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Unspooling Jihadi Rhetoric: Surit Al'Araf


By G. Willow Wilson
Posted on Thu Feb 15, 2007 at 08:52:15 AM EST
Tags: Jihad, Qur'an, Islam, Rhetoric (all tags)

A couple of years ago I was watching one of the American news stations channeled into the Middle East via satellite out of Dubai--either ABC or CBS--when the silver-haired anchor read out a recently-broadcast message from an Islamic militant group. It was the usual shtick. What made my jaw drop, however, was the dedication: the message was addressed "to the men on the mountaintops." Though the message had been translated into English before it was aired, I immediately recognized the reference: Verse 46 of Surit Al 'Araf, variously translated as The Mountaintops, The Ramparts, and The Elevated Places.

Wa baynahoma hijabon wa ala al arafi rejalun yarefoun kollan b'iseemahom; Wa nadau as'hab al janati an salamon alaykum lam yadkholouha wa hom yatma'oun.

"And between them [heaven and earth] there shall be a Veil, and on the mountaintops shall stand men who know all by their names/marks, and they shall call out to the dwellers of the Garden: Peace be upon you! They shall not have entered it yet, though they hope."  

I recognized it because it is my favorite Aya, and I felt slightly sick: I thought it was incredible that this particular reference--the men on the mountaintops--should be used by people promoting violence, especially considering the first words out of the mouths of the men on the mountaintops are 'Peace be upon you'. It got me thinking: who are the men on the mountaintops, and what does it mean when they are invoked by militants?

According to a Rifa'i Sufi friend, the men on the mountaintops are the gnostics; students of divine knowledge. The mountain, in this case, becomes a little like Plato's mountain in The Republic; the place where a philosopher hangs out and contemplates eternity before descending into the marketplace to talk to the hoi polloi, the rabble, the ordinary people. In keeping with this idea, the word 'Araf' or rampart/mountaintop/elevated place comes from the verb y'araf; to know.

The mainstream Sunni interpretation seems to be similar: the men on the mountaintops are wise men, but their wisdom is not necessarily divine--after all, they are not among the first to enter the Garden. 

When militants call upon 'the men on the mountaintops' to wage jihad, what does it mean? Why this reference?

The first and most important thing that this suggests to me is that militants do not represent, do not claim to represent and do not wish to represent ordinary Muslims. They call on the elite, not the common man, to fight in their 'holy' war. They're not interested in your Uncle Ahmad, who plays backgammon and watches football all weekend.  They want the people who are sure of their own superiority--so sure that they would respond to the words of a prophesy in the Qur'an itself. If this is not the picture of arrogance, I don't know what is. 

Is it any wonder, then, that such groups appeal primarily to young men? It's the classic adolescent mindset: the feeling of both special purpose and invulnerability; a beautiful idea in and of itself, but one that too often turns to cynicism when faced with the reality of work and routine and ordinary responsibility that comes with adult life. It's ironic that jihadi rhetoric so often condemns the West for self-centered superiority, yet vigorously recruits people who believe themselves to be the ultimate special and unique snowflakes. And not just special and unique: pre-ordained. Foretold by God.

Not very Fight Club. Not very pious. Not even terribly original. 

7:46 is still my favorite verse of the Qur'an. Though I can't take it out of the mouths of the jihadis, I can say, publicly and plenty pissed off, that when it comes from their mouths I don't buy it. And I know I'm not alone. 

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Tags: Jihad, Qur'an, Islam, Rhetoric (all tags)
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Unspooling Jihadi Rhetoric: Surit Al'Araf | 14 comments (14 topical, 0 hidden)
Exactly and a follow-up question(none / 0) (#1)
by dmz on Thu Feb 15, 2007 at 09:45:20 AM EST

Psychology may well be the real weapon to the 'war on terror' and you are asking all the right questions.

An additional one for me is:

If being a shaheed is such a honor and so advantageous for the one who sacrifices himself / herself in the Name of Allah....why do you NEVER see a top level Al-Qaeda operative or even one of their children make the great sacrifice?

Am I right about that? I am certainly not aware of any. It is always the wannabes and their kids who get the bomb strapped 'round their ass.

It seems BOTH sides of the War on Terror are lead by Chickenhawks.  



Good question(none / 0) (#2)
by G. Willow Wilson on Thu Feb 15, 2007 at 10:18:26 AM EST

And one I've never heard asked before, surprisingly. Kind of like Michael Moore asking congresspeople why their sons and daughters weren't signing up for the armed services back when the Iraq war was still a popular cause.

We'll never get an answer, of course, but the reason should be patently clear. 



[ Parent ]




Zarathustra(none / 0) (#3)
by Daniel Haar on Thu Feb 15, 2007 at 07:25:27 PM EST

"...the place where a philosopher hangs out and contemplates eternity before descending into the marketplace to talk to the hoi polloi, the rabble"

In other words, Also Sprach Zarathustra! The specter of Nietchze is still haunting the planet.



Alternately(none / 0) (#4)
by G. Willow Wilson on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 02:32:52 AM EST
Nietzsche was haunted by the spectre of Islam. Or, there are a cluster of primary ideas and symbols--like the philosopher's mountain--that appear in every civilization because they contain a universally recognizable truth. I'm getting into semiotics lately and tend to believe the latter.

[ Parent ]
I agree(none / 0) (#6)
by Daniel Haar on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 05:57:23 AM EST

Willow, yes I absolutely agree with you.  My post was a little oblique.  The symbol is universal, at least since Moses' time -- it is the use of it by Al-Qaeda types that reminds me of the Niezchean incarnation.  I enjoyed your essay very much.

I used to spend my free hours in college reading Niezsche's Zarathustra and Marx's Theses on Feuerbach (much shorter and to the point than Das Kapital).  Nowadays I would rather read the Qur'an, al-Ghazali, or even Locke.  I appreciate having learned about the Ubermensche and  Scientific Socialism and all that, but on the whole I think these ideas have been destrutive forces in modern times.  I think what has happened is that al-Qaeda has merely taken the idea of a vanguard party from Lenin and translated into an Islamic setting.  I think it is almost always dangerous when young, alienated men get the idea that they can radically change the world all at once -- these sorts of schemes always remind me of Nietzsche's Zarathustra, who came down from the mountain to rouse the rabble from their sleep to tell them not to be so all-too-human anymore.  (I suppose I am still young but I try to not be alienated and I try only to change the world in small steps.)



[ Parent ]
Thanks Daniel(none / 0) (#9)
by G. Willow Wilson on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 12:51:02 PM EST
Good points about the potential danger of 'change the whole world all at once' ideology. I think you're right in that you know you're an adult when you realize that little steps don't just win the war, they are the war. The big ideas are just window dressing.

[ Parent ]








How?(none / 0) (#5)
by paranoun on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 05:53:15 AM EST

I do not know how I missed reading this great article.

a minor point: in my village, Urf is the comb on a rooster or female chicken head.  we can tell a rooster amongst the chickens by the urf; a rooster has a larger urf than a female chicken's urf.    

wonder if Egyptians refer to it as Urf.



Urf(none / 0) (#7)
by G. Willow Wilson on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 12:46:42 PM EST

I think we're mixing up vowels. Is your urf with an 'ayn?

In Egypt 'Urf' (Uu sound, no 'ayn) refers to a kind of semi-legal marriage. 



[ Parent ]
urf=3urf(none / 0) (#12)
by paranoun on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 04:45:58 PM EST

Urf is the local way of saying 3urf.  In egypt dialect, urf flows much easier than 3urf.  Zewaj urfi is marriage that has been accepted generally by the public (ma ta3araf an-naso alyhi).

the public has commonly accepte that a rooster is differentiated from female chickens by the larger urf.  urf=social norm and if the urf (a3raf, pl) regulates/protects a vital issue, they are called mores.

In any case, the article was great. 



[ Parent ]
We say 'jezeeran' instead of 'jezeelan' too(none / 0) (#13)
by G. Willow Wilson on Sat Feb 17, 2007 at 01:57:52 AM EST
Even though 'jezeera' is 'island', and has nothing to do with anything. Go figure.

[ Parent ]


aol(none / 0) (#14)
by Ali Eteraz on Sat Feb 17, 2007 at 02:06:14 AM EST

i remember the good ol days of aol when i went to some arab american chat and all i say were 3's for eins and 7's for ha's and i was like who are these morons who can't spell their own language correctly

i was 13 or something 



[ Parent ]








Willow(none / 0) (#8)
by Maleeha on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 12:49:58 PM EST
I enjoyed this tremendously. I just have one question, if you dont mind answering. Why, out of all the verses in the Quran, is that one your favorite? I ask because it seems like an unusual choice.

Verse 7:46(none / 0) (#10)
by G. Willow Wilson on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 01:00:22 PM EST
Thanks Maleeha, glad you liked the piece. The reasons I like that verse so much are mostly personal--I first became conscious of divinity in the mountains, and have always felt closest to God in such 'Araf or elevated places. Also, starting at a very early age I began intuitively to refer to the barrier between the seen and the unseen as 'the veil'. I thought I was just making up poetry. So when I read that particular verse I got chills--I can remember the moment perfectly--and after that my conversion was just a matter of time. It was the truest true thing I had ever read in my life.

[ Parent ]
thats...(none / 0) (#11)
by Maleeha on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 01:03:09 PM EST
...really beautiful. thank you for sharing.

[ Parent ]






Unspooling Jihadi Rhetoric: Surit Al'Araf | 14 comments (14 topical, 0 hidden)

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