April 2005 Edition

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It was Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib who, upon assuming the caliphate, advised his governor in Egypt, Malik al-Ashtar: "Your subjects are brothers in humanity before they are your brothers in religion."[i] This quotation from the Nahj al-Balaghah, the unique collection of sayings of Islam's First Imam and fourth caliph, is a favourite of mine, because it is so relevant in so many contexts, not least in relation to the nature of true leadership.

On 10^th October 2001, an emergency OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) foreign ministers' meeting in Doha, Qatar, issued an official final statement strongly condemning the "savage acts of terrorism which targeted the United States" a month earlier. The text emphasised that such acts contravened the teachings of divine religions and moral and human values, and stressed that such acts could not, and should not, be linked with Islam. It also stressed the need to track down the perpetrators, and to punish them. This was an important statement in many respects, not least because it pledged Muslim and Arab countries to the so-called war against terrorism and at the same time contained specific caveats.

 

ISLAM CONDEMNS TERRORISM

That the majority of Muslims were vociferous in their condemnation of the terrorist atrocities of 11 September 2001 specifically (and terrorism more generally) is succinctly encapsulated in the words of the late Sayyed Abdul-Majid al-Khoei, who emphatically declared in a published statement: "Terrorist acts violate Islamic law" and are "impermissible under any pretext".[ii] Al-Khoei went on to say that the attack of 11^th September, "regardless of one's views and regardless of who the perpetrators were" (that is, regardless of their religion also), was in itself a "criminal and barbaric action totally remote from moral values and religious and human principles". For those who had been questioning the integrity of Muslim leadership following 11^th September, perhaps one can refer them to such progressive – some would argue genuinely Islamic – sentiments and official statements that, contrary to the often negative assumptions that automatically link Islam with acts of terrorism, are in fact representative of a vast body of Muslim scholarly opinion.

Abdul-Majid al-Khoei was not the only reputable Islamic leader, resident in the United Kingdom before his murder in Iraq, who believed that the perpetrators of terrorist atrocities have no authority to issue Islamic religious opinions (fatwas). In the wake of 11^th September, Muslim leaders and representative bodies, such as the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), did condemn extremist figures, such as the leader of the fundamentalist al-Muhajiroun group, Omar Bakri Mohammed (who calls for a worldwide "caliphate"), and Shaykh Abu Hamza of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, and the MCB even went so far as to refer to such self-styled "scholars" – and not in any flippant sense either – as "clowns and loonies".

The Cambridge University Muslim scholar, Tim Winter, or Abd al-Hakim Murad, is similarly unequivocal. An insurrectionist who kills non-combatants is guilty of baghi, armed transgression, which, he argues, is a capital offence in Islamic law. The proclamations of Bin Ladin, which ignore fourteen centuries of Muslim scholarship, violate the normal methods of Islamic scholarship, argues Winter. Had the authors of such fatwas followed the norms of their religion, they would have had to acknowledge that no school of traditional Islam allows the targeting of civilians. A military jihad (which Islamic scholars are keen to point out is a "lesser" jihad, the "greater" being the jihad, or struggle, of one's own self or against one's own selfishness) can be proclaimed only by a properly constituted state; "anything else is pure vigilantism".

In the Islamic world, the General Mufti (al-Mufti al-'Amm) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Shaykh Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Shaykh, issued an official statement that condemned the 11 September attack as "criminal" on the grounds that Islam forbids the hijacking of planes, the terrorizing of innocent people, and the shedding of blood. He had already, in fact months before these attacks, condemned suicide bombings, distinguishing between "regular suicide" (intihar), which has always been absolutely forbidden in Islam, and martyrdom (istishhad), for which there are limited and conditional exceptions.

Notwithstanding this body of scholarship, there are those who call themselves Muslim leaders who use Qur'anic verses, 'ahadith (traditions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), and cases from the early history of Islam in order to try and prove the opposite – that such violence is permissible under the doctrine of individual duty (fard 'ayn) within the context of jihad. Personally, I find myself bemused by the remarks made by some of these scholars. It is reported that Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Head of the Department of Sunnah Studies at the University of Qatar, stated that suicide bombings have nothing to do with suicide, but are "a type of terrorism (!) allowed by the Shari'ah".[iii] Such people invoke the legal principle of necessity "which justifies what is forbidden", but I would retort that there is no such thing as moral equivalence when, for example, it comes to killing innocent children.

Historically, those who refused to concede legitimacy to the jurists were muharib (lit. those who wage war against society). Although classical jurists agreed on the definition of a muharib, they disagreed about which types of criminal acts should be considered crimes of terror. Nevertheless, "the terrorizing of the defenceless was recognised as a moral wrong and an offence against society and God”.[iv]

PROGRESSIVE ISLAM

Most Muslim scholars who condemn terrorism, especially when it uses religion as a weapon or tool, insist that the Qur'an emphatically supports their view. Ayatullah Sayyed Fadhil Milani, a leading Shi'a theologian based in London, included the following oft-quoted verses to support what one might refer to as the progressivist Islamic view:[v]

If anyone kills a human being for other than manslaughter or for spreading corruption on earth-it shall be as though he had killed all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind. (6: 51)
If they hold aloof from you and wage not war against you and offer you peace, God allows you no way against them. (4: 90)

Such scholars also use the pro-integrationist argument that Muslims are commanded by God to be good citizens and good community members wherever they live, and to leave the place a better one because they have lived in it. Hujjat al-Islam Shaykh Fadhil Sahlani, Director of Al-Khoei Foundation in New York, who participated in the official remembrance ceremony at the Yankee Stadium for the victims of the 11^th September atrocities, argues that it is an integral part of the fundamental duties of a believer to take an active part in the social and the political process of a community in order to make positive changes, not only for themselves, but for others as well.[vi] His approach is both ecumenical and grassroots.

 

ISLAMOPHOBIA

In the West, a sophisticated level of interaction between some Muslim representatives and government machinery is apparent – despite criticisms of elitism and opportunism. The flipside of such progress is the reality of "the street", where, even before 11^th September, there was in evidence a marked increase in racist violence throughout Europe and a disturbing growth in neo-fascist parties recruiting mainly young unemployed men, whose strong plank now appeared to be to target Muslims and Muslim religious and cultural symbols. Islamophobia, which might be described as a relatively new, yet equally vile, form of racism (also known as anti-muslimism), is a type of racism:

You are hated because of the way you dress. You are hated because of the views you might hold. You are hated because of the religion you uphold. You are hated not just for what you are but for what you, in the eyes of others, might become.[vii]

The UK has been at the forefront of addressing the issue of Islamophobia and antimuslimism. Islamophobia, according to the Runnymede Trust Report, which was probably the first coherent study of the phenomenon, is "a dual demonisation of Muslims at home and abroad".[viii] That process, perhaps more than any other, galvanised not only Muslim public opinion but also Muslim leadership. It forced the government to look more seriously into the issue of discrimination and racism, based not on ethnicity or skin colour, but specifically on religious persuasion.

An important element of this has been, almost by definition if not by force of circumstance, the relationship of Islamophobia with anti-Semitism. This has, over the years, led to an enhanced contact between Muslim and Jewish organisations as well as individuals from both faiths eager to learn from each other's historical and contemporary experiences, such as, for instance, the development of The Maimonides Foundation in London, and the regular meetings of Muslims and Jews under the auspices of The Stone-Ashdown Trust, also in London.[ix] Of course, senior Jewish figures have always been prominent in interfaith committees, but the Judeo-Islamic platform is a relatively new and fascinating arena of cooperation from which there is surely much to be gained.

 

ERA OF PRE-EMPTIVE LOGIC

In the USA, the Arabocentric dimension of US domestic policy vis-à-vis the perceived threat to homeland security is not exclusive to the "post-9/11" scenario. The controversial 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effect Death Penalty Act had earlier allowed the INS (Immigration and Nationality Service) to "arrest, detain and deport non-citizens on the basis of 'secret evidence’ – whose source and substance is not revealed to the potential deportees or their counsel", which civil rights lawyers at the time described as an unconstitutional measure used especially against Muslims and Arabs.
Earlier this year, a joint resolution, adopted by the US Senate and the House of Representatives, authorised the use of US armed forces against those responsible for the 11^th September attacks. This resolution, with integrated War Powers Resolution Requirements, allows the President (in Section 2) "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on 11^th September 2001, or [harboured] such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."[x]

We are living in the era of pre-emptive logic. Shoot first, ask questions later. At the international level, the most important and far-reaching development in terms of its effect on individual state responses to terrorist threats came in the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 1373, on 28^th September 2001. This pulls together all previous resolutions dealing with terrorism, and invokes them under Chapter VII auspices, which deals with threats to, and breaches of, the peace and acts of aggression. Though it does not define "terrorism", it makes it clear that the attacks of 11^th September can only be defined as terrorism. UNSC 1373 has been described by the more cynical as a blank cheque for governments and one that intentionally leaves undefined all of its key terms. Indeed, though Security Council Resolutions can often be intentionally ambiguous, such constructive ambiguity as is prevalent within this particular resolution seems exceptional. Some international lawyers argue that Resolution 1373 would be used to justify action taken without further Security Council approval (the preambulatory paragraph reaffirming the rights of nations to self-defence emphasises that Security Council Resolutions are not required).

By issuing a "decision" about what each country must do to combat terrorism, Resolution 1373 has created a series of obligations under International Law that seem to go far beyond anything that existed previously. A very wide range of activities associated with terrorism are now criminalized, and countries are supposed to bring their domestic criminal statutes into conformity with international standards. By specifically referring to the right of self-defence, the resolution seems to legitimise unilateral military responses by states that are either attacked by non-state actors or fear that they might be attacked. Moreover, by creating a "special action committee" composed of representatives of the Security Council, and setting a deadline of ninety days to report what actions have been taken, the resolution has established, at the very least, the beginning of a permanent international structure to coordinate anti-terrorism activities. In short, this is likely to have repercussions with potentially negative unintended consequences.

 

WHO IS A TERRORIST?

Of course, terrorism remains the great undefined. In 1992, Alex Schmid, in a report for the United Nations Crime Branch, fascinatingly suggested that acts of terrorism ought to be defined as crimes against humanity, or war crimes extended to peacetime, in other words, "peacetime equivalents of war crimes".

In Islam, the issue of leadership accountability is theoretically (though not always practically) central. Thus, in the Islamic discourse on terrorism and leadership, the issue of state-sponsored or indeed state-enacted terrorism is essential to the discussion.    It could be argued that national armed forces have used violence and terror on a larger scale than liberation forces are capable of employing. Why should the label "terrorist" be applied to "freedom-fighters", for instance, and not to national militaries? It is thus difficult to avoid the conclusion drawn by the historian Frank Furedi: “Terrorists become any foreign people you don't like."[xi]

We cannot discuss Islamic leadership in relation to the challenge of terrorism without considering political Islamism – and again we are in difficulty so far as an agreed definition is concerned. An Islamist might be defined as a person who follows one of the varieties of political or politicised Islam that have emerged since the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, and have become especially strong since ca.1970. This covers a range of views from moderate or gradualist to violent or militant. Most Islamists believe in the application of a divinely-ordained Shari'ah as the basic law, though they may differ in their interpretation of it. They also tend to be hostile to most governments of Muslim-majority states and to the policies of the West, especially the US, and to state this hostility in (partially) Islamic terms, which are in turn rejected by those scholars within Islam who deny any link between violent, overtly political struggles (however socially legitimate) and the religious faith of over a billion people.

We often fail to distinguish between radical Islamist movements as a modern phenomenon, existing in a symbiotic relationship with other trends, and Islam, the religious faith of over a fifth of humanity. Radical Islamism is, according to Dr. S. Parvez Manzoor, moving in a direction that makes all compromise with the modern ethos almost impossible:

It conceives of the imperatives of Islamic commitment in such fundamentalist terms that the very idea of a dialogue with the agencies of contemporary history appears heretical. Thus, for all its determination to bring Islam back to history, radical Islamist thinking promotes a worldview that is vehemently anti-political, just as it endorses a politics of revival that is blatantly anti-historical.[xii]

CULT LEADER

It is clear that bin Ladin perceives himself to be a legitimate Islamic leader and spiritual authority who can declare war and rally Muslims-and even non-Muslims-to his cause. To deconstruct him, in other words to delegitimize him and those of his ilk, it is not enough simply to state that most scholars of Islam have firmly – and fiercely – rejected his claims to leadership in any sense of the term, and thus his relevance is only to a marginalized minority of political Islamists.[xiii] In some ways, he is a post-Islamist answer to the now defunct pan-Arabism that held sway over the previous generation of Arab activists. The 1998 Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders, said to have been issued as a directive by al-Qa'ida, tells us a great deal about bin Ladin the man, his politics, and, perhaps most significantly, his state of mind.[xiv] Throughout the Declaration, the emphasis is on power, authority, and control, which is characteristic of the self-delusional grandeur of a cult leader. That he refers to his declarations as fatwas is further proof of his self-delusion, a product of being cocooned by yes-men with guns and flattery. His focus on the US is obsessive, and his ability to dichotomise his position vis-à-vis that of his perceived enemies is not untypical of a cult leader.

 

According to experts, key elements of a cult are deception and manipulation, as well as adoration of a charismatic leader.[xv] Adoration in turn helps to inflate the leader's ego. Cult members, despite belonging to a religion, are often not conventionally religious, believing that rules and conventions can be suspended by the enormous charisma of their leader or organisation. It is considered legitimate to deceive and take advantage of outsiders and even to destroy them. If a charismatic leader and community can convince a cult member that a suicidal act is the ultimate in self-sacrifice and self-fulfilment, they can sometimes induce it. Cult members need not commit suicide as a pious act guaranteeing them paradise; they may do it simply because they have been conditioned to give absolute obedience to their leader and are convinced that thereby they will achieve some key goal that is highly significant to their cult's identity. The cultic milieu is the dynamic seedbed of novel interpretations of sacred matters out of which new religious communities take shape. These "spectacular" religions commit shocking acts of suicide and homicide, and include the religious movements of Jonestown, the Order of the Solar Temple, Heaven's Gate, and Aum Shinrikyo. And it is in that context that I think we ought to see bin Ladin.

Al-Qa'ida certainly appears to fit the classical definitions of a cult: it indoctrinates its members; it forms a closed, totalitarian society; it has a self-appointed, messianic and charismatic leader; and it believes that the ends justify the means.

Islamic legal scholars and Muslim leaders, in responding to the challenge of Islamism and terrorism, have to help develop a progressive platform that is uniquely Islamic within the framework of political reformation and in relation to universally shared values. Muslim political leadership has to enlist the religious and spiritual leadership in a constructive engagement towards delegitimizing terrorism and terrorists, and that involves to some extent creating an enabling environment for the legislative deconstruction of political Islamism when it is seen to be contrary to peace and stability.

The crisis of international terrorism is about legitimacy: the legitimacy of terror; the legitimacy of responding to terror. In the latter context it is about the legitimacy of the nature of response and engagement, whether unilateral, bilateral, or multilateral; whether military, psychological, or diplomatic. It is also about the legitimacy of harbouring terrorism; and about the legitimacy of anger, frustration and despair against a growing gap between the rich and the poor. The delegitimization of terrorists and terrorism within the world of Islam involves a diplomatic process that will gather Islamic religious and political opinion from the widest spectrum and issue a cohesive, authoritative proclamation, or fatwa, which, in effect, denies terrorists who hijack Islam any religious legitimacy.