In light of this, should one expect the jihad to disappear now that al-Baghdadi is dead?
When it comes to the significance of the killing of this or that jihadi leader, the most accurate prediction I have ever read—one that has proven too true—comes not from U.S. politicians, "experts," or media. It comes from al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Asked in a 2005 interview about the status of bin Laden and the Taliban's Mullah Omar, he confidently replied:
Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden—may Allah protect them from all evil—are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth [Islam] and Falsehood [non-Islam] transcends time (The Al Qaeda Reader, p.182, emphasis added).
And there it is: jihad "transcends time" and is not predicated on this or that leader. Muslim warlords, ideologues, emirs, sultans, caliphs—even the prophet of Islam himself—have come and gone for nearly 1,400 years, but the jihad rages on.
