The Al Qaeda Reader (Discovering the Ideological Fuel of Jihad)

"The Global War on Terror is not just a military conflict but a war of ideas. Indeed it is in some respects primarily an ideological struggle yet it is a war we cannot win without a broader understanding of al-Qaeda's goals and motives." (Raymond Ibrahim )

"What do our enemies believe? What motivates their war against the West? What is their vision of the ideal Islamic society?

Surprisingly, more than five years after 9/11, there is very little understanding of these questions. Despite our tendency to dismiss Islamic extremism as profoundly irrational, al-Qaeda is not without a coherent body of beliefs.

Like other totalitarian movements, the movement’s leaders have rationalized their brutality in a number of published treatises. Now, for the first time, The Al Qaeda Reader gathers together the essential texts and documents that trace the origin, history, and evolution of the ideas of al-Qaeda founders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden.

This extraordinary collection of the key texts of the al-Qaeda movement—including incendiary materials never before translated into English—lays bare the minds, motives, messages, and ultimate goals of an enemy bent on total victory.

Al-Qaeda’s chilling ideology calls for a relentless jihad against non-Muslim "infidels," repudiates democracy in favor of Islamic law, stresses the importance of martyrdom, and mocks the notion of "moderate" Islam. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these works is how grounded they are in the traditional sources of Islamic theology: the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet.

The founders of al-Qaeda use these sources as powerful weapons of persuasion, reminding followers (and would-be recruits) that Muhammad and his warriors spread Islam through the power of the sword and that the Koran is not merely allegory or history but literal truth that commands all Muslims to action.

In addition to laying bare al-Qaeda’s ultimate motives, The Al Qaeda Reader includes the organization’s propagandist speeches, which are directed primarily at Americans, Europeans, and Iraqis.

Here, al-Qaeda’s many "official" accusations against the West are meticulously delineated, from standard complaints such as the Palestinian issue and Iraq to wholly unexpected ones concerning the U.S.’s exploitation of women and the environment.

Taken together, the Theology and Propaganda sections of this volume reveal the most comprehensive picture of al-Qaeda to date.

They also highlight the double-speak of bin Laden and Zawahiri, who often say one thing to Muslims in their religious treatises ("We must hate and fight the West because Islam commands it") and another in their propaganda directed at the West ("The West is the aggressor and we are fighting back merely in self-defense").

Westerners from across the political spectrum will be fascinated and enlightened by The Al Qaeda Reader’s insights into the nature of Islamic texts and the ways in which al-Qaeda has used these texts to manufacture hatred against our civilization and our way of life."

Snop's Commentary:

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The Al Qaeda Reader goes a long way toward unearthing and explaining the ideology that fuels militant Islam's assault on the West and the rest. It does so by using the very words of the primary ideological drivers of the Al Qaeda Movement --Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

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Again, I'll refer back to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' Kansas speech, given during his Landon Lecture at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas on 26 Nov 2007. During the speech, Secretary Gates emphasised the importance of “speed, agility and cultural relevance [...] when discussing U.S. strategic communications."

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Understanding the cultural relevance of Al Qaeda's animating ideas is basic to the struggle in which we are engaged. The problem with these animating ideas is that they are taken rightly or wrongly from the corpus of Islam itself, making it an extremely combustible subject to take on without getting burned.

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Stephen Coughlin, a recognized expert in Islamic law, was the first to feel the burn by exposing the animating ideas of Jihad that are incorporated in Islamic law. He does so in great detail with his 300 plus page thesis ("To Our Great Detriment": Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad.

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The opening comments in the Al Qaeda Reader and Coughlin's thesis both make parallel observations about the importance of reading and understanding the dark world vision of another megalomaniac in our not so distant history--Adolph Hitler--in view of contemporaries like Bin Laden and Zawahiri.

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I'll get off the stage now by repeating one of George Santayana's most famous quotes:

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“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”