On August 4, 2005, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qa'ida's second-in command, commented on the July 7 bombings in London. His remarks were directed at citizens of the "Crusader coalition" led by the United States and the United Kingdom; no doubt he also meant to rally Muslim support for the 7/7 bombers and to inspire others to follow their example.
As for the English, I say to them: Blair has brought destruction upon you, to the center of London, and he will have more of it, God willing. Oh peoples of the Crusader coalition! We have offered you, at least [the opportunity to] stop your aggression against the Muslims ... The lion of Islam, the struggler, Shaykh Usama bin Ladin, may God protect him, offered you a truce, so that you will leave the lands of Islam. Did Shaykh Usama bin Ladin not tell you that you could not dream of security before we live it as a reality in Palestine and before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad? But you have made rivers of blood in our countries, so we blew up volcanoes of rage in your countries. Our message to you is clear and unequivocal: You will not be saved unless you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and our resources, and cease your support of the corrupt [Muslim] rulers.
[As for the
Americans,] what you have seen in New York and Washington, and the casualties
you witness in Afghanistan and in Iraq, despite all the media blackout,
are nothing but the casualties of the initial clashes. If you continue
the same policy of aggression against the Muslims, you will see, God willing,
horrors that will make you forget what you saw ... in Vietnam ... there
is no way out of Iraq, other than immediate withdrawal, and ... any delay
in making this decision means nothing but more dead and casualties. If
you do not leave today, you will definitely leave tomorrow, but with tens
of thousands dead, and many more crippled and wounded. The same lies that
[your leaders] said about Vietnam, they repeat today about Iraq. Did they
not say that they would train the Vietnamese to manage their own affairs,
and that they were defending freedom in Vietnam?!
Al-Zawahiri's
statement was obviously a commentary on current events. But the commentary
was framed by historical allusions. Of these, the most significant were
"the land of Muhammad" and "our [Muslims'] land." The fighting in Afghanistan
and Iraq and, more generally, the struggle with the United States and its
allies were thus linked to major themes of Islamic tradition.
Al-Zawahiri's historical references also establish a link between the program of al-Qa'ida and the notion of precedent so important in the practice of Shari'a reasoning. The August 4 statement serves as a pointed reminder that the leadership of al-Qa'ida justifies its struggle through appeals to authoritative texts. The story of Muhammad and his companions, the notion that Islam is the natural religion of humanity, and the growth of Islam as a civilization provide the backdrop for the militant program. Al-Zawahiri's remarks indicate that this program is not simply a matter of possessing territory, as though "the land of Muhammad" were Muslim "property." For alZawahiri, land is a trust, and good stewardship involves the establishment and maintenance of an Islamic government, in accord with the wishes of God, the creator and ultimate owner of all territory. In this, he echoes the dominant Muslim account of the way Islam became a world power. Europeans and North Americans may speak about the Islamic "conquest." Muslims speak about the "opening" of territory by which people received freedom from tyranny as almujahiddin, the strugglers in the path of God, responded to the Qur'an's depiction of the plight of the oppressed:
Why should you not fight in God's cause and for those oppressed-men, women, and children who cry out, "Lord, rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors! By Your grace, give us a protector and helped"? (Qur'an 4:75)
Muslim accounts suggest that the conquest of territory in the Middle East, North Africa, central and south Asia, and south-central Europe proceeded from the noblest of motives. The call of the oppressed-the call of God-was for an end to tyranny. The victory of Islam provided this, removing tyrannical regimes and replacing them with something better. The liberating mujahiddin established patterns of administration. They collected taxes, distributed land, and performed the other functions associated with government. The new regime was also qualitatively different from the old. It involved government by Islam, the rule of Shari'a. The new regime focused on the development of a political system consonant with divine guidance, and also (since Islam is the natural religion) with the true nature of human beings.
It is worth recalling at this point, Al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden; the authors of The Neglected Duty and of the Charter of Barnas; those who carried out the attacks of 9/11/2001, of 3/11/2004, and of 7/7/2005-all these people claim the mantle of the Shari'a. They consider themselves the vanguard of Islam, blessed by God to carry out the struggle against the idols of their time. For them, the story of the Prophet is not simply a matter of historical record. It is a living narrative, through which people should interpret current events. On the day of creation, God challenged human beings to bear witness to his lordship and summoned them to walk the straight path. By means of various prophets, God reiterated the challenge to subsequent generations, offering them the way of submission as a gift and a task. As the last and greatest of the prophets, Muhammad called humanity to obedience, and his message echoes through the centuries with a force that reaches to the present. In our time, as previously, God issues a challenge, and offers human beings a gift. The challenge is for human beings, individually and collectively, to submit themselves to God. The gift is life and hope, freedom and peace. In political terms, this gift takes the form of an Islamic government, in which the purpose of the state is to establish and maintain the rule of Shari'a, so that Muslims and nonMuslims alike may know the blessings of God. Instantiated through a process of consultation between religious and political leaders, the rule of Shari'a ensures that people are properly related to one another. Men exercise oversight with respect to women, parents supervise the formation of children, and members of the Muslim community provide protection to Jews, Christians, and others living under their care.
The militants' struggle is intended to present the gift of Islamic government to all humanity. It is not, as some analysts suggest, a matter of destruction without purpose. A statement by al-Zawahiri issued in June 2005 serves to make the point:
True reform is based on three principles: The first principle is the rule of Shari'a, because Shari'a, which was given by God, protects the believers' interests, freedom, honor, and pride, and protects what is sacred to them. The Islamic nation will not accept any other law, after it has suffered from the anti-Islamic trends forcefully imposed on it.
The second principle of reform is the freedom of the lands of Islam. No reform is conceivable while our countries are occupied by the Crusader forces ... The third principle of reform is the Muslim nation's freedom to run its own affairs. This freedom will only be realized in two ways. First, freedom of the independent religious judicial system, the implementation of its rulings, and the guaranteeing of its honor, authority, and strength. Second, the freedom and right of the Islamic nation to implement the principle of "promoting virtue and preventing vice.'
True reform sets the Islamic community free. Once free, it may go on to bear witness to the form of order proper to all humanity. The believers must be realistic, however. They must understand that the goal will not be accomplished in a day. They must also understand that military action will be required. Finally, the believers must recognize that they will be tempted, and that they must in particular resist the siren song of democracy, with its separation of religious and political institutions. Al-Zawahiri continues:
I would also like to stress that the expulsion of the invading Crusaders and Jews from the lands of Islam will not be accomplished merely through demonstrations and hoarse throats in the streets. Reform and expelling the invaders from the lands of Islam will only be accomplished by fighting for the sake of God ... I salute my brothers, the lions of Islam, who are on the holy front of Islam around Jerusalem. I call upon them in the name of God not to abandon their jihad, not to throw down their weapons, not to believe the counsel of the collaborators, not to forget the lessons of history, not to trust the secularists who have sold Palestine cheaply, and not to be drawn into the secular game of elections in accordance with a secular constitution.
Al-Zawahiri presents a vision of political life in which the rule of Shari'a is identified with a particular form of order. In this order, Muslims must lead. They are to be citizens of the first rank, meaning that they take leadership in the setting of policy. Further, the task of leadership is primarily a matter of implementing precedents set during Islam's classical period. For al-Zawahiri, there is little room for a sustained process of discerning divine guidance. Nor is there room for development of the type that might allow contemporary Muslims to say that they honor the precedents set by earlier generations, but that their condition requires something new. To take one example: Can the sources of Shari'a reasoning be read in ways that allow Muslims to participate in a genuinely democratic political system? Is it possible for Muslims, in good conscience, to identify the symbol of "rule by the Shari'a" with an order in which Jews, Christians, Buddhists, even people who profess no religious faith at all participate as equals, each and all having a say in the formation of policy?
For al-Zawahiri, the answer is no. He speaks as an advocate of Islamic governance. There are of course differences among militants in this regard. While most of these are tactical differences, referring to questions like "Is suicide bombing legitimate?" or "In the struggle against the U.S. and its allies, is there a meaningful distinction between civilian and military targets?," there are also differences among militants regarding the extent to which the rule of Shari'a requires ordinary believers to submit their private judgment to "right-thinking" 'ulama, or with respect to non-Muslim participation in an Islamic government. Some militant authors allow for the possibility that non-Muslims might be given a role in the executive branch of government; for example, one of their number might hold the portfolio of minister of transportation or another cabinet-level post. They might even have limited representation in a consultative assembly, though this issue is more sensitive. The reason for the limitation? The commitment to rule by Shari'a and, with it, to arrangements that safeguard the superintending role of the Islamic community requires that the legislative role of government be controlled by people of a certain character. Government must be guided by God's law rather than by a set of norms developed by human beings. Muslim leadership, in the context of rule by the Shari'a, is basic to all militant groups. So is the rejection of democracy, with its notion of the equality of citizens. The militant vision is one in which premodern precedents are not so much interpreted as applied. To those who say that the patterns of governance illustrated in historical Islam do not fit with the needs and interests of modern persons, the militant answer is "Let the precedents stand!" If there is a problem of fit, then it is contemporary humanity that lacks understanding. The idea is to apply tried and true patterns of governance and to refashion the world in line with God's guidance.
In its appeal to premodern precedent, the militant vision of politics establishes its relationship to historical Islamic tradition. This is part of its attractiveness. Al-Zawahiri and other militant leaders speak to a widespread sense that current political arrangements are unsatisfactory. Their most direct evidence is the impotence or corruption of the existing governments of Muslim states. The World Islamic Front Declaration on Armed Struggle against Jews and Crusaders, the Charter of Hamas, and The Neglected Duty all make this point. The Declaration's mention of the royal family's failure to carry through on its promise to remove U.S. troops from Saudi territory; of the inability of any Muslim government to lift United Nationsimposed sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s, and thus to relieve the suffering of Iraq; and, finally, of the lack of an effective response by Muslim governments with respect to Israel's policies of occupation and settlement of Palestinian land-all these highlight the irrelevance of established regimes. Something is wrong, the Declaration suggests. There is no one able to defend Muslim interests, much less to pursue Islamically valid goals.
To this political and military evidence, other militant pronouncements add an indictment of the position of Muslims in the international economy. For example, Sulayman Abu Ghayth's "In the Shadow of the Lances" denounces the post-Cold War policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. During the 1990s these institutions' insistence that developing countries implement reforms that would make their markets attractive to international investors led states like Pakistan to privatize a number of state-owned industries. Public utilities, telephone, and other communications enterprises opened themselves to foreigners seeking profit. Abu Ghayth argues that these changes were really the work of the United States, and were a means of increasing its domination at the expense of Muslims. The fact that the new arrangements made Muslims complicit in an economic system characterized by the practice of usury presents one sort of problem; more fundamentally, the way in which change was implemented provides further evidence of the impotence of existing Muslim governments.
From the militant point of view, the world is out of joint. The Neglected Duty asks believers to compare the current context with that of Ibn Taymiyya, who spoke of the duty to struggle against ostensibly Muslim rulers like the Mongols. Al-Zawahiri asks that they compare it also with the context of the Prophet, who in his struggle with the Quraysh typifies the eternal struggle between submission and heedlessness. The solution to humanity's problems in these historical cases was rule by the Shari'a. The same remedy applies in the current case, and believers should employ the same combination of persuasion and armed struggle as did the faithful of previous generations. Al-Zawahiri, Sulayman Abu Ghayth, and others are committed to the cause of Islamic governance. They present themselves as the inheritors of the mantle of the Prophet and his companions; that is, the mantle of the Shari'a, by which God guides humanity to happiness in this world and the next.
On the face of it, the claims of al-Zawahiri and other militants make good "Islamic" sense. Their program is stated clearly, and in terms that are basic to Islamic tradition. Are they right?
The militants' claims are controversial, as we have seen. Some of the most controversial points are already clear from our discussion of the tactics employed in armed resistance. The claim of the World Islamic Front Declaration, whereby fighting Americans and their allies, civilians and soldiers, is obligatory for each and every Muslim in any country where it is possible, draws criticism from a wide assortment of people. Traditional authorities like the Shaykh al-Azhar, religious personalities like Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, and prominent militants like Muhsin al- 'Awaji alike indicate there are problems in the argument of the Declaration. They point to the targeting of civilians, the account of fighting as an individual duty, and the proper location of military operations as important issues. These criticisms go to the heart of claims made by al-Qa'ida and like-minded groups to represent the authentic version of Islam. Al- 'Awaji's complaint that bin Laden and "those with him target innocents, and I mean the innocent of every nation, of every race and religion, on the face of the earth" counts against bin Laden's claims.6 Similarly, when al- 'Awaji and his colleagues say that the model by which Saudi officials encouraged young men to go to the aid of the Muslims fighting against Soviet forces in Mghanistan during the 1980s or to Chechnya in more recent years corresponds more closely to the historical notion of fighting as an individual duty than does the practice of al-Qa'ida, or when al-Qaradhawi and the Shaykh al-Azhar say that military operations outside territories where one may speak of an invasion or occupation are illegitimate, they undercut the movement's authority. The militant position is rife with anarchic tendencies. Every Muslim becomes, at least potentially, judge, jury, and executioner in whatever case he deems appropriate. For this reason, in his response to the argument of The Neglected Duty the Shaykh al-Azhar insists that one of the things militants must consider, if they claim to serve the cause of justice, is this: Will the actions taken in the service of justice yield more harm than good? If each and every Muslim is authorized to take up arms in the context of an emergency, who will determine when the emergency is over? Even more, who will be able to enforce such a determination, so that those fighting will be willing to lay down their arms?
Given these questions, the failure to articulate a more substantial criticism of resistance movements in relation to notions of political authority seems strange. Why not insist that militants like bin Laden or al-Zawahiri cease their advocacy of military operations, or that they confine themselves to making the case for reform through normal political channels? The answer is, or seems to be, that those critics cited thus far do not in fact dissent from the militant judgment that current political arrangements are illegitimate. From al- 'Awaji to Qaradhawi, from al-Muhajirun to the Shaykh al-Azhar, disagreements about the just war take place within a general agreement regarding the desirability of a particular kind of political structure. In its broad outlines, the militant vision articulated by al-Zawahiri is also the vision of his critics. These may complain that al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden lack depth or sophistication in their practice of Shari'a reasoning; they certainly argue that the means these figures employ are wrong or counterproductive, or both. But they do not dissent from the judgment that current political arrangements are unsatisfactory, and that the cure for the ills of the world community involves the establishment of Islamic governance. Recalling the consensus among traditionally trained scholars like Rashid Rida and more popular leaders like Hasan al-Banna and Abu'l a'la Mawdudi that the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate must not mean the end of Islamic government, one should further recall that this judgment captures some of the broadest and most important tendencies in modern Islamic political thought. In this trend, Islamic government may involve a parliament or a consultative assembly. It may involve elections, so that the process of consultation, or al-shura, is more widely participatory than in the past. It cannot compromise on Muslim leadership, however. To do so, for example by following in the path of modern democracies, reduces the political role of Islam; it suggests that the Muslim voice should simply be one among many contributing to the making of policy. To put it another way, democracy implies a kind of moral equivalence between Islam and other perspectives. And such a situation is dangerous, not only for the standing of the Muslim community, but for the moral life of humankind.
A more subtle piece of rhetoric comes from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad published a letter to President Bush in May 2006, most American and European commentators treated it as irrelevant. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice led the way in this response, dismissing the letter as lacking in any serious proposals regarding the critical issue before policymakers, which was how to deal with Iran's nuclear program.
In one sense, Secretary Rice was correct. The Iranian president's letter did not address this issue, nor did it offer concrete proposals to deflect or remove international concerns about Iran's policy of supplying the Lebanese-based Hizbullah or certain Iraqi resistance groups with material support. In addition, a number of widel) licized quotes emphasizing Ahmadinejad's readiness to relate belief in the imminent appearance of the Hidden Imam, or Mahdi, to the possibility of nuclear war were not simply worrisome, but made some commentators question his mental balance.
Ahmadinejad's letter, however, is an important intervention in Muslim just-war argument. Once we place it in the context of his account of the mission of the Islamic Republic, and understand its primary audience as young Muslims rather than the U.S. president and his policy advisers, the document provides a clear example of the kind of analysis an-Na'im fears, in the context of the war on terror.
Ahmadinejad
took the oath of office as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran in
August 2005. An early supporter of the 1978 revolution, he has been active
in the republic's political affairs since the outset. As a member of the
Revolutionary Guard, Ahmadinejad served during the long war against Iraq.
Estimates of Iranian casualties put the number at one million, with perhaps
another million on the Iraqi side. The war began when Saddam Hussein ordered
Iraqi troops to cross the border into Iranian territory in 1980. It concluded
in 1988, with a peace arrangement described by the Ayatollah Khomeini as
"worse than drinking poison." For Saddam, the fighting had been motivated
by his desire to persuade the new Iranian government to cease a propaganda
campaign aimed at Shi'i and other Iraqis dissatisfied with his government.
For Khomeini and the revolutionary regime, Saddam's invasion was an attack
on an Islamic state and constituted "rebellion by blasphemy against Islam."
When Ahmadinejad
became mayor of Tehran in 2003, he proposed moving the bodies of Iranians
killed in the fighting to major squares in the city, thus emphasizing their
role as martyrs for the Islamic state. In general, Ahmadinejad's political
rhetoric depicts an ongoing, revolutionary struggle.
In his letter to Bush next, Ahmadinejad presents what he identifies as the questions of his students. These focus on specific issues in the conduct, the war on terror, including the treatment of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, rumors of secret prisons in Europe, the relationships between the United States and Israel, and the refusal of the great powers to work with Hamas after its victory in the 2005 Palestinian elections. How, he asks, are these actions consistent with democratic or any other values? Ahmadinejad also indicates that his students wonder about U.S. policies in Latin America and Africa. They are struck, he says, by the fact that these policies appear to aim at security by means of domination. Yet the American people do not seem more secure as a result of post-9/11 policies, Ahmadinejad writes; they actually feel less secure, and the American government and media seem to conspire to make them afraid. Then he comes to his "main contention."
Those in power have a specific time in office, and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures. The people will scrutinize our presidencies. Did we manage to bring peace, security, and prosperity for the people; or insecurity and unemployment? Did we intend to establish justice, or just to support special interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, make a few people rich and powerful ... ? They will judge us on whether we remained true to our oath of office-to serve the people, which is our main task, and the traditions of the prophets-or not. 13
Ahmadinejad clearly believes that the answers to these questions are in doubt, at least with respect to President Bush, and he argues that there is a better way. The way is that of Jesus, of Moses, of Muhammad, and of all the other prophets. It is the way of faith that there is only one God, and that nothing in this world-no human being or every nation on Earth, especially those with some connection to what the Ayatollah Khomeini described as al-mustadafin, the oppressed.
The various questions raised reflect a particular rhetorical strategy. Ahmadinejad does not begin with affirmations of the superiority of Islam, or with a discussion of the various arguments for and against democracy. At the outset, he is prepared to let President Bush's professions of value stand. When the questions begin, Ahmadinejad speaks concretely, guiding his readers even as he purports to represent their concerns. The early questions, in particular, have to do with the tactics of an administration engaged in a war on terror. While Ahmadinejad's queries engage broader issues of politics and economics as the letter proceeds, the conduct of military operations takes pride of place. We may paraphrase Ahmadinejad's questions as follows:
In the struggle
against aggression, can the U.S. commit aggression? In the fight against
groups that practice lying and deception, should the United States and
its allies go to war under false pretenses? In the attempt to defeat groups
who kill civilians and military personnel without discrimination, is it
right for U.S. forces to cause civilian deaths-particularly in numbers
that suggest excess, in terms of the value of the direct, military target
of their operations? In defense of liberty, should the United States violate
the liberties of Muslims, denying them due process of law and other rights
guaranteed in international conventions?
From these
basic questions, Ahmadinejad moves to broader issues regarding the form
of political life. His strategy is to undermine the values and U.S. policies
is critical. These contradictions suggest that something is wrong. If the
Bush administration represents democratic values, then Ahmadinejad's "students"
will have nothing to d with it. For them, he says, there is a better way-the
way of tl: prophets; the way of Islam. President Ahmadinejad's letter explicitly
invites George Bush to follow Islam. Implicitly, and more importantly,
the letter invites Muslims, young and old alike, to join the Iranian president
in bearing witness to the more excellent way of ordering political life
represented in the sources and practice of Islamic tradition. From questions
about the conduct of war to issues relate to intention, to judgments about
democracy itself-the line of argument is not logical, in the strict sense
of the word. Even were the charges of unjust conduct proven true, and the
intention of the Bus administration and its major allies unsound, that
outcome would not invalidate the argument of Muslim democrats with respect
to democracy. Logical proof is not Ahmadinejad's strategy, however.
Furthermore, Ahmadinejad's views are influenced by the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran in regards to his critique of democracy. The Ayatollah Khomeini himself, commented on more than on occasion about the two types of government present in human history. The first is a type that may be described as by, and for the people. Khomeini's further characterizations point to the particular type of democracy that philosophers associate with the term "liberal." Governments of this type have a limited scope. They prohibit public assault, for example, and they punish those who violate others' property, but they do not consider that government has a role in the cultivation of character. The objective is to protect individual liberty. In that connection, democratic societies draw lines intended to prevent or inhibit governments from interfering in the private lives of citizens. What one does in one's home is not a concern of government, even if that entails watching television programs that exploit the violent emotions associated with physical assault, or that celebrate thieves as clever. Protections of individual liberty thus leave room for a wide variety of activities that, from many points of view, serve to undermine character by allowing people to indulge all sorts of negative passions. Since the state provides little or no guidance in these matters, rather leaving the cultivation of character up to individuals and private or voluntary associations, weaker or less hardy souls are subject to exploitation-watching lewd or exceptionally violent films may be a personal choice, but there are people ready and waiting to feed and enlarge that choice, in line with their own pursuit of wealth and the power it brings. Overall, Khomeini depicts modern democracy as a kind of abdication of responsibility before God. In the space it leaves for selfishness and other "small" forms of tyranny, human beings develop the taste for larger forms. Alternatively, one could say that left to their own devices, human beings indulge themselves in ways that leave them bereft of the moral power necessary to recognize and resist oppression. The clearest examples of this loss of moral power involve the willingness of democratic states to tolerate and even to cherish a rapacious market whereby the poor are enslaved by mountains of debt, and the immorality of the Western powers in the conduct of war.
Over against democracy or government by human law Khomeini set Islamic government, which operates in accordance with divine law. The latter does not leave human beings to wallow in the muck of their own desires. Rather, it encourages people to aspire to the model behavior of prophets and saints, whose example points toward the ultimate goal of union with God. Islamic government regulates sexual behavior, prohibits lending at usurious interest, discourages modes of dress and entertainment that awaken negative passions, and encourages people in religious observance. It recognizes the human right to own property, and in that sense is not to be identified with a socialist economy. But it does not tolerate exploitative behavior in the quest for profit, and it does not countenance immoral behavior in the conduct of war. In these matters, Khomeini's views are instantiated in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which specifies in article 3 that fostering virtue in citizens is one of the goals of the Islamic state, and that the foreign policy of the republic is devoted to the defense of Islamic values, first in the sense of maintaining its own boundaries, and second in the sense of a readiness to intervene in cases in which Islamic interests are at stake-for example, in the struggle against tyranny.
Khomeini's critique is certainly relevant to Ahmadinejad's attempt to undermine democracy. More broadly, this set of criticisms, and the corresponding affirmation of humanity's need for forms of government that instantiate the Muslim community as the religious and moral superintendent of humanity, resonate with longstanding trends in Islamic political discourse. We have seen how, in the reaction to 'Ali 'abd al-Raziq's treatise on Islamic government, Sunni authorities and activists suggested that the models of democracy associated with Europe and North America were not well suited to historically Islamic societies. One might argue (and some did) that the political development of these societies was not sufficient to deal with the give-and-take required by democratic practice, or that new freedoms and affirmations of equal rights would give rise to public displays of ethnic and religious animosity based on long-simmering feelings of deprivation or victimization. More importantly, though, the argument of Rashid Rida, as of more populist leaders like Hasan al-Banna or, in Pakistan, Abu'l Mawdudi, suggested that democracy was not well suited to the Muslim mission. By separating religious and political institutions, and thus limiting the role of Islam in public life, democracy would inhibit the Muslim community's capacity to influence behavior. Since the Qur'an's description of and charge to the Muslims has to do with commanding right and forbidding wrong, the failure to write in a role for the Muslim community as religious and moral superintendent seems wrong. In a manner that foreshadowed Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri on the Sunni side, Khomeini and Ahmadinejad on the Shi'i, Rida and others argued that Muslim acceptance of this limitation would contribute to the moral slide of humanity. Did not the colonial policies of the European powers already demonstrate their willingness to use military force to suppress their subjects' attempts to secure basic rights? Did not the conduct of the First World War suggest a lack of character in democratic states? Why should the Muslims follow in the path of the West? In the 1920s and 1930s, even as in the rhetoric of Ahmadinejad or Ayman al-Zawahiri, advocacy of rule by the Sharica suggested an Islamic model of governance that is considered superior to democracy, not least in that it addresses the human propensity toward heedlessness and tyranny.
But such judgments of the conduct of war are logically distinct from those related to resort to war; to put it another way, to say that U.S. military operations in Afghanistan or Iraq include instances in which prisoners have been abused, or that the United States and its allies resort to excessive or disproportionate force does not necessarily mean that war was immoral in the first place. For more on that see also:
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