Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Islamic Nation Will Pass (Arabic: إدارة التوحش: أخطر مرحلة ستمر بها الأمة, Idārat at-Tawaḥḥuš: Akhṭar marḥalah satamurru bihā l 'ummah),[1] also translated as Administration of Savagery,[1] is a book by the Islamist strategist Abu Bakr Naji, published on the Internet in 2004. It aimed to provide a strategy for al-Qaeda and other extremists whereby they could create a new Islamic caliphate.[2]

The real identity of Abu Bakr Naji is claimed by the Al Arabiya Institute for Studies to be Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim.[3][4] His known works are this piece and some contributions to the al-Qaeda online magazine Sawt al-Jihad. National Public Radio has described Naji as a "top al-Qaida insider" and characterized the work as "al-Qaida's playbook".[5]

Etymology

The word in the title توحش tawaḥḥuš has been translated as "savagery" or "barbarism".[6] As it is a form V verbal noun derived from the root وحش waḥš "wild animal", it has also accordingly been translated "beastliness".[7]

Themes and stages

Management of Savagery discusses the need to create and manage nationalist and religious resentment and violence in order to create long-term propaganda opportunities for jihadist groups. Notably, Naji discusses the value of provoking military responses from superpowers in order to recruit and train guerrilla fighters and to create martyrs. Naji suggests that a long-lasting strategy of attrition will reveal fundamental weaknesses in the ability of superpowers to defeat committed jihadists.[8]

Naji professes to have been inspired by Ibn Taymiyya, the influential 14th-century Islamic scholar and theologian.[8]

Stages

The Najji describes three states of jihad.

In practice

A number of media outlets have compared the attempts by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to establish territorial control in Iraq and Syria with the strategy outlined in Management of Savagery.[8][17][18][19] The first issue of the Islamic State's online magazine, Dabiq, contained discussion of guerrilla warfare and tactics that closely resembled the writings and terminology used in Management of Savagery, although the book was not mentioned directly.[20] Journalist Hassan Hassan, writing in The Guardian, reported an ISIL-affiliated cleric as saying that Management of Savagery is widely read among the group's commanders and some of its rank-and-file fighters. It was also mentioned by another member of ISIL in a list of books and ideologues that influence the group.[21]

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been described by The Jamestown Foundation as following Naji's guidelines in Yemen,[1] while the book has been mentioned positively in interviews with members of Somalia's Al-Shabaab.[22]

Scholars Brian A. Jackson and Bryce Loidolt argue that Management of Savagery and Mustafa Setmariam Nasar's The Global Islamic Resistance Call led al-Qaeda to innovate and shift practices.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Ryan, Michael W. S. (28 January 2010). "Al-Qaeda's Purpose in Yemen Described in Works of Jihad Strategists". Terrorism Monitor. 8 (4): Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved 7 September 2014.
  2. ^ a b c Wright, Lawrence (16 June 2014). "ISIS's Savage Strategy in Iraq". The New Yorker. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
  3. ^ Nesira, Hani (16 May 2014). إدارة التوحش..والملاذات الآمنة للإرهاب من نظام الأسد إلى إمارة داعش!. Al Arabiya Institute for Studies (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 29 December 2018. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
  4. ^ Nesira, Hani (6 July 2013). "From Agassi to Al Nusra..Assad experience in jihadi investment!". Al Arabiya Institute for Studies. Archived from the original on 16 October 2014. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  5. ^ Sullivan, Laura (27 June 2006). "Al-Qaida's Playbook". NPR.
  6. ^ Ulph, Stephen (17 March 2005). "New Online Book Lays Out Al-Qaeda's Military Strategy". Terrorism Focus. Vol. 2, no. 6. Jamestown Foundation.
  7. ^ Cole, Juan (28 March 2016). "Trump's and Islamic State's Gray Zones: Radicals' Terrorism Is Sign of Their Battlefield Losses". Truthdig. Retrieved 2017-02-22.
  8. ^ a b c d e Wright, Lawrence (11 September 2006). "The Master Plan". The New Yorker. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
  9. ^ a b Gerges, Fawaz A. (18 March 2016). "The World According to ISIS". Foreign Policy Journal. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Sole, Jeff (2 June 2016). ""Management Of Savagery" – A Model For Establishing The Islamic State". Mackenzie Institute. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
  11. ^ Najji, Management of Savagery, p.20
  12. ^ Worth, Robert F. (2016). A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-374-71071-2.
  13. ^ Crooke, Alastair (30 June 2014). "The ISIS' 'Management of Savagery' in Iraq". HuffPost. Retrieved 22 August 2019.
  14. ^ al-Ibrahim, Fouad (22 August 2014). "Why ISIS is a threat to Saudi Arabia: Wahhabism's deferred promise". Al Akhbar. Lebanon. Archived from the original on 24 August 2014. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
  15. ^ Neurink, Judit (21 February 2015). "ANALYSIS: The 'Savage' book behind ISIS violence". Rudaw. Retrieved 21 August 2019.
  16. ^ Najji, Management of Savagery, p.50
  17. ^ McCoy, Terrence McCoy (12 August 2014). "The calculated madness of the Islamic State's horrifying brutality". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
  18. ^ Alastair, Crooke (30 June 2014). "The ISIS' 'Management of Savagery' in Iraq". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
  19. ^ Ignatius, David (25 September 2014). "The 'Mein Kampf' of Jihad". The Washington Post. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
  20. ^ Ryan, Michael W.S. (1 August 2014). "Dabiq: What Islamic State's New Magazine Tells Us about Their Strategic Direction, Recruitment Patterns and Guerrilla Doctrine". Hot Issues. Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  21. ^ Hassan, Hassan (8 February 2015). "Isis has reached new depths of depravity. But there is a brutal logic behind it". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 February 2015.
  22. ^ McCants, Will (30 April 2012). "Al Qaeda Is Doing Nation-Building. Should We Worry?". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
  23. ^ Loidolt, Bryce; Jackson, Brian A. (2013). "Considering al-Qa'ida's Innovation Doctrine: From Strategic Texts to 'Innovation in Practice'". Terrorism and Political Violence. 25 (2): 284–310. doi:10.1080/09546553.2012.662557. S2CID 144363806.