The Mind of a Jihad

The Mind
has confirmed that the operations carried out by the Muslim youth that defend the lands of Islam and the religion and dignity of Islam are the greatest forms of for the sake of Allah. They fall under the definition of legitimate terrorization …. “1 maintain that it is wrong to consider these acts as ‘suicidal,’ because these are heroic acts of martyrdom, which arc in fact very different from suidde.”l.OQ
There is complete unanimity amongst Muslim radicals: “Slaughtering is . an offering on behalf God…. It is an act of grace conferred by Allah.”2.01 Bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam had said, “We are terrorists, and terrorism is our friend and companion. Let the West and East know that we are terrorists and that we are terrifying as well. We shall do our best in preparing to terrorize Allah’s enemies and our own. obligation in Allah’s religion.”w:>c. Radical, Shiites, Sunnis, Arab and non-Arab radicals, secularists or nationalists and Islamists, each in their idiosyncratic manner recombined aspects of Islam and shards of European totalitarianism to produce a revolutionary creed integrating under the devotion to jihad, the cult of force; the love of death, the enjoyment of killing, and the obsession of blood. Variations exist, but all share a faith in sadistic violence and a necrophiliac vision. Unbeknownst to its very leaders and theorists; the morbid cult so created merely recreated and repeated – using the cultural idiom of Islam – what vast and bloody insurrections had claimed and done for the better part of a half-millenium in medieval Europe using a Christian idiom. The roots those insurrections and the belief systems that powered them were Gnostic. Understanding them will vastly enhance our understanding of modem radical Islam.
l.OO Statementin the Qatari daily AI·Wat:;m, which appeared on Qaradhawi’s web site on ber 25> 2004, “Martyrdom Operations Are the Greatest Form of Jihad”), in MEJI,.OO, Special Report NO.3 5, November! 1,2.004, http://memri.orglbinJarticles.cgi?Page=archives& . Area=sr&ID~SR3504#_ednreh 5·
WI Laqueur, No End to War, p. 95 .
• 0. Quoted in Rubin and Rubin, Anti-Americanism, p. 182..
2
“An Elite of Amoral Supermen”
History is a gallery of pictures with few originals and many copies. Alexis de T ocqueville
In the Epilogue of his The Way ofJihad Hassan al-Banna states:
brothers! The umma that knows how to die a noble and honorable deach is granted an exalted life in this world and eternal felicity in the next. Degradation and dishonor are the results of the love of this world and the fear of death. Therefore prepare for jihad and be the lovers of death. Life itself will come searching after you. [. .. 1 You should yearn for an honorable death and you will gain perfect happiness. May Allah grant myself and you the honor of Martyrdom in His way.!
This clamor is mounting from thousands of madrasas, schools, universities, and mosques; from the mouths of dozens of thousands of predicators imams; from hundreds of fatwas; from innumerable books, pamphlets, articles, and audio” and videocassettes; and from television shows and small circles and cells. It is a deafening din that crowds out other voices in the Muslim world. AI-Banna’s formulaic expression of a trope could have come from any of the radical-Islamic talking heads of the last half century, and many others who drone and psalmodize on the same theme. The constant repetition of the same stock phrases that prescribe and exalt killing and veneration death means that Allah wants blood, needs blood, that blood pleases Allah, whether the blood is that of His martyrs Qr that of His enemies. Allah demands blood as evidence of worship. In turn, society must be organized according to what Allah demands. A society
I In Militant Islam Monitor, http://www.militantislammonitor.orglarticlelid/3~).
59
(10 The Mind ofJihad
thou needs blood in so fundamental a way is a society whose mind is set on human sacrifice.
set its priOrItIes death, blood, killing. They are the highest modes – the jihad that powers them is the highest form of worship. along all the other aspects of society. They beg to be extended to societies. Their demands are absolute because the God frol11 whence the)’ proceed is absolute in its demands. Their diktat thus spreads from the core conception outwards.
Inexorably, the this-worldly “life” is depreciated. The otherworldly is exalted. The ceaseless mantra of the worthlessness of \ife and the of the afterlife establishes a scale of The ratio set between life and afterlife is the determinant of the scale of values. Any religion must strike a durable balance between the call of afterlife and the reality of life on earth. Overvaluing the this-worldly undermines faith and its nonnHtive feedback. Conversely, undervaluing this world, and overvaluing the afterworld, create a massive disequilibrium: It tilts this life toward the afterlife, and that in passing the gate between them should oc<.:ur the most importallt act in this life its termination. III Jlltiais111 and Christianity, Creation is good: “and God saw that it was (Cenesis 1:10; repeated in Genesis 1:2I, and ,repeated in Genesis 1:3 I). “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was vcry good.” If Creation is unconditionally “good,” then life itself is good. In and of itself, life is all unconditional value. The assertion of life is an anthropological invariant no society can durably exist without abiding by it, even those religions that aim to abandon what they describe as a of reincarnated body-lives. The Book of Genesis asserts, “God said, Let us make 111,111 in our image, atter our likeness” and “God created man in his own image” (r:2.7). It repeats for good measure “male and female created he them” (1:27). The nature of the “im<lging” and the “likeness” has long been adjudicated in Christianity as comprising the twin sparks of rcason and love. This is the reason for the Seventh Commandment, in the Hebrew Bible tirtzach” means “Do not murdcr” (Exodus 2.0: 13 – “Thou shalt not kill” in the King James version): Life is sacred because it is “in the image and likencss of God.” Killing ma}, happell; murder mllst not. The denial of the goodness of Creation, and the worship of death are two aspects of the same creed.
To the goodness of Creation corresponds the Good Life. In Judaism, to Creation as pure goodness corresponds an unconditional reverence for as God’s gift, as summed lip in the toast “L’chaim” (“to life”). The Good
“An Elite of Amoral Supermen” 6(
Life is defined: “A good life for all, through adherence to God’s Teaching (Torah) and Commandments (Mitzvot), harmony on earth on the individual and social levels culminating in peace and well-being for all humanity.”” Jewish thinkers have focused on the ways to lead a good life on earth and improve this world, tikklm olam, leaving concerns about death and beyond until the appropriate time. Judaism has stressed the natural fact of death its role in giving life meaning. Man should develop his what separates him from beast, since he was created “in God’s semblance.” Thomas Aquinas, after Aristotle and Augustine, tells us about the Good Life:
The third good that comes from faith is that right direction which it gives to our present life. Now, in order that one live a good life, it is necessary that he know what is necessary to live rightly; I … J Hut faith teaches llS all that is necessary to live a good life. It teaches us that there is one God who is the rewarder of good and the of evil; that there is a life other than this one and other like truths “,I”‘T”I,,, we arc attracted to live rightly and to avoid what evi)3
And: “We thus see the difference between doing good and doing evil. Good works lead to life, evil drags us to death. For this reason, men ought qucntiy to recall these things to mind, since tbey will incite one to de good and withdraw one from cvil.”4 Traditional Islam also develops a concept of the Good Life. It developed a doctrine
in which the Prophet teaches, in the spirit of the Aristotelian just middle, that “The best among you is not the one who neglects the next world for the sake of this world, nor the one who docs the reverse. The best among you is the one who takes from both.” In traditional sources examples of excessive asceticism arc often related in such a way that the Prophet’s disapproval follows immediately upon the talc. “Your body has a claim on you; your wife has a claim on you; your guest has a claim on you.”5
In several haditbs and stories, the Prophet docs not credit fasting, example, as a work of religious merit nor torture of the flesh, nor celibacy. Hadith sometimes waxes eloquent on the goods of earthly life: “From every bite that a believer puts into his mouth he receives a reward from God.” Or
1 Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13. l The Catechism of St. Thomas Aquinas, The Apostles’ Creed, What Is Faith? 4 Ibid. 5 Ignaz Gold:t:iher, Introductioll to Islamic Theology alld Law, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1981, p. HI.
63 62. The Mind ofJihad
“God loves the Muslim who keeps up the strength of his body more than he loves the weakling.” Or again: “He who eats and is thankful Ito Godl is as worthy as he who practices renunciation and fasting. “6 This is reflected in countless catecbistic or doctrinal outlines, as in the following, unexceptional outline taken from a mainstream Islamic publication:
Some people think that to live an Islamic life is “restrictive.” islam however, was revealed as a balanced way of living. Allah (The Most High) created all the humans with what is called a Filmh (a natural state/desire). Islam recognizes that within this fitm!} there arc motivations that innuence a man’s role 011 earth, e.g., a desire for food and drink, to have a home, a desire for love and sex, to protect and be am1 to be successful and strong. Without some form of control and all of these legitilllate motiv(,s could prove very dangerous. So what constitutes the perfect cOlltrol for the j;ilrah? it must be a method that provides an organized yet demonstration of how to balance all these natural human desires. It cannot be something that goes against the Fitrah, by placing OIl it extra burdens. Likewise, it CJnnot be sometbing that allows the human desires to run wild without any form of control. Islam is the perfect WIltrol for the Fitrah. It provides a divine method that elevates man above animals and the rest of creation.?
Compare: “Our lives are not worthy…. Those should fear death who consider the aftermath of death to be obliteration. We, who consider the aftermath of death a life more sublimc than this one, what fear have we?” This statcment of Ayatollah Kuhollah Khomeini,8 among innumerable such declarations bv radicals, betrays a fundamental devaluation of this life, of sole purpose of life on earth life becoming a preparation for Creation is not good, it is bad. Flesh is bad, matter is bad: We are in the thick a Gnostic-Manichean ideology. Creation itself is corrupt and full of corrnption. Life is not a treasure but an evil passage to be terminated. a corrupt blemish, a Satanic plot. death is all, and life is nothing; if jihad is the to paradise, the implication is that in Allah’s determination, there is no Good Life unless it is devoted to jihad. The relationship between the value of life and is expressed by the dictum heard again and again from the lslamists: “We love death more than vou love life; Jihad is the “good” life; nothing else is.
6 Ihid., p. 122. 7 illvltatio11 to Isla 111 , Issue 2, JUly J 997, php?articlcid= 17. Also see Prof. Zeev Magen, Conference Presentation, llESA Center, Bar!Ian University, Tel-Aviv, May 2006. H Rubin and Ruhin, Allti-Americanism, 33, “Speech at Feyziych Theological School,” August 24, 1979, translated by FllIS, August 27, I979.
“An Elite ofAmoral Supermen”
the priorities, society should not set its sights on education, public health, technology, or investment. It cannot and must not organize itself in a way that maximizes those choices. It must organize itself in a way that enhances jihad. This may be said of the cvolmion of, for example, Pakistan since dictator Zia ul-Haq re-Islamized, Saudized, and jihadized the country. As a result, all the foregoing parameters took a nosedive. The re-Islamization Pakistan created conditions that mortally wounded its future livelihood. A society that makes death, plugged as jihad, as its priority, cannot live long without degenerating into the Hobbesian war of against all that the unfortunate nation has become. Of course, countries such as Egypt cannot be said to have been or to be jihadi countries. But their leaders, and their clites, have constantly straddled two worlds and tried to satisfy two contradictory impulses. To remain in power, Sadat and Mubarak made a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood: The despot would keep the political reins; the Brothers would get all of social policy, and family law. When the latter it to the point of challenging the despot’s hold on power, a numher were arrested, tortured, and hanged. The jihadi turnout is strong. In Syria or totalitarian rule denied the Brothers and their ilk the usufruct of civil and forced them to re-Islamize clandestinely, or through the of least resistance, by setting up a coumersociety that provides population with minimum services that corrupt governments deny them. but comes at a price – indoctrination. the “secular” despot not the”moderate” monarchs could prevent the re-Islamization: They would have had to undermine their own hold on power by setting growth-producing, market-oriented priorities, by giving up a governance based on the exclusive right of the sultan’s bureaucracy, and by abolishing the reign of terror of their secret police and to loot the nation’s wealth on behalf of their tribe, their sect. The only priority, “secular” or “religious,” that remained was absence of a set of priorities designed to enhance the of Deonle unleashed a perverse feedback loop upon societies impoverished but that had absorbed enough elementary public health (at the initiative of colonial masters, for example, Lord Cromer in Egypt, or influence, as was the case in Pahlevi Iran) to set off population explosions: In spite of the manna generated by Western oil companies and consumers for many of these countries, per capita income decline, from levels that were not high to begin tions created by the power monopolies that prevented access to lucrative and prestigious careers; the lack, therefore, of upward social mobility; and the
65 The Mind ofJihad64
sheer misery, the contumely of office, and the like, made avenues of looking at the world other than those offered by the tame religion of official officeholders appear more and more attractive. In the precarious, disorienting world in which increasing numbers of former fellahs and peasants now had to live ill the city, the chimerical predication of sweeping Islamic Revolution became the one last shining hope. The will to believe exceeds the intelligence belief. There arc precedents to this loathing for the this-worldly, this militant longing for the otherworldly. It is less in the relationship to God than in the relationship to flesh, matter, and the world and in the attitude toward death and killing, that the would-be jihadi martyr is reminiscent of earlier historical figures and cvents. We afC constantly told that radical Islam stems from “grievances,” which is supposed to magically explain and have created the bloodthirsty creed studied here. Yet the belief-structure we have encountered, the peculiar between life and death, killing and bloodlust, religious war and promised reward, bears an uncanny resemblance to a most unlikely predecessor: medieval Europe’s millenarian movements.
Millcnarianism
If Muslim terrorism is sui gencris cOl11p;lfed to modern terrorist movements, it bears an odd likelless to ancient events that wreaked havoc upon medieval Europe. Radical Islam is possessed of a striking structural homology with the now largely forgotten, mass-based revolutionary movements that devastated Europe for close to half a millennium.'” Those were the apocalyptical, eschatological movements generically termed “millenarian.” The standard-bearers of those sects and groups thought that salvation was going to be collective, terrestrial, imminent, they believed that it would forever transform life on Earth: The new Jispensation would be perfection itself, it would be miraculous and aided by supernatural agencies. Such, in broad brush, were the wreakers of havoc for half a millennium and more. 10
9 This conceit bears the hallmarks of Marxist-generated social “science” for which “being determines consciousness” as stimulus determines reaction, in Pavlovian-canine fashion. It is often taken as self-evident without any burden of evidence being required: It testifies more of the sorry state of said sciences than of the purported object of their studies. JO Norman Cohn, TiJc Pursuit of the Milleltiwn: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists uf the Middle Ages, revised and enlarged edition, Oxford & New York, Oxford University Press, 196r-70 , p. I).
“An Elite ofAmoral Supermen”
European millenarianism was based on the Christian doctrine of “the last times” or “the last days.” This referred to the belief held by some Christians, on the authority of the Book of Revelation (‘:’0;4-6), that Christ would establish a messianic kingdom on Earth after His Second Coming and would reign over it for a thousand years before the Last Judgment. According to the Book of Revelation, the citizens of that kingdom would be the Christian martyrs, resurrected for the purpose of a thousand years in advance of the general resurrection of the dead.T I In turn, Christian millenarianism rested upon the old Jewish prophecies: They had called for some cosmic catastrophe, the prelude to a new Eden. central phantasy of revolutionary eschatology portrayed the world as dominated by a demonic, tyrannous power. The tyranny would worsen, the sufferings of its victims would be intolerable – until suddenly the hour would strike when the saints of God are able to rise up and overthrow it. It would occur after a Day of Wrath where misbelievers would be cast down and the righteous resurrected and reassembled in Palestine where Yahweh would dwell amongst them. A rebuilt Jerusalem would be the center of a just world, the poor would be protected, harmony would prevail, iniquity would be abolished: Paradise would be regained. This would be the culmination of history.’2. In highly charged social and political environments, millenarian exaltation and social unrest tend to intersect at the point of intersection provided by would-be prophets and messiahs.” They are adopted as prophetic leaders by groups of the poor who vest them with their “phantasies of a world reborn into innocence through a final, apocalyptical massacre. In medieval Europe, the evil ones variously identified with the Jews, the clergy or the rich – would be exterminated; after which the Saints – the poor in questionwould set up their kingdom, a realm without suffering or sin. Inspired by such fantasies, numbers of poor folk embarked on enterprises which were quite different from the usual revolts of peasants or artisans, with local, limited aims.”‘4 Spurred by the widespread belief in the imminent Second Coming of Christ, a profusion of early Christians transferred Jewish millenarianism into the new faith. Prophets and ecstatics abounded, against whom the church fathers fought endlessly. Origen presented the kingdom as an event
1I Ibid. n
p.LI
J 3 Ibid., p. 16.
14 Ibid., p. 2.1

66
VI
The Mind ofJihad
that woulJ take place not in space or time but only in the souls of believers. To collective, millenarian eschatology, he substituted an eschatology of the soul: This spiritualization reflected the concerns of a newly organized church. Saint Augustine went further: His City of God proposed to see the Book of Revelation as a spiritual allegory only. The Millenium began with Christ and is fully realized in the church, he insisted. This view permeated Western Christianity. The church channeled the emotional energies toward the next life. The apocalyptic tradition nonetheless lived on even if the official doctrine no IOllger had an official place for it, “in the obscure underworld of popular religion,” as it had sllch enormolls attractions that “no official condemnation could prevent it from recurring ag~lin and again in the minds of the underprivileged, the oppressed, the disoriented, the “obscure underworld,” however, had its ways of reaching the surface: “Particularly .It times of generalllnccrtainty or excitement, people were always apt to turn to the Book of Revelation and thc innumcrable commentaries upon it.” The Sybillinc Oracles, the fourth century TifJllrtina, the influcntial seventh-ccntury Pseudo-Methodius, and compounds of Jewish, Christian, and Near Eastern literature ceaselessly fed fervid imaginations. “The particular political situations which had evoked tbe prophecies passed away and the very memory of thelll was lost, yet the prophecies themselves kept all their fascillation … uncanonical as they were, the Sybillines had enormous influence indeed, save for the Bible and the works of Fathers they were probably the \110st influential writings known to Medieval Europe.” I (i The lure of holding I he kevs of the kin!!.dom in one’s hands is well-nigh irresistible. The prophecies also “proved infinitely adaptable: constantly edited and reinterpreted to fit the conditions and appeal to tbe preoccupations of the mOI1\ent, they catered at all times for the cravings of anxious mortals for an ullquestiona ble forecast of the future.” 17 They were amongst the first books to hi.’ printed and, from the fourteenth century on, were transbted into every European language and studied everywhere. “Johannine” traditioll based on the Book of Revelation theorized the figure of God’s archenemy in the “prodigious figure of Antichrist.” of Antichrist was also merged witb those “demonic” beasts – dragon, serpent; i<lter, goat, frog, among others. The coming of Antichrist was anxiOllsly expected, people being forever on the lookout for “signs” – which
1, Ibid” pr. 29-:,0. 1(, Ihid.. Pl’. )2-.1. ‘:: Ibid., \’. l).
“An Elite of Amoral Supermen” .:;’..
induded anything and everything: bad rulers, civil discord, war, drought, famine, plagues, cornets, sudden deaths of prominent persons, and an increase in general sinfulness, there was never any difficulty in finding them. Invasion or the threat of invasion by Huns, Saracens, Magyars, Mongols, or Turks always stirred memories of those hordes of the Antichrist, the peoples of Gog and Magog. Above all, any ruler who could be regarded as a tyrant was apt to take on the features of Antichrist … rex iniquus.] S The great church reforms initiated by Pope Gregory VB awakened and released new religious energies. These soon “were beginning to escape from ecclesiastical control and to turn against the Church…. Unauthorized wandering preachers could expect a following such as they had never before.”I’) Suddenly, circa I roo A.D., wandering preachers, holy men, and preachers, carrying with them apocalyptic prophecy and religious dissent, “became both more numerous and more important.” The early pseudo-Messiahs established a pattern that recurred for over four hundred years. The freelance preacher, hermit, or ascetic claims supernatural gifts of healing and prophecy, people flock to him with their sick, he “heals” some, foretells the future, acquires a “large and devoted” followand then orders people to worship him. People abandon their priests to gather around the holy man, who exerts a charismatic hold on them. The charismatic personality organizes some form of a new church and calls himself “Son of God.” The more desperate the times are, the greater the faith and the larger the crowd. More often than not, the holy man and his followers turn to violence to impose their rule, which acquires increasing messianic tones. In the end, the holy man claims not only to be a saint but to be equal or superior to the original apostles.’o T anche/m of Antwerpen, circa 1 I 10, a wandering preacher amid areas swept for years by communal insurrections and social risings, acquired a blindly devoted following over which he ruled “like a messianic king.” He “to possess the Holy Spirit in the same sense and to the same degree as Christ and that like Christ he was God.” His armed bodyguard acquired “dominion over a large area” until he was finally killed by a priest.” While the “messiahs” often acquired support frol11 nobles and prosperOliS burghers, they “appealed particularly to the lower strata of society.” Pope Urban II’s call to the Crusade in 1095 unleashed a convulsive spasm throughout Western Christendom. The pope’s intent was forthwith usurped by unauthorized
18
P·35· 19 Ibid., fl. 39. 20 Ibid., pp. 40-7. 11 Ibid., pp. 47-50 .
71 7 0 The Mind ofJihad
had carried the plebs {Jau/Jerum through unspeakable hardships to the Holy City. The realization of that hope demanded human sacrifice on a vast scalenot only the self-immolation of the crusaders but also the massacre of the infidel. Although pope and princes might intend a campaign with limited objectives, ill reality the campaign tended constantly to become what the common people wanted it to be -a war to exterminate “the sons of whores,” “the race of Cain,” as King Tafur called the Moslems. It was not unknown for crusaders to seize all the peasants of a certain area and offer them the choice of being either converted immediately to Christianity or immediately killed.27
Mass Movements
In decades and centuries to come, several major mass movements attract attention as exemplars of the millenarian creed: the “Pastoureaux” France, or the “Shepherds’ Crusade,” the Flagellants, the Taborites of Bohemia and Southeast Germany, and the Anabaptists of Westphalia. The intellectual matrix common to all, the prophecies ofJoachim de Fiore, will be considered first. The great inventor of the apocalyptic prophecies that powered much of medieval Europe’s waves of insurgencies, “the most influential one known to Europe ulltil the appearance of marxism,” was Cabbrian Joachim de Fiore (1145-1202), who was strongly encouraged by no fewer than three popes to write down his revelations. His inspiration was that Scripture had “a concealed meaning of unique predictive value. “”8 Regressing to pre-Augustinian times, Joachim was proposing that of God could ,1Ild would be realized on Earth, that the milleniull1 indeed was coming. Joachim’s llumerological interpretations indicated that human history would culminate between 1200 and 1260. “Meanwhile however the way must be Illade straight; and this was to he achieved by a new order of monks who would preach the new gospel throughout the world.” One supreme leader, llOVlIS dux, would “lead all mankind away from the love of earthly things and towards the love of the things of the spirit.” Three and half years of reign of Antichrist would chastise and destroy the church, but he in turn would be overthrown. The extremist wing of the Franciscan order, the so-called “Spirituals,” not only appropriated the doctrine, but forged prophecies to adapt the Joachimite eschatology to its own; the Spirituals were now the new order.
27 Ibid., pp. 65-8.
LR Ibid., p. 108.

“An Elite ofAmoral Supermen”
On the fringes of the Spirituals, fanatical extremists flourished and imagined a revolutionary and militant millenarian creed.29 This was the doctrine. It was coined in lesser money ill the daily life of the insurgents, who often needed, as we have seen, to project their dreams onto a sacral figure that kings and emperors would provide. The King of France was often the object of messianic expectations. King Louis IX (Saint Louis) was a pious ascetic, solicitous to the poor, and a venerated figure. As his venture in the Seventh Crusade misfired, a renegade monk, Jacob known as “the Master of Hungary” a sallow, bearded ascetic with a commanding presence took the lead of a new Crusade in Picardy. The riff-raff flocked to him. They provided the leadership of the “crusade” of the “shepherds” in French the Pastollreaux, whose number 60,000.
Soon, Jacob was preaching against the clergy, the mendicants, Rome. The Pasloureaux themselves were the embodiment of truth. Jacob prophesied miracles and gave himself the right to grant absolution fr0111 every kind of sin, in effect presenting himself as a living Christ. His bodyguard killed contradictors. The army roved around northern France and even to Paris. He was showered with presents by the regent the Queen Mother. The PuStoureaux started killing clergy. They left Paris a’ld attacked clergy, looted the religious orders’ churches, stormed houses where priests and monks had sought shelter, and killed teachers at the university. “The Pastollreaux owed their prestige very largely to thcir habit of killing and despoiling priests.” Their systematic pogroms against Jews continued. Finally when they attacked the rich city of Bourges, they were expelled, Jacob was cut to pieces, the movement was outlawed by the Queen, and thc followers hanged in great numbers. The movement soon disintegrated)O A similar movement of militant egalitarianism sustained 011 a vision of the Virgin Mary had agitated southern France in the 11 80S under the name Ca/Jutiati; after they took to slaughtering nobles and clergy, they bad to be put down armed forceY In ] 309, another people’s crusade is recorded with the same pattern, the same crimes, the same inglorious and bloody ending. In I}I 5, thell in 1}20, the pope had to excommunicate crusaders who were threatening Avignon. Again and again from 1320 through 1380, the weavers of the Flemish country rose in revolt, and popular revolts agitated Paris, Picardy, and Normandy with a perennial undercurrent of millenarianism.
‘9 Ibid., pp. nO-II. )0 Ibid., pp. 94-9. )1 Ibid., p. 102.
73 7 2 The Mind ofJihad
“The old eschatology [was] adopted as the vehicle for the new radicalism.” Franciscan Jean de Roquetaillade’s VadcmcculIl ill Tribulatiol1s, translated imo English, Catalan, and Czech, prophesied for T 360-5 the rise of the luwly who would cut down the tyrants aml nobles. “Tempests, floods and plagues will kill off the greatest part of mankind, wiping out hardened sinners and preparing the way for thc rencwal of the A Westcrn Antichrist will appcar in Rome while an Eastern Antichrist will spread his false doctrines from Jcrusalcm.” By 1367, the time of trouble would come to an end, a great reformer would appcar and bccomc pope. The king of France would be electcd holy emperor. Togethcr they would expel the Saraccns and Tatars; convert alll,,1oslcl11s, Jcws, and Tatars; reconcile thc schismatic Greeks; and “wipc out all heresy from the face of the earth.” king of France woulJ conquer and rule all the world, a thousand years of peace would follow, and so OIl.P In Germany, thc messianic monarch was of course German, though the ambit of his world conquests was no Icss. 11 The crowning achievement of programmatic millcnarianism was the Book ofa J-hmdrcd Chapters written by all anonymous fanatic, the “Revolutionary of thc Upper Rhinc,” onc thoroughly familiar with the mass of mcdieval apocalyptic literature. He elaboratcd an apocalyptic program of his own, the most comprehensive expression of the popular eschatology of the Middle Ages.’4 God had communicatcd to him through Archangel Michael. sins of the world were so great that the world was running into catastrophc. One more chance was given: A pious man would organize an association of like-minded fellows, in order to usher in the one-thousand ycar reign. Howevcr, for the rcvolutionary, the routc to the millenium leads through massacrc aud terror. God’s aim is a world free from sin. If sin continues to flourish, divine punishment will surely be visited upon the world; however, if sin is abolished once and for all, then the world will bc ready for the kingdom of the Saints. The most urgent task therefore is to eliminate sin, which in effect meaus to eliminate sinners. Thc Brotherhood is a crusading host led by an clite, a “new chivalry” “to smash Babylon in thc !lame of God and brillg the whole world under his own rule, so that thcre shall only one shepherd, one sheeofold and one fJith
” 3 5
3 4 Ibid., pp. 104-7.
11 Ibid., pp. 11 I-I 6.
34 Ibid., p. Il9.
3l Ibid., rr. I2.0-r.

“All Elite of Amoral Supermen .,
To achieve the end enviSIOned in the slogan eill Reich, eill Valh, em Fuhrer, assassination is wholly legitimate. In the words of the Revolutionary himsclf: “Whoevcr strikes a wicked man for his evildoing, for example for blasphemy – if he beats him to death hc shall be called a servant of God; for everyone is dutybound to punish wickedness.”3 6 He calls for assassination of the ruling emperor. The new one and the Brotherhood will “control the whole world from West to East by force of arms” in “an age of ubiquitous and constant terror,” which will implement the prophccy: “Soon we will drink blood for wine.” “The fanatical portraying – and in the most lurid possible colors the future emperor … will inflict upon these children of Satan.” The bad priests should bc strangled or burned alive; the whole clcrgy ought to be annihilated: “Go on hitting them from the pope right down to thc little students. Kill everyone of them!” he insists, and even specifics that 2,300 derics will bc killed cvery day for four and a haIf years (one calculates a total of 3,777,750 fatalities) as well as usurers, moneylenders, shopkcepers, unscrupulous lawyers. “The Revolutionary is utterly convinced that God has ordered the great massacre .. the holocaust is to be an indispensable purification of the world on the eve of the Millenium.”17
Thus society will be eutirely recast. Further, sin must be ullmasked everywhere, all sin be punished “with cruel severity”: For what is mercy toward the sinners but a crime against the community as a whole? [ …1If a person will not stop sinning he is better out of the world than in it … therefore he is to be executed forthwith by certain messengers of unquestio!la hIe piety.
The Revolutionary’s statecraft is su-aightforward. Talking of the ruler: “By his cruelty he will instill fear into peoples.” The conqueror will smash the Turks, conquer Jerusalem, overthrow Islam, and “those who do not accept ba ptism … arc to be killcd, then thcy will be baptized in their blood.” An inexorablc logic constrains the apocalyptical millenarian to draw such conclusions, whatever his cultural milicu, his religious beliefs, his ethnic background. Thc homology bctween the medicval sectarians and their active latcr alld in other settings is cntircly uncoincidental. Shortly after the mid-thirteenth century arose the Flagellant movement, which faithfully followcd a virtually preordained trajectory from rcpentance to mass-based cult convinced that it alonc is thc path to salvation. They claimed to be “absolved from all sin and assured of heaven, [ … J
)6 Ibid., p. 12I. 37 Ibid., p. 122.
75 The Mind ofJihad74
empowered to drive out devils, to heal the sick, even to rouse the dead. Some spoke to Christ and the Virgin Mary.” jS The Flagellants made themselves into a substitute for the clergy and turned revolutionary. This army of the Saints believed that their flagellations “had the same redemptive value as the Crucifixion.” As the movement slipped out of the control of the cburch, and as most of the wealthier individuals dropped out, the prophetae assumed leadership, full of enmity for the latter. Soon, sacraments were denied, clerics were assailed, and rhe Holy Spirit was directly invoked. Jews were slaughtered ill great numbers. Rome finally, greatly frightened by this volcanic eruption, issued a Papal Bull, outlawing the movement, which died out in 1357, only to continue in clandestine form and in waves of revival. The next wave, the Secret Flagellants of Thuringia, saw Christ himself as no more than their precursor; as he had pointed the true way to salvation enduring fbgellatioll, it was ollly those who beat themselves who could to pursue that way to the end. Now the Christian dispensation was supplanted by a higher dispensatioll of which they were the only bearers. Just as Christ had changed water to wine, so they had replaced baptism with water hy baptism with bloodY’
The Heresy of the Free Spirit
Not pa rt of the turbulent urban masses, a clandestine movement of heretics wove its web from one end of Europe to the other. No social revolutionaries, its adherents formed the Heresy of the Free Spirit. They were Gnostics intent UpOIl their OWI1 individual salvation, but the Gnosis at which they arrived was a quasi-mystical anarchism – all affirmation of freedom so reckless and that it amounted to a total denial of every kind of restraint and limitation. They were in a sense remote ancestors of Bakunin and Nietzsche40 The core of the Free Spirit lay in the adept’s attitude toward himself: He believed that he had attained a perfection so absolute that he was incapable of sill; as a result, he repudiated moral 110rms. The “perfect man” would always draw the conclusion that it was permissible and even incumbent upon him to do whatever was commonly regarded as forbiddenY The heresy was also contemporary with and a kin to developments in the Muslim world. Toward the close of the twelfth century, Sufi holy beggars
)8 Ibid., p. IJ6. )9 Ibid., p. 143. 40 Ibid., pp. 148-9. 4′ Ibid., ISO.
“An Hite ofAmoral SIi/JermCIl”
started spreading to various Spanish cities. Disclaiming book learning and theoretical subtleties, the masters rejoiced in direct contact with God, felt themselves united with the divine essence in a most intimate union. And in turn liberated them from all restraints. Every impulse was experienced as a divine commandment; they could lie and steal or fornicate without qualms of conscience. For since inwardly the soul was wholly absorbed in God, external acts were of no accollnt.42 Here is an essential component of the etiology of self-appointed “clites” and” vanguards” of the sectarian movements. Beyond the verbatim tenets of what each may believe, what matters here is the bow of their belief in what they believe. There are invariants to a certain type of quasi-religious ideology, and their effect tend to be very similar. In the early thirteenth century, the french-based “Amaurians,” formed an upper middle-class sect of self-styled holy men with miraeulous powers, visions, and trances. Although their doctrine was condemned by Rome and the Sorbonne they held that the illcarn~1tion of Christ had now been surpassed, that a last and supreme incarnation was coming to preside over the end of times and the world, and that the Spirit bad taken flesh again, in the form of tbe Spirituals, the Arnaurians themselves, who headed mankind toward perfection. Olle predicted a series of catastrophes for the ncar future, messianic woes in which the majority of mankind would die; wars and famines, earthquakes and fire would descend from on high. Antichrist would appear but then would be overthrown. The ability, or not, of the church in its many aspects to retain the trust and loyalty of urb,lIl masses determined the extent of the influence found the holy beggars. Marguerite Porete, a Frenchwoman and a member of tbe Free Spirit, wrote a manifesto for the movement, the Mil’olter des Simples Ames (Mirror of the Simple So//ls), which spread throughout Europe and intersected countless millenarian sects and groups. One group called itself the “Blood Friends,” another”Homines !ntelligelltiae.” As late as 152.5, a millenarian leader of Antwerpen sent emissaries to Martin Luther. John Calvin in Paris met the sect of the Quintinists, who enjoyed a huge following amongst artisans and in the refined Humanist court of Marguerite de Navarre. The Free Spirit was to be found from Bavaria to the Rhine, from Northern France to the Flanders, in Umbria in Italy, from England to Bohemia, with extraordinary resilience and continuity.
4″ Ibid., p. T50.
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The Free Spirit represents the ideal type of the intellectual coostruct comOlOn to all millenarian, apocalyptical, eschatological schools. Traits characteristic of the Free Spirit will be found in cadI and every such movement in the f~ltL1re, regardless of the religion or culture of the geographic or ethnic body upon which the ideology has settled. adepts of the Free Spirit did not form a single church but a string of like-minded groups, each endowed with its particular rites and articles of belief; links between the various groups were often tenuous, did keep in tollch; and the Free Spirit was at all times clearly recognizable as a quasi-religion with a single basic corpus of doctrine handed down doctrine first emerged into full view in century; its features it showed then were to remain almost throughout the history of the movement.4.l To have the Holy Spirit incarnated in oneself and to receive the revelation which that brought was to rise from the dead and to possess heaven. A man who had knowledge of the God within himself carried his own heaven about with him. One had only to recognize one’s own divinity and one was resurrected as a Spiritual, a denizen of heaven on Earth. ‘ro be ignorant of one’s divinity was a mortal sin, indeed, it was the only sin.44 The Free Spirit was set apart from mankind. In practice, adepts knew that the highest spiritual privileges were reserved for their own fraternity. They divided humanity into two groups – the majority, the “crude in spirit,” who failed to develop their Jivin<.: potentialities, and themselves, who were the “subtle in spirit.” They attained full absorption in God, not only after death, or at the end of time, now. The heart of the heresy was not a philosophical idea at all but an aspiration; it was a passionate desire of certain human beings to surpass the condition of humanity and to become God.45 desire to aholish the finite nature of man, the removal or tile separateness of the human individual, the “merger” into God, to abolish sin, to possess absolute knowledge Gnosis – and to do away with doubt and uncertainty, those hallmarks of the human condition were central to the Free Spirit, as it is with those creeds described as “fanatical.” In the end, the adept shed the human condition and stood above God. They had acquired prodigious miracle-working powers, the gift of prophecy. They believed that knew all things in heaven and Earth, that they could perform miraclescross water drvshod. walk a vard above the ground. But for most of them
4.’ Ibid., p. 172.
44 Ibid.
4.1 Ibid., p. 174.
“An Elite ofAmoral Supermen”
such claims were too petty, for they felt themselves to be quite literally omnipotent.46 This belief system was nihilistic and megalomanic. The “supernatural revelation” was apt to feed a paranoid, delusional outlook. But its effects on the real world were very real. A leader of the Free Spirit regarded himself as “Sword of God,” “charged with the task of cleansing the earth of that impurity, the Church of Rome, and saving mankind in the Last Days.” The twofold division of mankind was a critical component of the creed: Below the living gods existed a larger class of full initiates, ecstatics without the decisive final step who enjoyed a vicarious superhumanity through contact with the adepts. Between those and the mass of making, the gulf was absolute. Of the latter, the adepts took no account, “no more than of a horse.” In their eyes, mankind in general existed only to be exploited by themselves, mortified elect.” Hence the blithe dishonesty, which was everywhere noted as being characteristic of these sectarians, and a striking similarity with the ethos of the professional revolutionary as developed by the later Russian Gnostics, Chernychevskii or Lenin.47
The sl1perhumans concluded that “[tlhe truly free man is king and lord of all creatures. All things belong to him, and he has the right to use whatever pleases him. If anyone tries to prevent him, the free man may kill him and take his goods. “4 8 An adept said: “Cheatillg, theft, robbery with violence were all justified.” If God wills it, everything is permitted. Whatever the Cause may be, it acts as the enabler of the unlimited exercise of the Will of the adept who can do anything he feels since he docs it in the name of God, Allah, the Cause all with the proper intention, niyyah in Arabic. Weber’s distinction between Verantwortlichkeitsethik and Gesi1l1umgsethik never been more opposite.4Y
Bohemian Taborites, radicals influenced by the Free Spirit, created another version of the millenarian movement. They repeated the familiar tale of the messianic woes that are approaching: No longer content to await destruction of the godless by a miracle, the preachers called upon to carry out the necessary purification of the Earth themselves. A tract written by one Jan Capek, a Prague University graduate, was said to have been “fuller of blood than a pond is of water.” He proved that it was
46 Ibid., p. T76•
H Ibid., p. 182. See Alain Bcsan’foll, Les Origmes intellectuelles du Lellinisme, Paris, CalmannLevy, 1977, passim.
4 8
Cohn, Ptfrsuit ofthe Millellium, pp. IS 2-3. 49 Max Weber, Politik als Beruf, Ditlingen, Reklam, T992., passim.
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inescapable duty of the Elect to kill in the name of the Lord. The work served as a polemical armory for other preachers, who used its arguments to urge their hearers on to massacre. No pity, they declared, must be shown toward sinners, for all sinners are enemies of Christ. “Accursed be the man who withholds his sword from shedding the blood of the enemies of believer must wash his hands in that blood.” The preachers themselves joined eagerly in the killing, for “every priest may lawfully pursue, wound and kill sinners.”50 Sin was to be punished by death, sinners must be cxten11lnated, as one tract said: “The just … will now rejoice, seeing vengeance and washing their hands in the blood of sinners.” Furthermore, anyone, of whatever status, not actively help them in “liberating the truth” and destroying sinners was himself a melllber of tbe hosts of Satan and Antichrist and therefore fit only for annihilation. For the bom of vengeance had come, when the imitation of Christ means no longer an imitation of His mercy but Dilly of his mge, cruelty, and vengefulness. As “avenging angels of God and warriors of Christ” the Elect must kill all, without exception, who did not to their The Saints were tasked to “go forth to conquer and dominate the rest of the world” as the army sent through all the world to carry the and vengeance’s and to inflict revenge upon the nations and their cities and tOWIlS, and judgment upon every people that shall resist them. “Thereafter, kings shall serve them, and any natioll that will not serve them shall be t … J The Sons of God shall tread on the realms under heaven shall be given unto them.” They as avenging angels, whose mission it was to wield the sword the world until all the unclean had been cut down. “Blood, they declared, the world to the height of a horse’s head, and despite their small they did their best to achieve this aim … their Holy War.”52 Evell after the sect of the Adamitcs were crushed force of arms, notably in this hotbed of sectarian ferment, Southern Germany. In the last quarter of the fifteenth century, a the small town of Niklaushausen, a defrocked monk partnered together to draw from as far afield as the Alps and the Rhineland to discourse on repentance, the imminence of the
Cohn, Plirmit Mil/millll1, p. 2J 2..
jllbid.,p.2.I).
52 Ihid., p. 2.2.0.

«An Elite ofAmoral Supermen”
egalitarian millenium. Miracles were duly performed, intense devotion to the propheta was duly produced, while the affair all too predictably ended at the stake. But weaver Taborite Niklas
partner with Thuringian intellectual, monk, erudite, charismatic preacher, and bloodthirsty militant Thomas Muntzer (b. 1488). One of the most remarkable features of Muntzer’s predication was the bloodlust that transpired from it. There was nothing original in the themes the Last Days being nigh, of the Elects having to rise and annihilate the godless, of his “war of extermination Ithatj the righteous were to wage against the unrighteous.” Contemporaries noted Muntzer’s lust for blood at times expressed itself in “sheer raving”53:
Harvest-time is here, so God himself has hired me for this harvest. I have my scythe, for my thoughts are most strongly fixed on the truth, and my skin, hair, soul, body, life, curse thc unbelievers …. God is sharpening his scythe in me so that latcr 1 can cut down the red poppies and the blue cornflowers. Christ is your master. So don’t lct them livc any longcr, thc evil-docrs who turn us aW,l} from God. For a godless man has no right to livc if he hinders thc godly. t … j The sword is necessary to exterminate them, and so that it shall be donc honcstly and our dear fathers the princes must do it, who confess Christ with us. But don’t do it, thc sword shall be takcn from them … if they resist, let them be slaughtercd without mercy …. At the harvest-time, one must pluck the weeds out of God’s vincyard …. For the ungodly have no right to live, save what the Elect choose to allow thcm …. [ tell you, if you will not suffer for God’s sake, then you must be the Devi}’s martyrs. If there are but three of you who, trusting in God, seek only His name and honor, you will not fcar a hundred thousand. [ … j Now, go at thcm …. It is time…. The scoundrels arc as dispirited as Take no noticc of thc lamentations of the godless! They wil you … don’t be moved by pity…. At them! At them! Whilc the fire is hot! Don’t let your sword get cold! Don’t let it go lame! l··· JSo long as they arc alive you will never shakc off the fe<lf of mcn!”.H
The apocalypse of medieval millenarianism was to take place in 1534-5 in the Westphalian city of Munster where the sect of the Anabaptists took over and proceeded to implement the lessons learned from centuries of in a grotesque dance macabre, a rule of terror where Narrenschiff’s passengers had taken over the city.
From beginnings where the local artisan and merchant guilds had naively
joined forces with the sectarians, the latter gained a strong following,

received “apocalyptic visions in the streets of such inten­
would throw themselves on the ground, screaming, writhing

53 Ibid., p. 236 .
B Ibid., pp. 2.35-50, /ldssim.

I
81 The Mind ofJihad80
and foaming at the mouth. It was in this atmosphere, charged with supernatural expectations, that the Anabaptists made thcir first armcd rising.” Soon thereafter, with the help of fellow sectarians freshly immigrated, the Anabaptists established “a theocratic regime in which the divinely inspired had swallowed up the state [ … J [in order to begetJ a New Jerusalem purified of all uncleanness.” 55 The rich and unbelieving were expelled. New baptism WilS imposed on the remainder, and it became a capital offense not to be rebaptized. Then began a reign of terror, lI1utatis /I1utal1dis may easily be compared to Lenin’s “war communism.” Money was abolished and its surrender to authorities made the test of true faith. Offenders were declared fit for extermination; some execLltions did take place. An absolute dictatorship ruled the city. “The new government was given authority in all matters, public and private, spiritual and material, and power of life and death over all inhabitants.” A very “puritanical” morality was imposed, where lying, slander, avarice and quarreling were made capital offenses. “Death was the punishment for every kind of insubordination.”56 Of course, it was the ruler’s destiny to rule the entire world, on God’s behalf. He was anointed king of the New Jerusalem and designated the real Messiah:
power over all nations of the earth, amI the right to llSC the sword to the confusion of the wicked and in tlcfcnse of the righteous. So let no one in this town st~1in himself with erime or resist the will of God or he shall without delay be put to death with the sword. \7
the official mottos were: “The Word has flesh and dwells in us,” and “One king over all. One God, one faith, one baptism,” am! “One king of righteollsness over all.” fixation on oneness is one of the hallmarks of Gnostic political doctrine. Bloodlust, the other marker, was ever present. One of the Anabaptists’ pamphleteers explained that supernatural strength was vested with the believers so that “five could kill one hundred of the enemy and ten would kill a thousand. The enemy would flee before them.” Big shows – public beheadings – were mounted in town. “All who persisted in sinning against the recognized truth must be … sentenced to death … extirpated from the Chosen People.” Within days, executions began, and terror intensified. Anyone suspected of wanting to flee the city was beheaded, the king himself
) I Ibid., p. 261. 50 Ihicl., Pl’. 2.68-9. 57 Ibid., pp. 271-2.
“An Elite of Amoral Supermen”
carrying out the sentence, or conducting the quartering of the culprits, the sections of the bodies being hanged in public spaces as a warning. This was the last spasm of insanity in the besieged city, which was taken by storm. The deposed king Jan Bockelson “was Jed about in a chain and exhibited like a performing bear,” and then executed. All surviving Anabaptists were executed. By adopting Miintzer as a revolutionary icon, Friedrich Engels in his I 850 tome The Peasant War ill Germa11Y made the Anabaptists as precursors of later revolutionary risings and wars, in more ways than he himself thought, sought replication of Gnostic ideology, of totalitarian rule, of bloody dictatorship was indeed a harbinger of revolutions to come. In the twentieth century, the fascination for Miintzer continued to imbue various strains of communism, such as utopian Marxist Ernst Bloch.,8 Marxists and anarchocommunists reveled in the doomed figure of the Anabaptist prophet, and often saw themselves as heirs to the “amoral supermen” of the Free Spirit. The desire for the millenarian Apocalypse that would forever release and redeem mankind is central to the Marxist faith.
Etiology
Characteristically, millcnarianism sets itself boundless aims. It considers a given social struggle not as a struggle for specific, limited objectives but as an event of unique importance, different in kind from all other struggles known to history, a cataclysm from which the world is to emerge totally transformed and redeemed. This is the essence of the recurrent phenomenon of “revolutionary millenarian ism. ” Authorities lose their credibility. Tbe propheta recruit for such struggles from atomized, marginalized people whose social position has become unsteady and uncertain. Cut off from their traditional social support networks, devoid of institutionalized methods of voicing grievances or conveying disarray, the propheta emerged as a force to reintegrate them in coherent groups. Revolutionary millenarianism took place against a background of disaster. Anguish generated energy. Radicalism injected tbt~ apocalyptic element, leading to the final purification of the world. The propheta was endowed with a personal magnetism that enabled him to claim a special role in bringing history to its apparent consummation. He offered his followers the prospect of carrying out a divinely ordained mission of stupendous, unique importance. What emerged was a new group -a
S8 Ernst Blod1, Thomas MUllIzcrals Thc%gedcr Revo/utioll, frankfurt, Surkhamp, 192.1-67.
83 82. The Mind ofJihad
restless dynamic and utterly ruthless group that, obsessed by the apocalyptic fantasy and filled with the conviction of its own infallibility, set itself infinitely above the rcst of humanity and recognized no claims saVe that of its own supreme mission and finally suhjugated the great mass of the disoriented, the perplexed, and the frightelled.59 review of the best-studied type of millenarianism in history, the type that rose and flourished in Western Europe, does not exhaust the history of utopia, of utopian and eschatological movements, or of sectarian insurrection. But before studying the specific form those took in the history of the Islal11, we must dwell upon what the latter and the former have in common, what as will be argued bere – is their common substratum, the Gnostic ideology. The origins of gnosis hark back to pagan oriental cults in the Ancient world, and their interaction, by the beginning of the Common Era, with the Hellenistic ami Greco-Roman worlds, with Judaism and nascent ChristianIn contents, a gnosis is a doctrine that presents itself as a religious creed. It claims to possess the perfect and complete knowledge about divinity, the universe, man, and man’s salvation (different gnoses have elaborated rich speculative mythologies to flesh out their doctrines and rituals to accompany them). Gnosis explains everything, knows all, ‘integrates everything. The believers consider themselves separate from and superior to the rest of with considerable practical and etbical consequences. Gnosticism is a doctrine of salvation: It is “knowledge” (glIOsis in Greek) or perhaps a series of doctrines, all of which share a common core. As German philosopher Hans Jonas work on the subject: The Gnostic systems compounded everything oriental mythologies, astrological doctrines, Iranian theology, elements of.Jewish tradition, whether Biblical, rabbinical or occult, Christian salvation-eschatology, Platonic terms and concepts. Syncretism attained in this period \thc first centuries of the Common Era] its greatest cfficacy.60 themselves composites from variegated sources accounts for fluidity and plasticity of Gnostic ideologies. The “Gnostic remarkable recombinant capabilities that allowed it to mix and mingle with a very broad spectrum of religious ideas and systems. In the end, however, Gnosticism consists of “certain characteristic mental attitudes, which are more or less distinctly exhibited throughout the whole
\9 Cohn, Pursuit ofthe Millenilt111, pp. 2.81-5. 60 Hans Jonas, The Gnustic Religion: the Message of the Alien God and the Begil1nings of Christianity, 2nd cd., enlarged, Boston, Beacon Press, I96), p. 2.5.
“An Elite of Amoral SulJermen”
group, irrespective of otherwise greatly differing content and “61
Gnosticism is a radical dualism: An unbridgeable chasm separates God from the world and consequently God from man. divine is the realm of the world is the realm of darkness. “The transcendent God Himself is hidden from all creatures …. Knowledge of Him requires supranatural revelation and illumination.”62 Man is a mix of light and darkness; body and soul are of darkness, spirit (fmettma) is of light. But “the universe … is like a vast prison whose innermost dungeon is the earth, the seene of man’s life.” The world is ruled by a tyranny of universal Fate, a concept drawn from astrology. The Gnostic “knows” that the world and himself arc fallen, that the world is an absurd mix of good and evil. “The is no longer the well-ordered, the cosmos, in which Hellenic man at home, nor is it the Judeo-Christian world that God created and found good.,,6} The world is wrong not just because bad things are occurring. It is wrong in its principle, in the way it is organized. It is intrinsically and irretrievably wrong. The world is not a good world that includes flaws and imperfections. It is radically dominated by evil. The way the world is, the way it is constructed, and the very laws of the world are all wrong. It is not that the world is good and human beings arc imperfect. Man lives in a “truly dreadful, confusing and oppressive state of the world.” As a result, the Gnostic is in revolt against the world.(,4 He must disengage fro111 the evil matter in which he is imprisoned. The means to do so: salvation will come from knowledge (gnosis); the “Gnostics” arc “the knowing Ones.” But “knowledge” is not a knowledge reason, a knowledge of rational objects, as was Greek philosophy. It claims to “know” things unknowable, different from faith that has faith in “things invisible” (Saint Paul). Gnosis is a “knowledge” of things unknowable, it claims to be a knowledge of the objects of faith. Gnosis is not scientific knowledge that works by approximation, experimentally, and proin Karl Popper’s phrase, “falsifiable” truths (that are susceptible being refuted and proven wrong). Gnosis speculates and claims absolute trutb for its speculative assertions. An illumination is required to gain access to this “knowledge,” as opposed to simple faith: “It is closely bound up revelatory experience, so that reception of truth either through sacred
6. Ibid., p. 2.6. 6, Ibid.

6) Eric Voegclin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism, Washington, DC, Regncry, 1968-77, p. 7.
64 Bcsan~()n, Les Origilles illtellectuelles, p. 16.

85 The Milld ofJihad
or secret lore or through inner illumination replaces rational arguments and theory. 1… 1The ultimate “object” of gnosis is God: its event in the soul transforms the knower himself by making him a partaker in the divine existence.””5 Cinosis is the knowledge of the laws of the cosmos and its global structure, macrocosm and microcosm (man). It is the historical knowledge of the evolution of the cosmos, its primeval state, the causes and circumstances of its fall, and the pathways of its redemption that allows it to forecast with certainty its final state. It is a practical knowledge that indicates the means of contributing to salvation and guides the salvational action of the Elect.66 Salvation or “the goal of Gnostic striving is the release of the ‘inner man’ from the bonds of the world and his return to his native realm of light.” The F1ect will extinguish evil in himself. Gnosis is a morality:
III this life, the tJlu’1I11ldlics, as the possessors of gnosis called themselves, are set apart from the great l1lass of Illankind. The immediate illumination not only makes the individual sovereign in the sphere of knowledge (hence the limitless variety of Gnostic doctrines) but also determines the sphere of action. Gencrally speaking, the tnorality is detcrmined by hostility toward the world and contempt for alll11l1l1dane tics. Frol11 this principle, however, two contrary conclusions could be drawn and both found their extreme representatives; the ascctic and the libertine. The fonner deduces from the possession of gliosis the obligation to avoid further contamination by the world and therefore to reduce contact with it to a the latter derived from the samc possession the privilege of absolute freedom. [ … The law of “ThOll shalt” and “Thou shalt not” promulgated by the Creator is just one more form of the “cosmic” tyranny. I … J As the pneumatic is free from the so he is free from the voke of the moral law. To him all things arc perlllitted.
So much so tbat the “intentional violation” of the norms “paradoxically contrihlltes to the work of salv<lIlol1. ,,(q The New Man created by the Gnostic is a nihilist. TIle possession of the absolute key to absolute knowledge cannot go without hubristic pride, arrogance, and conceit – the certainty of thus being superior to all others. The quest for salvation spills beyond the limits of the individual. As Voegelin writes, oppressive though the dominance of wickedness may “salvation from the evil of the world is possible,” provided the order of things (Creation) is changed. “From a wretched world a good one must evolve historically. [ … I This salvational act is possible through man’s own efforts.” The Gnostic believes that a state of perfection may be brought
(,5 Jonas, Gl10stic l{cllgU}I/, pp. 34-5. ~6 Besan<,:on, Lcs Origil1es iHtcllectllcllcs, pp. 17-r8. (,~ Jonas, (;l1ostic Religio1l, pp, 34′ 47·
“An Elite of Amoral SUfJermell”
down from the heavens. To him “[ilf it is possible … so to work a structural change in the given order of being that we can be satisfied with it as perfect then it becomes the task of the Gnostic to seck out the prescription for such a change. Knowledge gllosis – of the method of altering being is the central concern of the Gnostic.” The “liberal” (in the European sense), “docs not think ideologically. He wishes to change reality, within limits, themselves variable. He never thinks of suhstituting another reality,” whereas the Gnostic “is tempted to erect an imaginary world which is the ideal double of a world decreed as evil.” He sets out to implement “a thorough overthrow of the entire structure of the world … a radically new life which had never been known to man,” a total recasting of the universe.6H This is not a notion similar to the Jewish notion of tikkun a/am, nor the Christian notion of preparing the City of God – Christian doctrine believes that perfection can be attained only in the heavenly world, that the world must remain as it is, imperfect, and that one may improve things (persons, society) but not change their nature. Peter Abelard’s beautiful phrase “Man is God’s gardener” may be used to show the difference between religion and Gnostic creed; To the Judeo-Christian tradition, man cultivates the garden he has received from God; he improves, maintains and repairs it – and enjoys its fruits. Note that Islam traditionally accepts this view that man has received the earth from Allah in “lieutnancYe” To the Gnostic, the garden must be upset and overthrown. Gnosis produces “the construction of a formula for self and world salvation” – hence the appearance of the Gnostic prophet. The Gnostic always shows “a readiness to come forward as a prophet who will proclaim knowledge about the salvation of mankind.”69 While Gnostic man could simply flee the world altogether, the activist variant of Gnosticism tries to create the perfect social order, “knows” what the final state of perfection is and what the ways and means are that lead to it. The “prophet” is “the intellectual who knows the formula for salvation from the misfortunes of world and can predict how world history will take its course in the future.”7″ To creJte a new world, the prophet will surround himself with a restricted elite of Elects, initiates who have seen the Perfect Truth and alone possess it, as opposed to the universal ignorance that besieges them. They arc the real mankind. The Gnostic is the carrier of a pathological condition, of “a thinker who, in his revolt against the world as it bas been created
6H Besan~on, Les Origilles illlellectllclles, pp. 88-9. 69 Voegelin, Science. Politics, alltl Gnosticism, pp. 59-60. 70 Ihid., p. 67′
117
1 I
The Mind ofJihad86
by God, arbitrarily omits an clement of reality in order to create the fantasy of a new world,” which he, or his disciples, will often seek to bring about by turning thcmselves into the “armed prophets of the new world.”7′ The Gnostic is the great recusant be who denies any worth and validity to the world as it is, who sets out to destroy it. The Gnostic creeds contrast to its Ele;,;t the New Men, the”Perfect” as the Cathar elite called themselvesas a symmetrical opposite and elective archfoe: the radical cvil, the creatures darkuess, the absolute negative. Since this world is the reign of Satan prince of darkness, the creatures of darkness are the children of Satan and deserve to be treated accoroingly. Gnosticism will accordingly develop figures of the archenemies who incarnate this evil. Reality is demonized; the bearers of reality are satanized. They “represent absolute evil. Against it, one may lise means similar to those it employs, but whose finality inverts the value,” Acts that are crimes if committed by the archenemy become virtuous deeds if committed by the Elect: There arc no objective valuesJL This is the creed that twentieth-century philosophy has promoted I:–Icidegger and Sartre among others in the first place. In Gnosticism,
the criterion of ~ooJ and evil ceases to be a univcrsal one and becomes internal to the doctrine: nothing is right in itself. What is right is relative to the execution of the has unveiled it, and, therefore, it is relative to gl10sis itself. It of justice that marks the conformity with what is right, of behavior to the accomDhshment of the cosmogonic scheme.
As we will sec, however, it does not necessarily split from all religions. Traditional Christian doctrine properly criticized gnosis for “trespassbeyond any possible limits to human knowledge in its claim to have penetrated the central mystery of the cosmos and mal1.”74 In so doing, the Gnostics were replacing faith with a pseudoreason that claimed total knowledge: In Gnosticism, “there are no questiolls, only answers.” Saint Augustine had drawn a strict line between Christian doctrine and Gnosticism: At the very beginning oi his City ofGud, he emphatically insisted that the kingdom was not, and cold never be. of this world:
Most glorious will be the City of God, both in this fleeting age of ours, wherein she lives by faith, a stranger among infidels, and the days when she will be established in her eternal home. Now she waits for it with patience, until righteollsncss returns
7′ Ibid” p. 69,
7′ Hesan~ol1, Les Origiltes illtellectuelles, p, lOS,
7.1 Ibid., p. 19. 74 Ibid., p. 17,
“An Elite of Amoral Superlllen”
to Then she shall possess it with in final victory and perfect peace»
In its dream of earthly perfection, gnosis was the harbinger and the an~estor of modern ideologies. One of the first to draw attention to the resurgenc of the Gnostic millenarian outlook in modern times was GenTIan philosopher Karl Lowith, who spotted the doctrine as a crucial component of at least some of the continental Enlightenment: the immensely influential eighteenth-century writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing revived de Fiore’s doctrine of the three world-ages ending in earthly fulfillment. “Lessing’s influence was extraordinarily deep and far-reaching.”76 It influenced early socialism and positivism, Hegel’s philosophy of history, and Marxian form of messianism, all of which postulate that mankind is headed for a final age of fulfillment and earthly perfection. The “father” of modern German nationalism, socialist doctrinaire Johann Gottlieb Fichte, gave vent to a purely Gnostic outlook: “The present age is one of complete sinfulness, preceding a final regeneration in a new age of the spirit, which corresponds to the millennial kingdom ofJohn’s Revelation.” Friedrich Schlegel followed the same path: “The revolutionary desire to realize the kingdom of God is the flexible starting point … and the principle of modern history.”77 The perfect knowledge attained by the Gnostic then becomes the driver of his action: “At the heart of ideology, there is The Known. Lenin does not know that he believes. He believes that be knows. “7H Does it matter that this postulated knowledge is in fact utterly fantastic? Is it important that the Gnostic, in scientific terms, knows absolutely nothing, neither the end of history, nor God’s plan, nor the nature of the order of reality? Ethnological research shows that in the eyes of the believer, this docs not matter at all. “That the shaman’s mythology docs not correspond to an objective reality is of no importance: the sick person [whom the shaman treats] believes in it, and is a member of a society that believes in it. Protective spirits and malfeasant spirits, praeternatural monsters and magic animals, arc part of a coherent system which establishes [their1 conception of the universe. “79 Gcrman-American philosopher Eric Voegelin charted the underlying commonality between the medieval movemcnts and the twentieth century’s
75 Saint Augustine, Civitas Dei, Book I, Preface,
76 Karl Lowith, Meaning ill History: The Tt}cological Implicatiolls oftile Philosophy of History,
University of Chicago Press, 1949, p. 208.
17 Ibid., p. 209.

7
8 Ibid., p. 15.
79 Claude Levi-Stauss, AlltiJrupologie structuralc, voL I, Paris, Agora, 1974, p. 22.6.

89 88 The Mind ofJihad
movemellt, fascism, communism and national-socialism. These mass movements were rooted in ancient intellectual movements, specifically, he averred, in Gnosticism. At first sight, his claim of filiation seemed outlandish: Were the contemporary movements he referred to not godless? Were they not offsprings of modernity, of the Industrial Revolution, of the French Revolution, of the chaos of World War I? How could they relate in allY meaningful way to a two-thousand-year-old religious or quasi-religious creed? Furthermore, can a valid common ground be ascribed between the ancient world’s gnosis with its emphasis on individual salvation through knowledge, and the mass-based movements discussed here? British historian NonnaJl Cohn, plotted the filiation in precise historical
For the long-term, indirect influcnce of Joachim [de Fiorel’s speculations can be traced right down to the presellt day, and most clearly ill certain “philosophies of ” I … lit is unmistakably the .louchite phantasy of the Three Ages that rcapin, for instance, the theories of historical evolution expounded by the German idealist philosophers … , in Auguste Comte’s idca as an ascent from the rhe metaphysical to the scielllific phase; and again in the l’vlarxian dialecric of the three phases of primilive communism, chlss society and a final coml1lunism which is to be the rc.:dm of freedom … and it is no less tf,tle that the phrase “The Third Reich” first coined in 1923 by the publicist Moeller vall den Hruck and later as a namc for that “ncw order” which was supposed to last a thousand years, would have Iwd but little emotional significance if the phantasy of a third and most fdorious dispensation had not, over the centuries, clltered into the coml11on stock of social .”..•I”.L….. Ho
At the very end of his study, Cohn adds a that ought to enter the millds of students of Islam, the Middle East, and Arab world:
During the half century since 19 J 7 there has heell a constant repetitioll, and on an ever-increasing scale, of the socio-psychological process which once joined the Taboritc priests or Thomas ]’vluntzer and the most disoriented and desperate of the poor, in phantasies of a final exterminatory struggle against” the great ones,” and of a perfect world in which self-seeking would forever be banished …. The old idell has been rephlCed by a secular one, and this tends to obscurc what otherwise would he obvious. For it is the simple truth that stripped of their original supernatural sanction, revolutionary mil!enarianisl1l and mystical anarchism are with us still.81
brings liS back to Voegelin’s identification of the common Gnostic roots of those apparently secular Western intellectuals’ ideologies and the totalitarian mass movements of the twentieth century. This identification,
80 Cuhn, Pursllit of the Millel1ium, p. 109.
RI Ihid., 2.R6.

“An Elite of Amoral Supermen”
we will argue, is crucial to understanding the nature of the radical Islamic threat today. Beyond the diversity of cultural, religious, and intellectual idioms that these variegated utopias used and spoke, the homology is one of contents, structure, and effects, reaching into real-world action. There is thus a thorough homology between the medieval utopias, that arose in the Christian world, the modern totalitarian utopias, and the current utopia. All gnoses structure space and time in a similar way: They all ;>rescribc that there arc “two camps, two regions, three timcs,” and so docs ideology. The ideologies of radical Islam certainly respond to this characterization as docs radicallslam, obsessed as it is with the division of the world into two antithetical camps and regions, dar ai-Islam and the dar al-Harb, and into a ternary division of time: predication, jahiliyyah, and apocalypse. Analysts seek the “root causes of terrorism” ought to dig deeper than the surface. Stripped of its quasi-Christian vestment, which tends to obscure the deeper similarity, the same old outlook is still with us, in the form of radical Islam. Jlrior to exploring this assertion, it is necessary to describe Gnosticism as it appeared historically and to establish a working definition. We will then show why it is useful, and in fact indispensable, to measure radical according to tha t yardstick.
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