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.

Osama Bin Laden’s Ideology

Understanding 9/11: Why 9/11 Happened & How Terrorism Affects Our World Today

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