Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Chapter Four Podcast Two

Profile Nine: Maria, Fatima, and Alessandra             By the time she was in her early twenties, Muslim convert Maria Giulia Sergio had become famous in her country of birth, Italy. She was also well known in her new home, the Islamic State, under her new name, Fatima. The former biotechnology student at the University of Milan said, “I can’t wait to die as a martyr,” according to L’Espresso magazine. Sergio celebrated the Charlie Hebdo killings. “When we behead someone, we’re obeying Sharia Law.”               For Maria, Jihad became a family affair. She persuaded her entire Catholic family to convert to Islam. She also had success with her in-laws. This made news because the general pattern of family radicalization begins with parental pressure. But it was the young Maria who made Muslims of her family. She then traveled to Syria and beckoned her father, “Dad, you are called by Islam, you are the master at home: bring Mum here to Syria. You are her husband: She’s obliged to obey.”  Her mother and father tried to do so, but were held by the police. Five Albanian in-laws connected to Sergio’s husband were arrested for planning to join their daughter-in-law.             While living in Italy, Maria sought to present Islam to her Italian compatriots. But not all Italians are enamored of Maria and her Islamist designs. In 2009, the fiery Muslima met her match with El Duce’s granddaughter, Alessandra Mussolini. In the 1980s, Mussolini posed for European men’s magazines, sometimes without wearing a top. Decades later, the two sparred on television. Hijab-clad Maria lectured Mussolini on feminine decorum, insisting that women should never wear revealing clothes that might excite men. But Mussolini, today a right-oriented European parliamentarian, was unconvinced. She, as well as her maternal aunt, Sophia Loren, made no apologies for the beauty of a woman’s form.   Jihad—Duty, Honor, Caliphate   “There’s no life, no life without Jihad.”  A Briton found guilty of terrorism in 2014, explaining his motives to a court in London               Some of the Caliphate’s recruiting tropes have timeless and universal appeal. These refrains are duty, honor, and country. Pericles’s funeral oration of the Athenian dead of the First Peloponnesian War saluted the fallen and praised the living. It set a historical model for other Democratic leaders. Napoleon’s farewell to the Old Guard acknowledged France’s sacrifice. Both contained patriotic and martial themes that are used in the Caliphate’s information operations.               Duty, honor, and country are also woven into the Caliphate’s general call for Jihad, which is the second general attraction. Jihad is a core tenet of Islam and is often described as the sixth pillar. Some have likened Jihad to self-improvement or spiritual yoga. This is the Greater Jihad, which often means becoming more pious.               Generally, however, Jihad has meant defending Islam, expanding Islam’s domain by conquest, or subjugating cultures under its sway. It is a matter of obligation and honor for all Muslims to heed this call and migrate to the Islamic State. This has been the general Western, as well as consensus Islamic, view. Tocqueville wrote, in 1838, “Jihad, Holy War, is an obligation for all believers. The state of war is the natural state with regard to infidels.” The late political scientist Samuel Huntington referenced “Islam’s bloody borders” in the context of Jihad. Bernard Lewis said, “The Muslim Jihad was perceived as unlimited, as a religious obligation that would continue until the entire world had adopted the Muslim faith or submitted to a Muslim Ruler.” This is the Caliphate’s view.               Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian, was the late-twentieth-century activist-theologian who rallied the Islamic world to Jihad. He became the theorist of global Jihad in the 1980s. In the absence of a Caliphate, individuals could pursue their own Jihad. He was later killed, perhaps on the orders of Osama bin Laden, but his voice and writings gave individual Muslims a prominent role in the current anti-Western Jihad. Today, European-raised propagandists beckon Westerners to the Jihad.