Major Nidal M. Hasan’s Jihad Seminar Explained

These are notes on Major Hasan's seminar on 'The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military.'   An earlier posting surveyed some features of the seminar. These notes, put together while Pentagon and Senate investigations into the Fort Hoot shootings are still underway, go through the Major Hasan's slides more systematically.

This seminar was presented to senior US Army medical personnel in June 2007, at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  It gives a clear theological explanation for attacks by Muslim US military personnel on fellow American soldiers, and other related 'adverse events'.

Major Hasan's subsequent jihad attack on fellow members of the US military at Fort Hood in November 2009 provides an unambiguous application of the very principles he presented a year and a half earlier in his medical seminar.  

It is regrettable that many have trouble engaging with the ideas which Major Hasan presented, and prefer to dismiss them as 'extremist'.  It is also tragic that his supervisors did not discern and act upon the material which Major Hasan laid out so clearly before them. 

The trigger which caused Major Hasan to act in accordance with his beliefs, killing fellow American service personnel, was a posting to Afghanistan.  In his seminar he had recommended that Muslim military personnel be permitted  to opt out of postings where they would be required to fight against fellow Muslims.

An explanation is offered here of each slide, as a resource to help people understand Major Hasan's worldview and subsequent tragic actions.

The full text of these notes, together with the slide images, is posted on Mark Durie's blog at http://markdurie.blogspot.com/2009/12/major-nidal-m-hasans-jihad-seminar.html


Mark Durie