God’s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad

337 Pages·2006·5.95 MB·English

by  Charles Allen

GOD’S
TERRORISTS
Also by Charles Allen
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Tales from the Dark Continent
Tales from the South China Seas
Raj Scrapbook
The Savage Wars of Peace
Thunder and Lightning
Lives of the Indian Princes
A Soldier of the Company
A Glimpse of the Burning Plain
Kipling’s Kingdom
A Mountain in Tibet
The Search for Shangri-La
The Buddha and the Sahibs
Soldier Sahibs
Duel in the Snows
GOD’S
TERRORISTS
The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden
Roots of Modern Jihad
Charles Allen
Copyright © 2006 by Charles Allen
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
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permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
Set in Caslon by M Rules
Unless otherwise stated, maps drawn by John Gilkes
Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of
Congress.
First Da Capo Press paperback edition 2007
First Da Capo Press edition 2006
First published in the United Kingdom by Little, Brown
HC: ISBN-13: 978-0-306-81522-5; ISBN-10: 0-306-81522-2
PBK: ISBN-13: 978-0-306-81570-6; ISBN-10: 0-306-81570-2
eBook ISBN:9780786733002
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
‘There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah.’ Such is the
cry which electrifies 250 millions of the inhabitants of this globe. Such is the cry
which thrills them so that they are ready to go forward and fight for their
religion, and consider it a short road to Paradise to kill Christians and Hindus
and unbelievers. It is that cry which at the present time is echoing and reechoing
through the hills and mountain fastnesses of the North-West Frontier of India. It
is that cry which the mullahs of Afghanistan are now carrying to mountain
hamlets and to towns in Afghanistan in order to raise the people of that country
to come forward and fight. That is a cry which has the power of joining together
the members of Islam throughout the world, and preparing them for a conflict
with all who are not ready to accept their religion . . . And it is especially these
Mohammedans on the North-West Frontier of India who have this intense
religious zeal – call it what we will, fanaticism or bigotry – but which,
nevertheless, is a power within them overruling every passion.
Dr Theodore Pennell,
Missionary Doctor at Bannu, Among the Wild Tribes of the
Afghan Frontier, 1909
Maps
Map 1 India and Afghanistan in the late nineteenth century Map
2 ‘The Peshawur Valley’: John Adye’s map of 1863 showing the
Yusufzai country and Mahabun Mountain Map 3 Arabia in the
mid-nineteenth century
Map 4 ‘Mohmand, Swat and Buner’: map from 1898
Map 5 The North-West Frontier in the 1930s
Preface to the US Paperback Edition
In the three years since I wrote God’s Terrorists things have moved on. In
the memorable words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, ‘stuff happens,’
and chief among that stuff is the continuing fallout from the US-British
intervention in Iraq. It alienated millions of mainstream Muslims who had
previously felt sympathy for America in the wake of 9/11 and had supported its
war against Osama bin Laden and his local allies, the Taliban. It gave new
authority to the Al-Qaeda confederacy, once more able to present itself as the
defender of Islam in the face of US-British aggression. And it led to the
revitalization of the Taliban.
Three years ago there was a growing consensus among impartial observers
of the Afghanistan scene that the war against the Taliban and their ‘Arab’ guests
was close to being won. The reconstruction of the country under a
democratically-elected government was under way. Military and political
pressures had turned Osama bin Laden, Dr Ayman al-Zawahri and their
lieutenants into hunted men, forced to keep moving from one hideout to another
within the tribal areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Their long-suffering
Pathan hosts were showing signs that their famous tradition of limitless
hospitality did indeed have limits. In Pakistan, too, President Musharraf’s
alliance with the United States and Britain had enough popular support within
the country to allow him to stand up to the hard-line Islamist politico-religious
parties led by Deobandi and Ahl-i-Hadith mullahs, and to begin purging the pro-
Taliban elements in the Pakistan Army and the ISI military intelligence service.
The war in Iraq sent all this into reverse. The Bush Administration diverted key
assets and funds, aid donors reneged on their pledges, fair weather allies pulled
out troops, the old corrupt practices resurfaced. Both in Afghanistan and
Pakistan the perception grew that the United States had lost interest, lacked the
will to continue the fight. The fanatics breathed again and regrouped, the
waverers reconsidered their positions and those who had been vocal in their
support for US policies fell silent.
Just as the British and the Russians did in Afghanistan before them, the
United States and its remaining allies have waged their ‘war on terror’ almost
exclusively in military terms, all but ignoring the far more important parallel
battle for hearts and minds. There is an uncomfortable parallel here with the
Prophet Muhammad’s division of jihad into a greater and lesser struggle and his
statement that the spiritual struggle of the greater jihad was more important than
the physical struggle of the lesser jihad. Back in 1994–5 many Pathans gave their
support to the Taliban not because they shared their religious ideology but
because they represented the least worst option. Today, the Pathans are again
turning to the home-grown enemy they know and for the same reason. For want
of evidence to the contrary they have accepted the Wahhabi propaganda that the
US Nasrani (Christian) agenda is the destruction of their religion.
As I write, the Taliban are once more in the ascendant and Pakistan is in
deep trouble. In the tribal areas along the Afghan border the Islamist politico-
religious parties dominate local government and are backing the Taliban to the
hilt. They have made it clear that their agenda is nothing less than the
Talibanization of Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. Three years ago their
pretensions seemed laughable but the reality today is that they are winning the
greater jihad as mainstream Sunni Islam in Pakistan becomes increasingly
demoralized and polarized. This radicalization extends to the streets of Britain,
where large numbers of young Muslim Britons have rejected the tolerant,
inclusive Islam which their parents brought with them from Pakistan in favor of
the hard-line jihadism preached by the Islamist mullahs. The cult of the suicide
bomber has won converts among young men desperate to find a Muslim identity
in a non-Muslim land and eager to embrace the chimera of martyrdom.
Homeland America is as vulnerable to these young would-be martyrs as Britain,
Spain or other European countries where the bombers have left their bloody
handprints. Their war against the West will not end with the deaths of Osama bin
Laden and Dr Ayman al-Zawahri.
Charles Allen
London, June 2007