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The Believers are but / A single Brotherhood; / So make peace and / Reconciliation between your / Two (contending) brothers; / And fear Allah, that ye / May receive Mercy. quran 49 : 10 6 ISLAM AND THE REGION AT WAR Saddam kept his promise. Shortly after the coalition forces initiated the air war on 17 January, Iraq launched Scud missiles at Tel Aviv. A day later, in one of the most dramatic pro-Saddam demonstrations of the entire conflict, an estimated 400,000 Algerians marched in their capital in response.1 Many of the marchers chanted slogans or carried banners calling for peace, and virtually every political party took part; but the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was especially prominent. Its members had slogans of a different sort: ‘‘Tremble, Jews, the army of Muhammad has returned.’’ Saddam had not always enjoyed such popularity with Algeria’s foremost Islamic party. Indeed, Shaykh Abbasi Madani, one of the leaders of FIS, had immediately denounced the invasion in August , using the technical Quranic term baghi (an injustice, an outrage) to inveigh against it.2 Earlier Shaykh Ali Belhadj, another of its leaders, had punningly referred to the Iraqi president’s name as haddam (destroyed ) and khaddam (servant), while offering his condemnations of the wealthy Kuwaitis. And shortly before the war, the FIS leadership cautioned its followers against venerating Saddam. But the Hijara missiles , the ‘‘stones’’ he threw against the Zionists on behalf of ‘‘the children of the stones,’’, proved Saddam a man of his word. Now he was Tseng 2004.1.9 09:57 6983 Long / SADDAM’S WAR OF WORDS / sheet 155 of 288 fahl, a term indicating the male of any species of large animal; hence, a man of exceptional virility and power. Saddam had kept his promise. A little over a week later, FIS called for a demonstration just of its own supporters. An estimated 60,000 to 100,000 turned out. ‘‘Victory to Islam and the Muslims,’’ they chanted during the march. But the demonstration had another aspect. In a speech to the National Assembly on 23 January, President Chadli had denounced the ‘‘blackmail and demagogy’’ of the FIS, which was contesting power in Algeria. The Islamists, in response, called for this subsequent march, not just to support Saddam, but also to defy the National Liberation Front (FLN), Algeria ’s ruling party, and to demonstrate its own power. In the march, FIS protestors called on the government to set a date for national elections. After some delays the date was set for December 1991. Saddam’s call for jihad against the neo-imperialists proved enormously powerful, and Muslims from Morocco to Malaysia responded, as seen in the demonstrations in Algeria. But the numbers can be misleading : they give the impression of a monolithic response, a uniform, almost unthinking uprising of the Muslim street on behalf of Baghdad. Most of those who marched did so to support Saddam, but also for an array of domestic, regional, and international factors. Certainly, there was no single cause for which 400,000 marched through Algiers, and Algeria was facing its own descensus ad infernum.3 Saddam happened to invade Kuwait at a time when Algerians were debating national identity , electoral politics, the role of the military, and economic issues; they likely would have marched (although not in such large numbers) even if the border of Kuwait had remained inviolate.Thus, the FIS-only march on 31 January reflected both support for Saddam and a statement about domestic power sharing. And Algeria was not unique. In every country in the Middle East, support or opposition to Saddam was affected by a range of factors. The response was massive, but never monolithic, whether looked at regionally or state by state or within a given state. Such, for instance, was the case in Egypt, where the position of the Islamists changed over time and reflected considerable contestation within.4 In the Middle East and across the world, Islam supplied , once again, the language of legitimation and delegitimation, the language of social analysis and social protest, the language of political aspirations and religious denunciation.5 This chapter surveys some of the region’s responses to the Iraqi’s carefully orchestrated appeal to jihad. Studies by other writers have shown that Muslims responded in large numbers, and this chapter is 140 s a d da m ’ s wa r o f wo r d s Tseng 2004.1.9 09:57 6983 Long / SADDAM’S WAR OF WORDS...

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