Bin Laden's death is an opportunity to reassess what he and his legacy mean.
For me, one point stands above all others in importance: Bin Laden's twisted, Manichaean, psychotic worldview was not Islamic. Yes, he couched his views in the language of Islam. And yes, many misguided souls believed him when he claimed to speak with the authority of a religious leader.
But he was a fake. He had no religious qualifications at all. And neither did those around him.
The fact is that Ayman al-Zawahiri -- the 'second in command' -- is a medical doctor with no qualifications; Abu Musab al-Suri, "one of al-Qaida's leading military thinkers," studied mechanical engineering, (and failed to complete the degree); Abd al-Qadir bin 'Abd al-'Aziz, lauded as one of "the most influential Egyptian Jihadi theorists," also lacks a formal religious education. Even Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, is on record as having stated that Bin Laden's 1998 fatwa issuing a jihad against America was "null and void" as Bin Laden was not actually qualified to even make a fatwa. And he is the leader of the Taliban!
Not only that, but there are also vast numbers of Islamic scholars who have argued comprehensively that Bin Laden's words are not just not-Islamic, they are positively un-Islamic.
Last year, an unprecedented array of Islamic scholars, academics, and religious authorities gathered in Turkey. Their purpose was to refute Al Qaeda's worldview once and for all. The conferences was attended by Muslim authorities from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Morocco, Mauritania, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, United Arab Emirates, India and Canada, and representatives of mainstream Salafism, Sufism and Shia Islam.
And it definitely cleared up a misunderstanding which had boiled within Islam for many years.
Jihadi authors had traditionally justified killing innocents with reference to a particular fourteenth century fatwa from a scholar named Ibn Taymiyya. Its influence was such that Osama Bin Laden's 1998 fatwa which urged "every Muslim who can" to "kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military," was justified with reference to Ibn Taymiyya's fourteenth century fatwa, via 'Abd al-Salam Faraj's book, The Neglected Duty, which urged excommunicating and killing of Muslims and non-Muslims.
The fatwa had, in other words, been a theological foundation stone of jihadi terror. What the conference in Turkey revealed was that that foundation stone -- justifying killing innocents in Islamic law -- was actually based on a typographical error. The Mardin Fatwa states that "the Muslims living therein should be treated according to their rights as Muslims, while the non-Muslims... should be treated according to their rights." But a mistake in a 1909 edition incorrectly rendered it as "...while the non-Muslims... should be fought as is their due." This revelation completely pulled the intellectual rug from under the global jihadi discourse. In the words of Shaikh Hamza Yusuf, it revealed that "the entire philosophy of radical Islamists is based on a misprint."
I could not put it better. Osama bin Laden represents the views of Islam as much as the Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones represents the views of Jesus: he doesn't.
There were already signs that the intellectual tide was turning away from his abhorrent views. The Arab spring showed that al Qaeda's message was increasingly irrelevant to the most pressing needs of Muslims, especially in the Arab world. Even the fears of some on the US right about the potential for democracy in Egypt to unleash Islamic radicalism now looks misplaced. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the object of most of the fears, has seen fit to release a statement explicitly saying that the world must "correct the erroneous image" of Islam.
The fact is that last year's conference in Turkey has already reaffirmed what the vast majority of ordinary Muslims the world over had known all along: that real, authentic Islam is about mercy, compassion, peace and beauty. Real Islam honored the sanctity of all life. Real Islam is about, spreading justice, upholding fairness and avoiding the shedding of blood.
Today is an important day to reaffirm that message to the world. Let us hope that with Bin Laden dead, his message will wither too.
Azeem Ibrahim is a Fellow and Member of the Board of Directors at the Institute of Social Policy and Understanding and a former Research Scholar at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and World Fellow at Yale.
More writings here: www.azeemibrahim.com
Follow me on Twitter (@AzeemIbrahim)
Follow Azeem Ibrahim on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@AzeemIbrahim
Thank you for chiming in to enlarge the understanding of non-muslims. I am happy to see your post and hope you will be a regular contributor. As an American, my first awareness of Islam, other than blacks who converted, was when Iran held Americans hostage. That was not a very positive introduction and I did not have the internet or Al Jazeera to turn to. I am grateful to both of these entities for aiding my understanding.
Oh if it was only that simple to make low information voters wake up.
It's all well and good to claim that he does not represent your faith but every leader has a following and what may begin as a cult grows to it's own limit in time. Every religion in the history of the world began with a single person.
On the other hand, the history of Christianity is filled with bloody massacres too, of the genocide of the natives of the Americas, Africa and Asia (the Philippines and Vietnam) perpetrated by the Western Christians. You might say that these acts are unChristian and should not be equated with Christianity. The same thing that the writer, Azeem Ibrahim, says about Islam.
Your bigotry can't make you look at things objectively.
As Jesus (who committed entire towns to death) himself put it: ""Likewise as it was in the days of Lot—they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom fire and sulphur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of man is revealed."
Or as clarified by Luke in Acts: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Eternal damnation for nonbelievers of Jesus is a constant and recurring theme in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament, we are encouraged to kill those who:
1. Are gay.
2. Practice witchcraft.
3. Don't listen to Priests.
4. Commit Adultery
5. Fornicate
6. Follow other religions
7. Don't believe
8. Swear at their parents
9. Hit Dad
10. Practice fortune telling.
11. Non virgins
12. Practice another religion.
13. Blaspheme.
14. Work on the Sabbath.
In addition, the God of Christianity:
1. Kills the children of non-believers
2. Entire towns and countries.
3. Well, the whole world.
I don't know much about the God of Islam, but he can't be much worse than the God of Christianity.
Our country was founded on the key concept that the government will make “no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” For the most part, the rest of the Western World has followed suit.
But there is even a more important aspect regarding the practice of Christianity the Western world: much of ancient faith has been abandoned. That is why much of what is written in the lists above seems so strange.
So a statement like “Osama bin Laden represents the views of Islam as much as the Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones represents the views of Jesus: he doesn't” is basically irrelevant.
What is relevant is the ethos of a society.
Unfortunately, most of the Middle East, unlike most of the West, still clings to the ancient ethic of their faith. That is why women are commonly oppressed, adulterers are stoned and flogged, other religions are not tolerated, Mosques of different sects are bombed, and why it is common to see tee shirts of Osama bin Laden hanging from bazaars and sidewalk stalls.
In America, you will be hard pressed to find a tee shirt of Terry Jones.
"Mr Factoid .
This is further evidence that there is no God but the god that is created by our own minds and the ethos of our society. That is why the concept of what God is and what the laws of God's universe are, constantly change.
posted May 3, 2011 at 22:47:41 "
I agree with you. My short form answer was not meant to be comprehensive by any means. Each claims that it is the same god and that theirs is the correct version of what he wants.
I'm a little surprised. You claim to have little knowledge of Islam and that was why my answer was so limited but do quite well from where I sit.
Perhaps this might have been interesting, or useful, a dozen years ago.
Now, it just seems pathetic.
You argue that UBL's message was not Islamic. Who cares? Really.
The Islamic world seems to have felt it was Islamic. They acted, and continue to act, on his message.
What does that say about the fairly large chunk of those in the Islamic world that did and do follow his message?
But, in the last 150 years?