02

ISSUE

2019

9-1-1

18 Years into the

War on Terror

Comparing Hitler’s My Brother Died In The Words Of

Nazi Youth & Baghdadi’s Fighting For ISIS - And America’s First Foreign
Broken Boys So Did a Part of Myself Fighter
CONTENTS

“Whoever kills a person, unless it be for

manslaughter or for mischief in the land,
it as though he had killed all mankind.
And whoever saves a life, it is as though
he had saved the lives of all mankind.“
(Surah 5:32)
03
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

04
COMPARING HITLER’S NAZI YOUTH & BAGHDADI’S
BROKEN BOYS

12
I INVENTED THE JIHADIST JOURNAL

14
IMY BROTHER DIED FIGHTING FOR ISIS  AND SO DID A
PART OF MYSELF

18
IAN OPEN LETTER TO THOSE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF
THE SOCALLED KHILAFAH OF ALBAGHDADI

20
911:
18 YEARS INTO THE WAR ON TERROR  MOSUL AS NEW
GROUND ZERO

27
LIGHT UPON LIGHT!
TOWARD A NEW ALNADHA RENAISSANCE

32
INTERVIEW WITH BRYNT NEAL VINAS:
LIFE WITH ALQAEDA  
ARTICLE

Comparing Hitler’s Nazi Youth

& Baghdadi’s Broken Boys
The children came running as the intense Syrian summer sun bore down on the more than
100,000 residents of Al-Hol refugee camp and refracted off the screen of the cell-phone
filming it. Soon, the black flag they were carrying was waving high on top of the flagpole
sitting in the middle of the secure facility, nearly 100,000 former residents of the so-called
caliphate wrapped in barbed wire, essentially an open-air prison.

Once cubs of the so-called caliphate, these children were sent for purposes of propaganda,
and the footage would be uploaded within minutes to social media with captions such as
“The Cubs of the Caliphate did this in Al-Hol today.” The intended message was clear, but
for the conscious soul it should induce sorrow. The so-called caliphate is gone for today,
but fractured children are lingering, lost in its wake. And, to make matters worse, absent an
alternative, it is likely the Khilafah cubs will reestablish the same barbaric system.

Innumerable cubs were indeed raised in the ISIS-caliphate, and there can be no doubt that
many will retain utmost allegiance and support going forward. So far, little has been done to
address their concerns and they are rapidly becoming a pariah of the international commu-
nity, clearly traumatized and neglected and seen as total liability as opposed to an important
piece of breaking cycles of tit-for-tat violence and extremism. Feared and loathed by those
that surround them, the children of the so-called caliphate have been educated in the lan-

guage of bullets and bombs, indoctrinated
with an interpretation of Islam that seeks
to kill anyone and anything that even
slightly disagrees, trained so that they can
carry on the barbaric Islamist quest for
global domination.
For those that share empathy with the
plight of oppressed Muslims around the
world or refugees at large, the apocalyp-
tic conditions of Al-Hol and the inaction
of the international community in dealing
with the situation at large can draw them
to imagine that the caliphate cubs’ sus-
tained support is an indication that ISIS
could not have been that bad, that the
people yearn for their return. For people
of conscience and knowledge, however,
the situation invokes empathy and com-
passion for the trauma and suffering these
innocent children have endured and con-
jures up a painful reality - children have
always been the primary victims of war
and, especially in extremist totalitarian
movements and societies like ISIS, have
served as tools of sacrifice attempting to
set agendas of hate far into the future.
While ISIS propaganda portrays caliphate
cubs as willing supporters, in reality these
youth were exploited in ways that resemble
the procedures of a “righteous leader” and
wanna-be Caliph of a previous era. The
example of youth under Adolf Hitler and
the Nazis offers a clear representation of
the evil lying underneath these false por-
trayals. A review of the way the youth of
Nazi Germany were indoctrinated docu-
ments the similarities. The system of Nazi-
fication: the vision, the ideas, the practices
AHUL-TAQWA
and the education of children, along with
the massive efforts it took to deradicalize
Nazi youth after defeat in World War II
suggests the importance of humanitarian
mechanisms to resolve the underlying is-
sues, but it should also lead the reflective
one to realize the heinous adulteration of
childhood, the so-called caliphate impart-
ed. The cubs of the caliphate have been
denied childhood and, if that cycle is not
broken, the hate and anger will perpetuate
endlessly.
While ISIS likes to portray its caliphate
cubs as the hope for the next generation,
cleansed of all foreign ideologies and
ready to sacrifice for their utopian vision,
their totalitarianism is evident. The bible
or Quran of the Nazis was Hitler’s auto-
biography Mein Kampf, a memoir written
in 1923 while he was temporarily impris-
oned after igniting the famous Beer Hall
Putsch, which called for rebellion and rev-
olution against the ruling Weimer Repub-
lic.
Mein Kampf described the world of Hit-
ler’s youth, during the first World War,
and the post-conflict “betrayal” of West-
ern Europe against Germany. It described
Hitler’s racist ideology, which held a great
“Aryan” race as the “genius” race and
the Jew as the “parasite,” with all other
non-Aryans inferior. Mein Kampf called
for revenge again France and for conquest
and cleansing. Germans were to seek liv-
ing space (Lebensraum) in the East and
eventually conquer the Slavs and Marxists
of Russia.
ARTICLE

Hitler’s ideas manifested overtime as the nihilism of the Nazis, a nihilism not at all unlike
the dogma that pushes Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and his supporters. ISIS and jihadists grieve
the end of World War I, when the Ottoman Caliphate was dismantled and Sykes-Picot ac-
cords set the Middle East on a trajectory toward nationalism and a loss of Islamic identity.
Of course, the Jews in Israel were part and parcel of a conspiracy against the true believers,
and the only answer is to reestablish the great identity of the pure Muslim, loving and hat-
ing, as they say, for the sake of God and purifying the generations by cleansing the popula-
tion of the weak and inferior.

Both ISIS and the Nazis were well aware that while they wanted immediate sacrifice and vi-
olence to bring about immediate change of the status quo, the sustainability of their radical
alterations was dependent on imparting belief and zeal in children. In their formative years,
The National Socialists in Germany (Nazis) had a Hitler youth arm that was designed to
train and recruit members for its paramilitary. However, as the Nazis became more power-
ful, their youth arm grew proportionately. In January 1933, there were 50,000 members of
the Hitler Youth, but by the end of the year, there were more than 2 million. As the 1930s
progressed and the Nazis came to full exertion of power, they banned children’s groups as-
sociated with political movements like Communism. Finally, in 1936, Hitler outlawed the
British Boy Scouts and made it mandatory for every non-Jewish boy to join the Hitler Youth
(Hitterjugend). By 1939 there were 5.4 million members. The number of caliphate cubs is
impossible to ascertain, but the importance ISIS has placed in them is evident in the flag
wavings at Al-Hol. It will be impossible to ascertain how many of the youth residing in areas
once under ISIS control will retain the ideology implanted in them, even as reconstruction
and resocialization occur.

The method and techniques used by Nazis and ISIS to indoctrinate youth are eerily sim-
ilar. Take, for example, the plight of Yazidi captives, some of whom went on to become
caliphate cubs and remain completely committed to ISIS’ vision for revival. Thousands of
members of Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority were abducted from the town of Sinjar and
surrounding areas when ISIS conquered territory in Iraq in 2014. The Yazidi women were
forced into sexual slavery, and young Yazidi boys were indoctrinated with ISIS’s strict in-
terpretation of Islam and trained as fighters.

While barbarous, the slavery of the Yazidis was also nothing altogether new. On 25 No-
vember 1939, Heinrich Himmler, chief architect of the Holocaust, was sent a 40-page doc-
ument titled, “The issue of the treatment of population in former Polish territories from a
racial-political view.” The last chapter of the document concerns “racially valuable” Polish
children and plans to forcefully acquire them for German plans and purposes:
 AHUL-TAQWA
“we should exclude from deportations racially valuable children and raise them in old Re-
ich in proper educational facilities or in German family care. The children must not be older
than eight or ten years, because only till this age we can truly change their national identi-
fication, that is “final Germanization”. A condition for this is complete separation from any
Polish relatives. Children will be given German names, their ancestry will be led by special
office.”

It is not so different for those ISIS conquered such as the Yazidis. Today Yazidi boys, cap-
tured in conquest and then forced to fight and endure ISIS indoctrination, are reintegrating
into Yazidi society, stuck in prisons or refuges camps throughout the region, or stranded
alone in areas once under ISIS domination. One Yazidi survivor who now mentors former
Yazidi cubs of the caliphate explains that his younger brother completely succumbed to the
indoctrination. “To be honest, I was afraid of him. Imagine that; I was afraid of my younger
brother, but a lot of Yazidis brainwashed by ISIS killed their own brothers if they refused to
convert.” He reports that the last time he saw his younger brother was in early 2017, on a
front line near the Iraqi border with Syria. “We had just 30 minutes together, but we couldn’t
talk about our family because he believed all Yazidis were Kaffir [unbelievers]. He urged me
not to try and escape.”

While clearly the result of a heinous and barbaric strategy and attitude, ISIS attempts to jus-
tify its use of children by pointing to flimsy evidence of Islamic scripture. For example, in an
early edition of Dabiq magazine, the authors described caliphate cubs as, “a new generation
waiting in the wings, eagerly anticipating the day that it is called upon to take up the banner
of iman (faith).” ISIS, the article claimed, had “taken it upon itself to fulfill the Ummah’s
duty towards this generation in preparing it to face the crusaders and their allies in defense
of Islam and to raise high the word of Allah in every land. It has established institutes for
these ashbāl (lion cubs) to train and hone their military skills, and to teach them the book
of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (saws).”

The authors were excited that recent propaganda films showing boys as young as eight par-
ticipating in the beheading of alleged spies had put those in the West “up in arms about the
Khilāfah’s use of ‘child soldiers.’ However, the writers dismissed criticism by claiming that
the Prophet Muhammad (saws) allowed youth to participate in battle. They proposed evi-
dence suggesting that, “It was two young boys from the Ansār who struck down Abū Jahl
in the battle of Badr.” and with that presented to the audience that idea that the practice was
totally Islamic and therefore righteous.
ARTICLE

A closer investgiation documents the ideological manipulation that runs rampant in ex-
tremist movements, from Nazis to Jihadists. The two youth the article is referencing are
Muaz and Muawwiz bin Amr, two brothers that attended the first battle of the Muslims. The
Battle of Badr was a defensive struggle. The aggressive Quraishi tribe marched from Mecca
to meet Muhammad around Medina because he and his followers had emigrated to reside
there. Rather than have the citizenry of Medina threatened, the Prophet (saws) marched out
to meet them and Muaz and Muawwiz, like other youth, accompanied them not knowing
for certain there would be fighting.

As the battle began, many came to the Prophet (saws) and asked to fight and were turned
away. Muaz and Muawwiz simply entered the battlefield. They were given permission to
attack Abu Jahl by a companion of the Prophet (saws), not the Prophet (saws) himself, and
in the middle of confusion. They were 13 and 14 years old, an age that with life expectancy
and life responsibility taken into consideration would have made them young adults. These
youth ended up eulogized in Islamic history, but there are contradictory accounts that ISIS
does not mention. At the same battle, for example, Zayd ibn Thabbit, who went on to be-
come the scribe of the Prophet (saws), was told that he could not fight when he requested
the Prophet (saws) let him. During the second conflict between the Muslims and Quraish,
at the Battle of Uhud, Abdullah the son of Umar ibn al-Khattab reported that, ‘I offered
myself to the Prophet, peace be upon him, in the battle of Uhud when I was fourteen years
old. But he did not let me fight.’ This despite the fact that at the Battle of Uhud the Muslims
were vastly outnumbered. The Prophet (saws) also clearly forbade killing children of the
other side. In training, the Prophet forbade any cruelty, rejected raising the voices and for-
bade wanton destruction of people and property.

The justification is ludicrous. An isolated example that is contradicted by innumerable

counter-evidences has been used to justify systematic child abuse and trauma. Children
as young as 10 graduated from Caliphate training camps. In one particularly horrific pro-
paganda film a child no older than 7 points a gun at a man who is shackled to a fence, and
subsequently fires multiple shots into his head. After the child shoots the man multiple
times, he raises his gun into the air and shouts “Allahu Akbar.” The video is not a rarity, over
a six-month period in 2016, ISIS propaganda featured 12 child executioners.

Nazism, so too, offered youth a role to play in building a successful and elegant utopic soci-
ety. Conditions in Germany had deteriorated significantly since World War I and the youth
were taught that their once great nation had been destroyed by foreign invaders and Jewish
collaborators dedicated to sowing the Aryan race’s destruction. The education offered them
the same sense of identity, significance and meaning ISIS offers its adherents, and they, like
ISIS, knew the importance of imparting ideology that can overcome fear and rationality.
 AHUL-TAQWA

In 1938, as World War II intensified, Hitler explained the process of indoctrination for the
child soldiers of Nazi Germany: “These boys and girls enter our organizations [at] ten years
of age, and often for the first time get a little fresh air; after four years of the Young Folk they
go on to the Hitler Youth, where we have them for another four years… And even if they are
still not complete National Socialists, they go to Labor Service and are smoothed out there for
another six, seven months… And whatever class consciousness or social status might be left…
the Wehrmacht (German military) will take care of that.”

Knowing that they were likely to be decimated after declaring their so-called Caliphate, the
leadership of ISIS turned to the youth to ensure the organization’s survival. They took over the
school system and built the system around literalist Islamic sciences. History was a narrative
of Muslim victimization, of the conspiracies of the enemies, of internal enemies, those want-
ing democracy and nationalist alternatives to shariah-based society, of Jews plotting for world
domination and pushing the West to fight its wars. The Nazi narrative was similar and the
indoctrination process almost identitical.

Hitler intended to create a rough and committed generation of German children. He described
them as, “violently active, dominating, intrepid, brutal youth… Youth must be all those things.
It must be indifferent to pain. There must be no weakness or tenderness in it. I want to see once
more in its eyes the gleam of pride and independence of the beast of prey…I intend to have an
athletic youth… I will have no intellectual training. Knowledge is ruin to my young men.” This
was to be achieved through education that “begins already in youth and will never come to an
end.” Nazi youth would always be one collective spiritual concsiousness. “You are flesh of our
flesh. Blood of our blood. And your young minds are driven by the same spirit that possesses
me,” Hitler told the Nazi youth in 1932.

After coming to power, the Nazis took control of Germany’s school system and instructed
youth in the superiority of the Aryan race, territorial expansion, and the importance of nation-
alism. School children read stories sensationalizing militarism and were instructed to follow
Hitler in the same way that cubs of the caliphate were taught the alphabet and arithmetic with
weaponry and militaristic tales of Muslim conquest. Nevertheless, nearly as soon as Germa-
ny invaded Poland in 1939 and then turned its sights on the rest of Europe, Nazi youth were
thrown to the frontlines and sacrificed. By the time Joseph Goebbels declared “Total War” in
1943, the Nazis turned to the youth in hopes they would sustain the movement. In reality, the
were utilized as cannon fodder. British and Canadians were amazed at the fearless fanaticism
witnessed in Nazi youth who would throw themselves into tanks, never surrendered. Within a
matter of months into 1943 the majority of the Hitler Youth corp was decimated. In 1945, with
only 455 soldiers and one tank left, the last remaining 12th SS-Panzer Hitler Youth Division
surrendered to the United States.
ARTICLE

A year after the surrender, the Allies required German youth to go through a de-Nazifica-
tion process and training in democracy in an attempt to reverse the effects of twelve years of
indoctrination. Yet, in practice, de-Nazification did little to address the psychological issues
or mindsets of the Hitler Youth. Instead, the context and environment in which the former
Nazi youth reintegrated was altered. Society, in general, was restructured. Nazi organiza-
tions and institutions were dissolved, Nazi propaganda was censored, and the Neuremberg
trials held the leadership responsible. The Hitler youth were monitored and had nowhere
to hide. Hitler had not trained his young army in guerilla warfare and the leadership could
inspire action no more.

ISIS indoctrination during the short period of their rule sought to create a transnational
identity among children that would bring about loyalty to the Islamic State and away from
secular, nationalist or democratic alternatives. Scholar Mia Bloom, who studied the Cubs
of the Caliphate extensively, explained the strategic logic to this approach; “There’s a need to
physically and mentally prepare children to be the ‘next generation’ of fighters… It exposes
the children to violence in a routine and daily fashion so it ceases to be shocking and nor-
malizes violence.” In the Nazi period, information served the same purpose.

The de-Nazification of Germany required reconstruction assistance that covered not merely
physical but the intellectual infrastructure of Germany. The Germany of today has become
the leader of Europe, a bastion of democracy and human rights promotion. It has learned
and recovered from the catastrophe that was World War II and the generation that followed
the Nazis ended what could have been the nasty recycling of collective trauma. At the same
time, today, and largely as a consequence of the blunders associated with the War on Terror
which include to a large degree conspirtorial and illiberal concern for Muslim immigrants,
a resurrection of far-right sentiment threatens an extremist future.
LightUponLight.Online
 by Jesse Morton, formerly Younus Abdulah Muhammad
I’m a publishing pioneer: In April 2009, I launched the first English-language online
jihadist magazine. A lot has changed since. I spent 31⁄2 years in prison, where I
deradicalized. I now work with Mitch Silber, the New York City Police Department’s
former director of intelligence analysis, to combat violent extremism. The jihad-
ist-magazine template I helped create is now among the most effective means of
propagating extremist ideas.
Five years after Islamic State declared its so-called caliphate, I’m taking the template
back. My new magazine is called Ahul-Taqwa, Arabic for “People of Consciousness.”
Ahul-Taqwa aims to answer the transnational jihadist movement with an alternative
worldview based on post-Enlightenment principles and democratic values.

Contrary to popular belief,

belie jihadist magazines were an American export, not an
import to the West. My 2009 magazine, Jihad Recollections, was designed by a small
group of prominent American propagandists that included New Mexico native Anwar
al-Awlaki, who became an “emir” of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and
Pakistani-American Samir Khan, who joined Awlaki in Yemen after Jihad
Recollections published its fifth issue. Sleekly designed and written in what one
researcher calls “perfect idiomatic English,” Jihad Recollections Americanized the
jihadi message.

In May 2010, my New York-based jihadist organization, Revolution Muslim,

threatened the creators of “South Park” for an episode portraying Islam’s
Islam Prophet
Muhammad in satire. Comedy Central censored the program. In response, a woman
in Seattle started a Facebook “Everybody Draw Muhammad” page. Pakistan and In-
donesia threatened to shut down Facebook in protest. The page vanished from the
site, then reappeared; Facebook attributed the disappearance to a glitch. All this
drew a flurry of attention toJihad Recollections—and inspired Awlaki and Samir to go
international. Soon they launched a new magazine, Inspire.
The first edition included a fatwa calling for the murder of those “insulting” the
prophet as well as an article titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.” It was
the start of what we at Revolution Muslim called “open-source jihad”: “America’s
worst nightmare; it allows Muslims to train at home instead of risking a dangerous
travel abroad.”

On May 2, 2011, U.S. troops killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. I was
arrested May 23. Mr. Silber’s NYPD colleagues had convinced the federal govern-
ment that the “South Park” threat and spreading Inspire crossed the threshold of
legal speech. Soon after my arrest, Awlaki and Samir were killed by a U.S. drone in
Yemen. At the same time, the Arab Spring was emerging, and with it the promise of
Middle Eastern democratization. It seemed the threat would diminish, that the war
on terror was winding down.
After pleading guilty on three counts, I was sentenced in February 2012 to 111⁄2
years in federal prison. At the sentencing, the prosecutor stressed that someday,
somewhere, innocents would die as a result of jihadist magazines. I must admit I was
in denial. I’d begun my trek out of extremism and had become an asset of the FBI.
The prosecutors’ warning proved true on April 15, 2013. The Tsarnaev brothers used
the Inspire recipe to kill three and injure hundreds at the Boston Marathon’s finish
line. And jihadist publications continue to influence violent extremists. In 2014,
Western members of ISIS issued their own magazines, Dabiq and Rummiyah, which
looked exactly like Jihad Recollections and Inspire. Their “Just Terror Tactics” section
inspired a cascade of vehicular attacks in 2016 and 2017. That too, was derived from
Inspire, a 2010 article titled “The Ultimate Mowing Machine.”

This March, a 28-year-old ISIS supporter allegedly stole a U-Haul truck, which he told
investigators he intended to use to “keep driving and driving” through pedestrians
at Baltimore Harbor. In April, a 46-year-old woman pleaded guilty to providing mate-
rial support to ISIS. She had used hacked Facebook accounts to recruit members.
Her posts began “Remember Boston Marathon bombing?” and referred to the In-
spire recipe. The caliphate has been defeated but the transnational jihadist move-
ment endures, as evidenced by the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. No issue of Dabiq or
Rummiyah has been released in over a year. But extremists have launched an En-
glish-language magazine for Kashmir, and recent secret chats include calls to pay
propagandists in cryptocurrency. The last issue of Inspire came out in August 2017. It
gave operational advice for derailing trains; this March a German jihadist was arrest-
ed for trying the tactic three times. Jihadists continue to operate on the dark web,
where old issues of the magazines are distributed.
Learning about the Boston Marathon bombing made me sick with guilt. I resolved to
do whatever I could to make amends. My objective with Ahul-Taqwa is to reclaim the
propaganda method my fellow jihadists and I developed and use it to kill the reso-
nance of their ideas and ideals.
My Brother Died Fighting For ISIS - And So Did a Part
of Myself
Jason Walters
Jason Walters is a former member of the notorious Hofstadt Group, a Dutch terror cell that represented
one of the first major domestic terror plots of the post 9/11-era. Now deradicalized, Jason works with
LightUponLight.Online, amongst other organizations, to combat violent extremism of all types.
Soon after the barbaric Islamic State proclaimed its so-called Caliphate, its self-appointed caliph,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made a special call for Muslims worldwide to: “Rush O Muslims to your
state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis.
O Muslims everywhere, whoever is capable of performing hijrah to the Islamic State then let him
do so, because hijrah to the land of Islam is obligatory.” Shocking numbers soon answered the call
in almost every country on the planet. My brother was from among them.

I was informed that my brother Jermaine and his family had left for Syria in late August 2014. The
news hit me like a brick, though I can´t say it was surprising. In broad terms, Jermaine´s story
may not seem all that different to that of the hundreds of Westerners that answered the Caliphate’s
call. He was known to authorities. How can you not be when your own brother is a former jihad-
ist? I was his inspiration. I’d acted on the cause, though he now considered me an apostate. He´d
flirted with extremist interpretations of Islam and gradually radicalized… until eventually leaving
Amersfoort in the Netherlands to join what President Obama was then still calling the ´jayvee
league´ of Al-Qaeda.

Unfortunately, it tracks with my own past progression. I was only 19 when I was arrested way back
in November 10, 2004. I was accused of plotting to kill Dutch Parliamentarians Geert Wilders
and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A week prior, Mohammed Bouyeri, a member of the cell I belonged to, soon
called the Hofstadgroep, had murdered controversial filmmaker Theo van Gogh. After a week-
long manhunt, the Dutch Police found me in a small apartment in The Hague. The most-well
known incident of the fourteen-hour siege that followed was that I threw a hand-grenade and
injured four police officers. Yet, for me, the most noteworthy impression of that day remains the
conversation I had with Jermaine as I warned him, “They´re coming to get us.”

My brother accompanied me for much of my past journey. I had introduced him to Islam, plant-
ed the seeds for his radicalization and in that apartment had realized that it was over and that I
needed to warn him. When I was originally sentenced to fifteen years in prison, I realized I was
not going to be the only one to suffer the consequences of my arrest. Families suffer as much as
the perpetrators in prison. Still, as I reflected and rectified myself in prison, I did so, at least in part,
because the worst fear I held in my heart was that Jermaine would go on to throw away his life away
as well.

Jermaine was born in 1986 in the Netherlands, where we lived with our parents. Our childhood was
what anybody would call normal. We lived at home, we went to school, we had neighborhood friends…
we didn´t lack anything. Jermaine and I got along well, I could not have asked for a better brother. And
I was always a reference point for him. I guess I always knew it, but it became clear after I converted
to Islam.

I was very young when I converted, merely 12 years old, and was largely influenced by the conversion
of my own father. The 9/11 attacks stirred an identity crisis of sorts in me. I was American and also a
Muslim, and I was living in one of the most liberal countries in the world, the Netherlands. Legalized

drugs, regulated prostitution… How could I combine all of those identities into one? I took to the
basic Qur’anic texts, the writings of all the major scholars and also jihadist literature to answer those
questions. Islam provided me with an all-encompassing vision of the past and the future that could
help me interpret the present.

My life became a constant worship of God. I´d once been an outgoing child, always surrounded by
friends. I was now insulated, living in the mosque. However, I didn´t see my isolation as wrong, but
rather as a requirement, a necessary detachment from the earthly realm, a portal through which I
could obtain true knowledge and spirituality.

Jermaine was fascinated by my new take on in life. He used to ask me questions, and I´d direct him
for hours on how to follow my path. Looking back, you may indeed say that I radicalized my brother.
Yet, back then, I saw myself as saving my brother´s soul and giving his life meaning and purpose. I
took my brother with me asI started gravitating to other frustrated youth.
We didn´t consider ourselves a “terror cell” or anything of the sorts, though. We saw ourselves only
as a group of friends who met in the living room of one of our friends, a Syrian asylum seeker. If God
has brought us together, He must have wanted us to realize that we were not alone. We were a chosen
few that were carrying out God´s duty. Dutch authorities, however, did not seem to agree.

On October 14, 2003 I was arrested alongside Samir Azzouz, Ismail Akhnikh and Redouan al-Issar for
planning terrorist attacks. We were released shortly thereafter, but a spark had already been lit. We felt like
we´d been mistreated and abused by authorities, that we were being targeted for the sake of being Mus-
lims. Our disdain towards the Dutch society and its liberalism grew. A little over a year later, Bouyeri mur-
dered Theo van Gogh. All the members of the now-called “Hofstadgroep” were arrested and sent to trial.

It was March 2005 in the District Court in Rotterdam. The verdict was about to be read, and I had
difficulty breathing. I deserved punishment, but I didn´t want my little brother to go to prison. He
was too young. He had so much life ahead of him. He wanted to get a job, get married, have a fam-
ily… And after all, he hadn´t done anything wrong in my eyes. This couldn´t be the end of his life.
I held my breath. The judge finally read out the best news I could get back then: the “Hofstadgroep”
was not deemed a terror organization and Jermaine was exonerated from making threats against
Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Yet, in retrospect, I wish the outcome had been different.

On December 17, 2010 the appeals court of The Hague overthrew the verdict and deemed the Hof-
stadgroep a criminal organization and I was sentenced to 15 years in prison. They took the world
away from me, but those years contributed to my existential transformation. Thanks to someone
who recommended I read Abu Majid al-Zindani, I came in contact with Plato, Nietzsche and Kant.
What ultimately contributed to my deradicalization was the adoption of a rationalist interpretation
of life and realizing that, for me, there is an incompatibility between divine existence and a worldly
reality. That cognitive opening was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was hoping that Jer-
maine would follow my steps. Unfortunately, that would not be the case.

Jermaine and I stayed in contact during my incarceration. He had found a job, had married, and
bore three children. I was thrilled. My brother was fulfilling his dream. Yet, as his big brother, I
wanted Jermaine to find the same happiness I´d found in philosophy. I tried to talk to him about my
studies, and how I was finding freedom despite being behind bars. At a given point, I had to come to
terms with the fact that I would have to choose between trying to guide my brother and distancing
from his increasingly radical interpretations of Islam. Of course, my brother was more important to
me than any interpretation of modern rationality. I always wondered if Jermaine felt the same way,
if I was more important to him than his faith. And I guess that, in a way, I was; I did maintain a rela-
tionship with my brother and his family after my release.

Nevertheless, our relationship was awkward. We loved each other like brothers do and were eager
to catch up after over a decade of being apart. But there was always that elephant in the room. The
diatribe between reason and faith, the fight between heart and mind. I will never know what would
have happened if I had opened Pandora´s box, if I had been brave enough to discuss with Jermaine
where he was at. But I was scared and, probably to the eyes of many, also selfish. I was scared of losing
my only brother. I had just come out of prison, and life was not easy.

The Dutch social system had allowed me to leave prison and have a roof over my head, a bank ac-
count and the possibility of attending University. But, at first, I was missing a network. My brother
was basically the only person around me who knew who I was and who I´d been. And he was still
there for me. I wasn´t willing to give that up for an ideological tug of war that would end up sepa-
rating us. I did not agree with his religiosity and he did not agree with my secularism, but we still
had each other. That was until the Dutch authorities informed me that Jermaine, Meryam and their
children had left for Syria.

I was heartbroken. I’d lost my only brother. At first I blamed Meryam for their departure. She was
always very radical, even more than he was. I wanted to believe that is was her influence that had
caused my brother to leave. But that would be unfair. After all, I’d was the one who´d initiated him in
that journey. I was the one who’d guided him into Islam, who’d radicalized him and who’d instigated
his biased views.

Then, in June 2015, I was hit with the final blow. Jermaine had been killed in a bombardment. I
didn’t know how to react. I can´t even remember if I cried, nor for how long. But I also felt relief.
At least I finally knew where my brother was. The world was already aware of ISIS´ atrocities. How
could I not be concerned for my brother? Not just for his safety, but because I refused to believe
that my little brother was involved in such madness. That was not the Qur’an we´d studied. We were
never guided by such senseless violence.

I recently watched a documentary, the only documentary my brother was ever interviewed for. The
irony of the whole thing almost made me cry. Jermaine described me as “a great person” and “an
example to follow,” as if I were some sort of hero. It’s true that the documentary was filmed why I was
till incarcerated and I had not yet recanted my views, but I know that I´d always been a reference
point for him.

I wish that Jermaine could have followed my example once again. And I wish I would have been able
to sit down and talk to him, heart to heart. I still cannot understand how Jermaine didn´t learn any-
thing from my incarceration, how he´d stopped searching for answers and had been misguided to
such an extent. I wish he’d found someone to talk to, even if it wasn´t me, that could have prevented
him from traveling. I wish I´d been able to tell he was preparing to leave. I wish my brother was still
with me.

The only thing left for me now is to make sure that nobody else follows my, nor Jermaine’s ,footsteps.
The only thing left now is to give a shout out to those flirting with the same ideas I once espoused
and ask them to reflect. It´s not just about you, but also about the pain and sense of guilt you´ll in-
flict upon those who love you. Is it worth it?
An Open Letter to the Followers of
Baghdadi’s So-Called Khalifah
Assalamulaikum brothers and sisters:

It is well known that one of the most important principles of the religion is
sincere advice (naseeha). As the Prophet (saws) says in the authentic hadith
narrated by Tamim al-Darri in Sahih Muslim:

“The religion (deen) is naseeha (sincere advice).”

There is no true translation for the word naseeha in English. However, it’s
meaning implies a form of counseling and dialogue that is sincere in seeking
what is best, in terms of intention and action, for the one you are advising.
Take the content in Ahul Taqwa, our effort to reclaim the jihadi magazines we
started many moons ago, as a means of naseeha. We do not demonize you; we
only ask that you take a few moments of your life in a private discourse to make
sure you are upon the proper interpretation of the religion.

There are many reasons to be weary and move with caution under current con-
ditions. The Prophet (saws) warned of extremists, “young people with foolish
thoughts and ideas” who would come “reciting the Qur’an believing it is evi-
dence in support of them.” He (saws) also stated that one should refrain from
commanding good and forbidding evil when “knowledge will be the lowest of
you, and when authority is given to your young ones.” And the great Shaykh
al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah described these young and bloodthirsty as extremist,
saying that they,

“desired to enjoin and forbid the people with their tongues and their hand ab-
solutely and in all situations without sufficient knowledge of the shariah, nor
forbearance, nor patience, nor regard for that which has more harm than ben-
efit and that which is possible and that which is not possible.”

The honest one will reflect on these words and consider the damage terrorism
does to the Prophet (saws) and Allah’s religion. We ask, is it naseeha to the deen
of Allah when the marketplaces, streets and houses of worship are flushed with
blood spilled at the hands of suicide bombers and deranged blind followers igno-
rant of their religion?

Still, we are aware that lust runs through the veins of the impatient and that their
following up with the footsteps of Shaitan, but knowledge and asking is the only
cure and the wise man takes a rose from every garden. So, we merely ask you to
consider before adhering to the sect of Baghdadi, or his enemies among Al-Qae-
da who believe they are among the chosen few, the strangers who “adhere to the
sunnah when the people become corrupted.” It is easy to get deluded, but the
truth is as clear as the sun.

Ibn Taymiyyah (raa) continues about the fanatical ones and explains that, “this
group, then, enjoins and forbids believing that they are in obedience to Allah
ta’ala when in reality (they) are transgressors… who erred in understanding that
to which Allah gave them in terms of enjoining right and forbidding wrong, and
fighting jihad and other issues.”

We’ve witnessed too many youth over recent years throw their lives away for a
false idealism. Often, they are those that do not pray all 5 prayers, that do not
know the religion, that use drugs, suffer from depression and the like. So, bi idh-
ni Allah ta’ala, you will read this magazine and reflect. Share it with those you
feel may be influenced. Or, if you truly believe then surely you should be able to
defend your understanding in front of another. So, we invite you to private and
public discourse and say, as Imam Shafi would say when asked to debate,

“May Allah make the truth clear between us and the people to benefit as well.”

JazakumAllahu Khair - Your brother,

Younus Abdullah Muhammad

 Interview with Brynt Neal VInas:
Post-9-11's First American
Foreign Terrorist Fighter
After ISIS declared its so-called Caliphate on June 29, 2014 the term “foreign ghter”
became increasingly popular. It was used to designate all the Westerners that answered
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s call to hijrah. However, long before ISIS was even in the making,
Bryant Neal Viñas was already “the rst foreign ghter after 9/11.” In 2007 he was the rst
U.S. citizen to join Al-Qaeda in Waziristan. Bryant now works to combat violent extrem-
ism and preventing others from following my footsteps. His trajectory and his accounts
of what he experienced in Waziristan are key in demystifying violence in the eyes of
those enthralled
e by jihadist propaganda.

When did you travel?

It was September 10, 2007 when I got on the plane in New York City’s JFK airport. I had
officially embraced Islam three years earlier in a small mosque in Queens and I was now
headed to participate in jihad. My feelings were a mix of excitement, eagerness, humili-
ty, spirituality and gratitude to Allah. As I boarded the plane I remembered the words of
a friend I had in the Marines: “All you do is talk, and you never do anything about it.” I had
nally been granted the opportunity to act on principle and fullll my duty as a Muslim.
Eventually, however, I’d realize that everyone in Waziristan had their own personal
interests and that true jihad was not the actual purpose.

How did you feel when you rst arrived in Pakistan?

After a layover in Abu Dhabi, I arrived in Lahore on September 12th. Once in Pakistan, it
didn’t take me long to make the necessary connections to get embedded in the net-
work of Waziristan militants. The process was probably not that different to how foreign
ghters and their smugglers have operated in the Turkish-Syrian border in the last years.
And those Western mujahedeen probably felt the same way I felt when I got to my des-
tination: fulllled. You feel you’ve made the correct decision and that you have answered
Allah’s call for a greater purpose, a divine duty.
What was life like in Waziristan?

We were all full of expectations and hopes, eager to begin. But then reality kicked in,
and it was not all praying, training and ghting. At rst, I wasn’t discouraged. I never did
much more than re a couple of rockets and never killed anybody, but it still felt like I
was fulllling Allah’s command. Yet, I also started to realize that there were no such thing
as pure intentions in Waziristan.

I used the down time we had to pray and contemplate. I slowly started realizing that the
cause had been corrupted, and there was little chance that anything would ever be
achieved. What was supposed to be a land where the will of Allah was taking place was
corrupted by warlords, drug lords and illegal mining. It was a constant struggle for
power and money that had very little to do with the purpose of jihad that I had read
about in the Qur’an.

Can you explain this a bit more in detail?

The incoherence in Waziristan still bothers me today. For example, some areas were run
by old warlords like Nazeer who controlled every one of our movements. I met Nazeer
once, when I was stopped at a checkpoint because I was suspected of being an Uzbek.
He was a stern man with a soft character and the interaction was polite, even kind.
When I told others about it, the rst comment I got was that he was connected to the
ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service. It was less a warning than it was actual gossiping.
And I only found one person who actually defended Nazeer against such accusations. I
heard
hea that the opium farms and the local drug lords were connected to the Taliban, the
same people that would help us navigate the mountainous areas when we were out on
a mission. I was never certain of this, but it was a constant rumor among the locals. To
make matters worse, it was said that the top person in the chain of command who got
a cut of the opium proot was Hamid Karzai’s brother. The family of the then President of
Afghanistan was supposed to be connected to the same people that were helping our
cause. In the meantime, everybody was supposed to also be prooting off illegal mining
of mine
mineral deposits.

Whether or not these rumors are 100% true is something I still don’t know. They do say,
however, that when there’s smoke there's re. I cannot avoid reeecting on how the
power dynamics, the greed and personal interests were the actual driving force in Wa-
ziristan, so much more than ghting for the sake of Allah. There was no such thing as
pure intentions. Even the unity and camaraderie among those of us who had joined the
cause was a mirage. And I only found this out towards the end.
Do you mean after your arrest?

Yes. I was arrested in November 2008, shortly after President Obama won his rst elec-
tion. I thought my life was over, that I would be taken to Guantanamo Bay or an ADX
prison for life. Yet, somehow, that became a secondary concern when, while being inter-
rogated, I gured out that my former friends, the people I’d considered my family, had
ratted out on me. .

You mean your cooperation with authorities?

Yes. I could have indeed stayed true to my principles and not take the opportunity of
being given a second chance. I could have indeed considered that I would then be
deemed an apostate. However, I know now that this all came from Allah himself. The
disillusionment, the fact that I was able to see what goes on behind closed doors in the
lands of jihad, how at the end of the day personal interests prevailed over protecting
the ummah. So I took that chance and did what I still this day consider Allah’s duty. I
cooperated with authorities not against my Muslim brothers and sisters, but acting on
the same principle that had led me to depart to wage jihad in the rst place: “if anyone
saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind.”(5:32)

I was behind bars when ISIS declared its so-called Caliphate and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
called for hijrah. It didn’t take long before some of those who answered that call realized
the same thing I did in Waziristan: jihad as we understand it today is nothing but a
distortion
dis of the religion. We have all heard stories about ISIS’ brutality, indiscriminately
attacking Ahul al-Khitab (People of the Book) and other Muslims, including scholars,
who they have deemed apostates because they do not conform to their excessiveness.
That’s just to name a few examples. Ironically, though, they still do not see themselves
as Khawarij and are unable to see who their lack of knowledge has caused them to stray
away from their religion. As Bukhari put it, “They shoot out from the Religion just as an
arrow shoots out from the hunted game.”

Did th
that remind you of your own experiences?

Very much. What I saw in Waziristan is very similar. It did not come out of excessiveness,
though, but rather from a prevailing interest in the goods of the dunyah: money, power,
strength, privilege. The heart of those that fought alongside of me had been corrupted
not by excessiveness in the religion, but because they forgot the actual purpose of what
it means to ght jihad. They’d forgotten that, before engaging in the outer, lesser jihad,
one must rst ght al-jihad al-akbar, our own personal struggle.
It is only then that we will realize that there is a lot of self-improvement that needs done
before one can even speak about carrying out Allah’s work in this world. We must un-
derstand ourselves and the religion properly and not let our passions and our haste
guide us.

What is your main takeaway from your travels and your spiritual journey? What would
your advice to others be?

I myself am still struggling with my own inner jihad. It is not an overnight process. How-
ever, I’m grateful that my experiences have allowed me to understand the need to strive
for self-perfection. I invite you all to take a step back and reeect upon what Allah himself
revealed through our beloved Prophet (saws) and reconsider your path. When you’re
alone at night, do you truly feel at peace with yourself and with Allah? I have seen
rst-hand in Waziristan what misguidance can do to people. You have also seen the con-
sequences of it after ISIS’ fall. A true believer understands that Allah is all merciful and
will al
always accept a sincere heart. Now I ask you, are you being sincere in your heart?

Bryant now works with LightUponLight.Online to Combat

Hate and Extremism. To contact him please email:
parallelnetworks@pnetworks.org
 99111:
18 YEARS INTO THE
WAR ON TERROR
MOSUL AS A
NEW GROUND ZERO
BY ABU ZUBAIR
“So let the world know that we are living today in a new era. Whoever was
heedless must now be alert. Whoever was sleeping must now awaken. Whoever was
shocked and amazed must comprehend. The Muslims today have a loud,
thundering statement, and possess heavy boots. They have a statement to make
that will cause the world to hear and understand the meaning of terrorism, and boots
that will trample the idol of nationalism, destroy the idol of democracy, and uncover
its deviant nature.”
This was the boisterous statement of so-called caliph Ibrahim, better known as Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, on June 5, 2014, when he originally pronounced that ISIS had rees-
tablished an Islamic caliphate from the pulpit of the Nuri Mosque in Mosul, Iraq.

The pronouncement occurred just months before the 13th anniversary of the tragic
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that initiated the War on Terror, lured the United
States and its allies into the Iraq War, and that would require an international coalition
and enormous effort over the next five years to dismantle. Now, the so-called caliphate
is no more, at least territorially, but in the process of uprooting ISIS from Syria and
Iraq, infrastructure lay dismantled, refugees number in the millions, and there is little
political will or practical effort to reconstruct or resurrect it.

This is largely a consequence of the material metrics and measurements that have
marked the post 9/11-era. If there is anything that we must learn as we approach an
abyss in the War on Terror, it is that physical reconstruction, while important, must
always be matched, or even superseded, by careful attention to an intellectual and
ideological infrastructure built on principles of liberty and individual freedom. That is
the only route to sustainable social, political and economic alteration. Otherwise, in the
same way that America turned the Twin Towers into Freedom Towers while simultane-
ously losing much of its reputation as a defender of democracy and human rights; in the
same way that the United States and most democracies are falling into dangerous political
and social polarization at home, the void left in the wake of Syria and Iraq may be filled,
not so much by jihadism but by an authoritarian counter to the liberal world order led by
China-Russia-Iran and the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

There is perhaps no better representation of this general reality than in the situation un-
folding in and around Mosul, Iraq, where al-Baghdadi launched his global campaign to
shatter both nationalist and democratic identity. When approximately 1,500 ISIS fight-
ers seized Mosul in June 2014, many people fled. However, 1.5 million people remained
in the city. The so-called caliphate soon established a repressive bureaucracy to manage
city affairs and control the life of its citizens. The Hesba morality police were created to
ruthlessly enforce ISIS edicts and to implement a secure police-state like society where all
“sin” and dissent would be reported and dealt with accordingly.

Many public employees, including teachers and health workers, continued working un-
der ISIS, while other persons were hired to replace those who fled. ISIS looted the Mo-
sul banks and aggressively collected taxes from the local population to fund its military
campaigns. Factories were dismantled and the goods and machinery sold in neighboring
countries alongside stolen antiquities.

ISIS completely restructured the educational system and adopted a curriculum based on
their ultra-literalist and exclusivist worldview. At the University of Mosul, subjects such
as law, arts and philosophy were removed. Women could not study natural sciences and
were often forced to marry ISIS fighters to pursue an education. Children were raised as
cubs of the caliphate, indoctrinated to carry the global jihad into the next generation.

On October 17, 2016 the campaign to liberate Mosul from ISIS was initiated. It was the
beginning of the largest urban conflict since WWII. Iraqi forces entered east Mosul on
November 1, and declared it liberated on January 24, 2017. Then the battle turned to West
Mosul, particularly in the old city, where ISIS fighters mostly resided. Progress was slow
and the entire city was bullet and bomb-ridden with unspeakable damage caused by in-
cessant artillery and airstrikes that decimated entire neighborhoods.

On June 29, 2017 Mosul was declared liberated and by December Prime Minister Haider
al-Abadi of Iraq declared victory ... “The battles against Daesh are over, but the war is
not,” he said.
Indeed the resilience of ISIS is becoming more apparent. In Iraq and Syria at large ISIS is
operating clandestinely and has returned to a synthesis of guerilla war and terrorism tactics.
In Mosul, the organization is silent, operating from the shadows as Shiites aligned with the
Iraqi government and some with pro-Iranian militias have increased thier presence and influ-
ence while working consciously to make sure the international community and media remains
largely unconcerned. .

Shiite militias played a significant role in the Battle for Mosul but committed an array of hu-
man rights abuses including rape, unlawful detention, abductions, disappearences and abuse
against Sunni civilians. A December 2017 Human Rights Watch report documented that the
authorities in Mosul held at least 7,374 individuals on charges of affiliation with ISIS, largely
without notifying their families and therefore inducing reports of disappearings. Researchers
estimated that the detention numbers were far greater.

Ryan Crocker, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009, said the Obama ad-
ministration downplayed abuses by both Shiite militia and Iraqi forces. “This administration is
so determined to be able to declare victory over ISIL (that) they don’t really care about any of
the rest of it,” he explained. The approach screened the militiamen, many backed by Iran, from
criticism and scrutiny while the barbarity of ISIS put the international community’s focus on
Sunni violence with less concern for the reality that violence comes from both sides in Iraq’s
sectarian conflict.

Scholar Scott Atran explains this well. While reports were suggesting that ISIS fighters were
surrendering en masse and denouncing the group as the conflict in Mosul unfolded, Atran’s
interviews with captured fighters in Kirkuk showed the men, “recounted growing up in the
failed Iraqi state after the American invasion in 2003: a hellish world of guerrilla war, disrupt-
ed families, constant fear, and utter lack of hope. They saw Iran and the Shia as their greatest
enemy but they also believed that America had enabled the majority Shia to suppress the Arab
Sunnis’ religion and communities.”

Now conditions are worsengin and Sunni insurrection looms over the landscape while any
looking at images of Mosul’s destruction grow disheartened. And conditions are deteriorating.
Shiite militiamen and sectarian actors may portray a veneer of retained Sunni control, .but the
inclusion of Shite militiamen in retaking the city has allowed them to reconstruct a historical
and religious narrative that pushes Sunnis into discrimination and disenfranchisement.
In the aftermath of Mosul’s liberation, these shiite militiamen erected posters and banners
affiliated with key shiite leaders. These paramilitary groups became dominant in the city for
a short period but have reduced ostensible visibility. Instead, Shiite religious authorities are
quietly buying up property they say is historically Shiite. They have seized properties in Mosul
marketplaces and have even threatened to take control of Al-Noori mosque, where Al-Bagh-
dadi pronounced his so-called caliphate.
The Shiite narrative necessarily goes back to the mosque itself. The Al-Noori mosque was
built by Noor al-Din Mahmoud Zangi, a Turkish amir in Mosul who ordered the mosque’s
construction and is famous for laying the foundations for the success of Salahudin Ayaoubi,
who was his commander in Egypt, before founding the Ayyubid dynasty and retaking Jeru-
salem from Christian Crusaders. Noor al-Din was also fiere in his criticism of Shiism and
worked to defeat Shiist influence in Mosul. Now, the Shiite religious establishment is hear-
kening back to the period before Nour al-Din and proclaiming a historical victimization that
can facilitate their taking property and businesses from Sunnis. Were Shiites to control Sunni
provinces in Iraq, a very real Shiite crescent stretching from Iran, through Iraq and into Syria
could pave the way for an authoritarian restructuring and realignment of the Middle East in
general

All things considered, it is absolutely necessary to contemplate the effects of neglecting to

rebuild and restructure Mosul and the region in general. The retaking of Mosul killed thou-
sands of civilians and left 900,000 displaced refugees. They want to return, but there has been
no commitment from the international community. A nonprofit organization has been the
most successful at removing the debris preventing refugees from returning to their homes.
The head of the Sunni Muslim Endowment laid a foundation stone for the rebuilding of the
al-Noor mosque and was joined by UN and EU dignitaries but Shiites reject Sunni control
and the Shiite Muslim Endowment has challenged the notion that it should remain Sunni.

The physical reconstruction is daunting. It will take years, perhaps a generation but the fact
that the Sunnis have been indoctrinated by ISIS and that expanding Shiite influence will ce-
ment the grievances that drive the ideology suggest that restructuring the educational and so-
cial circumstance is as important. In September 2014, the ISIS education bureau revised the
curriculum for primary, secondary and university education, adding many religious topics,
physical fitness and weaponry training. Because of the fear of indoctrination and radicaliza-
tion, almost all families kept their children from school. Many feared their older sons would
be taken to be fighters during regular ISIS raids on schools. The children have witnessed ex-
ecutions and beheadings

The fear of forced marriages of daughters to ISIS members, especially foreign fighters, drove
some Mosul residents to flee Mosul. As the ISIS forces consolidated control of Mosul, young
adult males also fled, fearing that if they stayed they could have no social contact with women
and would be at risk of ISIS forced recruitment if they remained. 34.5% of women respon-
dents reported intimate partner violence leading to injury in interviews conducted after Mo-
sul’s liberation.
Yet, instead of recognizing the importance of restructuring Mosul and other cities in Iraq
and Syria, the international community, particularly the U.S., is doing little. Accord-
ing to the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International
and Public Affairs, the U.S. government has spent $5 trillion on the war on terror since
Al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. homeland in 2001. This while the Center for Strategic Inter-
national Studies suggests that there are three times as many jihadists today as there were
on 9/11. Estimates for reconstruction in Mosul number between $10 and $20 billion,
and that is for physical, not intellectual reconstruction. That is a scant amount in com-
parison to military expenditures. In 2018, the Trump administration allocated only $7.7
million to build shelters, and eliminated a large portion of foreign aid altogether., this
while increasing the Pentagon’s budget by $47 million. We have learned little since 9/11
apparently.

We must consider as well that the towers that fell in America have been replaced, but that
the intellectual scaffolding in the West generally has only divided in ways similar to the
Sunni, Shiite sectarianism in the Middle East. This division is pushing further toward po-
tential World War. It is time to pause and reflect on what it important. There should be an
interest in supporting and working alongside of grassroots activists in places like Mosul,
those seeking to reconstruct the libraries, the schools, universities, media, journalistic
outlets and the like.

Now, five years after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s pronouncement, his promise to show the
world terrorism has clearly beein fulfilled, but the militants of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
have been driven out of the territories they had conquered. The so-called Caliphate did
nothing to trample nationalism or democracy other than to pave a way for Bashar al-As-
sad to stay in power in Syria, for Russia to expand support for authoritarianism, while
Iran and the Shiite generally benefit from their demise. This while China, a communist
and atheistic power severaly oppressing its own Uighar Muslim population seeks to en-
hance its influence throughout Syria and Iraq.

The motto- “baqiya wa tatamaddad” (remaining and expanding) is now relegated to the
online realm of fantasy while the cities they once ruled over are completely decimated.
Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi told no lie when he announced from Mosul five years ago, “So let
the world know that we are living today in a new era. Whoever was heedless must now
be alert. Whoever was sleeping must now awaken.” However, the new era he pronounced
has proven nothing more than one of unknown misery, suffering and confusion. The
revolutionary awakening he promised failed miserably. Still, people in the region who
have never known peace and stability, people with little to lose with little hope will need a
vision for tomorrow that involves more than mere reconstruction and that will not come
overnight.
What we see happening is a tragedy that speaks to the general difficulties of the War on Terror.
Cities like Mosul, where al-Baghdadi made his laudatory pronouncement, lay decimated while
western governments, particularly the U.S., have little will, ability or faith in funding recon-
struction. Apart from that, Turkey will not accept a Kurdish state on its borders in Northeast-
ern Syria. Russia, China and Iran all want to protect Assad, end rebellion completely and then
cooperate on redeveloping Syrian infrastructure to advance their authoritarian counter to the
liberal world order. The Iraqi government is entwined with Iranian policy, and conflict with
Iran and the U.S. seems imminent. It is clear that the contest for tomorrow’s world order hinges
on what happens to the territory ISIS’ caliphate once controlled.

Certainly the cities in Syria and Iraq need rebuilt, and the priority must be to establish physical
security. Yet, In the same way that America rebuilt its freedom towers while lessening an ability
to project freedom abroad and experience security at home, a major part of Iraqi and Syrian
reconstruction should focus on the development of intellectual infrastructure. The way and
the means utilized to rebuild the cities will have serious implications and are likely to serve as
indicators for the geopolitical order we’ll live in tomorrow, but we should recognize that the
most important component of reconstruction in the post-ISIS Middle East is the advancement
of an intellectual infrastructure that can lay the foundations for a successful, stable and free
tomorrow.

Where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his cohorts seek immediate change and rush to revolution,
the religion of Islam, as in the Prophet Muhammad’s version (saws) is patient and balanced.
A narration from Abu Bakr (raa) reports that the Prophet (saws) said: “Abu Bakrah said, The
Prophet said, “There will be a tribulation during which one who is lying down will be better
than one who is sitting, one who is sitting will be better than one who is standing, one who is
standing will be better than one who is walking, and one who is walking will be better than one
who is running.” Someone asked, O Messenger of Allah, what do you advise me to do? He said,
“Whoever has camels, let him stay with them, and whoever has land, let him stay in his land.”
Someone asked, What about someone who does not have anything like that? He said, “Then let
him take his sword and strike its edge against a stone, then go as far away as possible.”

The people of areas once under ISIS control, primarily big cities like Mosul cannot simply dis-
appear. It is impossible to disappear and in an age of interconnectivity it will be impossible for
anyone to remove themselves from the ramifications of what happens there. The people must
rebuild, must attempt to reconstruct their societies, return to homes that are now barricaded
with rubble and to marketplaces coated in artillery and under Shiite control. There must be
movement forward and in so doing there is an oppurtunity for us to learn the same lessons at
a global level the Prophet Muhammad (saws) taught with regard to tribulation. Those moving
the most today are indeed those doing the most harm. We need principles and patience.
LightUponLight.Online Presents...

View at
LightUponLight.Online
LightUponLight.Online/Dialogue-of-Civilization
 Light upon Light! Toward a New Al-Nadha Renaissance
On July 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt with 54,000 men, 200 ships, 150 sa-
vants-scientists, engineers and scholars responsible for administering the region and
capturing the culture. Napoleon presented himself as a liberator. He was coming to es-
tablish “scientific” enterprise in the region. In August 1798 he wrote to an Egyptian cleric
that, “I hope… I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries
and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Qur’an which alone are
true, and which alone can lead men to happiness.” The invasion was successful, at least
for the moment.

The event shocked the Islamic world, however. Not only was it difficult to ascertain just
why Napoleon invaded, it forced Muslims to face the extent of the decline of their once
ascendant “civilization.” Ottoman Sultan Selim III soon declared jihad and allied with
Britain and Russia to repeal Napoleon’s advance, but the attack marked the onsets of the
efforts to ‘Westernize’ the Middle East. Every physical remnant of Napoleon’s presence
in Egypt had vanquished by 1802. However, the intrusion left an indelible ideological
imprint on Middle Eastern consciousness. It initiated a region-wide identity crisis, a
sense of inferiority, undergirded by an opposite nostalgic sense of historic superiority.
The decline continued throughout the 19th century, until the Ottoman “Caliphate” was
officially dismantled after World War I. Nearly all of the divergent ideologies that have
competed for the future of the Middle Eastern nations have been rooted in a reaction to
the Napoleonic invasion in the modern era.
If there was a silver lining to Napoleon’s temporary presence in Egypt,
it was the initial contact the savants had with the Egyptian people,
culture and religion caused the opposite effect it had on some the
influential thinkers in Egypt. These thinkers eventually made contact
with the Enlightenment ideas then occurring in Europe and across
the Atlantic in the newly independent United States.

Once pushed back, Napoleon’s savants returned to France and pub-

lished, between 1809 and 1828, Description de l’Egypte, an encyclo-
pedic record of Egyptian history and culture. That went on to inspire
immense interest in the ‘Oriental’ world, and while for some it in-
duced a desire for contact and communication, for others it assisted
in the onset of colonialism. Islamist groups started to rise that sug-
gested liberation of an Islamic civilization in decline had to come by
force.

A few decades after Napoleon, retreated and shortly after the pub-
lication of Description de l’Egypte, Pasha Muhammad Ali, a pro-
gressive and largely independent vizier in Egypt, sent a delegation of
Egyptians to study Western education in Europe. Among them was
Shaykh Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, the group’s spiritual guide, who was sent
there to preserve the delegation’s commitment to Islam.

Al-Tahtawi was born in the year Napoleon’s troops withdrew. De-

spite being a consummate scholar in Islam, European society fas-
cinated him. Al-Tahtawi studied Enlightenment philosophers such
as Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu, and quickly endorsed the
Western practices of secularism, free press and constitutionalism.
He realized these were practices outside the Islamic experience but
thought that they were compatible with the principles and spirit of
his religion. It didn’t hurt that Al-Tahtawi’s contact with European
liberalism occurred before the onset of colonialism, but after return-
ing to Egypt he translated many French works into Arabic and initi-
ated the first efforts in what became al-Nahda, an Arab Renaissance.
Writing about America in an Egyptian textbook in 1833, al-Tahtawi
described: “This country is among the greatest civilized countries of
the Americas and in it, worship in all faiths and religious communi-
ties is permitted. The seat of government is a town called Washington.”

Al-Nahda never grew to be that influential but it set forth ideations of secularism and
Enlightenment throughout the Middle East. Shaykh Rifa’a al-Tahtawi is therefore an
embodiment of one who overcame the Clash Civilizations paradigm (see Ahul Taqwa
1st edition) formulating then in a different era that has come to dominate the present
age.
Flash forward more than two centuries and an analogous narrative to Napoleon’s is
apparent.

On March 20, 2003 U.S. President George Bush sent 160,000 coalition troops to oc-
cupy Iraq. The initial invasion was also a success. The dictator Sadaam Hussein was
deposed, democracy could reign, and the peoples of the Middle East would welcome
the “American order.” In May of 2003 President Bush landed on the USS Abraham
Lincoln as co-pilot of a navy fighter jet, stood in front of a gigantic “Mission Accom-
plished” banner, and declared victory. “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.
In the battle of Iraq, our major allies have prevailed.” A few months later, the President
expressed that Islam was compatible with democracy, that “Muslims succeed in dem-
ocratic societies, not in spite of their faith, but because of it.”

Today, it is clear that the war in Iraq, like Napoleon’s invasion, was a disaster. Many
now consider Iraq “the worst strategic blunder in American history.” We went on to
wage war against a predominantly ideological insurgency with weapons, and all too
often with practices that betrayed the very principles we claimed to be defending. In
the process, we mostly heard from those that fit, fell and defended a clash of civiliza-
tions.

For example, a leaked 2003 memo from Donald Rumsfeld, shortly after the Iraq in-
surgency gained traction, described such a reductionist mindset. He asked, “Are we
capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the ma-
drasas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?” An
effective strategy must be multidimensional and holistic with alternative metrics and
measures to depart from the clash of civilizations outlook.
Identifying an external adversary to wage war is much easier than addressing inner com-
plications. When we look inward, we discover values, rights and principles of the en-
lightenment that are universal, nor merely Western or American.

One cannot project universal principles, however, unless they acknowledge, embody and
understand them. Unfortunately, many of our intellectuals and institutions generally re-
fuse to accept that there are objective truths at all. Many resent ‘Western civilization’
altogether. Others do not recognize that civilization and culture in general represents
an accumulation of the human record. The past is weighed with values and norms that
stem from long historical processes. American history is portrayed as forever oppressive,
racist or imperialist. “Truth” is nothing more than a relative and subjective construct.
Unfortunately, we now find ourselves doing the unwitted bidding of those upholding
principles we claim to reject and despise. In rejecting the imperfections of ‘the West,’ we
only serve the interests of authoritarian regimes such as Iran, China or Russia, and only
help legitimize the victimization narrative of “moderate” jihadist extremists that heart-
en to a far-leftist critique of ‘the West’ and align with progressives ostensibly , but that
behind closed doors still support a sociopolitical system where adulterers are stoned,
homosexuals dropped from buildings, alcoholics whipped, apostates beheaded, thieves
amputates and etcetera.

To end the clash of civilizations, we need a civilizational dialogue that represents and includes
the notion that civilization is a result of all human development, no matter how imperfect. It
is a collective effort that has benefited from peaks of progress, hubs of development and that
exponentially advanced with the miracle that was the Enlightenment. We are living in an inter-
connected age that unites every person on the planet. At the same time, it is one where words
and ideas are just as lethal as weapons. Today, we’ve lost the hearts and minds of the Middle
East’s masses. They now prefer authoritarianism or Islamism to liberal democracy.

We could do much more to project and preserve the liberal order were we to induce a new
Enlightenment built on axioms opposed to a Clash in favor of cooperation. A layered allegory
of the Qur’an explains that true Enlightenment is “neither of the East nor of the West (24:35).
Their description offers a powerful rejection of civilizational conflict and clash, and rather
explains the enlightenment as universal. That is also in line with the American tradition. Ben-
jamin Franklin once remarked to Thomas Paine, “Where liberty is, there is my country.” But
when he said so, Paine quipped in reply “Where liberty is not, there is my country.” That is the
Enlightenment ideal in perfection, now rhetoric of democracy must match policy and practice.
As Russia, China, Iran and others seek to expand in the Middle East, we must recognize that
we face civilizational decline as a consequence. Perhaps our only hope is to discover, endorse
and support the Shayk al-Tahtawi’s of our contemporary era, and to hearken back to induce a
new al-Nahda as part of a new global Enlightenment. Freedom and liberty hang in the balance.
If you or anybody you know has been touched or affected by the hate of anther or
by a hate-based movement in any way, please call our 24/7 Helpline: 

202-486-8633
parallelnetworks@pnetworks.org