An Instructive Exchange

Lorin Maazel

"a noted conductor"

(Image from Lorin Maazel: The Official Website)

Gypsy Scholar is pretty well-informed about things, but Jeffery Hodges is still rather ignorant and therefore tends to learn something new every day . . . as you shall see in today's borrowed dialogue.

Over at Waka Waka Waka, my online friend Malcolm Pollack noted my blog entry on Tawfik Hamid and was impressed by . . . well, you'll see what impressed him. In his own words:

There are those who would have us believe that the root causes of Islamic terrorism are poverty and political oppression, and that if we Americans weren't such swaggering imperialists, and could just get along a little more amicably with other cultures, we'd have less to worry about. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Our friend Jeffery Hodges (is he really out of bed and writing blog posts at 4:09 a.m.?) offers further evidence here.

Since Malcolm had asked for confirmation of what had particularly impressed him in my blog post on Tawfik Hamid, I provided it:

Out of bed at 4:09 a.m.? Me? Is that what the blog entry showed?

Ha! Ha! Ha! Of course I'm not.

No, I'm out of bed at 3:00 a.m., doing my best to save Western civilization. I don't know why the time recorded was so late. Maybe I websurfed too long. I'll try to do better from now on...

Malcolm, nontheist though he may be, sought divine explanation:

Three o'clock? Why in God's name are you up at such an hour??? Do you have cows to milk?

I shall charitably assume you simply haven't got to bed yet; after all, that's only an hour two after I usually hit the sack.

Although I do milk the cows of solitude during these early morning hours, my clarification focused on a greater than bovine task:

In God's name, I am up at that godforsaken hour because -- as previously mentioned -- I am doing my best to save Western civilization.

Pay attention!

Saving the West is a tough job, but somebody's got to do it, especially in those godforsaken hours when even the abstract entities are somnolent and neglecting their duties, so I do indeed rise early.

No need to thank me. Virtue is its own reward.

Which led Malcolm into an oblique allusion to The Dark Knight (itself possibly an even more oblique allusion to bats in somebody's Far Eastern belfry):

I guess saving Western civilization can only be accomplished while the banks are open in Los Angeles, or something.

But to get up at three a.m. (!!!) you must have to go to bed at about eight in the evening or so, an hour at which, in most of the civilized world (or here in Gotham, at least), one is more apt to be discussing an appropriate selection with the sommelier, or flipping through Playbill, waiting for the curtain to rise.

We appreciate your sacrifice, of course.

To which, I racheted up the degree of my great sacrifice:

I usually get to bed between 10 and 10:30, so my sacrifice of sleep in indeed great.

But saving the West -- unlike saving money (which nobody does anymore anyway) -- requires no open banks, whether in Gotham, The City of Angels, or my very own Seoul.

And I also gave evidence of the sufferings that I so quixotically endure:

Uh . . . "is indeed great." I guess that I need some more shut-eye to have better open-eye.

But orthography is merely one of those sacrifices...

For which, Malcolm graciously if indirectly thanked me:

Well, Jeffery, we in the West are in your debt. Your efforts seem to be paying off, so far at least: the seats are full on Broadway, and Lorin Maazel is still swinging the lumber up at Avery Fisher Hall.

Which led to my couplet of ignorance:

Malcolm, I'm tempted to quip:

Who in the hell
Is Lorin Maazel?

Which would be a nice couplet and my shortest poem but also demonstrate my ignorance, so I Wikied him and now know the man.

I'm gratified to learn that my early morning efforts are paying off my own debt to Western civilization.

Leading, in turn, to Malcolm's own amusing nod to the muse (and note his noteworthy pun):

If I may be your instructor --
He's a noted conductor.

A dialogue that I wrapped up (maybe) with a comment on the unfinished project of the West:

Thanks, Malcolm. I've been so busy defending Western civilization that I've not had much time to learn about it.

Next time you pass Avery Fisher Hall, give my regards to Mr. Maazel for swinging the lumber and directing his work crew in the ongoing construction of the West...

Gypsy Scholar readers, meanwhile, should feel free to laugh at my bold ignorance in its trajectory toward the coincidence of opposites that characterizes Nicholas of Cusa's learned ignorance...

Tawfik Hamid on the Jihadist Mind

Tawfik Hamid

(Image: Point of Inquiry)

I recently read a fascinating article in the Jerusalem Post. Written by Tawfik Hamid, a moderate Muslim who passed through an Islamist phase as a young man, the lengthy article describes how a young, highly intelligent Muslim was easily turned toward fanaticism . . . but also how he escaped from that iron cage of unreason.

The article, "The development of a jihadist's mind," appeared in the Jerusalem Post's January 18th edition, but this is a reprint of an earlier printing (with footnotes) in volume 5 (pdf) of the Hudson Institute's series on Current Trends in in Islamist Ideology.

The Post's issue is spread out over several pages, which involves a lot of clicking back and forth if one wishes to check a point, and the Hudson's pdf version includes the 5 other articles in the publication, which makes the file rather long (at 90 pages), but a the entire text alone on a single page, albeit without the footnotes, can be easily read on another webpage hosted at the Hudson site.

I will post a few excerpts (citing the pdf version) to indicate what the article has to offer.

Hamid encountered Islamist teachings in the 1980s, during the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He was a young medical student in Egypt and was powerfully influenced in his developing radicalism through a talk given by Aiman al-Zawahiri, a physician who is now better known as the intellectual spokesman for Al Qaeda:

At one afternoon prayer session, an imam I had never met before gave a sermon. He was one of the fiercest speakers I had ever heard. His passion for jihad was astonishing. He advocated complete Islamic dominance, urging us to pursue jihad against non-Muslims and subdue them to sharia -- the duty of every true Muslim. His rhetoric inspired us to engage in war against the infidels, the enemies of Allah. He particularly condemned the West for the freedom of its women. He hated the fact that Western women were permitted to wear what they pleased, to work and to have the same opportunities as men. He dreamt of forcing the West to conform to a Taliban-style system in which women were obliged to wear the Islamic hijab, were legally beaten by men to discipline them, and were stoned to death for extramarital sex. After the Imam's speech my friend, Tariq Abdul-Muhsin, asked me if I knew this speaker. When I said I did not, Tariq told me that he was Dr. Aiman Al-Zawahiri and, because I was a new member of Jamaah, offered to introduce us.

Al-Zawahiri was exceptionally bright, one of the top postgraduate students in the medical school. We called him by his title and first name -- Dr. Aiman. He came from a well-known, highly-educated and wealthy family. As was customary for Jamaah members, he wore a beard and dressed occasionally in the Pakistani style of the Taliban. He disapproved of Egypt's secular government; he wanted Egypt to follow sharia law and Coptic Christians to be made dhimmis -- second-class citizens submissive to Islam. To disparage secular Arab governments, he cited the following verse: "For they who do not judge in accordance with what God has bestowed from on high are, indeed, Infidels" (Quran 5:44).

When I met him, Zawahiri welcomed me affectionately. He spoke quietly, gazing intently at me through his thick glasses. With a serious expression he placed his hand on my shoulder and said, "Young Muslims like you are the hope for the future return of Khilafa [Caliphate or Islamic global dominance]." I felt a great sense of gratitude and honor. I wanted to please him by contributing to his "noble" cause. Throughout my membership in Jamaah, I would meet with Zawahiri on six more occasions. He did not have much time to spare however, for he was deeply involved in several Islamist organizations.

One of Zawahiri's significant achievements was to personalize jihad -- that is, to have transformed it from a responsibility of the Umma, the Islamic collective, to a duty of Muslim individuals. His goal is to spread the empire of Islam through the actions of individual radical Muslims, each of whom is incited to wage a personal jihad. This allows young Muslims to carry out suicide bombings without the endorsement of the collective body. Zawahiri and his fellow jihadis base their philosophy on the verse that states, "Then fight in Allah's cause -- you are held responsible only for yourself -- and rouse the believers (to fight)" (Quran 4:84). (Tawfik Hamid, "The development of a jihadist's mind," Current Trends in in Islamist Ideology, Volume 5 (pdf), pages 16-17)

Several significant conclusions can be drawn about Zawahiri from Hamid's description. First, he hates the West primarily because of the freedom that it gives women rather than keeping them covered in hijab and beaten into submission. Second, he wants Islam to dominate the West and the entire non-Muslim world and force everyone to submit to Muslim law. Third, he encourages a worldwide jihad carried out by each individual Muslim as a means toward achieving Islam's domination over the world. Whatever additional motives Zawahiri and other Islamists might have, we should never forget that the Al Qaeda and many other such Islamist groups share the imperialist aim of radical Islamic rule over all non-Muslims.

Hamid also describes the process by which he personally came to share Islamist obsession with hatred and violence:

I passed through three psychological stages to reach this level of comfort with death: hatred of non-Muslims or dissenting Muslims, suppression of my conscience, and acceptance of violence in the service of Allah. (Hamid, "The development of a jihadist's mind" (pdf), page 18)

What saved Hamid from a jihadi fate was the resurrection of his conscience through his irrepressible habit of critical thinking:

As I considered attending a terrorist training camp, however, my conscience reasserted itself. The habit of critical thinking that my parents had instilled in me when I was growing up began to undermine the violent indoctrination to which I had been subjected. If I had taken the next step toward jihad, I might well have become a terrorist killer. Instead, I experienced an intense inner struggle that felt like an earthquake shaking my principles. I realized that harming innocent people is immoral and that a religious ideology pledging war on non-believers must be bankrupt. (Hamid, "The development of a jihadist's mind" (pdf), page 19)

The habit of critical thinking that Hamid could not entirely suppress resurfaced and led him to listen to his conscience rather than to his Islamist mentors, but Hamid did not learn critical thinking from his education, and certainly not from the Islamists (who emphasize rote memorization and demand unquestioning obedience). Rather, he had learned critical thinking from his parents, and he returned to their values, which he had earlier described in his article:

I was born in Cairo to a secular Muslim family. My father was an orthopedic surgeon and an agnostic at heart; my mother was a French teacher and a liberal. Both considered Islam to be, primarily, an integral part of our culture. With the exception of my father, we would fast on Ramadan. Even though my father was not religious, he understood our need to fit into the community and never forced his secular views on us. He espoused diverse philosophical ideas but encouraged us to follow our own convictions. Most importantly, he taught my brother and me to think critically rather than to learn by rote. (Hamid, "The development of a jihadist's mind" (pdf), page 11)

I suspect that Hamid's childhood was radically unlike the childhood of most Muslims, which suggests that his habit of critical thinking would probably not be widely shared, but it also suggests that the West has as its most powerful 'weapon' against Islamism the power of critical thought.

And critical reasoning can be seductive.