October 1, 2001
As the democratic world confronts Osama bin Laden and his followers, many among us are trying to understand militant Islam, where it came from and its aims. Due to the West's unfamiliarity with the teachings of Islam, how can we evaluate the statements made by government officials, or the press? The following background material is designed to give an overview of the phenomenon that has been called "militant Islam," "fundamentalist Islam," or "radical Islam."

Basic Principles: Eight General Statements

While it is always dangerous to generalize about any ideology or historic phenomenon, eight basic points will summarize the trends and development of militant Islam. These points will be expanded throughout this backgrounder.

1. The roots of militant Islam go back to the 13th century, to a traditionalist legal philosopher named Ibn Taymiya, who opposed Islam's incorporation of external influences.

2. The first modern use of militant Islam was in the 19th century, as a reaction against colonialist rule in the Middle East. This anti-colonialist harnessing of militant Islam endured through the 1950's.

3. The second modern use of militant Islam was in the 1960's and 1970's, as a tool to deflect communism and socialism in the Arab world, which was espoused by Egyptian ruler Gamel Abdul Nasser and his followers.

4. The goal of militant Islam is not religious reformation. The goal of militant Islam is to secure power and maintain it through any and all means. Militant Islamists utilize their view of religion in order to gain support for their power seeking revolution.

5. Several moderate Arab leaders have fostered Islamic elements to give legitimacy to their regimes and foster support among their people, as well as to offset communist and socialists movements within their societies. While they believed that they could control the radical Islamists that they had supported, in time many of these regimes have been forced to repress these elements, in order to protect their regimes.

6. Some Arab countries imported Islamic scholars from Egypt to teach their population Arabic, history and other subjects. Many were trained at Al-Azhar University by militant Islamic clerics, and transmitted their ideology and views to the host country's youth, spreading popular support for militant Islam.

7. Militant Islamists gain their popularity through leveraging nationalist and religious pride, expanding on romantic notions within the Arab and Islamic culture, capitalizing on unmet expectations of the general population in the Middle East that has not benefited from globalization, and promising salvation and reward through increased piety.

8. Militant Islam is an inward-looking reaction to modernization. It is anti-West and anti-globalization. Its anti-Israel and anti-Zionist rhetoric is a reflection of its anti-Western stance, and is not at the basis of its philosophy or goals.
   

Like Judaism, Islam is a religion of laws and traditions. Islam has four legal philosophies, called "schools." The most conservative and extremist in its strict adherence to Islamic sunna, or tradition, is the Hanbali school, to which Ibn Taymiya belonged. The Hanbali school of Islamic law is the most puritanical, resistant to influences or modernization of Islam. Hanbalis wanted a return to the Islam that had been practiced in the seventh century by Muhammed and his early followers. It points to the actions of the first four leaders that succeeded Muhammed, called the four right-minded caliphs (successors), as the proper Islamic form of rule.

Ibn Taymiya lived in Damascus after the Mongol invasions. In his sermons and writings Ibn Taymiya criticized the Islam of his day - the popular mystical Sufi movement with its worship of saints and prophets – and set forth a program of reform that advocated a strict return to the early days of Islam. He sought to eliminate from 13th century Islam any changes that might have been incorporated into the religion as a result of historic transformation.

Although he was not as stringent as some others of his theological school, Ibn Taymiya's teachings were too challenging to the political leadership, and he died in prison in 1328. His followers kept alive his teachings, and his legacy inspired later radical Islamic leaders of the Hanbali school.

Modern Militant Islamic State: Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia

The most successful modern militant Islamic movement, which drew its ideological inspiration from Ibn Taymiya is the Wahhabi revolution that created Saudi Arabia in the Arabian peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a fundamentalist sheikh who preached religious reform, forged an alliance with a local village chief, Muhammad Ibn Saud, to overturn un-Islamic practices that had become prevalent among the peninsula's population. As with his ideological ancestor Ibn Taymiya, Ibn Wahhab fought Muslim rulers who he believed failed to implement a pure form of Islam. Between 1773-1819, the Saudis and the Wahhabis united to conquer the Arabian peninsula, and found the Saudi Kingdom.

Today's Saudi Arabia, was established through a reconquest of these lands in the early 1900's by Bedouin tribes that had been mobilized by the radical Wahhabi preachers, and organized as the Wahhabi Brotherhood. After the successful creation of the modern day kingdom, King Abdelaziz Ibn Saud, the first modern Saudi Arabian ruler, was forced to suppress the radical Wahhabi Brotherhood, which continued their crusade to reform Islam in the fundamentalist Wahhabi vision.

Although it was founded by the radical Islamic Wahhabi clan, Saudi Arabia's ruling regime is on of the most popular targets for today's militant Islamists, including several Saudi citizens. Radical Islamists point to corruption by the Saudi princes, the personal practices of the ruling elite, and the close association with the un-Islamic United States as some of the reasons that the regime must be overthrown, in favor of a more pure, fundamentalist form of Islam.

The roots of this opposition to the Saudi regime can be found in the original Wahhabi ideology, as well as the radical brand of Islam advanced by troops of teachers that came from Egypt to Saudi Arabia during the 1960's. Fleeing Nasser's purge of the Muslim Brotherhood (see below), they found refuge in Saudi Arabia, where they were given jobs in all parts of the educational system except the official theology departments. Thus, the Egyptian Muslim Brothers spread their message of radical Islamic revolution throughout the kingdom.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood: Spreading the Militant Islamic Revolution

The contemporary ideological guru of modern militant Islam was an opponent of Egyptian leader Nasser's socialist regime. Sayyid Qutb was a leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, whose writings were smuggled out of prison, published, and distributed around the Middle East. In these writings, Qutb explicitly stated that Arab leaders like Nasser, who claimed to be Muslim, actually were non-believers, or infidels, as were their governments. Moreover, he wrote that real Muslims had the religious duty to overthrow by force these false leaders. Qutb advocated the institution of the radical form of Islam that was promoted by Ibn Taymiya.

Qutb combined his hatred for Nasser's Egypt with a unique disgust with the United States. As a student, Qutb visited the U.S., and was shocked by its culture, its capitalism, and its sexual mores, which he despised. As a result, his writings reflected an absolute intolerance for the "other," especially America, its allies, and anything Western. He often cited the interaction between the genders as particular reason for justifying his crusade to overturn Western governments, and those Arab governments that adopted Western systems. While also pointing to Israel and Zionism as evils that needed to be eradicated, Qutb did not blame Jews solely for what he called the depravity of Western civilization. For this, he blamed Christianity. Qutb's continued agitation against Nasser and his calls for jihad against the Egyptian government led to his execution in 1966, making him a martyr for militant Islam.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was created in 1928 as a political party that sought to overthrow British colonialist rule, and establish a "pure" Islamic state. It soon became the most popular political party in Egypt, calling for the restoration of Egyptian "dignity," but also sending young men to fight in Palestine against the Jews in 1929 and then again in 1947-48. With the infusion of Qutb's ideology, the Brotherhood became a powerful opponent of Nasser's regime. After Qutb's execution, Nasser expelled all members of the Brotherhood, who spread out around the Middle East. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the Sudan, welcomed the ousted Brothers as fellow Islamists, and utilized them as teachers in their high schools, colleges, and universities.

Islam's War in Afganistan: The Creation of the Mujahadeen

The Afghani fight against Soviet invaders in the 1980's ignited the imagination of militant Islamists around the region, who flocked to join the fight against the non-Muslim, communist invader. The goal of the USSR in this struggle was not only to gain southern access to a sea port, through Afghanistan and then through Pakistan, but to overthrow the government of Afghanistan and replace it with a Soviet one and to incorporate this territory into their empire.

As a counter-weight to this Cold War era battle, the United States recruited opposition fighters from among the native Afghani tribes, who called themselves, mujahadeen, or those undertaking jihad, holy war. Since this terminology seemed to spur on the fighters, the US encouraged the idea that the Afghani war was a holy one between Islam and communism. Young men from around the Middle East came to Afghanistan to join the mujahadeen, and were trained by the US Central Intelligence Agency's operatives. Among these non-Afghani militant Islamists was Osama bin Laden, who had already been highly inspired by Islam through his work in his family's business building mosques in Saudi Arabia.

As the war progressed, and the mujahadeen were victorious, a fanatical type of militant Islam took hold in some of the remaining warring tribes in Afghanistan. A further civil war ensued, and the Taliban faction - promoting a highly puritanical form of militant Islam - captured 90 percent of Afghani territory. They continue to impose their form of Islam on the remaining population, today.

Veterans from the war with the USSR maintained their militant Islamic ideology, and spread out to various other battles that involved Muslims and non-Muslims, or militant Islamists and moderate Muslim or Arab regimes. These veterans, called Afghanis, or mujahadeen, are found fighting for the Muslim forces in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, and even among the Muslim rebels in the Philippines and Indonesia. They view these struggles as different battles within a larger war with the dar al-harb, or sphere of war, and the dar al-Islam, the sphere of Islam – returning to the seventh and eighth century designation of territory under the control of Muhammend and his successors, and territory not under their control.

Afghani veterans also are found in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, and other countries, organizing opposition movements to fight against regimes they have labeled to be "infidel" even though they are Muslim. Due to the success of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members' spread of militant Isalmist ideas throughout the populations of these countries, there is significant sympathy with the militant Islamist cause within these moderate Arab countries, forming a potent opposition. This sympathy extends to Osama bin Laden, who is viewed by this sector as a spiritual leader in the struggle to spread militant Islam throughout the world.