The Middle East is one of the world’s most volatile and turbulent regions, politically and socially, culturally and in the media. It is also one of the regions most rife with conflicting interests and contradictory alliances. Here, ideas can lead to their very opposites, and political orientations can swing in the opposite direction. This is how things have always been, and how they remain today. One can only hope they will not remain so for much longer.
In recent years, talk of the end of some of our region’s chronic problems has become strangely and remarkably widespread. There has been talk of “the end of the Awakening (Al-Sahwa),” “the end of violence,” and “the end of terrorism,” along with declarations of an end to problems of every kind and description. It is as though we seek to overcome our old problems and deep-seated complexes by simply ignoring them and forgetting them, as if they had never existed. In the familiar imagery of Arab heritage, this is the story of the ostrich burying its head in the sand to escape danger.
Those promoting and supporting these narratives of endings are well known, as are their objectives. They have either grown weary of confronting facts or proved unable to achieve their goals. They have therefore begun to substitute dreams and illusions for hard-won awareness and clear, undeniable facts. This is particularly so given that the concepts of the end times, the end of the world, and the end of the universe have been explored in a wide range of religious and philosophical traditions, some grounded in scientific and realistic thought, others steeped in superstition and delusion.
Those who lack knowledge are easily deceived by those who possess it when the latter fail to enlighten them about history and reality, ideologies and conflicts, and the contradictions between political agendas and competing creeds. They are also misled by the broader climate, which withholds information, erases history, disparages it, and diminishes its value, as well as the place of its wisdom and logic in understanding the present and anticipating the future.
Today's terrorists are a modern offshoot of the Kharijites, the group known from the early days of Islam, although differences and distinctions between the two can be identified and explained. The early Kharijites and their modern counterparts share the same rhetoric, even if their methods of implementation differ. The rhetoric of the early Kharijites is well documented in the formative period of Islam, with prophetic traditions, historical accounts, stories, and narratives describing them. They are said to “pass out of Islam as an arrow passes through its target,” and to “fight the people of Islam while leaving the idol worshippers alone.” They are the perpetrators of the atrocities described by Ibn Hazm in his renowned book Al-Fisal fi al-Milal wa al-Ahwa wa al-Nihal. They slit open the bellies of pregnant women, assassinated Ali ibn Abi Talib, may God be pleased with him, and attempted to assassinate Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, but failed. They also attempted to assassinate Amr ibn al-As, who escaped assassination when he appointed the Companion Kharija ibn Hudhafa to lead the congregational prayer in his place. The Kharijite who killed Kharija said, “I intended Amr, but God intended Kharija,” a saying that subsequently became a proverb.
As successive historical accounts tell us, the early Kharijites split into sects and factions, some declaring others unbelievers and cursing one another. Over the course of Islamic history, these factions disappeared, and only one sect survived.
That was the situation in the past. Today, the Kharijites are represented by religiously motivated violent groups that emerged from political Islam movements. They arose through a fully developed ideological framework and carefully planned organization, originating in the Muslim Brotherhood and the organizations that branched off from it. The clearest examples in terms of organizational structure are Al-Qaeda and ISIS, among many others that emerged both before and after them.
The Flydubai aircraft incident raises legitimate questions, and every proposed answer and solution must be approached with the utmost patience, care, scrutiny, and rigor. These questions, the answers offered, and the urgent search for solutions cannot be treated with unwarranted complacency. The danger is real and imminent. The Awakening could, God forbid, return in full force, and terrorism could flare up again under one name or another, triggered by this incident or by another. Only those who fail to grasp the power of history and understand its logic can feel secure against the unpredictable turns of time and the machinations of history.
Finally, if history has taught us anything, it is that ideas do not die. They are always capable of reviving and repeating themselves unless the temporal and spatial conditions that sustain and give rise to them change. Many organizations and groups have subsided and gone underground, only to reappear when the time came. The historical record offers ample evidence of this.
