Management of Savagery
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Management of Savagery (Arabic: إدارة التوحش ) is the title of a book on what is now called "jihadi strategic studies". It is subtitled The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Ummah Will Pass ( أخطر مرحلة ستمر بها الأمة ). The book was uploaded to the Internet in 2004 by the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Its author Abu Bakr Naji ( أبي بكر ناجي ) is unidentified; the name might represent more than one person.
Naji's book has been a significant influence on the terrorist activities of al-Qaeda. Work under the same name has appeared in the al-Qaeda online magazine Sawt al-Jihad.
In 2005 Management of Savagery was translated from Arabic into English by William F. McCants of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. The translation was commissioned by the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. It is available online.[1][2] An overview is also available.[3]
[edit] Summary
Management of Savagery is an open and frank description of the need to create and manage nationalist and religious resentment and violence in order to create long-term propaganda opportunities for jihadist groups. Most notably, the author discusses the value of provoking military responses by superpowers in order to recruit and train guerilla fighters and to create martyrs. Naji suggests that a longlasting strategy of attrition will reveal fundamental weaknesses in the abilities of superpowers to defeat committed Jihadists. While Naji uses the philosophy of Ibn Taymiyya, the influential Wahhabi theologian, his book displays a thoughtful understanding of western institutions and value systems, and the role and history of political Islam in Egypt, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, particularly the activities of Islamic Jihad in Egypt during the 1990s.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ The Management of Savagery in English, Combating Terrorism Center, United States Military Academy
- ^ The Management of Savagery in English, Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University
- ^ Stealing Al‐Qa'ida's Playbook, Jarret M. Brachman and William F. McCants, at the Combating Terrorism Center
- ^ Lawrence Wright, The Master Plan, New Yorker, September 11, 2006
