2020 Visions?

Some while back, I suggested that Al-Qaida's strategic timeline might be responsive to a comment made by Sheikh Safar al-Hawali at the end of his book, Day of Wrath, to the effect that Jerusalem would likely return to Muslim hands in 2012. Al-Hawali drew this conclusion from his study of Biblical prophecies, and as bin Laden has been known to read al-Hawali's writings, the possibility exists that he might think in terms of the Sheikh's apocalyptic timeline.

This DoublesQuotes presents an even longer timeline, juxtaposing the strategic thinking of Makkawi (ie Sayf al-Adel) of al-Qaida with an apocalytpic date from Sheikh Bassam Jarrar, a Hamas leader whose prophetic predictions are to be found in his book The Wonders of 19: Between the Inattentiveness of the Muslims and the Errors of the Falsifiers. Hamas is not al-Qaida, and I am not claiming a direct connection between the two dates -- merely suggesting that these two quotes between them are suggestive of an even longer possible strategic overview than the one I proposed earlier.

I am grateful to Anne Marie Oliver and Paul Steinberg, whose brilliant, poetic book The Road to Martyrs' Square (Oxford, 2005) tipped me off to Jarrar's work.