Title: Islamism from Hasan alBana to Bin Laden: An Overview.
1Islamism from Hasan al-Bana to Bin Laden An
Overview.
2Who are the Islamist?
- The term describes current groups and
manifestations of political movements, sometimes
described as fundamentalist, neo-fundamentalist
s," militant, and/or political Islam. - It distinguishes between those who are depicted
as Islamiyyun (Islamists) and their political
ideology from the rest of the Muslimun
(Muslims). - The term Islamist (Islamawi in Arabic)
determines a choice of a political ideology
rather than the simple fact of being born Muslim.
3Who are the Islamists?
- There is a relative agreement among Muslim and
Western scholars that the term Islamist
provides a reasonable association between the
current movements and the social attitudes and
political demeanor attached to them. - The Tunisian Islamist leader Rashid al-Ghannushi,
describes Islamism as the "the action which began
in the 70's and calls for a return to the sources
of Islam, far from the inherited myths and a
fixation on tradition" - Nikki Kedie argues that the term Islamist " is
probably the most accurate, distinguishing belief
('Islamic') from 'movements to increase Islam's
role in society and politics, usually with the
goal of an Islamic state'
4Who are the Islamists?
- Some of the leaderships of the Islamists take
pride in their knowledge of the West. One of
them maintained, I listen to Mozart I read
Shakespeare I watch the Comedy Channel and also
I believe in the implementation of the Sharia, - It is important to stress that though Islamism
broadly refers to those who are committed to
applying an ideological vision of Islam in the
socio-political sphere, its manifestations differ
and not all Islamists engage in violence. - Islamism as a political current and in all its
forms, is also recognized as problematic by
Muslims in general.
5What are the characteristics of the Islamists?
- Main characteristics of the Islamists include
- They have been advocating a political ideology
based on Islam asserting the primacy of Islam and
calling for an Islamic order. - They share a background of public and Western
education, and they live with the values of the
cityconsumerism and upward social mobility
(Roy, 1992). - They resent, the traditional clerical scholars
(the ulama, scholars of high Islam) and they
ridicule Sufism and its saints and leaders.
6What are the characteristics of the Islamists?
- They have no state-legitimated and supported
relationship to the broad and historical corpus
of Islamic knowledge. - They lack the knowledge and popular support Sufis
enjoy. - At the same time they have smatterings of Western
education without, again, "having institutional
connection to that body of knowledge." - They operate on the fringes of the three spheres.
7The Founding FathersHasan al-Bana (1905-49)
The founder of (Jamaat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon)
in Egypt 1928. al-Banna was a man of modest
background from the Delta region in northern
Egypt. He was educated as a teacher from Cairo
Teachers College. His first employment as a
teacher was in 1927 in a primary school in the
city of Ismailiya in the Suez zone
8Hasan al-Bana
- Al-Bana was concerned to reform the way Islam was
lived in light of his understanding of the
primary Islamic texts. - He focused on moral education (tarbiya) as the
key to achieving this, promoting the study of
Quran, hadith, life of the prophet (sunnah),
jurisprudence (figh), and training in preaching. - His message is encapsulated in his slogan God is
our goal, the profit is our exemplar, the Quran
is our constitution, jihad is our pathway,
martyrdom is what we yearn for.
9Hasan al-Bana
- al-Bana believed that the rise and spread of
Western secular ideas in the Muslim world posed
the greatest threat to of the faith (usul) as
the sole reference point for ordering the
Islams survival and he urged a return to the
fundamentals life of the Muslim family,
individual, community, and state", - The Muslim Brothers were strongly involved in
Egyptian politics. They often came into conflict
with the Egyptian monarchy. - On December 28, 1948 Egypt's prime minister was
assassinated by the Brotherhood member in what is
thought to have been retaliation for the
government crackdown. - The organization was disbanded in late 1948.
- In what many believe to be government
retaliation, Hasan al-Banna was assassinated in
early 1949 at the height of his career
10The Founding Fathers Abu al-Ala al-Mawdudi
(1903-1979)
- Born into an upper class family in the city of
Aurangabad in South India. - He received religious home education then was
sent to public school to study modern sciences. - He worked as a journalist.
- He adopted Indian nationalism to mobilize Muslim
Indians to support India independence.
11The Founding Fathers of Islamism
- He founded the Jama'at al-Islami (the Islamic
Party) in Lahore, Pakistan in 1941. - Mawdudi believed that the two principals of
Western ideologies, capitalism and socialism,
were moral and social failures and could be
successfully supplanted by Islam. - Seyyed Vali Resa Nasr argues that, "Mawdudi's
formulation was by no means rooted in traditional
Islam. - He adopted modern ideas and values, mechanisms,
procedures, and idioms, weaving them into Islamic
fabric"
12Al-Mawdudi
- Over his career, he published 120 books and
pamphlets and gave over 1000 speeches and press
statements. - He founded the Jamaat-e-Islami political party in
Pakistan that promoted Islamic values and
practices, and is currently the oldest political
party in Pakistan. - al-Mawdudi was sentenced to death for a seditious
pamphlet he wrote, although the sentence was
later annulled. - One of his main ideas was that the purpose of
jihad was to confront tyrannical and illegitimate
rulers and their supporters who prevent the
actualization of world unity and equality, i.e.
the spread of Islam.
13The Chief IdeologueSayyid Qutb (1906-1966)
- Born into a family of moderate means living in
the village of Musha in upper Egypt. - He was sent to Cairo for education. He became a
teacher and later an inspector of schools. - He spent two years (1948-50) in United States.
- If all the world were America, it would
undoubtedly be the disaster of humanity.
14Qutbs Ideology
- His book Signposts (Maalim fi -l-Tariq) has been
compared to Lenins What is to be Done? In terms
of its influence on todays world of the
Islamists. The Book was published in 1964. - He argued in that bookwhich was written during
nine years of imprisonment by Nassers
regimejihad should be waged not defensively, in
the protection of Muslim land, but offensively
against the enemies of Islam. - Describing Nassers regime as one of jahiliyya
(age of ignorance), Qutb justified and advocated
any form of resistance to such a regime.
15Qutbs Ideology
- Commenting on the Quranic story of Moses
confrontation with the Pharaoh, Qutb made
Pharaonic rule the template for tyranny and
implied that courageous confrontation with
tyrants (tawaghit)those who had usurped Gods
powerwas needed today. - This being the case, Muslims were under an
obligation to struggle against the forces of
jahiliyya that now controlled their society. - Nassers regime arrested Qutb in 1965 to bring
him to trail on charges of treason. He was
executed in the summer of 1966. - Like Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist whose
prison writings secured his reputation, Qutb was
a prolific writer.
16Qutbism
- Qutbs message inspired a generation of Islamists
from Morocco to Indonesia. - His shadow has covered every other shadow in the
Islamists movements to make the reality of the
1960s and 70s submit to the proposed up and then
down model (Burgat, 2003) - The discourse that emerged out of the Qutbist
radicalism, departed radically from the old
al-Ikhwan down to up model. - The major groups that represent this new
development were - al-takfeer wa alhijra
- al-jamaa al-Islamia
- tanzeem al-jihad
17Characteristics of new discourse and emergence of
internal jihad
- The events that followed Qutbs execution
produced a far-reaching changes in the entire
climate of Islamists movements - Produced a growing tendency among the Islamists,
particularly the young, to advocate all-out
violence (internal jihad) as the means for
socio-political change. - They reinvented some of Ibn Taymiyya (1236-1326)
ideas to fit this new ideology of internal jihad.
- These new jahadists were inclined to see the
society in terms of a stark division between what
they perceive as Islamic and what is un-Islamic. - The state was labeled as un-Islamic (kafira).
- New sources of finance.
18Sadat and the promotion of Islamism
- Following the Arab armies defeat in the 1867
Arab- Israeli War, many blamed the semi-secular
Arab governments for this defeat. - Sadat, who succeeded Nasser in 1970, promoted the
Islamists as an alternative to the communists.
19Sadat and the Islamists
- Throughout the 1970s, Egypt's President Anwar
Sadat enjoyed and endured a contrary relationship
with various Muslim organizations existing within
his country. - His predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser, had
generally suppressed such groups, in order to
pursue a secular brand of pan-Arabism but
following his death in 1970, and facing the
competing demands of pan-Arabism and radical
socialism, Sadat had sought to widen his basis of
support and legitimacy by embracing the
previously suppressed Muslim Brotherhood. - In 1971, thousands of Brotherhood members and
other Islamists were released from prison, and in
subsequent years restrictions on meeting,
publications, and other rights of association
were lessened.
20Khumayni
- In Iran, the Ayatullah Ruhullah Khumayni
overthrew the Western-backed Shah in 1978,
implementing a harsh brand of fundamentalist
Islam. - Khamayni was not an Islamist but his victory gave
a big boost to the Islamists cause. - While in power, Khumaynis definition of jihad
became similar to that of Sunni schools, where
martyrdom and battle for the sake of Islam were
common rhetoric. - In Lebanon, a civil war was waged between 1975
and 1990. In 1982, the Israelis invaded southern
Lebanon, causing a number of the minority Shiite
to form groups to fight the Israelis. - One of the main groups to form, which is still
active today, was Hizbullah (the party of God).
21Emergence of Militant groups
- Militant Islamist groups were developing in Egypt
beginning to take military action against the
'apostate' government. - After Anwar al-Sadat negotiated peace with
Israel, he was assassinated by a radical group
al-Jihad. - Sadat's assassination, in front of his entire
Army, took less that 35 seconds. Egyptian
forensic experts have timed the bullets that
killed Sadat at 735 meters per second at a
distance of less than 15 meters.
22The Neglected Duty
- Following Sadats assassination, a document by
Abd al-Salam Farag was discovered which helps
trace the development of radical thought from the
execution of Sayyid Qutb to this period titled
The Neglected Duty. - Farag presents the jihad as a global imperative
designed to ensure Islams conversion of the
world, in order to restore the glory of the
Muslim community and to combat infidelity
directly. He supported the militancy of jihad,
while ignoring many other parts of Muslim
tradition - Mohammed Adel Salam Faraj. Faraj was found guilty
of leading an insurrection and being part of the
assassination plot. The assassination planning
took place at Faraj's home, and it was Faraj who
told Abu Jebel and Abdul-Latif (Abood) Al-Zummur
that military and security personnel were to be
recruited before civilians. - Islamic militant cells, directed by Faraj and
Al-Zummur, did not exceed seven persons per cell.
A cell leader would be in contact with a central
planner. Assassination and overthrow cells were
developed in the Cairo districts of Shubra,
Abdeen, Quba Bridge, and Alexandria.
23Ayman al-Zawahiri
- Over subsequent months and years, they set about
imprisoning, torturing, and executing al-Jihad
members. - Faraj was executed for his part in the
assassination in April 1982. Under this pressure,
the group split into two factions, one led by
Ayman al-Zawahiri, retaining the name al-Jihad,
and the other by Abdel Omar Rahman, called
al-Gama'a al-Islamiyah. - Al-Zawahiri, a doctor from a prominent Cairo
family, had been one of the principle architects
of Sadat's killing, even allegedly meeting the
assassins the night before the murder.
Nevertheless, the judicial authorities could not
find him guilty of anything more than illegal
possession of a gun, and after three years in
jail, he was released and left Egypt, initially
for Saudi Arabia.
24Abdullah Azzam
- Born in Palestine in 1941, Azzam became a
teacher, and subsequently earned a BA in Sharia
at the University of Damascus in 1966. - After the Six-Day War in 1967, Azzam left his
home in the West Bank and followed other
Palestinians to Jordan. In Jordan, he joined the
Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. He participated
in paramilitary operations with the PLO against
Israeli targets. - Azzam continued his studies at al-Azhar
University in Cairo, earning a Masters in Sharia
and a Ph.D. in the Principles of Islamic
Jurisprudence. He continued to teach at
universities in Jordan and Saudi Arabia until the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. - He moved to Peshawar, near the Afghani border,
and supported the mujahideen. Azzam was
ultimately assassinated there in 1989. - Azzam has been a very influential scholar and
theologian within the radical Islamist movement.
25After Azzam
- the global jihad has undergone profound changes
in its ideology and modes of operation. - From its inception in 1989 to present day, the
movement received three major setbacks. - The first one was due the assassination of Dr.
Abdullah Azzam the ideologue, "travelling
salesman", and founder and builder of the
infrastructure of global jihad, in Peshawar in
1989.
26Hassan al-Turabi and the First Islamist Republic
- Educated in England and France.
- Dr. Hassan al-Turabi has engineered and nurtured
the Islamist movement in the Sudan since 1964. - He was the ideological power behind the Islamist
regime in the Sudan from its inception in 1989
till 1999. - During that period his title has changed from Dr.
Hassan to Sheikh Hassan describing his role as
the grand jurist and the supreme religious and
political reference to the regime. - He was arrested by the regime February 2001but
never brought to trialthough charged with
offences related to crimes against the State. - He was released from prison last Oct 2002.
27Turabi Revolution and Global Jihad
- Turabi described himself as a typical
fundamentalist (1994). - He defined fundamentalism as a movement of
historical change aiming to mobilize and
organize not only the Muslim community at large,
but also human life in its entirety. - He claimed that a vacuum had developed for
fundamentalism and Islam to fill because of the
inefficiency and corruption of post-independence
nationalist, socialist, and liberal governments
of the Arab and Muslim countries. - For Turabi, the demise of that brand of communism
coincides with what he believed to be the promise
of an emerging Islamist order that would liberate
the entire human race from the clutches of all
kinds of material, political, occult, or
psychological control (Hamdi 1998).
28Al-Qaida 1
- In their new state, the Islamists transformed
Khartoum into a hub and base of operations
receiving, training, and providing a sanctuary
for a network of radical individuals and groups
from different parts of the Muslim world. - Destabilizing the Muslim and Arab regimes, which
were considered anti-Islamic, in an attempt of
replacing them with Islamists state through
force. Either by following the Sudanese model of
military coup--Islamization form above--or
through a manipulation of a grand plan that
includes the military experience of the Arab
Afghan who were hardened in Afghanistan during
the war against the Soviets and mobilizing the
masses in these countries--Islamization from
below.
29The Federated Qaida
- By early 1990s the pan-Islamic brigades who came
to Afghanistan from different parts of the Muslim
world were back to their countries after the
defeat of the Soviets and their allies in
Afghanistan. - These Afghan Arabs who received training in
warfare techniques in Afghanistan and forged
through their experience an Islamists ideology
based on armed struggle, found in the Sudan a
base which I call the federated Qaidafor
spreading this ideology.
30- The Sudanese regime gave shelter to Osama Bin
Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Sabri al-Banna abu
Nidal, and more than 5000 radicals from the
entire world who used the Sudanese territory as
their base of operations.
31Global Jihad on the MarchThe Islamist Comintern
- The Islamists established al-My'tamar as-sha'bi
al-Arabi al-Islami the Popular Arab-Islamic
Conference (PAIC), an "Islamist Comintern" that
claimed the leadership of the world Islamic
movement. - Since April 1991, Turabi organized an
Arab-Islamic popular conference in Khartoum
attended by about 500 delegates annually. - Through such acts, Islamists planned toward what
some perceived as instigation of a global
Intifada, global jihad, or open hostility toward
what the Islamists describe as al-istikbar
al-alami (the international arrogance) in a
direct reference to the West and the United
States in particular.
32Osma Bin laden
Born into a wealthy Saudi Arabian family in 1957,
and attended elite schools, and studied economics
and business administration at the university
level. He became very involved in fighting the
Soviets in Afghanistan, using his share of his
familys fortune. He first went to Peshawar,
where he joined with Abdallah Azzam. Bin Ladin
and Azzam helped to form al-Qaida (the base),
which was originally intended to assist Arab
veterans of the Afghani wars. Since the Afghani
wars, bin Ladin has led al-Qaida in a number of
attacks against Western targets, the largest
being the September 11th, 2001 attacks against
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
33Which Way Islamists?
- Five types of change need to be evaluated
- The first change is that the state model the
Islamists established in the Sudan after the
military coup of 1989 is undergoing a major shift
now from a totalitarian regime hostile to its
neighbors, toward an authoritarian state striving
to join the club of Arab, African, and Islamic
regimes. - The second set back fell when the Sudanese
Islamists expelled bin Laden from the country,
closed his training camps and forced the young
jihadists to leave the country. - The third came as a consequence of the horrific
September 11th attacks against the twin towers of
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the
different actions and reactions that followed to
that have changed the order of things.
34Which Way Islamists?
- the authoritarian state has been an enduring
power holding entity in the Arab and Muslim
worlds. - The power holders of Arab, Islamic, and African
sates "whether royal or republican, have all
succeededexcept for Soharto and Saddamin
putting their power well beyond the reach of
their fellow citizen's electoral whim by the
means of timely constitutional reforms (which had
to be approved by purportedly popular
referendums, of course)" (Burgat, 2003). - Not only that but, those throne holders proved to
be successful in having their children succeeding
them or to become the potential successors after
they were gone.
35Which Way Islamists?
- The attempt of the state to wear a veil is not
more than a window dressing. Olivier Carre
asserted that "the modern secular state is in the
process of becoming a naturalized "Islamic
state"(Carre, 1995). - It seems that the modern secular state that
Turabi describes as irreligious and should atone
to religion, has its own way of absorbing and
adapting some of the Islamists program without
changing much of its authoritative constitution.
- In an attempt to preempt the Islamists' program,
the state in Egypt, Baathist Iraq, and Yemen, has
developed its own way of repackaging itself along
overtly Islamic conduct.
36Which Way Islamists?
- In another turn of events, it seems this same
state is able to contain some of the violent
Islamists groups and bring them kicking and
screaming to biet al-taaa. - The long history of violence between al-Gama'a
al-Islamiyya and the Egyptian regime is finally
over. - A complicated process of negotiation between the
two parties followed the statement issued by the
historic leadership of al-Gamaa from Turah prison
in 1997. - Later the state permitted the distribution of
four books written by the leadership of the Gamaa
explaining in great detail their new position
from the state and violence. - similar concessions are underway in Egypt,
Algeria and Yemen.