Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat

INTRODUCTION

I think that you’re making a very important point. And that is that the language we use matters. And what we need to understand is, is that there are extremist organizations—whether Muslim or any other faith in the past—that will use faith as a justification for violence. We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name.

And so you will, I think, see our administration be very clear in distinguishing between organizations like al-Qaida—that espouse violence, espouse terror and act on it—and people who may disagree with my administration and certain actions, or may have a particular viewpoint in terms of how their countries should develop. We can have legitimate disagreements but still be respectful. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, JANUARY 29, 2009

FIRST PRESIDENTIAL INTERVIEW ON AL-ARABIYAH TV

Since the writing of these pages, seven years have passed since the attacks of September 11, yet the U.S. armed forces still lack a common definition of the threat posed by Militant Islamist groups like al-Qaida and their affiliates. There have been unfortunate incidents wherein Islam, Islamists, and Militant Islamists have become conflated in the thinking and consciousness of American fighting men and women, and regrettably this occurs at all ranks. This confusion leads to an undermining of our national security objectives and our relations with allies, and it feeds into al-Qaida’s objectives of portraying themselves as the defenders against injustices committed upon Muslims. This book was designed to propose a common framework and definition of the threat for the use of all ranks within the U.S. military. It will seek to define the differences between Islam, Islamist, and Militant Islamist, with the objective of focusing scarce resources and effort on the true threat posed by Militant Islamist groups, disaggregating them from Islamists and Islam. This definition is my own; it is not endorsed by the U.S. government. Finally, winning this long war will require a higher level of nuanced understanding that will enable U.S. military personnel to comprehend that:

• The threat ideologically stems from Militant Islamist Ideology, not Islam and not entirely from Islamist groups.

• There are differences and divisions inherent within Militant Islamists.

• Islamists and Militant Islamists compete in the world of ideas and methodologies.

• The diversity inherent in a community of 1.5 billion Muslims cannot accommodate the narrow views of Militant Islamists.

• There are correlations between Militant Islamist ideologues and the actions of violent Militant Islamist groups.

• Militant Islamists operate with the friction of diverse Islamic practices, nationalism, and tribalism.

• There are different Salafi movements, not all Salafis are Militant Islamists, and many Salafis fall in the category of Islamist.

The idea for this volume of explaining the nature of the threat came from a book entitled Soviet Military Power, published annually during the last decade of the Cold War. Soviet Military Power offered an unclassified common reference for all U.S. military personnel; it was developed to explain annual developments of the Soviet threat to all U.S. military personnel, from E-1 to O-10. The document was signed annually by the secretary of defense. Although this conflict against Militant Islamist Ideology is very different from the Cold War, there are concepts and tools utilized during those years that need to be examined, reformed, updated, and pieces of it evaluated for potential application in this conflict. Without a realistic, sound, and doctrine-based definition of the threat, we shall be stuck between two extremes in American national policy discourse—that is, between those who argue that all Islam is evil and those who insist that all Islam is peaceful. These extremes are not effective in deriving effective policy, addressing nuances, or capturing the distortions that Militant Islamist Ideology has wrought upon Islam, distortions that are just beginning to outrage many Muslims. We cannot afford to call this phenomenon Islamism or Islamo-fascism and somehow consider it the new fascism or communism. It is imperative to begin thinking about this problem in new ways, distinguishing between Islam, Islamist, and Militant Islamist, thereby providing Muslims and non-Muslims a common reference to the ideology of the Militant Islamist that al-Qaida represents. Militant Islamists alienate not only the United States but even Islamist political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. It is time for a more nuanced definition of the threat.

The risks of not engaging in the ideological aspect of this conflict are too high to ignore. For the adversary places much emphasis on the war of perception. The United States must draft a long-range strategic document that identifies violent Islamist extremism as an ideology and include means of countering it, incorporating the constructive interpretations of Islam that argue against the destructive interpretations of the fringe that threatens global peace and stability. Finally, it must take into account the language, concepts, and interpretations of Islamist militants that justify violence against Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

We once viewed every communist incursion as a threat to the United States, whether or not it involved actual centers of interest—a misperception that drove the United States to involve itself in Vietnam. Militant Islamist Ideology has not reached the maturation, level of organization, or cohesiveness in ideology that would give rise to a Domino Theory. Unlike communism, against which free enterprise and democracy were used as ideological counterweights, Militant Islamist Ideology can be opposed among the Muslim masses only by Islamic counterargumentation. We cannot contain Militant Islamist Ideology but only work to marginalize, de-popularize, and erode its influence and mass appeal, by identifying it as different from Islam or even from Islamist political groups. Militant Islamist Ideology, this book will argue, is in fact an isolated strain within Salafi Islam, a return to fundamentals movement. Michael Dobbs, in his One Minute to Midnight, on the Cuban missile crisis, wrote, History does not always flow in predictable directions. Sometimes it can be hijacked by fanatics of various descriptions, by men with long beards, by ideologues living in caves, by assassins with rifles.¹ It is only through ideological deconstruction that we can take back Islamic history from al-Qaida and its sympathizers. In the end, we cannot hope to have a strategy without defining the threat. After all, a strategy is written against a defined challenger, and we have yet to define clearly the challenge to America’s national security in the twenty-first century.

one

Precise Definitions of the Threat

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.

ROBERT HEINLEIN, SCIENCE FICTION AUTHOR (1907–1988)

It is important to begin by defining the differences between Islam, Islamist, and Militant Islamist. Disaggregating these three terms will begin the process of understanding the nuances needed to pursue this long-term campaign. The Washington Times has reported the existence of a Red Team charged with challenging conventional thinking, arguing that terms like Islamist are needed in discussing twenty-first-century terrorism.¹ Although one can disagree with elements of the article, it does highlight the continuing debate over what to call the ideology of our adversary, who preys upon many who have only a sense of history, not a true knowledge of history. These are the defined terms:

Militant Islamist: a group or individual advocating Islamist ideological goals, principally by violent means. Militant Islamists call for the strictest possible interpretation of both the Qur’an (Muslim book of divine revelation) and the hadith (the Prophet Muhammad’s actions and deeds). This narrow interpretation opposes the beliefs of Muslims and non-Muslims alike; Militant Islamists stand against Western democracies, Middle Eastern institutions of government, and Islamist political parties that participate nonviolently in elections. Although Militant Islamists call for the establishment of an Islamic state, they are characterized by a lack of any socioeconomic agenda and impose their narrow views by force upon other Muslims as well as non-Muslims. Examples of Militant Islamists include al-Qaida and its affiliates.

Islamists: a group or individual advocating Islam as a political as well as a religious system. Chief Islamist objectives include implementing sharia (Islamic) law as the basis of all statutory issues and living as did the earliest adherents to Islam. Many Islamists also assert that implementation of sharia law requires the elimination of all non-Islamic influences in social, political, economic, and military spheres of life. Islamists principally achieve those objectives within the political and electoral frameworks of the countries in which they operate. An example is the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Islam: the religious faith of Muslims, involving (as defined in Merriam-Webster’s ) belief in Allah as the sole deity and in Muhammad as his prophet. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world of various subdivisions, from the main sects of the Sunni and Shiites to doctrinal groups within Sunni and Shiite Islam, as well as Sufi orders.

It is the Militant Islamists who are our adversary. They represent an immediate threat to the national security of the United States. They must not be confused with Islamists, who, although desiring the establishment of an Islamic state that might bear animosity toward the United States, wish to achieve changes within the political frameworks of their respective countries and abhor the violent methodologies espoused by Militant Islamists. The objective of the United States in fighting Militant Islamists must be to:

• Isolate, through all instruments of national power and in collaboration with allies, partners of convenience, and tribes, those who fit the definition of Militant Islamist

• Foster divisions within Militant Islamist groups over leadership, resources, strategy, vision, and influence

• Make comprehensible the damage that Militant Islamists are doing to Islamist politics and the wider Islamic world

• Promote Muslims who treat Islam as a source of values that guide conduct rather than a system that offers solutions to all problems.

Clarity of thought, history, and language is required to begin separating Islamist Militant Ideology from Islamists and Islam. Therefore, it is important to address the foundations of Islam, since the time of Prophet Muhammad (570–632). Militant Islamists wish to suppress the debate among Islamists and the wider Muslim world over matters of faith, government, morals, and much more. While the agenda of the Islamist political groups represents unacceptable outcomes for the United States in the long run, this should not blind us to the potential of Islamist groups as an alternative to Militant Islamist Ideology (like al-Qaida) or prevent careful assessments of the nature of Islamist movements that eventually attain power by democratic processes.

There are also Islamists who do not fit into a neat category, such as the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. On one hand, Hamas provides social services, won 44 percent of the electorate in 2006, and is the government of the Palestinian territories. On the other hand, it has failed to compromise effectively with other Palestinian rejectionist and secular groups to form a governing coalition, and it has failed to provide social services for a wider Palestinian populace. In addition, it has conducted suicide operations directed against Israeli civilians—though it has not widened its campaign beyond targeting Israel. Further, al-Qaida senior leaders have viciously attacked Hamas for participating in electoral politics. The question for Americans is whether Hamas is an Islamist or Militant Islamist group.

Clearer examples of Islamist parties include the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP). Currently in government, it must work within Turkey’s political process, where it can be challenged by Kemalists. The AKP promotes Turkey’s inclusion in the European Union but has secularists worried about its attempts to alter the constitution. The Moroccan Peace and Justice Party (PJD) is much more conservative than the Turkish AKP, and before the 2003 Casablanca bombings it issued vicious and incendiary diatribes against Morocco’s westernization, though stopping short of criticizing the monarch. The PJD has not engaged in violence, and its views on civil liberties are vague, yet in 2007 it won forty-six out of 325 seats in parliament. Similarly, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood won eighty-eight of 425 seats of parliament. While its long-term objectives may run counter to American interests, there are nuanced positive elements that should not be overlooked, such as its dedication to serve in parliament, which has had the effect of forcing legislators of the more entrenched ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) actually to show up for votes, in order to keep a legislative eye on the Muslim Brotherhood voting bloc.

It is, then, in the interest of the United States to assess each Islamist party individually, looking for constructive and nonconstructive elements within their platforms. One important criterion is level of respect for the principles of the democratic process. Do its public statements reflect contempt for democracy? Does it show an aversion to hizbiyah (party politics)? Does it argue that the only hizb (party) is Hezbollah (the Party of God)—in effect, a code for a wish to impose a singular religio-political vision? (This was held by the former supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mustafa Mahshur.) These are counterproductive views; however, not all Islamist practice them. An example of nuanced, long-term problems posed by Islamists is that of Saudi-run al-Arabiyah TV attacking al-Qaida ideologically while Iqra TV, also Saudi-run, features clerics who incite the killing of Americans and propagate hatred.

We can only make ourselves aware of these complexities and attempt to address them through gradual and long-term diplomacy. Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari, a former dean of Islamic law at Qatar University, believes that propaganda of hate and extremist rhetoric are the first step toward ghilu (a Quranic term meaning excessiveness or extremism in matters of faith) and then toward terrorism.² He lays out the stages of evolution using such Arabic terms as taasub (fanaticism), tataturf (extremism), unf (violence), and finally irhab (terrorism). We need to immerse ourselves in this language as we search for ways to distinguish between Islam, Islamist groups, and Militant Islamists and to understand the differences between the three, how people move between them, and how they compete with one another (particularly the Islamist and Militant Islamists), and where they appear to complement one another.

In keeping with its egalitarian principles and tradition of tolerance, the United States will oppose any attempt to impose a singular form of Islamic interpretation upon the world’s 1.5 billion diverse Muslims. We will stand with Muslims who uphold the Qur’an’s ideal that no human being can limit divine mercy in any way or regulate its entitlement (2:105, 3:74, 35:2, 38:9, 39:38, 40:7, 43:32).

The earliest coherent attempt at defining the threat was that by Professor Michael Palmer of East Carolina University, who discusses the need for a precise definition of what this volume terms Militant Islamists. His three definitions, in Last Crusade: Americanism and the Islamic Reformation, are:

• Islamism: the ideal of reestablishing the caliphate and its global dominion

• Islamist: one who believes in that ideal

• Jihadist: one who believes in the ideal and is willing to kill (perhaps even himself or herself) to achieve it.³

Palmer’s book rightly places emphasis on Qutb and Azzam (see the glossary and later chapters), but he does not place their writings in the wider context of Islam, the Islamist political movements, or Militant Islamist groups. This distinction is commendable, but it is not precise enough. Whether to give Militant Islamists the label of Jihadist has already been debated within Washington, and there seems to be a general sense that Jihadist is a badge of honor for Militant Islamists. But the imprecision of such descriptions has the potential of lumping together Islamist groups and Militant Islamists by describing them as adherents of Islamism. Disaggregating Islam from Islamist and both from Militant Islamist Ideology can remedy this problem.⁴

One of the benefits of reading Arabic books is that they identify ideological and militant philosophical divisions under which Zarqawi had to operate. One Arabic author, the Egyptian Gamal Rahim, is a prolific writer, historian, and journalist covering the Militant Islamist movement for Arab readers. His biography of former al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has an excellent chapter that discusses the divisions within radical Salafism, what he calls al-Tayyar al-Islami (Islamist trend). Gamal Rahim classifies its subgroupings as:

• Ikhwani (Muslim Brotherhood): Those wanting to attain an Islamist state through participation in government and parliaments, as well as through grassroots means, such as social services and proselytizing. Today their slogan is reform, not revolution.

• Salafi Ilmi (Practical Salafists): These are Salafists who wish to attain an Islamic state exclusively through dawa (proselytizing) but do not see any use in participating with corrupt regimes. They feel that the perfection of Islamic society in neighborhoods and hamlets speaks for itself. They want an Islamist fundamentalist regime and to impose a single brand of Islam, but they wish to do it through financing mosques and schools and by evangelizing.

• Salafi Jihadi (Salafi Jihadists): These are Militant Islamists who, like al-Qaida, desire the attainment of an Islamic state through violent means. In addition, they utilize their brand of Islam not for any moral purpose but to instill fear.⁵

These are the types of nuances that Arab watchers of Militant Islamists discern in the constant changes inherent in this movement. It is constructive to view al-Qaida and Militant Islamist movements not as monolithic but as subject to disagreements, disputes, and divisions. Identifying these divisions and properly describing them will be paramount.

Two extremes have developed in America’s national security discourse over what to do about the threat from Militant Islamists. Neither extreme is constructive for developing credible policy options. The first extreme is to label all Islam as the problem, to deduce from a narrow reading of Islamic texts that Islam is inherently violent and that our struggle is a bipolar one between Islam and the West. This negates the reality that Muslims are needed to fight Militant Islamists. It also causes many Arab and Asian governments with Muslim majorities who cooperate with the United States on many levels against terrorism to be less willing to aid in the achievement of counterterrorism policy objectives. More importantly, it deprives us of the means to understand the nuances and disagreements between Militant Islamists, Salafis, Islamists, and the wider Muslim world over al-Qaida methodology and ideology. Another extreme, espoused by a few leading members of the Muslim community, argues that Islam is a peaceful and nonviolent religion. Islam, like the other monotheistic faiths, over the course of its history has had its share of violence, and to paint Islam simply as a religion of peace ignores the reality that Militant Islamists have exploited Islam, through misuse of religious impulses, to induce individuals to take direct violent action against Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It is in our interest to isolate Militant Islamist Ideology from Islamists and from Islam and then to focus on eroding the influence of Militant Islamists.

Former president George W. Bush said in October 2005, "Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it’s called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. In that speech he referred to the threat as Islamic radicalism."⁶ The Defense Department, in its 2006 annual report to Congress, Measuring Stability in Iraq, in accordance with the 2006 Defense Department Appropriations Act (section 9010), referred to the threat as extremist Islamist ideology.⁷ This shows the urgent need of a uniform identification of the threat (Militant Islamist Ideology is the term proposed in this book) and of a clear distinction of it from Islamist political groups and Islam. President Bush understood that this ideology is different from the religion of Islam and went on to explain how it misuses Islam to justify terrorism and their politicized agenda.

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A Hidden Center of Gravity

Militant Islamists Cloaking Themselves in Islam

Islam is a vibrant faith. Millions of our fellow citizens are Muslim. We respect the faith. We honor its traditions. Our enemy does not. Our enemy doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve hijacked a great religion.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, WASHINGTON, D.C., OCTOBER 11, 2002

One of the main centers of gravity for Militant Islamists is the cloaking of their actions and ultimate goals in Islam. Militant Islamist Ideology is composed of fragmented pieces of Islam. These fragments do not stand alone, and they are recombined out of context to make up the bulwark of Militant Islamist Ideology, which is not the religion of Islam. Militant Islamists use Islam to attain naked power and control. The fragmentation of Islam by Militant Islamists to rationalize violent action must be attacked by restoring the context that militants remove. Their objective is not to reform or revive but to create a new world through the imposition of a singular view of Islam. Militant Islamist Ideology seeks to establish a totalitarian state steeped in the language, symbols, and narrowly selective aspects of Islam. It is important to explain how Islam has been hijacked by Militant Islamists as a means of promoting violence. They have reduced Islam to a simple common denominator, a lifestyle of perpetual warfare.

Militant Islamists compel belief in their ideology through intimidation and violence; in this regard they are similar to fascists, communists, and even Saddam Hussein’s Baathists. American leaders are more comfortable attacking a political ideology than concepts like Islamist or Militant Islamist, because they contain the word Islam. Yet although we may disagree with the Islamist political groups’ goals of establishing an Islamic state, we must concede that they do so through proselytizing and political action within the frameworks of their governments. Militant Islamists, in contrast, use elements of Islam to create a distinct militant ideology and reinforce their views through violence and intimidation.

This is like a hypothetical Christian cult that attempts to evangelize at the point of a gun, take over a state county in the United States, and then attempt to convert neighboring counties forcibly. The United States would not stand for such actions and would send in federal and state authorities to challenge not its ideas but its violent actions to impose those ideas. In addition, Americans are free to question any ideology, religious or otherwise, that incites violence and deprives people of basic freedoms and rights. In antebellum America, slavery was justified by the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis. Cain was to wander the earth marked, and this mark came to be misinterpreted by slaveholders and their sympathizers to mean skin color—a narrow and militant reading of the Bible was used to deprive human beings of their natural rights. Americans spoke out against the misuse of scripture, arguing that the mark could be a physical mark, a mark upon the soul, or the guilt Cain felt for slaying Abel. They also questioned whether the actual sin was the murder or the jealousy and envy of Cain.

If Christians questioned the interpretation of other Christians, then Muslims must be led to question the misuse of Islam by Militant Islamists. Only by defining Islam, Islamist, and Militant Islamists are these nuances made clear. We criticize the Chinese government’s handling of Tibet and the forcing of communist Chinese ideology on the people of Tibet; a Muslim or non-Muslim should be able to express the same outrage when Militant Islamists impose their ideology through violence. The Nixon administration capitalized upon the nuanced differences between communists in China and the Soviet Union, orchestrating Nixon’s visit to China and driving a further wedge between Moscow and Beijing. There are differences between Islamist and Militant Islamist Ideology, and these views have a hard time fitting into the wider Islamic world; our challenge is to begin thinking in those terms. It is vital to our national security to dispense with the notion that by attacking Militant Islamist Ideology we are attacking Islam. Whether abroad or in the United States, Militant Islamists seek to impose their ideology, composed of mere fragments of Islam, through violence.

An example of the misuse of an Islamic concept by Militant Islamists is the notion that Muslims are to prohibit vice and promote virtue. This can simply mean if you see someone doing something harmful to themselves or others, you are duty-bound to speak out against this behavior. The ultimate intent is the establishment of a just society. Militant Islamists use the concept to enforce morality, intimidate, and engage in violence against those deemed to be propagating vice. Their ultimate objective is not moral salvation but societal control, block by block and neighborhood by neighborhood. Militant Islamist Ideology, like the writing of Sayyid Qutb, is linked to such actions as the murder of Anwar Sadat and 9/11. Abu Musab al-Suri, considered the twenty-first-century strategic thinker for al-Qaida, follows a narrow range of Islamist Militant ideologues, drawn from Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Qayim, Qutb, and Azzam. Abu Musab al-Suri directly and indirectly caused the 1995 Paris subway bombing, the Madrid bombing, and the London bombing.

The common strain is this narrow view of Militant Islamist theorists, who discount whole swaths of the Qur’an and reduce 1,400 years of Islamic thought into sound bites. In addition, the methodology of Militant Islamists differs from Islamist political groups, and the wider Islamic community is diverse and in disagreement over the actions of Militant Islamists and the agendas of Islamist political groups. Since 2007 many clerics and former Militant Islamists have been outspoken about the damage al-Qaida is doing to Islam.

It is regrettable that in today’s mainstream Islam, the Prophet’s life is effectively considered to have begun at the age of forty, when he received the first of what would be twenty-three years of divine revelations from Angel Gabriel, revelations that would form the foundations of the Qur’an. To understand truly how extraordinary Muhammad was, it is necessary to explore his pre-Prophetic life. One can select portions of Muhammad’s life, misinterpret its historical context, and even judge him by twenty-first-century standards instead of sixth- and seventh-century Arabian standards. But the main focus of this volume is to highlight aspects of Muhammad’s life that Islamist militants simply dismiss, as it would interfere with their politicized agenda as well as with their acquisition of influence and power.

Amplifying positive aspects of Islamic history and marginalizing destructive Militant Islamist interpretations is the task at hand. Today Militant Islamists have been so proficient in the use of the media that the meaning and contributions of Islamic civilization have become lost not just in mainstream Western discourse but tragically in the Muslim world itself. We should not be reluctant to recognize and salute the positive interpretations of Islam, which was integral to bringing Europe out of the Dark Ages. It was Muslims who drove the main effort to preserve and even advance the classical texts of the Romans and ancient Greeks when such material was being neglected and destroyed in Western Europe.

The Muslims of ninth-century Baghdad (the zenith of the Islamic civilization) and twelfth-century Spain made a gift of the Greek and Roman classics to the Renaissance. These Muslims collaborated with Jews and other non-Muslims in the search for knowledge. Just as there is a popular fixation with word Jihad today, the fixation of ninth-century Muslim scientists and discoverers was ilm (knowledge), a word that appears more than jihad in the Qur’an. These are narrow and singular words in the Qur’an that stimulate movements, one that is positive and one that is negative. The pattern of Militant Islamists is to ignore this history, to view these enlightened Muslims as Hellenized and therefore corrupted by Western influences. This is also a view taken by a majority of Islamists; however, they do not usually propagate their ideas through violent means but through proselytizing.

In addition, Militant Islamists deemphasize aspects of Islamic history and heritage that do not support their worldview. Examples include the importance of Christians in early Islam and the details about Muhammad’s relations with Jewish tribes in Arabia. Militant Islamists teach a selective and narrow view of Islamic texts, starting from Ibn Taymiyyah in the fourteenth century to Sayyid Qutb, who was executed in 1966. It is important to highlight these works and study them even more aggressively than our adversaries, for even within Qutbism and the works of Ibn Taymiyyah and Abdul-Wahab (the founder of Wahhabism) there are writings that contradict al-Qaida ideology. An example relates to Muhammad’s admonition to his army that it is better they come back with Muslims amongst them which is dearer to me, than bringing me back their women and children [as captives] and killing their men.¹ Aside from the Militant Islamist selective obsession with Ibn Taymiyyah, there is a complete suppression in their ideology of the works of Ibn Rushd (Averroes), who postulated three levels of Quranic interpretation—the judicial, theological, and philosophic—to demonstrate its complexities.

The Arabic version of the Qur’an as codified by Uthman cannot be altered without grave sin. However, the issue is not with the Qur’an itself as much as with the commentaries and translations, which can vary widely; there are