Vessol
05-02-2011, 12:22 AM
As Obama declares Bin Laden's death, the US media are having a field day. I'm writing this today to say what it means to us as Muslims who have lived through this turbulent, pivotal phase of our history.
To a Muslim, assessing the life of a man like Bin Laden is difficult. There are two Bin Ladens that we knew. The first was a devout Muslim who called for resistance against occupation. The second was a terrorist who called for violence against innocent people based on flimsy & contrived scriptural evidence.
People in the West (US in particular) may think that Bin Laden & Alqaeda was all about them, but it wasn't. The organization he founded and headed, as well as the greater ideological movement to which he belonged, was yet another attempt by the Muslim world to get out of a rut. Some Muslims saw an answer in playing the political game; others in education & propagation. Yet others saw it in violence.
Much will be said & written, and most will be irrelevant. Because Bin Laden was made irrelevant in December 2010, when Muslim people discovered that they can achieve regime change through peaceful means, contradicting Alqaeda's message that violence was the only solution.
People in the US will celebrate, and people in the Muslim world will celebrate for very different reasons. Bin Laden's death just confirms that our world, the Islamic world, has entered a new phase in its history. New convictions are rising and getting confirmed, as old ones and their propagators are disappearing.
And yet Bin Laden isn't Alqaeda and Alqaeda isn't Jihad. Alqaeda as an organization may well stick with us for a bit, but it's as doomed as a fish removed from water. As an idea, it's already dead. The Islamic concept of Jihad, however - the idea that it's a moral duty to fight aggressors - was with us before Bin Laden, and will stick with us as long as there are Muslims.
And perhaps this is another thing to say about Bin Laden. Never did we support him when he advocated the killing of innocents, and yet never did we complain when he called for picking up arms against aggressors & occupiers. He may have inspired some to thoughtless violence, but he also inspired others to resistance.
The failure of the neoconservative plan for the Muslim world - our forced "liberation" and "liberalization" - is at least partly to be attributed to his influence. On the part of our world, Alqaeda was like an unconscious reflex, a kneejerk response to a threat, one that thrashed around and hurt many people, and yet deterred & foiled an aggressor.
So on this day, May 2nd 2011, as a Muslim I say to the West - sorry for Alqaeda. And I say to Alqaeda - may God forgive you, thank you, and good bye. History books will say that Bin Ladin died in Pakistan around May 2011. They should also write that Alqaeda died in Sidibouzid around December 2010.
http://www.el-baghdadi.com/news-a-politics/analysis-a-commentary/48-analysis-and-commentary/64-what-bin-ladens-death-means-to-muslims.html
To a Muslim, assessing the life of a man like Bin Laden is difficult. There are two Bin Ladens that we knew. The first was a devout Muslim who called for resistance against occupation. The second was a terrorist who called for violence against innocent people based on flimsy & contrived scriptural evidence.
People in the West (US in particular) may think that Bin Laden & Alqaeda was all about them, but it wasn't. The organization he founded and headed, as well as the greater ideological movement to which he belonged, was yet another attempt by the Muslim world to get out of a rut. Some Muslims saw an answer in playing the political game; others in education & propagation. Yet others saw it in violence.
Much will be said & written, and most will be irrelevant. Because Bin Laden was made irrelevant in December 2010, when Muslim people discovered that they can achieve regime change through peaceful means, contradicting Alqaeda's message that violence was the only solution.
People in the US will celebrate, and people in the Muslim world will celebrate for very different reasons. Bin Laden's death just confirms that our world, the Islamic world, has entered a new phase in its history. New convictions are rising and getting confirmed, as old ones and their propagators are disappearing.
And yet Bin Laden isn't Alqaeda and Alqaeda isn't Jihad. Alqaeda as an organization may well stick with us for a bit, but it's as doomed as a fish removed from water. As an idea, it's already dead. The Islamic concept of Jihad, however - the idea that it's a moral duty to fight aggressors - was with us before Bin Laden, and will stick with us as long as there are Muslims.
And perhaps this is another thing to say about Bin Laden. Never did we support him when he advocated the killing of innocents, and yet never did we complain when he called for picking up arms against aggressors & occupiers. He may have inspired some to thoughtless violence, but he also inspired others to resistance.
The failure of the neoconservative plan for the Muslim world - our forced "liberation" and "liberalization" - is at least partly to be attributed to his influence. On the part of our world, Alqaeda was like an unconscious reflex, a kneejerk response to a threat, one that thrashed around and hurt many people, and yet deterred & foiled an aggressor.
So on this day, May 2nd 2011, as a Muslim I say to the West - sorry for Alqaeda. And I say to Alqaeda - may God forgive you, thank you, and good bye. History books will say that Bin Ladin died in Pakistan around May 2011. They should also write that Alqaeda died in Sidibouzid around December 2010.
http://www.el-baghdadi.com/news-a-politics/analysis-a-commentary/48-analysis-and-commentary/64-what-bin-ladens-death-means-to-muslims.html