Surveillance in Islam’s Jihad

Muraqaba Ar. مراقبة  surveillance

By

Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin, Ph.D.

War Blog #30

Consider this: 94% est. of thinking is unconscious & 95% est. of communication is nonverbal. Thus symbols and fantasy are at the core of the problem of political violence. Form follows function; function follows fantasy.

To the best of my knowledge virtually nothing has been written about the concept of surveillance in Islam and specifically in jihad. The issue came up yesterday after my War Blog #29 The Gaza Mosque as Mother when a Swedish Somali woman former Muslim who converted to Christianity reached out and commented in the following manner. This is what she wrote:

The mosque is a dangerous place where all the dangerous and anti-social identifications took place.

And all the terrorist groups, the mosque was the place of the first meeting and then the observation.

Muhammad used the mosque to monitor the companions and their evidence... The five prayers.. It was the first monitoring system. He prayed early in the morning so that he would know who was in his house and did not communicate with the tribes opposed to him. And the night prayer until he knows that everyone is in their homes. Islamic thought is a thought based on individuals observing each other…

And to this days it is still used for those anti-social purposes…

Quoting Nina Aron 12.12.23

Notice how I have emphasized certain words in her quote placing them in bold: identifications, observation, first monitoring system, observing others. These words embody the concept of surveillance, placing someone under surveillance.

Let us now turn to the entry Surveillance in The Jihadi Dictionary to better understand how the idea of monitoring one’s behavior within the global and local ummah or as someone has put it “the glocal” and what that means unconscious and where does this monitoring behavior come from and how it has become religiously institutionalized – this is the key idea; how the behavior becomes “sanctioned” and internalized by the population:

First the general definition of surveillance:

The act of carefully watching someone or something especially in order to prevent or detect a crime; medical: close and continuous observation or testing.

Next we have the etymology :

√ 1802, from French surveillance: oversight, supervision, a watch from 17c. Seemingly came to English from the Terror in France; surveillance committees were formed in every French municipality in March 1793 by order of the Convention to monitor the actions and movements of suspect persons, outsiders, and dissidents.

Then a psychological definition for surveillance:

Ψ “Some critics, such as [French philosopher] Michel Foucault, believe that in addition to its obvious function of identifying and capturing individuals who are committing undesirable acts, surveillance also functions to create in everyone a feeling of always being watched, so that they become self-policing .... Psychologists have shown that merely giving people the ‘illusion’ of being observed can produce significant voluntary changes in a range of pro-social behaviors.”

One can think of the concept of paranoia and being under chronic surveillance as well as a counterdefense putting others under surveillance such as in delusional jealousy and envy.

Finally, we can see how surveillance manifests itself in Islam’s jihad and the jihadis like Hamas’s mentality with their reserve superego, i.e. what is good is bad and what is bad is good:

X (The crossed swords of jihad or how that translates into their mentality) Surveillance is a key concept in shame–honor cultures, with the focused fixation on the female because jihadis are not independent of their mothers. In the Middle East there is the recurrent theme and obsession with the evil eye. The symbolic evil eye is associated with the accusatory eye of the mother. Surveillance is a kind of psychological heliotropism, bonding through vision and stalking. The female is a substitute for the fusion, and jihadis do not really know how to see independently because of their paranoia. Hence, the theme of surveillance is tightly bound to all aspects of counterterrorism.

WeCU (We see you) Technologies, based in Israel, is developing a “mind reading“ technology to detect terrorists at airports. The technology involves projecting specific images onto a screen with the aim of thwarting victimization and terrorism. The idea, according to company CEO Ehud Givon, is that people always react when they see a familiar image in an unexpected location. People passing the screen would be monitored in part by humans but mostly by hidden cameras or sensors that can detect slight increases in body temperature and heart rate. In addition, more sensitive detection devices are currently under development. The bank of images used and the location where the images will appear are varied and unpredictable, so even trained suspects who are aware of the system’s presence can still be detected.

The WeCU technology and other technologies put jihadis under surveillance and seek to disarm them as they stalk their victims. According to Givon, “If you strolled through an airport and saw a picture of your mother [terrorism is at the core about the maternal matrix in our mind and in the jihadis’], you couldn’t help but respond.” While it remains unclear if, in fact, a maternal image will be projected, the relevant point is that Givon unconsciously invoked the maternal register in the fight against terrorism. The idea behind WeCU is to reflect back to the jihadi the core unconscious problem they manifest, even though it is unspoken. Through body language and eye response to the projected images, the jihadi reveals his anxiety and destructive intent.

In the Arabic root of r-q-b for surveillance there is another related word, raqaba meaning “neck.” The neck of the infidel plays an important role in jihad because it is stated in the Quran that there should be a blow to the neck especially for beheading. This is known as qital or slaughter. When one surveils, one is often looking at the neck of the person.

The Accusatory Eye of the Mother -- Shaming

The back of the neck has an even earlier tie into the concept of being put under surveillance and this is the accusatory eye of the mother. For her gaze strikes shame in the child and she repeats the shaming she experienced as a little helpless girl who had no honor until she gives birth to her first born male. Along with this pervasive shaming that has become institutionalized at muraqaba, the “evil eye” compounds the surveillance as in the above verse with its calligraphic image from the Quran Al Qalam 68:51-52:

The Verse of Evil Eye (Arabic: آیه وَإِن يَكَادُ) is verse 51 and 52 of Al-Qalam (Q68:51-52) in the Quran. It is usually recited for protection from the evil eye. It states: "And indeed, those who disbelieve would almost make you slip with their eyes when they hear the message, and they say: Indeed, he is mad.

To conclude

Surveillance is an important tool which is nonverbal to manipulate and control the other to bring them into submission. It is a manifestation of paranoid thinking and behavior when it becomes murderous. These nonverbal “controlling mechanisms” play a crucial role in jihad. The communication of the terror to the victim is fast and powerfully overwhelming. Surveillance is the objectification of the other.

For Hamas, people are merely objects to be controlled, manipulated and then annihilated. Think of the Israeli Jewish babies z”l who were tragically beheaded. There is no capacity to separate out fantasy from reality. This is the major missing piece in their early childhood development. Steps missed because of growing up in a shame honor culture where the religious way of life of Islam institutionalizes such mechanisms as surveillance – power and control which mask a rage that exceeds murder itself.

From The Jihadi Dictionary:

“So what does it matter if you grow up constantly stalked, incessantly under surveillance, or have a brother who is a bully? Does the paranoid glaze of the bullying terrorist impact your growth and development? Does it make you a better, fully functioning citizen for a democracy? Or does it leave you on your knees, unable to keep your head above water? Childhood with the mother becomes the launching pad for adulthood. Terrorism is bred in the home and is taken out into the world. It becomes problematic when men without empathy dominate and rule the planet.”

#Bringthemhomenow