‘The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] and the holy mosque [in Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, “and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together”, and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God”.’
The full horror of this fatwa (religious decree), issued in February 1998, would be realized three and a half years later, when, within the space of 17 minutes, two domestic airliners cut through a brilliant azure sky over the streets of Lower Manhattan and crashed with lethal force into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The fatwa formed part of a fuller declaration that called for a ‘Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders’ and was released by the World Islamic Front, a group of extreme Islamist bodies marshalled by soon-to-be ‘world’s most wanted man’ Osama bin Laden. The declaration may have been the clearest statement of the dire threat posed by radical Islamism to the West and the 9/11 attacks may have been its most devastating expression. But the former was by no means the first warning nor, sadly, was the latter the last attack. The grievances that drove political Islam were long-standing but poorly understood, and this lack of understanding – on both sides – has had the gravest repercussions that continue to shake the world to this day.
The new caliphate The suicide attacks of 11 September 2001 were the fruit of years of planning by agents associated with al-Qaeda, a network of terrorist groups under the leadership of bin Laden. Given the scale and manner of the attacks, it was inevitable that al-Qaeda would become the international face of Islamism, and its extreme agenda was naively assumed in some quarters to reflect the views of Muslims generally. To make matters worse, the portrait of Islamic fanaticism was fleshed out with gruesome details provided by the Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim regime which harboured al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, where it had seized power in 1996 and proceeded to impose highly repressive theocratic rule on the Afghan people. Terrorist atrocities, near-medieval social repression, suicide bombings, televised beheadings – all conspired to paint the most lurid picture of Islamic fundamentalism, and by false implication, of Islam itself.
The overriding aim of most radical Islamists is, in the words of a 2008 al-Qaeda webcast, to ‘establish the Shari’a Islamic state that will unite the Muslims of the earth in truth and justice’. The current oppressed state of Muslim countries is seen as the consequence of straying from the true path of Islam, and the remedy involves strict observance of the teachings of the Qu’ran and implementation of Shari’a, Islamic law as revealed by God. Islam is the one true faith and its scope is universal, so the new caliphate will encompass all mankind, everywhere on earth.
Islamists frequently invoke a number of grievances against the West, which are held in part because they are seen as obstacles to their return to the true path. First and foremost is the existence of Israel. Support of ‘the Jews’ petty state’ (as the 1998 fatwa put it) is one of the perennial complaints levelled at the USA, and the series of conflicts in Iraq and the alleged destabilization of other Middle Eastern countries are seen as a means of perpetuating the Israeli state. A second major grievance, again articulated in the 1998 fatwa, was US occupation of ‘the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbours’. Particularly humiliating was the presence of US military bases, for over a decade after the 1990–1 Gulf War, in ‘the Land of the Two Holy Places’, i.e. Saudi Arabia, with its sacred sites at Mecca and Medina.
‘Leave us alone to establish the Shari’a Islamic state that will unite the Muslims of the earth in truth and justice. A single word of American protest shall be silenced by a thousand Islamic bombs.’
Al-Qaeda webcast, 2008
The ‘Islamic threat’ In many respects, both before and after 9/11, the response of the Western powers, and of the USA in particular, to the perceived ‘Islamic threat’ has tended to confirm the suspicions of Muslims, radical and moderate alike. Europe and the US have generally been insensitive to Muslim concerns that stem from centuries of friction and conflict with the West and from a period of colonial occupation that lasted for much of the 20th century. Muslim countries have often been portrayed as backward and opposed to modernity, but the chief focus of their fears is in fact what they see as economic and cultural imperialism. The West readily assumes that ‘progress’ means movement towards its own liberal, secular values, but to many Muslims Westernization is unwelcome and a mark of post-colonial arrogance.
The US’s motives in its interventions in the Middle East are generally questioned by Muslims, and it is hard to fully refute the charge that a primary US objective in the region is ‘plundering its riches’ (i.e. protecting its oil interests) and its preferred method ‘dictating to its rulers’ (i.e. exercising control by supporting friendly, if not always savoury, regimes). The fact that US actions have been driven more by self-interest than by principle is borne out by several decades of American foreign policy. For instance – to take merely the most notorious cases – US support for the Afghan Mujahideen during the 1980s Soviet invasion was partly responsible for the emergence of the Taliban, al-Qaeda and bin Laden himself (who fought in an Arab contingent against the Soviets). The other great bogeyman of the Middle East, Saddam Hussein, was likewise supported by the US in the Iran–Iraq War during the 1980s, in the hope that his regime would act as a counterweight to the Islamic state led by the radical Ayatollah Khomeini in neighbouring Iran. Such interventions have rarely worked out as US policy-makers intended and have done nothing to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of ordinary Muslims.
the condensed idea
A clash of civilizations?