HAMAS HOLY WAR

The Atlantic Monthly is now reading "The covenant" which makes clear that holy war, divinely ordained and scripturally sanctioned, is in Hamas's DNA.

The genetic reference may be strong (if not wrong) but it is time to point out that a form of what we call terrorism is an asymetric Holy WAR. Al Qaida made it quite clear in its propaganda which has been successfully conducted on line.

?The following text should have been the introduction of a book which Mathieu Guidère and I?published in 2007: the Manuel of Recruitment of Al Qua?da.?Publishing marketing obliging it was banished to the end and replaced by a “bullet” introduction with data and consequent agitation of dire scenarios.?

Ironically, I wrote this piece to try to explain that the seductive attraction of Al Qaeda was to avoid data and all the trappings of the modern discourse. It probably was still too sophisticated for if the book was translated in many language, we were unable to find a publisher in English although my late companion had translated it beautifully in English.

And yet this book is still immensely relevant, shedding a light on the powerful attraction of holy wars and how they use modern technology to "seduce" (it is the word) young warriors.

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So here it is, a sophisticated read but which, I hope, sheds some light on the desperate desire of the Sapiens to belong to a group glued together by a frightening mystery which overwhelms them. Holy wars are part of the spectrum and they are coming back

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MATHIEU GUIDéRE, NICOLE MORGAN

TRADUIT PAR KEITH WILDE

LE MANUEL DE RECRUTEMENT D'AL QUAIDA , PARIS LE SEUIL 2007

?LE MASQUE ET LE MIRROIR

Fascination

Hidden faces fascinate by letting us envisage forces and powers we dread all the more because we dress them up in the colorful rags of our imagination, hounded as it is by its own shadows. They have haunted human societies from antiquity, starting at latest with the Zealots whose modus operandi was repeated in the Middle Ages by the sect of the Assassins and given its modern name – the Terror-- after 1789. Robespierre did not wear a mask, of course, but he understood the essence of terrorism: he knew how, with modest means and without big battles, to twist the bowels of citizens terrified by severed heads dripping blood that could on a whim become their own. There is a terrorist act, wrote Raymond Aron, "when its psychological effects are out of proportion to its purely physical results". Terrorism mirrors our most formidable enemy: ourselves.

Were we willing to set aside the phantasm for a few minutes and look at terrors in a wider and less passionate historical context, we would be forced to acknowledge that little blood was actually shed on the scaffolds of "the terror" or in the name of anarchist hatred. And as far as contemporary terrorism is concerned, it is to this date virtually invisible on a scale that includes the massacres of twentieth century world wars or those of recent genocides. There is nevertheless an important evolution: battlefields have been relocated and weapons are no longer the daggers of the Assassins or the makeshift bombs of Ravachol1. Words are the weapon, for which the pen rather than the dagger is the apt metaphor.

The mythical character of the masked anarchist came to life at the end of the XIXth century thanks to "the press and the infamous ‘wicked laws’ of 1893-1894 that stubbornly imagined him to be hidden behind the sadly ordinary faces of the real authors of the strikes. A deformation of the historical reality of anarchism, encouraged by the fascination exerted by this new form of violence on many writers, from Mallarmé to Zola by way of Fénéon, Tailhade, Schwob, Goncourt, Barrès and plenty of others!" They appear to have made effective use of their pens, for if Europeans had then been surveyed and asked what was the most urgent issue of their time, they would have undoubtedly answered "terrorism"—with one notable exception. For Octave Mirbeau, possibly more aware or less anxious than the majority, exclaimed in a moment of exasperation "the great danger of bombs is the explosion of stupidities they provoke".

Today, at the dawn of a new millennium, we could very well argue that there is nothing new under the sun. Al Qaeda has seized, along with the "mask" of antique terrorism, the aging recipes of "real politick". In a few years and with modest means, it has successfully mobilized the world’s most powerful military establishment and terrified countries of the West, which, weakened by the accelerated changes of globalization are more than ever captive of their imaginary fears and guilt-inspired doubts. Terrorists can then move onto a favourable field: like adolescents who instil guilt only in parents who ask for it, Al Qaeda strikes only those democracies subject to forces of change that put them in doubt of their values.

Why then, should we play along with the game and publish these explosive documents? Why add to the plethora of books that do little more than stir up phantasmagoric imaginations more taken than ever in all kinds of fears? Why risk providing propaganda tool, free and welcome advertising to those for whom propaganda is the main recruiting instrument?

To be even more pragmatic: why not refrain from writing about it at all and wait for the movement to fade away by itself? Terrorist movements did so in the past, rather quickly in fact. Cultures are being flattened out rapidly by new technologies, and Muslims themselves find it increasingly difficult to read the religious language used by Al Qaeda propagandists. They, like us, have had to go through mental mutations imposed by the post-industrial era and the global and virtual economy. For them as for us, daily and secular worries are far more important than spiritual and religious preoccupations.We take the risk for reasons that can be condensed to three:

The first acknowledges the movement of radical Islam and Al Qaeda as one of its most dangerous proponents. The second concerns the real and potential weakness of its declared enemy—ourselves. The third reason engages the most important issue for the future of humanity: the way our children will be socialized. They will have to live under the terms of a global social contract the bases of which have hardly been drafted. This movement of cultural flattening is unprecedented, and the study of history is no longer of any help when it comes to finding good old reassuring patterns or ideals as hoped for by Plato. There is something new under the sun: the shape of humanity.

To expand on the first reason: We are not dealing here with a small sect of Assassins or a handful of isolated anarchists. Nor is it a small group of guerilleros who titillate the imagination and libido of that fraction of students whose quest is for romantic and strong sensations. Far from it! In the first place, the radical Islamic movement draws its force from local and immigrant populations, which potentially unite millions of individuals, three-quarters of them under the age of 18. Next, and without wishing to augment the sensationalism of contemporary political ideologies, we note that this movement (as with any terrorist group or individual loose cannons) has the potential capacity to use destructive technology which has no common measure with the weapons of the past. Lastly, we think that the means employed to deal with the problem carries within itself its own seeds of destruction. Since the London blasts in July 2005, the tracking of international cells organised by Al Qaeda has intensified and could be deemed successful if gauged by the large number of arrests in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Great Britain, Italy France and in Asia. Intelligence agencies have undeniably scored in their fight against the nebulous network of terrorists and have gathered much information. But we must understand that the heads of Islamic networks are immediately replaced and that there is no lack of candidates to the Jihad. For the Jihadist movement will not be quenched by police arrests. The stakes are found in the human psyche. Shooting in Iraq or elsewhere will never solve the real issue.

The second reason mirrors the first by reflecting the inherent weaknesses of our new technologies. For although they magnify our capacities and powers enormously, they also add complexity to survival and make us extremely vulnerable. Technologically, because a simple failure can collapse the whole organism (such as an electricity outage lasting more than two weeks). Psychologically, because change and complexity promote anxiety. We should keep in mind that the first world war started in Sarajevo when a young anarchist whose name has been forgotten exploded the coach of an Austrian archduke who had so far been unnoticed by the world. That strike tolled the bell on the end of an epoch, and empires – Ottoman then Austro-Hungarian—tumbled one after the other, not because the anarchist blow was fatal but because they were ready to fall, the victims of social and technological turmoil for which they had not been prepared and did not know how to accommodate.

The third reason engages the future of humanity: We must not underestimate the seductive power of Al Qaeda to cast a spell on a generation that is especially receptive to the appeal of all kind of cults and sects. It is as if a humanity fatigued by the "era of suspicion" was looking in the simplicity of archaic discourse for a response to the formidable challenge of global transformation. The question then becomes disquietingly simple: why are "the children of men" so prone to be seduced? How does Al Qaeda seduce young Muslims and convert others? Why is the West no longer seductive? Other questions mirror these issues: Why is youth so anxious? Why are we unable to re-assure it? Why has the "American dream" been replaced by hatred of "the other", a hatred we feel blowing over the fringes of our own cities.

This book is about seduction, a seduction which is found everywhere in the discourse of Al Qaeda, a seduction which constitutes its centre of gravity. Understanding of the motivations and resources of the seduction has so far been inhibited by lack of serious and objective analyses of its main weapon: the language. The analysis is not easy, for the language of seduction is versatile and complex. Also powerful in that it draws directly from sacred sources, vampirizing the Koranic text that few Muslims dare read otherwise than as a chant.

That is why, it seems to us that these questions cannot be answered without going through an attentive and careful listening to the discourse of seduction, far from battlefields, the coldness of data, so-called intelligent weaponry and strategies that reek of Clauseswitz. We are going to drag the reader onto a verbal and ideological battlefield of discovery—or more accurately of re-discovery, for we ourselves, our cultural ancestors, spoke a similar language not many centuries ago. We will be asking our readers to read for themselves the unpublished texts of Al Qaeda supporters. Such an effort is imperative if we wish to lift a corner of the veil and escape momentarily from the narcissistic imagery imposed by our own culture. This is asking a lot given the prevalence of the "discours unique" which demands that language be common, objective, flat and otherwise devoid of individual expressiveness—extending to the practice of "reading" authors great and small through commentaries or biographies. Increasingly we use English and the manipulation of numbers as the universal language of modernity, paying but scant attention to the human psyche, its depth and the symbols which govern and agitate it. Original texts are virtually forgotten except for isolated quotations selected for their familiar connotation. We thereby avoid the direct shock of the "other", the "non ego", the "stranger", whether it be an individual or a culture. We must nonetheless acknowledge that the difficulties inherent to translation do not simplify the life of the reader and may add to the opacity of the works.

The problem of this circular communication is not only semantic, for all the solutions and strategies that are drawn from it are enclosed within the asserted premises. But let us be more explicit concerning the actual struggle against terrorism: The Pentagon, locked into its own techno-ideological tower, is incapable of understanding an enemy that it has not created in its own image. It therefore finds itself reduced to an ever more punishing auto-flagellation. Our survival is going to depend on understanding of an otherness and of beliefs the power of which exceeds that necessary for the fission of an atom. As Einstein was fond of saying, "It is easier to break an atom than a belief."

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Lifting a Corner of the Veil

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The exercise requires an intense effort for it violates our habitual ways of thinking and writing. It also calls upon the reader to get beyond the boredom that some pages are bound to provoke along with the uncountable redundancies of a text that is nevertheless supposed to be galvanizing. It is a text that makes one feel crazy, or rather alienates us in the sense of making us feel "other". But the encounter with the "alien" is after all the goal of the exercise.

To add to the difficulty, we have little preparation for this kind of reading. Neither the francophone nor the anglophone public is familiar with these texts, and there is no exhaustive translation of texts coming from the terrorist organisation. As a result we have a scant idea of what is said and we tend to rely on deeply entrenched prejudices. When the press publishes some excerpts, it selects the most violent of invectives, creating a caricature bearing some resemblance to the insults used by the well known characters of Tintin in Land of Black Gold. Western intellectuals follow through and limit their analysis to more or less vehement denunciations of the violent, inhumane, barbaric and anachronistic aspects of the radical Islamic ideology, unless they fall themselves into a romantic delirium, projecting their own millenarian fantasies onto Al Qaeda as the agency of their fears.

Non-Muslim readers have neither the cultural background nor the emotional memory that is required to apprehend the meaning of these writings. Accustomed as we are to a demonstrative form of logic based on figures and rules, allusive descriptions and allegoric narration do not penetrate easily. These documents are especially unnerving (destabilizing) because of their distinctive rhetoric, their uncustomary usage of an intense emotional discourse, the abundance of legendary historical allusions, numberless religious and juridical references, numbing repetition, notable contradictions and vivid subjectivity. They make use of an ensemble of symbols and usages that no longer have an equivalent in our intellectual processes, neither in our social, economic and political environments, and especially not in our moral and religious discourse.

How then should we read these texts? Simply make the most literal of translations, hoping that its strangeness will keep the reader at a sane critical distance? Take refuge behind erudite notes to provide the reader with meanings that have disappeared from our daily universe of reference? Resort to a conceptual analysis to extract the main ideas of the terrorists? Is it reasonable to regard these documents as the sole business of specialists?

We try to avoid these shifting sands by offering as clearly as possible the elements that seem necessary to comprehend the meaning, without falling into either hermetic erudition easy vulgarization. We attempt to take apart the machinery and illuminate the way these writers articulate form and content to shape the body of a radical ideology which is taking root more and more firmly in the reality of the Muslims all over the world.

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Background

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Where do these texts come from? They are a selection from documents posted on the Internet by the active members of Al Qaeda. They circulate on the international web and are exchanged among the young and the less young just like music tracks or video films. They are easy to find on discussion forums and they came thus into our possession last year. Although they have emerged serially over the last three years (2002-2005), the context of their appearance is not reflected strongly in the content. That is actually their main strength and attraction; everyone who reads them can feel concerned and be seduced by the arguments, which speak to a general audience very different from the hard core Islamists of foregoing decades.

We see in these writings a second generation of Al Qaeda activists. They have developed both the style and functioning of the founding fathers (Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Azzam), but they have often gone beyond their masters who remain fundamentally men of the XXth century in their way of apprehending reality and thinking about change.

Following the disappearance of the Afghan sanctuary that protected Al Qaeda activities and the planet-wide hunt for militants and sympathizers of the organization, this second generation has to adapt to the new geostrategic context and adopt ways of functioning and communicating that are suited to a totally clandestine type of action.

The second generation has structured itself around the world-wide Internet medium and its capacity to transport all kinds of content (text, image, sound, video). The 21st century fact is that chiefs, ideologues, activists, militants and sympathizers no longer need face to face contact for coordinating their activities or putting together their terrorist plots. The Internet furnishes at the same time an effective means of direct communication and a medium for publication—which the different "branches" of Al Qaeda have not failed to exploit at will.

These ?branches? are composed of autonomous and interdependent cells in the manner of cells in a living organism. This is the principal organisational characteristic of the second generation of Al Qaeda. Each branch (Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Al Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula, etc…) has its own broadcasting network and its own assigned propagandists and ideologists. The writings of all the propagandists and ideologues are exchanged among the different branches and circulated on discussion forums and the most frequented sites. In the continuous flow of exchanged publications, some documents constitute a kind of "Basic Manual of the Perfect Little Qaedist" in that they are required reading for any who wish to join the ranks of Al Qaeda.

From continual attention to the jihadic forum over the course of a year (2005) and following closely the candidates to martyrdom who express willingness to join the ranks of "Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers" (Iraq) to fight the "unbelievers", we were able to select seven "epistles" which are the most frequently recommended to the internauts motivated by the Jihad. We are publishing them in the present book, signed by their presumed author.

We should note that the organisation of Al Qaeda daily refuses to accept "illuminated" candidates who are ready to sacrifice themselves for Allah. Willingness to die for the Islamic cause is not sufficient. On the contrary, the recruiters and the moderators of the jihadic forums regularly expel the most zealous candidates and seem to have a very precise idea of the ideal profile of their future members.

Whatever else it be, the procedure for recruiting to the Jihad is assuredly selective and undeniably initiatory in nature. An internaut who wishes to join of Al Qaeda finds it in his interest to prepare himself with a firm foundation before he will be able to integrate himself in its ranks. First, he must attain sufficient mastery in the classic Arabic language to access the texts he is highly encouraged to read. He must also possess a wide culture in order to grasp the common understanding of them and the patience necessary to read dozens of pages in a style that is at times difficult and specialized. On some sites, comprehension of the "good islamists" is regularly tested through a game of questions and answers where the moderator praises the candidate who is quickest in giving the right answer. Needless to say, the questions come exclusively from the basic writings of the organisation. The novice therefore internaut finds himself rapidly lost in the abyss of his ignorance and starts right away to read the documents in order to shine in the presence of the virtual assembly of his co-religionists.

It is interest to note that this initiatory discourse is above all a virtual course, like those role playing games which are the rage in the Western world. The content and the goals are radically different, however. In Al Qaeda, the "player" will be interrogated incessantly on the "pillars of Islam". Although these are widely known, the continual harping on them is a way to get across to initiates that one essential pillar is missing nowadays, the Jihad. The more advanced the initiation, the more oriented is the learning towards the "Mystery" and the "After life". For behind all this ideology is the guiding light of the "Akhira" (The Other Life in Arabic), eternal and marvellous, that the believer can reach only after a certain "progression" (Sirat), death being only one step for the true believer. This progression is presented through an attractive language and the radical doctrinaires use all the seducing power of the language to enhance this choice of death in the name of Allah.

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Selecting the texts

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The selected documents therefore belong to the ideological corpus of Al Qaeda, and they have become the texts of reference for all the radical activists in the Arab and Muslim countries. They constitute a set of writings to which all the Jihadistes refer to explain their concept of the battle and to legitimize their action. These texts have not been published in print, but are available as electronic documents via Internet. They are part of the "secret documents" of the organization.

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We have not included the historic writings of the founders of the organisation (Azzam, Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri) that were published recently in France. They do not reflect the progress of radical Islamism since the founders, and especially the degree to which activists on the ground have used these newer texts to develop ideas and activities for training young people in other Islamic countries. Let us not forget that there are branches claiming to represent Al-Qaeda in most regions of the world, even though the currently most active are "The Organization of Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers" (in Iraq) and "The Organization of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" (in Saudi Arabia).

Documents collected on the Internet have a unity and coherence that justifies considering them as an ideological corpus. This is further manifested by the fact partisans of Al-Qaeda present all these documents in the same electronic book destined for the recruitment and formation of future activist members. We provide in this Introduction a descriptive glimpse of the contents. Translation of significant extracts forms the main body of the book. Notwithstanding their assembly in the same electronic book "for ease of consultation", several types of documents are distinguishable in this collection of several hundred pages: First, there are doctrinal works of a theologico-juridical type; next, didactic works of political ideology, and finally, periodical publications for military activism.

All in all we have counted on the Islamist sites about fifty works and treatises directly linked to the Jihad propaganda. The Al-Qaeda organization also publishes two substantial and well-documented bi-monthly journals: Sawt Al-Jihad (The Voice of the Jihad) and Siyar A‘lam Al-Shuhada’ (The Life of the Great Martyrs). These two are issued from different sources but they are complementary in substance and form. The first is dominantly doctrinal and ideological; the second treats subjects that are more military and operational and it stresses the suicidal attacks in Iraq. To these two journals must be added a large number of poems, inflammatory sermons and religious songs that have been put into writing, as well as the press releases issued by Al-Qaeda over the past three years.

This ensemble is impressive in several respects: first, in sheer volume (more than 5000 typewritten pages); next, in the range of the subjects treated and the themes that are approached (more than a hundred, touching on all aspects of the Jihad); finally, in the number of knowledge specialties assembled and of experts consulted to achieve these results (more than a hundred people). These considerations lead us to take seriously the quantity of published documents and the underlying project.

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Mirror?!

These texts "speak" to our understanding, but they also manifest another form of understanding. The content speaks to our way of understanding, but the form is far from being a simple mechanism of transmission of ideas and carries a meaning of its own in a way that is radically different from ours. By contrast to our ways of communicating, in arabo-islamic rhetoric, the Word replaces our use of numeric figures, the repetition of classic originals faces (contrasts with) our escape into the future, and the powerful image of spilled blood mirrors our lack of grounding in reality.

The appeal of the texts presented here is through rhetoric and the technique discards at the same time all the steps and due process of scientific method that we deem essential in modern educational. discourse. Nevertheless, Al Qaeda speech is not a delirious discourse in the fashion of Hitler’s " Mein Kampf". Far from it. There is a clear will to argue and persuade the reader, but "proofs" are slanted and based respect for authorities. This is not the time and place to develop the rules of rhetoric that have been well developed in specialized literature. We insist only that the discourse of Al Qaeda is strongly impregnated with

a Koranic Rhetoric that uses to wonderful effect all the classic modes from ethos to logos, via pathos. Throughout, the ideological argumentation is backed by the mobilization of feelings and emotions. But above all, the evocation of blood imparts substance, even a divine body, to mere ideas. This goes beyond the western political discourse which does use some rhetorical techniques to seduce voters by appealing to base instincts, but voters know that it remains empty words. The sacred rhetoric is sacred is founded not on a selfish or egoistic seduction but rather on a sincerity of intent manifested by the spilled blood of the martyrs who sealed thereby their final testaments—and example of which can be read in the last chapter. The rhetorician who bleeds is no longer a liar but a hero.

We have forgotten this bodily and bloody dimension of words, which was present in the founding myths of humanity. According to Nietzsche and Foucault the laws of a group are literally inscribed in the tortured body of the victims exposed in the public square, as if legal words were not enough to persuade us of their validity. Whereas the art of rhetoric has not disappeared from modern discourse, it is found mainly in politics and advertising (increasingly indistinguishable). But who believes that the speaker is willing to die for his words? The goal of this modern, western rhetoric is to seduce voters and customers, conceived as objects, to the point that, having abandoned critical rationality, they do whatever is suggested to them. An important element in the techniques of persuasion familiar to us, and partly responsible for the decline in critical rationality, is the increasing use of visual imagery.

But images are fleeting and their seductive power is ephemeral. Al Qaeda seduces by using mainly the Word: it plays on its suggestive power which allows individuals to go beyond the passivity of the image and project their own powerful corpus of emotions. It is more potent to dream of a suggested hero than to see him on a screen. (We have all experienced the bitter sensation of betrayal/deception when a favored literary work is turned into a movie.) The Word appeals to a part of the brain that allows beliefs to root in our deepest collective unconscious.

In western cultures we have forgotten the power of the collective unconscious, The Power of Myth" so brilliantly documented by Joseph Campbell. All myths postulate a golden age when humanity lived with its gods but was cut off and then reconnected to its divine roots by a hero. In our amnesia, we are prone to analyzing the attraction exerted by Al Qaeda on its youthful adherents in economic terms. The solutions we propose to them are our contemporary classics of social integration and a stronger education. Ironically, we appeal to the same language when puzzling over western youth who are so obviously trying to give a meaning to words and images by dreaming of blood (self-mutilation, fascination with danger, tortures, etc…), a search that goes well beyond economic and social preoccupations.

Al-Qaeda dives to the sources by always invoking the word AND blood. It goes back to a mythical tradition ignored by our contemporaries but still omnipresent in the imagination of humanity. Western rhetoric, now associated with nothing but lying, is left in the dust by comparison. Boris Cyrulnik says it in clear terms?: ?We distrust lies and are always trying to uncover them but we adore myths and submit ourselves to them?.

Another pillar of Al Qaeda rhetoric is God: Epistles and treatises do not speak only to men and women, but to God whose name is invoked incessantly by reference to phrases from the Koran. In the beginning was the Word: " The Koran, Berque tells us, defines itself as a communication. Communication of another kind, to be sure. A vertical one from God to Man. It defines itself as Bal?gh (eloquent). We could define it as the communication of the absolute, even the absolute communication"

The Muslim is not alone, and the convert therefore escapes the "restless soul" fate of his western counterparts. Every time a Prophet or hero is mentioned, his name is followed by the ritual formulas which confer on them a sacred dimension, linking them directly to God: "Allah’s mercy be with him…Thanks to Allah….Bless his name…, etc…" Allah protects, blesses, envelops, purifies the individual who belongs to history but is also "Allah’s servant"(Abdallah).

No epistle, no treatise, will let us forget reference to the sacred; even the most pedestrian and practical pages invoke "Allah the Most High", "Allah the Almighty". Ritual formulas mark the text, backing every argument. God is invoked to bless the heroes and to confirm the message of the Prophet. Communication is prayer and political discourse becomes religious. Furthermore, men and women, linked to the divine, are all children of a unique Oumma, the motherland of Islam. They are brothers and sisters in the eyes of Allah. This is never forgotten. The epistles and treatises are never addressed to an abstract reader, universal and anonymous but rather to "brothers and sisters in Islam", thereby weaving, page after page, an exclusive feeling of belonging, but one that is only accessible to those who make an emotional investment in reading the text.

Should we be able to recall that this dimension of religious and sacred belonging was integral to Western life until the Renaissance? Reference to God was to found everywhere in the life of Christians; it dominated even the organisation of libraries, common and canonical law . Jesus, the Virgin Mary and all the Saints of the Church, implored and blessed, saturated profane discourse, allowing human beings thus purified by their presence to communicate with one another in the love of God

This feeling of belonging to the sacred has disappeared from our contemporary speech, the universally understood objective referents of which, as we have noted, are numerical figures and visual images. The heroes, modern prophets, leaders, adored stars of whatever realm, are presented in the media with a few figures (age, income, wealth, etc..) and by a visual "clip" which gives them a human face. Sometimes it is "all too human" in spite of technical efforts to disguise reality by manipulating the image. (That is, real humanity shows through.)

But these figures are dry by contrast to the sacred figures of Pythagoras, which sang the rhythm of the celestial spheres. Our realm of the measurable and the accountable is indeed universal, but as Paul Valery qualified it "There is nothing universal except that which is stupid enough to be universal". Even if we do not go as far as the poet, we must admit that our discourse of universals no longer tells us anything that would link us to the ground of Being or to a sacred rhythm larger than ourselves. Figures are accessible to all of us but are as fluid as the water we cannot hold in our hands. Do we not speak of "liquid" to describe the money that allows us to exchange goods and services immediately and horizontally? The music has all but disappeared.

Music!

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Rhythm is repetitious and repetition saturates the selected Al Qaeda selections. They are likely to baffle western readers and bore them to death. Sometimes it is a sentence repeated as a leitmotiv, an argument may come back again and again or as in the epistle addressed to women, the same not particularly exciting story is repeated from different angles again and again and again, ad nauseam. We are all the more put off in that we have been taught to abhor repetition to the point that we no longer tolerate it in any level of discourse: fashion must ?change”, politics must promise ?breaks with the past”, technology must ?innovate”. We tend now to associate any repetition with fossilization of intelligence, senescence of ideas and death of the spirit.

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And yet, cognitive sciences are in the process of discovering that repetition is essential to structuring the human brain, if by brain we intent the field of consciousness. Repeated words literally carve paths in the brain which would be unable to function without these chains of neurons which structure the ?mind” and reassure the ?heart”. Litanies, music, poetry shape ?me” and ?us”, for all human beings are united by a succession of rhythms specific to a culture and express themselves in the language and the gestures. Just like music and movements of the body, the language can be used to structure the timing of reciprocal relationships. ?The rhythmic behaviour of groups and masses, as well as the transmission of knowledge, techniques and narrations are example of… collective communication through rhythm”[1]

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Al Qaeda speech has its own rhythm, most of the time taken from the Koran[2], itself made of repetition, music and prosody, a true ?verbal flux” as Jacques Berque called it[3]. Among the sacred books of main religions, the Koran is unique since the Bible and the New Testament are mostly narrative. The Prophet Mahomet did not narrate but taught. He made use of repetitions anytime he could especially while preaching. Each time he taught, he kept on asking ?Have I transmitted well enough? The Traditions relate this practice which is typical of the Arab Islamic culture. According to the traditionist Anas, ?Each time the Prophet spoke words, he repeated them three times so he would be better understood. When he visited someone and wanted to salute him, he saluted him three times”[4]

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The Koranic education taken from these traditions is, as well known, a prodigious exercise of memory which focuses on the sacred texts, readying the students to accept as the powerful rhythm of the rhetorical discourse as evidence, repetition as argument and past authorities as foundations. For the believers, what is said and repeated is true. That way it is possible to rewrite the history of a people around a narration repeated by the oral and written traditions. Myth builders could then sculpt ? with their narration a kind of cultural totem to which the group identified. They used bits of real history but have obscured those that could be embarrassing…[5]. They take and repeat the same stories, until little by little belief replaces curiosity grooming a common emotion and an appeasing rite that creates ?a delicious sentiment of belonging.”[6]

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The History the reader is going to discover in the following texts is certainly not factual one; nor is it even patriotic or ideological in nature. Instead it has the savour of a myth evokes an emotional state that is eminently important to Al Qaeda’s objective: to ?Save Narcissus” [7] The reader will observe that the emotion is elicited through these repetitions, are aroused by pricking over and over again the humiliating wounds of past defeats, exposing and salving them at the same time. By going back again and again to the ?wound” Al Qaeda is able to fuel the discontent of the masses, the humiliation inflicted by Israel, adding to the pain and the feeling of powerlessness which overwhelms Muslims when Islamic tradition faces the challenge of modernity. The re-opened wounds are the foundations of the intense emotional discourse of hatred which the West finds highly disturbing even as it tries to get away with its own old grudges.

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We present below the translation of seven documents that differ in form but are complementary in substance and intent. They are called ?epistles” by their authors who insist on their religious character.

-??????The first epistle calls for the total war as wished by Al Qaeda and what it means by Jihad (holy war); the title is deliberately explicit: The Jihad as we see it; the Jihad as we want it.

-??????The second epistle exposes the historical ?wound” described above and its direct consequences when it comes to naming the enemy. The title is explicit and gives us a?shiver: Who is the enemy and with whom should we start?

-??????The third epistle is an exposition of the necessary steps to achieve the utopian project of the Oumma. It is labelled ?Preparation for the battle.

-??????The fourth epistle is indeed the most practical of all. It describes in detail the Jihadic action and the strategies recommended by the terrorist organisation. It is soberly entitled The Jihad.

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These four epistles are all attributed to the same author with the evocative?pen name of Hazim Al-Madani, or literally ?The vigorous man from Medina”. He is an eminent member of Al Qaeda, an activist from Saudi Arabia, who won recognition in Afghanistan at the side of Ossama Bin Laden returning to his native country to organize the local branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula and becoming its official ideologist and strategist. Since 2003, all the Jihadic groups fighting in Iraq have used his writings. The epistles we are publishing are widely distributed among the Islamic troops by Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, the organization lead by the Jordanian Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi.

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To these we have added three more epistles, all belonging to the ideological corpus common to the Al Qaeda network in the Middle East:

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The Open Letter to Women, a stunner, revealing a deep distrust and hatred towards women who are accused of having been the cause of the ?wound”. They are nevertheless encouraged here to take an active part in the Jihad, by invoking certain elements of Islamic history, ancient and modern. Contrary to the other epistles, which are addressed to a general public, this one is specifically intended for women. The author is a certain Sheikh Al-Uyayri, a Saudi member of the Jihad who died as a martyr in the fight against the Americans. He was a Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and the long-time military chief of Al Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula.

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The sixth epistle is also intended for a specific audience, this time to the youths who are viewed as less reticent to terrorist views. That is why the Epistle to the Students is presented essentially as a reminder of the qualities required to be a good Mujahideen sprinkled with some recommendations for avoiding mistakes. The author is a certain Sheikh Al-Athiri, who went to fight in Iraq after having written these pages for his fellow students at university.

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The seventh epistle is a will left by an Al Qaeda martyr, a certain Ab? Tariq Al-Aswad, the former chief of a terrorist cell who died in 2004 in a blow at Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. As requested by the tradition of the organisation, each time one of its members dies for the Islamic cause, the martyr explains in writing what he wants to say to the people he knows before facing his destiny. This will is representative of an increasing number of similar texts and is typical of the willingness to die and the desire to kill which motivates the authors.

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To be sure we could have translated other ?epistles” among the great quantity of documents diffused by sympathizers and militants of Al Qaeda on the Internet, but we have preferred selectivity to exhaustiveness. Our selections provide a glimpse of the generic diversity of this production which is at the same time clandestine but is nevertheless well diffused in the Muslim world.

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We hope that others will lean on these Documents to better study and sort out the logic of struggle launched by the work, as well as the textual and rhetorical mechanisms which support this ideological edifice.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE ??EPISTLES??

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The following four chapters are designated as epistles by their authors, a word that accurately captures the spirit of the enterprise. They are indeed "letters", intended to be read aloud within a group, around a fire in the quietness of the desert, or home alone and staring at a computer screen. Purportedly written by a wise elder "in serene and generous spirit", they are addressed to Mujahideen in the mountains of Afghanistan, to aspiring combatants in Iraq and to young people in search of their identity in London or New York. He promises to tell them where they come from (second epistle), who they are (third epistle) and where they should be going (fourth epistle). He will build a myth by evoking the emotive power of (selected) past events and linking them to the negative emotions inevitably shared by young Muslims of today. We are witnesses to how the story is woven through the potent Koranic language.

Each epistle is constructed in the same manner: An initial exposition is followed by “lessons to be learned”. In the best tradition of religious schooling, the lessons are synthetic in structure and moralistic in nature. They are followed in turn by a short repetitive summary “By way of Conclusion”. This sequence conforms to the tradition that the Prophet of Islam insisted on repeating his statements three times as a way to imprint them in the minds of his audience. One should bear in mind that the immense audience reached here has been prepared for this kind of teaching by years spent in Koranic schools which, through constant repetition, shape the minds of students in a way that differs markedly and importantly from Western methods.

Each epistle starts with a prayer “In the name of God, the mercy-giving, the Merciful” and end by a prayer: “May Allah…”. The texts are religious, if not sacred, lending the aura of documented legitimacy to the arguments. Furthermore, the systematic invocation of Allah and his Prophet implicates the entire spiritual community, a feeling reinforced in the epistles by frequent appeals to “my brothers in Islam”, “sisters in faith”, etc.

While visual metaphors are abundant, such images pale in their impact compared to the rhythmic auditory power of the words repeated aloud in Arabic. These epistles are targeted to “ears” and are consequently foreign to the western reader who is all “eyes”[8]. We do not hear, in the repetitions and incantations, the drumbeat of the words that invite to dance and that build in crescendo to a call for holy war. We have divorced ourselves from archaic but powerful emotions that weave a social body[9]. As Max Weber pointed out[10], the history of the West is the history of increasing emotional restraint[11]. The following invocation could easily be downplayed as having little consequential impact by a western reader: “We want speakers for the battle and poets for the war….We want eloquent poets for the Nation, to stir its anger and blow on the embers of its fury that it may burn the souls of the unbelievers and spread terror in their hearts.”That would be a serious mistake, for the power of emotive words is the most potent technique in fostering a holy war.

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Notwithstanding the heavy emotive content of the epistles, they are not a rambling diatribe. They are also works of strategy that subtly redefine the line of authority in Al-Qaeda. At the beginning of the first epistle the narrator appeals directly to the authority of one man. I wrote these epistles, he says, “in keeping with the mission, the method and the comprehension of the Al-Qaeda organization and its chief, the Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, Allah bless him and protect him from misfortune.”

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This affirmation of allegiance is modified significantly in the second epistle, where he writes: “I may admire Al-Qaeda and its leader Sheikh Osama too much. Forgive me! But they are to date the best examples of an efficient doctrine and action, if I can judge by my experience and my studies among the experiences of the activists during the last thirty years.”

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The conditional phrase “to date” eliminates the implication that one identifiable movement and its leader is the exclusive authority. Instead they are being evaluated and judged by the one who “knows”, the wise teacher who is himself listening attentively to the lessons of history. The counselor is the authority, the one who says what is right and wrong[12]. The nuance displaces some of the emotive power attached to the familiar heroes by affirming that 1) the movement is larger than individuals and that 2) Bin Laden could be replaced if captured and executed. Faithful allegiance should then be accorded to?other “educated” men who will come forward, guided by Mahomet and taught by the “teachers of experience”.[13]

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This tactic is reminiscent of Machiavelli who starts The Prince by praising Laurent, whom he claims to admire to a fault. The Renaissance revolution begins, nevertheless, when Machiavelli appoints himself “counselor” and adviser to the Prince on all matters[14], claiming to know better through his experience and study of history.

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The rationale here is the same. In the second epistle, the author underscores history as a source of knowledge for good judgment: “However, before getting into the heart of the matter, I wish to insist on a very important point: the reading of History…History…History! I say that mainly for the particular purpose of the leaders of Islamic action as it concerns the history of the last century.”

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If history is the grand text, experience is the interpreter and teacher. The epistoler claims laic authority from his thirty years of experience and superior judgment from traditional Arabic attributes of patience and wisdom, which will eventually defeat the most powerful armies with a minimum of equipment and expenditure. Experience carries heavy weight here as the foundation of judgment and authority. It is so important that the writer acknowledges limitations to the authority of his own judgment: “These epistles explain, as I see it, the operational apparatus most appropriate to this stage in the life of the Nation[15]”. Other authorities will come; the Movement should be understood as the spirit of a nation, interpreted for the time by the current wise men. It should be kept in mind that this is the classic refrain of all ideologues who claim to be serving “History” or the “People”.

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[1] Amparo Lasén, Rythmes sociaux et arythmie de la modernité.

[2] ?En toute sourate du Coran règne ce fameux désordre préalable et qui décourage beaucoup de lecteurs occidentaux. C’était déjà le cas de la poésie antéislamique. Et tout segment d’une sourate est lui-même pluridimentionnel et souvent répétitif.? Jacques Berque, op. cit., p.?32-33.

[3] ?Flux verbal… s’ordonnant comme par longs déferlements, rythmes plus brefs, ajustés au verset et scindés par laassonance, maintien ou variation de celle-ci en cours de sourate, appropriation des timbres vocaliques et distribution à travers tout cela, voilà ce que les Arabes découvrent pour la première (et dernière) fois.? Jacques Berque, op. cit., p.?119.

[4] Hadith rapporté par Bukhari

[5] Boris Cyrulnik, Un Merveilleux malheur, Paris, Odile Jacob, 1998, p.?138.

[6] Boris Cyrulnik, op. cit., p.156.

[7] ?L’enjeu politique du récit de soi est énorme?: Sauver Narcisse. L’effet affectif est important et tisse un lien avec laauteur.?, Ibid. p.133.

[8] As pointed out by Camilla Paglia. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Yale University Press, 1990.

[9] Merlin Donald. Preconditions for the evolution of protolanguages. In The Descent of Mind, Ed. M.C.Corballis & I.Lea. Oxford University Press, 1999.

[10] Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. and trans., New York, 1958.

[11] And yet history is always an history of emotions as pointed out by Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the XIVth and XVth Centuries, Frederik J. Hopman, trans. (New York, 1924). We can read also Lucien Febvre, “Sensibility and History: How to Reconstitute the Emotional Life of the Past”, in A New Kind of History: From the Writings of Febvre, Peter Burke, ed., K. Folca, trans. (London, 1973), 12–26.

[12] Renaissance scholars will make the parallel with Machiavelli who started an ideological revolution by being the adviser to the “Prince” on the same basis. He drew his authority from the knowledge of history and years of experiences.

[13] In the Islamic tradition, these “teachers” are called “Ahl Al-Ray” (people of opinion). It refers to people that are consulted on Islamic matters. These people are highly learned in Islam.

[14] See the chapter on the counselors in Nicole Morgan, Le sixième Continent, Paris: Vrin, 1996.

[15] The word “Nation” (with a majuscule) translates the Arabic word “Ummah” which designates “the entire community of the faithful of Islam”, generally translated in French and in English as the “Nation of Islam”

1 French anarchist of late 19th century