Raymond Ibrahim: The Al Qaeda Reader and Mein Kampf
[Raymond Ibrahim is editor of The Al Qaeda Reader.]
A number of book reviewers have recently pointed to the similarities between The Al Qaeda Reader and Mein Kampf. For instance, writing in the New York Observer, James Buchan notes that, "In their [al Qaeda’s] brutality and candor, their fulminations against democracy and loose morals, their obsession with territory, their finicky racism and absolute disdain for the material needs of the public, these documents are a strange echo of Hitler’s writings from prison."
Writing for Slate, however, Reza Aslan disagrees: "The comparison between the scattered declarations of a cult leader [bin Laden] literally dwelling in a cave and the political treatise of the commander in chief of one of the 20th century's most powerful nations [Hitler] may be imprecise, to say the least…. [W]hether a hodgepodge of interviews, declarations, and exegetical arguments can be read as a sort of jihadist manifesto is debatable. While these writings provide readers with page after page of, for example, arcane legal debates over the moral permissibility of suicide bombing, they do not really get to the heart of what it is that al-Qaida wants, if it wants anything at all."
While the suggestion that al Qaeda might not “want anything at all” may incline one to dismiss Aslan’s entire critique as puerile, he does raise an important question: In what respects is The Al Qaeda Reader truly similar to Mein Kampf? Conversely, how do the two volumes differ?
Before analyzing these questions, however, it is imperative to point out that, contrary to Aslan’s historical conflations, Hitler did not write Mein Kampf while he was “commander in chief of one of the 20th century’s most powerful nations.” In reality, when Hitler wrote his manifesto, he was a political prisoner, the failed leader of the infamous “Beer Hall Putsch” of 1923. It would be nearly another decade before he would come into power.
In fact, the circumstantial similarities surrounding the writings of Hitler and al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri are more akin than not. Hitler was a prisoner; al Qaeda’s leaders are fugitives. While in prison, Hitler was a popular figure — a “cult leader” — inundated by nationalistic fan mail. Bin Laden is an icon in many parts of the Islamic world, a world which, though impoverished, refuses to relinquish this “hijacker” of their religion for 50 million dollars, and which has made “Osama,” once an arcane Arabic name, second only to Mohammed in popularity for newborn Muslim boys in countries like Pakistan. Consequently, if history is any instructor, should an Islamist state of “caliphatic” proportions ever come into being in the near future, it should come as no great surprise if bin Laden or Zawahiri — or, more likely, one of their countless associates — were to emerge from their caves and assume command.
But to the pressing question: How is The Al Qaeda Reader similar to Mein Kampf? A single sentence from the introduction of the 1999 edition of Mein Kampf, published by Mariner Books, goes a long way in answering this question: “He [Hitler] had made his ultimate goals clear in Mein Kampf as early as 1926: rearmament, the abolition of democracy, territorial expansion, eugenics, the ‘elimination’ of the ‘Jewish threat.’”
The Al Qaeda Reader dwells on, if not obsesses over, four of these same five “ultimate goals” of Hitler — everything but eugenics, which is a temporal byproduct of 19th century pseudo-scientific racial theories. But al Qaeda’s writings certainly dwell on dealing with the “Jewish threat,” overthrowing the “pagan religion” of democracy, both territorial re-conquests (from Palestine to Andalusia) and territorial expansion (to the whole world), as well as rearmament. Even more telling, the “fascistic” tone of Mein Kampf — ridicule and contempt for modernity and peace, praise for heroism and martyrdom, condemnation of promiscuity and lax mores — saturates The Al Qaeda Reader. Indeed, that there are many similarities is best represented by the fact that the German words “mein kampf” translate to “jihad-i” — or, “my jihad” — in Arabic....
Read entire article at National Review
A number of book reviewers have recently pointed to the similarities between The Al Qaeda Reader and Mein Kampf. For instance, writing in the New York Observer, James Buchan notes that, "In their [al Qaeda’s] brutality and candor, their fulminations against democracy and loose morals, their obsession with territory, their finicky racism and absolute disdain for the material needs of the public, these documents are a strange echo of Hitler’s writings from prison."
Writing for Slate, however, Reza Aslan disagrees: "The comparison between the scattered declarations of a cult leader [bin Laden] literally dwelling in a cave and the political treatise of the commander in chief of one of the 20th century's most powerful nations [Hitler] may be imprecise, to say the least…. [W]hether a hodgepodge of interviews, declarations, and exegetical arguments can be read as a sort of jihadist manifesto is debatable. While these writings provide readers with page after page of, for example, arcane legal debates over the moral permissibility of suicide bombing, they do not really get to the heart of what it is that al-Qaida wants, if it wants anything at all."
While the suggestion that al Qaeda might not “want anything at all” may incline one to dismiss Aslan’s entire critique as puerile, he does raise an important question: In what respects is The Al Qaeda Reader truly similar to Mein Kampf? Conversely, how do the two volumes differ?
Before analyzing these questions, however, it is imperative to point out that, contrary to Aslan’s historical conflations, Hitler did not write Mein Kampf while he was “commander in chief of one of the 20th century’s most powerful nations.” In reality, when Hitler wrote his manifesto, he was a political prisoner, the failed leader of the infamous “Beer Hall Putsch” of 1923. It would be nearly another decade before he would come into power.
In fact, the circumstantial similarities surrounding the writings of Hitler and al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri are more akin than not. Hitler was a prisoner; al Qaeda’s leaders are fugitives. While in prison, Hitler was a popular figure — a “cult leader” — inundated by nationalistic fan mail. Bin Laden is an icon in many parts of the Islamic world, a world which, though impoverished, refuses to relinquish this “hijacker” of their religion for 50 million dollars, and which has made “Osama,” once an arcane Arabic name, second only to Mohammed in popularity for newborn Muslim boys in countries like Pakistan. Consequently, if history is any instructor, should an Islamist state of “caliphatic” proportions ever come into being in the near future, it should come as no great surprise if bin Laden or Zawahiri — or, more likely, one of their countless associates — were to emerge from their caves and assume command.
But to the pressing question: How is The Al Qaeda Reader similar to Mein Kampf? A single sentence from the introduction of the 1999 edition of Mein Kampf, published by Mariner Books, goes a long way in answering this question: “He [Hitler] had made his ultimate goals clear in Mein Kampf as early as 1926: rearmament, the abolition of democracy, territorial expansion, eugenics, the ‘elimination’ of the ‘Jewish threat.’”
The Al Qaeda Reader dwells on, if not obsesses over, four of these same five “ultimate goals” of Hitler — everything but eugenics, which is a temporal byproduct of 19th century pseudo-scientific racial theories. But al Qaeda’s writings certainly dwell on dealing with the “Jewish threat,” overthrowing the “pagan religion” of democracy, both territorial re-conquests (from Palestine to Andalusia) and territorial expansion (to the whole world), as well as rearmament. Even more telling, the “fascistic” tone of Mein Kampf — ridicule and contempt for modernity and peace, praise for heroism and martyrdom, condemnation of promiscuity and lax mores — saturates The Al Qaeda Reader. Indeed, that there are many similarities is best represented by the fact that the German words “mein kampf” translate to “jihad-i” — or, “my jihad” — in Arabic....