A few weeks ago when I read the list of the NY Times’s Top 10 books of 2006, one in particular stood out. I’d read Lawrence Wright’s excellent In the New World years ago. So I ordered The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
I now feel like I have a much better understanding of Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, of the source of their hatred, and of the fertile ground for their recruitment.
This is an exhaustive book. I kept wondering, How many interviews did this Austin writer actually have?
It’s the carefully woven story of why, in 1996 from a cave in Afghanistan (after being shoved out of Sudan), Bin Laden declared war on the United States. He and many Islamic fundamentalists were furious that five years after the invasion of Kuwait, U.S. troops were still stationed in the land of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. “Saudis were mortified by the need to turn to Christians and Jews to defend the holy land of Islam. That many of these foreign soldiers were women only added to their embarrassment.”
Mohammed bin Laden fathered 54 children by 22 wives. At least, officially. “The total number of wives he procured is impossible to determine, since he would often ‘marry’ in the afternoon and divorce that night. An assistant followed behind to take care of any children he might have left in his wake.”
Osama bin Laden was the seventeenth son of this wealthy, hard-working construction mogul. His mother had been taken to be one of Mohammed bin Laden’s wives when she was fourteen.
Osama was a fan of westerns, especially Bonanza. “Although he was opposed to the playing of musical instruments [I KID YOU NOT], he organized some of his friends into an a cappella singing group.”
“He was rarely angry except when sexual matters came up. When he thought one of his half brothers was flirting with a maid, Osama slapped him. Another time, when he was in a cafe in Beirut, one of his brother’s friends produced a porno magazine. Osama made it clear that neither he nor any of his brothers would ever have anything to do with the boy again. There seems never to have been a moment in his entire life when he gave way to the sins of the flesh, venal or ribald behavior, the temptations of liquor, smoking, or gambling. Food held little interest for him. He loved adventure and poetry and little else but God.”
Throughout, in addition to the story of bin Laden and other extremists, there are the stories of U.S. involvement in Islamic countries: in Afghanistan (where we supported the resistance against the Russians — the same resistance that wound up hosting al-Qaeda), in Kuwait, in Iran, in Iraq, in Israel, in Sudan, in Somalia. While mistakes by the U.S. government are exposed (including grudges between the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. that resulted in the withholding of incredibly important information leading up to 9/11), this is not a revisionist book that seeks to blame Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, or America for all the evil!
Some insightful words just to whet your appetite:
“Radicalism usually prospers in the gap between rising expectations and declining opportunities. This is especially true where the population is young, idle, and bored; where the art is impoverished; where entertainment — movies, theater, music — is policed or absent altogether; and where young men are set apart from the consoling and socializing presence of women.”
“Few countries in the world were so different from each other, and yet so dependent on one another, as America and Saudi Arabia. . . . In 1970 the United States was the tenth greatest importer of Saudi oil; a decade later, it was number one.”
“In 1990 bin Laden warned of the danger that the murderous tyrant in Iraq, Saddam Hussein, posed to Saudi Arabia. . . . Much of the Arab world was elated by Saddam’s anti-Western rhetoric and his threats to ‘burn half of Israel’ with chemical weapons. He was especially popular in Saudi Arabia, which maintained cordial relations with its northern neighbor. Nonetheless, bin Laden continued his lonely campaign against Saddam and his secular Baath Party.”
“For bin Laden, the cave was the last pure place. Only by retreating from society — and from time, history, modernity, corruption, the smothering West — could he presume to speak for the true religion.”
“The radical Islamist movement has never had a clear idea of governing, or even much interest in it, as the Taliban would conclusively demonstrate. Purification was the goal; and whenever purity is paramount, terror is close at hand.”
The section on al-Qaeda training is particularly frightening. Recruits are engrained with the three main goals: (1) establishing the rule of God on Earth; (2) attaining martyrdom in the cause of God; (3) purification of the ranks of Islam from the elements of depravity. They are taught to hate “the enemies of Islam”: (1) heretics; (2) Shiites; (3) America; and (4) Israel. They often gather in the evenings to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger movies (again, I kid you not), looking for tips about violence. “What the recruits tended to have in common — besides their urbanity, their cosmopolitan backgrounds, their education, their facility with languages, and their computer skills — was displacement.”
I highly recommend this book if you, too, are curious about bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and Islam (including the centuries-old conflicts between the Shiites and the Sunnis).
There are so many other parts I haven’t even mentioned. As one blurb on the book cover says, “The portrait of John O-Neill, the driven, demon-ridden F.B.I. agent who worked so frantically to stop Osama bin Laden, only to perish in the attack on the World Trade Center, is worth the price of the book alone.”
This picture of Bin Laden is surprising to me. It is difficult to reconcile the spiritual attributes described here with the very visible violence and hatred he has initiated.
Osama … “… he was opposed to the playing of musical instruments, he organized some of his friends into an a cappella singing group.”
See where insistence on a cappella music will lead (kidding, kidding!).
Though it never excuses evil actions, I find it helpful to hear the human story of tyrants like bin Laden. I would imagine Saddam’s story is not to different from Osama’s. It seems to me that if we are to avoid such acts of hatred and evil in the future, we must know the stories of the bin Ladens, Husseins, and al Sadrs of the world. Instead of always reacting to individual acts of terror, we may need to ask more of the “why?” questions, even looking introspectively at our own contributions (however small they may be) to the rise of such tyrants.
N.T. Wright on 9/11
Mike,
I’ve been concerned with the psychology of purity categories for some time. So the references to purity and violence you mention are striking.
Closer to home, purity categories are frequently deployed in Christianity and although they don’t lead to 9/11 they are behind those le petit acts of violence in our churches (e.g., exclusion, marginalization, stigma, and failures of justice).
As Walter Brueggemann says, when justice and purity conflict, justice should trump.
When I say “ask more of the ‘why?’ questions,” I mean asking what events — both on a global and individual scale — led up to a particular act of evil? (Surely this culture of terror did not emerge out of nothingness … why were we targeted? Also, why did Osama bin Laden take this upon himself to complete? Insanity? Passion? Hatred?)
These are not questions I have heard much from American leaders or citizens, not least immediately following the attacks on 9/11. I can understand bewilderment and even anger at what happened, but failing to ask the “why?” questions in these perilous times could (and likely have already) lead to further trouble down the road.
Good(as always) comments by Steve Jr. Can’t wait to get this book for myself & my Dad to read! Thanks, Mike!
A book that should have been on NY Times Top 10 List and I think is a must read is “A Holy Hunger”.
The book is correct when it states that a large pool of young men who will never have the socializing or consoling company of women presents a danger to their own community and those surrounding it. When only the powerful few can marry, and they can marry several, the young men in the community have nothing to live for. Art is gone, entertainment is banned, and marriage and family will never be for them. So.. they turn to war and martyrdom. A similar situation is arising in China where their “one child” policy resulted in selective abortions (parents didn’t want their one child to be female). TIME magazine reports this week that over 35 million young men in China will never have the opportunity to be married. “Gathering storm” anyone?
A book about the growth of Islam in Europe and the ways it is spreading is called: While Europe Slept - Subtitle: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. Though I don’t agree with some of the issues the author writes about (Bruce Bawer) it is a chilling read.
Thanks for calling attention to this book. I haven’t heard of it, but plan on reading it. It is interesting to note how he and his acts are referred to as “evil” and “full of hatred”–even in many of these previous comments. It might be good to remember that our American activities throughout the world (and often here at home) past and present are considered “evil” and “full of hatred.” Evilness and goodness are just matters of perception.
Please disregard the previous comment by me. It would do me well to proofread my comments before I submit them!
Thanks for calling attention to this book. I had not heard of this book before, but I now plan on reading it. It is interesting to note how Bin Laden and his acts are often referred to as “evil” and “full of hatred”–even in many of these previous comments. It might be good to remember that our American activities throughout the world (and often here at home) past and present are often considered by many as “evil” and “full of hatred.” Aren’t evilness and goodness just matters of perception?
Jesus seemed to believe that evil is not just a matter of perception.
I acknowledge that it is a good thing to ask why someone commits acts of violence against others, and to try to learn something from the answers. But we shouldn’t wait for all that introspection and self evaluation before taking steps to prevent that person from doing it again.
And it does not mean there should not be consequences for doing things like that. Governments exist in order to punish wrongdoers. They play a God-given role in carrying out justice. It can certainly be debated whether what has happened after 9/11 has resulted in justice. But it is hard to argue against the US government’s right to act.
By the way, today someone sent me a heads-up to this interesting blog post about our uneven response to atrocities, which I found very interesting:
http://inashoe.blogspot.com/2007/01/sober-thoughts-today.html
Mike,
Thanks for sharing. Unfortunately I won’t be covering terrorism in my conflict course until next week, but what I have learned of terrorism, crime, and other shadow trades is that they subject is far more complex than traditional labels of good versus evil. Understanding the rationale of men like bin Laden, Saddam, and others goes a long way to reaching a better understanding of the general conflict as well as creating more understanding for potential solutions. Thanks again from offering these insights.
54 children by 22 wives. Does the book come with a fold-out genogram? I’d pay a lot extra for that.
Alan: Ever played football? If you have, then you have touched the carcass of a pig. Jesus would have never done that because he considered it evil (Lev. 11.7-8). And yet you have probably touched and even eaten pig. Did something magical happen to the pig all of a sudden? No. Perceptions changed.
You say, “Governments exist in order to punish wrongdoers. They play a God-given role in carrying out justice.” I assume you get that from Romans 13. You might want to remember that a few years after Paul wrote that, he was beheaded by that same government. I would imagine that his perception would have changed a bit. Also, Nero, the emperor of the gov’t that was to “punish wrongdoers” also lit his garden with the burning carcasses of Christians at about the same time. I think Paul would have played a different tune if he had known all of that was going to happen. Maybe gov’ts do sometimes “punish wrongdoers” and “carry out justice”, but they can also do horrible things. BTW, Muslims feel that their gov’ts have the same God-given mission. It’s all a matter of perception.
Martin F.,
I think sometimes people use Romans 13 to justifty more than they should.
That being said, when Paul wrote that, I don’t think he was just expressing a personal opinion based on the fact that the government seemed okay at the time (i.e. “taxes are low, our foreign wars are going well, so we should be in subjection to THIS government.”); he was expressing Spirit-inspired truth.
That Paul was probably dismayed to be executed unjustly by his own government in no way nullifies the commands he gave in Romans 13.
Mike, this speaks to me about our mission training for the Muslim world…how best are we to reach out as “little Christs”? How can we?
“…without the socializing or consoling company of women…” especially catches my attention for the need of reaching out to the Arab women, for education and economic freedom. “Eternal Threads” for Islamic nations perhaps? After all, women do rock the cradle before these young boys get their Jihad educations. A mission out of Jordan called Arab Women Today–AWT– (radio program that broadcasts over the entire northern Africa area) offers conferences and seminars on hope in Christ.
It would be good to have this book you’ve referenced as required reading for mission educators and students. It sounds like a growing emergency need to me!
Thanks for the review and the nudge to read it ourselves!
Carolyn
we need to remembr the U.S. helped Bin Laden at one time and Hussein at another time . . .
Luke D.: Just curious, what makes you think that everything Paul wrote was “Spirit-inspired truth”? Also, do you think that while he was alive, everything he said was equally “Spirit-inspired truth”? Also, what do you mean by “Spirit-inspired truth”? Thanks.
OK. Maybe not the question to ask with this post, but I wonder how much angrier the fundamentalist would be if “America” had a female Comander In Chief? Not that we should vote to please them. Just wondering… If they were so irked by female soldiers, would a female president add fuel to the fire, or have they reached their hatred threshold for the USA? How do they feel about the British and their Queen?
I do not understand boys growing up to have no regard or affection for their mothers and sisters.
Martin F., footballs have always been made of leather (cow hide). They were nicknamed “pigskin” because of the tacky feel, similar to a “pig’s skin.”
Just the facts.
Martin F.,
I didn’t intend to sidetrack the main issue being discussed here, so I will try to be brief.
I believe the Bible to be the written word of God, inspired by His Spirit (literally “God-breathed”). While I believe the individuals writers wrote from different backgrounds, with different styles, I believe their writings were guided by the Holy Spirit.
Was everything Paul said in his life equally inspired? I would say no; Paul certainly had his own opinions on things, just like everyone else. In fact, in (at least) one specific instance, Paul seems to say that he is giving a personal opinion (1 Corinthians 7.10-12), but other than this, I think his writings came from God, and are binding on us.
Ultimately, this comes down to belief; I BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible through dozens of different writers, rather than those men just writing what they thought was right. I wouldn’t want to base my lifestyle on just a bunch of opinions.
it’s funny how we can begin to fight among ourselves and totally ignore a very good point made by Belinda.
Understanding these men and the evil deeds they performed might call for some introspection our part about things we, as in Americans, we a part of. Before anyone jumps off the handle, all I am trying to say is that if we understood some of the darker and less good moments in our own national history it might help to provide a better picture to other events.
But Houston, that might paint America to be less than perfect, less than a shining “City on a Hill,” our methods short of the evolutionary pinnacle of human ingenuity…
introspection = weakness = France
thanks steve
Mike, I agree. This is the best book I read in 2006.
Steve, that last comment you offered made me squirt milk out of my nose. Just thought you should know.
Mike,
I definitely want to get this book. I have been reading a great deal about the Islamic faith. I want to say a few things about which many are unaware.
First, the goal of the Muslims to rule the entire world began during the period just prior to the Crusades, thus the reason for the Crusades. Nothing has changed. The transfer of Palestinian land to the Israelis in 1948 only added fuel to the fire; the occupation of Saudi land in Desert Storm made things worse; the corruption of the West may be sparking more Muslims to jihad BUT none of these things in themselves have created the, what appears to be sudden, desire of the Muslims to dominate the West. The Qu’ran is quite clear - the world outside Islam must be brought into the Peaceful World of Islam by force or conversion. This is the OLD goal of Islam. And slowly but surely it is taking place. There are well over one billion Muslims in the world today, and they are spreading like wildfire through various means. In Cambodia many Arabic men move into the area, buy young girls, marry them, and produce Islamic children. In America, pregnant Saudi women fly in, have their babies in American hospitals and return home with American citizens for children. Disenfranchized New York young males are being converted in droves. These are the Islamist’s peaceful attempts at conversion. They also take up arms like in Somalia.
When I first started studying this issue, I was the politically correct “tolerant,” but now I’m VERY concerned. I still believe that we SHOULD NEVER target any individuals and feel hatred for them but love them completely. I also believe that Jesus Christ is the answer for those who embrace Islam as for all the world; HOWEVER, we must be aware of the situation; otherwise, we may one day be under the yoke of Islam when NO ONE will be allowed to worship the true God.
Finally, some great websites are as follows: The first one delineates WHY Thomas Jefferson had the Qu’ran in his library - the one on which Keith Ellison was sworn into office. And the second one will be an eye opener.
By the way per the Qu’ran and except for the Prophet Mohammed himself (whose favorite wife Aisha was only nine when they first had sex) , NO ISLAMIC MALE is allowed more than four wives, so so much for Bin Laden’s piety. And his “marriages” of a few hours do suggest a sexual issue.
http://www.wbt.com/katz/articledetail.cfm?ArticleID=5
jihadwatch.org
Another good read is Karmen Bin Laden’s autobiographical book on her marriage to Bin Laden’s brother.
I’m sorry - should have posted this in the last one. Another interesting thing to watch on youtube is the video that the British undercover reporter made in the mosques in England. It aired last week in the U.K.
I read your blog and ordered the book. Don’t do this too often as I can’t afford it! I’m about half way through “Saddam’s Secrets,” written by the vice air marshall of the Iraqi air force. An Assyrian Christian who managed to keep his faith and his life under Saddam’s regime. Interesting read, but the book you recommend sounds much better.
Why do you think people are impressed with his standard of holiness without an apparent concept of grace?
I don’t buy into the fact that holiness is the true nature of his character and that little else matters to him but God. That just seems bunk.
People with a minimial to no concept of grace and mercy are the worst of religious leaders and produce the most vile and murderous forms of humanity - in churches and in nations.
And people with to loose a concept of Grace and mercy are the most morally corruptive leaders and produce the most tolerant and mediocre forms of humanity - in churches and in nations.
what’s the balance?
Saddam “allowed” Christianity . . . it’s now falling by the wayside since the U.S. is bringing democracy to their country . . .