Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (17 page)

governments and replacing them with “truly Islamic” governments worldwide. The Muslim Brotherhood and groups like it, while maintaining that violence may in some cases be justified, also affirm the importance of Islamists supporting Islamically-based literacy, health care, and social services (among other peaceful means) as ways of spreading the Islamist message and eventually overthrowing “non-Islamic” governments. These starkly different approaches in attempting to make religio-political changes in majority- Muslim societies have catalyzed enormous debate among (1) some Islamists who believe that Islamically-based social services should be emphasized by the Islamist movements, and (2) their Islamist opponents (such as members of al-Qaida) who believe that violence should be the sole means of revolting against the status quo and establishing “truly Islamic” governments globally, with the hope of eventually establishing a global Islamic state. Such debates will, in all likelihood, continue for many years to come.189

Pan-Arab Egypt

With a total population of more than 80 million, approximately 90 percent of whom are Muslims, Egypt is the largest Arab country in the world, whose religious, cultural, linguistic, and literary influence stretches throughout most Arab countries and many majority-Muslim nations outside of the Arab world.190 Particularly since the latter half of the twentieth century and in the early part of the twenty-first century, large numbers of Arabs inside and outside Egypt watch television shows and movies, listen to music, and read news, fiction, and other forms of information that are generated in Egypt.191 The influence of Egypt’s media on the rest of the Arab world is so great that many Arabs in parts of that region, who cannot speak any of Egypt’s Arabic dialects, can understand Cairo’s Arabic dialect because of the large number of television and radio programs and movies that are produced in or under the influence of that city.192 Through these forms of media, perceptions of certain sounds, images, and ideas from Egypt are in the minds of many Arabs.

Popular cultural forms are not the only components of these media streams. Islamist groups such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida, which have some significant roots in Egypt, use that country as one base for disseminating their ideas into much of the Arab world and beyond. Indeed, the work of Egyptian Islamists, secularists, and other activists had an influence on other Arab (and non-Arab) protestors who resisted the governments in their countries in the wake of the Tunisian and Egyptian protests which began in early 2011.193 This Pan-Arab Egypt has played a crucial role in the spreading of the ideas of Zawahiri and al-Qaida throughout much of the majority-Muslim world and outside of it. While Egypt was not

by any means the only catalyst in the spread of Zawahiri’s and al-Qaida’s ideas, it was that country’s vibrant intellectual ferment that helped give rise to an Islamic intellectual genealogy – from Afghani to (Abduh to Rida to al-Banna to Qutb to Zawahiri – which spread to Muslims in many parts of the world.

Indeed, one crucial Muslim leader and intellectual who espoused, rearticulated, and reembedded Zawahiri’s and al-Qaida’s ideology is the American-born Islamist Anwar al-Awlaki (b. 1971), who inspired the successful or attempted Islamist attacks in Fort Hood, Texas in November 2009, on a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day in the same year, and in Times Square in New York City in May 2010.194 At some point after al-Qaida’s attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, al-Awlaki underwent a transformation; he transitioned from believing in the importance of Muslims engaging in dialogue with non-Muslims to embracing and preaching Zawahiri’s and al-Qaida’s ideology of attacking Western interests with the ultimate goal of Islamists creating a global Islamist state.195 Al-Awlaki’s interpretation of history and justifications for attacking Westerners and Western interests closely match those of al-Qaida. From al- Qaida’s perspective and those of its sympathizers, al-Awlaki’s strengths include the fact that (1) he fully understands al-Qaida’s ideology; (2) as an American-born Muslim of Yemeni parentage, he understands Western and Arab cultures; (3) he speaks English and Arabic; and (4) he is a charismatic preacher whose Islamist sermons in Arabic and English, which are carried on the Internet and a variety of other media, have persuaded other Muslims to attack or attempt to attack Western interests.196 Some of the adherents of al-Awlaki’s Zawahirian and al-Qaidian ideology include (1) United States Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people in the Islamist attack in Fort Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009; (2) Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate explosives hidden in his undergarment in his unsuccessful attempt to kill all the passengers on a transatlantic Northwest Airlines flight en route from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25, 2009; and (3) Faisal Shahzad, whose failed attack in Times Square in New York City on May 1, 2010 involved equipping a sport utility vehicle with explosives with the hope that its detonation would kill and injure as many people as possible.197

These three persons, together with Zawahiri, al-Awlaki, and al-Qaida, operate within a globalized transnational ethos, where ideas, strategies, and actions can instantly cross borders in such a way that enables these Islamists and their allies to engage in religio-politically-based attacks with lightning- fast speed, news of which can reach billions of persons across the globe within seconds. While members of al-Qaida and other transnational resistance groups may still, in some measure, be restricted by the physical borders and other constraints imposed by nation-states, some of these

activists can exist within and, alternately, transcend such boundaries in pursuit of their goals.198 As such Islamists articulate and attempt to achieve these objectives, they draw on the classic sacred texts of their religious traditions within a contemporary milieu that is radically different from the ancient contexts within which those texts emerged. Yet, these activists believe that those sacred texts speak directly to this and every other age, while inspiring these activists’ actions. Virtually the entire contemporary world, including Egypt and almost every other nation-state (whether or not they have majority-Muslim populations), exists within this globalized transnational ethos and it is this highly accelerated, tightly interconnected environment which mobilizes the Islamists’ ideologies and actions, while enabling the psychological and physical effects of their militant operations to be so profound.

Notes

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., 228–32.

16 Hourani, Arabic Thought, 109, 119, 156, 228, 230, 258.

17 Ibid., 229–30.

18 Ibid., 234.

21 Ibid., 239–44.

25 Ibid., 1–2.

29 Ibid., 4–5.

33 Ibid., 6–7.

49 Ibid., 62.

50 Ibid., 62.

51 Ibid., 67–70.

52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., 69. 54 Ibid., 71.

64 Ibid., 21.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid., 21–2.

67 Ibid., 23.

68 Ibid., 22–3.

69 Ibid., 23.

70 Ibid., 22.

71 Ibid., 22–3.

72 Ibid., 24.

73 Ibid., 24–9.

81 Qutb as quoted in ibid., 27–8.

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 94–107.

100 Ibid., 21.

101 Ibid., 55.

102 Ibid., 53.

107 Ibid., 58.

108 Ibid., 56.

113 Ibid., 36.