Te our key points o my article are simple:First, i you want to understand the enemy, read what they say.Second, we must understand al-Qaeda, not as something that was created by Osama bin Laden simply on the oundations o the Arab mujahedeen movement. Rather, it is the product o decades o ideological evolution that started with the Muslim Brotherhood. You could even argue that it is, in act, the product o centuries o ideological and conceptual distillation, go-ing back 1,000 years, to ideologues such as Ibn aymiyyah. But this discussion will ocus on 20th-century developments. Te point is that you must be able to place al-Qaeda in the context o that larger ideological flow.hird, and this is hard or the special opera-tions community and or people who like the lethal stu — hunting people down, chasing high-value targets — we must stop obsess-ing over violent jihad, which is al-Qaeda’s lethal orm o warare. I have built my career on studying this oe, on understanding and explaining it. Finally, AQ does not keep me awake at night any longer. I am not araid o another 9/11. I
am
araid o al-Qaeda’s
sof jihadi
colleagues, those who will not use violence — organiza-tions such as Te Muslim Brotherhood — that use legal tools, economic tools and laware as a weapon to undermine our constitutional order. Tat is by ar the more difficult threat or us to deal with because our national-security estab-lishment does not date back to the ounding o Islam by Mohammed.
Jahiliyyah
simply means a state o pagan dis-belie. Te term was originally used to describe the tribes living around Mecca that worshipped many gods. Mohammed’s mission was to remove
Jahiliyyah
, the lack o knowledge o the oneness o God, rom the Arabian peninsula.Sayyid Qtub, a leading member o the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, took the ancient concept o
Jahiliyyah
and redefined it noting, “oday, 20th Century Islam suffers rom
Jahiliyyah
, rom conusion, rom not understanding the oneness o Allah — that he is supreme — and it is the job o true Muslims to remove that state o pagan ignorance rom not only the Middle East but the whole world.” Why? Because or Qutb, it is not simply a question o unaithul Arab leaders in the Middle East but also a
EDITOR’S NOTE
Tis article is based upon a lecture made to the students and cadre o the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warare Center and School. Te views herein expressed are those o the author and do not necessarily represent those o the Department o Deense or any other U.S. government agency.
BY DR. SEBASTIAN L. GORKA
UNDERSTANDING
THE ENEMY
“If you want to understand the
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