Reports | 25 05 2020
With the emergence of Islamic Jihad in its current form, sex also emerged as a driving force and instigator of many jihadists. Numerous videos in which jihadists speak of the Hour al-Een [virgins] awaiting them in paradise, spread throughout the media. Several witnesses’ accounts circulated of a race between jihadists to carry out suicide operations, so as to win their virgins. This was not limited to the jihadists themselves, however; videos surfaced of some jihadists’ mothers and fathers urging their sons to Jihad, as "the virgins" await them.
“Considering young jihadists as merely sexually obsessed and hypnotized, grossly disregards what motivates young people to join Islamic Jihad,” says Psychiatrist Jalal Nofal says in Bil Mizan. He adds: “The relation between sex and jihad, is that between death and life. Discussing sex never as taboo in Islamic history; jurist Al-Suyuti penned many books about sex and its nuances in the period when a sophisticated Islamic civilization prevailed. This has changed in our contemporary era. There is a reality behind all these jihadist fantasies; political reality is part-and-parcel of this reality, that consecrates marginalization and injustice."
"The world has witnessed many terrorist movements—in Europe, Latin America, and other countries. These movements had no religious backgrounds. The problem lies in the ideology of suicide, which seems to conceal from its supporters more than it reveals to them; and blinds them from what they should actually see. Jihadi doctrine is part of religious belief; but it is the doctrine of the marginalized, that has assumed its most extreme form. The terrorism of the twentieth century was that of marginalized groups, which found in suicide a viable way to face the reality that has marginalized them,“ Nofal adds.
How does the abject reality produce terrorist movements? How can the ideological fountainheads of jihadi and suicide ideologies be dried up?
Psychiatrist Jalal Nofal provides answers in this episode of Bil Mizan.
To listen to the entire episode, kindly follow the link:
* Bil Mizan: a joint program between the Maakom channel of Radio Netherlands and Radio Rozana, in cooperation with the Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability.