Uprooting the pernicious Daesh influence

Sheer force cannot defeat the so-called Islamic State, known in Arabic as Daesh.

Jordanians have to avenge the brutal murder of Muath Kasasbeh. Air strikes and special forces operations might inflict great damage to the group’s infrastructure in Syria and Iraq.  But what is needed more is to eradicate the Daesh’s infrastructure in Jordan. There are 200 Jihadi Salafist detainees here, and a 1,000 more in Raqqa and Mosul.

Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi and his supporters, other than being heinous murderers, are the fourth generation of ideologues who misinterpreted the concept of the oneness of God and other verses from the Holy Koran.

It was Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian from Jenin, who first indoctrinated the new concepts of oneness to Osama Bin Laden, according to the Qutb extremist ideology.

Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was Baghdadi’s mentor, teaching him the rudiments of a new faith that considers all non-followers as infidels and inferior, deserving death and punishments.

It was surprising, in view of the full mobilisation of Jordanian public opinion, seething with anger at Daesh this week, that none of the four grand muftis issued a statement exposing the truth about Daesh’s devious interpretation of Koranic verses, which made many Jordanians  to fall into its trap.

It is of utmost urgency to dismantle the Daesh structure in Jordan, where thousands of our fellow citizens are brainwashed victims.

It is not in defence of their criminal atrocities that thousands of Arabs fell prey to Daesh ideology, but due to its special appeal to the younger generation who suffers alienation in their European milieu, marginalisation by the ruling elites, frustration with prevalent working conditions, widescale poverty and humiliation by social criteria.

Daesh gave all that stratum of Muslims a new sense of dignity, self-respect and hope in a better future.

What is needed in Jordan are new school curricula, written by respected and  well-established religious authorities, that can refute the misguided concepts of oneness of God as advocated by Daesh, and reinterpret the Koranic verses the way God wanted to.

Words of condemnation of the horrible murder of Kasasbeh are not enough. Mobilising Jordan’s public opinion to a simmering level is not enough either. 

The main ideologues of Jihadi Salafist schools in Jordan, including Abu Mohammad Al Maqdisi, Abu Qatada Al Filistini and Sheikh Abu Mohammed Al Tahawi, should be approached to issue a clear-cut, unambiguous fatwa that Baghdadi and his supporters are infidels, neither Sunnis nor Muslims.

Such a fatwa would corroborate a similar statement by the four grand muftis.