An Afghan Muslim student commented that since Al-Qaeda’s leader had “violated the sky for his most infamous act of terror,” which claimed the lives of people from diverse nationalities, religions, ethnicities, and political leanings on 11 September 2001, it “was fitting for justice to swoop out of the sky” in the form of U.S. Special Forces on 2 May 2011. Indeed many citizens of countries neighboring Osama bin Laden’s last hideout feel he unleashed wanton carnage which scarred the entire world while simultaneously sullying all they regard as God’s creations.
The retribution that Al-Qaida’s founder experienced is seen as especially symbolic in this respect. Ideologically distanced from the hate-filled intolerance with which bin Laden launched his globalized terror, yet spatially executed within the epicenter of fundamentalism he helped spawn, justice was guided by values shared among a majority of the world’s residents and appropriately dispensed on behalf of all his victims – Arabs and Muslims included – irrespective of status and creed. Tweets at the highest sustained average rate of 3440 per second recorded to date carried peoples’ feeling of liberation across the world when his slaying was announced.
Such reactions are not surprising for bin Laden’s appeal was waning rapidly. A Pew Research Center poll, released on the day of bin Laden’s elimination, indicated that even in Pakistan only 18 percent of Muslims surveyed during 2010 still supported Al-Qaeda and its leader. Across the Middle East and Asia, the suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates like the Taliban have eviscerated goodwill that once was extended to bin Laden and his followers as jihadis or holy warriors. The dominant sentiment now is that neither bin Laden nor Al-Qaeda represents a valid and pious interpretation of Islam. Through their intolerance and bloodshed, those Islamic militants have become outcasts for the majority of their own confessionalists. As Iranian state-run media contemptuously observed, “now, it appears, both the man and the myth are dead.”
Nonetheless, Al-Qaeda members and even more so the Taliban are still able to impose fear upon residents of Afghanistan and Pakistan despite efforts by those nations’ governments in cooperation with the U.S. and E.U. to eradicate extremism. So the Quetta Shura of the Afghan Taliban quickly organized a public demonstration to “commemorate Osama’s martyrdom” and to denounce the U.S. action. Yet despite public threats of retaliation against those who did not participate, the pro-bin Laden crowd which numbered approximately 800 was mostly men from the Jamiat Ulema-e Islam Nazaryati political party which is allied ideologically with the Taliban.
However, even as Sunni and Shiite citizens of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, the Persian Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt express relief that bin Laden’s fearful shadow would no longer darken their lives, they fear too “there probably are others like him.” Iraqi military officers note, therefore, the need to sustain the war against terror until not just Al-Qaeda but also its ideological and tactical cronies are permanently vanquished. Now is the time to finish off a weakened and disheartened Al-Qaeda whose fighters see their leader’s termination as “a disaster and a black day” say many denizens in Middle Eastern and Asian societies wrecked by bin Laden’s violent message. “The world is a better place without bin Laden for a source of evil has been expunged,” commented one Palestinian while his leaders emphasized a need to continue overcoming “the discourse and methods created and encouraged by bin Laden.”
So while reactions to bin Laden’s death vary across Islamic communities – with some rejecting the news as false or lamenting it – most Muslims spoke of satisfaction that he received “appropriate retribution.” Even militant organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas base their condemnations on the circumstances of bin Laden’s elimination, suggesting he should have been tried publically rather than shot dead and buried anonymously at sea. Many, however, feel bin Laden was treated with more respect than he deserved or extended to persons whom he and his followers mercilessly slaughtered in the names of Islam and Allah. One non-Muslim Indian snickered she hoped the “fish would not develop indigestion from his corpse!” A Shiite Iranian remarked he would be “avoiding any consumption of seafood” for the near future so as not to have any contact, even indirectly, with “the mass murderer.” Indeed neither Indians nor Iranians shed many tears for bin Laden for both countries have experienced Sunni militant-caused bloodshed.
The Obama administration’s decision to dispose of bin Laden’s remains in the waves of the Arabian Sea served the necessary purpose of ensuring no grave site became a rallying point for future militants. Yet it also demonstrated starkly how isolated bin Laden had become – for no nation including his native Saudi Arabia was willing to accept the body. It was left to those he hated to grace his corporeal remains with Muslim traditions along the lines once reserved for Arab traders and explorers. The seafarers of medieval Islamdom exchanged goods and ideas that united, stimulated, and benefited the world rather than divided, hindered, and harmed. Thus, bin Laden’s legacy is one which has taken societies to a nadir rather than a zenith – while raising troubling questions about Developing World governmental agencies, especially those in Pakistan, that may have sheltered and supported him.
Ultimately, through his intolerant ideology and horrendous actions, bin Laden became a liability to those Muslims who once saw him as a hero of the Afghan war of liberation from the Soviets and Russians and as a charismatic opponent of western hegemony. Even in Pakistan, often regarded as a most pro-Al-Qaeda and anti-American bastion, the violence he spawned is now provoking a major backlash – for a recent Gallup poll there indicates only a minority believe their government is doing enough to combat terrorism. As Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri accurately remarked, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda have done great “harm to the image of Islam.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who like bin Laden once fought against the Soviets and Russians, made an appropriate judgment: “Bin Laden’s hands were dipped in the blood of thousands and thousands of children, youths, and elders.” Islam, in beliefs similar to Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, provides no paradisiacal pleasures in its afterlife for such an individual – only the torments of hell.
Jamsheed K. Choksy is professor of Central Eurasian, Indian, International, Iranian, and Islamic Studies, professor of History, adjunct professor of Religious Studies, and former director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Indiana University. He also is a U.S. presidentially-appointed and congressionally-confirmed member of the National Council on the Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Jamsheed earned his BA from Columbia University and his PhD from Harvard University. He is the author of three books about the Middle East.
Carol E. B. Choksy is adjunct lecturer in Strategic Intelligence and Information Management at Indiana University. She also is CEO of IRAD Strategic Consulting, Inc. She has served as the president of ARMA International. Carol earned her BA, MA, and PhD from the University of Chicago. She is the author of two books on information science.
The views expressed are their own.
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A Pariah with a Legacy of Violence
May 4, 2011
An Afghan Muslim student commented that since Al-Qaeda’s leader had “violated the sky for his most infamous act of terror,” which claimed the lives of people from diverse nationalities, religions, ethnicities, and political leanings on 11 September 2001, it “was fitting for justice to swoop out of the sky” in the form of U.S. Special Forces on 2 May 2011. Indeed many citizens of countries neighboring Osama bin Laden’s last hideout feel he unleashed wanton carnage which scarred the entire world while simultaneously sullying all they regard as God’s creations.
The retribution that Al-Qaida’s founder experienced is seen as especially symbolic in this respect. Ideologically distanced from the hate-filled intolerance with which bin Laden launched his globalized terror, yet spatially executed within the epicenter of fundamentalism he helped spawn, justice was guided by values shared among a majority of the world’s residents and appropriately dispensed on behalf of all his victims – Arabs and Muslims included – irrespective of status and creed. Tweets at the highest sustained average rate of 3440 per second recorded to date carried peoples’ feeling of liberation across the world when his slaying was announced.
Such reactions are not surprising for bin Laden’s appeal was waning rapidly. A Pew Research Center poll, released on the day of bin Laden’s elimination, indicated that even in Pakistan only 18 percent of Muslims surveyed during 2010 still supported Al-Qaeda and its leader. Across the Middle East and Asia, the suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates like the Taliban have eviscerated goodwill that once was extended to bin Laden and his followers as jihadis or holy warriors. The dominant sentiment now is that neither bin Laden nor Al-Qaeda represents a valid and pious interpretation of Islam. Through their intolerance and bloodshed, those Islamic militants have become outcasts for the majority of their own confessionalists. As Iranian state-run media contemptuously observed, “now, it appears, both the man and the myth are dead.”
Nonetheless, Al-Qaeda members and even more so the Taliban are still able to impose fear upon residents of Afghanistan and Pakistan despite efforts by those nations’ governments in cooperation with the U.S. and E.U. to eradicate extremism. So the Quetta Shura of the Afghan Taliban quickly organized a public demonstration to “commemorate Osama’s martyrdom” and to denounce the U.S. action. Yet despite public threats of retaliation against those who did not participate, the pro-bin Laden crowd which numbered approximately 800 was mostly men from the Jamiat Ulema-e Islam Nazaryati political party which is allied ideologically with the Taliban.
However, even as Sunni and Shiite citizens of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, the Persian Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt express relief that bin Laden’s fearful shadow would no longer darken their lives, they fear too “there probably are others like him.” Iraqi military officers note, therefore, the need to sustain the war against terror until not just Al-Qaeda but also its ideological and tactical cronies are permanently vanquished. Now is the time to finish off a weakened and disheartened Al-Qaeda whose fighters see their leader’s termination as “a disaster and a black day” say many denizens in Middle Eastern and Asian societies wrecked by bin Laden’s violent message. “The world is a better place without bin Laden for a source of evil has been expunged,” commented one Palestinian while his leaders emphasized a need to continue overcoming “the discourse and methods created and encouraged by bin Laden.”
So while reactions to bin Laden’s death vary across Islamic communities – with some rejecting the news as false or lamenting it – most Muslims spoke of satisfaction that he received “appropriate retribution.” Even militant organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas base their condemnations on the circumstances of bin Laden’s elimination, suggesting he should have been tried publically rather than shot dead and buried anonymously at sea. Many, however, feel bin Laden was treated with more respect than he deserved or extended to persons whom he and his followers mercilessly slaughtered in the names of Islam and Allah. One non-Muslim Indian snickered she hoped the “fish would not develop indigestion from his corpse!” A Shiite Iranian remarked he would be “avoiding any consumption of seafood” for the near future so as not to have any contact, even indirectly, with “the mass murderer.” Indeed neither Indians nor Iranians shed many tears for bin Laden for both countries have experienced Sunni militant-caused bloodshed.
The Obama administration’s decision to dispose of bin Laden’s remains in the waves of the Arabian Sea served the necessary purpose of ensuring no grave site became a rallying point for future militants. Yet it also demonstrated starkly how isolated bin Laden had become – for no nation including his native Saudi Arabia was willing to accept the body. It was left to those he hated to grace his corporeal remains with Muslim traditions along the lines once reserved for Arab traders and explorers. The seafarers of medieval Islamdom exchanged goods and ideas that united, stimulated, and benefited the world rather than divided, hindered, and harmed. Thus, bin Laden’s legacy is one which has taken societies to a nadir rather than a zenith – while raising troubling questions about Developing World governmental agencies, especially those in Pakistan, that may have sheltered and supported him.
Ultimately, through his intolerant ideology and horrendous actions, bin Laden became a liability to those Muslims who once saw him as a hero of the Afghan war of liberation from the Soviets and Russians and as a charismatic opponent of western hegemony. Even in Pakistan, often regarded as a most pro-Al-Qaeda and anti-American bastion, the violence he spawned is now provoking a major backlash – for a recent Gallup poll there indicates only a minority believe their government is doing enough to combat terrorism. As Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri accurately remarked, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda have done great “harm to the image of Islam.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who like bin Laden once fought against the Soviets and Russians, made an appropriate judgment: “Bin Laden’s hands were dipped in the blood of thousands and thousands of children, youths, and elders.” Islam, in beliefs similar to Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, provides no paradisiacal pleasures in its afterlife for such an individual – only the torments of hell.
Jamsheed K. Choksy is professor of Central Eurasian, Indian, International, Iranian, and Islamic Studies, professor of History, adjunct professor of Religious Studies, and former director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Indiana University. He also is a U.S. presidentially-appointed and congressionally-confirmed member of the National Council on the Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Jamsheed earned his BA from Columbia University and his PhD from Harvard University. He is the author of three books about the Middle East.
Carol E. B. Choksy is adjunct lecturer in Strategic Intelligence and Information Management at Indiana University. She also is CEO of IRAD Strategic Consulting, Inc. She has served as the president of ARMA International. Carol earned her BA, MA, and PhD from the University of Chicago. She is the author of two books on information science.
The views expressed are their own.
