According to the Global Terrorism Index (2014), the top four groups responsible for the majority of terrorism fatalities from the period extending from 2000 to 2014 include Al Qaeda, The Taliban, Boko Haram and ISIL. At a cursory glance, it is quite evident that these groups have numerous differences in their tactics, strategies, goals and their areas of operation. Yet, looking beyond these differences reveals that these groups share a common feature in terms of the ideology of militant Islamism2. Kushner (2003:230) defines militant Islamism as ‘a fundamentalist, utopian ideology that often justifies violence for what is seen as a higher cause’ and notes that it is in many respects similar to past ideologies such as Fascism and Marxism. Militant Islamism rests on three common characteristics, namely, the implementation of a strict interpretation of the Quran and shari’a (Islamic law); a united Muslim state ruled by a caliph and the use of jihad in attaining these two latter objectives (Kushner, 2003:230). Moreover, Vertigans (2009:5) observes that militant ideologues who lack formal religious authority often refer to Islamic doctrine as a means to justify violence and killings. For Migaux (2007:258), ‘Islamic fundamentalism becomes Islamism only when its ideology is used to impose a strictly interpreted model of original Islam based on shari’a, or Islamic law, on society and on the state’.
Ironically, the birth of militant Islamism can be attributed to the decline of the great Islamic civilisation. Examined from this perspective, militant Islamism symbolises a desire to return to the past era where Islamic civilisation was the predominant culture in the world. From its nascence in the 7th century CE – when the Prophet Muhammad received divine revelations from the archangel Gabriel that would become the moral and political foundations of the religion – up until the early 19th century, Islam spread into ‘a vast empire that would become the cradle of the greatest known civilization’ (Migaux, 2007: 261). Within the first seventy years of its existence, Muslim armies conquered countries such as Palestine, Syria, Persia and Armenia, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, the Algerian coast, and Morocco. The period from 685 to 945, however, is etched into Islamic history as the period where the Muslim civilisation reached its zenith and is also generally referred to as the period of the High Caliphate. The advancements during that period included ‘improved river irrigation and long-distance trade…people of diverse languages, religions, cultures, and ideas…and the flourishing of artistic and intellectual creativity’ (Goldschmidt & Davidson, 2010:65). It was often the case
2 The term ‘Islamism’ is used in this context to denote the political use of Islam as opposed to the theological doctrine.
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that the hegemony of the Arab empire was challenged during the tenth to the thirteenth century by other nations such as the Turks, Persians and Christians amongst others. Yet, it was only from the fifteen century onwards that the West became a serious competitor to the Muslim empire which extended from the Middle East to South Eastern Europe and North Africa.
Towards the eighteenth century, the West had both achieved and consolidated military, economic and political power over the Middle East (Goldschmidt & Davidson, 2010:147).
This period marked the beginning of the decline of the supremacy of the Islamic civilisation as the West conquered many of the Arab states. In 1796, the Ottoman Turks suffered its first military defeat at the hands of the Russian army. Further losses ensued with European armies successfully invading at least seven Muslim countries with the most notable ones including Aden (Yemen), Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt between the period of 1798 and 1912 (Kushner, 2003: 230). By the end of World War I, the slow decline of the Islamic cultural and political supremacy found its culmination in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The latter began to lose its grip on the Middle East as ‘the British and French consequently divided up the former Muslim empire as spoils of war’ (Kushner, 2003:231). The most humiliating defeat, however, was incurred by the newly formed state of Israel against a combined Arab force of five armies. The event was a revolutionary one for the Muslims since it humiliated their armies and discredited their regimes and…established a colonial settler state in their midst’ (Goldschmidt & Davidson, 2010: 293).
The demise of the once powerful Islamic civilization led many Muslim scholars to critically reflect the reason of the growing strength and superiority of the West in contrast to the Arab world. As Hiro (2002:44) strikingly points out, the only plausible answer was that,
either Europeans had devised a system better than Islam or the Muslim community had failed to follow true Islam. Since none of them [the intellectuals] was prepared to concede the inferiority of Islam to any other social system, the inevitable conclusion was that Muslims had deviated from the true path. So, the state was set for Islamic reform.
It is against this backdrop that militant Islamism became an enticing feature among Muslims who wanted to return to the dominant era of the Islamic civilisation. While many Muslims adjusted to the ideas and concepts of the West, a few rejected the West and its innovations completely. Adhering to an ideology deeply entrenched in fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, these militant Islamists rejected the changes brought forth by the West and perceived
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the latter as the enemy. According to Kushner (2003:230), militant Islamists comprise only of about 10 to 15 per cent of the whole Muslim population of the world. While militant Islamism was influenced by the historical context surrounding its incubation, there are many factors that underlie its characterisation. One salient concept contributing to militant Islamism is the school of thought within the Islamic tradition that is often referred to as Salafism and/or Wahhabism. Prior to examining the development and interrelationship of the school of thought upon militant Islamism, it is merited to firstly undertake a brief examination of the thoughts of Ibn Taymiyya who is considered the theologian who set the foundations for the Salafist and Wahhabist ideology and as such holds a ‘central significance for contemporary militant [Islamists]’ (Vertigans, 2009: 17).
4.1.1 The Precedence of Militant Islamism: Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya was a Syrian jurist and theologian who was born in 1263 and died in a Damascus prison in 1328. Similar to other great thinkers within history, his thoughts were greatly influenced by the difficult context in which he lived (Migaux, 2007: 270). It was time when the Islamic empire was splitting into smaller states due to the threats of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. At the same time, the advancing Muslim Mongols from the East had recently plundered Baghdad and ended the Caliphate (Ayubi, 1991: 126; Migaux, 2007: 270).
Taymiyya, realising that Islam was jeopardised by these external pressures and was in desperate need of unification, condemned all original form of Islam as heretical and perceived ‘adoration of saints, pilgrimages to tombs, and Sufi practices all were viewed as idolatrous’ (Migaux, 2007: 270). For him and his followers, the only true sources of knowledge were the Quran and the Hadith.3 In terms of his political thoughts, Taymiyya followed the orthodox consensus on the necessity of government and leadership to all societies (Ayubi, 1991:126). In one of his books entitled Al-Siyasa al-Shar’iyya (Governance in Accordance with the Islamic law), he presents the shari’a-based rules for governing relations between the authority and the people. In line with his objective of achieving unity, his political thoughts drew inspiration from Islam practiced in its original and fundamental form. Although Taymiyya may have followed the conventional Islamic teachings of his time, he did introduce some new nuances to existing concepts.
3 The Hadith refers to the sayings that are attributed to the prophet Muhammad.
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Turner (2010: 547) observes that Taymiyya ‘introduced the concept of the new jahiliya4, positioned the importance of jihad as equal to the five pillars of Islam’. In as much as he acknowledged that Jihad should be utilized against infidels, he also provided a twofold delineation of the latter. Firstly, infidels were perceived to be any persons who constrained or prevented total piety to God. Secondly, the term referred to any person who opted out of or deviated from the shari’a even if the person had uttered the ‘credo’ (Ayubi, 1991:126).
Furthermore, he extended the concept of infidel to include Muslim leaders who gave allegiance to non-Muslims. In this context, he was referring to the local Muslim leaders who pledged allegiance to the invading Mongols (Ayubi, 1991:167). In promoting the notion of jihad as a duty to fight the forces of the infidels, Taymiyya propelled it as a concept that was at the centre of Islamic practice (Turner, 2010: 547). The fact that radical Islamists who assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981 quoted Taymiyya when they accused the former Egyptian president of being an infidel demonstrates the influence of the scholar within modern militant Islamists’ thinking (Mousalli, 2009: 9). In sum, the life and influence of Ibn Taymiyya is encapsulated by Migaux (2007:271) in the following words,
Ibn Taimiya, considered subversive by the authorities and challenged by the ulama, was nonetheless, thanks to his simplistic sermons advocating the use of violence, quite successful among the marginalized classes and those lacking an in-depth knowledge of the Muslim religion. It would seem that, six centuries later, the situation has not changed much.
From his time onwards, Taymiyya’s thoughts and concepts have held great influence over many militant Islamist ideologues such as Al Wahhab, Hasan al-Banna, Sayid Qutb, Osama Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri amongst others. After having examined the influence of the thought leader behind the ideology of militant Islamism, the next section turns towards the two schools of thought instigated by the thoughts and doctrine of Ibn Taymiyya.