The Next Mahdi

At this writing, the New York Times’ banner headline is that Osama bin Laden is surrounded. I imagine the next twenty fours, which will in all likelihood coincide with the end of Ramadan, will see significant military action in the White Mountains of Afghanistan.

There may be heavy fighting, in which case there will an unpredictable number of casualties on both sides, with those holed up in the mountains choosing to die as martyrs. It is also anticipated that the remaining Taliban and/or Al-Qaidah forces who do not chose to surrender or to stand and fight will attempt to break through and escape into Pakistan.

From what I have heard here, Pakistan will make every effort to intercept them, for the Pakistani Army does not want the embarrassment or potential fall-out of having allowed these latter-day Mujaahideen escaped through their net and finding refuge in Pakistan.

After all, why would Pakistan want to harbor these men? Look at how the Taliban treated those Pakistani “Jihadi” volunteers who streamed into Afghanistan in early October to help the embattled Taliban. They placed those untrained and ill-equipped men, often males whose beards were gray, if they had beards yet at all, directly at the fronts, while the Taliban forces themselves kept themselves back, or planned their escape. Pakistan, both the government and the people, can hardly be sympathetic toward such callous treatment of the well-intentioned Jihadis.

What of Bin Laden himself. What will be his fate? I cannot imagine he would allow himself to be captured, I cannot imagine his committing suicide to avoid capture, and I certainly cannot imagine his allowing his body to be recovered.

Is Bin Laden is more valuable alive than dead? Is he perhaps already dead?

In discussions amongst commentators ensuing the release of the last Bin Laden videotape, in which he exulted in the destruction he wreaked and numbers of victims, the general feeling was that Bin Laden had bitten off more than he could chew.

If his avowed goal was to lop off the top of the World Trade Center, causing perhaps several hundred persons, then his “success” was his failure. Had the operation been only hit-and-run, he might have expected to give the United States a black eye while living to fight another day.

No, such massive and wanton destruction only sealed his fate.

It has been suggested widely that Bin Laden is only the tip of the iceberg, than his money was behind the operation and his name at the top of the Al-Qaidah corporate station (if such existed), but that he was a puppet controlled by more sinister men.

Such men would know that Bin Laden’s days, as well as usefulness, were limited. And that he could be more useful dead than alive.

I am willing to be wrong, but I believe that he is already dead, assassinated by those others really running and controlling Al-Qaidah, and his body disposed of.

What good would that be? There is a strong tradition in Islam of powerful leaders disappearing, with their followers believing that one day, in shaa’a Allah, he will return in glory. This cardinal belief is especially strong in Shi’ite Islam ­ I am not criticizing or faulting it; I am merely stating a fact.

But an Osama bin Laden whose forces in Afghanistan are routed on the final days of Ramadan, 1422 and who mysteriously disappears, evading the combined forces of the Americans, the anti-Taliban Afghanis, and the Pakistans, can live to fight another day.

Especially if he is already dead.

As an occulted leader, Osama will become a new Mahdi, inspiring his minions to continue the Jihad, to continue to bring terror to innocent victims, as well as blacken the name and reputation of Islam.

Read other articles on Islam by Siraadj Munir here.