Said prosecutor Andrew McCarthy:

The Blind Sheikh is a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence graduated from al-Azhar University in Cairo, the seat of Sunni Islamic learning for over a millennium. His area of expertise is sharia — Islam’s legal code and societal framework. The jihadists who listened to him did so because he is an internationally recognized authority in the political ideology that draws on Islamic scripture to inspire attacks against the West. The centrality of ideology tells us why terrorists obeyed the Blind Sheikh. It tells us why terrorists act. This is something we must grasp if we have any hope of defending ourselves and defeating our enemies.

He was a a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence and he plotted jihad mass murder on a grand scale. There is a lesson in this for policymakers, but are any heeding it?

“Omar Abdel Rahman, ‘blind sheik’ convicted in 1993 World Trade Center attack, dies at 78,” by Matt Schudel, Washington Post, February 18, 2017: