50 Political Ideas You Really Need to Know (50 Ideas You Really Need to Know series) by Dupré Ben

Author:Dupré, Ben [Dupré, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2011-04-27T23:00:00+00:00

The false face of Islam

Given the staggering success of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it was perhaps inevitable, and certainly unhelpful, that al-Qaeda – however nebulous an entity it is in reality – would become the international face of Islamism and that its extreme agenda would wrongly be assumed by many to reflect a commonly held Muslim viewpoint. To make matters worse, the portrait of Islamic fanaticism was fleshed out with gruesome details provided by the Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim regime which harboured al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, where it had seized power in 1996 and proceeded to impose highly repressive theocratic rule on the Afghan people. Terrorist atrocities, near-medieval social repression, suicide bombings, televised beheadings – all have conspired to paint the most lurid picture of Islamic fundamentalism, and by false implication, of Islam itself.

The prime objective of radical Islamists, as stated in a 2008 al-Qaeda webcast, is to ‘establish the Shari’a Islamic state that will unite the Muslims of the earth in truth and justice’. According to this view, the current oppressed state of Muslim countries is the consequence of straying from the true path of Islam and the remedy involves strict observance of the teachings of the Qu’ran and (re) implementation of Shari’a, Islamic law as revealed by God. As the one true faith, Islam’s scope is universal, so the new (or restored) caliphate will encompass all mankind, everywhere on earth.

Islamist grievances against the West, which are enumerated in the 1998 fatwa, are a cause of resentment in part because they are seen as obstacles to a return to the true path of Islam. First and foremost among these complaints is US/Western support for ‘the Jews’ petty state’, as the fatwa calls the state of Israel. From the Islamist perspective, alleged Western destabilization of Middle Eastern countries, including conflict in Iraq, is seen as a means of preserving the existence of Israel. Another major grievance is US occupation of ‘the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula’, where the Americans are accused of ‘plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbours’. Particularly offensive was the presence of US military bases, for over a decade after the 1990–1 Gulf War, in ‘the Land of the Two Holy Places’, i.e. Saudi Arabia, with its sacred sites at Mecca and Medina. Although the Saudi bases were removed in 2003, continuing US military presence in the Middle East, above all in Iraq, is, in the eyes of fundamentalists, a constant and bitter affront to Islam.

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