This view was recently supported by a new book, "The Future of Iraq and The Arabian Peninsula After The Fall of Baghdad," just published by al Qaeda in several Arab countries. The author, Yussuf al-Ayyeri, has been one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates for a long time. The New York Post reports:
"It is not the American war machine that should be of the utmost concern to Muslims. What threatens the future of Islam, in fact its very survival, is American democracy." ... Al-Ayyeri argues that the history of mankind is the story of "perpetual war between belief and unbelief." Over the millennia, both have appeared in different guises. As far as belief is concerned, the absolutely final version is represented by Islam, which "annuls all other religions and creeds." Thus, Muslims can have only one goal: converting all humanity to Islam and "effacing the final traces of all other religions, creeds and ideologies."
What Al-Ayyeri sees now is a "clean battlefield" in which Islam faces a new form of unbelief. This, he labels "secularist democracy." This threat is "far more dangerous to Islam" than all its predecessors combined. The reasons, he explains in a whole chapter, must be sought in democracy's "seductive capacities." This form of "unbelief" persuades the people that they are in charge of their destiny and that, using their collective reasoning, they can shape policies and pass laws as they see fit. That leads them into ignoring the "unalterable laws" promulgated by God for the whole of mankind, and codified in the Islamic shariah (jurisprudence) until the end of time.
The goal of democracy, according to Al-Ayyeri, is to "make Muslims love this world, forget the next world and abandon jihad ." If established in any Muslim country for a reasonably long time, democracy could lead to economic prosperity, which, in turn, would make Muslims "reluctant to die in martyrdom" in defense of their faith. He says that it is vital to prevent any normalization and stabilization in Iraq. Muslim militants should make sure that the United States does not succeed in holding elections in Iraq and creating a democratic government. "If democracy comes to Iraq, the next target [for democratization] would be the whole of the Muslim world," Al-Ayyeri writes. ... "Do we want what happened in Turkey to happen to all Muslim countries?" he asks. "Do we want Muslims to refuse taking part in jihad and submit to secularism, which is a Zionist-Crusader concoction?"
Of course, it's not true that democracy is a threat to Islam as such, it's only a threat to the extremist, violent Islam of people like Osama bin Laden and Yussuf al-Ayyeri. They, however, do not recognize the validity of any other form of Islam but their own - such is the case with pretty much all extremists.
It's probably true that if people were led to actually enjoy their lives and appreciate this world they would be less likely to want to die as martyrs while seeking solace in the afterlife. Such circumstances don't eliminate martyrs entirely - there will always be someone who is willing to martyr themselves for a cause. Loving life, however, reduces the incentives to consider martyrdom as a serious option. Democracy would be good for Muslims. Violent extremism is bad for Muslims. The choice, however, is not necessarily clear to the Muslims who will be most affected - so long as people like Al-Ayyeri preach the evils of democracy, violent extremism will seem to be viable system.
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