Decapitations: fundamentalism takes an ideological leap
Interview with Francesco Zannini, professor at the Pontifical Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies
Rome (AsiaNews) - If killing enemies is a precept of Islam, then "live-broadcast decapitations" are the result of a "radical leap" in fundamentalism. According to Professor Francesco Zannini, an expert on Islam, this type of killing finds justification nowhere in the Koran nor in any traditional maxim. The choice to decapitate and use telecommunications is a way "to bring the West to its knees...By cutting off a person's head, [fundamentalists] inflict, thanks to mass media, mass destruction by striking the psychology and the fear of the Western world".
Professor Zannini, who teaches at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in Rome (PISAI, according to its Italian acronym), says that fundamentalist terrorists in Iraq "have taken an ideological leap: they have redefined the figure of the "enemy". For traditional Islam, women, children, farmers, young people could not be killed. But, by now, for these groups "the enemy has become the West as such. Every Western, even if a child, is someone who "attacks Islam", a militant that wants to destroy Islam and, as such, must be annihilated. It is an ideological framework that justifies total Jihad".
According to Zannini, faced with this latest evolution in extremist Islam, the world of Islam is appalled, even the fundamentalist Islam of the Muslim Brothers of Egypt. And many Muslims see the urgent need to give new ideals to young Muslims "to avoid a future of darkness". Here is his interview with AsiaNews.
How do you explain this continuous use of decapitations against hostages?
Decapitations exist in the history of Islam. But decapitations, cutting off heads are not a punishment foreseen by Islamic rules. It may have existed in the past but it was not a specific punishment. And above all it is not specified as for use against enemies. There are texts that order the killing of enemies of Islam, but they do not order decapitations. The Koran does not mention it. Nor do the hadith (the Prophet's maxims). But the choice to decapitate and the use of media to broadcast such killings are made precisely to attract attention and to intimidate. Kidnappers are using decapitations to bring the West to its knees. They are seeking to attack people psychologically. Cutting the head of one person, they are inflicting, thanks to mass media, mass destruction by striking the psychology and the fear of the Western world. Strangely enough, the kidnappings themselves, the hostages, etc., are more part of the Western world, which fundamentalists use to have greater media impact.
The Beslan slaughter, the kidnapping of Simona Torretta and Simona Pari: these are also crimes against Islam, are they not?
These terrorists are going against every traditional rule. The killing of women is explicitly condemned by Islamic tests. The most accredited hadith (the collection of the Prophet's maxims) say that women, children, clergy, even farmers cannot be killed, nor can young men of military age who are not in the military.
But these terrorists have taken an ideological leap: they have redefined the figure of the "enemy". For fundamentalism, for extremist groups and terrorists, the enemy has become the whole West as such. Every Western, even if a child, is someone who "attacks Islam", a militant that wants to destroy Islam and, as such, must be annihilated. It is an ideological framework that justifies total Jihad. It is also true that, in the Iraqi quagmire, those who kill who might be Muslim, but there are also atheists that hide behind Islam, or some secret service or another...
How does the Islamic world see all this?
Muslims that I meet in Italy and abroad are aghast. They find themselves faced with something new and unprecedented. They too have not forgotten past struggles, but they are left stunned by what is happening today. A Muslim friend of mine from Bangladesh, an intellectual, confessed to me his concern: he feels that there is an urgent need to strengthen education in ideals among the young otherwise we are headed for a future of darkness. In the past, perhaps while caught up in a certain anti-Americanism, there could have been someone that supported such action; now everyone is perplexed.
Even some members of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt have admitted their astonishment. The Muslim Brothers see that the Iraqi terrorists go partly by their ideology, but they themselves feel that, to some extent, "they are giving Islam bad publicity". Iraqi groups have by now surpassed the horror of Al Qaeda. In the Islamic world, the attack against the Twin Towers was seen as a start to Jihad. But, in Iraq, it is a question of total and idealess slaughter.
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16/11/2006
