Juan Cole's Analysis of 9/11 "Doomsday" Document

[Bolo Boffin]

http://www.juancole.com/essays/qaeda.htm

In this paper I present a fresh reading and analysis of the first part of the so-called “Doomsday Document,” found in the luggage of September 11 hijacker Muhammad Atta.  ...I am asking here how the hijackers misused various techniques of Islamic spirituality to achieve a psychological state of mind in which it was possible for them to commit mass murder and their own suicides.  On reflection, then, it seems to me that the text was probably authored by Muhammad Atta himself, the only Egyptian on the hijacking team.  Another possibility is that the document was pulled together from instructions by more than one person, some of them not native Arabic speakers, and not carefully edited by an Arab with a good style.

...The seventh instruction employs the language of Muslim asceticism and mysticism to reinforce the urge to suicide or self-martyrdom.  The mass murderer is encouraged to see his action as selfless.  He is to “purify” his “heart” and cleanse it of “stains.”  He is to forget that there is even such a thing as “this world.”  He is informed that the time for play has ended, and the rendezvous Eternal Truth is nearing.  He is encouraged to regret how much of his life he has “wasted,” i.e., spent on impious pursuits or in search of merely material benefits.  He should “take advantage” of these, his last hours, to offer up to God acts that will draw him near to the divine and express his obedience. Whereas traditional Islamic piety urged detachment from the material world as an aid to ethical and spiritual fulfillment, the Doomsday Document urges it as a support for suicide and massive killing of civilians. 

There may be a hint in this paragraph of a strategy of using guilt to manipulate the hijackers.  We know that al-Qaeda operatives were often encouraged to antinomian behavior, including hanging out at strip clubs and with fast women.  Khalid Shaikh Muhammad was a notorious playboy and high roller during his years in the Philippines.  Several of the hijackers were known to frequent US strip clubs and to drink heavily.  Bin Laden admitted that the hijackers were not Muslims in the ordinary (i.e. Wahhabi) sense of the term, and it was to this strategy of antinomianism that he probably was referring.  The sinful lifestyle probably had several advantages.  It served as a form of false flag tradecraft, that is, of covert deception, in throwing off any intelligence organizations that might have been tracking the hijackers as suspected Islamist terrorists.  Such libertine behavior was in part a cover, insofar as it marked the operatives as irreligious.  But it may have had other implications as well.  It served as a reward to young men who would end their lives early, allowing them to live out fantasies and feel that had lived full lives.  The earthly delights may also have been intended to serve as a reminder for the even more impressive heavenly delights promised after their suicides. Were the American exotic dancers intended to be symbols of the houris or maidens of paradise the document mentions elsewhere? Finally, despite all the good tactical reasons they had for behaving this way, the hijackers must have felt some guilt over it, as committed Muslim fundamentalists.  This last feeling is played upon in paragraph 7.  The time for play is over.  They have wasted much of their lives with unworthy, worldly activities. Now they must feel the full regret and prepare to make amends with a final night of worship, drawing close, and preparation for the rendezvous with God.  Their earthly lives have been in any case “ruined” by their antinomian activities, so why no not just cast off that old skin and emerge into a new existence in the afterlife?

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. not carefully edited by an Arab with a good style

there's your money line :)

[DulceDecorum]

2. Let us ask George Galloway

his opinion of documents found lying about.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0425/p01s04-woiq.htm

"Another possibility is that the document was pulled together from instructions by more than one person, some of them not native Arabic speakers, and not carefully edited by an Arab with a good style."

Hmmmmm
http://www.msnbc.com/news/1000537.asp?0cv=CB20
Hmmmmm
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id985/pg1/index.html
Hmmmmm
In lost assassination, the assassin must be a fanatic of some sort. POLITICS, RELIGION, AND REVENGE ARE ABOUT THE ONLY FEASIBLE MOTIVES. Since a fanatic is unstable psychologically, he must be handled with extreme care. He must not know the identities of the other members of the organization, for although it is intended that he die in the act, something may go wrong. While the Assassin of Trotsky has never revealed any significant information, it was unsound to depend on this when the act was planned.
http://www.totse.com/en/politics/central_intelligence_agency/161745.html
Hmmmm

[Bolo Boffin]

3. That single sentence is no refuge for you.

It's amazing, isn't it, how you select a single sentence from an essay and use it to ignore the plain meaning of the entire essay.

I thought you might go for that sentence, and so I wrote the author of the essay himself, Juan Cole. I asked him if he would elaborate on that sentence and on the possibility that the document was forged. Here's what he said:

The document is an authentic al-Qaeda document. My speculation was whether
it was produced by Atta or by a multinational group in Kandahar and then
edited by Atta. It often quotes al-Banna almost verbatim. The FBI knows
bupkes about Islam and is completely unable to forge such a thing.

So there is no doubt about the al-Qaeda origin of the Doomsday Document. Atta is the Arab without good style that may have edited the document, but without care, or he may have written it himself. There is no possibility in Cole's mind that the FBI, who released the Doomsday document, could have forged it.

You are stuck with this thoughtful analysis on how the 9/11 hijackers used their antinomian acts to convict their souls with guilt and thus steel themselves to the dreadful task ahead.

PS: Who is al-Banna? Someone an Egyptian fanatic (Atta) would have deified. Since his works are quoted extensively, this could account for the "group" feel of the document, leaving Atta the sole author.

[LARED]

4. very interesting

I clicked on the Hasan al-Banna link and after reading this

Al-Banna's leadership was critical to the spectacular growth of the brotherhood during the 1930s and 1940s.

and something clicked in my head

I was watching a TV documentary on Hitler's SS about a week ago and it mentioned that toward the end of the war many SS had been imported from the middle east. In fact it stated by the time Berlin fell there were mostly foreign SS than German SS protecting Berlin

So I punched up google here and found some interesting information.

I know it's a rabbit trail and need to read more of the info before commenting on it but I thought this was interesting.

[DulceDecorum]

5. Bupkes?

Aaah, Yiddish.
Next to nothing. Beans. Goat droppings.

"The document is an authentic al-Qaeda document. My speculation was whether it was produced by Atta or by a multinational group in Kandahar and then edited by Atta. It often quotes al-Banna almost verbatim. The FBI knows bupkes about Islam and is completely unable to forge such a thing."

Hmmmmm
The FBI knows bupkes about Islam and is completely unable to forge such a thing.
Not even a BAD forgery?
How about the CIA?

Incidentally,
Boloboffin,
how does that dude know
what the FBI does or does not know about Islam?

[Bolo Boffin]

6. Why don't you go check out his blog and find out, DD?

You'll find he's one of the most respected bloggers on the Internet. He knows whereof he speaks.

[DulceDecorum]

8. I'd rather read xymphora.

http://www.xymphora.blogspot.com/

[DuctapeFatwa]

7. "authentic al-Qaeda document" does not preclude CIA involvement

or authorship. ;)