Fitna's Training

Edward William Lane

Defining Fitnah

(Image from Wikipedia)

Actually, this post has almost nothing to do with the movie Fitna, but I couldn't resist another pun.

It might, however, have something to do with fitna (فتنة), which Edward W. Lane, in his Arab-English Lexicon (1863-74), romanizes as fitnah (plural of fitn) and defines as follows:

a burning of fire, a melting of (metals) in order to distinguish the bad from the good, a means whereby the condition of aman is evinced in respect of good or evil, punishment, chastisement, conflict among people, faction and sedition, discord, dissension, difference of opinions, a misleading, causing to err, seduction, temptation. (page 2336)

For those more deeply interested, the lexicon can be downloaded at this site: Edward William Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (Dictionary).

Lane has defined the term for us, but we should note that the word recalls two civil wars in early Islam, the First Fitna (656–661 AD) and the Second Fitna (683–685). If we assume that Geert Wilders is more clever than some credit him with being, then we should conclude that he knows these things and that he chose the title of his short film accordingly, either to describe or induce a civil war within Islam -- I do not know which.

I happen to think that there is a split within Islam between the Islamists and those opposed to them, which sometimes breaks out in military conflict. We've seen this in the Anbar region of Iraq, where the local Sunni populace, fed up with Al Qaeda's harsh brand of Islam, began to resist and even cooperate with the American military, as I noted in an earlier blogpost, "Mismanagement of Savagery?" The 'savagery' that Al Qaeda fomented in parts of Iraq was part of a strategy of deliberate destabilization, whereby Islamists first foment chaos and then offer assistance in a sort of "manufactured heroism," as you can read about in an even earlier post, "Abu Bakr Naji's Management of Savagery." One might even call the savagery a sort of fitna when it is fomented in an already Muslim region such as Iraq. In this Iraqi fitna, some side with Al Qaeda, but most have turned against them.

I'm reading another article by Shmuel Bar, "The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism," Policy Review (June & July 2004), who notes the following about the American occupation of Iraq, comparing the Islamists hopes there with their success in the jihad against the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan (the first wave of mujahidin referred to by Bar):

The politics of Islamist radicalism has also bred a mentality of bello ergo sum (I fight, therefore I exist) -- Islamic leaders are in constant need of popular jihads to boost their leadership status. Nothing succeeds like success: The [9/11] attacks in the United States gave birth to a second wave of mujahidin who want to emulate their heroes. The perception of resolve on the part of the West is a critical factor in shaping the mood of the Muslim population toward radical ideas. Therefore, the manner by which the United States deals with the present crisis in Iraq is not unconnected to the future of the radical Islamic movement. In these circles, the American occupation of Iraq is likened to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; a sense of American failure would feed the apocalyptical ideology of jihad.

Bar is implicitly describing a division within Islam, with the undecided still waiting to see which side to join, the Islamists or their opponents -- a sort of fitna's training (to borrow my own pun). If the Americans are perceived as losing in Iraq, then many of the undecided will join the longer-term jihad.

But in Iraq, what would "winning" mean?