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al-Qaeda: A criminally basic overview (part 1)
Contributed by: Jared Keller on 11/21/2007

Well, kids...this is like the cough syrup in your week. This post is something of a paradox; it's painfully lengthy, and yet provides only the bare essentials regarding the subject at-hand. Such a development is inevitable, however, when one considers the complexity of the topic.

Normally, I'd use my time and resources to write something light and fluffy, and rest assured, I'll stay as completely non-topical as I can, moving forward, but I've had enough discussions with folks of late to convince me that the general public - including the fair citizens of YourHubLand - could use something of a layman's guide to the big AQ. Lots o' utter nonsense floating about in the realm of urban legends, and way too much of it has become accepted as something resembling conventional wisdom. Yup - you've spent the past five-plus years reading, hearing, and talking about the group, but the question is this: do you have any idea who on earth these folks actually are? No? Fear not. Here's the first in a four-part overview of Osama's Merry Men O' Mayhem.

Philosophical and Historical Roots -

We'll dive right into controversy here, by declaring AQ to be a Salafist organization. This is controversial only because there are around eight trillion different iterations of Salafist ideology, and each believes the others to be apostate. Many Salafists - including the overwhelmingly non-violent Tablighi sect - reject the notion that AQ is, in fact, Salafist (they'd call it a "Qutbist" movement, for reasons that will become clear), but I believe that both its origins and interpretations of traditional Islamic scholarship and decree firmly place it into a Salafist camp.

Salafi jihad is rightly seen as a global Islamic revivalist movement that carries with it the goal of restoring a single Islamist state, stretching from Morocco to the Philippines, and featuring none of the national boundaries that presently exist. It advocated what it would deem a restoration of authentic Islam, and the violent confrontation and overthrow of all political resistance to this goal. It is for this reason that AQ and the countless other groups that make up the Salafi jihad (we'll get into some of them in a later post) have declared their intention to destroy the great powers of the West; they feel that it is the continued existence of Western political and philosophical thought that prevents the establishment of this Islamist state.

AQ is often described as "Wahabi", and, for the most part, this is an inaccurate description, as Wahabism isn't actually a sect within Islam, but rather a philosophy for the proclamation of Salafist thought. The term "Wahabi" is actually something of an insult, and was first applied to AQ-types upon their involvement in the Fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, where the local Afghans - resentful and distrustful of the so-called "Arab Afghans" called them "Wahabis" in response to their overbearing, rigid Islamic practices, which almost universally rubbed the more secular Afghans the wrong way.

Salafism itself first found political expression in the late 19th century, when a Persian fellow named Jamal al-Din al-Afghani became disgusted with what he viewed as Muslim acceptance of Western mores, and urged the creation of a unified Muslim front that would oppose the West. Later, men like Hasan al-Banna (who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928) would take al-Afghani's ideals, and begin to forge political parties designed to translate those ideals into political reality.

This movement would, of course, begin to come into friction with other Muslim political movements that were less fundamentalist in nature, and as such, the debate over Salafism's potential to create fitna (temptation or trial) in the form of Muslim division advanced to the forefront of debate. Surely, after all, true Islamist reform could never take place within the context of secular Muslim governments, who were, themselves, nothing more than apostate. This reality led supporters of the revivalist movement to begin contemplating open conflict against these governments, but the possibility of fitna held them off, as such actions would undoubtedly divide Muslims from one another, and as such, could not be permitted.

The key moment of transformation within Salafist ideology came about with Sayyid Qutb's (an Egyptian member of the Muslim Brotherhood) "rediscovery" of the concept of jahiliyya, which described the barbaric state of the Arabic Peninsula in the days before Mohammed. A prominent 18th century Islamic scholar named Mohamed ibn Abd al-Wahab had described the tribes around the region as having reverted back to their original state of depravity after a period of time in which they embraced Islam (he based his view on many of the fatwas issued by a 13th century scholar named Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya). Having rejected Allah's true religion, it was reasoned, these tribes were worthy only of destruction under the concept of Tawhid, or "the Unity of God", under which no idolatry or apostasy can be tolerated within the Umma, or Islamic community.

Qutb took the concept of jahiliyya (as taught by Mawlana abu al-Ala Mawdudi, who founded an India-based group called the Islamic Society in 1941), combined it with Taymiyya's "duty" to wage war against idolaters and infidels, and created something of an expansion of al-Wahab's original notion of jihad.

Qutb vociferously opposed the Nasser government in Egypt (which had him imprisoned, and later executed for his teachings), and grew more and more radical in his teaching, and his adherence to the notion of Salafi jihad as the only prescription for the salvation of humankind as the years went on.

Qutb maintained that preaching alone would never be sufficient to build the Islamist state, and that "striving with the use of the sword" ( jihad bis sayf) would be a necessary precursor for the absorbtion of the preaching that would come after. Qutb's philosophy in prescribing an offensive, rather than defensive jihad (a massive departure from the traditional view) can best be summed up with his own words:

Islam is not a heritage of any particular race or country; this is God's religion, and it is for the whole world. It has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions, which limit man's freedom of choice. It does not attack individuals, nor does it force them to accept its beliefs; it attacks institutions and traditions to release human beings from their poisonous influences, which distort human nature and which curtail human freedom.As Western systems of thought and government don't allow for the conditions of Islamic rule to flourish, Qutb said, "it is the duty of Islam to annihilate all such systems".

Qutb declared the West to be nothing short of one giant jahili society; a term he described thusly:

A jahili society is any other than a Muslim society; and if we want a more specific definition, we may say that any society is a jahili society that does not dedicate itself to submission to God alone, in its beliefs and ideas, in its observances of worship, and in its legal regulations. According to this definition, all the societies existing in the world today are jahili.By declaring even the Muslim societies that existed at the time to be Jahili, Qutb could then justify violent actions against the governments of those nations, as, according to his definition, they weren't truly Muslim.

On a side note, my fellow Coloradans might find it interesting to learn that - in some respects - the philosophy behind AQ came into existence right here in Greely, at UNC, where Qutb studied in the 40s, and was both aroused and enraged by the "lewd" conduct of American women.

The most influential of Qutb's disciples was an Egyptian named Muhammed Abd al-Salam Faraj, who headed the Cairo branch of one of the Salafi jihad groups (called Tanzim al-Jihad) responsible for the assassination of Sadat. Faraj's pamphlets spread throughout Egypt, and in many ways, formed the nucleus of what would become al-Qaeda's ideology.

AQ's existence can be traced to a few distinct sources - the most prominent of which is likely the teaching of Sheik Abdallah Azzam, who, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 took the concept of defensive jihad, and applied it to Afghanistan, insisting that this state of jihad obligated Muslim men (under the concept of fard ayn, or "individual obligation) from around the world to travel to Afghanistan to repel the Soviets. Azzam urged the unification of the native Afghan resistance, as well, and viewed Afghanistan as the first in many steps designed to reclaim what he viewed as traditional Muslim land (including Azzam's native Palestine) from infidels. What is important here, is to point out that Azzam's plans called only for the removal of non-Muslim governments from these lands. The governments of even notionally Muslim countries were not targeted in Azzam's original vision, which simply expanded on the radicalized teaching of Faraj.

This would be an excellent spot to lay out a bit of basic information regarding the unkillable myth that the US somehow "created" al-Qaeda, or Osama bin Laden. As the story usually goes, bin Laden is described as some kind of CIA asset, or pawn of the US, who was provided funding to fight the Soviets on our behalf. This - and every other version of the story that unfolds along these lines - is nothing more than a complete fiction. For an excellent look at the phenomenon of the "Arab Afghans", check Evan Kohlmann's excellent thesis, The Legacy of the Arab Afghans: A Case Study, and Marc Sageman's outstanding book Understanding Terror Networks, which provides a far better overview of Salafist movements than any other single source I've encountered. Much of the data you see here comes from these sources. The fact of the matter is that there was very little love lost between the native Afghan fighters (who we did supply and fund), and the jihadis who responded to Azzam's call, only to stick around (in small numbers) following the Soviet withdrawl, advance the cause of the Taliban, and form the vanguard of al-Qaeda. Operationally-speaking, there was little to no overlap between the two groups, and Afghans as a whole have not responded favorably to al-Qaeda's efforts (hence the reason why, despite the loving embrace of the Taliban, one would find a grand total of one Afghan in a chart of al-Qaeda's senior leadership since its inception).

Among those Muslims who responded to Azzam's call to come to Afghanistan were a whole bunch of Egyptian Salafist militia-types, who wanted to seize upon the momentum of jihad, and overthrow the corrupt and secular Egyptian government. One of Azzam's most prominent disciples - a wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden - began to espouse their views, and, after Azzam's death - which followed on the heels of the Soviet withdrawl from Afghanistan - the jihadis who had flooded to the fight were left without a central enemy. Eventually, a global analysis led to a reversal of Faraj's belief that jihad should focus on the "near enemy" of corrupt governments in the region, as bin Laden began to preach that the corruption close-at-hand could not be effectively combated were its source (the West) not fought first. As such, the focus of the Salafi jihad turned truly global, with the "far enemy" of the West (chiefly America) squarely in its crosshairs.

Where Osama bin Laden provided the initial spark, charisma (he was a popular fighter among the "Arab Afghans"), and funding, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri provided the spiritual and ideological "meat" for al-Qaeda's growth. Zawahiri first entered the world of jihad as the head of a group called Egyptian Islamic Jihad, or EIJ. EIJ was one of two groups (the other being the Egyptian Islamic Group, or EIG) that came into existence following a split in the larger Tanzim al-Jihad organization brought about in the aftermath of the Sadat assassination.

The EIJ and EIG (whose spiritual leader was Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (the so-called "blind Sheikh" behind the first World Trade Center attack) would find common cause on the battlefields of Afghanistan, though Zawahiri's more radical and globally-oriented EIJ would find favored status as Zawahiri worked tirelessly to court the popular bin Laden's support for his organization.

Eventually, Zawahiri came to disagree with Azzam's assessment that jihad should remain defensive in nature, and Azzam's own family blames Zawahiri's group for his assassination - believed to have taken place because of Azzam's fatwa stating that following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the Islamists could no longer take sides, essentially ending the campaign.

Zawahiri's more radical views - combined with the death of Azzam, and the emergence of Osama bin Laden as Zawahiri's ideological ally - set the jihadist movement on a course toward the founding of a "base" for global jihad. Incidentally, this point marked the first instance in which - again, contrary to popular opinion and conventional wisdom - the leadership of a nascent al-Qaeda expressed their support for Saddam Hussein, who they viewed as the lesser of two evils when compared to the twin-headed monster of American invaders and Saudi apostates.

Fighting in Afghanistan continued until the fall of Kabul in 1992 (something not often mentioned in the press), with US aid continuing to flow in, designed to counter Soviet aid that remained in place until the fall of the communist government. As such, the Arab Afghan contingent began the construction and use of numerous training camps with which to accommodate the Muslims from around the world who continued to flock to Afghanistan for jihad. Many of these late arrivals would go on to form the backbone of the Salafi jihad around the world. They allied themselves with three of the four major fundamentalist factions at work in Afghanistan, headed by Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, Yunis Khalis, and Abdel Rabb Rasul Sayyaf. As the traditional Afghan mujahadeen had retired from the fight at this point, the Salafists gained total control. Members of these organizations departed for various spots around the world, where they formed the core of the global Salafi structure that exists to this day (Janjalani headed to the Philippines, where he formed the mostly-defunct Abu Sayyaf Group, bin Laden did some "work" in Yemen, the Pakistanis headed to Kashmir, and the Indonesians formed Jemaah Islamiyya, and both the EIJ and EIG initiated attacks on the Egyptian government), with the groups in question receiving logisitc and financial support from a new entity called "al-Qaeda". At this point, AQ was still focused more on the "near" enemy than the US. This situation changed after the Salafi exile in Sudan in 1996. In that year, bin Laden issued his first declaration of war against the US.

By 1996, AQ was headquartered in Sudan, and featured training camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Philippines, Yemen, and Sudan. Bin Laden had identified the US as "the head of the snake" that was encroaching on Muslim lands, and corrupting Muslim societies across the globe, and as such, it needed to be killed. The first attacks directly attributable to AQ, rather than the Salafi network at-large were in 1995, and 1996. These marked a major turning point in the West's battle with Salafi jihad.

The next would come about with bin Laden's increasingly friendly relations with Mullah Muhammed Omar - the leader of the newly ascendant Taliban in Afghanistan. From the safe haven provided him in Afghanistan, bin Laden issued his fatwa declaring war on the United States - more than five years before 9/11.

Congrats! You've made it through! Next up? AQ in Afghanistan.


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Jared Keller

Littleton

Jared Keller has posted 470 stories and 64 comments since joining on 12/1/2005. Jared Keller 's average story rating is 4.86.
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