14 January 2001 - Negotiating with "Terrorists"

In an interview with 60 minutes shortly after the September 11th attacks, a Muslim scholar strained to find the right way to condemn the attacks. What he came up with was the Ussama bin Laden's declaration of war and consequent acts were without legitimacy because he was not representing legitimate state authority, he was acting as a vigilante and therefore in the wrong. This begs the question "What constitutes legitimate state authority?". The Taliban started off as vigilantes bringing law and order, in their own inimitable style, to much of Afghanistan. Did they represent legitimate state authority?

During the Afghan war against the USSR a new phenomena occurred in the area. This was not a normal war, it was an irregular war fought covertly, the Pakistan government didn't invade, they just provided the route to smuggle weapons in and for drugs - primarily heroin - out. By the very nature of such a war certain things are difficult. There can be no clear defendable targets and hence no clear centre of authority where negotiation can happen between the guerrilla fighters and the enemy. As we saw when the Soviets left, the differing factions of the "Jihadis" - as they are known in Pakistan - were unable to work together and fell into vicious factional fighting. This inability to negotiate and reach compromise is reflected across the whole "Jihadi" movement and is the key factor in its lack of legitimacy in the eyes of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The defining feature of legitimacy is recognition. Recognition of a state as legitimate by other states and by the people in the state. The key to gaining recognition is reaching clear treaties and agreements in which the state is recognised. Such agreements are reached through negotiation.

A clear illustration of the mentality of the Jihadis' thinking about negotiation can be seen from the prison rebellion in which the American John Walker (Sulayman) was caught up. Although the (foreign) Taliban fighters had surrendered, some of them had hidden hand grenades in their clothing and were determined to fight against their captors even though it would not have had any benefit for the cause of Islam. They presumably were under the illusion that such a tactic would result in them dying as martyrs.  John Walker correctly pointed out that such breaking of agreements is clearly forbidden in Islam.

To understand the Jihadi mentality you need only to know their key slogan:

"Jihad and the rifle alone. NO negotiations, NO conferences and NO dialogues..." - Abdullah Azzam(*)

This approach is taken out of a reaction to vacillating corrupt politicians of much of the Muslim world and elsewhere and from that perspective may be understandable. But it is undeniably contrary to both the Qur'an and the example of prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

For a state to be ideally legitimate it will gain appropriate recognition from the population within it by them paying the taxes, obeying its laws, taking cases of disputes to its courts, pledging allegiance, taking part in its elections etc. and through that state gaining appropriate recognition from other states in the form of treaties and agreements.

The legitimacy of a state is not a black and white issue and there is always room for improvement, like with all human efforts. As Muslims we look to the Qur'an and the example of how Muhammad established a state and ran the affairs of the Muslims, his treaties of peace and the alliances with other peoples which he forged. The Taliban succeeded in gaining state legitimacy in some aspects but failed in others. They were too influenced by the reactionary elements of the Jihadi movement and suffered the consequences.

We Muslims need to learn from this episode that reactionary attitudes are not the solution but part of the problem. We need to be able to step back from current crises and build a vision of where we want to be not simply where we don't want to be.

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