By Arnaud de Borchgrave

In a truly free election in Saudi Arabia with the royal family on the sidelines bereft of the divine right of kings, and Osama Bin Laden as a candidate for prime minister, the world’s most wanted terrorist would win hands down. So spoke, albeit privately, one of the most important non-royals who manages a big chunk of the royal family’s portfolio of financial assets.

Bin Laden, a member of a powerful and rich as Croesus non-royal family, is seen by countless millions of fundamentalist Muslims as the successor of several famous Islamic theologians going back all the way to Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyya. Born in AD 1269 , Taymiyya was prolix on jihad (holy war) against transgressors of the word of Allah as conveyed by the Prophet. This contemporary of Dante elevated jihad to the same level as the “five pillars” of Islam—prayer, pilgrimage, alms, faith (“No God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet”), and Ramadan.

The Age of Sacred Terror is a remarkable new book by two of the Clinton White House’s counter-terrorist directors that delves into the roots of militant Islam and its jihad duties. Anyone who opposes jihad is an enemy of God.

“By asserting that jihad against apostates within the realm of Islam is justified—by turning jihad inward and reforging it into a weapon for use against Muslims as well as infidels—- [Taymiyya] planted a seed of revolutionary violence in the heart of Islamic thought,” wrote co-authors Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon. more

-- Anonymous, January 12, 2003