Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (18 page)

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Authors: Jon Armajani

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  1. Abdel Aziz Ramadan, “Fundamentalist Influence in Egypt: The Strategies of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Takfir Groups,” in The Fundamentalism Project, vol. 3, Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and Militance, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 157–64.

118 Ibid., 164–78.

  1. John Walsh, “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: Understanding Centrist Islam,”

Harvard International Review (Winter 2003): 34.

  1. Ibid.
  2. Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 211–13.
  3. Montasser al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden’s Right- Hand Man, ed. Sara Nimis, trans. Ahmed Fekry (London: Pluto Press, 2004), 16.

123 Ibid., 16–17.

124 Ibid., 17.

125 Ibid., 18. 126 Ibid., 17–18.

127 Ibid.

128 Ibid., 18.

  1. Kepel, Prophet and Pharaoh, 191.
  2. Ramadan, “Fundamentalist Influence in Egypt: The Strategies of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Takfir Groups,” 159.
  3. Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj, al-Farida al-Ghaiba (Cairo: Dar Thabit, 1984), 1–15.
  4. Kepel, Prophet and Pharaoh, 192.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Lawrence Wright, “The Man Behind Bin Laden: How an Egyptian Doctor Became a Master of Terror,” The New Yorker, September 16, 2002, 11–12; al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 15–16.
  7. Al-Zayyat as quoted in Wright, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” 11–12; al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 11–12.
  8. Al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 12–15; Wright, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” 11–12.
  9. Wright, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” 12.
  10. Ibid.
  11. Ibid. See also Peter L. Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al-Qaeda’s Leader (New York: Free Press, 2006), 64–5.
  12. Wright, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” 12.
  13. Ibid.; see also Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, 64–5.
  14. Jeffrey D. Simon, The Terrorist Trap: America’s Experience with Terrorism (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1994), 13; al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 29–30.
  15. Wright, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” 13.
  16. Ibid.
  17. Al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 27, 30. 146 Ibid., 88–92.

 

  1. For a treatment of Abd al-Rahman’s circumstances and case, see Andrew

C. McCarthy, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (New York: Encounter Books, 2008).

  1. Public Broadcasting Service’s Frontline,“Looking for Answers,” first broadcast on October 9, 2001. Information on this episode is at
    www.pbs.org/wgbh/
    pages/frontline/shows/terrorism (accessed September 6, 2009).
  2. Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan (London: Pluto Press, 2001), 102.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Wright, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” 16.
  6. Public Broadcasting Service’s, Frontline, “Looking for Answers.”
  7. Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 150, 167.

155 Ibid., 167.

  1. Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century

(New York: Penguin, 2008), 336–8.

  1. Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden

(London: Free Press, 2001), 89, 102.

  1. Ibid.
  2. Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 122–6.

  1. Rohan Gunaratna, Inside al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 87–97.

161 Ibid., 164–79.

162 “World Islamic Front’s Statement of Jihad against Jews and Crusaders,” in Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, ed. Bruce Lawrence, trans. James Howarth (New York: Verso, 2005), 58–62.

163 Bergen, Holy War, Inc., 105–13, 117–18.

164 Ibid., 119–25.

  1. Wright, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” 23.
  2. Al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 24.
  3. As quoted in al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 24–5. See also Ayman al- Zawahiri, “La Moisson amère: Les soixante ans des Frères musulmans” (1991–2), in Al-Qaida dans le texte: Écrits d’Oussama ben Laden, Abdallah Azzam, Ayman al-Zawahiri et Abou Moussab al-Zarqawi, ed. Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli, trans. Jean-Pierre Milelli (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 2005), 245, 252–3.
  4. Kepel, Prophet and Pharaoh, 92–4.
  5. Al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 25–6.
  6. Ibid.
  7. Al-Zawahiri, “La Moisson amère: Les soixante ans des Frères musulmans,” 245, 253–5.
  8. See Ramadan, “Fundamentalist Influence in Egypt: The Strategies of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Takfir Groups,” 157–8; al-Zawahiri, “La Moisson amère: Les soixante ans des Frères musulmans,” 253–5.

 

  1. Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Cavaliers sous l’étendard du Prophète” (2001), in Al-Qaida dans le texte, 287–93.

174 Ibid., 293–9.

175 Ibid., 297.

  1. Ibid.
  2. Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 23–5, 34–42, 69, 86.

178 Ibid., 297–309.

179 Ibid., 293.

180 Ibid., 296.

181 Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Conseil à l’oumma de rejeter la fatwa du cheikh Ben Baz autorisant l’entrée au parlement,” in Al-Qaida dans le texte, 267–71.

182 Ibid., 267.

  1. Ibid.
  2. Ibid.

185 Ibid., 267–75.

186 Ibid., 269.

187 Ibid., 269–75.

188 Ibid., 275–7.

  1. On some of the debates among Islamists regarding tactics, see, for example, Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 151–84.
  2. The World Bank, World Development Indicators, Egypt,
    http://search.worldbank.
    org/data?qterm=population%20of%20egypt&language=EN&format=html (accessed March 2, 2011).
  3. Susan Hayward, Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, 3rd edn. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 380–92; John Sinclair, Elizabeth Jacka, and Stuart Cunningham, eds., New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 101–16.
  4. Ellen Feghali, “Arab Cultural Communication Patterns,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 21, no. 3 (1997): 345–78.
  5. Mark Tutton, “Egypt’s Cultural Influence Pervades Arab World,” CNN World, February 12, 2011,
    http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-12/world/egypt.culture.
    influence.film_1_arab-countries-youssef-chahine-egypt-and-lebanon?_ s=PM:WORLD (accessed March 2, 2011).
  6. Eric Lipton, “U.S.-Born Cleric Justifies the Killing of Civilians,” New York Times, May 23, 2010.
  7. Scott Shane and Souad Mekhennet, “From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad,” New York Times, May 8, 2010.
  8. Ibid.
  9. Ibid. Benjamin Weiser, “A Guilty Plea in Plot to Bomb Times Square: Suspect, Unapologetic, Tells of Taliban Aid,” New York Times, June 22, 2010.
  10. Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 290–340.

3

The West Bank, Gaza, and Israel

 

 

 

Many Jews and certain Christians believe that the land of Israel, as the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament calls it, belongs to the Jews. This land, which Muslims, some Christians, and others call Palestine, which stretches, roughly speaking, between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, has been contested by Jews, Christians, and Muslims over various periods of history. Jews and the Christians who agree with them believe that Israel/ Palestine belongs to the Jews because there are multiple passages in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament which attest that God specifically gave this land to Abraham and his descendants. The Jews and Christians who believe that this land belongs to the Jews point to a very large number of passages in the Hebrew Bible which they believe make explicit the fact, in their minds, that Israel/Palestine belongs to the Jews. These passages include, for example, Genesis 12:1–3 where God promises Israel/Palestine to Abram (who was later renamed Abraham), Exodus 3:7–22 where God tells Moses that he must lead the Israelite people out of Egypt and into Israel/Palestine, parts of the book of Deuteronomy and the book of Joshua where God explicitly and implicitly gives the Israelite leader Joshua and his armies the divine command to kill the Israelites’ enemies and conquer the land for themselves (e.g., Deuteronomy 20:10–20), and 2 Samuel 7:1–7 where God reaffirms his promise of Israel/Palestine to the Israelite people by promising the land to the Israelite King David and his descendants.1

For their part, Muslims have at least three reasons for believing that the land of Israel/Palestine belongs to them. First, according to one story within the Islamic tradition, Muslims believe that while Muhammad was sleeping one night at the Kaba in Mecca, he was taken on a night journey to Jerusalem

 

 

Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics, First Edition. Jon Armajani.

© 2012 Jon Armajani. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

 

where he was lifted to seven levels of heaven above the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem and met seven prophetic figures (Adam, John, Jesus, Joseph, Idris, Aaron, and Moses) all of whom, according to Muslims’ interpretation, explicitly or implicitly affirmed Muhammad’s role as the final or the seal of the prophets.2 Indeed, what Muslims believe to be Muhammad’s footprint is on public display at the Dome of the Rock Mosque.3 Second, Muslims believe that the armies of Umar, who was Sunni Islam’s second caliph and whose armies Muslims believe were blessed by God, conquered Jerusalem in the seventh century and this city, which is the third holiest to Muslims after Mecca and Medina, remained under the control of Muslim regimes until the twentieth century, all of which, in their view, was God’s will.4 Third, Muslims believe that the Muslims’ largely successful defense of Jerusalem and Israel/Palestine during the Crusades, which in the Near East lasted from the late eleventh century until 1291, came as a result of God’s blessing and protecting Muslims from the invading Christians.5 Much as many Jews believe that it was through God’s blessing that Israel/Palestine belongs to them, so too Muslims believe that it was through God’s blessing that the land belongs to them.

An enormously significant event in the history of Judaism was the Roman Empire’s military destruction of the Jews’ Jerusalem temple in 70 CE. During this and subsequent periods, the Romans wrested much of the influence that the Jews had on Israel/Palestine, and their military conflicts with the Jews, including Bar Kochba’s Revolt which took place between 132 and 135 CE, caused one of the most momentous Jewish dispersions in Jewish history. The Jewish diaspora that came into existence during this period, together with previous Jewish dispersions and exiles, created a situation where, appar- ently, only a very small number of Jews remained in Israel/Palestine, while the vast majority lived outside of that region.6 By the seventh century, Jerusalem came under Muslim control and at various periods during this approximately 1,900-year Jewish exile, at least some Jews had a desire to return to what they believed to be their homeland. This desire was frequently expressed, for example, during the annual Jewish Passover celebration where Jews uttered and still utter the phrase, “Next year in Jerusalem.”7

 

 

The Origins of Modern Zionism

 

The roots of modern Zionism, which connotes the modern Jewish nationalist desire to create a Jewish state exclusively or primarily for Jews, are in nineteenth-century Russia, where anti-Semitism was extremely potent. While tragically there have been multiple pogroms or massacres against Jews throughout much of their history, the reigns of Russian Emperors Alexander III (1881–94) and Nicholas II (1894–1917) were characterized

 

by several pogroms which those emperors’ governments tacitly encouraged.8 After the pogroms of the early 1880s, a variety of Jewish groups which had the goal of settling Jews in Israel/Palestine were brought under the organizational aegis of a coordinating body called the Lovers of Zion. During the 1880s and 1890s, the Lovers of Zion supported small farming settlements in Israel/Palestine, but these projects did not possess adequate funding and the settlements largely failed. In spite of the serious shortcomings of this movement, it has assumed a prominent place in the historical consciousness of modern Israelis and other Jews and is understood to be the first of several waves of settlement that contributed to the eventual creation of the state of Israel.9

In 1882, Leo Pinsker, a Russian-Polish physician, wrote the book Auto- Emancipation, which, among other things, stated that anti-Semitism was so deeply rooted in Europe that no matter what European countries’ laws stipulated regarding the protection of Jews, Europeans would never treat Jews as equals.10 According to Pinsker, in order for Jews to end their continually oppressed status, they could not and should not wait for Western societies to change; they had to catalyze their own emancipation by establishing a fully autonomous Jewish state.11 Pinsker focused more on the secular ideas of Jewish ethnicity and nationality than on Judaism as a religion and he did not believe that the new Jewish state necessarily had to exist in Israel/Palestine.12 Pinsker’s pronouncements were very attractive to a number of Russian Jews and in the 1890s several Zionist organizations emerged, each with its own proposals aimed toward combating the problems related to the persecution of Jews.13

Born in Budapest, Hungary, Theodor Herzl, a licensed attorney, journalist, playwright, and political activist, while not the founder of modern Zionism, attempted to unite the disparate Zionist organizations and ideologies in Europe into a coherent international movement. Through his experiences as a journalist, which gave him the opportunity to travel to different parts of Europe, Herzl reached the same conclusion about anti-Semitism as Pinsker – that anti-Semitism was so deeply rooted that laws could not abolish it.14 With these and related ideas, Herzl wrote The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat), which was published in 1896 and provided the ideological principles for modern political and secular Zionism.15 Herzl stated that Jews were a nation of people who transcended the boundaries of conventional nation-states and lived in a variety of recognized countries with formal, nationalized political structures. However, this transnational Jewish nation did not yet possess a piece of land with boundaries, a government, a military, and the other characteristics that are typically associated with nations. The Jews had no state in which to manifest their existing national culture. For Herzl, the ongoing reality of Jewish national identity and the absence of a real Jewish nation-state combined to marginalize Jews in the formal nation-states in

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