“Islam: Beyond the Headlines”
Part 3 – Islam in the World
1. Political Islam (“Radical Islam”, “Islamism”)
A. Islam is a total, all-encompassing way of life that guides each person and his or her community and political life. It should guide social, political and person life. We need an inner cleansing politically
B. Departure from Islam and reliance on the West are the causes for Muslim decline. A return to the straight path of Islam will restore the identity, pride, success, power, and wealth of the Islamic community in this life and merit eternal reward in the next.
C. Jihad, to strive or struggle, both personally and in community, in ideas and in action to implement Islamic reform and revolution, is the means to bring about a successful Islamization of society and the world
2 Why ?
A. Humiliation and Western Intervention
B. Various remedies, most of them imported from the West, were tried and one after another failed.
C. Events
1. 1967 and 1973 Israel/Egypt Wars
D. New Resurgence – 1973 Oil Embargo
E. Religious oriented Nationalism
4. Methods
5. Individuals, Groups and Countries
A. Sayyid Qutb
C. Other Groups
D. Saudi Arabia
Most Muslims are not fundamentalists, and most fundamentalists are not terrorists, but most present-day terrorists are Muslims and proudly identify themselves as such.
1. Political Islam (“Radical Islam”, “Islamism”)
Political Islam is set of ideologies holding that Islam is "as much a political ideology as religion". Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary . Leading Islamist thinkers emphasized the enforcement of Sharia (Islamic law); of pan-Islamic political unity; and of the elimination of non-Muslim, particularly Western military, economic, political, social, or cultural influences in the Muslim world, which they believe to be incompatible with Islam. In many cases they harness religious ideas to support their causes, taking parts of Islam to support their cause and jettisoning others.
A. Islam is a total, all-encompassing way of life that guides each person and his or her community and political life. It should guide social, political and person life. We need an inner cleansing politically
Mawdudi a founder of an Islamist party in India – First of all, Islam, he said, is not a religion in the sense of "a hodge podge of some beliefs, prayers and rituals."11 Rather, "it is a comprehensive system that tends to annihilate all tyrannical and evil systems in the world and enforce its own program … in the interests of mankind." Secondly, Muslims are not a nation in the conventional sense of the term because Islam urges "mankind as a whole to bring about revolution and reform." Therefore, Islam is "a revolutionary concept and ideology which seeks to change and revolutionise the world social order and reshape it according to its own concept and ideal
Muslim belief that their societies must be reformed in every age
B. Departure from Islam and reliance on the West are the causes for Muslim decline. A return to the straight path of Islam will restore the identity, pride, success, power, and wealth of the Islamic community in this life and merit eternal reward in the next.
Muslim fundamentalists are those who feel that the troubles of the Muslim world at the present time are the result not of insufficient modernization but of excessive modernization, which they see as a betrayal of authentic Islamic values.
For them the remedy is a return to true Islam, including the abolition of all the laws and other social borrowings from the West and the restoration of the Islamic Holy Law, the shari’a, as the effective law of the land.
There are others who, while remaining committed Muslims and well aware of the flaws of modern Western society, nevertheless also see its merits— its inquiring spirit, which produced modern science and technology; its concern for freedom, which created modern democratic government
C. Jihad, to strive or struggle, both personally and in community, in ideas and in action to implement Islamic reform and revolution, is the means to bring about a successful Islamization of society and the world
The jihad (struggle) that became a central concept in describing the process of self-transformation and political activism, both against European colonialism and later against corrupt, un-Islamic –Muslim states, was primarily one of reform, not violent revolution.
2 Why ?
A Humiliation and Western Intervention
European colonialism – the French in North, West, and Equatorial Africa, and the Levant (Lebanon and Syria); the British in Palestine, Transjordan (now Jordan), Iraq, the Arabian Gulf, and the Indian subcontinent; and in Southeast Asia, the British in Malaya (Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei) and the Dutch in Indonesia
European colonialism reversed a pattern of Muslim rule and expansion that had existed from the time of the Prophet
Europe’s threat to Muslim identity and autonomy raised profound religious as well as political questions for many in the Muslim world: What had gone wrong? Why had Muslims fallen behind?
Example – Perhaps the most frequently cited example of Western interference and of its consequences is the overthrow of the Mosaddeq government in Iran in 1953. The crisis began when the popular nationalist leader Mosaddeq decided, with general support in the country, to nationalize the oil companies, and in particular the most important of them, the Anglo-Iranian Company. Certainly, the terms under which this and other concessionary oil companies operated were rightly seen as both unequal and unfavorable. For example, the Anglo-Iranian oil company paid more in taxes to the British government than in royalties to the government of Iran. The United States became involved first as an ally of Britain and then, increasingly, through fear of Soviet involvement on the side of Mosaddeq’s government. The American and British governments therefore decided, allegedly in agreement with the shah, to get rid of Mosaddeq by means of a coup d’etat. At first, the coup did not go very well. Mosaddeq simply arrested the shah’s messenger and ordered the arrest of General Zahedi, the leader of the coup and the intended head of the shah’s new government The shah himself fled with his wife to
After a series of demonstrations, Mosaddeq was overthrown and Zahedi replaced him as prime minister. On August 19, 1953, the news reached the shah in a telegram from AP:
American complicity with the corrupt tyrants who rule over them. The most flagrant violations of civil rights, political freedom, even human decency are disregarded or glossed over, and crimes against humanity, which in a European or American country would invoke a storm of outrage, are seen as normal and even acceptable. Regimes that practice such violations are not only tolerated, but even elected to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, whose members include Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, and Libya
At the same time when America supports the native people it lets them down – A notable example occurred in 1991, when the United States called on the Iraqi people to revolt against Saddam Hussein. The Kurds in northern Iraq and the Shi’a in southern Iraq did so, and the victorious United States forces sat and watched while Saddam Hussein, using the helicopters that the cease-fire agreement had allowed him to retain, bloodily suppressed and slaughtered them, group by group and region by region
America’s support of Israel in 1967 6 day war
B. Various remedies, most of them imported from the West, were tried and one after another failed.
To humiliation was added frustration as the various remedies, most of them imported from the West, were tried and one after another failed
They admired Europe for its strength, technology, and ideals of freedom, justice, and equality but rejected its colonialist goals and policies. Modernists wanted to develop an Islamically based rationale for educational, legal, political, and social reform in order to promote a renaissance for their community and a first step to national independence and power
Creating modern states modeled on Western paradigms, they superficially injected Islamic provisions into constitutions requiring that the head of state be a Muslim or that Islamic law be recognized as "a" source of law even when it was not, in reality, recognized at all. These governments sought to control religion by incorporating schools, courts, and mosques into their ministries of education, law, and religious affairs. In some Muslim countries, languages for government, the courts, and universities were European. Individuals and institutions were "modern" to the degree that they were Western—in language and dress, manners and values, architecture and infrastructure. Few questioned the accepted wisdom that modernization meant the progressive westernization and secularization of society
Arab Socialism – During the 1950s and 1960s widespread dissatisfaction with the track record of Western-inspired liberal nationalism took its toll. Monarchs and governments tumbled from power and new governments emerged in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, and Algeria. All were based on some form of Arab nationalism/socialism with its populist appeals to Arab-Islamic roots, stress on Arab unity, criticism of the failures of liberal nationalism and the West, and promise of far-reaching social reforms. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood attracted tens of thousands of members in Egypt and Sudan as well as Syria, Jordan, and Palestine
Social condition – Overcrowded cities with insufficient social support systems, high unemployment rates, government corruption, a growing gap between rich and poor, and the breakdown of traditional religious and social values plagued many nations.
Strong population growth combined with economic stagnation has created urban conglomerations in Cairo, Istanbul, Tehran, Karachi, Dhaka, and Jakarta each with well over 12 million citizens, millions of them young and unemployed or underemployed
Economic stagnation -The comparative figures on the performance of Muslim countries, as reflected in these statistics, are devastating
i. In the listing of economies by gross domestic product, the highest ranking Muslim majority country is Turkey, with 64 million inhabitants, in twenty-third place, between Austria and Denmark, with about 5 million each. The next is Indonesia, with 212 million, in twenty-eighth place, following Norway with 4.5 million and followed by Saudi Arabia with 21 million.
ii. In comparative purchasing power, the first Muslim state is Indonesia in fifteenth place, followed by Turkey in nineteenth place. The highest-ranking Arab country is Saudi Arabia, in twenty-ninth place, followed by Egypt.
iii. In living standards as reflected by gross domestic product per head, the first Muslim state is Qatar, in twenty-third place, followed by the United Arab Emirates in twenty-fifth place and Kuwait in twenty-eighth.
iv. Exports For example it has been estimated that the exports of Finland, a European country of five million, exceeded those of the entire 260 million-strong Arab world, excluding oil revenue.
The people of the Middle East are increasingly aware of the deep and widening gulf between the opportunities of the free world outside their borders and the appalling privation and repression within them. The resulting anger is naturally directed first against their rulers, and then against those whom they see as keeping those rulers in power for selfish reasons.
1 1967 and 1973 Israel/Egypt Wars
1967-1973 Israel’s crushing victory over the combined forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six-Day war symbolized the depth of Arab and Muslim impotence and the failure of modern nation-states in the Muslim world. Israel seized major pieces of territory, including the Sinai peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. The loss of Jerusalem, the third holiest city of Islam, which embraces major Muslim holy sites, the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, was particularly devastating to Muslims around the world, making Palestine and the liberation of Jerusalem an Islamic, not just an Arab or Palestinian, issue
The quick and decisive defeat of the Arab troops during the Six-Day War by Israeli troops constituted a pivotal event in the Arab Muslim world. The defeat along with economic stagnation in the defeated countries, was blamed on the Arab nationalism of the ruling regimes, the failure of economic policies, and government corruption. In response, governments in all three countries were forced to turn to Islam to buttress their legitimacy and deal with rising Islamic reform and opposition movements
In 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel near victory. At first successful, then counterattack and Israel was closing in on both Damasus and Cairo
The connection between the lack of an Islamic spirit and the lack of victory was underscored by the disastrous defeat of Arab nationalist-led armies fighting under the slogan "Land, Sea and Air" in the 1967 Six Day War, compared to the (perceived) near-victory of the Yom Kippur War six years later. In that war the military’s slogan was "God is Great".
The end of the Cold War and Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has eliminated the common atheist Communist enemy uniting some religious Muslims and the capitalist west
After humiliation and frustration came a third component, necessary for the resurgence—a new confidence and sense of power. These arose from the oil crisis of 1973, when in support of
The resulting wealth, pride, and self-assurance were reinforced by another new element—contempt. On closer acquaintance with Europe and America, Muslim visitors began to observe and describe what they saw as the moral degeneracy and consequent weakness of Western civilization.
Along with the Yom Kippur War came the Arab oil embargo where the (Muslim) Persian Gulf oil-producing states’ dramatic decision to cut back on production and quadruple the price of oil, made the terms oil, Arabs and Islam synonymous – with power – in the world, and especially in the Muslim world’s public imagination. Many Muslims believe as Saudi Prince Saud al Faisal did that the hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth obtained from the Persian Gulf’s huge oil deposits were nothing less than a gift from God to the Islamic faithful.
As the Islamic revival gained momentum, governments such as Egypt’s, which had previously repressed (and was still continuing to repress) Islamists, joined the bandwagon. They banned alcohol and flooded the airwaves with religious programming, giving the movement even more exposure.
Starting in the mid-1970s the Islamic resurgence was funded by an abundance of money from Saudi Arabian oil exports. The tens of billions of dollars in "petro-Islam" largess obtained from the recently heightened price of oil funded an estimated "90% of the expenses of the entire faith."
The exploitation of oil brought vast new wealth and with it new and increasingly bitter social tensions. In the old society inequalities of wealth had been limited, and their effects were restrained—on the one hand, by the traditional social bonds and obligations that linked rich and poor and, on the other hand, by the privacy of Muslim home life. Modernization has all too often widened the gap, destroyed those social bonds, and through the universality of the modern media, made the resulting inequalities painfully visible. This increased receptiveness of radical teachings.
As seen by many in the Middle East and north Africa, both capitalism and socialism were tried and have failed; both Western and Eastern models produced only poverty and tyranny
Islamism can also be described as part of identity politics, specifically the religiously-oriented nationalism that emerged in the Third World in the 1970s: "resurgent Hinduism in India, ultra-Orthodox Judaism in Israel, militant Buddhism in Sri Lanka, resurgent Sikh nationalism in the Punjab, ‘Liberation Theology‘ of Catholicism in Latin America, and of course, Islamism in the Muslim world."
(This is distinguished from ethnic or linguistic-based nationalism which Islamism opposes.) These all challenged Westernized ruling elites on behalf of ‘authenticity’ and tradition
Striving in the path of God". It is a religious obligation
Differing interpretations
– Greater Jihad- In the early chapters, dating from the Meccan period, when the Prophet was still the leader of a minority group struggling against the dominant pagan oligarchy, the word often has the meaning, favored by modernist exegetists, of moral striving – an inner struggle (the greater jihad)
– Outer struggle -In the later chapters, promulgated in Medina, where the Prophet headed the state and commanded its army, it usually has a more explicitly practical connotation. In many, the military meaning is unequivocal.
For most of the fourteen centuries of recorded Muslim history, jihad was most commonly interpreted to mean armed struggle for the defense or advancement of Muslim power. In Muslim tradition, the world is divided into two houses: the House of Islam (Dar al-hlam), in which Muslim governments rule and Muslim law prevails, and the House of War (Dar al-Harb), the rest of the world, still inhabited and, more important, ruled by infidels. The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule. Those who fight in the jihad qualify for rewards in both worlds—booty in this one, paradise in the next.
In discussing the obligation of the holy war, the classical Muslim jurists distinguish between offensive and defensive warfare. In offense, jihad is an obligation of the Muslim community as a whole, and may therefore be discharged by volunteers and professionals. In a defensive war, it becomes an obligation of every able-bodied individual. It is this principle that Usama bin Laden invoked in his declaration of war against the United States.
– Resistance to Oppression in world and legitimizing a cause – exporting jihad. Jihad broadened
Thus, Muslims who insist that the defense of Islam is the only justification for jihad, and that all of the wars in the early days of Islam were defensive, have been criticized by others who believe that the restriction of jihad to defensive wars alone is a product of European colonialism and an unwarranted accommodation to the West
In the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries the word jihad has gained remarkable currency. It is used by resistance, liberation, and terrorist movements alike to legitimate their cause and motivate their followers
Many Muslims today believe that the conditions of their world require a jihad. They look around them and see a world dominated by corrupt authoritarian governments and a wealthy elite, a minority concerned solely with its own economic prosperity, rather than national development, a world awash in Western culture and values in dress, music, television, and movies.
It can mean fighting injustice and oppression, spreading and defending Islam, and creating a just society through preaching, teaching and, if necessary, armed struggle or holy war.
Prominent modern Shii scholars such as Ayatollahs Mahmoud Taleqani and Murtaza Mutahhari argue that jihad is the defense of one’s life, faith, property, and the integrity of the Muslim ummah. However, Mutahhari and others have interpreted defense broadly to include resistance to oppression not only in one’s society but also against oppression anywhere, defense of the oppressed of the earth. In commenting on the Quranic dictum,’ "There is no compulsion in religion" (2:256), and that therefore wars aimed solely at the spread of Islam by force are not allowed, they also maintain that religious oppression must be resisted whether it is in a Muslim or non-Muslim society.
The right or obligation to wage jihad against religious, political, or social oppression has gained widespread usage in recent decades in order to justify holy and unholy wars. Khomeini used it to call on Muslims throughout the world, especially in the Gulf, to rise up against un-lslamic rulers. It was a means of legitimating Iran’s export of revolution to Lebanon and elsewhere. The Shii of Lebanon experienced both violent and nonviolent expressions of jihad. Imam Musa Sadr was a tall, striking, charismatic Iranian-born religious leader, educated in Qom, the religious center associated with the Ayatollah Khomeini and sometimes referred to as "the Vatican." Musa Sadr moved to Lebanon and in the 1970s led a major social movement, the Movement for the Dispossessed, to protest and demand Muslim equity within Lebanon’s Maronite Christian-dominated society. The radical organization Hizbollah emerged in the early 1980s as a resistance movement, inspired by Khomeini and supported by Iran, in reaction to the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon
Sunni Muslims have been equally drawn to this use of jihad. Hamas in Palestine defines itself, and justifies its jihad, as a resistance movement to Israeli occupation and oppression. Terrorist groups from Egypt to the southern Philippines have also used political and religious oppression as an excuse for their violent jihads
JIHAD FOR CONVERSION
While most Muslim scholars have agreed that it is never justified to wage jihad against non-Muslims simply because of their faith or to convert them, some bluntly state, as Ibn Khaldun, an acclaimed medieval Muslim historian, did: "In the Muslim community, holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force." Other medieval authors, like their Christian counterparts, went even further, teaching that the purpose of jihad is to rid the earth of unbelievers.
However, although jurists and commentators on the Quran often failed to distinguish disbelief from political injustice, they did not sanction jihad merely on grounds of difference in belief
GUIDELINES OF WAR
The Quran provides detailed guidelines and regulations regarding the conduct of war: who is to fight and who is exempted (48:17, 9:91), when hostilities must cease (2:192), how prisoners should be treated (47:4). Verses such as Quran 2:294 emphasize proportionality in warfare: "whoever transgresses against you, respond in kind." Other verses provide a strong mandate for making peace: "If your enemy inclines toward peace then you too should seek peace and put your trust in God" (8:61)
The traditions also lay down some rules of warfare for the conduct of jihad: Be advised to treat prisoners well. Looting is no more lawful than carrion. God has forbidden the killing of women and children. Muslims are bound by their agreements, provided that these are lawful
– Jihad has its limits – no point do the basic texts of Islam enjoin terrorism and murder. At no point——do they even consider the random slaughter of uninvolved bystanders.
In the lands under Muslim rule, Islamic law required that Jews and Christians be allowed to practice their religions and run their own affairs, subject to certain disabilities, the most important being a poll tax imposed on every adult male.
The Holy Law prescribes good treatment for noncombatants but accords the victors extensive rights over the property and also over the persons and families of the vanquished. . In accordance with the universal custom of antiquity, enemies captured in warfare were enslaved, along with their families, and could be either sold or kept by their captors for their own use
-different from Crusade – Jihad is sometimes presented as the Muslim equivalent of the Crusade, and the two are seen as more or less equivalent. In a sense this is true—both were proclaimed and waged as holy wars for the true faith against an infidel enemy. But there is a difference. The Crusade is a late development in Christian history and, in a sense, marks a radical departure from basic Christian values as expressed in the Gospels. Christendom had been under attack since the seventh century, and had lost vast territories to Muslim rule; the concept of a holy war, more commonly, a just war, was familiar since antiquity. Yet in the long struggle between Islam and Christendom, the Crusade was late, limited, and of relatively brief duration. Jihad is present from the beginning of Islamic history—in scripture, in the life of the Prophet, and in the actions of his companions and immediate successors. It has continued throughout Islamic history and retains its appeal to the present day.
4. Methods
A. The assassins– fanatical religious sects whose form of worship was to murder those they regarded as enemies of the faith.
The practice and then the theory of assassination in the Islamic world arose at a very early date, with disputes over the political headship of the Muslim community. Of the first four caliphs of Islam, three were murdered, the second by a disgruntled Christian slave, the third and fourth by pious Muslim rebels who saw themselves as executioners carrying out the will of God.
Members of the Muslim sect known as the Assassins (from the Arabic Hashishiyya), active in Iran and then in Syria from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, seem to have been the first to transform the act that was named after them into a system and an ideology. Their efforts, contrary to popular belief, were primarily directed not against the Crusaders but against Muslim rulers, whom they saw as impious usurpers.
After the defeat and suppression of the assassins in the thirteenth century, the term passed out of use. It was briefly revived in the mid-nineteenth century, by a small group of Turkish conspirators who plotted to depose and perhaps assassinate the sultan.
In two respects, in their choice of weapons and in their choice of victims, the Assassins were markedly different from their present-day successors. The victim was always an individual, a highly placed political, military, or religious leader who was seen as the source of evil. He, and he alone, was killed. This action was not terrorism in the current sense of that term bur rather what is now called targeted assassination. The weapon was always the same: the dagger. The Assassins disdained poison, crossbows, and other weapons that could be used from a distance, and the Assassin did not expect—or, it would seem, even desire— to survive his act, which he believed would ensure him eternal bliss. But in no circumstance did he commit suicide. He died at the hands of his captors.
B. During the last years of the British Empire, imperial Britain faced terrorist movements in its Middle Eastern dependencies that represented three different cultures: Greeks in Cyprus, Jews in Palestine, and Arabs in Aden. All three acted from nationalist, rather than religious, motives. Though very different in their backgrounds and political circumstances, the three were substantially alike in their tactics. Their purpose was to persuade the imperial power that staying in the region was not worth the cost in blood. Their method was to attack military and, to a lesser extent, administrative personnel and installations. All three operated only within their own territory and generally avoided collateral damage. All three succeeded in their endeavors.
C. For the new-style terrorists in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the slaughter of innocent and uninvolved civilians is not "collateral damage." It is the prime objective. Inevitably, the counterattack against the terrorists—who do not of course wear uniforms—also targets civilians. The resulting blurring of distinctions is immensely useful to the terrorists and to their sympathizers. Thanks to the rapid development of the media, and especially of television, the more recent forms of terrorism are aimed not at specific and limited enemy objectives but at world opinion. Their primary purpose is not to defeat or even to weaken the enemy militarily but to gain publicity and to inspire fear—a psychological victory. The same kind of terrorism was practiced by a number of European groups, notably in
The PLO was founded in 1964 but became important in 1967, after the defeat of the combined Arab armies in the Six-Day War. Regular warfare had failed; it was time to try other methods. The targets in this form of armed struggle were not military or other government establishments, which are usually too well guarded, but public places and gatherings of any kind, which are overwhelmingly civilian and in which the victims do not necessarily have a connection to the declared enemy. Examples of this tactic include, in 1970, the hijacking of three aircraft—one Swiss, one British, and one American—which were all taken to Amman; the 1972 murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics; the seizure in 1973 of the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum and the murder there of two Americans and a Belgian diplomat; the takeover of the Italian cruise ship Achllle Lauro, in 1985, and the murder of a crippled passenger.
Other attacks were directed against schools, shopping malls, discotheques, and even passengers waiting in line at European airports. These and other operations by the PLO were remarkably successful in attaining their immediate objective—the capture of newspaper headlines and television screens. They also drew a great deal of support in sometimes unexpected places, and raised their perpetrators to starring roles in the drama of international relations. Small wonder that others were encouraged to follow their example. The Arab terrorists of the 1970s and 1980s made it clear that they were waging a war for an Arab or Palestinian national cause, not for Islam. Indeed, a significant proportion of the PLO leaders and activists were Christian
But despite its media successes, the Palestine Liberation Organization achieved no significant results where it mattered—in Palestine. In every Arab land but Palestine, the nationalists achieved their purposes—the defeat and departure of foreign rulers and the establishment of national sovereignty under national leaders.
D. Suicide – 1980’s onward
A significant figure in these operations was the suicide terrorist. In one sense, this was a new development. The nationalist terrorists of the 1960s and ’70s generally took care not to die along with their victims but arranged to carry out their attacks from a safe distance
Earlier religiously inspired murderers, notably the Assassins, disdained to survive their operations but did not actually kill themselves.
The new type of suicide mission in the strict sense of the word seems to have been pioneered by religious organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, who from 1982 onward carried out a number of such missions in Lebanon and in Israel. They continued through the 1980s and ’90s, with echoes in other areas, for example in eastern Turkey, in Egypt, in India, and in Sri Lanka. From the information available, it would seem that the candidates chosen for these missions were, with occasional exceptions, male, young, and poor, often from refugee camps. They were offered a double reward—in the afterlife, the minutely described delights of paradise; in this world, bounties and stipends for their families. A remarkable innovation was the use of female suicide bombers—by Kurdish terrorists in Turkey in 1996—1999, and by Palestinians from January 2002.
Unlike the medieval holy warrior or assassin, who was willing to face certain death at the hands of his enemies or captors, the new suicide terrorist dies by his own hand. This raises an important question of Islamic teaching. Islamic law books are very clear on the subject of suicide. It is a major sin and is punished by eternal damnation in the form of the endless repetition of the act by which the suicide killed himself.
5. Individuals, Groups and Countries
A. Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian who became a leading ideologue of Muslim fundamentalism and an active member of the fundamentalist organization known as the Muslim Brothers.
Born in a village in Upper Egypt in 1906, he studied in Cairo and for some years worked as a teacher and then as an official in the Egyptian Ministry of Education as his Islamist teachings clashed with their secularist policies. Qutb, like al-Banna, had a modern education.
He studied at Dar al-Ulum, a college set up by reformers to train teachers in a modern curriculum. He became a great admirer of the West and Western literature. After graduation, he became an official in the Ministry of Public Instruction, as well as a poet and literary critic
In the late 1940s Qutb visited the United States. This proved to be a turning point in his life, transforming an admirer into a severe critic of the West. His experiences in America produced a culture shock that made him more religious and convinced him of the moral decadence of the West. He was appalled by its materialism, sexual permissiveness and promiscuity, free use and abuse of alcohol, and its racism, which he directly experienced because of his dark skin
Sayyid Qutb took as a given the contrast between Eastern spirituality and Western materialism, and described America as a particularly extreme form of the latter. Everything in America, he wrote, even religion, is measured in material terms. He observed that there were many churches but warned his readers that their number should not be misunderstood as an expression of real religious or spiritual feeling. Churches in America, he said, operate like businesses, competing for clients and for publicity, and using the same methods as stores and theaters to attract customers and audiences
Qutb’s stay in America coincided with the establishment of Israel as a state guaranteed by the United States and the beginning of the Cold War between the U.S. and USSR, during which Egypt, under Nasser, aligned itself with Russia and secular nationalism, moving even farther away from the prospect of establishing an Islamic state
As a final blow, during these years in America, Hasan al-Banna was assassinated and the Muslim Brotherhood was significantly weakened. Shortly after his return to Egypt, Qutb joined the Muslim Brotherhood
Ideas
Qutb preached that Muslims must engage in a two-pronged attack of converting individuals while also waging jihad to forcibly eliminate the "structures" of Jahiliyya (ignorance) – not only from the Islamic homeland but from the face of the earth.
Qutb believed things had reached such a state that the Muslim community had literally ceased to exist. It "has been extinct for a few centuries," having reverted to Godless ignorance (Jahiliyya)
To eliminate jahiliyya, Qutb argued Sharia, or Islamic law, must be established. Sharia law was not only accessible to humans and essential to the existence of Islam, but also all-encompassing, precluding "evil and corrupt" non-Islamic ideologies like socialism, nationalism, or liberal democracy.
For Qutb, jihad, as armed struggle in the defense of Islam against the injustice and oppression of anti-Islamic governments and the neocolonialism of the West and the East (Soviet Union), was incumbent upon all Muslims. There could be no middle ground. , Qutb taught that those Muslims who refused to participate were to be counted among the enemies of God
The Western threat was political, economic, and religiocultural. Equally insidious were the "white elites" of the Muslim world who rule and govern according to foreign Western secular principles and values that threaten the faith, identity, and values of their own Islamic societies. Going beyond al-Banna (founder of the Moslem Brotherhood) and Mawdudi, Qutb denounced governments and Western secular-oriented elites as atheists against whom all true believers must wage holy war.
The Islamic movement (hamka), the true Muslims, would create a righteous minority adrift in a sea of ignorance and unbelief, akin to the un-Islamic society in which Muhammad was born. Their models for training would be what Qutb considered to be the first unique generation of Muslims whose instruction came solely from one pure source, the Quran
After several brushes with the authorities, he was sentenced, in 1955, to fifteen years’ imprisonment. As a result of an intercession on his behalf by President Arif of Iraq, he was released in 1964, and he published one of his major works, Ma’dlim ft’l-Tariq {Signposts on the Way), later that year.
While in prison, Qutb witnessed a massacre in which twenty-five members of the Muslim Brotherhood were killed and close to fifty were injured, an experience that strengthened his conviction that the Egyptian government was un-Islamic and jahiliyyah and must be overthrown
On August 9, 1965, he was arrested again, this time on charges of treason and, specifically, of planning the assassination of President Nasser. After a summary trial he was sentenced to death on August 21, 1966. The sentence was carried out eight days later
Qutb was both a member of the brotherhood and enormously influential in the Muslim world at large. Qutb is considered by some to be "the founding father and leading theoretician" of modern jihadis, such as Osama bin Laden. Ironically, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in Europe has not embraced his vision of armed jihad, something for which they have been denounced by more radical Islamists
Qutb transformed the ideology of al-Banna and Mawdudi into a rejectionist revolutionary call to arms.
Founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al Banna 1906-1949
His was arguably the first, largest and most influential modern Islamic political/religious organization. Under the motto "the Qur’an is our constitution," it sought Islamic revival through preaching and also by providing basic community services including schools, mosques, and workshops.
Al Banna believed in the necessity of government rule based on Shariah law implemented gradually and by persuasion, and of eliminating all non-Muslim imperialist influence in the Muslim world. Jihad was declared against European colonial powers.
For Hasan al-Banna the failure of liberal nationalism in Egypt was reflected in the creation of Israel and the consequent displacement of millions of Palestinians as well as continued British occupation, massive unemployment, poverty, and corruption. . He rejected the preference for the spiritual jihad (greater jihad) over a military (lesser jihad) one. Since Muslim lands had been invaded, he said, it was incumbent on all Muslims to repel their invaders just as it was an Islamic imperative for Muslims to oppose rulers who blocked the establishment of Islamic governments.
Some elements of the Brotherhood, though perhaps against orders, did engage in violence against the government, and its founder Al-Banna was assassinated in 1949 in retaliation for the assassination of Egypt’s premier Mahmud Fami Naqrashi three months earlier. The Brotherhood has suffered periodic repression in Egypt and has been banned several times, in 1948 and several years later following confrontations with Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser, who jailed thousands of members for several years.
Despite periodic repression, the Brotherhood has become one of the most influential movements in the Islamic world, particularly in the Arab world. For many years it was described as "semi-legal" and was the only opposition group in Egypt able to field candidates during elections. In the Egyptian parliamentary election, 2011–2012, the political parties identified as "Islamist" (the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafi Al-Nour Party) won 70% of the total seats.
Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, "are well known for providing shelters, educational assistance, free or low cost medical clinics, housing assistance to students from out of town, student advisory groups, facilitation of inexpensive mass marriage ceremonies to avoid prohibitively costly dowry demands, legal assistance, sports facilities, and women’s groups." All this compares very favorably against incompetent, inefficient, or neglectful governments whose commitment to social justice is limited to rhetoric
Radical – The radical Islamists al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad reject entirely democracy and self-proclaimed Muslims they find overly moderate, and preach violent jihad, urging and conducting attacks on a religious basis. This is not of the normal religion, and is responded to with outrage by the public.
Moderate reformists who accept and work within the democratic process include the Justice and Development Party of Turkey, Tunisian author and reformer Rashid Al-Ghannouchi and Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Blend – The Islamist group Hezbollah in Lebanon participates in both elections and armed attacks, seeking to abolish the state of Israel.
Another major division within Islamism is between the fundamentalist "guardians of the tradition" of the Salafism or Wahhabi movement, and the "vanguard of change" centered on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Shift in the second half of the 20th century" when the Muslim Brotherhood movement and focus on Islamistation of pan-Arabism was eclipsed by the Salafi movement with its emphasis on "sharia rather than the building of Islamic institutions," and rejection of Shia Islam.
During the 1970s and sometimes later, Western and pro-Western governments often supported sometimes fledgling Islamists and Islamist groups that later came to be seen as dangerous enemies.
Islamists were considered bulwarks against—what were thought to be at the time—more dangerous leftist/communist/nationalist insurgents/opposition, which Islamists were correctly seen as opposing.
The US spent billions of dollars to aid the mujahideen Muslim Afghanistan enemies of the Soviet Union, and non-Afghan veteran of the war returned home with their prestige, "experience, ideology, and weapons", and had considerable impact.
Although now a strong opponent of Israel’s existence, Hamas has been called "Israel’s creation." In the 1970s and 1980s Israel tolerated and supported the group as preferable to the secular and then more powerful al-Fatah and the PLO.
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat — whose policies included opening Egypt to Western investment (Infitah), breaking with Soviet Union to make Egypt an ally of the United States, and making peace with Israel — released Islamists from prison and welcomed home exiles in tacit exchange for political support in his struggle against leftists. His "encouraging of the emergence of the Islamist movement" was said to have been "imitated by many other Muslim leaders in the years that followed." This "gentlemen’s agreement" between Sadat and Islamists broke down in 1975 but not before Islamists came to completely dominate university student unions. Islamists later assassinated Sadat and went on to form a formidable insurgency in Egypt in the 1990
Wahhabism.- Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703—1792) was a theologian from the Najd area of Arabia, ruled by local sheikhs of the House of Saud. In 1744 he launched a campaign of purification and renewal. His declared aim was to return to the pure and authentic Islam of the Founder, removing and where necessary destroying all the later accretions and distortions.
Central to al-Wahhab’s theology and movement was the doctrine of God’s unity (tawhid), an absolute monotheism reflected in the Wahhabi’s self-designation as "unitarians" (muwahidduri)— those who uphold the unity of God.
Citing the tradition that Muhammad had destroyed the pantheon of gods in his Meccan shrine, the Wahhabi forces set out to destroy "idolatrous" shrines, tombstones, and sacred objects. They spared neither the sacred tombs of Muhammad and his companions in Mecca and Medina nor the Shiite pilgrimage site at Karbala (in modern Iraq) that housed the tomb of Hussein . The event has never been forgotten by Shii Muslims and has contributed to the historic antipathy between the Wahhabi of Saudi Arabia and Shii Islam in both Saudi Arabia and Iran
After sacking Karbala, the Shi’ite holy place in Iraq, they turned their attention to the Hijaz, and in 1804—1806 occupied and cleansed the holy cities of Mecca and Medina
The ire of the Wahhabis was directed not primarily against outsiders but against those whom they saw as betraying and degrading Islam from within: on the one hand those who attempted any kind of modernizing reform; on the other—and this was the more immediate target— those whom the Wahhabis saw as corrupting and debasing the true Islamic heritage of the Prophet and his Companions. They were of course strongly opposed to any school or version of Islam, whether Sunni or Shi’ite, other than their own. They were particularly opposed to Sufism, condemning not only its mysticism and tolerance but also what they saw as the pagan cults associated with it
Wherever they could, they enforced their beliefs with the utmost severity and ferocity, demolishing tombs, desecrating what they called false idolatrous and holy places, and slaughtering large numbers of men, women, and children who failed to meet their standards of Islamic purity and authenticity. Another practice introduced by Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab was the condemnation and burning of books. These consisted mainly of Islamic works on theology
Two developments in the early twentieth century transformed Wahhabism into a major force in the Islamic world and beyond.
In the last years of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, Sheikh Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn Saud (born ca. 1880, ruled 1902-1953) played skillfully on the struggle between the Ottomans on the one hand and the expanding British power in eastern Arabia on the other. In December 1915 he signed an agreement with Britain whereby, while preserving his independence, he obtained a subsidy and a promise of assistance if attacked. The end of World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire ended this phase, and left him face to face with Britain alone. He fared very well in this new arrangement and was able to expand his inherited realm in successive stages. In 1921 he finally defeated his longtime rival Ibn Rashid in Northern Najd and, annexing his territories, assumed the title sultan of Najd
The stage was now set for a more crucial struggle, for control of the Hijaz. This land, including the two Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, had been ruled by members of the Hashimite dynasty, descendants of the Prophet, for more than a millennium, in the last few centuries under loose Ottoman suzerainty. The establishment of Hashimite monarchies; headed by various branches of the family, in Iraq and in Transjordan as part of the restructuring of the former Ottoman Arab provinces after the First World War, was seen by Ibn Saud as a threat to his own realm
After years of worsening relations, King Hussein of the Hijaz provided a double pretext, first by proclaiming himself as caliph, second by refusing to allow Wahhabi pilgrims to perform the pilgrimage to the holy cities.
Ibn Saud responded by invading the Hijaz in 1925.
The Saudis’ war of conquest was a complete success The way was now open for Ibn Saud to proclaim himself King of the Hijaz and Sultan of Najd and its Dependencies on January 8, 1926.
Some indication of the scale of development may be seen in the figures for oil extracted in Arabia, in millions of barrels: 1945, 21.3; 1955, 356.6; 1965, 804.8; 1975, 2,582.5. The outward flow of oil and the corresponding inward flow of money brought immense changes to the Saudi kingdom, its internal structure and way of life, and its external role and influence, both in the oil-consuming countries and, more powerfully, in the world of Islam. The most significant change was in the impact of Wahhabism and the role of its protagonists. Wahhabism was now the official, state-enforced doctrine of one of the most influential governments in all Islam—the custodian of the two holiest places of Islam, the host of the annual pilgrimage, which brings millions of Muslims from every part of the world to share in its rites and rituals. At the same time, the teachers and preachers of Wahhabism had at their disposal immense financial resources, which they used to promote and spread their version of Islam
American policy 1970-1991 – Counter the moves of the Soviet Union developing the strategic relationship of Israel. It began in the 1960s, flourished in the 1970s and 1980s, fluctuated in the 1990s, and acquired a new importance when the United States faced the concurrent threats of Saddam Hussein’s hegemonic ambitions, of al-Qa’ida’s fundamentalist terror
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a new American policy has emerged in the Middle East, concerned with different objectives. Its main aim is to prevent the emergence of a regional hegemony—of a single regional power that could dominate the area and thus establish monopolistic control of Middle Eastern oil. This has been the basic concern underlying successive American policies toward Iran, Iraq, or to any other perceived future threat within the region.
Abdel Nasser’s (1918-1970, Egypt rule 1951-1970), Nasser in 1956 had liberated Egypt from England during the Suez crisis. He was known for his Pan Arabism and one party system
Pan-Arabism is an ideology espousing the unification – or, sometimes, close cooperation and solidarity against perceived enemies of the Arabs – of the countries of the Arab world, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea. It is closely connected to Arab nationalism, which asserts that the Arabs constitute a single nation.
Egyptian proposals for a broader grouping of independent Arab states prevailed with the establishment of the League of Arab States, a regional international organization, in 1945. In large part representing the popularity Nasser had gained among the masses in the Arab world following the Suez crisis in 1956, the United Arab Republic (UAR) in 1958 was the first case of the actual merger of two previously independent Arab countries though lasted only until 1961. By the end of 1957, Nasser nationalized all remaining British and French assets in Egypt, including the tobacco, cement, pharmaceutical, and phosphate industries. Because the previous opening to outside investment and the offering of tax incentives had yielded no results, he nationalized more companies and made them a part of his economic development organization. He stopped short of total government control: two-thirds of the economy was still in private hands.
He outlawed Islamist parties
Anwar Sadat (1918-1981) wished to distance himself from the previous rule, his failed socialist ideology, policies, and allies, and to define his own path and policies. In his eleven years as president Sadat changed Egypt’s direction, departing from some of the economic and political principles of Nasserism by re-instituting the multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy. He also removed restrictions against Islamist parties
Sadat assumed the title the Believer-President, an allusion to the Islamic caliph’s title Commander of the Faithful. He began and ended his speeches with verses from the Quran. TV broadcasts frequently featured him in a mosque, cameras zeroing in on his prominent prayer mark, a callous caused by touching the forehead to the ground in prayer. Sadat encouraged the growth of Islamic student associations on campus and was able to gain enough
During Sadat’s childhood, he admired and was influenced greatly by four individuals. The first of his childhood heroes was Zahran, the alleged hero of the Denshawai Incident, who resisted the British occupation in a farmer protest. According to the story, a British soldier was killed, and Zahran was the first Egyptian hanged in retribution. Stories like the Ballad of Zahran introduced Sadat to Egyptian nationalism, a value he held throughout his life
The second individual was Kemal Atatürk, who was the leader of contemporary Turkey. Sadat admired his ability to overthrow the foreign influence and his many social reforms. He also idolized Mahatma Gandhi and his belief in non-violence when facing injustice. As Egypt was under the occupation of the United Kingdom, Sadat was fascinated by Hitler’s Nazi German army for their quick ability to become a strategic threat to Britain.
During the Second World War he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling the occupying British forces. Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 which overthrew King Farouk I on 23 July of that year. Sadat was assigned to announce the news of the revolution to the Egyptian people over the radio network
During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed Minister of State in 1954. In 1959, he assumed the position of Secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the President of the National Assembly (1960–1968) and then Vice President and member of the Presidential Council in 1964. He was reappointed as Vice President again in December 1969.
Sadat surprised everyone with a series of astute political moves by which he was able to retain the presidency and emerge as a leader in his own right. On 15 May 1971 Sadat announced his Corrective Revolution, purging the government, political and security establishments of the most ardent Nasserists. Sadat encouraged the emergence of an Islamist movement which had been suppressed by Nasser. Believing Islamists to be socially conservative he gave them" considerable cultural and ideological autonomy" in exchange for political support
Sadat likely perceived that Israel’s desire to negotiate was directly correlated to how much of a military threat they perceived from Egypt, which, after the Six-Day War of 1967, was at an all time low. Israel also viewed the most substantial part of the Egyptian threat as the presence of Soviet equipment and personnel (in the thousands at this time). It was for those reasons that Sadat expelled the Soviet military advisers from Egypt and proceeded to whip his army into shape for a renewed confrontation with Israel. During this time, Egypt was suffering greatly from economic problems caused by the Six-Day War and the Soviet relationship also declined due to their unreliability and refusal of Sadat’s requests for more military support.
On 6 October 1973, in conjunction with Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Sadat launched the October War, also known as the Yom Kippur War (and less commonly as the Ramadan War), a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Golan Heights in an attempt to retake the territory captured by Israel six years earlier. The Egyptian and Syrian performance in the initial stages of the war (Operation Badr, also known as The Crossing of the Suez Canal astonished both Israel and the Arab World. The most striking achievement was the Egyptian military’s advance approximately 15 km into the occupied Sinai Peninsula after penetrating and largely destroying the Bar Lev Line. This line was popularly thought to have been an impregnable defensive chain. However, at the conclusion of hostilities, Israeli forces were 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Damascus and 101 kilometres (63 mi) from Cairo.
On November 20, 1977, Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel officially when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338. He said during his visit that he hopes "that we can keep the momentum in Geneva, and may God guide the steps of Premier Begin and Knesset, because there is a great need for hard and drastic decision."
The main features of the agreement were the mutual recognition of each country by the other, the cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the complete withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the rest of the Sinai Peninsula which Israel had captured during the 1967 Six-Day War.
The agreement also provided for the free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways. The agreement notably made Egypt the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel has remained in effect since the treaty was signed.
This treaty won him great praise in the West and a Nobel Peace Prize. However, despite generous aid from the United States following the Camp David Accords in 1978-19 79, the standard of living for most Egyptians continued its steady decline, and the Palestinians, always the symbol of the success or failure of Arab leadership, remained stateless and persecuted under military occupation
It soon became clear to Sadat that appealing to Islam was a two-edged sword. Using strict Islamic criteria, activists judged Sadat to be a hypocrite and traitor for his relations with the West, his failure to implement the Shariah as the official law of Egypt, and his liberal family-law reforms, which critics, who saw them as Western rather than Islamically inspired, sarcastically dubbed "Jinan’s laws" after Sadat’s half-British wife.
By the mid-1970s, the quiet achieved by Nasser’s 1960s suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood was gone
New members who were attracted to emerging organizations included those who had believed in westernization and modernization, but who were now disaffected by the continuing economic decline. They included the majority of the unemployed younger generation as well as former secularists. The Muslim Brotherhood was back and so were new extremists, secret revolutionary groups like Muhammad’s Youth, Takfir wal Hijra (Excommunication and Flight), and Islamic Jihad promoting their jihad of violence and terrorism. They seized buildings, kidnapped and executed government officials, and tried to assassinate Sadat and declare an Islamic republic
In a nationwide crackdown, the government arrested 620 militants; 454 were tried by special military courts and imprisoned. The leaders of Muhammad’s Youth and Takfir were executed. Many militants went underground only to reemerge as new groups, the Army of God Gund Allah) and Islamic Jihad (Jamaat al-Jihad, or Holy War Society).
Increasingly, Sadat responded to all of his Islamic critics, mainstream and radical alike, with a heavy hand.
While he was being praised in the West as a progressive Muslim leader, for many in Egypt Sadat’s new economic open-door policy just meant greater Western (especially American) economic involvement. It meant lining the pockets of multinational companies and Egyptian elites, not solving basic economic and social problems
The September 1978 Camp David Accords were viewed by Arabs and Muslims at home and abroad as an opportunistic capitulation to Israel and its American patron
However, Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories on the West Bank and Gaza, as well as of Syria’s Golan Heights, remained in place. Al-Azhar’s endorsement of the peace agreement was seen as simply reconfirmation that it had become a puppet of the government. Although the Muslim Brotherhood initially responded cautiously, by March 1979 it had called for a holy war against Israel.
In early September 1981, faced with mounting discontent and opposition, in a sensational move the government launched a massive dragnet, arresting more than 1,500 people
Like the shah of Iran when faced with mounting opposition, Sadat became more autocratic and increasingly identified the Egyptian state with his own personality and will.
Despite the growing tensions in Egyptian society, few expected what happened on October 6, 1981. Anwar Sadat, adorned in his gold-braided uniform sat amidst two thousand dignitaries from all over the world viewing a weapons display that commemorated the "success" of the 1973 war. . Suddenly, four gunmen, appearing from behind the trucks, fired their automatic rifles and threw their grenades at the reviewing stand
Sadat was assassinated by members of Jamaat al-Jihad or Islamic Jihad, the organization that developed from an abortive coup staged by Muhammad’s Youth. Their leader, a military officer, cried out, "I am Khalid Islambuli. I have killed Pharoah and I do not fear death!" Years later Khalid’s brother, Mohammed Islambuli, would surface with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Background
Shah Pahlavi’s father, army general Reza Pahlavi, replaced Islamic laws with western ones, and forbade traditional Islamic clothing, separation of the sexes and veiling of women (hijab). Police forcibly removed and tore chadors off women who resisted his ban on public hijab. In 1935 dozens were killed and hundreds injured when a rebellion by pious Shi’a at the most holy Shi’a shrine in Iranwas crushed on his orders.
In 1941, Reza Shah was deposed and his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was installed by an invasion of allied British and Soviet troops. In 1953, foreign powers (American and British) again came to the Shah’s aid—after the Shah fled the country, the British MI6 aided an American CIA operative in organizing a military coup d’état to oust the nationalist and democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
Shah Pahlavi maintained a close relationship with the U.S. government, both regimes sharing an opposition to the expansion of the Soviet Union, Iran’s powerful northern neighbor. Like his father’s regime, Shah Pahlavi’s was known for its autocracy, its focus on modernization and Westernization and for its disregard for religious and democratic measures in Iran’s constitution. Leftist, nationalist and Islamist groups attacked his government (often from outside Iran as they were suppressed within) for violating the Iranian constitution, political corruption, and the political oppression by the SAVAK (secret police).
Other events
The 1971 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire at Persepolis, organized by the Shah’s regime, was attacked for its extravagance. "As the foreigners reveled on drink forbidden by Islam, Iranians were not only excluded from the festivities, some were starving."Five years later the Shah angered pious Iranian Muslims by changing the first year of the Iranian solar calendar from the Islamic hijri to the ascension to the throne by Cyrus the Great. "Iran jumped overnight from the Muslim year 1355 to the royalist year 2535."
The oil boom of the 1970s produced "alarming" increase in inflation and waste and an "accelerating gap" between the rich and poor, the city and the country, along with the presence of tens of thousand of unpopular skilled foreign workers. Many Iranians were also angered by the fact that the shah’s family was the foremost beneficiary of the income generated by oil, and the line between state earnings and family earnings blurred. By 1976, the shah had accumulated upward of one billion dollars from oil revenue; his family—including sixty-three princes and princesses—had accumulated between five and twenty billion dollars; and the family foundation controlled approximately three billion dollars By mid-1977 economic austerity measures to fight inflation disproportionately affected the thousands of poor and unskilled male migrants to the cities working construction. Culturally and religiously conservative,many went on to form the core of revolution’s demonstrators and "martyrs".
All Iranians were required to join and pay dues to a new political party, the Rastakhiz party – all other parties being banned. That party’s attempt to fight inflation with populist "anti-profiteering" campaigns – fining and jailing merchants for high prices – angered and politicized merchants while fueling black markets.
In 1977 the Shah responded to the "polite reminder" of the importance of political rights by the new American President, Jimmy Carter, by granting amnesty to some prisoners and allowing the Red Cross to visit prisons. Through 1977 liberal opposition formed organizations and issued open letters denouncing the regime.
That year also saw the death of the popular and influential modernist Islamist leader Ali Shariati. This both angered his followers, who considered him a martyr at the hands of SAVAK, and removed a potential revolutionary rival to Khomeini. Finally, in October Khomeini’s son Mostafa died of a heart attack, his death also blamed on SAVAK. A subsequent memorial service for Mostafa in Tehran put Khomeini back in the spotlight.
Khomeni
The post-revolutionary leader – Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – first came to political prominence in 1963 when he led opposition to the Shah and his "White Revolution", a program of reforms to break up landholdings (including those owned by religious foundations) and allow religious minorities to hold government office.
Khomeini was arrested in 1963 after declaring the Shah a "wretched miserable man" who had "embarked on the [path toward] destruction of Islam in Iran." Three days of major riots throughout Iran followed, with Khomeini supporters claiming 15,000 dead from police fire. However, much lower estimates of 380 killed and wounded were later made. Khomeini was released after eight months of house arrest and continued his agitation, condemning the regime’s close cooperation with Israel and its capitulations, or extension of diplomatic immunity to American government personnel in Iran. In November 1964 Khomeini was re-arrested and sent into exile where he remained for 14 years, until the revolution.
In this interim period of "disaffected calm" the budding Iranian revival began to undermine the idea of Westernization as progress that was the basis of the Shah’s secular regime, and to form the ideology of the 1979 revolution. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad’s idea of Gharbzadegi – that Western culture was a plague or an intoxication to be eliminated; Ali Shariati’s vision of Islam as the one true liberator of the Third World from oppressive colonialism, neo-colonialism, and capitalism; and Morteza Motahhari’s popularized retellings of the Shia faith, all spread and gained listeners, readers and supporters.
Most importantly, Khomeini preached that revolt, and especially martyrdom, against injustice and tyranny was part of Shia Islam, and that Muslims should reject the influence of both liberal capitalism and communism with the slogan "Neither East, nor West – Islamic Republic!"
Away from public view, Khomeini developed the ideology of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) as government, that Muslims – in fact everyone – required "guardianship," in the form of rule or supervision by the leading Islamic jurist or jurists. Such rule was ultimately "more necessary even than prayer and fasting" in Islam, as it would protect Islam from deviation from traditional sharia law, and in so doing eliminate poverty, injustice, and the "plundering" of Muslim land by foreign non-believers.
This idea of rule by Islamic jurists was spread through his book Islamic Government, mosque sermons, smuggled cassette speeches by Khomeini, among Khomeini’s opposition network of students (talabeh), ex-students (able clerics such as Morteza Motahhari, Mohammad Beheshti, Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Mofatteh), and traditional business leaders (bazaari) inside Iran.
1977-1978
The first militant anti-Shah demonstrations were in October 1977, after the death of Khomeini’s son Mostafa. Khomeini’s activists numbered "perhaps a few hundred in total", but over the coming months they grew to a mass of several thousand demonstrators in most cities of Iran.
Economic – In an attempt to dampen inflation the Shah’s regime cut spending, but the cutbacks led to a sharp rise in layoffs – particularly among young, unskilled, male workers living in city slums. By summer 1978, these workers, often from traditional rural backgrounds, joined the street protests in massive number
US Misread situation – A CIA analysis in August 1978, just six months before the Shah fled Iran, had concluded that the country "is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation Sociologist Charles Kurzman argues that rather than being indecisive, or sympathetic to the revolution, the Carter administration was consistently supportive of the Shah and urged the Iranian military to stage a "last-resort coup d’etat" even after the regime’s cause was hopeless.
Black Friday – The Shah introduced martial law, and banned all demonstrations but on September 8 thousands of protesters gathered in Tehran. Security forces shot and killed dozens, in what became known as Black Friday. Themain casualty" of the shooting was "any hope for compromise" between the protest movement and the Shah’s regime.
1979
On January 16, 1979 the Shah and the empress left Iran.
November 20, 1979, was a day that Muslims around the world had awaited, the dawn of Islam’s fifteenth century. At 5:30 a.m. as over forty thousand worshippers prayed the dawn prayer in the Grand Mosque in Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the largest Islamic shrine in the world, their sacred space and time were shattered by the profane. Shots reverberated through the massive courtyard and a young man fell dead. A powerful force of armed militants, not only Saudis but also Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Bangladeshis, Yemenis, and Iraqis, pushed their way into the praying crowd and declared that the long-awaited Mahdi had arrived
The more than three hundred members of this militant band and their families were led by Juhaiman al-Utaiba, the brother-in-law of the self-declared Mahdi, who had come to cleanse Islam before the end of the world. Juhaiman and his followers had been bitter critics of the Saudi government, its alliance with the West, and its disruptive modernization programs. They called for the overthrow of the sinful and unjust Saudi regime, the establishment of a true Islamic state, the eradication of Western cultural influences, and the end of oil exports to America
It had been unthinkable that Muslims would violate the sanctuary However legitimate their grievances, their actions were haram, forbidden and thus illegitimate. To Western observers, this affair was baffling. An Islamic group was attempting to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia, an Islamic state and protector of Islam’s holiest sites, in the name of Islam?
This incident brought together militants from many countries. It was a precursor of changes that would become apparent in the Soviet-Afghan war, the globalization of jihad movements with holy warriors drawn from many parts of the ummah coming to the "defense of Islam
Twenty years later Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s declaration of war against America would bring together many elements from Muslim history (militant jihad, eighteenth-century revivalists, Wahhabi Islam, and condemnation of Western alliances with autocratic Muslim leaders) and add another dimension, the greatly enhanced power that globalization affords to terrorist groups— the ability to harness religion and modern technology to strike anywhere, anytime, and anyplace
Meanwhile, a demonstration in support of the rebels took place in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. A rumor had circulated—endorsed by Ayatollah Khomeini, who was then in the process of establishing himself as the revolutionary leader in Iran—that American troops had been involved in the clashes in Mecca. The American Embassy was attacked by a crowd of Muslim demonstrators, and two Americans and two Pakistani employees were killed. Why had Khomeini stood by a report that was not only false but wildly improbable?
These events took place within the context of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. On November 4, the United States Embassy in Tehran was seized, and sixty-two Americans taken hostage. Ten of them, women and African Americans, were promptly released; the remaining hostages were then held for 444 days, until their release on January 20, 1981. The motives for this, baffling to many at the time, have become clearer since, thanks to subsequent statements and revelations from the hostage takers and others. It is now apparent that the hostage crisis occurred not because relations between Iran and the United States were deteriorating but because they were improving. In the fall of 1979, the relatively moderate Iranian prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, had arranged to meet with the American national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, under the aegis of the Algerian government. The two men met on November 1 and were reported to have been photographed shaking hands. There seemed to be a real possibility—in the eyes of the radicals, a real danger—that there might be some accommodation between the two countries. Protesters seized the embassy and took the American diplomats hostage in order to destroy any hope of farther dialogue. In this they were, for the time being at least, completely successful.
For Khomeini, the United States was the main enemy against whom he had to wage his holy war for Islam. Then, as in the past, this world of unbelievers was seen as the only serious force rivaling and preventing the divinely ordained spread and triumph of Islam. In Khomeini’s earlier writing, and notably in his 1970 book Islamic Government, the United States is mentioned infrequently, and then principally in the context of imperialism—first as the helper, then as the successor of the more familiar British Empire. By the time of the revolution, and the direct confrontation to which it gave rise, the United States had become, for him, the principal adversary, and the central target for Muslim rage and contempt.
Khomeini’s special hostility to the United States seems to date from October 1964, when he made a speech in front of his residence in Qum, passionately denouncing the law submitted to the Iranian Assembly giving extraterritorial status to the American military mission, together with their families, staffs, advisers, and servants, and immunity from Iranian jurisdiction He was apparently not aware that similar immunities had been requested and granted, as a matter of course, to the American forces stationed in Britain during World War IIsimilar immunities had been requested and granted, as a matter of course, to the American forces stationed in Britain during World War II
But the question of the so-called capitulations, extraterritorial immunities accorded in the past to Western merchants and other travelers in Islamic lands, was a sensitive one, and Khomeini played on it skillfully. "They have reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog. If someone runs over a dog belonging to an American, he will be prosecuted. Even if the Shah himself were to run over a dog belonging to an American, he would be prosecuted. But if an American cook runs over the Shah, the head of state, no one will have the right to interfere with him."1 Already in trouble with the authorities, as a result of this speech Khomeini was exiled from Iran on November 4. He returned to this theme in a number of later speeches and writings, taunting the Americans in particular with their alleged commitment to human rights and their disregard of these rights in Iran and in other places, including Latin America, "in their own hemisphere." Other accusations include the looting of Iran’s wealth and support of Iran’s monarchy.
In speeches after his return to Iran, the list of grievances and the list of enemies both grew longer, but America now headed the list. And not only in
The confrontation with America in the hostage crisis, in the Iraqi invasion, and on many diplomatic and economic battlefields confirmed Khomeini’s judgment of America’s central position in the struggle between Islam and the West. From now on America was "the Great Satan," Israel, seen as America’s agent, was "the Little Satan," and "death to America" the order of the day. This was the slogan brandished and shouted in the anti-American demonstrations of 1979
When the Iranian Revolution came in 1979, neither the British nor the Americans did anything to save the shah from overthrow. The U.S. administration at the time not only provided no help but made it clear that they had no intention of doing anything. Even more dramatically, they for a while refused the shah and his family asylum in the United States. The shah fled Tehran in mid-January 1979 and flew via Egypt to Morocco, where he stayed briefly as a guest of the king. But the king of Morocco had other concerns, notably a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which he was to host in Rabat in early April. King Hassan therefore asked the shah to leave not later than March 30. The shah informed the U.S. ambassador that he would now like to accept President Carter’s offer of asylum, only to discover that that offer had been withdrawn, apparently in the belief that establishing good relations with the new rulers of Iran took precedence over granting asylum to the shah and his family. The United States relented only when the shah was dying and in acute need of medical care. On October 22, 1979, the shah was informed that he could proceed to the United States. He arrived in New York early the next morning and went straight to the hospital. Becoming aware that his presence was causing problems to the United States, in spite of his serious illness he left the country and went to Panama,
where he narrowly escaped extradition to
Different groups in the region drew two lessons from these events-—one, that the Americans were willing to use both force and intrigue to install or restore their puppet rulers in Middle Eastern countries; the other, that they were not reliable patrons when these puppets were seriously attacked by their own people, and would simply abandon them. The one evoked hatred, the other contempt—a dangerous combination.
By the early 1970s the Soviet presence in the Middle East was becoming not only ineffectual but also irksome. Like their Western imperial predecessors, the Soviets had established military bases on Egyptian soil which no Egyptian could enter and proceeded to the classic next stage of unequal treaties.
There were some Middle Eastern leaders who learned the lesson and turned, with greater or lesser reluctance, toward the West. Notable among them was President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, who had inherited the Soviet relationship from his predecessor, President Nasser. In May 1971 he was induced to sign a very unequal "Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation" with the USSR; in July 1972 he ordered his Soviet military advisers to leave the country and took the first steps toward a rapprochement with the United States and a peace with Israel. President Sadat however seems to have been almost alone in his assessment and his policies, and in general these events seem to have brought no diminution in goodwill to the Soviets, and no corresponding increase in goodwill to the
In 1979 the Soviet Union deployed its 40th Army into Afghanistan, attempting to suppress an Islamic rebellion against an allied Marxist regime in the Afghan Civil War. The conflict, pitting indigenous impoverished Muslims (mujahideen) against an anti-religious superpower, galvanized thousands of Muslims around the world to send aid and sometimes to go themselves to fight jihad. Leading this pan-Islamic effort was Palestinian sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. While the military effectiveness of these "Afghan Arabs" was marginal, Azzam’s group is said to have organized paramilitary training for more than 20,000 Muslim recruits, from about 20 countries around the world
But it was left to the United States to organize, with some success, an Islamic counterattack to Soviet imperialism in Afghanistan
When the Soviet Union abandoned the Marxist Najibullah regime and withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 (the regime finally fell in 1992), the victory was seen by many Muslims as the triumph of Islamic faith over superior military power and technology that could be duplicated elsewhere
The jihadists gained legitimacy and prestige from their triumph both within the militant community and among ordinary Muslims, as well as the confidence to carry their jihad to other countries where they believed Muslims required assistance.
The "veterans of the guerrilla campaign" returning home to Algeria, Egypt and other countries "with their experience, ideology, and weapons," were often eager to continue armed jihad.
The collapse of the Soviet Union itself in 1991, was seen by many Islamists, including Bin Laden, as the defeat of a superpower at the hands of Islam, the $6 billion in aid given by the US to the mujahideen having nothing to do with the victory. As bin Laden opined: “The US has no mentionable role" in "the collapse of the Soviet Union … rather the credit goes to God and the mujahidin" of Afghanistan
In Afghanistan the mujahideen’s victory did not lead to justice and prosperity but to a vicious and destructive civil war between warlords, making Afghanistan one of the poorest countries on earth.
In 1996, a new movement known as the Taliban, rose to power, defeated most of the warlords and took over roughly 80% of Afghanistan
The Taliban were spawned by the thousands of madrasahs the Deobandi movement established for impoverished Afghan refugees and supported by governmental and religious groups in neighboring Pakistan.
The Taliban differed from other Islamist movements to the point where they might be more properly described as Islamic fundamentalist or neofundamentalist, interested in spreading "an idealized and systematized version of village customs to an entire country." Despite Afghanistan’s great poverty, they had little interest in social, economic and technological development – at one time explaining that "we Muslims believe God the Almighty will feed everybody one way or another."
Their ideology was also described as being influenced by Pashtunwali tribal law, Wahhabism, and the jihadism pan-Islamism of their guest Osama bin Laden.
The Taliban considered "politics" to be against Sharia and thus did not hold elections. They were led by Mullah Mohammed Omar who was given the title "Amir al-Mu’minin" or Commander of the Faithful, and a pledge of loyalty by several hundred Taliban-selected Pashtun clergy in April 1996. Like most Islamists, the Taliban enforced strict prohibitions on women, but these were so severe – for example effectively forbidding most employment and schooling – that they created an international outcry.
The Taliban also banned other activities – music, TV, videos, photographs, pigeons, kite-flying, beard-trimming, etc. – and for the energy and the resources which they used to enforce the bans, including hundreds perhaps thousands of religious police officers armed with "whips, long sticks and Kalashnikovs."
The Taliban also opposed Shi’ism and have been accused by human rights groups of indiscriminately killing thousands of Shia. They were also overwhelmingly Pashtun and were accused of not sharing power with the approximately 60% of Afghans who belonged to other ethnic groups.
The Taliban’s hosting of Osama bin Laden, despite the attacks he organized against the United States, led to an American-organized attack against which drove them from power following the 9/11 attacks. Taliban are still very much alive and fighting a vigorous insurgency from bases in the frontier regions of Pakistan with suicide bombings and armed attacks being launched against NATO, Afghan government targets and civilians.
Saddam Hussein had become President of Iraq in 1979, but had in fact been a major figure in the secular nationalist government of the Baath (‘renaissance’) party for the previous ten years. His ostensible reason for attacking Iran was to obtain a revision of the borders forced on Iraq by the Shah in 1975. However, the Iraqi dictator probably hoped to seize the Iranian province of Khuzistan, which had both oil reserves and a large Arab population that might welcome the invaders.
Saddam was to be disappointed in the latter hope, just as the Iranian ayatollahs were to be disappointed when they called on Iraq’s majority Shiite population to support their Iranian co-religionists, and met with little response. Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states along the shores of the Gulf were not unhappy about the Iraqi attack on Iran, since the resulting war would distract the ayatol-lahs from fomenting revolution in other Muslim countries. Iraq’s principal arms suppliers were the Soviet Union and France, but the usa and other countries were ready to supply military equipment and intelligence to Iraq in its struggle against the ayatollahs, just as the Gulf Arabs gave Saddam Hussein considerable financial support
The usa and the Arab Gulf states were not the only countries that found the Iran–Iraq war a useful conflict. Israel was initially more worried about the growing military potential of Iraq than the religious revolution in Iran. Israeli aircraft had bombed a nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq in 1981, but now it seemed that Iraq’s military efforts would be concentrated on Iran.
The Iran–Iraq war was a useful distraction that would permit Israel to carry out its own plans. Having made peace with Egypt, the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin wanted to achieve peace on his northern border by exploiting the continuing civil war in Lebanon. The plo and the Syrians were to be driven out of Lebanon, and a pro-Israel, Christian-dominated government set up there. Using a Palestinian assassination attempt on the Israeli ambassador in London as an excuse for war, an Israeli army of 90,000 men was sent into Lebanon in June 1982. Lebanese and plo resistance was easily overcome, while more serious action by Syrian ground and air forces was heavily defeated.
Soon the Israelis were besieging the plo in Beirut, with the assistance of Lebanese Christian forces. International diplomatic pressure forced Israel to permit the plo fighters to leave Beirut for foreign countries. Then in September 1982 many Palestinian civilians were massacred in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Beirut. The killers were Lebanese Christian militia, but the area had been under Israeli military control. This atrocity led to the dispatch of an international force of American, French, Italian and British troops to Beirut to keep the peace between the contending parties.
A significant Shiite Muslim population existed in Lebanon, and the Iranian ayatollahs were keen to exploit that group’s hostility to foreign invaders, whether Israeli or Western. The Israelis had removed the secular plo guerrillas from Lebanon, but now had to face Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups, above all the Iranian-backed Hizbollah (‘party of God’). However, the first attacks of the new groups were directed at Western peacekeepers rather than the Israelis, who had withdrawn from Beirut itself. The suicide car or truck bomb now
made its appearance in the terrorist arsenal, and showed itself to be a highly effective weapon. In 1983 the us embassy in Beirut was destroyed, as were the barracks of French paratroopers (58 killed) and us Marines (241 killed). In the face of such effective terrorist attacks, the Western governments did not wish to continue their commitment in Beirut and soon withdrew their forces. The suicide bombers then moved on to the Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon and destroyed an Israeli headquarters at Tyre later in 1983. The Israelis withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1985, but retained a security zone just north of its southern border
Delighted by the success of their terrorist surrogates against the Americans and other Western forces in Lebanon, the Iranians then introduced Hizbollah and similar groups to the hostages game. Between 1984 and 1992 approximately 100 Westerners were kidnapped in Lebanon
This concern led him into one of the most embarrassing incidents of his presidency. Reagan secretly agreed to supply several thousand anti-tank missiles to Iran for use in its war with Iraq, in return for which the ayatol-lahs would use their influence with the Lebanese kidnappers to secure the release of American hostages. Officially, the Reagan administration refused to negotiate with terrorists, but between 1985 and 1986 it did just that, using Iran as an intermediary. Three hostages were released, but others were then seized. In November 1986 the whole affair became public; President Reagan had difficulty explaining his policy, and several members of his staff faced legal proceedings. The Iranians could now claim to have humiliated two American presidents in hostage cases and to have driven the American military out of Lebanon.
The Iraqi air force was superior to that of Iran and launched attacks on Iranian oil facilities and tankers, thus threatening to cut off Iran’s main source of income. Iran’s superior numbers of troops did begin to wear down the Iraqis, however, and by 1986 the Iranians had entered Iraq and seized positions near Basra. In early 1987 the Iranians advanced to within seven miles of Basra and called on the Arab Gulf states to stop supporting Saddam Hussein.
When the Arabs ignored the Iranian call, Iran made efforts to attack Kuwaiti tankers with either mines or missiles. Kuwait accepted an American offer to protect the tankers if they were transferred to the American flag. Ironically, the first us escort vessel to suffer attack was mistakenly hit by an Iraqi missile and not an Iranian one. Iran ignored United Nations calls for a ceasefire in the war and us/Iranian relations became even more strained than usual
During 1988 the Iraqis began to push the Iranians out of their territory, and in August Iran finally agreed to accept a ceasefire after almost eight years of war. The increased us naval presence in the Gulf had been an important factor in forcing Iran to make peace and showed that ultimately the ayatollahs were not ready to go to war with the usa.
Another factor in the early 1990s that worked to radicalize the Islamist movement was the Gulf War, which brought several hundred thousand US and allied non-Muslim military personnel to Saudi Arabian soil to put an end to Saddam Hussein‘s occupation of Kuwait.
The Iraqi leader had been driven to this action because of the dire financial condition his country was in after its long struggle with Iran ended in 1988. Feeling that he had been fighting on behalf of all Arabs, Saddam Hussein resented the refusal of other Arab governments to waive the debts Iraq had built up during the war. Taking control of oil-rich Kuwait seemed one way of solving Iraq’s financial problems
Prior to 1990 Saudi Arabia played an important role in restraining the many Islamist groups that received its aid. But Saddam embraced Islamic rhetoric and attacked Saudi Arabia, his enemy in the war, for violating Islamic unity and its role as custodian of the two holy cities by allowing non-Muslims on its soil (traditional Muslim belief holds that non-Muslims must not be allowed on the Arabian peninsula), and he also accused the Kingdom of being a puppet of the west
These attacks resonated with conservative Muslims and the problem did not go away with Saddam’s defeat either, since American troops remained stationed in the kingdom, and a defacto cooperation with the Palestinian-Israeli peace process developed. Saudi Arabia attempted to compensate for its loss of prestige among these groups by repressing those domestic Islamists who attacked it (bin Laden being a prime example), and increasing aid to Islamic groups (Islamist madrassas around the world and even aiding some violent Islamist groups) that did not, but its pre-war influence on behalf of moderation was greatly reduced. One result of this was a campaign of attacks on government officials and tourists in Egypt, a bloody civil war in Algeria and Osama bin Laden’s terror attacks climaxing in 9/11 attack.
The Gulf War of 1991, in the common Western perception, was launched by the United States and a coalition of Arab and other allies to free Kuwait from Iraqi conquest and occupation and to protect Saudi Arabia against Iraqi aggression. To view this war as an American aggression against Iraq may seem a little odd, but this perspective is widely accepted in the Islamic world.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, followed by the defeat of Saddam.Hussein in the Gulf War of 1991, was a devastating blow to secular nationalist movements, notably that of the Palestinians, who once again, as in 1945, found themselves bereft of a great power patron and helper in their cause. Their Soviet protector was gone. Even their Arab financial backers in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, angered by enthusiastic Palestinian support for Saddam Hussein, for a while stopped their subsidies, leaving the Palestinians isolated, impoverished, and enfeebled. It was this situation that forced them to think the unthinkable and enter into a peace process with Israel. The PLO was rescued, in fundamentalist eyes ignominiously, by the Americans and the Israelis, and induced to enter into a demeaning dialogue with Israel
For Muslims, as we in the West sometimes tend to forget, the Holy Land par excellence is Arabia and especially the Hijaz and its two holy cities— Mecca, where the Prophet was born, and Medina, where he established the first Muslim state; the country whose people were the first to rally to the new faith and became its standard-bearers. The Prophet Muhammad lived and died in Arabia, as did his immediate successors, the caliphs, in the headship of the community. Thereafter, except for a brief interlude in Syria, the center of the Islamic world and the scene of its major achievements was Iraq, and its capital, Baghdad, was the seat of the caliphate for half a millennium.
E. Osama Bin Laden 2001, World Trade Center destruction
1 Key Points 2001
Two features mark the attacks of September 11 and other similar actions: the willingness of the perpetrators to commit suicide and the ruthlessness of those who send them, concerning both their own emissaries and their numerous victims. Can these in any sense be justified in terms of Islam?
The callous destruction of thousands in the World Trade Center, including many who were not American, some of them Muslims from Muslim countries, has no justification in Islamic doctrine or law and no precedent in Islamic history. Indeed, there are few acts of comparable deliberate and indiscriminate wickedness in human history. The response of many Arabs and Muslims to the attack on the World Trade Center was one of shock and horror.
In bin Laden’s view, charges of "terrorism" are specious in a world of immorality and oppression within which ostensible acts of terrorism are sometimes necessary and justified. He paints the modern world in polarities, a world of belief and unbelief, within which the forces of evil, oppression, and injustice assault the forces of good. The Muslim world and Islam are under siege:
They rob us of our wealth and of our resources and of our oil. Our religion is under attack. They kill and murder our brothers. They compromise our honor and our dignity and dare we utter a single word of protest against the injustice, we are called terrorists.
Like a Muslim jurist, he legalistically distinguishes between "commendable" and "reprehensible" terrorism. To terrify the innocent is unjust; however, terrorizing oppressors is necessary:
There is no doubt that every state and every civilization and culture has to resort to terrorism under certain circumstances for the purpose of abolishing tyranny and corruption. . . . The terrorism we practice is of the commendable kind for it is directed at the tyrants, the traitors who commit acts of treason against their own countries and their own faith and their own prophet and their own nation. Terrorizing those and punishing them are necessary measures to straighten things and make them right. Osama bin Laden plays to a centuries-long tradition of reform in Islam, most of it aimed in the last one hundred years toward the struggle over Muslim oppression by the West.
A "letter to America" published in November 2002, and attributed to Bin Laden he enumerates sets forth, under seven headings, "what we are calling you to do, and what we want from you." The first is to embrace Islam; the second, "to stop your oppressions, lies, immorality, and debauchery"; the third, to discover and admit that America is "a nation without principles or manners"; the fourth, to stop supporting Israel in Palestine, the Indians in Kashmir, the Russians against the Chechens, and the Manila government against the Muslims in the southern Philippines; the fifth, "to pack your luggage and get out of our lands." This is offered as advice for America’s own good, "so do not force us to send you back as cargo in coffins." The sixth, "to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries. Do not interfere in our politics and method of education. Leave us alone, or else expect us in New York and Washington; seventh, to deal and interact with the Muslims on the basis of mutual interests and benefits, rather than the policies of subjugation, theft, and occupation
Many are of recent European and even American origin, and come from both left and right. They include world pollution and the refusal to sign the
Even the vaunted merits of the American way of life become crimes and sins. The liberation of women means debauchery and the commercial use of women as "consumer products." Free elections mean that the American people freely chose their rulers and must therefore be held accountable and punishable for those rulers’ misdeeds—that is, there are no "innocent civilians." Worst of all is the separation of church and state: "You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator."
The triggers for bin Laden’s actions in 2001 were three:
a. America’s presence in Arabia during the Gulf War— a desecration of the Muslim Holy Land—and America’s use of Saudi Arabia as a base for an attack on Iraq. If Arabia is the most symbolic location in the world of Islam, Baghdad, the seat of the caliphate for half a millennium and the scene of some of the most glorious chapters in Islamic history, is the second
His primary focus was at first the presence of foreign troops in the Arab peninsula, the overthrow of the Saudi regime, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Bin Laden labeled America and Israel as crusaders and jews and Zionists and condemned the Saudi regime as compliant and corrupt. He then extended his accusations to embrace the death of one million innocent Iraqis due to Western sanctions as well as struggles in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Kashmir.
The September 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children. The real targets were America’s icons of military and economic power.
b He also celebrated the victories of Islam against the West with the Afghanistan victory over the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the time was right for his organization.
In the past, Muslims fighting against the West could always turn to the enemies of the West for comfort, encouragement, and material and military help. Now, for the first time in centuries, there is no such useful enemy. Bin Laden and his cohorts soon realized that, in the new configuration of world power, if they wished to fight America they had to do it themselves.
In 1991, the same year that the Soviet Union ceased to exist, bin Laden and his cohorts created Al-Qa’ida, which included many veterans of the war in Afghanistan. Their task might have seemed daunting to anyone else, but they did not see it that way. In their view, they had already driven the Russians out of Afghanistan, in a defeat so overwhelming that it led directly to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Having overcome the superpower that they had always regarded as more formidable, they felt ready to take on the other; in this they were encouraged by the opinion, often expressed by bin Laden among others, that America was a paper tiger.
Bin Laden played to the Muslim sense of historic oppression, occupation, and injustice at the hands of the West. After Septem ber 11, he charged, "What the United States tastes today is a very small thing compared to what we have tasted for tens of years. Our nation has been tasting humiliation and contempt for more than 80 years." He paints a world in which Muslims and Islam are under siege:
c Bin Laden also connected Western presence in the Gulf with a more international concern: America’s complicity in Israeli expansionism, its support for "Jewish and Zionist plans for expansion of what is called Greater Israel." Contrary to what many said in the aftermath of September 11, Palestine is a primary issue for bin Laden. His messages have consistently spoken of Zionist and Jewish offenses against Muslims.
His statements on the plight of the Palestinians, who have been living under Israeli military occupation in violation of UN Security Council resolutions for over forty years, graphically describe, capture, and appeal to the outrage of many in the Arab and Muslim world toward Israeli policy and the complicity of the international community:
“For over half a century, Muslims in Palestine have been slaughtered and assaulted and robbed of their honor and of their property. Their houses have been blasted, their crops destroyed. And the strange thing is that any act on their part to avenge themselves or lift the injustice befalling them causes great agitation in the United Nations which hastens to call an emergency meeting only to convict the victim and to censure the wronged and tyrannized whose children have been killed and whose crops have been destroyed and whose farms have been pulverized. ..”
Bin Laden holds the American people, who elect their president and Congress, responsible for Israeli oppression of Palestinians: "their government manufactures arms and gives them to Israel and Israel uses them to massacre Palestinians." He charges that the Jewish lobby has taken America and the West hostage. He calls upon the American people to rise up against their government as they did during the Vietnam war and force it to give up America’s anti-Muslim policies and massacre of Muslims. Muslims have the right, indeed the obligation, to defend themselves. He appeals then to the Islamic teaching that jihad in the defense of Islam and to correct an unjust political order is legitimate and required:
2. Background
Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1957, the seventeenth (the seventh son) of fifty-two children. His father, Muhammad bin Laden, had come to the Kingdom from South Yemen around 1930 as an illiterate laborer. He started a small construction business and went on to become one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest construction magnates. He developed ties to the royal family and was awarded exclusive contracts. In the 1950s, Osama’s father designed and built the al-Hada road, which permitted Muslims from Yemen to make the pilgrimage to Mecca {hajj), one of the five basic religious requirements of Islam, more easily. His company also received a multibillion dollar contract to restore and expand the Grand Mosques of Mecca and Medina, raising his company’s prestige throughout the Muslim world and setting the stage for the company’s expansion beyond Saudi Arabia. The bin Laden family established a large industrial and financial empire
Ironically, given Osama’s recent outrage at the Saudi-American alliance and the presence of American forces in the Kingdom, the Bin Laden Group built many military support facilities in the Kingdom, including those used by U.S. forces during the Gulf War.
The bin Laden sons have attended the same schools as numerous princes of the royal family in Europe and America and have studied at and/or given money to some of the best’ universities, including Harvard, Oxford, and Tufts.
Osama’s father was a strong, hard-working, dominating, pious man who insisted on keeping all of his children in one household and raised them according to a strict moral and religious code. The family home was open to many Muslims, especially during hajj, and Osama was able at an early age to meet Muslim scholars and leaders of Islamic movements from all over the Islamic world.
Like many in the Arab world, bin Laden’s father is said to have felt passionately about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This appears in an anecdote that has the elder bin Laden seeking to contribute to the liberation of Palestine. One day, as the story goes, he demanded that his company’s engineers convert two hundred bulldozers into tanks for the purpose of attacking Israel. Told that the task was impossible, he decided instead to produce as many sons as possible and convert them into fighters. But out of all the bin Laden sons, Osama became the only fighter.
Bin Laden was educated in Medina and Jeddah, earning his degree in public administration in 1981 at Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz University, where he studied management and economics. During his studies, he became more and more religiously oriented, influenced by his university experience and unfolding events in Saudi Arabia and the wider Muslim world. Osama’s religious worldview was shaped both by Saudi Arabia’s deeply conservative Wahhabi interpretation of Islam and by the revolutionary Islam that began to spread in the 1970s. Each of these influences would be formative in the development of his jihadist vision, mission, and strategy
A major turning point in Osama bin Laden’s life, the beginning of his journey toward becoming a mujahid, or warrior for God, occurred with the 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. As bin Laden would later say, "What I lived in two years there, I could not have lived in a hundred years elsewhere
When the anti-Soviet jihad began, bin Laden was among the first to rush to the Afghan refugee camps in Peshawar, Pakistan, to meet with mujahidin leaders, some of whom he had already come to know during hajj gatherings at his home in Saudi Arabia. From 1979 to 1982 he collected funds and materiel for the jihad and made intermittent visits from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan. In 1982 he finally entered Afghanistan, bringing large quantities of construction machinery as well as funding, and becoming a full participant in the Afghan jihad. By 1984 increasing numbers of Arab mujahidin were arriving in Pakistan to join the holy war. Bin Laden responded by establishing a guesthouse in Peshawar for Arabs on their way to the front in Afghanistan.
In 1986 Osama became more directly involved in the war, setting up his own camps and commanding Arab mujahidin forces who became known as Arab Afghans in battle. He subsequently created al-Qaeda (the base), to organize and track the channeling of fighters and funds for the Afghan resistance. Six-feet five-inches tall, with a long beard and piercing eyes, the wealthy and powerfully connected bin Laden was well on his way to becoming a poster-boy for the jihad, at first as a hero and later as a global terrorist.
Bin Laden’s activities were applauded by the Saudi government, which, along with the United States, had made a heavy commitment to supporting the jihad against the Soviet Union. For America, this was a "good jihad." Ironically, although the United States had been threatened by Iran’s revolutionary Islam and the violence and terrorism committed by jihad groups in Egypt, Lebanon, and elsewhere, our government was able to cheer and support Afghanistan’s holy warriors, providing considerable funding as well as
For Osama bin Laden, as for Saudi Arabia and indeed Muslims worldwide, the Afghan jihad to repel foreigners from Islamic territory was eminently in accord with Islamic doctrine.
Bin Laden proved himself to be a selfless and dedicated mujahid, or holy warrior. He was more comfortable as an activist than as an ideologue, focused primarily on the jihad in Afghanistan rather than on Muslim international politics and activism. Ahmed Rashid, expert on the Taliban and al-Qaeda, writes of bin Laden:
Bin Laden’s former associates describe him as deeply impressionable, always in need of mentors, men who knew more about Islam and the modern world than he did
How did Osama bin Laden, member of the Saudi elite, mujahid, and hero of the war in Afghanistan, become radicalized? After Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia and a job in the family business. Though initially received as a hero, speaking at mosques and to private gatherings, he was soon at loggerheads with the royal family, vociferous in his warning of an impending Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Saudi Arabia, along with Kuwait and the United States, had for many years, in particular during the Iraq-Iran War, been strong supporters of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, seeing it as a check on the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran.
When Iraq did invade Kuwait in August 1990, bin Laden quickly wrote to King Fahd, offering to bring the Arab Afghan mujahidin to Saudi Arabia to defend the kingdom
the deafening silence from the palace was shattered by news that American forces were to defend the House of Saud. The admission and stationing of foreign non-Muslim troops in Islam’s holy land and their permanent deployment after the Gulf war, bin Laden would later say, transformed his life completely, placing him on a collision course with the Saudi government and the West. He spoke out forcefully against the Saudi alliance with the United States, obtained a fatwa (legal opinion) from a senior religious scholar that training was a religious duty, and sent several thousand volunteers to train in Afghanistan.
Like other Arab Afghans who returned to their home countries, in Afghanistan bin Laden had enjoyed the freedom to think and act and to engage in a religious mission to overcome injustice and create an Islamic state and society. In Saudi Arabia he found himself bound within the confines of a regime whose policies and alliances he more and more came to despise as corrupt and un-Islamic. While many of the Arab Afghans who returned to Egypt, Algeria, and elsewhere quickly became involved in radical opposition movements, bin Laden continued to struggle within the system. The government restricted his movement in an attempt to silence him. Finally, in April 1991 he escaped to Afghanistan via Pakistan. When he arrived, however, he found himself not in the Islamic state for which the jihad had been fought but in one mired in the religious and ethnic warfare of its aftermath.
Within a brief period after the Soviet withdrawal, the great Islamic victory had collapsed into interethnic and sectarian warfare, fueled by foreign patrons. The net result was chaos and the devastation of Afghanistan as various warlords vied to set up their own fiefdoms.
Despite the Afghan victory, the jihad had failed to develop a coherent ideology or basis for political unity. The United States walked away from an Afghanistan whose countryside was devastated by a ten-year Soviet occupation that had cost more than one million lives. Mujahidin groups, many of which today make up the Northern Alliance that with U.S. backing fought and defeated the Taliban, represented competing ethnic, tribal, and religious groups. The country was gripped by a civil war that pitted the majority Pashtun population in the south and east against the ethnic minorities of the north—Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, and Turkmen.
The conflict was further compounded by the intervention and competing agendas of outside powers. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia supported Sunni mujahidin groups while Iran backed an alliance of Shii minority organizations. The majority of Afghans found themselves caught in the middle of a prolonged civil war marked by heavy fighting, lawlessness, pillaging, rape, and plunder. Bin Laden was frustrated by his inability to contribute to the resolution of the problems of chaos and lawlessness. In 1992, after several months amidst the inter-mujahidin squabbling and fighting over succession after the collapse of the pro-Soviet regime, bin Laden moved to Sudan.
In January 1989, in a coup led by Colonel Omar al-Bashir, the National Islamic Front (NIF) had come to power in Sudan and established an Islamic republic. The government, in a relationship that proved mutually beneficial, welcomed bin Laden. Bin Laden found a refuge and invested his wealth in much-needed construction projects as well as farms and other businesses in the fledgling Islamic state. During these years Sudan, with its open borders, was increasingly condemned by America and Europe for its links with revolutionary Iran and for harboring international terrorists and their training camps. In 1993 Sudan was placed on the State Department’s list of countries that 
sponsor terrorism, bin Laden was among those individuals whom U.S. intelligence identified as sponsoring terrorist training camps. Although he denied direct involvement and was never formally indicted, bin Laden voiced his approval for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the killing of U.S. troops in Mogadishu, Somalia. American officials were divided as to whether he provided training and arms to those responsible.
Bin Laden’s final break with Saudi Arabia came in 1994 when the Kingdom revoked his citizenship and moved to freeze his assets in Saudi Arabia because of his support for fundamentalist movements. From that point on, bin Laden became more outspoken in his denunciation of the House of Saud. Now pushed to the fringe, he joined with other dissident activists and religious scholars to create the Advice and Reform Committee, founded in Saudi Arabia but forced subsequently to move to London. This political opposition group strongly criticized the Saudi regime but did not overtly advocate violence.
By 1995, a series of events and accusations had catapulted the previously obscure bin Laden to center stage. U.S. intelligence sources claimed that he had established extensive training operations in northern Yemen near the Saudi border. Investigators charged that Ramzi Yousef, the captured mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, had stayed at a bin Laden-financed guesthouse and had financial links to bin Laden. Bin Laden sent a letter to King Fahd advocating guerrilla attacks to drive the U.S. forces out of the Kingdom. Some charged that he was linked to an unsuccessful assassination attempt in Addis Ababa, in June 1995, against President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. When five Americans and two Indians were killed in a truck bombing in Riyadh in November 1995, bin Laden denied involvement but praised those who committed the attack. Responding to mounting international pressure, especially from the United States and Saudi Arabia, in May 1996 Sudan expelled bin Laden.. Though some had urged the United States to take advantage of the tentative overtures that the NIF government was making, the Clinton administration chose otherwise.
Bin Laden fled back to Afghanistan. Shortly after, in June, a large truck bomb tore apart the Khobar Towers, a U.S. military residence in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing nineteen servicemen. Investigators were initially divided between placing the blame with bin Laden or with a militant Saudi Shii organization.17 Bin Laden praised those behind the Riyadh and Dhahran bombings but denied direct involvement: "I have great respect for the people who did this. What they did is a big honor that I missed participating in." In June 2001 thirteen members of Saudi Hizbollah, a Shiite group from the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, were indicted in the United States for the Dhahran bombing.
In 1996, Afghanistan witnessed the rise of an improbable militia that would go on to unite 90 percent of the country and declare the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. After almost eighteen years of Soviet occupation followed by civil war, a seemingly endless cycle of carnage and chaos was abruptly reversed by the astonishing success of a new Islamic movement.
Late in 1994, as if out of nowhere, the predominantly Pashtun Taliban, a band of madrasa (seminary) students (taliban) who had been living as refugees in Pakistan suddenly appeared. Initially the Taliban were portrayed as having no military background. In fact many of their mullahs (religious leaders) and students were veterans of the Afghan-Soviet war who had returned to the madrasas after the departure of the Soviets. Within two years they swept across the country, overwhelming the Northern Alliance of non-Pashtun minorities. Denouncing the contending mujahidin militias, the Taliban claimed the mantle of moral leadership as representatives of the majority of Afghans who were victims of the internecine warfare.
At first the Taliban were hailed as liberators who promised to restore law and order, stability and security, and make the streets safe for ordinary citizens. They disarmed the population, cleaned up corruption and graft, and imposed Shariah (Islamic law). Initially, they enjoyed success and popularity as a reform movement. It was not until their capture of Kabul in 1996 that they revealed their intention to rule the country and to impose a strict puritanical form of Islam. With substantial support from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, by 1998 they had subdued 90 percent of the country and driven the Northern Alliance into a small area of northeast Afghanistan.
The Taliban brand of Islamic radicalism has been significantly influenced by a militant neo-Deobandi movement in Pakistan. Ironically, the Sunni Deobandi began in the Indian subcontinent as a reformist movement. However, its political expression and ideology were transformed within Pakistan’s Jamiyyat-i-Ulama-i-Islam GUI), a religious party with a rigid, militant, anti-American, and anti-non-Muslim culture. Many of the Taliban were trained in the hundreds of JUI madrasas.
Often run by semiliterate mullahs, these schools were first set up for Afghan refugees in the Pashtun-dominated areas of Pakistan, along the border with Afghanistan. Many were supported by Saudi funding that brought with it the influence of an ultraconservative Wahhabi Islam, Students received free education, religious, ideological, and military training. The Taliban teachers showed little knowledge or appreciation for their classical Islamic tradition or for currents of Islamic thought in the broader Muslim world today. They espoused a myopic, self-contained, militant worldview in which Islam is used to legitimate their tribal customs and preferences. The classical Islamic belief in jihad as a defense of Islam and the Muslim community against aggression was transformed into a militant jihad culture and worldview that targets unbelievers, including Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
When they came to power, the Taliban turned over many of their training camps to JUI factions, who in turn trained thou sands of Pakistani and Arab militants as well as fighters from South and Central Asia and the Arab world in their radical jihad ideology and tactics. Assisted by military support from Pakistan and financial support from the Wahhabi in Saudi.Arabia, with JUI mentoring and influenced by Osama bin Laden’s evolving radical jihadist political vision, the Taliban promoted their own brand of revolutionary Islam. They imposed their strict Wahhabi-like brand of Islam on Afghan society. They banned women from school and the workplace, required that men wear beards and women chadors, banned music, photography, and television, and imposed strict physical punishments on deviators. Their intolerance for any deviation from their brand of Islam expressed itself in the slaughter of many of Afghanistan’s Shii minority (10 percent of the popula¬tion), whom they disdained as heretics, when the Taliban overran Shii areas such as Mazar-e Sharif in northwest Afghanistan.
Many Muslim religious leaders around the world denounced Taliban "Islamic" policies as aberrant. Muslim governments as diverse as Iran and Egypt, along with Western governments and international human rights organizations, condemned Taliban violations of human rights. Despite their control of most of Afghanistan, by the fall of 1998, neither the United Nations nor most of the global community acknowledged their legitimacy. The Taliban government was recognized by only three nations, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates.
Nevertheless, bin Laden found the Taliban’s Afghanistan a comfortable haven and useful base of operations. The Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, had been quick to offer sanctuary and express his admiration for bin Laden’s sacrifices and dedication to jihad. Bin Laden skillfully cultivated and developed his relationship with Mullah Omar and the Taliban, providing financial support, building roads and other construction projects, and sending his Afghan Arabs to fight alongside the Taliban in critical battles.
Bin Laden’s entourage and followers grew steadily. He attracted Arab and other Muslim dissidents, many of whom had had to flee their native countries. Among them were several prominent Egyp
tian radicals: Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a physician and a leader of the banned Islamic Jihad in Egypt; Rifai Taha Musa, leader of Egypt’s banned Gamaa Islamiyya; and two sons of Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian preacher indicted for involvement in the assassination of Anwar Sadat, suspected of involvement in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, and later found guilty of conspiring to blow up major sites in New York City. Omar Abdel Rahman had visited Afghanistan several times during the war against the Soviets, when he and bin Laden had first met. Of these men, however, the one to wield the most influence over bin Laden would be Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Safely entrenched in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden assumed a more visible and vocal leadership role in international terrorism, calling openly for a jihad against America and its allies. In August 1996 he issued a Declaration of Jihad whose goals were to drive U.S. forces out of the Arabian peninsula, overthrow the Saudi government, and liberate Islam’s holy sites of Mecca and Medina, as well as support revolutionary groups around the world. In November, he again repeated his threat to wage holy war against the United States and its allies if Washington did not remove its troops from the Gulf.21 By 1998, he seemed increasingly comfortable and astute in using the media to propagate his message and garner support in the Muslim world. From that time onward, his media appearances and statements were carefully crafted, emphasizing both his image and message.
In 2000 bin Laden announced the formation of the World Islamic Front for the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, an umbrella group of radical movements across the Muslim world, and issued a fatwa stating that it is the duty of all Muslims to kill U.S. citizens and their allies. The title of the organization summed up the man and his view of the world. Muslims were under siege, their lands occupied in a world dominated by their historic enemies, militant Christianity and Judaism. All true Muslims had an obligation to heed the call to a global jihad, a defense of the worldwide Islamic community. Global politics were indeed for bin Laden a competition and jihad, a clash of civilizations between the Muslim world and the West, between Islam and a militant Judeo-Christian conspiracy. Foreign influence and intervention in the Islamic world had once again underscored the traditional division of the world into the land of Islam (dar al-Islam) and the land of warfare {dar al-harb). Because of Western abuses, the entire world has been divided, he claimed, "into two regions—one of faith where there is no hypocrisy and another of infidelity, from which we hope God will protect us." If bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s attempt to mobilize the world of Islam for their jihad further convinced most Muslim and Western governments of the magnitude of the Islamic threat, it also seemed to contribute to bin Laden’s attraction for a growing number of Muslims, particularly in the younger generation. Like Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein before him, bin Laden seeks legitimacy and the mobilization of the "Muslim street" or general population through identification with many of the 
perceptions and grievances of mainstream as well as extremist Muslims. He hijacks Islam, using Islamic doctrine and law to legitimate terrorism.