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Soviet invasion of Afghanistan analysis
True meaning of jihad
True meaning of jihad
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According to the Quran and supporting Islamic texts, jihad means striving. However, there are several words and phrases, that when coupled with jihad, display a variety of sentiments. The phrase fi sabil Allah, "in God's path," can be interpreted as fighting for the sake of God. When paired with the word ribat, jihad is related to warfare or pious doings/activism (Bonner 2006). Jihad represents a fight that has provided Muslims with a solid base of military efficiency demonstrated historically in early Islam. During the Cold War, America saw an advantage to promote the Afghan insurgents and channel aid to rebels. It was later revealed that the United States started aiding tribal and Islamic revolts half a year before the USSR invaded Afghanistan. The Afghan invasion not only led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also led to the creation of young Middle Eastern men who sought actions of violence to satisfy their own personal jihad. America trained these men like their own, supplied them with advanced weapon intelligence, and finally the addition of money and drugs. The war escalated in Afghanistan and ultimately gave birth to a growing worldwide jihad. The U.S. supplied the mujahedeen with anti-aircraft missiles. And the CIA supported Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency's (ISI) ongoing recruiting agenda of mercenaries and volunteers of religious motivation around the world. New York, San Francisco and Detroit, all had recruiting centers (Parenti 2001). Along with America's help, the ISI had assistance from a striking and very wealthy, young man named Osama bin Laden. He joined the ISI, as a favor to the head of Saudi intelligence and his good friend, Prince Turki. Bin Laden quickly assumed the important role includ... ... middle of paper ... ..., Panel Reports. Said, E. (1981). Covering Islam. New York: Pantheon Books. Sheikh, K. Z., Price, V., Oshagan, H. (1996). Press Treatment of Islam: What Kind of Picture Do the Media Paint? International Communication Gazette 56(2), pp. 139-154 St. Clair, J., Cockburn, A. (1998). How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahedeen. Le Nouvel Observateur. 76 Stern, J. (2000). Pakistan’s Jihad Culture. Foreign Affairs. 79(6), pp. 115-126 Suleiman, M.W. (1988). The Arabs in the Mind of America. Brattleboro. Vermont: Amana Books. Transcript, Public Broadcasting System, "Frontline: Looking for Answers," Program #2002, original airdate October 11, 2001. Winter, T. (2011), America as a Jihad State: Middle Eastern Perceptions of Modern American Theopolitics. The Muslim World, pp. 101: 394–411. Zaidi, M. (2009). A TAXONOMY OF JIHAD. Arab Studies Quarterly, 31(3), pp. 21-34.
September 11, 2001, Osama Bin Laden decided to “wake the sleeping giant.” The US immediately sent SOF units and CIA officers to recon the area and meet with the Northern Alliance. The primary battle leading up to this operation was Tora Bora, which was absent of conventional forces. Up until this point, the war on terror was predominantly a Special Operations fight along with Air Force for overhead support.3 SOF and the Northern Alliance had already displaced Taliban forces out of many towns and villages in northern Afghanistan to gain control of key terrain. Key towns in northern Afghanistan including Taloqan, Konduz, Herat, and Mazar-e Sharif took only three weeks to clear.4 The SOF units were making huge impacts across the country calling in air strikes. At the same time the SOF units were diligently...
Ibn Munqidh, Usama. "From Memoirs." McNeill, William and Marilyn Robinson Waldman. The Islamic World. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973. 184-206.
Cleveland, William L. A History of the Modern Middle East. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000.
Certain revolutions in Afghanistan occurred between 1978 and 2001 which caused the US War with Afghanistan. The United States helped Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel by giving them military weapons and, as a result, the Soviet Union viewed this as if the United States was trying to have power over the Middle East. After the collapse of the Soviet regime in Afghanistan, Afghan socialists fought over power, which led to the creation of Taliban by Mullah Omar, a religious preacher who taught in Pakistan. During Mullah Omar’s time, Osama Bin-Laden came to Afghanistan and he ...
Lewis, B. (September 1990) The Roots of Muslim Rage: Why So Many Muslims Deeply Resent The West, and why Their Bitterness Will Not Be Easily Mollified. The Atlantic v.266, pp.47(11).
America’s role in the establishing of Israel marked the beginning of resentment among many Arabs and Muslims communities (Evara, Stratmann & Natta 2007). With this political stand, the US was forced to adopt policies that conflicted with major political movements in the region, namely secular pan-Arabism and Islamic fundamentalism. Egypt was on the forefront pushing for the first movement; it described its position on the Middle East and the rest of the world. Both the movements called for unity among the Muslim and Arabic community. Consequently they alienated the western countries, to an extent of advocating for violence. In 1991 the relationship was complicated further when the US led the gulf war against Iraq. However the more recent September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America soil hig...
Islam, a religion of people submitting to one God, seeking peace and a way of life without sin, is always misunderstood throughout the world. What some consider act of bigotry, others believe it to be the lack of education and wrong portrayal of events in media; however, one cannot not justify the so little knowledge that America and Americans have about Islam and Muslims. Historically there are have been myths, many attacks on Islam and much confusion between Islam as a religion and Middle Easter culture that is always associated with it. This paper is meant to dispel, or rather educate about the big issues that plague people’s minds with false ideas and this will only be touching the surface.
The United States of America: once a small colony, now one of the world’s most powerful nations; a nation that has been fraught with wars, protests and continuous conflicts between religion and state. This essay will investigate the relationship between the religion and state, discuss the states declaration’s about this relationship and the practice of these declarations. Americans, after the September 11 attacks, have marginalised the Muslim community, which is largely due to their Christian origins and misinterpretations of Islam.
G. Hossein. “Legitimacy, Religion, and Nationalism in the Middle East.” The American Political Science Review, Volume 84, Issue 1 (1990. 3), 69-91.
Al Qaeda is leading by Osama bin laden that was born and grown up in Saudi Arabia; his family was very rich and respected by Saudi Royal household and the public. When he finished his University in Saudi Arabia, he becomes an extreme religious person. Osama started to help Islamist movement against communist in Yemen (Gunaratna, 2005) . In December 1997 when Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan he went to Pakistan and then Afghanistan to help Afghan group to protect it from Soviet Union. At the time a Palestinian Jordanian, Dr Abdullah Azzam esta...
Bin Laden only focused on destroying military installations and soldiers and left civilians alone as much as possible in Afghanistan, therefore being constructive. He supplied many resources to the war effort, thereby playing a major role in making the Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan. Bin Laden bought military equipment and recruited many soldiers whose ideas of Islam matched his. Due to the fact that the mujahideen had been more trouble than the Soviets had expected, the Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. (Currie 72) ...
The origins of al Qaeda date back to August of 1988, when the organization is formed at a meeting where three crucial people to the further development of al Qaeda are present (Wander, 2008). Ayman al-Zawahiri was a lieutenant to Osama bin Laden and considered to be the brains behind the organization. He was a lifetime member of the Egyptian Islamist Jihad, until he decided to merge it into Al Qaeda in 1998. He was a member of Bin Laden’s shura council, which is believed to consist of 20-30 senior members that served as advisors to Bin Laden. The second individual present was ...
Franklin, Stephen. "Covering the World of Muslims", Columbia Journalism Review. Vol 33, Iss 5. Jan 1995. p17
Jihad is an Arabic word that means “exerted effort”. It is mentioned in the Qur’an and projected as exerting effort to change one’s self to the better which is seen as each person’s most difficult jihad. This concept of jihad and the betterment of one’s self is almost unknown to non-Muslims specially westerners who refer to jihad as the holy war and terrorism.
After 9/11 has induced negative attitudes towards Muslim peoples who tend to be strongly associated with any act of terrorism. The media has played a colossal role in developing such negative association wherein it constantly portrays Muslim people in combination with violent terrorist acts. It does so in a way that they both go hand-and-hand. In other words, it has made it as though the Islamic religion is synonymous with terrorism. The media has perpetuated Muslim stereotypes over the years that followed the 9/11 incident. Because of this, society has developed, and still has developed, this prejudiced mindset about the Islamic religion and the Muslim communities around the world. People immediately assume that any violent act being depicted through the media is the direct result of Muslims. They automatically generate this idea that the act was performed by a Muslim terrorist even when they were not involved whatsoever. Regardless of whether it was true or not, Islamic religion and its Muslim adherents are at the top of societies’ agenda just waiting for the evidence to be generated so that they can then safely blame them for such world affairs. Again, this has led to the attack on the Islamic religion itself wherein people have come to postulate Islam as an act of oppression, violence and hatred towards non-Muslims. Anti-Muslim sentiments and campaigns have resulted from such misinformation the media has been generating and feeding its viewers.