The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge Middle East Studies)
by Fawaz A. Gerges
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Book Summary Information
Author: Fawaz A. GergesEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-09-05
ISBN: 0521791405
Number of pages: 358
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Book Reviews of The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge Middle East Studies)
Book Review: Essential for understanding Jihadism.
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the story behind Al Qaeda and the events that led to the attacks on America in 2001. Gerges gives an intimate portrait of the events and personalities that caused radical Islamists to abandon their traditional fight against al-Adou al-Qareeb, the near enemy (regimes like Egypt), and take on the far more dangerous, al-Adou al-Baeed, the far enemy (U.S.A).
Gerges offers a penetrating critique of the shallow way in which terrorism and Islam are generally seen in the West. Through interviews with jihadis, a close reading of Al Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri's memoirs and examination of countless captured documents Gerges provides a look into the inner workings of the jihadi world--and acts as a counterweight to the sloppy scholarship that informs the prevailing ideas about Islamist terrorism.
The jihadist movement originates in the early 1970s as a reaction against the authoritarian regime in Egypt and was inspired by Sayyid Qutb. Qutb and the jihadis who followed in his wake elevated the importance of jihad, which they equated with armed struggle, believing it to be equal with the five pillars of Islam, a notion rejected by virtually every religious authority in the Islamic world.
Gerges points out that since the time of Mohammad, jihad has been seen as fard kifaya, or a collective duty, the agenda of which can only be determined by the whole community. Jihadis, on the other hand, consider it to be fard 'ayn, or a permanent and personal obligation. As such, jihadis believe that they are justified in taking up arms on their own authority.
Fawaz corrects misconceptions regarding jihad and its place in Islam. The first is to note that while all jihadis share this conception of jihad, they represent "a tiny ... minority," even among Islamists. Theirs is far from the dominant view. The second misconception--and the crux of this book's argument--is that the jihadist movement has always seen the U.S. as its primary enemy. Quite the contrary, Al Qaeda's attack on America was the result of a "civil war within the jihadist movement" and "represented a monstrous mutation, an implosion from within, not just another historical phase in the movement's evolution."
Jihadis always saw the near enemy as their main foe. `Apostate' rulers stood in the way of establishing an Islamic government. It was to this end that al-Jama'a al-Islamiya and Tanzim al-Jihad assassinated Anwar Sadat. As late as 1995, Zawahiri was preaching jihad against the near enemy exclusively. Despite his subsequent alliance with Osama bin Laden and his conversion to transnational terrorism, "the overwhelming majority of jihadis have been religious nationalists whose fundamental goal was to effect change in their own society."
Gerges exposes the fissures within jihadist movements which led to the rupture that created Al Qaeda style transnational terroristm. The Jihadists were defeated in Egypt and Algeria. By the mid-1990s, most of the leaders were dead or imprisoned. The place remaining for the jihadis was Afghanistan, home to mujahedeen who had served American foreign policy. Gerges points out that Muslim states themselves encouraged local jihadis to travel to Afghanistan in order to deflate the jihadist threat at home.
Zawahiri made the choice to join Bin Laden in the 1990s and subsume Tanzim al-Jihad into Al Qaeda--without the knowledge and against the wishes of his top lieutenants--because joining Al Qaeda would allow him to keep some of his influence in the jihadist universe. The only choices left to him were to join forces with a new breed of terrorists whose ideas he had never before championed, or to fade away into obscurity.
The collapse of traditional jihadis was intellectual as well as military. Far from being a vanguard, the jihadis "have conceptually reached a dead end and no longer possess radically original ideas of any consequence." Al Qaeda striking out at the United States was not the pinnacle of the jihadist movement. Rather, it was an act of desperation that aimed to save the sinking ship by precipitating a "clash of civilisations" with America that would bring the ummah, into the battle on the jihadists' side.
So, the 9/11 attacks were an utter failure. Islamic opinion after the attacks on America were almost universally critical of Al Qaeda. The criticism of the attacks in Muslim lands was barely mentioned in the Western media who, instead, prefer to portray Muslims in an almost universal bad light.
Gerges corrects this imbalance by delineating prevailing public opinion following the 9/11 attacks. While members of the intelligentsia and the religious leadership throughout Muslim lands were united in their opposition to Al Qaeda, the most vehement criticism came from members of al-Jama'a al-Islamiya itself, who hold Al Qaeda responsible for sullying the name of jihad and recklessly endangering the ummah as well.
No such complexities exist in the Western media, however. The schism within the jihadist movement simply does not fit the template of terrorism. Much more common is an uncritical acceptance of the notion of a `clash of civilisations'.
When seen through the lens of the Western media, the multiplicity of cultures in the Islamic world merges into an undifferentiated soup of anger and discontent. As Gerges points out, nothing could be further from the truth.
One of the reasons that people tend to conflate Al Qaeda's nihilistic vision with general Muslim sentiment is that too much Al Qaeda propaganda is taken at face value. Gerges takes the 9/11 Commission to task for their reliance on Al Qaeda sources, who are misleading. The transnational jihadis, who represent a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction, would like people to believe that they carry more weight than they do.
Gerges points out that Al Qaeda, after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, was on the verge of collapse. It was Bush's decision to invade Iraq that breathed new life into the organisation. The Bush administration has played into Al Qaeda's hands by uniting a substantial portion of the ummah in opposition to America's imperialist aims.
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