The Management of Savagery

abu-bakr-naji-the-management-of-savagery-the-most-critical-stage-through-which-the-umma-will-pass-1.jpgIf there is a positive side to the rise of ISIS, it is that the West has had its head jerked from the sand and has been made to witness a bottomless, bloodthirsty evil: crucifixions, beheadings, enslavement of women, live burial of children, mass executions. Even John Kerry, a man not known for grasping (or admitting) the truth about jihad, acknowledges that this brutality “underscores the degree to which [ISIS] is so far beyond the pale with respect to any standard by which we judge even terrorist groups.” But as one analyst writes, this violence is not “whimsical, crazed fanaticism, but a very deliberate, considered strategy” – one that seems to derive in part from a book called The Management of Savagery.

In the spring of 2004 a strategist who called himself Abu Bakr Naji published online The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Ummah Will Pass (later translated from the Arabic by William McCants, a fellow at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center). The book – what the Washington Post calls the Mein Kampf of jihad – aimed to provide a strategy for al-Qaeda and other jihadists. “The ideal of this movement,” wrote Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker, “as its theorists saw it, was the establishment of a caliphate that would lead to the purification of the Muslim world.”

Naji believed that a civil war within Islam would lead to that Sunni caliphate, so he recommended a merciless campaign of violence in Muslim lands to polarize the population, expose the inability of the state to maintain control, attract followers, and create a spreading network of “regions of savagery.”

“The management of savagery” refers to controlling the chaos that results from that breakdown of order. The requirements for the administration of savagery are:

  • Establishing internal security
  • Providing food and medical treatment
  • Securing the borders against the invasion of enemies
  • Establishing Sharia law
  • Establishing a fighting society at all levels and among all individuals.

The manifesto proposes that the jihadists exhaust an overstretched America through a patient war of attrition and a manipulation of the media to dismantle the superpower’s “aura of invincibility.” It demands that the enemy be made to “pay the price” for any and all attacks carried out against the jihadists, even if the retribution takes years, in order to instill in the enemy “a sense of hopelessness that will cause him to seek reconciliation.” No mercy must be shown: “Our enemies will not be merciful to us if they seize us. Thus, it behooves us to make them think one thousand times before attacking us.”

Shocking violence is a key element of that strategy. “The beheadings and the violence practiced by [the Islamic State] are not whimsical, crazed fanaticism, but a very deliberate, considered strategy,” writes British analyst Alastair Crooke. “The seemingly random violence has a precise purpose: It’s [sic] aim is to strike huge fear; to break the psychology of a people.” For example, Naji recommends that in instances in which hostage demands are not met, “the hostages should be liquidated in a terrifying manner, which will send fear into the hearts of the enemy and his supporters.”

Naji believed that “we need to massacre” others as Muslims did after the death of Muhammad. “We must make this battle very violent,” the book says. “If we are not violent in our jihad and if softness seizes us, that will be a major factor in the loss of the element of strength.”

But the violence isn’t intended merely to terrify, but to “drag the masses into battle.” Naji’s strategy requires polarizing the Muslim world and convincing any moderates who had hoped for U.S. protection that it is futile.

Paradoxically, this violence is actually a part of Allah’s mercy to all mankind. Putting apostates and infidels to the sword is merciful compared to the wrath that Allah himself would rain down:

Some may be surprised when we say that the religious practice of jihad despite the blood, corpses, and limbs which encompass it and the killing and fighting which its practice entails is among the most blessed acts of worship for the servants… Jihad is the most merciful of the methods for all created things and the most sparing of the spilling of blood.

Among those who are hostile to this mercy are “infidels among the Jews and the Christians and others who accused Islam of severity and mercilessness in all of its religious practices,” as well as “those who say that Islam is a religion of mercy and peace and that jihad is immoderate and excessive and that it has nothing to do with Islam!” Clearly Abu Bakr Naji is one of the many misunderstanders of Islam who didn’t get the memo about its peaceful nature.

In Naji’s conclusion, he stresses that “our battle is a battle of tawhid [the oneness of Allah] against unbelief and faith against polytheism. It is not an economic, political, or social battle.” [Emphasis added] The recent documentary feature released by ISIS called Flames of War, used as a recruiting tool for Muslim brethren in the West, confirms their religious aim and motivation. In addition to missing the memo about Islam meaning peace, apparently Naji also neglected to read all the memos from Western apologists about Islamic terrorism being spawned by poverty and Western oppression and exploitation.

Unfortunately, it seems that President Obama and Secretary Kerry, who continue to insist that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, never got Abu Bakr Naji’s memo either – the one entitled The Management of Savagery.

*

Don’t miss Shillman Journalism Fellow Mark Tapson on the Glazov Gang discussing Fighting the Culture War:

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.  

Subscribe to Frontpage’s TV show, The Glazov Gang, and LIKE it on Facebook.

  • frances951

    my stepmother recently got an awesome month old Chevrolet Express Cargo Diesel by working from a home computer. see post …..>> -> CHECK IT OUT HERE!! <-

  • mollysdad

    A correct counter-strategy against the administration of savagery in the provision of food and medical treatment is to destroy the enemy’s sources of food and medical treatment.

  • herb benty

    Disinformation, mastered by the Russians and Islamists, and used right to this day, against us.

  • Hank Rearden

    Oh, we get the message.

    It is just some of our leaders – Liberals – who are on their knees begging forgiveness before the knife hits their necks. And the Liberal MSM. The Democrats want to see the ruin of the US which, for some reason, they think they will escape the consequences of.

    We need a hard man at the helm. Someone who understands peace through strength the way Reagan did.

    Allen West.

    • tagalog

      Lefties always think that the revolution’s mandates won’t apply to them. Just look at how they’re behaving after they go to Ebola Land and come back to the U.S. No problem riding the subway or going to some deli or walking around in public. “ME a problem? Naah!”

      • BadWhisky

        They have obviously not heard about the night of the long knives when Hitler had the folks that helped him take power wiped out so they would not turn and take it from them….

        • tagalog

          Closer to the lefty home is the Great Terror of 1938, once more accurately called the Purge Trials, when Stalin killed off a million or so of the old “idealists” among the Bolsheviks in trials that were known at the time to be show trials.

  • Bamaguje

    14 centuries ago Mohammed said it all… “I have been made victorious with terror.”
    ISIS is simply emulating their prophet who ascribed his success to terror.

  • Gee

    Just as Hitler spelled out his plans – so do the Islamofascists. There is a few differences between them and I do mean few

    • Stick

      Well Adolph like dogs. I don’t think ISIS does.

      • Beagle

        Hitler was also a vegetarian artist. Art is haram.

  • http://www.clarespark.com/ Clare Spark

    Bat Ye’Or’s book EURABIA is more relevant than ever. See http://clarespark.com/2014/06/28/bat-yeors-eurabia-more-relevant-than-ever/.

  • Martin Adamson

    A couple of points to amplify here.

    a) Extreme violence also serves as a useful initiation test for potential recruits,

    b) It also creates a “no going back” mentality amongst the civilian population, In a revenge society like the Arab World, involving the largest number of people in war crimes creates a large group who know their lives will be forfeit should the old regime return.

    c) The redistribution of property (women and slaves are considered property in this context) but also land, houses cars etc – also gives supporters a material interest in seeing that the old regime does not return – they have learnt this from the French and Russian revolutions, of course.

  • 1Indioviejo1

    Our resolve lies with our leadership. We can bring pressure to bear on politicos which we elect, but they have to be in tune with what is required from wartime leaders. We need someone like Winston Churchill in a total war.

  • BadWhisky

    Kill them all and let God sort them out….

  • carltjohnson

    I wouldn’t wish this on our worst enemy, BUT, if a few Liberal progressives got beheaded…things would be different in a hurry. Does it really have to be that way? Again, I wouldn’t wish it, I am a conscious human being, not a bicameral barbarian. Seems to be the rise of the ancient Assyrians if you ask me…maybe worse. But on the whole, anyone that practices islam seems never to reach a sufficient level consciousness to be considered human. Their language, politics, laws and above all, their mysticism definitely makes it so.

  • reyol

    “The Management of Savagery” sounds like something we should all be reading. The title (and no doubt the contents of the book) sum up the real contributions of Islam to the World.

  • SuchindranathAiyer

    I very much doubt that the “West” has had its head jerked out of the sand. The White Hice and Downing Street are very much the allies of savagery. Any other country that is aware of this, is alone against the tidal wave
    of Petro Dollar funded global opinion who have coined the term
    “Islamophobia” to excise any vestigial truth from the public domain.
    Accomplished ostriches, adherents of Struthonian Faith and Hope, such as
    the “West” are, as a result, the most effective allies of Islam i.e.
    Terrorism i.e. Savagery.