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Exploring the Islamic nexus of �Islamist� terrorism
It has been quite some time since September 11, 2001. Yet every time I look out of my Manhattan apartment window towards the emptiness in the skyline where the World Trade Center once stood, I am filled with sadness. What makes human beings commit such atrocity?
The tale of terrorist atrocities in recent times stretches from New York to Bali, from Baghdad to Beslan to Karachi. The September 2001 attacks in the US killed over three thousand innocent people. The October 2002 Bali bombings killed nearly two hundred. Among the latest violence, suicide bombers killed dozens of children in Iraq as they stood in line for sweets at a ceremony, and in Pakistan a mosque was the target of a suicide bombing, presumably by a Sunni Muslim, that killed at least twenty five Shi�ite Muslim worshippers. What makes human beings kill themselves in order to kill others, who usually are innocent civilians, women and children included? What motivates terrorists to shoot school children as they try to flee their captors, as they did in Beslan ? What impels men to slaughter their victims like sacrificial beasts, and flaunt the cruelty in front of television cameras?
Terrorism has come in various shades. Of these, the one that has gained the greatest currency is of rather recent origin: suicide terrorism, in which the terrorist kills himself in order to kill others. Since this is accomplished by the use of a bombing device, such action has added �suicide bombing� to the lexicon. But crashing an aircraft into a target by a passenger determined to kill himself in order to kill others also falls into that sinister category. Taking innocent people hostage and then slaughtering them is the newest form of terrorism, one that has filled the gory calendar of violence in Iraq in recent days. Women who have not, in the eyes of the terrorist, dressed modestly enough have had their throats slit. Assassination of dissenters in matters of religion has a long history and has continued into recent times.
It will be recognized, except by the totally blinkered, that the bombings, suicide bombings, and murder of hostages we are talking about have been undertaken by people who are often described, in the absence of a better term, as �Islamist terrorists.� This is not to turn a blind eye to terrorist acts by people of other faiths that killed and maimed in the recent past. The Irish Republican Army and the Basque separatist group ETA easily come to mind as does the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka who have killed hundreds, including women and children, in suicide and non-suicide bombings. But, apart from the fact that violence from these groups has subsided or stopped, the scope of their brutality would pale in comparison with the recent spate of killings by terrorists who do not just happen to be Muslims but who commit the brutality in the name of Islam.
It is not that the question of terrorism by Islamist militants has not been on many minds. Indeed, writings by western scholars of Islam on the connection between Islam and violence have grown apace. But the question has not been asked loudly and clearly enough by people who must: Muslims themselves. The very mention of the subject of �Islamic� terrorism often raises many hackles among Muslims; it no longer should. Since much, if not most, of the terrorism in recent years has been committed in the name of Islam, it is time Muslims undertook a dispassionate examination of its alleged �Islamic� inspiration.
. Discussions on terrorism among Muslims have mostly shied away from this area of inquiry. Instead, there is, first, the apologist who would rationalize acts of terror by pointing to injustice and oppression that are supposed to have given rise to them. Then there is the �sociologist�, explaining the socio-economic roots of terrorism. And there are those who are mortified by acts of terrorism but rarely venture beyond suggesting that Islam does not condone violence of any sort, far less terrorism, and that Islam is a religion of peace. Finally, there are those who have alleged hypocrisy and religious intolerance on the part of the west itself which are supposed to disqualify it from criticizing militant Islam.
That people who have suffered long periods of injustice and oppression would turn to violence to achieve their legitimate aspirations should not be surprising. Perhaps the most important example of this kind of protest is to be found in Israeli occupied land in Palestine. The statistics of violence and killing in that area of conflict parallel those of Iraq today. There is also little doubt that a permanent solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem would sharply reduce hatred and violence among the long-suffering population in that corner of the world as well elsewhere. But this will not end acts of terrorism by Islamist militants. The plight of the Palestinians does contribute to Muslim anger all over the world, and rightly so, but it does not explain how anger, whatever the cause, finds its awful fulfilment in acts of bombings, suicide bombings or beheading of hapless victims. Similarly inadequate are the other �explanations� of terrorism I mention above. One needs to look elsewhere.
In a refugee camp in north-west Pakistan, soon after the rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2002, a young Muslim militant was asked by a western journalist what had induced him to be ready to die in a suicide bombing, if necessary. �If I die I shall be in the highest heaven eating grapes, and enjoying the company of huris�, was the answer. Among the documents found by the FBI on one of the nineteen September 11 hijackers was this assurance: �You will soon be, with God�s permission, with your heavenly brides in Heaven. Smile in the face of death young man. You are headed to the Paradise of Eternity.� [Source: Peter Bergen, Holy War Inc, Simon and Schuster. 2001. p.24]. The sentiment of the young warrior in Pakistan should not be dismissed as merely anecdotal. Neither need one question the deadly earnestness of the belief of the September eleven hijacker in glorious martyrdom.
Behind suicide bombings and beheadings and other acts of terrorism lies a deeply held belief that Islam sanctions them and that those who die in the course of such acts will be rewarded in the afterlife. And there is a formidable array of fundamentalist ideologues who have helped shape that belief. They have been all too willing to demonstrate that Islamist terrorism has theological roots. A list of such ideologues might start with Sayyid Qutb, perhaps the most important Egyptian proponent of purist Islam and the putative father of modern Islamic radicalism, and would of course include Bin Laden, himself well versed in Qur�an and hadith, and his ideological mentor Ayman al-Zawahiri. Down the list one would come across people like Abu Hamza al-Masri of London who had only praise for the September 11 attackers, or Muhammed Metin Keplan of the State of Califate movement whose picture, sword in hand, I once saw, to name only a few.
Although a majority of the world Muslim population would condemn terrorism in all its forms, the urge to use violence, or at least acquiesce in it, is hardly restricted to a few radical theocratic leaders. Jubilation among large sections of the population in a number of Muslim countries that followed the colossal loss of human lives in the World Trade Centre attacks is a sad fact. The brutal rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan drew its strength from a very substantial number of foot-soldiers of literalist Islam. Saif al-Islam al-Gadaffi, son of Colonel Gadaffi of Libya, said in a recent interview with a western newspaper that if a free election were to be held today in the Arab world, al-Qaeda would win.[Financial Times, September 11/September 12, 2004] A recent poll conducted in a range of 12 Muslim countries found that a large proportion of the population, varying between 13 percent and 73 percent, justified suicide bombing in defence of Islam. In a number of countries the proportion is larger than that of people who do not condone such act. [Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. www.people-press.org. My attention to the source was drawn by an important new book by Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Norton. New York. 2004]
It is rather easy to find verses from the Qur�an that the militant might feel he could legitimately use in defence of his act of terror. The following should suffice for the present purpose, though many more can be added. For reasons of space, I have mostly restricted myself to the issue of violence against non-Muslims, or their supposed surrogates, and have not dwelt on violence against fellow Muslims. [I have used throughout the well- known translation by Yusuf Ali. For alternative formulations and interpretations, I have also used other works of translations, such as those by Maulana Muhammad Ali, Marmaduke Pickthall and the Bengali translation by Maulana Muhiuddin Khan, published in Saudi Arabia, with translations of the original work of exegesis of the Qur�an by Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafi.]
�And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they
have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter;� ( Sura
Baqara, II:191.) �And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression,
and there prevail justice and faith in God; but if they cease, let there be no hostility
except to those who practise oppression.� (Sura Baqara, II: 193.) �The punishment
of those who wage war against God and His Apostle, and strive with might and
main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off
of hands from opposite sides, or exile from the land�.� ( Sura Ma-ida, V:33.)
�And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail
justice and faith in God altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily God
doth see all that they do.� ( Sura Anfal, VIII:39.) �But when the forbidden months
are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them,
beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war): but if they
repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way
for them: for God is Oft Forgoving, Most Merciful.� (Sura Tauba, IX:5.) �Fight
those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which
hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the Religion of
Truth,( even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jyzia with
willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.� ( Sura Tauba, IX:29.)
Some of these quotations have sometimes been cited by western scholars of Islam to support their contention that there is something inherently militant in this particular brand of monotheistic faith. The contention was recently brought closer to home when Prof. Hans G. Kippenberg of the University of Eufurt, Germany, dwelt on the subject at a symposium in Dhaka, specifically referring to the Quranic verse IX:5, cited above, among others. The professor�s critique of Islam reportedly provoked sharp reaction from Muslim participants in the discussion. But it so happens that here he has an unlikely ally in the Islamist militants themselves who may find in the above citations ample justification for militancy. So it was that a British Muslim militant of Pakistani origin could claim that there is no way the Qur�an could be interpreted except literally, and say �if [in the Qur�an] Allah says fight, you fight. How can anyone take a moderate view of this?� [The Struggle for the soul of Islam, a special report, Time, September 13, 2004.] It will be seen below that some the traditionalist Islamic interpretations of the Islamic holy books also hold a position that is not far apart from that of this militant. To be sure, there are counsels of restraint in some these verses and elsewhere. But in these verses a militant could also find, more clearly in IX: 5 and IX: 29 than in others, truce only on Islam�s terms.
Though the quotations above do not mention the word, they are essentially about Jihad in its conventional meaning of war against the infidels. The expression Jihad does of course occur in the Qur�an. Examples of verses where Jihad has been used include: II: 218 (Sura Baqara) which says: �Those who believed and those who suffered exile and fought (and strove and struggled) in the path of God,--they have the hope of the Mercy of God;�� ; and IX:73 (Sura Tauba): �O Prophet! Strive hard against the Unbelievers and the Hypocrites�.�. Verses VIII:72, VIII:74, and VIII:75 are some of the other examples.
Jihad as a phenomenon is much on the minds of western critics of Islam, even when they acknowledge that religious wars were hardly unknown in the west. While they see the latter as a phenomenon long past, they tend to see in acts of Islamist terrorism a reflection of an unchanging jihadist ethos. But many Muslims themselves find the concept of jihad, in its essence, as valid today as it was fourteen centuries ago. The two quotations above, chosen at random, are particularly apt in the present context because the interpretation of the word �fought� ( Jahadu, from Jihad, in the original Arabic), given in parentheses by Yusuf Ali in the first verse, and his translation of the word Jihad given in the second, have become a popular response of liberal Muslims to the charge that violence is inherent in Islam. Jihad, in this interpretation of the word, simply means struggle against evil waged mainly in the mind of man, and therefore has a spiritual connotation as well. But traditional exegesists of the Qur�an have different interpretations of the word Jihad. Thus, in Muhiuddin Khan�s translation, the word is used in its traditional meaning of simply �fighting�, and this goes well with the preceding verses which dwell on fighting in the physical sense. This is also the sense in which it has been used in most of Islamic history. And this suits the Islamist militant well.
This is also the meaning of Jihad most traditionalist Muslims are familiar with. A well-known Bengali Islamic theologian of the traditional school, while accepting that, among the several meanings of the word Jihad, striving against evil is an important one, emphasized: �Those who exclude the taking up of arms and mean by Jihad only other efforts have fallen victims to a grave, western-inspired, mistake.� [Buhkari Sharif (in Bengali). Translation and commentary by Maulana Azizul Haq, Hamidia Library, Dhaka.1996. Vol.3. P.45. Translation from the Bengali mine). He actually goes much further than this. In discussing the battle of Badr, Islam�s first major battle against the unbelievers, he has this to say: �A recently- born group of Islam-loving writers has refused to accept that the battle of Badr, described in Bukhari Sharif, was an offensive action. In their opinion, there is no offensive Jihad in Islam; there is only defensive Jihad. This is an absurd and baseless view.� [ibid. p.116 Translation from the Bengali mine.] Such a point of view must be welcome grist in the Muslim militant�s mill, and has a close affinity to the position of the Islamic radical I quoted above. It is also a point of view that is shared by a large section of traditionalist theologians.
The militant who finds justification for acts of violence could also heap scorn on the faint -hearted �moderates� by referring to a host of hadith and history, even though there are instances of compassion as well in both. He could for example cite the killing of the entire male population, believed to number between 600 and 700, of the Jewish tribe of Banu Quraiza in 627 AD/ 5AH, soon after the battle of the Trench [ Source: Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, English translation entitled The Life Muhammad by A. Guillaume, Oxford University Press, Karachi. 1967.p. 464.] Also, he would argue, did not the Prophet of Islam (SM) mete out punishments like cutting off hands and feet and blinding, by use of a hot iron rod, of a group of people for the murder of a Muslim shepherd? [Source: Sahih Al-Bukhari, translated by Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Darussalam Publishers, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 1997.Vol.7 p.329]. As for assassination, he could again cite from Al-Bukhari [ op.cit. Vol. 5. pp.221-223.] and Ibn Ishaq [ op.cit. p.368] the murder of the Jewish poet K�ab bin Al-Ashraf by the Prophet�s companions. or the killing of Abu Rafi, a wealthy Jew. [ Sahih Al- Bukhari. op.cit. pp.223-225.]
Early in the war in Iraq, three foreign contractors were murdered and their mutilated bodies were hung from electricity transmission lines. While that action was roundly condemned by many religious leaders in Iraq, in early 2004 an Islamic website in Saudi Arabia carried a fatwa by a prominent Islamic cleric approving mutilation of corpses of infidels, after two suicide bombings killed some twenty foreigners, and the bodies of two of whom were dragged behind motor vehicles. The militants, backed by theologians in the latter case, could possibly seek a parallel here with the throwing into a pit bodies of twenty-four Quraish fighters killed in the battle of Badr. [ Sahih Al-Bukhari, op.cit. p.188.] They will of course be hard put to find precedence for the killing of innocent hostages, the latest of whom was a woman, and a converted Muslim too, who had dedicated her life to improving the lot of the unprivileged in developing countries. Acts of compassion in the course of Islam�s history would naturally be lost on them.
It is often said that western critics of Islam often use �isolated� quotations from the Qur�an to make their point. At the Dhaka seminar, one of the charges against critics of Islam was their alleged use of isolated quotations to support their argument. However, it can also be argued that those who make such allegation do exactly the same thing. If, for example, the use of quotations such as II:191, or II:193.or IX:5 can be called an attempt to make a point from only �isolated� verses, the same can be said of, say, the use of II:256, or VI: 151 or V:32, discussed below, in defence of the peaceful face of Islam.
The response of �moderate� Muslim thinkers to the radicals� points of view has so far been rather sparse and inadequate. Their efforts to show that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance have generally centred round a rather limited number of citations from the Qur�an, apart from the liberal interpretation of Jihad mentioned earlier. Perhaps the most widely used quotation has been: �Let there be no compulsion in religion.� (Sura Baqara, II:256) One can however argue that, in the present context, too much has been read into this verse and very different interpretations of it can be found. The verse does not obviate those on jehad and killing, quoted above. It only means, in the words of Yusuf Ali in his commentary on the Qur�an, �Compulsion is incompatible with religion�, which is by itself an important argument. The well-known Bengali translation of the Qur�an and its exegesis by Muhiuddin Khan [ op.cit.] also contends that the verse does not have anything to do with violence against unbelievers, but goes on to say: �Reading this ayat, some might ask: this suggests that no force should be applied in matters of religion, whereas Islam has taught to conduct jihad and fight. Deep reflection should suggest that such a question is not an appropriate one.� According to this line of thinking, since Allah has asked that tumult and oppression (fitna in Arabic) perpetrated by the kafirs be rid of through jihad and qetal, �killing of transgressing oppressors [meaning the kafirs] is like killing snakes or scorpions or some such animals that cause pain.� (Translation mine.) The exegesis also points out, without irony, that �[Islam] also prohibited the killing of persons who have begun to pay the Jyzia and obey the [Islamic] laws.� An Islamist militant would readily agree with such an exegesis. The gulf between such a view and that of the moderates could not be wider.
It has also been pointed out by defenders of Islam against allegations of brutality being inherent in the religion, that the Qur�an expressly forbids taking of innocent life. A verse sometimes quoted in this connection is: �Take not life, which God hath made sacred, except by way of justice and law.� (Sura An�am, VI:151) This certainly is an important statement of principle; it is also unique in that, unlike other general statements or directives, it has not, to my knowledge, been repeated. It is, nevertheless, useful to look at an exegesis of the verse. The exegesis in the Muhiuddin Khan translation clearly emphasizes the prohibition on the taking of Muslim life. On non- Muslim life, there is an important proviso, however: �Just as it is forbidden to kill a Muslim without reason, so it is forbidden to kill a non-Muslim who lives in, and abides by the laws of, a Muslim state.� If this interpretation is correct, the directive in the verse appears a great deal less universal than it might look at first sight. Furthermore, while Yusuf Ali has translated the word haqq in the verse ( in � �except by way of haqq ..) as �justice and law�, others (Muhammad Ali and Pickthall, for example,) have translated it only as �in the course of justice.� The Muhiuddin Khan exegesis uses the expression �rightfully� in place of �in the course of justice� and is vaguer. Justice and rightfulness can of course have various interpretations. A terrorist can have its own, and often does proclaim his as the only right, and Islamic, one.
On taking of life, the following verse is significant and has sometimes been cited as evidence of Islam�s disdain of killing: � We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person � unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land�it would be as if he slew the whole people �..�. ( Sura Ma-ida, V:32) A follow-up of the story of Abel and Cain, this is indeed a strong indictment of wrongful killing, and a terrorist would be hard put to argue himself out of it. But he could still say he had plenty of other verses to fall back on.
On the question of suicide bombing, there appears to be only one instance -- I stand ready to be corrected � in the Qur�an where Muslims are enjoined on not to kill themselves. This appears as part of verse IV:29 (Sura Nisa): � Nor kill yourself� ( Wa La taqtulu anfusakum) and has been quoted as an example of Islam�s abhorrence of suicide. There are, however, interpretations of the phrase in which the connotation of suicide is altogether absent. Thus, Muhiuddin Khan�s translation of the phrase is �And do not kill anyone from among yourself� � (Translation from the Bengali mine), which totally changes the meaning from suicide to killing. This interpretation is also more consistent with the rest of the verse where �among yourself� is the focus (Thus, in the Muhiuddin Khan version: �Ye who believe eat not up each others� property� (translation mine) appears at the beginning of the verse). Pickthall similarly translates the phrase unambiguously as �Kill not one another�, and Muhammad Ali as �And kill not your people�. All three interpretations do away with the putative injunction against suicide�and, by implication, suicide bombings � to the satisfaction of the militants.
The relationship between the believers and the unbelievers of course lies at the heart of the matter. There would not be any point in talking about hostility to non-Muslims in a truly liberal society. Muslims who would like to present the liberal, even pluralist, face of Islam often quote: �Those who believe (in the Qur-ān), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians� shall have their reward with their Lord�� ( Sura Baqara, II:62), or � Thus have We made of you an Ummat justly balanced�( ibid. II:143). In some translations, the latter verse is: �We have made you a moderate sect.�
And, once again, there is a very different point of view in the following verses from the Qur�an: �Let not the Believers take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than Believers;� (Sura Imran, III:28), or � O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors.� ( Sura Ma-ida, V: 51), or � Strongest among men in enmity to the Believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans:� ( Sura Ma-ida V:82).
This concludes my brief examination of the �Islamist� nexus of terrorism. What can one make of the wide divergence of views illustrated? Two opposing positions, one that finds in Islam enough ground to justify violence, while the other sees only peace and humanity, cannot both be right. After all, the protagonists of both camps can produce support for their point of view from the same source. A potential way out of the stand-off is to place all acts of violence in historical context: what is cruel or abhorrent today was widely accepted as �normal� earlier in the evolution of human civilization. That more emphasis has not been placed on the contexts is puzzling. Perhaps this reflects a perceived difficulty related to the interpretation of the nature of divine revelations. Strictly, if the Qur�an is the literal word of God, every word of which is immutable, and if it is valid for eternity, as orthodoxy emphasizes, the question of context becomes quite complicated.
Finally, if the �moderate� position looks rather inadequate and defensive, and in some instances even appears to be undermined by traditional interpretations of the Qur�an, there is a rather straightforward explanation: religion is not primarily about love for humanity in general, far less for those who do not belong to it. The point is well worth emphasizing. While organized religion, be it Judaism, or Christianity, or Islam, preaches peace, humanity, and brotherhood among its adherents, it does not extend the same benignity to those beyond its pale. Indeed, the raison d��tre for any religion is its claim of clear superiority to all other faiths, and members of a religion would much rather have the �infidels� join their fraternity than go out in the world to embrace members of other faiths.
It appears then that the ideology of �Islamist� terrorism cannot be fought with ideas derived from literal Islam itself. Fighting terrorism will require the use of ideas from beyond the area of pure faith and belief. The history of Islam is certainly not devoid of thinkers who did go far beyond that area.
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Mahfuzur Rahman, a former United Nations economist, is currently researching in religious fundamentalism.