit to Muslim domination [dhimmitude], or to die. Polytheists (like Hindus) have only the choice of conversion or death.”

There are strategic disagreements among jihadis. Some hold that the first front of war is to reestablish authentic Islam within the Islamic world, while others contend that the Greater Unbelief embodied in the United States is the priority target. It is agreed that any land once conquered by Islam, or where Islam was prevalent, must be brought under the sway of dar al-Islam (the house of Islam). The jihadis who carried out the March 2004 bombings in Madrid gave as one of their reasons the “Spanish crusades against the Muslims” (the reconquista), noting that “it has not been so long since the expulsion from Al-Andalus and the courts of the Inquisition.” By the same claim, the entire Balkans, Hungary, Romania, Austria, the Crimea, and Poland are eternally Islamic lands for which a defensive, albeit belatedly defensive, jihad is to be waged.

No Borders With Unbelievers

Jihadis agree on the imperative of “opening the nations for Islam.” Habeck writes: “Jihadis thus neither recognize national boundaries within the Islamic lands nor do they believe that the coming Islamic state, when it is created, should have permanent borders with the unbelievers. The recognition of such boundaries would end the expansion of Islam and stop offensive jihad, both of which are transgressions against the laws of God that command jihad to last until Judgment Day or until the entire earth is under the rule of Islamic law.” In sum, “Muslims have been given the leadership of the entire planet.”

It is recognized that the achievement of this goal will be neither fast nor easy, especially since most of existent Islam is deemed to be apostate. One influential jihadist group argues that the false Muslims now in control of Islamic lands will have to be killed, along with everyone who in any way supported them, “even if this led to the killing of millions of Muslims and to the martyrdom of millions of believers.” (Believers, as distinct from nominal Muslims.) Jihadis tell their supporters not to be discouraged by a lack of a mass uprising by the umma, the Muslim community, but to patiently persevere in obedience to the command of God. “This,” writes Habeck, “is a war that could last two hundred years, but eventually Islam will produce another Salah al-Din [Saladin] who will rouse the Islamic world, unite the Muslims against their enemies, and drive them from the lands of their community.”

We in the West would like to believe that Muslims, like everybody else, basically want the peace, freedom, and prosperity that we associate with democracy and a market economy. What we would like to think they want the jihadis view as the heart of the evil against which they are waging war. Sovereignty, including political sovereignty, belongs to God alone. Rulers and legislators of every sort have only one duty, which is to uncompromisingly implement the revealed laws of God without the slightest modification. The democratic theory that the people are sovereign is simply blasphemy and rebellion against the rule of God. “Unlike Islamists,” writes Habeck, “who agree that there should be no separation between religion and politics but who do not necessarily reject democratic governance, jihadis want nothing to do with ‘man-made’ laws or men legislating according to their own choices and desires.” It is argued that, even if the laws were identical to those of the sharia, if they were adopted in a democratic system, they would be illegitimate and kufr—meaning contrary to Islam.

The Best Hope

This is fanaticism of a very bloody and rigorous order. Mary Habeck’s great service is to help us understand what these jihadis believe, and that what they believe is firmly rooted in Islamic tradition, although it is not the only understanding of that tradition. When it comes to what we should do, she is modest. She believes that the U.S. attack on the jihadi regime of Afghanistan badly shook the confidence of leaders such as bin Laden. In view of feckless American responses to jidahi attacks in Beirut, Somalia, and elsewhere, he had assured his followers that the United States did not have the will or ability to fight back. Habeck has relatively little to say about U.S. policy in Iraq but emphasizes that Islam might take a more tolerant turn were the Palestine-Israel conflict somehow resolved. One can readily agree with that, but such a resolution is nowhere on the horizon.

She writes, “The term ‘war on terror’ has never been satisfactory because it suggests that this is war against a tactic, that there is no agency (or enemy), and that it will be difficult if not impossible to know when the war is won.” She suggests we might call it “the war on jihadis” or “the war on jihadism” or “the war on the khawarij.” (The khawarij were heretics who, soon after the death of Mohammed, claimed they were the only true believers.) I don’t see “the war on the khawarij” really catching on. Perhaps the war on Jihadism, if the term became as recognizable as “Nazism” or “Communism.” Meanwhile, it seems we’re stuck with “the war on terror.”

Claiming no originality for the suggestion, Mary Habeck ends her book by suggesting that democracy is the best hope, although democracy attuned to Islamic religion and culture. “Only democratization will directly attack the jihadist ideology while creating governments that are more responsive to their citizens. The jihadist argument is that democracy is completely antithetical to Islam and moreover is specifically designed to destroy the religion. If democracies can flourish in Islamic lands without disturbing the practices and beliefs of Islam, the entire jihadist argument will collapse.” In view of everything she has said up to the last page, that is an ominously big if.

But, as with almost all decisions of consequence, one must ask, What is the alternative? Habeck does not speculate on how many Muslims are part of or sympathetic to the jihadist cause, along with its networks of terrorism intended to advance what is viewed as a just war against the infidel. She is very clear that their religious beliefs justify and, in some circumstances, mandate suicide bombing and mass slaughter by nuclear, biochemical, and other means. I recently heard an expert on Islam remark—I think he intended to be reassuring—that “probably no more than ten percent” of Muslims support the jihadist ideology. Ten percent is somewhat over a hundred million people. How many of a hundred million are prepared to die in attacks, including suicide attacks, on the Greater Unbelief? Nobody knows.

Fanatical ambitions to conquer the world will strike many as simply fantastical, and they almost certainly are that. But we can only speculate on what would be the American response to an attack in this country that killed, say, a hundred thousand or more people. The jihadis have speculated long and hard about that, and they are confident that any probable scenario would play into their hands, rallying more millions of the faithful to their cause. And it is possible that they are right. One alternative is not to respond. As Toynbee observed, most great nations die by suicide.

The wan hope is held out that Islam will become more tolerant as Muslims become more secular. Certainly many Muslims are attracted to the fruits of modernity—fruits both rich and rotten. But secularization as a comprehensive process is a now-dated phenomenon peculiar to Western, and mainly European, societies. It seems very unlikely that most Muslims will buy into modernity if it means a betrayal of their identity as faithful Muslims.

So it comes down to who gets to define what it means to be a faithful Muslim. Jihadism in its various forms has for two hundred years been a contender in defining Islamic fidelity, and it would appear to be stronger today than ever before. Its cosmic vision of Islamic victory is promulgated in mosques and schools around the world, being handsomely funded by oil-rich nations such as Saudi Arabia.

As is obvious in Europe, that vision is powerfully appealing to young Muslims, including those who are second or third-generation immigrants. The jihadis declare that they are prepared for a war of two hundred years, or as long as it takes, even to the Day of Judgment.

Knowing the Enemy will strike some as an excessively belligerent title. But when a formidable force declares itself to be your deadly enemy, and is effectively acting on that declaration, it is the better part of wisdom to recognize it as an enemy and try to understand what it is up to, and why. That recognition does not provide clear answers on how to counter or defeat the enemy. Certainly every resource of honest dialogue and negotiation should be employed to persuade people that they need not and should not be our enemy. But a careful reading of Habeck—along with the likes of Huntington, Ajami, and Lewis—leaves no doubt that millions of people possessed of lucidly lethal intentions in obedience to what they believe to be the commands of God have declared war on us, and therefore we are, not by our choice, at war. It is deeply troubling that so many Americans have not yet come to recognize that sobering reality.