Of Holy Months and Unholy Terror

Zoha Waseem

‘And so, the con­tention is, Ramadan is “the month of Jihad”. Yet, there can be no moral equiv­a­lence between a bat­tle fought in self-defence, such as those waged by the Prophet dur­ing Ramadan, and bru­tal mil­i­tant attacks that maim and mur­der inno­cent men, women, and chil­dren. Just because some of the most impor­tant bat­tles of Islam­ic his­to­ry occurred dur­ing Ramadan, it does not mean that mur­der could ever be jus­ti­fied. Ever.’ – Hes­ham A. Has­s­a­bal­lah (2013)

It began in 624 C.E., on the 17th Ramadan. The great Bat­tle of Badr was to mark the begin­ning of the first con­flict in Mus­lim his­to­ry fought dur­ing the holy month of Ramadan. This his­tor­i­cal event is reg­u­lar­ly exploit­ed with­in ter­ror­ists’ rhetoric for recruit­ing mil­i­tants and jus­ti­fy­ing vio­lence. Of the dozens of his­toric con­flicts ensu­ing since that year, remem­bered in con­tem­po­rary his­to­ry are the Ramadan War of 1973 (also known as the Yom Kip­pur War or the fourth Arab-Israeli War); the Lebanese civ­il war, which began in 1975 and con­tin­ued through sev­en­teen months of Ramadan; Oper­a­tion Ramadan, the first bat­tle in the Iran-Iraq war fought in 1982, one of the largest land bat­tles since World War II; the first Pales­tin­ian intifa­da, which began in 1987 and was waged over 6 Ramadans; and the 2003–2007 Iraq war.

Today, ter­ror­ists world­wide allude to these con­flicts non-con­tex­tu­al­ly to wage their own ver­sions of jihad. In the Mid­dle East and North Africa, coun­tries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Alge­ria, Yemen, and – most notably – Iraq, have reg­u­lar­ly suf­fered from these extreme nar­ra­tives.

It was on the third of Ramadan in 2004, when Abu Musab al-Zar­qawi, a world renowned ter­ror­ist known for advo­cat­ing sui­cide attacks and hostage exe­cu­tions, pledged alle­giance to Osama bin Ladin, lead­ing to the cre­ation of Al Qae­da in Iraq. In his pledge, he report­ed­ly stat­ed that ‘with the appear­ance of Ramadan, the month of the gift of vic­to­ries, Mus­lims are com­pelled to join forces and be a stick in the eye of Islam’s ene­mies’. It was his affil­i­ate that called a surge of ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty in Ramadan their ‘blessed for­ay of vio­lence’. This year, mid-way through the holy month, Al-Qae­da in Iraq (AQI) car­ried out one of the most alarm­ing prison breaks in recent his­to­ry. As the world watched Iraq crum­bling amidst sec­tar­i­an vio­lence, 500 mil­i­tants broke out of Baghdad’s noto­ri­ous Abu Ghraib prison.

In 2006, just two weeks before Ramadan, Osama bin Laden’s sec­ond-in-com­mand Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video tape threat­en­ing Alge­ri­ans who were still reel­ing from a civ­il war. ‘The Salafist Group for Preach­ing and Com­bat (GSPC) has joined the Al Qae­da orga­ni­za­tion… may this be a bone in the throat of Amer­i­can and French cru­saders, and their allies, and sow fear in the hearts of French trai­tors and sons of apos­tates’. GSPC has exist­ed in Alge­ria since the 1990s. Since its trans­for­ma­tion into Al Qae­da in the Islam­ic Maghreb, Alge­ria has expe­ri­enced a spike in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty dur­ing Ramadan.

The month of Muhar­ram, like Ramadan, too has borne the brunt of such activ­i­ty and rhetoric, with Shias being tar­get­ed in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq. In 2012, in a streak of bomb­ings on the eve of Muhar­ram, 17 peo­ple were killed across Iraq. But sel­dom has a coun­try wit­nessed the threat of Muhar­ram vio­lence that Pak­istan has.

Last year, an arrest­ed TTP mil­i­tant in Karachi, Akhtar Mehsud con­fessed dur­ing inter­ro­ga­tion that four sui­cide bombers had been trained and select­ed to car­ry out attacks dur­ing Muhar­ram pro­ces­sions in the city. Law enforce­ment and intel­li­gence agen­cies worked inten­sive­ly to ward off secu­ri­ty threats dur­ing the month of com­mem­o­ra­tion, suc­cess­ful­ly foil­ing sev­er­al attempts as was revealed by sus­pects arrest­ed from var­i­ous cities in Pun­jab between 2010 and 2013.

The pre­vail­ing threat stems from vio­lent­ly sec­tar­i­an rhetoric embossed with Islam­ic his­to­ry. On Decem­ber 28 2009, Pakistan’s largest pro­ces­sion of Shias was tar­get­ed in Karachi, killing 43 and caus­ing the city to erupt in clash­es amongst riot­ers. TTP claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty, noti­fy­ing the use of a sui­cide bomber. The attack came a day after sui­cide attacks killed 15 near Pir Alam Shah Bukhari’s tomb in Muzaf­farabad.

Last Novem­ber, a remote-con­trolled bomb­ing in Dera Ismail Khan dur­ing Muhar­ram took eight lives. TTP spokesper­son Ehsan­ul­lah Ehsan was quick to jus­ti­fy that the group ‘car­ried out the attack against the Shia com­mu­ni­ty’. Oth­er than TTP, respon­si­ble for incit­ing vio­lence dur­ing Muhar­ram are Lah­skar-e-Jhangvi and its moth­er-ship Sipah-e-Saha­ba Pak­istan.

‘The holy month of jihad’, has suf­fered its share of vio­lence in Pak­istan as well, hazed by sec­tar­i­an tones. In 2010, mul­ti­ple blasts tar­get­ed a Shia pro­ces­sion in Lahore killing 30. They were fol­lowed short­ly by a sui­cide attack on Shias in Quet­ta which killed more than 50 peo­ple. This year, the dead­liest attack tar­get­ing Shias dur­ing Ramadan took place in Parachi­nar, tak­ing over 56 lives. Media chan­nels, per­haps too dis­tress­ing­ly involved in com­ic Ramadan trans­mis­sions, failed to pro­vide ade­quate cov­er­age to such an atroc­i­ty.

Apart from sec­tar­i­an attacks dur­ing Ramadan, Pak­istan has wit­nessed a surge of oth­er TTP and LEJ-led attacks includ­ing those on police recruits in Min­go­ra that killed 16 (2009); the attack on a mosque in Khy­ber agency which claimed 50 lives (2011); a rage of attacks in Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA in the begin­ning of Ramadan in 2012; a mosque attack in Kohat on the first day of Ramadan and the Sukkur attacks on ISI head­quar­ters (2013). Every TTP and LeJ-led rhetoric dur­ing Ramadan in Pak­istan has been dressed in the kafan of jihad.

Adding to these holy months of mar­tyr­dom is the fac­tor of Islam­ic char­i­ties, sev­er­al of which col­lect funds for jihad, attract­ing zakat dur­ing Ramadan, such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Last year, the gov­ern­ment pro­hib­it­ed col­lec­tion of zakat and dona­tions by banned groups and/or out­fits, but giv­en that sev­er­al of these are unreg­is­tered, trac­ing and con­trol­ling financ­ing through illic­it char­i­ta­ble dona­tions remains a seri­ous prob­lem in Pak­istan.

If exter­nal jihad was not enough, the Pak­istani Tal­iban seems to have become care­tak­ers of the prac­tice of inter­nal jihad as well. TTP-South Waziristan’s Mul­lah Nazir recent­ly banned men and women from wear­ing tight or see-through cloth­ing in Ramadan – a move that bears no reli­gious or his­toric sig­nif­i­cance, and one TTP fails to explain the ‘Islam­ic’ nature of. The Ramadan ‘code of con­duct’ issued by TTP has fur­ther warned one month of impris­on­ment for not fast­ing in South Waziris­tan.

Attacks dur­ing Rab­bi-al-Aww­al, the third month of the cal­en­dar, have hit sev­er­al cities in the coun­try as well. While cit­i­zens – Sun­ni, Shia, Ahmedis and Chris­tians alike – cel­e­brate the birth of the Prophet, aggres­sive dis­ap­proval is made known by cer­tain Deoban­di, Wahabi and Salafi groups in Pak­istan who strong­ly oppose these cel­e­bra­tions and see fit to attack rejoic­ing par­tic­i­pants. It takes but a men­tion of Nishtar Park to remind Karachi­ites of the 56 cit­i­zens killed dur­ing an attack car­ried out in 2006 by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi oper­a­tives on Barelvi Sun­nis respon­si­ble for orga­niz­ing the cer­e­mo­ny.

What trig­gers esca­la­tion of vio­lence dur­ing sacred times is a sub­ject of much con­tention. Ron E. Hess­ner wrote that ‘sacred dates in the reli­gious cal­en­dar pro­vide mean­ing to the faith­ful by evok­ing his­to­ry, social struc­ture or reli­gious pre­cepts and, ulti­mate­ly, by hint­ing at the under­ly­ing order of the cos­mos’. Insti­ga­tors of vio­lence dur­ing sacred months seem to ben­e­fit from the so-called ‘aus­pi­cious’ tim­ing of attacks, almost in an attempt to jus­ti­fy them, vin­di­cat­ing ini­tia­tors from guilt and shame.

Under­tak­ing an offen­sive dur­ing a reli­gious peri­od has dual char­ac­ter­is­tics: moti­va­tion for the ter­ror­ist group and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the tar­get. Reli­gious peri­ods act as force mul­ti­pli­ers, moti­vat­ing mil­i­tants to act with greater feroc­i­ty and fer­vour on holy days that res­onate with their cause (such as the moti­va­tion to insti­gate vio­lence against Shias dur­ing Muhar­ram). Hessner’s find­ings on the Iraq con­flict between 2003 and 2009, for exam­ple, illus­trate that in Ramadan the aver­age num­ber of ter­ror­ist attacks increased by 7.2%, with sec­tar­i­an attacks alone ris­ing by 8.3%. Zarqawi’s quote below rep­re­sents the rhetoric employed for this moti­va­tion.
‘Sun­nis, wake up, pay atten­tion and pre­pare to con­front the poi­sons of the Shi­ite snakes, who are afflict­ing you with all ago­nies since the inva­sion of Iraq until our day. For­get about those advo­cat­ing the end of sec­tar­i­an­ism and call­ing for nation­al uni­ty.’ – Abu Musab al-Zar­qawi (2006), for­mer leader of al Qae­da in Iraq (2006)
Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the group being attacked is the sec­ond char­ac­ter­is­tic influ­enc­ing the rise of con­flict dur­ing a reli­gious peri­od. Attack­ing Shia pro­ces­sions dur­ing Muhar­ram or Fri­day mosque-goers dur­ing Ramadan are known as ‘sur­prise attacks’, meant to weak­en the ‘ene­my’ fur­ther by endan­ger­ing its mobil­i­sa­tion on days most sig­nif­i­cant to the prac­ti­tion­ers. Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty encour­ages moti­va­tion. Moti­va­tion becomes a show of hadd and jur­rat, thus fur­ther­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. By def­i­n­i­tion, ‘hadd’ can mean either ‘lim­it’ or ‘a pun­ish­ment which is fixed and enjoyed as the right of Allah’. For the pur­pos­es of extrem­ism, it implies more con­clu­sive­ly the extremes one is will­ing to reach in order to pun­ish apos­tates or non-believ­ers. ‘Jur­rat’ (brav­ery or courage) — with regards the tac­ti­cal util­i­sa­tion of ter­ror­ism – refers to the the­atri­cal dis­play of vio­lence high­light­ing strength and pow­er in order to sup­press the adver­sary and impress the fol­low­ing.

The best way to con­tain this vicious cycle of moti­va­tion and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is through chang­ing per­cep­tions towards extrem­ist rhetoric by pro­vid­ing alter­nate inter­pre­ta­tions of reli­gious his­to­ry. It must also be account­ed that vio­lence has blood­ed his­to­ries of all reli­gions and can nev­er be utilised as a means of suc­cess­ful­ly spread­ing or erad­i­cat­ing belief sys­tems. Salafi preach­er Sayyid Qutb, Zawahiri’s men­tor, spent his ink and sweat advo­cat­ing for an offen­sive jihad, where­as the Prophet devot­ed his life insist­ing on its defen­sive and inter­nal nature. Under­stand­ing the dif­fer­ence is a good place to start.

Zoha Waseem is from Karachi and has a post-grad­u­ate from King’s Col­lege Lon­don in Ter­ror­ism, Secu­ri­ty and Soci­ety.