2 - “An Elite of Amoral Supermen”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2009
Summary
History is a gallery of pictures with few originals and many copies.
Alexis de TocquevilleIn the Epilogue of his The Way of Jihad Hassan al-Banna states:
My brothers! The umma that knows how to die a noble and honorable death is granted an exalted life in this world and eternal felicity in the next. Degradation and dishonor are the results of the love of this world and the fear of death. Therefore prepare for jihad and be the lovers of death. Life itself will come searching after you. […] You should yearn for an honorable death and you will gain perfect happiness. May Allah grant myself and you the honor of Martyrdom in His way.
This clamor is mounting from thousands of madrasas, schools, universities, and mosques; from the mouths of dozens of thousands of predicators and imams; from hundreds of fatwas; from innumerable books, pamphlets, articles, and audio- and videocassettes; and from television shows and small circles and cells. It is a deafening din that crowds out other voices in the Muslim world. Al-Banna's formulaic expression of a trope could have come from any of the radical-Islamic talking heads of the last half century, and many others who drone and psalmodize on the same theme.
The constant repetition of the same stock phrases that prescribe and exalt killing and the veneration of death means that Allah wants blood, needs blood, that blood pleases Allah, whether the blood is that of His martyrs or that of His enemies.
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- Information
- The Mind of Jihad , pp. 59 - 89Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008