I dream of jihad: CSIS tracks terrorists' sleeping thoughts
Osama Bin Laden reportedly dreamed about Jihad, according to a CSIS report.
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Osama Bin Laden reportedly dreamed about Jihad, according to a CSIS report.
Stewart Bell, National Post · Apr. 8, 2011 | Last Updated: Apr. 8, 2011 9:57 AM ET
Canada's intelligence service has been studying the dreams of terrorists, a newly declassified government document indicates.
In a "secret" report titled The Role of Dreams in the Justification of Jihad, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service analyzes the links between dreams and Islamist terrorism.
The intelligence assessment says terrorists often report having dreams about Muslim religious figures and drawing inspiration from such visions.
"Dreams provide [an] inspirational component of the world of the jihadist," CSIS writes.
"Jihadists receive divine guidance of future events and see the legitimacy of their actions in their dreams."
The report is dated March 22, 2010, but was only recently released to the National Post under the Access to Information Act. Terrorists Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid as well as al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, and Taliban leader Mullah Omar have all claimed they dreamt about jihad, it says.
Read the CSIS document (PDF)
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden once described how, a year before 9/11, a fellow Islamist terrorist had dreamed about a soccer match between al-Qaeda pilots and Americans.
In his dream, the pilots won.
The CSIS report traces the terrorist obsession with dreams to the early days of the Muslim faith, and quotes an unnamed religious scholar who called Islam the "largest dream culture in the world today."
The interpretation of dreams is "a very old function" in Islam, it says, adding that they believe dreaming about being addressed by a ruler "could signify the attainment of a high rank or goal."
"Dream interpretation is closely tied to religious belief in Islam. Islamist extremists often report having dreams about the Prophet Muhammad or fellow mujahedin. Dreams about religions figures can inspire extremists to act." |
