Charles Allen: God's Terrorists

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

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.

Since 9/11 a lot has been said and written about global jihad, the international movement which seeks to bring about Islamic revival by forcing the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds into violent confrontation. Understandably, the focus has been on modern events and on how and why rather than whence. This book is not about the present. It is a history of the ideology underpinning modern jihad and, in particular, a first full account of one important strand in that founding ideology: Wahhabism. This initially took shape in Arabia at the end of the eighteenth century, and was then brought to the Indian sub-continent early in the nineteenth century. It took on the Sikhs, the British and mainstream Muslim society. Time and time again it was suppressed, only to reform and revive, eventually to find new life in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the late twentieth century. This history offers no solutions but it does illustrate patterns of behaviour, successes and failures from which lessons might be drawn.

The following pages contain a great many personal names that may sound alien to those unfamiliar with Muslim tradition, where it is customary to use Arabic names hallowed by religious connotations, the most obvious example being ‘Muhammad’ and its diminutive ‘Ahmad’, both meaning ‘praised’. To get over the inevitable duplication of personal names Islamic custom makes good use of honorific titles (e.g., Sheikh – man of learning) and terms that define status (e.g., Shaheed – martyr), occupation (e.g., Maulana – learned priest), place names (e.g., Delhvi – of Delhi), and paternity (e.g., ibn , bin – son of). Assumed names are often used as, indeed, are noms de guerre . Patience is called for, of the sort familiar to non-Russian readers of Count Tolstoy’s novels. As an aid, the first time the name of a Muslim figure of importance appears (or reappears after a long gap) the most commonly used short version of his name is in small capitals, and used thereafter: for example, Amir-ul-Momineen Shah SYED AHMAD Barelvi Shaheed (Commander of the Faithful King Syed Ahmad of Bareli Martyr). To guide the reader through this minefield of names, a list of the main Muslim personalities featured is provided. There are also two charts at the back of this book. The first illustrates the ties between the two families who first secured Wahhabism in Arabia: the second sets out what I have dubbed the ‘Wahhabi’ family tree in India, showing the key promoters of the several strands of Wahhabi revivalist theology in the nineteenth century. A glossary is provided.