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THE MOSLEM WORLD: THEORETICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS
IGOR DOBAYEV, RUSLAN GAJIBEKOV. "SHAHIDISM": KIND OF TERRORISM DISGUISED AS ISLAM // The article was written for publication in the bulletin "Russia and the Moslem World."
Keywords: Islamism, radicalism, terrorism, "shahidism," extremism.
Igor Dobayev,
Dr.Sc.(Philosophy), professor,Expert, RAS,
Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don
Ruslan G. Gajibekov,
PhD(Politics), Expert,
Center of Regional Research,
Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don
Abstract. The article examines "shahidism," its interpretation in early Islam, as well as the transformation of its meaning in ideological doctrines of modern radical Islamism. It proves that assertions of Islamist ideologists contradict the premises of Islamic orthodoxy. This is why radical "shahidism" can be regarded as terrorism camouflaged with Islamic faith.
Against the background of the escalation of terrorist violence, which began in the latter half of the 20th century, the most dangerous type of terrorist attacks - those committed by suicide maniacs - continue to spread. These people are wrongly termed "shahids."1
Muslim religious-political culture use the term "shahid" to denote a Muslim who sacrificed himself for faith. All who died a
violent death, or died during the hajj, are considered "shahids."2 However, Islamic orthodoxy categorically denies identity between the "shahids" and suicide-terrorists.
According to Islamic traditional doctrine, a Muslim who committed suicide should not and cannot be regarded "shahid." Suicide which has caused death of peaceful people is considered one of the gravest sins, which God never forgives.
However, religious figures who adhere to extremist ideology and use Islam for political purposes try to approve and substantiate suicide as a necessary means of struggle against the enemy, presenting it as "shahidism," and those who died in the terrorist acts as "shahids."
Suicide, and consequently, suicide-terrorists killing thousands of innocent people run counter to the moral principles of Islam. Although the Koran allows retribution for murder, nevertheless, it is strictly restricted by the denial of excessive violence.
Acts of "pseudo-shahidism" were widely used in the Middle Ages, for one, by the adepts of one of minor sects of Ismailites (Hashishins, Assassins). Suicide terrorism existed in the past, but it became quite widespread in the latter half of the 20th century -early 21st century.
According to one of the experts on this subject, S. Chudinov, suicide-terrorism originates from the Shi'ite version of radical Islam, which became widespread in war-ravaged Lebanon, which was plundered by foreign occupation after World War II. Most extremist movements, which accepted and adapted the tactic of suicide-terrorists to the conditions of a socio-political conflict in their Motherland during the 1990s, copied the Lebanese model of resistance. (In turn, this model was a replica, in a way, of the Iranian "Basi" Force at the time of the Iranian-Iraqi war soon after the Islamic revolution of 1979 in Iran.) 3
In the 1980s "shahidism" began to be connected with the Shi'ite activity, inasmuch as its manifestations became more frequent after the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran. During
the war with Iraq young Iranian boys were sent to the minefields of the enemy: the more victims the higher the morale of the army.
From the early 1990s members of pro-Iranian, Palestinian and Lebanese groupings ("Jihad Islami," "Hamas" and "Hezbollah") often acted as "live bombs," quite a few of them were young boys and girls.4 Their age was between 18 and 30. As a rule, they were people with a secondary or incomplete secondary education,, however, the number of those with a higher education tended to grow lately.
If the suicide-terrorists' attacks are viewed in the context of the Palestinian "intifada" (it began in 1987), they were the peak of the Use of these means of struggle by the Palestinians. From April 1993 until March 1996 the Palestinian terrorists of the "Jihad Islami" and "Hamas" committed 32 acts of terror in which 127 Israelis were killed and 638 wounded.
In the view of the ideologists of "shahidism," terrorist acts of suicide-terrorists glorify the role of the Islamist movement in this struggle. Moreover, suicide-bombers broaden and popularize Islamic resistance and draw new adepts to the ranks of the Palestinian resistance who are ready to do everything for the sake of realizing the ideas crammed into their heads.
Motivation and religious aspect of "shahidism": 5
Radical Islamism has created its own ideological concept of "martyrs' death." The ideas of "shahidism" give their adherents a sort of the sacral sanction to carry on terrorist activity, which is regarded by them as a "sacred war for faith, jihad." This is why no matter how successful anti-terrorist operations might be, they will go on until the conditions exist creating the atmosphere contributing to the growth of the terrorists' ranks.
It should be emphasized that suicide-terrorist who fulfills his mission is promised by the ideologists of "shahidism" boundless mercy, freedom from all personal problems, heavenly life in paradise, honorary position for himself and his family, and profound satisfaction from participation in Islamic jihad and "salvation of Muslims."
Spiritual gurus - Muslim authorities who are not direct participants in terrorist acts or members of terrorist groupings, drive potential suicide-terrorist to the state of religious exaltation, which brings him to the sphere of "holiness" and leave him in that state of ecstasy until the completion of his mission. The potential suicide-terrorist is persuaded that his intentions are chaste and noble, that his death will be light and painless, and that he will get to paradise after it.
Suicide-terrorist acts differ from other forms of terrorism by the perpetrator's readiness to fulfill his "divine" mission, which will end with death. This readiness is based on his personal qualities and is largely a result of the ideological influence of his ideological mentors on his mentality. Some people have strong religious motives to be ready to sacrifice their life to a "noble" cause. Especially, when religion promises a considerable posthumous requital and the deed itself is committed in critical conditions. In this case spiritual enthusiasm of a potential suicide-terrorist, his readiness to sacrifice his life becomes irreversible.
Training suicide-terrorist. The authoritative expert on political Islam A. Ignatenko described preparations of an Ismailite shahid for a terrorist act in the early Middle Ages. First he was given some wine mixed with henbane. Then he was brought to a beautiful garden with everything best, which had ever created by Allah - wonderful trees, flowers and fruit. Young beautiful girls, slaves and musicians served him for a whole week. Then he fell into a drunken sleep and brought back home. On waking up he asked his old master to take him back to the garden. The old master said to him: "Kill so and so. If you are executed after that you will get to the beautiful place where you had already been."
The ignorant man believed his master and agreed to commit the fatal deed." 6
The Palestinian radical groupings, for example, "Jihad Islami" and "Hamas" use definite psychological methods to prepare the future "shahids": one of them is fictitious funerals at night, which has a very strong effect on man's psychology and state of mind.
During these funerals excerpts from the Koran are read; potential suicide-bombers are promised rewards from Allah and the Muslim ummah; they are also promised eternal life full of pleasures in the "garden of Eden"; potential suicide-terrorists are offered the opportunity to join the ranks of "honorary heroes of Islam."
Religious mentors use sacral sources of Islam to prove that in the present military, political and socio-cultural situation terrorist acts are absolutely necessary and are justified by religious laws of Muslim life.
The ideologist of "shahidism" claim that at present a bitter fight is going on between the "weak world of Islam" and its strong enemy. In this situation jihad should be waged by all Muslims and all means could be used for the purpose. The methods used so far have not been effective enough, because the enemy is better armed, better equipped and organized. Besides, there are great difficulties in arms and explosives transportation and penetration of certain countries' territories.
In order to inflict greater damage on the enemy and saw fear in his hearts more explosions should be made in different places, especially at centers of big concentration of people.
Use of women - suicide-terrorists. Certain radical Islamic groupings believe that the role of women is to give birth to and rear children, who will fight the enemy in the future. This is why there is no place for women in direct armed struggle.
However, many extremist leaders of terrorists, for instance in Palestine, encourage the Use of women suicide-terrorists as an effective weapon in fighting the enemy, because it is more difficult to spot and neutralize them. In contrast to men, it is much easier to women to worm their way to the "enemy camp with the shahid belt" bypassing police control posts, all the more so since a woman-bomb often looks like pregnant woman. In connection with the Use of women as "shahids" an argument is going on concerning the "legal character" of such practice from the Sharia view. Many experts on Muslim law maintain that woman has no right to appear in the street alone without a male escort, to boot,
with a "shahid-belt" on her body. This is why, from the point of view of Islamic orthodox priests, it is forbidden to use women as live bombs. However, radical Islamists adhere to another view.
Although at present most terrorist acts committed by suicide-bombers are sponsored by Islamist groupings, the religious component of their motivation is not so necessary for all historical types of suicide-terrorism. Sometimes the spirit of nationalist struggle waged by a minor ethnic community and its cultivated ideology of self-sacrifice are intertwined with an Oriental cult of the charismatic leader of a rebel movement so much so that it may be enough to turn adepts of a nationalist movement into live bombs. As an example we may cite the activity of the "Tamil-Ilam" ("Tamil Tigers") in Sri Lanka, or the Kurd separatists from the PKK who perpetrate terrorist acts in Turkey. The nationalist component was strong even in Lebanon, the birthplace of modern suicide-terrorists among nationalist parties and groupings of Lebanon (Syrian social-nationalist party, etc.). However, radical Islam remains the most important cultural and ideological basis of spreading suicide terrorism in the modern world. Moreover, it was precisely the Islamist interpretation of Islamic martyrdom that became the foundation of its globalized form.7
Meanwhile, the number of suicide terrorist acts continues to remain a serious problem for certain regions of the world. For instance, Iraq occupied by the United States and its allies in the mid-2000s. The years 2005 and 2007 were the peak in this respect. (478 and 442 cases of using "live bombs"). In all, about 1,700 big explosions committed by suicide terrorists were registered in the country. Another country with a broad activity of "shahids" is Afghanistan where 140 suicide terrorist acts have been registered annually since 2006.8 Pakistan, too, has become a country where suicide terrorist acts have become more frequent and bloody.
"Shahidism" in the North Caucasus. "Shahidism" has ceased to be a local phenomenon inasmuch as it has acquired a global scope: shahids' acts are registered in many countries, including in Russia, especially in its North Caucasian region.
Previously, these acts were very few and far between there. The phenomenon of suicide is alien to the North Caucasian ethnic groups. There is even no such term meaning this phenomenon in the Chechen language.9
During the first Chechen campaign (1994-1996) there were practically no cases of "shahidism," but in the second war (19992009) they became almost an ordinary happening. In the early 2000s the Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev announced the formation of death squads which committed numerous acts of terror in the North Caucasus, as well as in Moscow and Kislovodsk in which innocent people lost their life.
Suicide terrorism in Chechnya is unusual in many respects. First, it is characterized by a very high percentage of women taking part in terrorist acts. It has been calculated that women participated in 22 of 27 terrorist operations from June 2000 until May 2005. Women's share among suicide bombers amounted to 43 percent (47 of 110 people). As to the objects of the attempts, out of 28 terrorist operations with the participation of suicide-killers committed from June 2000 to July 2005, ten were aimed at military objects, four - at Moscow government offices and Chechen government officials, fourteen - at civilian objects (eight of them were in Moscow). In the first two years suicide terrorists' attacks took place only in Chechnya and were aimed at Russian military bases, later on they spread to other areas. 2003-2004 were the peaks of the activity of Chechen suicide terrorism, although it still remains a marginal phenomenon unapproved by the local public.10
A new wave of suicide-terrorism was registered in the North Caucasus (particularly in Chechnya in 2009, which spread not only to neighboring Daghestan and Ingushetia, but also to some other Russian regions). For one, in the summer of 2009 an attempt on the life of Yunus-bek Evkurov, President of Ingushetia, was made. That very year ten people became "live bombs" on the territory of Chechnya, four such people were in the Republic of Ingushetia and one person in Daghestan.11 Suicide-terrorists have also committed their acts in North Ossetia, Stavropol Territory and in
Moscow. This tendency continued in the following years. According to official data, of the 23 terrorist acts registered in the country in 2010 eight were committed by suicide-bombers, and in 2011 - of ten such acts four were made by suicide terrorists.12 Law-enforcement bodies manage to stem the activities of such terrorists by liquidating or arresting them from time to time.
As is the sad practice, the role of "live bombs" in the North Caucasus is played by young men and women, that is, "black widows." The training of such terrorists is conducted in groups and according to special methods with the Use of zombie technologies and special assignments forming harsh motivating instructions with corresponding attributes and rituals.
However, in recent years the ranks of suicide-terrorists were filled mainly by younger men. The development of "shahidism" in Russian regions shows the growing influence of Middle East extremist organizations on evolutionary processes in North Caucasian radical Islamism, and broader participation of mercenaries in preparing and perpetrating terrorist acts in the North Caucasus.
The North Caucasian militants have succeeded to train and set up a good reserve of potential suicide terrorists, as well as ideologists and trainers of "shahids" from among not only foreign, but also Russian citizens (for example, Said Buryatsky, who was killed later). According to experts, the practice of "shahidism" is quite effective: explosions of "live bombs" account for three percent of all terrorist acts, but they claim 48 percent of the victims.13 As to Russia, in the period between August 1999 and September 2009 suicide-terrorists committed 41 acts of terror in various regions of Russia, mainly in the North Caucasus, which took a toll of many lives. In 2010-2011, 12 more suicide killing acts were registered. Thus, between 1999 and 2011 suicide-terrorists committed 53 terrorist acts. For comparison's sake: in Israel during the "infifada" (the first such campaign was in Palestine in 1987, the second - in 2000) there were 59 Palestine deaths.14 In other words, for the number of "live bombs" the North Caucasus was definitely catching up with Palestine, and by the number of acts was definitely
ahead of it. True, it should be noted that the doubtless leaders in committing the acts of terror by suicide terrorists were Afghanistan and Iraq occupied by the United States and its allies. There have been hundreds of such acts annually, just as in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, suicide is banned not only by Islam, but also by the adats (laws) of the mountain people of the North Caucasus. Under these laws, a man or woman who committed suicide should not be buried on the cemetery where his or her relatives lie. He or she is usually buried in another place, more often unknown.
More frequent cases of suicide among North Caucasian mountain dwellers in the first decade of this century is an extraordinary phenomenon as such. "shahidism" is an alien phenomenon to Caucasian mentality and to traditional socio-cultural being, however, it is persistently forced on the local people.
As a resuil, in the period under review "shahidism" has become an almost ordinary phenomenon in the North Caucasus. The terrorist acts in Grozny (May 12, 2003) and Ilskhan-Yurt (May 14, 2003) were committed by "Kamikaze." On June 5, 2003, a woman-suicide committed an act of terror in Mozdok as a result of which eighteen people were killed. On July 6 a block of flats in Grozny was exploded, with ten people killed, including eight children. A military hospital was completely destroyed in Mozdok in 2014 with more than 100 victims, and a suicide-bomber committed another act of terror in the center of Grozny in 2014.
However, unfortunately, the official Muslim clergy has not paid due attention to the problem of theoretical-ideological opposition to terrorism for quite a long time under cover of Islam in its most acute form. This can partly be explained by the fact that representatives of traditional Islamic structures, unprotected from violence on the part of the militants, do not risk, even fear, to oppose them. There are weighty grounds for this: during the past two decades more than fifty Muslim clerics were killed by terrorists in the North Caucasus. In 2003, in Shatoi (Chechnya) the son of its Mufti A.-Kh. Shamayev and three of his villagers were killed by terrorists. In another village an authoritative mullah was
murdered in Vedeno district. The former mufti of Chechnya and then its President Ahmad-hojja Kadyrov has also been killed by terrorist-militants. Unfortunately, such examples are many and varied in other North Caucasian republics, too.
At the same time, terrorism, being a socio-political, but not a religious phenomenon, often acquires an Islamist disguise. As the well-known Russian expert on Islam A. Ignatenko notes, "terrorists (if they are Muslims) represent another Islam, not the one led by its traditional heads. I think that all terrorist acts of recent months and years with the participation of Muslims in the United States, Indonesia, in the Philippines, Russia and elsewhere have been planned and committed with a view to radicalizing Islam and turning it into a more extreme form. In other words, it looks like the forces of law and order deal blows at terrorists who entrenched themselves in the living quarters of peaceful citizens. Naturally, during these operations peaceful civilians suffer, too, and gradually become sided with terrorist militants."
Thus, modern "shahidism" is, above all, a socio-political phenomenon. In committing retaliatory forcible acts Muslims have no right to resort to violence exceeding the limits allowed by Islam. It is important to note that Islam calls on all Muslims not to kill themselves and refrain from committing vicious crimes, which shows a high spiritual potential in the Koran and sunna of Prophet Mohammed. All this gives grounds to assert that terrorism, all the more "shahidism," connected with excessive violence has nothing in common with pure orthodox Islam. The above-mentioned features are characteristic exclusively of radical Islamism.
Notes
Yujeoglu. Islam o shakhidakh i terroristakh-smertnikakh / / Islam o terrore i aktsiyakh terroristov-smertnikov [Islam on Shahids and Suicide-terrorists // Islam on Terror and Acts of Suicide-terrorists] / Moscow, 2005, p. 144. Islam: Encyclopedic Dictionary. Moscow, 1991, p. 296.
S. Chudinov. Terrorism smertnikov [Terroism of Suicide-killers]. Moscow: Flinta, Nauka Publishers, 2010, p. 88.
4
L. Mlechin. Kno vzorval Ameriku? [Who Blasted America?]. Moscow, 2002, p. 418.
5 Palestinian "shahidism" is described on the basis of a review entitled "Suicide Terror and Muslim Extremist Organizations" on the site of Israel's Embassy in Moscow.
6 Ismailites' Paradise (translated from Arabic) / / Otechestvenniye zapiski.
2003. No 5, p. 116.
7 S. Chudinov. Op. cit., pp. 88- 89.
8 I. Dobayev, A. Dobayev, V. Nemchina. Geopolitika i terrorizm epokhi postmoderna [Geopolitics and Terrorism of Post-modern Epoch] // Rostov-on-Don, YUFU Publishers, 2015, p. 170.
9 Description of "shahidism" in the North Caucasus is based on the book by V. Akayev Islam: sotsiokulturnaya realnost na Severnom Kavkaze [Islam: Socio-cultural Reality in the North Caucasus] // Grozny, 2004, pp. 221-231.
10 S. Chudinov. Op. cit., p. 65.
11 I. Dobayev. Sovremenny terrorizm v mire i na Severnom Kavkaze: sushchnost, praktika, opyt protivodeistviya [Modern Terrorism in the World and North Caucasus: Essence, Practice, Experience of Opposition]. Orientir. 2010, p. 12.
12 See: National Anti-terrorist Committee [official site]. URL.: http: //www.nak.ru.
13 D. Nechitailo. Zapal dlya "umnoi" bomby [Fuse for "Clever" Bomb] / / NG-religii. 2009, September 16.
14 I. Sukhov. Marsh smertnikov [March of the Doomed] // Vremya novostei. 2009. September 18.
GAFUROV UYGUN. HISTORY OF FORMATION AND PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAMIC EDUCATION SYSTEM IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF MUSLIMS IN UZBEKISTAN // The article was written for the bulletin "Russia and the Muslim World."
Keywords: Islamic education, madrasahs, secular sciences, SADUM.
Gafurov Uygun,
Rector,
Tashkent Islamic Institute named after Imam al-Bukhari, Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Uzbekistan
The history of Islamic education in Uzbekistan has more than twelve centuries. There was a ramified network of madrasahs, and in the 9-10 centuries, both Islamic and natural
