While the US’s war in Afghanistan appears to be drawing to a close, elsewhere it is business as usual for the Global War on Terror. Suspicion based on racial-cultural traits – particularly those associated with “Muslimness” – is a key feature of counter-terrorism policies which have turned inwards, away from neo-colonial expeditionary projects in Afghanistan or Iraq, to fight against the threats of ‘homegrown terrorism’ and ‘jihadist radicalisation’. However, this fight has led to the resuscitation of racist-orientalist stereotypes from a not-so-far-back colonial-imperial past.
Little remains known about the fate of individuals who are accused of being involved in terrorism-related offences. Most people will have heard about the unlawful detention and abuse of human beings in Guantanamo Bay, yet the practices in other states have remained scarcely documented. The general public rarely questions the legitimacy of state institutions acting in the name of “security for all” and therefore tends to assume that they have good reason for suspecting and detaining individuals. This lack of scrutiny in cases of terrorism has facilitated the mutation of the presumption of innocence into a presumption of guilt.
A concept that has been mobilised to discredit accused individuals in cases related to jihadist terrorism is “Taqiya”. Briefly put, Taqiya ascribes some legitimacy to lying about one’s faith in order to escape harm and death. The concept has been heavily debated and Islamic scholarship has not defined it consensually. Opinions range from those prohibiting it to those declaring it as compulsory.
Historically, it is reported to have mostly been used by Shia Muslims in order to escape death throughout centuries of persecution during the domination of the caliphates. It has also been used against Shia Muslims to declare them as liars and infidels. Some argue that the accusation of Taqiya is now being used in Europe against all people of Islamic faith, to delegitimise them and discredit any efforts at integration. Parallels can be drawn with anti-Judaism. Unsurprisingly, the idea has been zealously pushed by groups with agendas hostile to immigration and Islam.
The notion has infiltrated counter-terrorism discourse and practices and serves to maintain a veil of suspicion, and to block any acknowledgement of progress on the part of the accused. Any statement made by the accused or any positive behaviour (during penitentiary for example) is considered as part of a general deception strategy believed to be strategically adopted by ‘terrorists’. Counterterrorism scholar Arun Kundnani compellingly argues that the argument of taqiya has contributed to the mistrust and securitisation of Muslims in the US. In a nutshell, ‘Muslims who say they interpret Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance are not to be trusted’.
I have participated in many security conferences in central Europe over the past few years and noticed that ‘Taqiya’ is consistently brought up by at least one person in the audience to point out that the ‘terrorists’ cannot be trusted. Since it is not yet as widespread as concepts such as “jihad” or “sharia”, it also seems to be a convenient token to show off some ostensive expertise on the topic. During my fieldwork between Europe and the Arab World, I found various instances which indicate how Taqiya is used to silence, delegitimise, exclude, marginalise, oppress and mistreat individuals accused of terrorism-related offences or individuals associated with “Muslimness”.
In a case in Switzerland, a confidential expertise on the risk of an individual who was convicted for his presumed affiliation with so-called Islamic State said the following regarding his trustworthiness:
In accordance with the religious literature of this cultural circle, the use of cunning and deception vis-à-vis non-Muslims is expressly permitted or even encouraged, especially if one is stuck in a difficult situation. This deception strategy is known as Taqiya within the Shiite community but is also well known in the Sunni community to which the client belongs.
For the same individual, security agencies concluded that although he had behaved impeccably during detention and even after his liberation, he could not be trusted and his criminal energy remained high. Having assessed this case in depth, I can confidently state that there are no objective reasons for these claims other than the Taqiya-inspired generalised discrediting of Muslim suspects.
Perhaps of even greater concern is that Taqiya is mobilised against practitioners. A German social worker recounted being excluded from the most sensitive discussions and even faced interrogation-like encounters with security agents who were openly or subtly doubtful about her trustworthiness as a Muslim woman. Once, she was literally accused of ‘Taqiya’. On another occasion, a prosecutor declared that ‘a Salafist has never betrayed a brother’, indicating her sweeping mistrust of anyone accused (by herself) of terrorism-related offences.
Alongside the brutalised notions of jihad, sharia, hijra, etc. Taqiya is slowly but surely entering the repertoire of ad-hoc stereotypical ‘knowledge’ on jihadism, Salafism, and Islam more broadly. Practitioners often confront suspects using such information (acquired during a workshop or via an internet source), enthusiastic about the prospects of ‘understanding how these people think’ and knowing how to deal with them, yet often completely oblivious to the gross dehumanising nature of their statements. The increasing use of Taqiya as a silencing mechanism is particularly concerning, given the persistent difficulties to ensure the respect of fundamental human rights in the era of counterterrorism and counter-radicalisation.