Pages of History: Osama Bin Laden's Manual

This is an excerpt from the 180 page terrorist manual "Military studies in the Jihad against the Tyrants". It was recovered from the home of an English terrorist in 2000, and was supposedly written by Osama bin Laden himself. The manual was written in Arabic; it has been translated into English here.

"The Tyrants used every means at their disposal to try to raise a generation of men who knew nothing except what the Tyrants wanted, said nothing except what the Tyrants thought, lived only as the Tyrants commanded, and even wore only what the Tyrants approved. Yet Allah turned their lies back upon them; droves of those same men, raised by the Tyrants, awoke. They returned to Allah, and they repented.

These men, graced by Allah, understood that Islam is not merely a collection of rituals, but a way of life. It is religion and rule, faith and holy war, morality and sociology. It is the Qur'an and the sword. The dark truth is that their nations have abandoned Allah's ways, and his holy law. That dark truth befell them because of their love for the world, their fear of death, and their forsaking of the holy war.

Heresy is as it always has been. Abou Jahl (Allah curse him), along with the infidels of Kureish battled the Prophet (Allah bless him), and tortured his loyal servants (the grace of Allah on them). Heresy, too, compelled Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, Gadhafi, Hafez Assad, Saleh, Fahed (Allah curse them all), and all enemy Arab leaders to torture, murder, imprison, and persecute Muslims.

But these men, who have returned to Allah, understood that Islamic government can never be born except by guns and bombs. Islam does not live together with heresy, Islam does not make peace with heresy; Islam stands firm against it.

Islam is resolute against the heathens and heretic rulers; it does not know the dialogue of Socrates, the ideals of Plato, or the diplomacy of Aristotle. Islam knows only the language of bullets, the ideal of assassination, violence, and devastation, and the diplomacy of the machine gun and cannon."