Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

96 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 1:95
one occasion, Hasan himself told Dr. Naomi Surnam, a supervisor in the
Department of Psychiatry at Walter Reed Hospital, that “she was an infidel
who would be ‘ripped to shreds’ and ‘burn in hell’ because she was not
Muslim.” 4 Another Walter Reed colleague reported that Hasan told him that
“non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire.” 5
Hasan’s views were fully in keeping with those expressed by Osama
bin Laden and Ayman al-Awahiri in their “Declaration of the World Islamic
Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders,” published in Al Quds
Al-Arabi on February 23, 1998. 6 The Declaration asserted that it “is an individual
duty for every Muslim” to “kill the Americans and their allies—
civilians and military.” As the Qur’anic proof text, the fatwa cites: “This is
in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah,” “and fight the pagans all
together as they fight you all together,” and “fight them until there is no
more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah.” 7
Moreover, in the aftermath of 9/11, a group of Saudi scholars stated in
a public exchange with a group of American scholars that “many in the
Islamic world” regard the September 11 attacks as “neither legitimate nor
welcome, due to all the values, principles, and moral standards that we have
learned from Islam.” 8 This statement aroused Bin Laden’s ire. He insisted
that the attacks were fully justified in Islamic law and that by denying the
legitimacy of the September 11 attacks, the scholars rejected offensive
jihad. By so doing, they reject the Prophet and his Rightly Guided Companions
as authoritative models of Muslim behavior. Bin Laden reproved the
scholars for “lying” when they claimed that “many in the Islamic world did
not welcome the attack of September [11].” He characterized such statements
as “repugnant bowing to the infidels” and declared:
This is the furthest from the truth. Indeed, happiness and joy have not
entered many Muslim homes in decades as it did after what befell the
RightThing,’” Jihad Watch, November 9, 2009, http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/
11/us-born-islamic-cleric-nidal-hasan-did-the-right-thing.html.
4. “Officials: Major Hasan Sought ‘War Crimes’ Prosecution of U.S.
Soldiers,” ABC News, November 16, 2009, http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/officials
-major-hasan-sought-war-crimes-prosecution-us/story?id=9019904&page=1.
5. Nick Allen, “Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels
should have their throats cut,” Daily Telegraph (UK), November 8, 2009,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6526030/Fort-Hood
-gunman-had-told-US-military-colleagues-that-infidels-should-have-their-throatscut.html.
6. The text of the Declaration is available on the Web at http://fas.org/irp/
world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm
7. Qur’an, 2:193 (Al-Aqara).
8. Osama Bin Laden, in Ibrahim, Al Qaeda Reader, 47.