The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright [58]
Azzam reacted by officially joining forces with his protégé. In September 1984, during the hajj, the two men met in Mecca. Although he was quiet and deferential, bin Laden already had his own plan. Perhaps it had been born in that attack in Jaji, when the Arabs all dove for the trenches. He had observed that the Afghans treated them as “glorified guests,” not as real mujahideen. He suggested to Azzam that “we should take on the responsibility of the Arabs, because we know them better and can provide more rigorous training for them.” The two men agreed to create a more formal role for the Arabs in Afghanistan, although there were few Arabs actually fighting the jihad at that time. Bin Laden undertook to change that by offering a ticket, a residence, and living expenses for every Arab—and his family—who joined their forces. That amounted to about three hundred dollars per month for each household.
Azzam added to bin Laden’s stunning announcement by issuing a fatwa that electrified Islamists everywhere. In a book eventually published under the title Defense of Muslim Lands, Azzam argued that jihad in Afghanistan was obligatory for every able-bodied Muslim.* He had given an advance copy of the text to Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz, Saudi Arabia’s chief cleric, who wrote a preface to the book and pronounced his own supporting fatwa in the bin Laden family mosque in Jeddah.
Azzam’s fatwa draws a distinction between a fard ayn and a fard kifaya. The first is an individual religious obligation that falls upon all Muslims, like praying and fasting. One cannot avoid such duties and be considered a good Muslim. If nonbelievers invade a Muslim land, it is fard ayn—a compulsory duty—for the local Muslims to expel them. If they fail, then the obligation expands to their Muslim neighbors. “If they, too, slacken, or there is again a shortage of manpower, then it is upon the people behind them, and on the people behind them, to march forward. This process continues until it becomes fard ayn upon the whole world.” A child does not need permission from his parents, nor a debtor from his creditor, nor even a woman from her husband to join the jihad against the invader. Fard kifaya, on the other hand, is a duty of the community. Azzam gives the example of a group of people walking along a beach. “They see a child about to drown.” The child, he suggests, is Afghanistan. Saving the drowning child is an obligation for all the swimmers who witness him. “If someone moves to save him, the sin falls from the rest. But, if no one moves, all the swimmers are in sin.” Thus Azzam argues that the jihad against the Soviets is the duty of each Muslim individually, as well as of the entire Muslim people, and that all are in sin until the invader is repelled.
Bolstered by the imprimatur of bin Baz and other distinguished clerics, news of the fatwa circulated immediately through Islamic communities everywhere. Although it’s true that the Arab Afghan movement began with these two events—bin Laden’s announcement of financial support for Arab mujahideen and Azzam’s searing fatwa—one would have to say that their initial efforts were largely a failure. Rather few Arabs actually obeyed the summons, and many who did were drawn as much by bin Laden’s money as by the obligation to defend Islam in the manner that Azzam prescribed.
As soon as they returned to Pakistan, bin Laden and Sheikh Abdullah Azzam set up what they called the Services Bureau (Makhtab al-Khadamat) in a house bin Laden was renting in the University Town section of Peshawar. Bin Laden provided twenty-five thousand dollars a month to keep the office running. The house also served as a hostel for Arab mujahideen and the headquarters of Azzam’s magazine and book publishing efforts. The Services Bureau was essentially