Ali Soufan: AQ, Khorasan and the Black Banners
[ by Charles Cameron -- yet more black banners, Khorasan, Jerusalem and Armageddon, with the usual strategic implications ]
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It’s beginning to be embarrassing how obvious the Khorasan / black banner / Mahdism meme is getting these days. Earlier this week I pointed it out as the basic through-line of Syed Saleem Shahzad‘s Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond bin Laden and 9/11. Today it’s Ali Soufan‘s turn.
In his book, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda — which I hope to review here — Soufan too makes the apocalyptic significance of AQ’s jihad painfully apparent. Take his title, for instance…
Black banners, eh?
Those would presumably be the ones mentioned to Soufan by Abu Jandal, who began to quote the hadith:
If you see the black banners coming from Khurasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop them –
at which point Soufan broke in and completed the hadith for him:
– and they will finally read Baitul Maqdis [Jerusalem], where they will erect their flags.
And in case you missed it, that’s an explicitly end-times, Mahdist hadith, as you can see from (eg) this Hizb-ut-Tahrir-associated site:
Messenger of Allah said: “If you see the Black Banners coming from Khurasan go to them immediately, even if you must crawl over ice, because indeed amongst them is the Caliph, Al Mahdi.” [Narrated on authority of Ibn Majah, Al-Hakim, Ahmad]
Soufan goes on to say:
I was to hear that reputed hadith from many al-Qaeda members I interrogated. It was one of al-Qaeda’s favorites.
Khurasan is a term for a historical region spanning northeastern and eastern Iran and parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and northwestern Pakistan. Because of the hadith, jihadists believe that this is the region from which they will inflict a major defeat against their enemies — in the Islamic version of Armageddon. Bin Laden’s 1996 declaration of war against the United States – a main text for al-Qaeda members – ends with the dateline “Friday, August 23, 1996, in the Hindu Kush, Afghanistan.” It’s not a coincidence that bin Laden made al-Qaeda’s flag black; he also regularly cited the hadith and referenced Khurasan when recruiting, motivating, and fundraising. Al-Qaeda operatives I interrogated were often convinced that, by joining al-Qaeda, they were fulfilling the words of the Prophet.
It is an indication of how imperfectly we know our enemy that to most people in the West, and even among supposed al-Qaeda experts, the image of the black banners means little…
I could go on, but that’s surely enough.
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And by the way, who is that man on the cover, anyway?
September 17th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Excellent post. It is interesting that pirates used to fly just plain black flags during the 17th and 18th century. They too eventually modified and added to the flag with all sorts of symbols to spice it up.
September 17th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Just a quick note to say: Yes, the quotes (1, 2 and 4) are from Soufan’s book — but I was working from a google Bo0oks e-version, so don’t have any page numbers. I’ll update this post when I get a hard copy.
September 17th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
more fascinating material about millenarian tendencies among jihadists! many thanks for keeping the theme going here, charles.
i’m reminded again, however, that for over a decade it’s not been a popular theme among experts on terrorism, many of whom used to dismiss it. and, although maybe i missed something, i don’t recall it figuring in the myriad recent 9/11 write-ups about the evolution of al qaeda and other trends that may affect the future of terrorism.
yet, i’d hazard that a series of ongoing trends will increase the appeal of millenarianism among jihadi forces. my list includes the shattering of al qaeda, an ill outcome to the arab spring, a deepening sense of disaster (political, socio-economic, tribal, natural, whatever) in the societies that generate potential recruits, and … well, i’m not sure what else to add, but i’d be interested in your own and others’ thoughts.
September 17th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
for a marvellous exception to what i said above about the dearth of attention to millenarian themes in recent 9/11 write-ups, see richard landes’ post (really a reprise) comparing the medieval christian warrior roland (“song of roland”) to osama bin laden at
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http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2011/09/06/on-the-tenth-anniversary-of-9-11-roland-suicide-martyr/
September 18th, 2011 at 5:16 am
Thanks, David.
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I’ve actually known Richard Landes for a dozen years or more — since my friend Stephen O’Leary introduced me to him (and to their Center for Millennial Studies at BU, where I was the point man for millennarian aspects of Y2K) — and hope to have a review of his very new and impressive book, Heaven on Earth, here shortly.
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Another 9-11 retrospective with a millennial focus was this one from Tim Furnish at MahdiWatch.
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I think it will take a post to respond properly to your question in #3. : )
September 18th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Following Matt, I’m reminded of the anarchist use of black.
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(Not to mention the Rolling Stones’. "I see a red door and I want it painted black…")
September 24th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
I never for one minute believed that Saadam has nuclear weapons. We were lied to by our government and our emotions on 9/11 were used in the worst of ways. This book confirms what a piece of shit Bush was, and Rumsfiled and Cheney. May they all rot in hell for what they have done to this country!
November 1st, 2011 at 3:35 pm
[...] background and discussion about the black banner that jihadists rally around, check out this post over at Zen [...]