“I’ve seen detainees break down and cry when they realize that the conduct they thought was sanctioned by God is actually a sin”

In "Anti-Jihad U.: Bringing insurgents in from the cold" in City Journal (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist), Judith Miller takes up Major General Douglas Stone's claim to use the Qur'an to teach jihadists to lay down their arms and become peaceful, law-abiding citizens. But once again, as in earlier coverage of this initiative, she doesn't offer any specifics whatsoever about how exactly he does it. When much of the world thinks about America’s treatment of detainees in Iraq, it thinks of torture, humiliation, abuse, and pictures from Abu Ghraib. But do most people know that the American military is now running one of the Middle East’s largest Islamic schools for those detainees? Or that it sponsors religious discussion programs among them about Islam? Or that it trains suspected insurgents to be carpenters, farmers, and artists who are paid for their work each day? The school, programs, and training are core elements of the American military’s radically new approach to detention in Iraq, an integral part of its counterinsurgency effort.

For the past nine months, Task Force 134—led by Major General Douglas M. Stone, a two-star Marine general who oversees civilian detention in Iraq—has been experimenting with a series of unconventional initiatives at two large “camps” where 23,245 suspected insurgents, Iraqi and foreign, are being held. The aim of these programs, which I visited in April, is not only to accelerate the identification and release of those falsely accused of “jihadi” activity, but also to de-radicalize and rehabilitate others who may have joined the insurgency primarily to feed their families, or because they were motivated by a militant, perverse interpretation of Islam.

The results to date suggest that Stone’s approach seems to be working, at least for the vast majority of those people who have been arrested as suspected threats to American forces and are now being detained. While a relatively small hard core of detainees probably cannot be safely released any time soon, officers say that the overwhelming majority of detainees, probably over two-thirds of them, are likely to be freed by the end of 2008. Initial data, once in short supply, are impressive: of the 8,000 detainees released so far under the program, only 21 have been recaptured as a result of suspected insurgent activity, a rate that officers say is unprecedented. “It means that only .2 percent of those detained have returned to the fight,” Stone told me after I spent five days with his 9,000-person task force, drawn from all the uniformed services. “At no time in the history of collected data in Iraq do we have anything remotely like this.”

While I was not permitted to talk privately with detainees, I visited both Camp Cropper, near Baghdad International Airport, and remote Camp Bucca, near Basra in southern Iraq. I also attended the educational, religious, and vocational classes and watched three-member administrative panels as they questioned detainees, reviewed their records, and decided their fates. I saw detainees praying, watching television, and playing soccer, volleyball, and ping-pong. I also interviewed more than a dozen American soldiers and Iraqi teachers, social workers, and religious clerics working in the program.

[...]

All graduates of Stone’s “anti-Jihad U.,” as some of his troops call the program, take a pledge before an Iraqi judge prior to their release, vowing not to resort to violence and to respect Iraqi laws. Whenever possible, pledges are guaranteed by family members. Over 7,200 detainees have made such pledges.

Terrorism experts are closely watching Stone’s program, as Saudi Arabia and several other countries plagued by Islamic militancy have launched de-radicalization programs that rely on similar initiatives. They, too, have begun reporting progress in rehabilitating militants. In a world in which militant Islam is not only already endemic but growing, there can be few more crucial challenges.

[...]

A major tipping point in the program, say officers, was when detainees began volunteering for the classes being offered. Although al-Qaida detainees and the Takfiris (another group of religious extremists) pressured fellow Iraqis against participating in the very popular religious discussions, over 3,000 detainees have done so. “After Iraqis here learn how to read and write, they can read the Koran themselves for the first time,” says Sheikh Ali, a Sunni who counsels detainees and who, like most of the Iraqis working in the program, declined to have his surname used and must live in an American-guarded compound to avoid reprisals. “I’ve seen detainees break down and cry when they realize that the conduct they thought was sanctioned by God is actually a sin.”

Detainees began volunteering for religious discussion—in addition to the Arabic, civics, history, science, geography, and math that are also offered—after American soldiers physically separated “extremist” elements from the overwhelming majority of camp “moderates.” “Empowering the moderates and isolating extremists has been key for us,” says Stone. When moderate inmates identified the extremists to soldiers and demanded their removal, Task Force 134 knew that its approach was working.

Al-Qaida and Takfiri detainees are now housed in special trailers in separate compounds. Though they get the same privileges as more moderate detainees—access to radio, TV, movies, books, newspapers, and sports—they lose them if there is violence or intimidation in their compounds. Officers say that 20 weeks have passed without such a violent outbreak, another tipping point. Now, even some of the “worst of the worst,” as the most militant, violent detainees are known, have asked to join religious discussion groups in which non-extremist interpretations of the Koran are vigorously debated.

[...]

The program has its critics. Marc Sageman, a psychiatrist, former CIA case officer, and expert in Islamic radicalization, considers the program promising, but says that it’s too early to call it a success before more data are available. He also fears that many detainees considered de-radicalized and then released may eventually revert to their former militancy and violent habits once they move into a still insecure environment that has not substantially improved....

Why are these "non-extremist interpretations of the Koran" so hard to come by? I have asked Islamic spokesmen repeatedly to provide one here. Here, for example, is a question I asked CAIR's Ahmed Bedier, asking him to provide an Islamic refutation of the mainstream Islamic interpretation of the Qur'an that considers the violent passages to have abrogated peaceful ones:

I understand that "all Scripture must be understood in its historical and textual context." In his sira, Ibn Ishaq explains the contexts of various verses of the Qur'an by saying that Muhammad received revelations about warfare in three stages: first, tolerance; then, defensive warfare; and finally, offensive warfare in order to convert the unbelievers to Islam or make them pay the jizya (see Qur'an 9:29, Sahih Muslim 4294, etc.). Tafasir by Ibn Kathir, Ibn Juzayy, As-Suyuti and others also emphasize that Surat At-Tawba abrogates every peace treaty in the Qur'an.

In the modern age, this idea of stages of development in the Qur'an's teaching on jihad, culminating in offensive warfare to establish the hegemony of Islamic law, has been affirmed by Qutb, Maududi, the Pakistani Brigadier S. K. Malik (author of "The Qur'anic Concept of War"), Saudi Chief Justice Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid (in his "Jihad in the Qur'an and Sunnah"), and others. It is, of course, an assertion of no little concern to non-Muslims, since it encapsulates a doctrine of warfare against non-Muslims and their ultimate subjugation under Sharia rules, with all that implies.

Hence my question: as a moderate Muslim and vociferous opponent of terrorism in all its forms, you reject this exegesis of the Qur'an -- or at least I think it is safe to assume you do (correct me if I'm wrong), since, by the accounts of the terrorists themselves, this expansionist imperative forms the ideological underpinning of much of today's terrorism. But it is based on a contextual analysis of the Qur'an, a relative weighing of Meccan and Medinan suras, and an examination of the asbab an-nazool for a large number of verses. Thus an appeal to read the Qur'an in context, such as you have made [in your email] here, is not adequate in itself to establish that Islam teaches peaceful coexistence between non-Muslims and Muslims on an indefinite basis.

Could you please therefore provide an Islamic refutation of the arguments of Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Juzayy, As-Suyuti, Qutb, Maududi, Malik, and Humaid? Armstrong and Esposito, to which you refer [us], do not provide this. Armstrong says only that the doctrines of offensive jihad were in the course of time "set aside in practice." But of course, today they are being taken up again. Thus I look forward to your answer with great eagerness, as it could contain the key to stemming the tide of today's terrorism, and be used to convince Muslims that violent jihad and Islamic supremacism must be definitively rejected.

I never got an answer.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Can anyone show me a mainstream Islamic interpretation of the Qur'an that denies that Muslims must wage war against unbelievers in order to establish the hegemony of Sharia? There are plenty floating around that claim that Muslims may only fight in self-defense -- and then we hear that self-defense includes fighting against any impediment in the way of the spread of Islam. No -- I am asking for a mainstream interpretation of the Qur'an that teaches that Muslims and non-Muslims must live together as equals on an indefinite basis. Send it to me at director[at]jihadwatch.org. I'll be in the Jihad Watch offices all day, waiting and watching as they pour in.

Thanks Jihad Watch