If there is a positive side to the rise of ISIS, it is that the West has
had its head jerked from the sand and has been made to witness a bottomless,
bloodthirsty evil: crucifixions, beheadings, enslavement of women, live burial
of children, mass executions. Even John Kerry, a man not known for grasping (or
admitting) the truth about jihad, acknowledges that this brutality “underscores
the degree to which [ISIS] is so far beyond the pale with respect to any
standard by which we judge even terrorist groups.” But as one analyst writes, this
violence is not “whimsical, crazed fanaticism, but a very deliberate,
considered strategy” – one that seems to derive in part from a book called The Management of Savagery.
In the spring of 2004 a strategist who called himself Abu Bakr
Naji published online The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage
Through Which the Ummah Will Pass (later translated from the Arabic by
William McCants, a fellow at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center). The book
– what the Washington Post calls the Mein Kampf of jihad – aimed
to provide a strategy for al-Qaeda and other jihadists. “The
ideal of this movement,” wrote Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker, “as its
theorists saw it, was the establishment of a caliphate that would lead to the
purification of the Muslim world.”
Naji believed that a civil war within Islam would lead to that Sunni
caliphate, so he recommended a merciless campaign of violence in Muslim lands to
polarize the population, expose the inability of the state to maintain control,
attract followers, and create a spreading network of “regions of savagery.”
“The management of savagery” refers to controlling the chaos that results
from that breakdown of order. The requirements for the administration of
savagery are:
·
Establishing
internal security
·
Providing
food and medical treatment
·
Securing
the borders against the invasion of enemies
·
Establishing
Sharia law
·
Establishing
a fighting society at all levels and among all individuals.
The manifesto proposes that the jihadists exhaust an overstretched
America through a patient war of attrition and a manipulation of the media to
dismantle the superpower’s “aura of invincibility.” It demands that the enemy
be made to “pay the price” for any and all attacks carried out against the
jihadists, even if the retribution takes years, in order to instill in the
enemy “a sense of hopelessness that will cause him to seek reconciliation.” No
mercy must be shown: “Our enemies will not be merciful to us if they seize us.
Thus, it behooves us to make them think one thousand times before attacking
us.”
Shocking violence is a key element of that strategy. “The beheadings and
the violence practiced by [the Islamic State] are not whimsical, crazed
fanaticism, but a very deliberate, considered strategy,” writes British analyst Alastair Crooke. “The seemingly random violence has a precise
purpose: It’s [sic] aim is to strike huge fear; to break the psychology of a
people.” For example, Naji recommends that in instances in which hostage
demands are not met, “the hostages should be liquidated in a terrifying manner,
which will send fear into the hearts of the enemy and his supporters.”
Naji believed that “we need to massacre” others as Muslims did after the
death of Muhammad. “We must make this battle very violent,” the book says. “If we are not violent in our
jihad and if softness seizes us, that will be a major factor in the loss of the
element of strength.”
But the violence isn’t intended merely to terrify, but to “drag the
masses into battle.” Naji’s strategy requires polarizing the Muslim world and
convincing any moderates who had hoped for U.S. protection that it is futile.
Paradoxically, this violence is actually a part of Allah’s mercy to all
mankind. Putting apostates and infidels to the sword is merciful compared to
the wrath that Allah himself would rain down:
Some may be surprised when we say that the
religious practice of jihad despite the blood, corpses, and limbs which
encompass it and the killing and fighting which its practice entails is among
the most blessed acts of worship for the servants… Jihad is the most merciful
of the methods for all created things and the most sparing of the spilling of
blood.
Among those who are hostile to this mercy are “infidels among the Jews
and the Christians and others who accused Islam of severity and mercilessness
in all of its religious practices,” as well as “those who say that Islam is a
religion of mercy and peace and that jihad is immoderate and excessive and that
it has nothing to do with Islam!” Clearly Abu Bakr Naji is one of the many
misunderstanders of Islam who didn’t get the memo about its peaceful nature.
In Naji’s conclusion, he stresses that “our battle is a battle of tawhid [the oneness of Allah] against
unbelief and faith against polytheism. It
is not an economic, political, or social battle.” [Emphasis added] The
recent documentary feature released by ISIS called Flames
of War, used as a
recruiting tool for Muslim brethren in the West, confirms their religious aim
and motivation. In addition to missing the memo about Islam meaning peace,
apparently Naji also neglected to read all the memos from Western apologists
about Islamic terrorism being spawned by poverty and Western oppression and
exploitation.
Unfortunately, it seems that President Obama and Secretary Kerry, who
continue to insist that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, never got Abu Bakr
Naji’s memo either – the one entitled The
Management of Savagery.
(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 10/27/14)
