Spiritual guidance

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The so-called Spiritual Guide is a handwritten four-page document in Arabic that was published on September 28, 2001 by the FBI and the US Department of Justice and is assigned to the September 11th assassins . In America it became known as the "Doomsday Document".

origin

According to the FBI, it was found in a travel bag belonging to the hijacker Mohammed Atta , which was not loaded onto American Airlines Flight 11 . Another copy of the document was found in a vehicle belonging to Nawaf al-Hazmi who was on American Airlines Flight 77 . Remains of a third copy were in crashed in Pennsylvania machine found. The document from which scans were published on the Internet also circulated in several translation versions.

Content and interpretation

The document reveals the religious foundation of the attacks and, when it was published, once again raised public awareness of the previously discussed problem of Islamically legitimized violence. The “spiritual guide” contains some practical instructions for the attacks, but mainly gives the perpetrators advice with a religious content. She encourages inner calm, obedience and fearlessness when killing, recommends mental distraction by intensely reciting religious formulas and calling out the formula Allāhu akbar to intimidate the unbelievers . The enemies are the " crusaders ", that is, the western world , the Jews and "henchmen", meaning Muslim governments that cooperate with the West. It also contains several words from the Koran, including the invitation to hit the necks of the unbelievers and each of their fingers individually ( Sura 8 : 12). The perpetrators are also given the prospect that the paradise gardens have already been decorated for them and that the huris (paradisiacal virgins) will summon them. The scientist Seidensticker sees the document as a religiously disguised employment strategy so that the suicide bombers don't lose their nerves at the last minute.

Translation and analysis

In 2004 it was in a German translation of the Bremen religious scholar Hans G. Kippenberg and the Jena Islamic scholar Tilman Seidensticker published , the original Arabic in the appendix, with a scientific analysis. Translation by Albrecht Fuess , Mouez Khalfaoui and Tilman Seidensticker. A precise scientific analysis was not carried out until the translation was published in 2004, partly because the authenticity of the document had been questioned.

authenticity

The authenticity of the document is now beyond doubt. The fact that it did not incriminate the American government's "wishful offenders" at the time speaks for its authenticity.

literature

  • Hans G. Kippenberg, Tilman Seidensticker (ed.): Terror in the service of God. The 'spiritual guidance' of the assassins of September 11, 2001. Campus Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 2004. 128 pages.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Hans G. Kippenberg: "Introduction" in Kippenberg / Seidensticker: Terror in the service of God . 2004, pp. 7–16, here 8–11.
  2. ^ Hijacking Letter Found at Three Locations. In: Press Releases - FBI Homepage. September 28, 2001, archived from the original on March 14, 2007 ; Retrieved January 5, 2015 .
  3. ↑ See Kippenberg in Kippenberg / Seidensticker: Terror in the service of God. 2004, p. 84.
  4. ^ Samuel Salzborn : Global anti-Semitism. A search for traces in the abyss of modernity. Beltz Juventa, Weinheim 2018, p. 117.
  5. ↑ See the translation by A. Fuess / M. Khalfaoui / T. Seidensticker: Terror in the service of God. 2004, pp. 22, 24.
  6. ^ Tilman Seidensticker: The "Spiritual Guide" of the assassins of September 11, 2001 ( Memento of November 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ See Kippenberg / Seidensticker: Terror in the service of God. 2004, pp. 17-27.
  8. ↑ See Seidensticker in Kippenberg / Seidensticker: Terror in the Service of God. 2004, p. 36.