<failure notice>

[restate]

(theatre ov operatsion)



>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=96697
>
>What Muslim would write: 'The time of fun and waste is gone'?
>Robert Fisk
>29 September 2001
>
>Fearful, chilling, grot-esque – but also very, very odd. If the handwritten,
>five-page document which the FBI says it found in the baggage of Mohamed
>Atta, the suicide bomber from Egypt, is genuine, then the men who murdered
>more than 7,000 innocent people believed in a very exclusive version of
>Islam – or were surprisingly unfamiliar with their religion.
>
>"The time of Fun and waste is gone,'' Atta, or one of his associates, is
>reported to have written in the note. "Be optimistic ... Check all your
>items – your bag, your clothes, your knives, your will, your IDs, your
>passport ... In the morning, try to pray the morning prayer with an open
>heart.''
>
>Part theological, part mission statement, the document – extracts from which
>were published in The Washington Post yesterday – raises more questions than
>it answers.
>
>Under the heading of "Last Night'' – presumably the night of 10 September –
>the writer tells his fellow hijackers to "remind yourself that in this night
>you will face many challenges. But you have to face them and understand it
>100 per cent ... Obey God, his messenger, and don't fight among yourself
>[sic] where [sic] you become weak ... Everybody hates death, fears death
>..."
>
>The document begins with the words: "In the name of God, the most merciful,
>the most compassionate ... In the name of God, of myself, and of my
>family.''
>
>The problem is that no Muslim – however ill-taught – would include his
>family in such a prayer. Indeed, he would mention the Prophet Mohamed
>immediately after he mentioned God in the first line. Lebanese and
>Palestinian suicide bombers have never been known to refer to "the time of
>fun and waste'' – because a true Muslim would not have "wasted'' his time
>and would regard pleasure as a reward of the after-life.
>
>And what Muslim would urge his fellow believers to recite the morning
>prayer – and then go on to quote from it? A devout Muslim would not need to
>be reminded of his duty to say the first of the five prayers of the day –
>and would certainly not need to be reminded of the text. It is as if a
>Christian, urging his followers to recite the Lord's Prayer, felt it
>necessary to read the whole prayer in case they didn't remember it.
>
>American scholars have already raised questions about the use of "100 per
>cent'' – hardly a theological term to be found in a religious exhortation –
>and the use of the word "optimistic'' with reference to the Prophet is a
>decidedly modern word.
>
>However, the full and original Arabic text has not been released by the FBI.
>The translation, as it stands, suggests an almost Christian view of what the
>hijackers might have felt – asking to be forgiven their sins, explaining
>that fear of death is natural, that "a believer is always plagued with
>problems''.
>
>A Muslim is encouraged not to fear death – it is, after all, the moment when
>he or she believes they will start a new life – and a believer in the
>Islamic world is one who is certain of his path, not "plagued with
>problems''.
>
>There are no references to any of Osama bin Laden's demands – for an
>American withdrawal from the Gulf, an end to Israeli occupation, the
>overthrow of pro-American Arab regimes – nor any narrative context for the
>atrocities about to be committed. If the men had an aspiration – and if the
>document is above suspicion – then they were sending their message direct to
>their God.
>
>The prayer/instructions may have been distributed to other hijackers before
>the massacres occurred – The Washington Post says the FBI found another copy
>of "essentially the same document'' in the wreckage of the plane which
>crashed in Pennsylvania. No text of this document has been released.
>
>In the past, CIA translators have turned out to be Lebanese Maronite
>Christians whose understanding of Islam and its prayers may have led to
>serious textual errors. Could this be to blame for the weird references in
>the note found in Atta's baggage? Or is there something more mysterious
>about the background of those who committed a crime against humanity in New
>York and Washington, just over two weeks ago?
>
>>From the start, the hole in the story has been the reported behaviour of the
>hijackers. Atta was said to have been a near-alcoholic, while Ziad Jarrahi,
>the alleged Lebanese hijacker of the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania,
>had a Turkish girlfriend in Hamburg and enjoyed nightclubs and drinking. Is
>this why the published text refers to the "forgiveness'' of sin?
>
>The final instruction, "to make sure that you are clean, your clothes are
>clean, including your shoes,'' may have been intended as a call to purify a
>"martyr" before death. Equally, it may reflect the thoughts of a truly
>eccentric – and wicked – mind.
>
>The document found in Atta's baggage ends with a heading: "When you enter
>the plane". It then urges the hijackers to recite: "Oh God, open all doors
>for me ... I am asking for your help. I am asking you for forgiveness. I am
>asking you to lighten my way. I am asking you to lift the burden I feel
>...''
>
>Was this an attempt to smother latent feelings of compassion towards the
>passengers on the hijacked planes – who included children among them – or
>towards the thousands who would die when the aircraft crashed? Did the 19
>suicide bombers say these words to themselves in their last moments?
>
>Or didn't they need to.