The Struggle for the World by Lindholm Charles Zúquete José Pedro

Author:Lindholm, Charles, Zúquete, José Pedro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2011-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

The Context for Terror

Like other jihadi groups, al-Qaeda works hard to legitimize itself within the mainstream of theological discourse. To understand this strategy, it must be kept in mind that there is no central authority in Islamic jurisprudence—no pope or supreme council—and so no necessary agreement among theologians beyond the general consensus of the community (ijma). Islamic law consists of sometimes opaque Quranic texts, a variety of often contradictory, recondite, or ambivalent traditions and a massive accretion of case manuals authored by various ulema (the learned, singular ‘alm) over the centuries.23 A Muslim judge issuing a fatwa (legal opinion) justifies his findings by referring to and interpreting these multiple sources, which allows for room for dispute among jurists. The flexibility of Muslim jurisprudence has therefore made it possible for al-Qaeda to enter the debate, reinterpret the textual corpus, and stake a claim as an authentic (in al-Qaeda’s case, the only authentic) expression of Islam.

Ironically, the historical flexibility that has allowed it to enter the debate is precisely the aspect of Islam that al-Qaeda attacks. Tracing their intellectual pedigree to the modern fundamentalist Salafi movement, the jihadists argue that the meaning of scripture is obvious, eternal, and easily found in Islam’s foundational texts, without any need for the “additions” and “innovations” of scholars, which only obscure or even subvert the truth.24 The rejection of the religious status quo has been identified as a crucial dimension of the jihadist revolt.25 Therefore, a layman like Osama bin Laden can ignore the traditions and findings of the learned, dismissing alternative opinions as false, corrupt, or sycophantic.

These responses coincide with a massive mistrust of state sponsored Islamic institutions, including educational institutions and their alumni, which are seen as irredeemably profaned by the decadence and blasphemy of official authority. Distrust of the state has a long history in Islam because all states are, by definition, disfigured and degraded versions of the original rightly guided Caliphate. Jihadi tracts regularly refer to leaders of the state as tyrants, traitors, and heretics.

The most influential modern spokesman for an unrelenting attitude toward the state and its minions was Sayyid Qutb, a leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb was hung in prison in 1966, but not before he had composed Milestones, which is taken as a fundamental text by jihadis. As the editor’s introduction to the English version states: “Sayyid Qutb concluded that the Egyptian government, along with all other governments in the Muslim world, were strictly comparable to pre-Islamic Arabia in its ignorance and disregard for divine precepts and that its state could therefore rightly be designated by the same term—Jahiliyya.”26 This term, used only four times in the Quran, is taken by the orthodox to indicate the state of ignorance of the Arabs prior to the advent of Muhammad, but jihadis have extended it to mean a lack of knowledge about Islam or the refusal to acknowledge Islamic principles. As the Pakistani theologian al-Mawdudi puts it, people in jahili society live in “the abyss of darkness,” without knowledge

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