zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — watch out for movements — of any belief — that arm themselves in preparation for an end times battle ]
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This is simply to alert you to a fine BBC recounting of the events at the Grand Mosque in Mecca on the first day of the current Islamic century — when two or three hundred heavily armed militants following a Mahdist claimant and his proclaimer —

BBC pull quote

really, think the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and His John the Baptist, and you have some sense of the seriousness of the affair — took over the central mosque in all of Islam — think the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, or St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican perhaps — and held the place under siege, with considerable bloodshed, until finally four French commandos were allowed in to use gas and flush out the remaining followers of the Mahdi, himself now dead.

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End times arousals of this sort are far from over: ISIS espoused an explicitly eschatological ideology, while AL Qaida used an end times hadith to rally to their black banners in Afghanistan, and a 2007 Shi’ite insurgency near Najaf around a Mahdist claim, Shi’i-style, was serious enough for the government of Iraq to call in American air strikes.

Important stuff, therefore.

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Recommended Readings:

BBC, Mecca 1979: The mosque siege that changed the course of Saudi history

Hegghammer & Lacroix, The Meccan Rebellion: The Story of Juhayman al-‘Utaybi Revisited

Hegghammer & Lacrois:

[ by Charles Cameron — and a few ppl whose views on trump’s strategy document I’d also like to read ]
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Tim Furnish, Trump’s New Counter-terrorism Strategy: The One-Eyed Man is Still King

Trump, 2018, National Strategy for Counterterrorism

Obama, 2011, National Strategy for Counterterrorism

Tim Furnish, Sectsploitation: How to Win Hearts and Minds in the Islamic World

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I wanted to draw your attention to our blog-friend and sometime contributor Tim Furnish‘s post, which offers a lucid introduction to the Trump administration’s National CT Strategy paper, situating it in contrast to the Obama admin’s version, and linking it to a very helpful breakdown of what we might call (remembering William James, but in mostly lower case) the varieties of Islamic experience.

Let me just say that from my POV:

1) Tim Furnish has a way superior understanding of the said varieties than John Bolton ever will have — plus he has a taste for pop culture asides!

2) that the key issue to be further explored could be expressed in terms of the overlaps, Venn diagram-wise, between “literalist”, “mainstream” and “authentic” Islams.

That’s a project I’ve been circling for more than a decade, and the closer I get, the more subtleties arise to be considered. Still circling in..

Thomas Hegghammer, JM Berger, Leah Farrall, Adam Elkus, Will McCants and John Horgan are others whose varied voices and opinions regaarding the new CT Strategy text I’ll be watching for.

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Tim’s essay and associated matters: Warmly recommended.

Zen — pray chime in.

[ by Charles Cameron — feeling a little more Bladerunner, are we? ]
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Here are a couple of tweeted news stories with relevant quotes below each of them, from one day’s mid-morning twitter feed — with thanks to fine scholars Stephen O’Leary, master of apocalyptic rhetoric, and Thomas Hegghammer, master of Jihadist culture and folkways:

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One: Nature

Read it and weep: https://t.co/Xur5LthgNX @hipbonegamer

— Stephen D. O'Leary (@StephenDOLeary) March 3, 2018

After Hurricane Maria, 300,000 Puerto Ricans fled to Florida, and disaster experts estimate that climate and weather events displaced more than 1 million Americans from their homes last year. These statistics don’t begin to capture the emotional and financial toll on survivors who have to dig through ashes and flooded debris to rebuild their lives. [ .. ]

Climate change is going to remap our world, changing not just how we live but where we live. As scientist Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, puts it, “There is a shocking, unreported, fundamental change coming to the habitability of many parts of the planet, including the U.S.A.”

In the not-so-distant future, places like Phoenix and Tucson will become so hot that just walking across the street will be a life-threatening event.

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Two: Culture

Hand Grenades and Gang Violence Rattle Sweden’s Middle Class https://t.co/8ngWH2ApUD

— Thomas Hegghammer (@Hegghammer) March 3, 2018

In large cities, hospitals report armed confrontations in emergency rooms, and school administrators say threats and weapons have become commonplace. Last week two men from Uppsala, both in their 20s, were arrested on charges of throwing grenades at the home of a bank employee who investigates fraud cases. [ .. ]

Illegal weapons often enter Sweden over the Oresund Bridge, a 10-mile span that links the southern city of Malmo to Denmark. When it opened, in 2000, the bridge symbolized the unfurling of a vibrant, borderless Europe, but in recent years it has been more closely associated with smuggling, of people, weapons and drugs.

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Are these two tweets, taken together, the encerroaching wave-front of William Gibson‘s “future already here — just not very evenly distributed” beginning to distribute itself a little more evenly?

Let’s backtrack forty years, with benefit of hindsight:

[ by Charles Cameron — a comment by Hegghammer, possibly echoing Bukhari re the Khawarij ]
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Ritual practice with greater intensity..

Very much a book to read..

Thomas Hegghammer, Jihadi Culture: The Art and Social Practices of Militant Islamists

[ by Charles Cameron — nothing quite like first unpacking a box filled with copies of a book you sent off months ago! ]
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Point focus:

Just received my paperback advance copies of Salafi-Jihadism, published by @PenguinBooks. Available for £9.99 from August 3rd. pic.twitter.com/al5Mhybj0u

— Shiraz Maher (@ShirazMaher) July 3, 2017

Peripheral vision:

Look at what just arrived! pic.twitter.com/qKFD8rGrcp

— Jihadi Culture (@jihadiculture) June 30, 2017

Two important new books — I have to say, I’m dying to read the Hegghammer, have the Maher on a close-to-hand reference shelf.