From the Spirituality of Jihad to the Ideology of Jihadism

The exertion or effort in question has to be in God, and not just for God; in other words, it must be conducted within a divine framework and thus be in harmony with all the spiritual and ethical qualities that pertain to that framework; only on this condition will God guide the mujahideen along the appropriate paths, whether the exertion in question be conducted in the realm of outward warfare, moral and social endeavor, intellectual and scholarly effort, or, at its most profound, spiritual struggle against that greatest enemy, one’s own congenital egotism. In this conception of jihad, the end does not justify the means; on the contrary, the means must be in total conformity with the end: if one’s struggle is truly for God, it must be conducted in God—both the means and the end should be defined by divine principles, thus encompassed and inspired by the divine presence. The employment of vile means betrays the fact that the end in view is far from divine; instead of struggling for God and in God, the goal of any jihad in which the murder of innocents is deemed legitimate cannot be divinely inspired; even if decked out in the trappings of Islamic vocabulary, it can only emerge as a product of a thoroughly un-Islamic jihadist ideology.

In this light, it is wholly understandable that, in the aftermath of the brutal attacks of September 11, many in the West and in the Muslim world are appalled by the fact that he mass-murder perpetrated on that day is being hailed by some Muslims as an act of jihad. Only the most deluded souls could regard the attacks as having been launched by mujahideen,” striking a blow in the name of Islam against “legitimate targets” in the heartland of “the enemy.” Despite its evident falsity, the image of Islam conveyed by this isfiguration of Islamic principles is not easily dislodged from the popular imagination in the West. There is an unhealthy and dangerous convergence of perception between, on the one hand, those—albeit a tiny minority—in the Muslim world who see the attacks as
part of a necessary anti-western jihad, and, on the other, those in the West—unfortunately, not such a tiny minority—who likewise see the attacks as the logical
expression of an inherently militant religious tradition, one that is irrevocably opposed to the West.

Although of the utmost importance in principle, it appears to matter little in practice that Muslim scholars have pointed out that the terror attacks are totally devoid of any legitimacy in terms of Islamic law (sharÏ¢a) and morality. The relevant legal principles—that jihad can only be proclaimed by the most authoritative scholar of jurisprudence in the land in question; that there were no grounds for waging a jihad in the given situation; that, even within a legitimate jihad, the use of fire as a weapon is prohibited; that the inviolability of non-combatants is always to be strictly observed; that suicide is prohibited in Islam—these principles, and others, have been properly stressed by the appropriate sharÏ¢a experts; and they have been duly amplified by leaders and statesmen in the Muslim world and the West. Nonetheless, here in the West, the abiding image of “Islamic jihad” seems to be determined not so much by legal niceties as by images and stereotypes, in particular, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the potent juxtaposition of two scenes: the apocalyptic carnage at “Ground Zero”—where the Twin Towers used to stand; and mobs of enraged Muslims bellowing anti-Western slogans to the refrain of “All¥hu akbar.”

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