a502410

part of Defense of the Muslim Lands also denounces Muslims for waiting and
weeping while Islamic regions fall under the control of the kufr and calls on all
Muslims to follow Allah’s command for the Great March that will liberate
Palestine in one week and later Afghanistan.
The second portion of Defense of the Muslim Lands calls for waging a jihad despite
the absence of an amir or caliphate that will lead this holy struggle. It urges the
mujahidin to choose an amir among them and not to wait for the return of the
caliphate that Azzam claims will never be restored. The third portion explains
the reasons for a jihad in Afghanistan. Interestingly, the RSM members who
copied this portion of Azzam’s work overlooked the fact that the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan ended in 1989, and the current jihad in the country is now
directed against the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
These NATO countries drove the Taliban regime from Kabul in 2001 and have
since politically and militarily supported the secular regime of President Hamid
Karzai. Yet, the RSM documents, seized in 2005, still state that the fighting in
Afghanistan is for the defense of the Muslims against the aggression of the
atheists (referring to the communists). 36 Similarly, the final sections of the
document deal with the dilemma of fighting with Muslims who have shallow or
superficial faith in Islam (referring to the Afghans in the 1980s) and with the
Kaafirs (referring to the U.S. political and military support of the mujahidin in
the 1970s and 1980s). This failure to update Azzam’s work demonstrates an
outright laziness and ideological passivity of RSM members. It is also reflective
of the low level of understanding and creative theorizing about jihadist ideology
among Islamist groups in the Philippines.
The second set of reading materials seized from RSM pertains to the Virtues of a
Shuhadah in the Path of Allah culled primarily, again, from Azzam’s work. The
first part glorifies the Shaheed who has taken the path of Allah, that is, one who
has taken part in a jihad. Jihad is defined as the struggle or fight against
disbelievers with the sword until they accept Islam or pay the jizya (tax) by hand
in a state of humiliation.
37
The document examines the glorious and blissful afterlife
of those who have shed their blood in a jihad, explaining that Allah has
created a paradise of a hundred levels and the martyred mujahidin will be given
the highest part of this paradise. They will also be allowed to roam around
Paradise if they wish to do so. Furthermore, the document states that a Shaheed
36
Ibid., 4.
37
Author unknown, “Virtues of Shahadah in the Path of Allah: Adopted from the Works of Ash-
Sheikh ash-Shaheed Abdullah Azzam,” E:\My Web Pages|virtues-shuhadah. html.
65