Islamist Intellectual
Posted on 11/15/2006 5:39:38 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden may be the leading symbol of global Islamist militancy but the al Qaeda leader wields less influence over Islamist ideology than more obscure religious thinkers, according to a new study issued on Wednesday.
The study also found that Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's second-in-command, appears to be insignificant among Islamist intellectuals despite his image as a driving force behind the al Qaeda network.
The Militant Ideology Atlas, compiled by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, instead showed Palestinian cleric Mohammed al-Maqdisi as the most influential living Islamist thinker.
Maqdisi, reportedly a mentor to the late al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is currently in prison in Jordan.
The Combating Terrorism Center is part of the West Point military academy that trains officers for the U.S. Army. Its chairman is retired Gen. Wayne Downing, a former U.S. special operations commander in chief.
The center's study examined popular books and articles posted on al Qaeda Web sites over the past year. It listed nearly 60 modern authors, including President George W. Bush and former President Richard Nixon, who were cited most often in online postings.
Bin Laden appeared among nine authors tied for fourth place on the list. Zawahri was not listed.
"Not surprisingly, bin Laden makes our list of influential ideologues, although he matters much less in the intellectual network than Maqdisi and others," the study's authors said.
"His lieutenant, Zawahri, often portrayed by Western media as the main brain in the jihadi movement, is totally insignificant in the jihadi intellectual movement," they added.
"To be sure, both men have had an enormous impact on the wider jihadi movement. But our data shows that they have had little to no impact on jihadi thinkers."
The distinction is important because U.S. intelligence officials and independent analysts say the future of the Islamist movement depends on a vigorous religious intellectual debate about violent resistance that is occurring increasingly on the Internet.
Current and former intelligence officials say the Bush administration has been loathe to influence the discussion directly because of the United States' lack of credibility in the Muslim world.
But Washington has sought to support efforts by Muslim countries, from Egypt to Malaysia, to challenge religious arguments that advocate suicide bombings and the killing of innocents, two of the debate's most heated subjects.
The West Point study said Islamists who advocate violence could be discredited by Middle East clerics who subscribe to Salafism, the form of Islam from which al Qaeda and other militant groups draw their legitimacy. Violent militants are a minority within the Salafi community.
"Salafi scholars -- particularly Saudi clerics -- are best positioned to discredit the movement," the study said.
"Given the influence of these men, they are best positioned to convince jihadis to abandon certain tactics."
Here's a study I can agree with. Bin Laden wasn't thinking when he attacked this country.
To quote Carlos Mencia. "Ooh, you screw up BIG time"
"Islamist intellectuals" -- now there's an oxymoron!
Here's a deep thought: "thinkers" like Bin Laden, or for that matter, the ruling Ayatollahs of Iran, have disproportionate influence because of 3 letters: O I L.
Wasn't the brightest move. Consigned the rest of his life to live in caves and rat holes. Could have been enjoying his harem. Now must constantly fear betrayal.
Islamist Intellectual
I suspect his fear of betrayal and capture are greater than his fear of being vaporized....IF he's still alive.
symbol= skeleton
Who the hell is Bin Laden? Is he the guy pointing the finger? Oh wait, no they ALL wag those stupid fingers at us.
They needed a study to figure this out? Oh, I bet it was the Democrats who needed it.
"Islamist intellectuals"
There's an oxymoron, if I've ever heard one.
On Sept 11, my impression was that bin Laden looked quite a bit smarter than we did.
"Islamist intellectuals"
There's an oxymoron, if I've ever heard one.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Underestimating your enemy is a good way to get whacked; hard. Wise up.
http://www.ghazali.org/articles/watt.htm
http://www.howardbloom.net/islam.htm
Two thousand three hundred years ago a Greek who even his fellow Greeks called a barbarian conquered the entire Persian Empire. His name was Alexander the Great.
The whole thing was as unlikely as the Vietnamese turning around and conquering the U.S. But it happened. In fact, in history it happens over and over again.
It happened in 1870 when the French were forced to fight a country which just a few years earlier had been a disorganized clutter of rag-tag mini-states ruled by comic opera princes. The land of Napoleon was rated by every armchair general as the mightiest military force on the Continent. But France lost. Its army was chopped up like ground round. Its glorious capital, Paris, faced the humiliation of a foreign army marching down its streets. The upstart nation that had brought France to its knees was... Germany.
An equally surprising fate occurred to England when it trained its guns on the superpowers of its day in two world wars. When the smoke had cleared, two backward nations of Johnny-come-latelies ended up dominating the world. These countries, whose inhabitants had usually been regarded as just one small step above the primitive, were The United States and Russia.
The moral is simple. Never forget the pecking order's surprises. Today's superpower is tomorrow's conquered state. Yesterday's overlooked mob is often the ruler of tomorrow. Never underestimate the third world. Never be complacent about barbarians.
Islamism fuels itself.
No communist would say that Che Guevara was one of the "great intellectual thinkers" of Marxism, but that has nothing to do with his being an inspiration to leftists worldwide for generations.
A Islamicist would see Bin Laden and al-Zawahri as "men of action." But if he wants to read an "intellectual jihadist" he'll go to Sayyid Qutb, Maulana Mawdudi, Hasan al-Banna, the Ayatollah Khomeini, etc.
Hey! An essay by David Cook on "Paradigmatic Jihadi Movements"! Great!!!
BTW, I didn't mean that the CTC's study The Militant Ideology Atlas was drivel -- just that the al-Reuters backwards reporting on it was useless.
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