1. religion and spirituality
2. islam

M A X FA R R A R @ B I G B O O K E N D
@LEEDS CHURCH INSTITUTE 06.06.15
ISLAMISM & TERROR
A W E S T E R N W AY O F
DOING POLITICS?
OUTLINE
DALYAN, TURKEY:
MODERNISATION & THE MOSQUE
• DEFINITIONS &
DISTINCTIONS
• KEY ISLAMISTS & THE
WEST
• ISLAMIC STATE
• DOING BETTER: CRITICAL
MULTICULTURALIST
DIALOGUE
photo: Max Farrar
DEFINING ISLAMISM
• ‘A political ideology whose key tenets include:
• belief that Islam is not a religion but a holistic socio-
political system
• advocacy of Sharia (Islamic) law as a divine state law
• belief that a transnational Muslim community (Ummah)
should unite as a political bloc’
•
S I M C O C K , S T U A R T, A H M E D ( 2 0 1 0 )
DEFINING TERRORISM
• ‘An act or threat of violence against non-combatants
with the objective of exacting revenge, intimidating or
otherwise influencing an audience’
•
STERN (2003)
ISLAM: DISTINCTIONS
• Traditionalists (eg Deobandis, Barelwis, Tablighi-Jamat
- differing interpretations of the scriptures)
• Salafis: literalists (no interpretation, no politics);
reformists (eg Muslim Brotherhood); political literalists
(eg Hizb ut-Tahrir)
•
RAMADAN (2004)
ISLAM:FURTHER DISTINCTIONS
• liberal/rationalist reformism (eg Ataturk in Turkey)
• Sufis (everywhere, quietly)
•
RAMADAN (2004)
• Muhammad al-Wahhab (1703-1792): original Salafi
• Saudi Arabia nominally Wahhabi but politically
accommodated to the West; not Islamist
ISLAM & VIOLENCE
• Jihad means ‘struggle’. Ijtihad means
‘exertion’ (usually over problems of interpretation)
• Only the ‘political literalists’ advocate violent jihad
• Thus Al Qaeda and Islamic State are a minority among
the Salafis who are themselves a minority among
Muslims
ISLAMISM: FOUNDATIONS
HASSAN AL-BANNA
(1906-1949)
HASSAN AL-BANNA (1906-1949)
• Founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1927 in Egypt
• ‘Traditional Islamic ideas of egalitarianism and social justice had
been swept aside by the country’s political and religious elites’
• Capitalist, colonial, secular culture immiserated the poor and
corrupted morals
• Used Western political methods (rallies, leaflets, newspapers) to
build a mass organisation for an authoritarian ‘Islamic socialism’,
‘Islamic modernity’
•
ASLAN (2006) COMMINS (2008) KEPEL (2004)
ABU ALA MAWDUDI
(1903 - 1979)
ABU ALA MAWDUDI (1903 - 1979)
• Founded the Islamic Party (Jama’at-e-Islami) in India in 1941. Moved to Pakistan after partition
• Influenced by his study of Hegel, Adam Smith, Rousseau, Voltaire, Darwin, Marx
• Politican party with an elite, supreme leader (Emir), no mass membership
• Fighting against both socialism and capitalism
• Modern ‘Islamic’ countries are jahiliyya (ignorance, before the Prophet)
• Anti-nationalist ‘universal revolution’: ‘all that is on earth belongs to Allah’
• Governed by shari’a law, with ’deep seated conservative cultural attitudes’ on women
• Accepted Pakistan as an Islamic state (1956) after democracy, equality, tolerance, social justice
‘as enunciated by Islam’ incorporated in its constitution
•
A D A M S ( 1 9 8 3 ) N A S R ( 2 0 0 8 ) PA R A C H A ( 2 0 1 5 ) H T T P : / / W W W. D A W N . C O M / N E W S / 1 1 5 4 4 1 9
SAYYID QUTB (1906 - 1966)
1955: 15 year sentence after breaking with
Nasser’s Free Officers coup
1966 on trial for opposition to Nasser regime
SAYYID QUTB (1906 - 1966)
• Applied Mawdudi’s writings to Egypt after visit to USA (1948-50) revealed the
West to be ‘uncivilised’ and ‘jahili’ (backward, ignorant) because
• US women are ‘freed of their basic responsibilities to bring up children’
• sexual relations based on ‘lust, passion and impulse’
• ‘even homosexuality is not considered immoral’
• Joined Muslim Brotherhood to use both ‘preaching and persuasion’ and
‘physical power and jihad for abolishing the organisations of the jahili system’
• Brotherhood resists the ‘individualism generated by the secular, materialist,
capitalist West’
•
QUTB [1964] TRIPP (2008)
ISLAMISM TODAY
AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI (1951 - )
AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI (1951 - )
• Follower of Qutb from 1965, when he joined the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt
• At 1981 trial claimed they were ‘the real Islamic opposition
against Zionism, Communism and imperialism’
• Doctor in Peshawar, Afghanistan 1984. Started to influence
Osama bin-Laden
• Joined Al-Jihad, a split from the Brotherhood, in 1979.
Leader from 1993. Merged with Al-Qaeda in 1998. AQ’s
leader after Osama’s assassination in 2011
A L Q A E D A R E V I V E S TA K F I R
• Muslim Brother Abdullah Azzad (1941-1989) issued fatwa in Pakistan recruiting
for ‘defensive jihad’ against the Soviets. In Peshawar from 1981. ‘Offensive
jihad’ when Afghanistan becomes Muslim. Assassinated 1989
• al-Zawahiri denounced the Brotherhood, ‘constitutions, man-made laws,
democracy’, and called for offensive jihad against ‘Muslim’ Arab governments
• In late 1980s persuaded Osama to adopt the c7 doctrine of takfir: Muslims who
do not accept AQ may be killed
• Legitimated suicide
• Osama: ‘Every Muslim . . . hates Americans, hates Jews, hates Christians’
•
LAWRENCE (2005) WRIGHT (2007)
AL-QAEDA:MODERN AND WESTERN
• Strategy: propaganda and violence to replace ‘Muslim’ governments
with Shari’a law; build an army to overcome non-Muslim governments
• Tactics: spectacular ‘propaganda of the deed’ to enthuse supporters
and demoralise opposition; VHS; film on the web
• Members’ contract: wages, health plans, holiday pay, redundancy pay
— in return for obedient service
• bin Laden’s mind was ‘sophisticated and modern in the extreme’; his
followers are modern ‘idealists, reformers and nihilists’
•
WRIGHT (2007)
I S L A M I C S TAT E I N T H E L E V A N T:
T H O R O U G H LY W E S T E R N
• Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifali (Haji Bakr), a colonel in the intelligence division of
Sadam’s air defence force, planned the government of the Islamic State from 2012
• The plan ‘resembles the Stasi’ and ‘Saddam’s security apparatus’
• Haji Bakr and Sadam’s other former intelligence officers appointed Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi Emir of IS in 2010, later calling himself Caliph
REUTER (2015)
•
• IS’s success is entirely based on
• the excellent (Western) training of its ex-Saddam officers
• its state-of-the-art (US) military equipment
• its (Western-style) meticulous strategic planning
•
C H R I S T O P H E R R E U T E R , D E R S P I E G E L , 1 8 . 0 5 . 1 5 H T T P : / / W W W. S P I E G E L . D E /
I N T E R N AT I O N A L / W O R L D / B I L D - 1 0 2 9 2 7 4 - 8 3 6 8 5 0 . H T M L
• ‘The plans also include areas like finance, schools,
daycare, the media and transportation. But there is a
constantly recurring, core theme, which is meticulously
addressed in organizational charts and lists of
responsibilities and reporting requirements:
surveillance, espionage, murder and kidnapping’
•
REUTER (2015)
• Like every modern organisation IS has strict financial
income and expenditure targets and controls
• ‘Between August 2008 and January 2009, ISI’s master financial
ledgers in Mosul reportedly showed the group generating slightly
less than $1 million in fundraising per month. In 2014, the Islamic
State was able to generate the same amount—or more—per day’
• IS pays $4-600 per month. Average Syrian public sector wage is
$68-103. It taxes civilians at 50%. Its welfare system favours the poor,
the disabled and the widowed
•
H U M U D , P I R O G & R O S E N ( 2 0 1 5 ) H T T P S : / / W W W. F A S . O R G / S G P / C R S / T E R R O R / R 4 3 9 8 0 . P D F
• Haji Bakr is a thoroughly modern state official in the
Western mould:
‘Aloof. Polite. Cajoling. Extremely attentive. Restrained.
Dishonest. Inscrutable. Malicious. The rebels from northern
Syria, remembering encounters with him recall completely
different facets of the man. But they agree on one thing:
"We never knew exactly who we were sitting across from.”’
REUTER (2015)
DOING BETTER IN COUNTERING
ISLAMISM
• You cannot shoot an idea. You cannot bomb an
ideology
• We need to revise multiculturalism and apply ‘critical
multiculturalism’
‘ C R I T I C A L M U LT I C U LT U R A L I S M ’
• Negotiates, as well as celebrates, diversity
• Understands the critique of capitalism and imperialism offered by Islamism; endorses its
commitment to the poor and its views on individualism and consumerism
• Always explains that violent, jihadi Islamism is a very small strand in Islamism, which itself is a
minority tendency in Islam
• Respects Islamist governments when they emerge democratically (eg Tunisia, Turkey, Morsi’s
Egypt)
• Maintains full commitment to the rule of law when prosecuting Islamists who engage in violent
propaganda
• Debates values and ideologies
• Engages in respectful dialogue while supporting progressive values (especially on women’s
rights and sexual preference)
•
FA R R A R ( 2 0 1 2 , 2 0 1 3 , 2 0 1 4 )
THANK YOU
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A PDF of these slides is available at
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My articles on critical multiculturalism and Islam are available at
W W W. M A X F A R R A R . O R G . U K
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My chapters ‘Islamism and Terror: a Western way of doing politics’ and
‘Multiculturalism - a contested discourse’ are in Farrar, Robinson, Valli and
Wetherly (eds) (2012) Islam and the West: Key issues in multiculturalism (London:
Palgrave)
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