Islam and Terror: Getting it Wrong
By Bernard I. Finel, PhD
Security in the Age of Terrorism
In the five plus years since the attacks of 9/11, analysts have danced around the connection between Islam and terrorism, getting the issue mostly wrong.
Understanding the connection between the two and speaking publicly about the connection is complicated for many reasons. First, there is a reasonable desire to avoid off ending followers of a great religion. Second, as a matter of strategy, it has seemed wise to many to try to downplay the connection in order to portray terrorists as illegitimate. Third, there is simply a great deal of misunderstanding about Islam. Fourth, among some commentators, there is an unfortunate refusal to consider the possibility that sincere belief in religion could lead one to violence. Unfortunately, though some of the motives for our confused analysis are understandable and even perhaps laudable, the net effect has been to misinterpret the threat and encourage the adoption of ineff ective and likely counter-productive policies for dealing with Islamist terror.
The key to moving the discussion forward and to developing a sound policy response is to specify the problem in a clear, concise fashion. First, groups like al Qaeda while not solely motivated by religion, are heavily influenced by a specific set of interpretations about Islam. These interpretations may not represent the majority view of Muslims, but they are also clearly more than a fringe position. The difference between al Qaeda and the broader Islamist movement in the Muslim world is not a gap in fundamental theological interpretation, but rather a difference in emphasis and tactics. The radicals are not cynical manipulators of religion. They are genuinely religious individuals who honestly believe they are doing God’s work when they engage in acts of terrorism.
Second, the radical Jihadists’ interpretations of Islam are unconventional, but not unprecedented. Nor are their interpretations wholly indefensible within the canon of Islamic thought and theology. There are two theological innovations within the Jihadist community. The first is the notion that since mainstream ulema has become corrupted by dint of association with either secular or oppressive governments, it has lost its legitimacy over scriptural interpretation. As a result, this sort of interpretation has devolved to a community of righteous Muslims even though they may lack both the formal training and official positions of the mainstream clergy. It is on the basis of this argument that Osama bin Laden claims for himself the right to issue Fatwas, for instance. The second theological innovation is much less revolutionary. Having broadened the community of legitimate interpreters of Islam, the radicals have collectively come to the conclusion that Islam is under attack, and that as a result individual Muslims have both a right and an obligation to engage in Jihad to repulse the invaders.
Third, radical Jihadists have gone out of their way to secure religious legitimization for attacks on civilians, even mass casualty attacks. They have created an argument focused on the supposed responsibility of the United States for the death of between four and ten million Muslims worldwide, which justifies terrorism as a proportional response.
From the perspective of the Jihadists, their cause meets three key tests of a just war under Islam:
* Legitimate authority that has devolved to Jihadists individually due to the corruption and secularism of Muslim leaders.;
* Self defense due to the supposed attack on Muslims worldwide;
* Proportionality due to the massive suffering of Muslims worldwide;
From their perspective, they not only have a right but an obligation to fight. The U.S. response has been two-fold. First, we have sought to line up as many members of the mainstream clergy as possible to condemn the Jihadist interpretations. In doing so we perversely reinforce the very critique the Jihadists make about the mainstream clergy, namely that it is corrupt and beholden to powerful outside forces rather than to the true teachings of the faith.
Second, U.S. leaders have sought to deny the religious motivations of our opponents. This has tended to distract us from a core element of the problem. By minimizing the religious element, we have been forced in our analyses to focus either on material factors such as poverty, political factors such as repression in much of the Muslim world, and ideological factors such as the supposed Jihadist hatred of freedom. Th ese emphases have encouraged greater U.S. involvement in internal matters within Muslim societies in an eff ort to transform them, which serves to reinforce the claims of the Jihadist that the United States is an aggressive, meddling power.
The practice of foreign policy, like the practice of medicine ought to proceed from the principle of “first, do no harm.” Our response to Islamist terror has failed this basic test by failing to give due respect to the genuine religious motivations of the Jihadists.
This Insight is based on research conducted by ASP’s research program “Securing America in the Age of Terror.”
Dr. Bernard I. Finel is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Project, a national security think tank. He has served on the faculty at the National War College and Georgetown University where he was also Executive Director of the Security Studies Program.
Download PDF:
020107_IslamTerror.pdf
