Bin Ladin from local hero to new god?

A few things concern me about the 911 attacks (well, many things concern me about those horrid events!).

One is that there is clearly an extreme religious fervor associated with it, from the jihadi side if nothing else. After the attacks, we heard the many newborns throughout pakistan-afghanistan were named 'osama/usama' and the variations thereof. And bin ladin is seen as a hero amoung the jihadis and their sympathizers. Heros often become gods and agents of gods, and, indeed, its not unbeleiveable that there are many muslims who beleive that bin Ladin is an agent of god or doing gods holy work in his holy war.

Thats par for the course though, in general. What really concerns me is that the 911 attacks have what some call 'mythic archaetypes' associated within them. The biggest one is that it was a Tower that was attacked. In many religions, we have this association of the god with some tall projection, a cross for jesus, a pole for innana, trees that shamans ride into the heavens, gods associated with tall corn-stalks, etc. I have even read that it has been observed that, in some chimpanzee cultures, the group will start doing a ritual dance, an actual rythmic set of non-normal steps, often focuses around a tall tree.
So the problem here is that, beyond a regular jihadi or martyr and religious hero, bin Ladin has this 'powerful meme' incorporated into his story, the tall towers.

Another mythic element is that of twins. Often, two twins are invovled in myths, like the twin corn brothers of the native americans, or the twin brothers romulus and remus of italy. Castor and Pollux from ancient greek myths. Infact, just like people have been able to reconstruct ancience primitive languages by looking at what is held in common between distantly related modern languages, some have been confident in reconstructing ancient myths and have, through that method, propsed that there was a proto-indo-european myth of Mann and Tvinn.
If we look hard enough we can find this twin element of similars and opposites anywhere, and I don't think that that is too useful, however the WTC was known as the Twin Towers, very commonly infact. So that brings in the Twin element in a strong way.

I am not sure if the fact that the pentagon was also attacked works into these mythic archaetypes, and I suspect not, just because I don't recall the form of a building being part of these truly primitive and universal myths. That is because a geometrically specific building like that simply wouldn't've existed amoung truly ancient and primitive man, and thus wouldn't be universal amoung men.
Then again, since it is now pretty universal to have regularly shaped buildings, and everyone in the world knows about The Pentagon, it might very well be a newly universal element.

So this mythologizing of the bin Ladin story and the 911 attacks, which were pretty earth shattering and didn't just affect americans in the impact of the shock of it, it seems to me like it coudl grow, over long periods of time, into a seriously perpetuated myth, with fantastic elements being added to it, and that the character of bin ladin, now just a man on the run, could become more and more inhuman and supernatural as time goes on.

Indeed, in recently reading the confessions of Z. Moussasoui, I see that he is currently stating that he met directly with bin Ladin and was supposed to be piloting another plane in the attacks themselves. What I thought was most intersting was how the people in al-Qaida were represented. Moussasoui is a bit of a loser and a rather pathetic and weak minded person, and as his representation of the story goes, he and bin Ladin had come up with the plane attack, but it was rejected by others in the organization, and he was sent to indonesia or some such place, but he had to be pulled out there, and apparently he wasn't too favoured in the organization, especially by Khalil sheik Muhammed (i beleive). KSM had, if i recall Moussaouis story properly, rejected the plane attack idea at a critical moment, or at least rejected Moussasoui as being involved, but Moussasouis appealed to bin Ladin directly, and, finding his favour, was granted the mission.
Now, I personally don't know what to make of the story, if its true or not, but it would be interesting if it wasn't and that it represents a movement of bin ladin into something of a patron for moussaoui, and, because of the greater context of the movement, a patron on a divine mission and thus something of divine person in and of himself. Moussaouis own telling of the story has more of the godman ring to it though.

Another important factor is to take note of the divisions within islam. Clearly, islam doesn't permit worshipping a man as a god or as divine, and amoung the sunnis and wahabbis (bin ladin isn't, I belevie, a strict wahabbi infact), such a thing is especially disfavourable. But the muslims in afghanistan, north pakistan, and parts of iran are shia, whom have traditions of saints and near godmen, and also it is the birthplace of other quasi-islamic traditions that invovle men-as-gods, such as the b'hai and 'heretical' islamic sects.

So I can definitly see there being a serious 'danger' of these current events becoming strong myths of the (relatively distant) future, and bin Ladin becomming a god amoung some peoples, regardless of the outcome of this war.

The Great Sama then foresaw that if the Giant Twins survived, the Earth would forever be bathed in fire. Thus he journeyed to them, so as to conquer them in Mortal Kombat. Yet the Giant Twins were most powerful and evil. They laid traps and to thwart the Great Sama in his journey. After a perilous 4 years, Sama made it to the land of the Giant Twins. To call them to battle, he stamped his feet twice on the ground. The Giant twins appeared and the battle did thus start. Soon the Great Sama realised that the evil of the Great Twins was all pervading. He knew that only the purest form of destruction could diminish them. Thus with a great thwock, he spat at them. The spit transcended to pure light, and disintegrated the Giant Twins, freeing the world of their evil. This, my sons, is the story of the Great Sama


There are only SOME parts of Afghanistan where there are majority Shias, and they are really not well respected (I refer to the Hazaras). There were massacres of them under the Taliban. I don't think they'd support ol' Sama. Iran has a history of hating Afghanistan (especially under the Taliban), so I think they're out as well.

When Osama was on the top, with the news of having done this (which he originally denied, weirdly enough), some people saw him as a hero. Now that he's disappeared from public view, and people finally "getting the news" of how evil he is, he is getting into disfavour. I think there is only a small portion of Pakistan that supports him at all anymore.

I very much like the myth in the begining, I can honestly see how these sorts of things can get turned into myths over time in a similar way. Thanks for the clarification on the shia-sunni makeup there.

I recally that there are some heretical sects in pakistan that view some other more recent holy men as 'new prophets', as prophets after muhammed, and of course the nation of islam in the US is just like that too. Perhaps bin ladin will, as more events unfold, be taken as such.

I thinkthat the idea of the 'bab' as the door to the occulted Imam might also come into play here, or at least would have more relevancy if bin ladin was shia, at least that is how bab'ism and the b'hai got started (sans the terrorism of course).

Should be intersting to see it play out.