Rediscovering Roots of Terror in Muslim World

A researched article by Ahmed Kamel

Introduction

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), al-Qaeda, Boko Haram in West Africa and the Muslim Brotherhood are nothing new in history. These takfiri and terrorist groups and organizations are modern-day clones of a number of Islamist sects and factions that emerged throughout Islamic history.

In this study, I try to retrace political Islam throughout history.

While European decision-makers have grappled with the question of where to draw the line between religion and politics, fundamentalists in the Islamic world have been trying to persuade their publics that no such line should exist.

Muslim fundamentalists regard the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, as the literal word of God, whose strictures apply not only to the personal life, but also to the public domain. In their quest for the recreation of the Muslim Caliphate, which embodies Islamic political ideals, they have no qualms about resorting to violence to impose their views. If anyone disagrees with them, they will be considered infidels and killing them would be halal, or lawful.

The politicized Islam espoused by the fundamentalists originates from the time of Othman, the Third Caliph (644-656).

Othman’s assassination

In 656, some fanatic Muslim rebels murdered Othman inside his home in Medina in present day Saudi Arabia. A coalition of dissidents from Basra, Kufa and Egypt joined forces to depose the Third Caliph, whom they accused of nepotism and injustice. After Othman refused to step down, the rebels killed him.

Malik al-Ashtar, one of his assassins, fumed with rage when Ali, the Fourth Caliph (656-661), appointed Ibn Abbas ruler of Basra instead of him. Al-Ashtar asked Ali: “Why did we kill the old man then?”

Those words reveal the rebels’ real motive. They simply wanted to rule.

Birth of political Islam

The murder of Othman sent shockwaves through the Muslim world and its impact is still felt today.

The political conflict that ensued in the wake of Othman’s assassination was nothing but struggle for power. Aisha, the Prophet Mohamed’s widow, al-Zubair, her brother-in-law, and Talha Ibn Obeidullah revolted against Ali, who crushed their army in 656 in the Battle of the Camel, the first civil war in Islamic history.

Thirteen thousand Muslims were killed on both sides.

A year later, Ali fought Mu’awiyah in the Battle of Siffin. Mu’awiyah, who would become the Fifth Caliph, offered arbitration, which Ali grudgingly accepted. The arbitration ended in Mu’awiyah’s favor, but Ali refused to pledge allegiance.

Consequently, some of Ali’s troops turned against him, claiming that arbitration had been an act of infidelity.

This faction was known as “Kharijites”, derived from the Arabic word meaning “those who go out”.

The Kharijites advocated the principle of hakimiyat Allah (God’s rule).   They claimed that no caliph should subordinate the cause of God to man. They based their dogma on Qur’anic verses, which include “If any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) unbelievers” (5:44), and “If any fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) wrongdoers” (5:45) and “If any fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) those who rebel”. (5:47)

These two wars were political. Ali didn’t consider Mu’awiyah an infidel, nor did his rival, who wanted to bring Othman’s murders to justice. Meanwhile, Ali endeavored to unite Muslims by putting an end to anarchy and sedition.  However, the Kharijites thought otherwise. They deemed Ali and Mu’awiyah as infidels. The progenitors of terror formed the first militant movement in the Islamic history, rocking stability in the Iraqi provinces for centuries.

Moreover, they thought that the Qur’an was the sole authority over all Muslims, thus killing those who didn’t join them was justifiable.

Shiites and Sunnis

Political disagreement led to the Sunni-Shiite schism. The first Shiites were Ali’s partisans, who fought for him in the battles of Camel and Siffin.

Over centuries, this political discord has turned into an unbridgeable rift between the two sides regarding jurisprudence and ritual. Some 85 percent of Muslims are Sunni and the remainder is Shiite.

Umayyads and Abbasids

Based in Damascus, the Umayyad dynasty curbed rebellion in the Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia.  The Umayyad supremacy reached its zenith in the reign of Abdul Malik ibn Marwan (685-705), his son al-Walid (705-715) and Omar ibn Abdul Aziz (717-720).

After Hisham ibn Abdul Malik (724-743), depravity gnawed at Umayyad dominion with family members plotting against one an0ther. A few months after he assumed power, al-Walid ibn Yazid declared he would drink liquor on the roof of the Kaaba. That was an outrageous conduct of a Muslim not to mention a Muslim ruler.

Taking advantage of this corruption, the Abbasids, the descendants of Prophet Mohamed’s uncle Abbas, secretly mobilized support for their political claims.

In 749, the Umayyad caliph Marwan ibn Mohamed was defeated by the Abbasid troops.

In some ways, the Abbasids were more fortunate than the Umayyads. For instance, when al-Mansur (754-775) died his son al-Mahdi inherited a full treasury and an empire that was devoted to trade, culture and science than war.

With the accession of al-Wathiq (842-847) to the throne, the regime began to deteriorate. While poverty and disease were taking their toll on the public, many caliphs led such dissolute lives, as historians said, filling their palaces with harem.

In this regard, al-Mutawakkil (847-861), for example, had 4,000 bondwomen for his personal pleasure. Meanwhile, the Abbasid Empire was divided into independent states.

Rise of the Qaramita

By the end of the ninth century, Qaramita (an Ismaili sect of Shia) prospered in many parts of Bahrain, Iraq and the eastern region of the Arabian Peninsula. Their raids shook the whole regions from the Persian Gulf to Syria.

In one of their foray, the Qaramita slaughtered more than 20,000 people on their way to pilgrimage to Mecca. Unlike the Kharijites, the Qaramita had, to a certain extent, secular dogmas. Although they called themselves Muslims, they performed pilgrimage to Jerusalem instead of Mecca. They considered wine halal and fasted only two days in the year, marking al-Mahrajan (festival) and al-Nayrouz (the Persian New Day’s Day).

The weakness of the Abbasid regime paved the way for the Qaramita to spread their beliefs rapidly.

In modern terms, the Qaramita were socialists as they nationalized private properties. In 929, in the reign of al-Muqtadir (908-932), A bu Taher al-Jannabi, the Qaramita leader, entered the mosque in Mecca, the Muslim holy of holies, with his troops, slew pilgrims and threw their bodies in the well of Zamzam, which Muslims believe it is holy and blessed by Allah.

Al-Jannabi broke the Black the Stone (the most sacred stone in front of the Kaaba), and took it in pieces to Bahrain, where it remained for the next 22 years.

Assassins’ cloak and dagger

In Arabic, hashshash means someone who uses hashish for pleasure. The word ‘assassin’ was later derived. Al-Hassan ibn al-Sabbah, the founder of the assassin cult, made the Alamut castle, northwest of Qazwin, his headquarters.

Al-Sabbah received a Batinite Ismaili education, and became a Fatimid missionary in what is known now as Iran. His Batinite background helped him organize his disciples. Below the grand master, were the grand priors, each of them was in charge of a specific area, followed by the ordinary propagandists.

While the lowest echelon comprised fedayeen (commandos), who were always ready with their daggers to do the grand master’s bidding.

The fall of Baghdad

In 1258, the Abbasid caliphate was vanquished by the Mongols, leading to the capture of Baghdad. Ibn Taymiyyah (1268-1328), a literalist in his interpretation of both the Qur’an and Sunna, believed the ideal Muslim society had been the genuine community of Medina surrounding Prophet Mohamed.

According to ibn Taymiyyah, the mere act of conversion was not sufficient to make a person truly Muslim. The Mongols, who converted to Islam, only applied Genghis Khan’s laws and not sharia, or Islamic law.

Therefore, ibn Taymiyyah issued a fatwa, edict based on Islamic law, against the Muslim Mongols, considering them apostates that deserved to be toppled, even if they are the rulers. Such an idea persists in modern Islamism.

In ibn Taymiyyah’s opinion, it is the duty of true Muslims to revolt against those leaders, who are not committed to Islam in order to establish a true Islamic state.

Modernism and radicalism

For over three centuries, the Muslim world lived in cultural squalor under the Ottoman Empire. From 1517 until the beginning of the 19th century, the Ottomans quashed any possible renaissance by severing all kinds of contact between their satellite Arab regions and the West.

In 1805, the stage was set for Mohamed Ali to take the helm in Egypt. An era of enlightenment started to prevail on the banks of the Nile and in the Levant.

However, the situation on the Arabian Peninsula was totally different. In the 18th century, Mohamed ibn Abdul Wahhab (1703-1792), a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence, propagated what he deemed as reformation principles based on the Qur’an and Sunna. Ibn Abdul Wahhab was concerned with the way the people of Najd, Arabia, engaged in practices he considered polytheistic, such as praying to saints, making pilgrimages to tombs, venerating trees, caves and stones and using votive and sacrificial offerings.

Ibn Abdul Wahhab characterized these customary practices as jahiliya (ignorance of Arabs before Islam). Regarding politics, he reiterated that Muslims must offer bayaah (allegiance) to a Muslim ruler during their lifetime “to ensure their redemption after death”.

Moreover, ibn Abdul Wahhab declared that the ruler was owed unquestionable allegiance from his people as long as he leads society according to the “the laws of Allah”.

Society would, therefore, become “the living embodiment of Allah’s laws”, according to ibn Abdul Wahhab. Based on ibn Taymiyyah’s interpretations, Wahhabis accept the authority of the Qur’an and Sunna alone, rejecting any re-explanation of them.

Al-Afghani and Abduh

The 19th century witnessed genuine calls for enlightenment and reform. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897) was the intellectual pioneer for such calls. Al-Afghani tried to reconcile Islam with modernism. He called for the restoration of traditional beliefs and practices, which were termed as salafiya (getting back to the roots of Islam). Ostensibly, that made him a fundamentalist. But actually, he was a moderate reformer, who adopted a project of Islamic modernization.

Such teachings inspired Muhammad Ali Jinnah to found the state of Pakistan in 1947. Al-Afghani’s balanced approach appealed to many reformers in the Arab world. In Egypt, Sheikh Muhammad Abduh, one of al-Afghani’s disciples, led a reformation movement. Abduh asserted that the Islamic concept of such a target is based on a solid foundation of faith and science.

Some combination of belief in God and in science is more like a human being where science is the mind and faith is the heart.

Al-Mahdi’s uprising

In Sudan, a militant movement emerged under Mohamed Ahmed, who proclaimed himself al-Mahdi al-Muntazar (the awaited guide in the right path, according to Islamic teachings). The Mahdi led a revolt against the Egyptian rulers of Sudan.

In a bid to recruit more followers, he alleged that he prepared the way for the second advent of Jesus Christ. By 1885, his militants defeated an army of Egyptians and Englishmen, captured Khartoum and established an Islamic state that lasted for 14 years before the British recaptured Sudan.

Maududi’s radicalism

From the beginning of the 20th century onward, a new radical trend gained momentum. Abul A'la Maududi, an Indian-born Pakistani, became one of the most prominent Islamist theorists in the last century.

Maududi’s politics reflected an ibn Taymiyyah approach, paving the way for others to follow suit. In fact, all Islamist movements owe him many concepts and terminology, such as “Islamic movement”, “Islamic politics”, and the “Islamic system of life”.

In his writings, the readers would come across his basic goal, which was to “make Islam the supreme organizing principle in social and political life of the ummah (Muslim nation). Maududi went much further, declaring that no ruler, who refused to fully institute sharia, really deserved obedience.

He emphasized that secular rulers along with their secular laws do not have any authority over believers. In Maududi’s opinion, jihad is placed on equal footing with the traditional five pillars of Islam.

El-Banna and his Brotherhood

In 1928, Egyptian Islamist Hassan el-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, which has spread to Jordan, Syria and other Arab countries.

The Brotherhood’s crucial ideology is that Islam is creed and state, scripture and sword, and above all a way of life. In el-Banna’s view, as all Islamists believe, it is impossible to live in an Islamic society, if that society – government and people – does not observe Allah’s sharia.

El-Banna called for the restoration of the Islamic caliphate to replace the secular regimes in the Muslim world.

In 1948, Arabs and Israelis were pitted against each other. At that time, the Muslim Brotherhood members were eager to volunteer, leading to further militarization of their organization.

The signposts of Qutb

A new phase of political Islam gained further momentum, when Sayyid Qutb was elected to the Brotherhood’s leadership council. In his book titled Maalim fil Tariq (Signposts on the Road) Qutb argued that the existing social systems were neither truly Islamic nor jahiliya.

He went to extremes in his teaching, propagating the lawfulness of killing the rulers who do not apply the principles of Islamic politics. Moreover, he concluded that a society whose legislation is not based on sharia in not Muslim in the first place (takfiri dogma).

In his “Signposts”, he said: “Jihad is permanent world revolution to destabilize the West to establish hakimiyat Allah (the Kharijite tenet mentioned earlier) on a global scale”.   

 Fundamentalist breakthrough

The Six-Day War in 1967 incensed all Arabs and Muslims. Islamists grew more influential, especially among young people. When Anwar el-Sadat assumed power in 1970, Islamists were no longer suppressed. Sadat’s tactic to discard Nasserists and the leftist powers meant encouraging Islamists, who ironically assassinated him on October 6, 1981. Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, the mufti of Gama’a Islamiya, issued a fatwa declaring that Sadat “was not a Muslim as he made a mockery of Islam”.

Conclusion

Attention should be drawn to the fact the more the nationalist feelings were aroused, the less Islamists throve, and vice versa. A political vacuum had to be filled in each case, particularly among young men.

All Islamists share one objective: establishing the one Islamic nation according to the notion of the ummah. However, they have different tactics to bring this about. When some talk about political Islam, they have bin Laden, ISIS, al-Qaeda, or the Taliban in mind. However, ISIS, bin Laden and al-Qaeda are only part of what is a broader Islamist movement. Islamists also talk about problems that have nothing to do with religion. Dealing with corruption, unemployment, police state, the lack of social services and imperialism are a few on their agenda, but one need not be an Islamist to tackle these issues.

References

Al-Tarikh, by al-Tabari

Tarikh al-Khulafa’a, by Galal Eddin al-Siouty

Signposts on the Road, by Sayyid Qutb

Islamic Way of Life, by Abul A'la Maududi