The Al Qaeda Reader: A Review
A review of
The Al Qaeda Reader
Raymond Ibrahim, Editor/translator.
$15.95, 282 pp.Recently, Raymond Ibrahim edited and translated into English a decade’s worth of public releases by al Qaeda’s leadership. Published by Broadway Books, with partial proceeds donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ibrahim’s The Al Qaeda Reader is not only a timely fountainhead for the United States citizenry’s understanding of our Jihadi enemies, it is also a necessary release for all Muslims living under secular governments to grapple with in the coming years.
The text focuses on the prepared statements of both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leading authority figures of the Al Qaeda forces, which coordinated and carried out the devastating attacks of 9/11/2001. Since Muhammad’s definition of war is “deceit”, and al Qaeda has declared war against America, we can only assume that these al Qaeda releases hold a two-fold purpose: to provide sound, doctrinal justification for terrorism; and to gather popular support for their cause.
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Al-Zawahiri confirms that all Muslims are ordered to wage jihad against infidels, apostates, and hypocrites by the consensus of the ulema (jurists of accepted hadith).
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This is the logic that America needs to understand. America must come to grips with the fact that the jihad is obligatory to the Islamic faithful. Thus, with a sweep of historic citations, Ayman al-Zawahiri, utilizes the sheik of Islam, Ibn Taymiyyah, whom all Muslims adhere or respect, to define defensive jihad as second only to faith in Islam, and at the same time justifies suicide bombing in the measure of antiquity… via ijma, or parallels, to Muhammad’s battle of Ta’if.
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In full, Raymond Ibrahim’s release The Al Qaeda Reader is a necessary addition to the scholarship of jihad. The text begs the question: does the doctrine proclaimed by al Qaeda’s leadership, now widely known among the world’s Muslims, guarantee a state of perpetual war against the whole of humanity? And if so, what is the process of eradication of these elements from the Ulema consensus in order to defuse this ticking bomb of world-wide genocide?
Read the whole thing; better yet, read the book.
For those who are still in denial of the real threat of world jihadist terrorism, this should serve the same purpose as a dash of cold water to the face.
