{"id":42456,"date":"2014-12-30T19:06:38","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T19:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=42456"},"modified":"2014-12-30T19:22:53","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T19:22:53","slug":"turning-analytic-bifocals-on-the-islamic-states-irregulars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=42456","title":{"rendered":"Turning analytic bifocals on the Islamic State\u2019s Irregulars"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — IS \/ Daesh focus is not on the question of derangement but of repentance – Dabiq #6, Aquinas, adaequatio <\/em>]
\n.<\/p>\n

\"Lindt<\/a>
Lindt cafe worker escapes Man Haron Monis hostage situation, Sydney – credit Jason Reed, Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting to compare how we think about those like Man Haron Monis<\/strong> on the cusp between derangement, criminality, terrorism and jihad, and how IS views them.<\/p>\n

JM Berger<\/strong> remarks of those he classifies as The Islamic State\u2019s Irregulars<\/a>:<\/p>\n

in a number of these cases, it\u2019s unclear whether the attacks were inspired by the Islamic State and its extremist ideology, or whether IS provided a convenient excuse for violence that was already brewing in the hearts of the perpetrators.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

while his subtitle asks:<\/p>\n

What should we do with lone-wolf attackers who are mentally unstable or deranged? Are they terrorists, too?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

Berger, among our most discerning analysts and co-author with Jessica Stern<\/strong> of the keenly awaited book, ISIS: The State of Terror<\/a>, describes Monis as:<\/p>\n

a Shiite Muslim born in Iran who had emigrated to Australia. He had been charged in 2013 as an accessory to murder and faced dozens of sexual assault charges related to his \u201cspiritual healing\u201d practice. His own lawyer described him as \u201cunhinged.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clearly, the waves of influence running amok in Monis\u2019 head are nowhere near as simply as our routine categorizations \u2013 that he was IS, or simply a terrorist, a mental case, a criminal, a murderer perhaps \u2013 would like to suggest. Our best inquiry is into his mental state, his psychological \u201cdrivers\u201d \u2013 how we can understand him, with easy categorization the sound-bite version providing closure.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

The Islamic State<\/strong> views him differently. As described in the sixth issue of their magazine, Dabiq<\/em>, he is clearly a religious hero, specifically a martyr:<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take much; he got hold of a gun and stormed a caf\u00e9 taking everyone inside hostage. Yet in doing so, he prompted mass panic, brought terror to the entire nation, and triggered an evacuation of parts of Sydney\u2019s central business district. The blessings in his efforts were apparent from the very outset.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dabiq <\/em>then paints western media diagnoses made against him as slurs:<\/p>\n

Then, as the situation developed and his identity was revealed, we saw a predictable response from the international media. They immediately began searching for anything negative that they could use against him, and subsequently began reporting numerous allegations made against him in an attempt to smear his character and, by extension, the noble cause that he was fighting for \u2013 the cause of Allah (ta\u2019?l?).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then something interesting occurs. Dabiq<\/em>, half-admitting the accuracy of some of those slurs, defends him not by denying their accuracy but by framing them in the context of repentance and divine mercy:<\/p>\n

The fact is, however, that any allegations leveled against a person concerning their past are irrelevant as long as they hope for Allah\u2019s mercy and sincerely repent from any previous misguidance.<\/p>\n

This is so with one who embraces Islam and thereby has his past history of shirk and transgression completely erased \u2013 as was even the case with many Sahabah. So how much more so in the case of one who followed up his repentance by fighting and being killed in the path of Allah, knowing the Prophet (sallallahu \u2018alayhi wa sallam) declared that such a person would be forgiven the moment his blood is first spilled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

“He was deranged, violent, driven, and IS became the hook on which he hanged himself” \u2013 or “His sacrificial death absolved him from all flaws and sins”. The contrast is instructive.<\/p>\n

It seems best for us to to wear secular \/ sacred bifocals<\/strong> in our analyses. But how does the analyst gain that faculty which EF schumacher<\/strong>, Thomas Aquinas<\/strong> and Augustine<\/strong> call adaequatio rei et intellectus<\/a><\/strong> — <\/p>\n

according to which to each plane of reality there corresponds an instrument of knowledge adequate to the task of knowing that particular level of reality<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

??<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron — IS \/ Daesh focus is not on the question of derangement but of repentance – Dabiq #6, Aquinas, adaequatio ] . Lindt cafe worker escapes Man Haron Monis hostage situation, Sydney – credit Jason Reed, Reuters ** It\u2019s interesting to compare how we think about those like Man Haron Monis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[677,526,454,1078,1047,897,790,1148,436,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-charles-cameron","category-cognitive-goods","category-is","category-isis","category-jm-berger-2","category-law-enforcement","category-lone-wolf","category-psychology","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42456"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42485,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42456\/revisions\/42485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}