This course will explore the forces that led to the 9/11 attacks and the policies the United States adopted in response. We will examine the phenomenon of modern terrorism, the development of the al Qai'da ideology, and the process by which individuals radicalize towards violence.
Osama Bin Laden’s Ideology
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Del curso dictado por Duke University
Understanding 9/11: Why 9/11 Happened & How Terrorism Affects Our World Today
13 calificaciones
Duke University
13 calificaciones
De la lección
Week 4: The al Qai'da Ideology
Our topic for this week is the al Qaeda ideology. An ideology is essentially the set of beliefs that an individual, a group, or an organization has to either motivate them or to give that organization purpose. For al Qaeda, of course this is incredibly important because they're trying to motivate individuals to sacrifice their lives for what they view as a great cause.
Conoce a los instructores
David SchanzerAssociate Professor of the Practice
Sanford School of Public Policy
And we're going to examine a couple of different of his writings from this period
to get a flavor and get a sense of what his ideology and how the different
arguments fit together, building on the foundation that Qutb had laid.
First, we're going to start with the Declaration of Jihad from 1996.
This was fashioned as a letter to expel the Polytheists
from the Arabian Peninsula.
Presumably he's talking about the United States.
Although, he's also argued that we're a Christian nation.
And of course, Christianity, Judaism are monotheistic religions, not polytheistic.
But like any good demagogue,
bin Laden doesn't let the facts get in the way of his arguments.
He calls this a letter from Sheik Osama bin Laden to his Muslim brothers
across the world.
So he's trying to call for the global Muslim population to join him,
and then of course, particularly those in the Arabian peninsula.
He begins, as these writings all do, with this notion of grievance.
He says, it's no secret to you that the people of Islam have been afflicted
with oppression, hostility, and
injustice by the Judeo-Christian alliance and its supporters.
He makes this argument that throughout history, the West,
the non-Muslims have been abusing the Muslim people, pulling them down.
He references historical evidence from across the centuries in many places around
the globe.
He says, the massacre that have taken place in Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir,
Assam, the Philippines, Fatani, Ogaden, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya,
and Bosnia-Herzegovina send shivers down our spines and stir our passions.
So he's trying to pull on these historical grievances from around the world.
And this, I think the most moving and the most important passage,
this shows our enemies belief that Muslims' blood is the cheapest and
that their property and wealth is merely loot.
And he's appealing to this, somewhat innate sense that
he wants people to feel, that the West, the United States,
and others don't recognize Muslim dignity.
They don't recognize Muslim life as being valuable.
He says their blood is the cheapest, and
their property is merely loot, that their wealth to be taken by others.
He weaves us into the modern political situation at the time.
He says, despite all these horrors that have taken place in the past, the greatest
disaster to befall the Muslims since the death of the Prophet Muhammed
is the occupation of Saudi Arabia, which is the cornerstone of the Islamic world.
He says, the situation in Saudi Arabia has begun to resemble a huge volcano that is
about to explode and destroy unbelief and corruption.
This notion about the huge volcano exploding, destroying unbelief,
like what Qutb was saying, that the modern world is Jahiliyyah and disorder.
Bin Laden says that life is about to explode and
get rid of this disbelief, this unbelief, like Jahiliyyah,
this corruption that is taking place and bring around a new order.
He also weaves in a notion of Economic Grievance, somewhat clumsily.
And later in his writings,
he talks more specifically about the evils of globalization in the modern world.
But here, he says, people are struggling with the basics of everyday life and
everyone talks frankly about economic recession,
price inflation, mounting debts, and prison overcrowding.
Not sure what prison overcrowding has to do with it, but
he's appealing to a populism on an economic basis.
And then he calls this a revival.
He wants to bring Muslims away from their current state to a modern,
a better place, to revive the Muslim people.
We need to study the appropriate paths to take in order to restore things to good
order and restore to the people their rights after the considerable damage and
harm has been inflicted on their life and religion.
So he wants to recapture the glories of the Muslim past.
And he references in this the notion that this is going to be achieved through
the idea of jihad.
He explains this more in the later work we'll look at.
But he says, men of the radiant future of our umma of Muhammad,
raise the banner of jihad high against the Judeo-Christian alliance that has
occupied the holy places of Islam.
Cavalry of Islam be mounted.
So he's making an appeal to the entire umma, the global Muslim population.
He's saying raise the banner of jihad high.
So let's use force.
He identifies the enemy being the Judeo-American alliance.
And the goal is to end the occupation of the holy places of Islam.
Now, two years later,
the second writing of his that I give you as an example of the World Islamic Front.
He joins with others because he was criticized that he did not really have,
as a non-cleric, the authority to make orders or
to do religious interpretations that would be in binding in any way on Muslims.
So he joins with other well-established figures to kind of give him a greater
sense of authority in their writings and their call for action, including,
as I mentioned, his colleague, and now currently the leader of Al-Qaeda,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, and others pictured on this slide.
So this is a joint writing two years later, from 1998.
Again, they starts with this notion of grievance.
But you'll notice in this this judgement, this call to action,
it's much less against the Saudis and much more directed against the Americans.
For over seven years, America has occupied the holy places of Islamic lands,
plundering its wealth, dictating to its leaders, humiliating its people, and
terrorizing its neighbors, turning its bases there into a spearhead
with which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
So in this single sentence, he is appealing to all these different sources
of Muslim grievance, the notion of humiliation,
personal humiliation, territorial, losing territory,
domination by others, and threats of additional territorial incursions.
All these ideas of grievance from the past that are humiliating and
degrading to Muslim people.
Despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people,
Americans are trying to repeat those horrific massacres again.
Today, they come to annihilate what is left of these people.
So here he's referring to the economic grievance and
the sanctions that the United States led, but
were being imposed by the United Nations, upon Iraq many years after the Gulf War.
The claim here was that Iraqi youth were dying because they're
not able to get food and medicine.
So he's adding this modern economic grievance,
which many Muslims around the world did identify with at that time.
Furthermore, he argues, while these wars are being waged by the Americans for
religious and
economic purpose, they also serve the interests of the petty Jewish state.
So he's linking onto historic anti-Semitism, again,
to bring wrath against both Israel and its supporter, the United States.
There's no better proof of this than their efforts to fragment all the states in
the region into paper mini-states whose weakness will guarantee Israel's survival.
So again, seeing the creation of the Israeli state against
all the other states surrounding it as an affront, not only to them and
to the Palestinians who live there, but to all Muslim people around the globe.
What does the bin Ladin say can be done and
must be done in the face of these grievances?
He says jihad.
All these American crimes and sins are clear proclamation of war against God,
his Messenger, and the Muslims.
Now, recall and remember from our lectures from Abdullah and Teple last week,
that jihad is either a personal striving or is to defend Muslims and
Islamic people against fighting, violence being used against them,
that there is a right in the Quran to rise up and use force against force.
What bin Laden is trying to say is that historically the Americans
have been oppressing and fighting against Muslims.
Therefore, this notion of jihad is a defensive one that they can take action
against those who are fighting against them.
And he now couches this in religious doctrine.
He says, religious scholars throughout the Islamic history have agreed that jihad
is an individual duty when an enemy attacks Muslim countries.
So he's claiming, and Abdullah and Teple disagree to this, but
bin Laden is claiming that historic scholars say that jihad is an individual
duty to take to defend Islam against encroachment from others.
On this basis, and in accordance with God's will,
we will pronounce to all Muslims the following judgement.
So they are structuring this as a fatwa.
Although they use the word judgment not decree,
still they're trying to fashion this as a religiously
binding edict upon all other Muslims.
And he says the judgment is to kill the American and
their allies, civilians and military, doesn't make a distinction between them.
He says to kill them is an individual duty incumbent on every Muslim in all
countries, in order to liberate the al-Asqa Mosque in Jerusalem and
the Holy Mosque in Saudi Arabia from their grip, so that their armies leave all
the territory of Islam defeated and broken, unable to threaten any Muslim.
So here is the decree to kill the American and their allies as an individual duty.
And then in the end, he appeals to this notion of martyrdom.
He says wants everyone to take up the notion of killing Americans, military and
civilian, what will happen?
You'll be rewarded in the future.
We call on everyone who believes in God and
wants reward to comply with His will to kill the Americans and
seize their money wherever and whenever they find them.
God Almighty said, believers why, when it is said you to, go and
fight in God's way, do you dig your heels into the earth?
Do you prefer this world to the life to come?
How small the enjoyment of this world is compared with the life to come.
And he excites here a reference to the Quran.
Of course, the Quran was not talking about killing civilians in this instance.
But bin Laden uses religion, uses passages from the Quran selectively
to try to make the argument that martyrdom in the name of his jihad,
the jihad against the Americans and the killing of civilians,
is justified and will lead to a holy reward in the future.
So you can see, grievance, religious duty, martyrdom,
a complete set of ideas and ideology that he uses to justify
the violence that he wants others to perpetrate against the world.
And violence he does execute.
Shortly after this 1998 World Islamic Front is issued,
the bombings of the embassies in the United States, in both Tanzania and Kenya.
Two years later, the attack on the Navy destroyer, the USS Cole in the Port
of Yemen, which killed Navy service members and almost sunk the ship.
And of course, the attacks of 9/11 in the United States, on Washington,
on the planes that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and on New York.
So here, in these two lectures, we've gone full circle.
We started in New York, where Sayyid Qutb had exited a passenger ship and
spent his first moments in New York, in the United States,
in New York, where he was in many ways repulsed by the modernism,
by what he saw the un-Islamic character of that city.
And then 53 years later,
Osama bin Laden bringing massive violence to that same, very city.
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