Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (4 page)

Bank settlements that began in September 2000 (after Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) and have brought overwhelming death, injury, and fear to Israelis.49 In response to foreign criticism against Israel’s policies, such as those of Kofi Annan and Desmond Tutu, many Israelis and their supporters state that defense of Israel is a matter of Jewish and Israeli survival and that Israelis and other Jews will never again allow themselves to be victims of pogroms or another holocaust.50

There are wide varieties of viewpoints among Israelis, Palestinians, and their advocates; these are general contours of some arguments on the “pro- Palestinian” and “pro-Israeli” sides. Islamists and many other Palestinian sympathizers, which include most Muslims, often disregard many of the Israeli concerns, their historical experiences, and their justifications for their actions. Thus, Islamists and most other Muslims emphasize the injustices which they believe the Palestinians have suffered while ignoring those of Jews and Israelis. These Muslims state that the West’s hostility toward Islam during the Crusades and modern Israel’s history are just part of the wider Western assault upon Islam.

There are additional dimensions to Muslims’ grievances against the West. According to many Muslims, American involvement in Iran from the end of World War II until its Islamic revolution in 1979 is another instance of American interference in the majority-Muslim world. In 1953, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) organized and helped launch a coup against the elected government of Muhammad Mossadegh (1880–1967) and, after his overthrow, restored Muhammad Reza Shah (1919–80), who ruled Iran from 1941 to 1951 and again from 1953 to 1979, to Iran’s throne. Additionally, the CIA trained and financed Muhammad Reza Shah’s secret police SAVAK, created in 1957, which imprisoned, tortured, and spied on thousands of Iranians who were or were perceived to be opposed to the Shah’s regime. According to many Muslims, in addition to many other crimes the CIA committed in Iran, they supported a corrupt monarchical government which: (1) siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars into the Shah’s personal bank accounts; (2) contributed to an ever-widening gap between the rich and poor; and (3) did very little to provide economic and educational opportunities to the vast majority of Iranians. At the same time – according to this perspective – the United States provided consistent broad-ranging support to an autocratic monarch who ruled by fiat alone, disregarding parliamentary procedures and the will of Iran’s majority.51

Evidence of what Muslims perceive to be the United States’ ongoing twentieth- and twenty-first-century “war against Islam” includes that nation’s brutal military and political policies with respect to Iraq during and after the first Gulf War. Although some moderate Muslims believed that the Allies were justified in ejecting the Iraqi military from Kuwait in 1991, large numbers of Muslims vehemently opposed the subsequent American

policy toward Iraq which imposed “no-fly zones” in the northern and southern thirds of Iraqi air space. These American and British over-flights involved frequent bombings of Iraqi military and communications facilities and – together with the first and second Gulf Wars and the intermittently reduced food and medical supplies resulting from economic sanctions – caused the deaths of possibly more than 500,000 children and thousands of other Iraqi citizens, according to estimates from the United Nations and other international organizations.52

Soon after the end of the first Gulf War, the United States stationed, on what seemed to be a permanent basis, 5,000 soldiers in Saudi Arabia,53 which for Muslims is the most sacred land in Islam and the country they believe must protect two of Islam’s holiest cities. The holiest city for Muslims is Mecca, Muhammad’s hometown, the site of many Quranic revelations, and the location of the Kaba – the immense three-story tall black cubic structure toward which Muslims pray five times per day and to which they journey in the hajj. The second most sacred city is Medina, 200 miles north of Mecca, to which Muhammad and the early Muslim community emi- grated in 622, where Muhammad built Islam’s first mosque, fought several of Islam’s major battles, and where he and several others of Islam’s most important early figures are buried.54

Muslims believe the second successor to Muhammad, the caliph Umar (d. 644), prohibited all non-Muslims from entering the Arabian peninsula in order to keep it pure and unpolluted from their presence; many contem- porary Muslims believe that this regulation should be tightly enforced into perpetuity. Since the emergence of Islam, Muslims have taken great pride in their own ability to defend their lands – sacred or otherwise – from invaders and in their capacity for either preventing non-Muslims from entering those areas or imposing severe restrictions on those non-Muslims who do.55 Today, many Muslims believe that the United States, through its antagonistic actions and as the current imperial power, is endangering the liberty, free- dom, and family values of Muslims throughout the majority-Muslim world. Before the second Gulf War, the stationing of more than 5,000 American soldiers in Saudi Arabia was deeply offensive to Muslims – particularly to the members of al-Qaida, other Islamists, and some other Muslims – in at least three ways. First, they considered the American soldiers to be non-Muslim infidels who were in Saudi Arabia to protect American imperialist aims in the region. Second, Muslims who opposed the United States’ military presence there believed that these soldiers were, through their very presence, polluting Islamic sacred lands. Third, by permitting the American troops to be stationed in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government was allying itself with the most powerful superpower which had already exhibited its desire to destroy Islam. According to Muslims who have maintained this position, the Saudi government, which has historically taken the responsibility of

guarding the Islamic sacred lands, has betrayed Muslims by siding with their greatest enemy, the United States.56

Yet, the grievances of Islamists and many other Muslims are not limited to the United States’ military and political involvement in the region. Their objections also relate to American and Western influence in various cultural spheres within majority-Muslim countries. These Muslims believe that Western influence in majority-Muslim societies’ educational and economic systems, in gender relations, and in moral domains has severely damaged Islamic values and structures. There are a number of specific ways in which the West’s destructive influence has made itself evident. The most obvious forms of this influence are manifested in Western movies, television shows, magazines, books, and music which portray sex and sexuality in ways that dishonor the Islamists’ views of Islam, while promoting greed and consumerism.57

For Islamists, certain educational systems – particularly those supported by secular governments in majority-Muslim countries and by Western organizations there – have continually undercut Islamic teachings in every area of life, while helping to spearhead the West’s assault against Islam. These secular and/or Christian educational institutions either teach Christianity (a religion which falls short of Islam’s perfection) and/or they educate their students in Western history, literature, and science from perspectives which deny the Quran’s dominance over all realms of knowledge. For Islamists, Islamic educational institutions must whole- heartedly reject Western-based content within all academic disciplines in favor of subject matter that is grounded in Islam and can be devoted to its propagation.58 All these issues and their related grievances – which resonate with large segments of the Muslim populace – form the context for many Islamists’, including al-Qaida’s, understanding of jihad.

Many Jihads

The Arabic root of the term jihad means to strive or struggle and for Muslims this meaning is translated as a dutiful commitment to God and the Muslim community. Although, during Islam’s history, modern Muslims have defined jihad in a multiplicity of ways, they have tended to conceptualize jihad mainly in two modes: the greater (or internal) jihad and the lesser (or external) jihad. Yet, as David Cook and others have argued, this dichotomy does not seem to be a consistent theme during the pre-modern periods.59 Yet, for some modern Muslims, internal jihad means trying to do one’s duty to God in every detail of one’s life, while maintaining a continual consciousness of God’s oneness and Muhammad’s role as the final Prophet. This jihad also involves remaining steadfast in one’s adherence to the Five Pillars of

Islam and Belief and God’s other commands.60 During the course of Islamic history, different Muslims have viewed these and other kinds of jihad differ- ently. It has been argued, for example, that during various periods in Islamic history, Muslims have viewed the internal jihad as a way of purifying Muslims for the external or military form of jihad, which has predominated. Also, on the whole, Islamists focus on the external or military form of jihad and have a tendency to downplay the distinction between internal and external jihad, although virtually all forms of Islamic piety are very important to them.61

Yet, this internal striving goes much deeper than matters of ritual and belief. For observant Muslims, every minute of one’s life must be devoted to this greater jihad. One’s choice of clothing should be modest so as not to elicit sexual interest. Muslims are not permitted to engage in sex outside of heterosexual marriage. Strict adherents to Islam’s codes avoid contact with persons of the opposite sex who are not their spouses or relatives. A Muslim must be certain that the food she or he eats, the cookware within which it is prepared, and the utensils with which it is eaten are in full compliance with Islamic halal dietary regulations (which are similar to Jewish kosher rules and involve specific rules governing the manner in which food is slaughtered, cooked, and consumed). Muslims must also treat family members and everyone else with whom they have contact in a spirit of peace, goodwill, respect, generosity, and seriousness in full accord with the teachings of the Quran and the supreme example of Muhammad and early Muslims as found in the Hadith.62

Jihad’s secondary meaning, the lesser jihad, refers to the duty which Muslims have to defend themselves physically under at least two conditions:

(1) when the Islamic community is either experiencing attack or under the potential threat of outside invasion and/or (2) when Muslims are experiencing injustice. Typically, this form of jihad involves physical self-defense of the Muslim community (umma) and not an obligation for Muslims to take unprovoked aggressive actions against anyone whom they generally per- ceive to be an enemy. Paradigms which Muslims have used historically to justify this lesser jihad, or Islamic self-defense, are the battles in which Muhammad engaged during the early Islamic community’s Medinan period (622–32). During that time, Muhammad and the early Muslims successfully defended themselves from internal betrayals and/or non-Muslim attackers on three occasions: during the Battle of Badr in 623, the Battle of Uhud in 625, and the Battle of Khandaq (the Trench) in 627. In each case, Muslims believe the entire Muslim community was under the threat of complete destruction and as a result of God’s favor and Muhammad’s military prow- ess his armies protected themselves and their religion from annihilation.63 Muslims also point to Islamic self-defense against the Crusaders beginning in the twelfth century and against the invading Mongols in the thirteenth century as other paradigms for the lesser jihad.64

According to this interpretation, there are Quranic injunctions – in addition to the actions of the Prophet Muhammad – which clearly justify militarily defending the umma when it is under attack. Proponents of this interpretation cite passages such as Quran 2:227, “Except those who believe, work righteousness, engage much in the remembrance of Allah, and defend themselves only after they are unjustly attacked. And soon will the unjust assailants know what vicissitudes their affairs will take.” Quran 42:39 is also frequently cited,“And those who, when an oppressive wrong is inflicted on them, (are not cowed but) help and defend themselves.”65 Although Muslims debate whether American military and political involvement in the Middle East justifies the invocation of historic paradigms and Quranic passages such as these, members of al-Qaida and their sympathizers used that reasoning to validate the September 11 attacks and other strikes against Western interests and Israel.66

More specifically, members of al-Qaida in particular declare that much like Muhammad and the early Muslims who were under attack in Medina by invaders seeking to destroy Islam, modern Muslims have been sub- jected to military, political, economic, and cultural attacks by the West and must resort to lesser jihad to defend their religion, their nations, their families, and themselves. Members of al-Qaida and their sympa- thizers assert that the September 11 attacks constituted this form of lesser jihad – warfare for the purpose of self-defense. For them, the examples of the Crusades are just as timely. Muslims are justified in defending themselves because the Western threats against Islam are as destructive today as they were 900 years ago. Then and now, an external attack against one part of the umma constitutes an attack against the whole, and Muslims must unite to preserve Islam lest it be utterly destroyed.67 While Muslims have been involved in heated debates over the legitimacy of the September 11 attacks, it would be difficult to deny that Bin Laden, his interpretation of Islam, his actions against the United States’ Middle East policy, and his declaration of a war of Islamic self- defense against the United States, won millions of sympathizers across the world.68

Another justification for the lesser jihad, under certain circumstances, is to spread Islam. In other words, according to this argument in favor of lesser jihad, if non-Muslims do not become Muslims as a result of peaceful persuasion, Muslims are permitted – and in some of these cases they see themselves as being obliged – to use violent means to spread Islam: “When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the arms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful” (Quran 9:5). Quran 2:191 is also interpreted