The Al Qaeda Reader: The Essential Texts of Osama Bin Laden’s Terrorist Organization

296 Pages·2007·1.1 MB·English

by  Ibrahim

CONTENTS

Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Text and Translation
Critical Glossary of Arabic Terms
Important Figures in Islam
Introduction by Victor Davis Hanson
Foreword
Al-Qaeda’s Declaration of War Against Americans

PART I: THEOLOGY

1. “Moderate Islam Is a Prostration to the West”
2. “Loyalty and Enmity”
3. “Sharia and Democracy”
4. “Jihad, Martyrdom, and the Killing of Innocents”

PART II: PROPAGANDA

5. Ayman al-Zawahiri Interview Four Years After 9/11

MESSAGES TO THE AMERICANS

6. “Osama bin Laden’s Oath to America”
7. “‘Why We Are Fighting You’: Osama bin Laden’s Letter to Americans”
8. “Israel, Oil, and Iraq”
9. “Your Fate Is in Your Hands Alone”
10. “Bin Laden’s Truce Offer to the Americans”
11. “I Am Among the Muslim Masses”

MESSAGES TO THE EUROPEANS

12. “To the Allies of the United States”
13. “Osama bin Laden’s Peace Treaty Offer to the Europeans”
14. “Ayman al-Zawahiri Berates the Queen of England”

MESSAGES TO THE IRAQIS

15. “To the Muslims of Iraq”
16. “To the Muslims of Iraq II”

THEMES

17. The Afghan-Soviet Paradigm: The Myth of the Superpower and U.S.
Cowardice
May 1998
December 1998
January 1999
June 1999
October 2001
March 2003
18. The Youth of Islam: Jihad and Martyrdom
December 1998
December 2001
December 2001
October 2002
March 2003
January 2004
19. A Crusade
October 2001
November 2001
January 2004
20. The Zionist Lobby
May 1998
December 1998
October 2001
November 2001
March 2003
21. The Price of American Democracy
May 1998
December 1998
November 2001

Notes
About the Editor and Translator
Copyright
TO MY SON, ALEXANDER,
AND FOR ALETHEIA
PREFACE

T
he tragedy of September 11, 2001, has influenced many. It
altered my academic interests away from the ancient and medieval
Mediterranean—a landscape of long-ago Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks,
Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, and Turks—and led me to strictly focus on the
contemporary Arab-Islamic world. Like many others, after 9/11 I desired to
learn what precisely was the motivation—and inspiration—of radical Islamic
groups such as al-Qaeda, who had formally declared war on the United States.
To make a long story short, in 2002 I applied to and was accepted by
Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies—a leading
institution in Islamic studies located in Washington, D.C. Soon thereafter, I also
landed an internship at the Near East section of the Library of Congress—where
the largest collection of Arabic books in the United States is housed. When,
happily, the internship evolved into a permanent, full-time position—and
considering the exigencies of newly married life and fatherhood—I took a leave
of absence from my formal academic studies in order to focus on more practical
work.
Finding myself in the world’s largest library, and working in the division that
houses all Arabic materials—where thousands of new books, serials, microfilms,
etc., arrive yearly from the little-known publishing houses of the Arab world,
many dealing with radical Islam—I was, admittedly, like the proverbial child in
a well-stocked toy store.
Arabic books dealing with radical Islam, al-Qaeda, or terrorism passing
through my hands—and these were many—naturally were perused. It was with
some shock that I discovered that a good number of these contained not only
hitherto unknown excerpts or quotes by al-Qaeda, but entire treatises and even
whole books written by them. Thus I came to discover that a good number of
these had never been translated into English, much less disseminated to the
general public.
Further striking, most of their writings and speeches neatly fit into two genres
—religious exegesis, meant to motivate and instruct Muslims, and propagandist
speeches, aimed at demoralizing the West and inciting Muslims to action.
Out of that examination of such a disparate group of writings, this present
book of translated documents was conceived and the idea of its publication
accepted.
This volume is presented to the public for educational and didactic purposes—
for Americans to know and comprehend their enemy, an essential prerequisite
throughout history for victory. This volume of translations, taken as a whole,
proves once and for all that, despite the propaganda of al-Qaeda and its
sympathizers, radical Islam’s war with the West is not finite and limited to
political grievances—real or imagined—but is existential, transcending time and
space and deeply rooted in faith.
Furthermore, censoring political speeches and writings—particularly in the
United States in the era of its struggle of ideas against absolutism—might only
encourage the belief that such statements by al-Qaeda must be true, hence the
need to silence them. In fact, bin Laden has used this very argument to win
widespread agreement in the Arab world. On October 10, 2001, for example, the
White House advised television networks to censor bin Laden broadcasts, citing
the possibility of coded messages to other terrorist cells. Less than two weeks
later, bin Laden, in an interview on the al-Jazeera television network, had this to
say about it:

The values of this Western civilization under the leadership of America
have been destroyed. Those awesome symbolic [twin] towers that spoke of
liberty, human rights, and humanity have been destroyed. They have gone
up in smoke. The proof came when the U.S. government pressured the
media not to run our statements that are not longer than a very few
minutes…. They forgot all about fair and objective reporting and reporting
the other side of the issue. I tell you freedom and human rights in America
are doomed.1

The publication of this book proves otherwise.
Raymond Ibrahim
Washington, D.C., October 2006