• Extremists • Kharijites • Salafiyya • Ibn Taymiyyah • Wahhabism • Mahdi • Muslim Brotherhood • Jamaat-i-Islami • Sayyid Qutb • Jama'at Islamiyyah • Al-Da'wa • Hassan al-Turabi • Ayman al-Zawahiri • Omar Abdel Rahman

• Related Resources • Books on Islam • Islam FAQ • Bin Laden's Goals

Just how explosive the mix of Islamism and violence can be is demonstrated in the example of Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind sheik who is currently in prison in the United States because of his role in the plot to bomb the World Trade Centers in 1993. What most people do not know about him, however, is that he is considered a spiritual leader and role model by Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants.

What many people also do not know is that his role in terrorism goes back quite a lot longer, to at least the plot to assassinate Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. He was the spiritual leader of a group of young people who had just formed a new cell of the radical group call Jama'at al-Jihad, and they asked him what the fate should be of a ruler who has ignored the law of God. Abdel Rahman's reply was: "Death."

The next year, members of this group assassinated Sadat, and Rahman was indicted along with them because he was accused of issuing a fatwa ordering Sadat's murder. Eventually he was acquitted, but even today he makes it quite clear that he does not consider Sadat to have been a Muslim: "Sadat was not a Muslim. He made a mockery of Islam and its principles." As we have seen, making this argument has been a necessary step towards violent actions against one's own government.

Rahman, like bin Laden, justifies jihad against the West by calling it defensive, but he also claims that defensive actions are justified whenever people are attacked - and they do, of course, assert that the West has attacked Islam. Unlike traditional Islam, but keeping in line with Islamists, he and the Al-Jihad group regard both Christians and Jews as enemies. At one point Rahman issued a fatwa permitting the killing and robbing of Christians who were thought to be anti-Muslim in some fashion.

Like the extremists already discussed, he began his jihad by first attacking the government of his home country. Eventually, however, he moved on to a bigger target: the United States. He blames the West in general and the United States in particular for all the evils committed by his own government in Egypt. He has decided that leaders like Hosni Mubarak are not independent actors, but instead the pawns of the West:

Mubarak looks after Western interests. He is the obedient dog of the West.

This perspective of Rahman's and bin Laden's is a divergence from earlier leaders, like Qutb, who focused on their own nations. According to bin Laden, it is necessary to focus on the West in general and America in particular because America is the bigger enemy - and if that requires also making use of unrighteous Muslims in the effort, then that is acceptable:

...if the danger to the religion from not fighting is greater than that of fighting, then it is a duty to fight them even if the intention of some of the fighters is not pure i.e . fighting for the sake of leadership (personal gain) or if they do not observe some of the rules and commandments of Islam.

Thus, the effort to achieve a more pure form of Islam does not require using pure Islamic methods or people. Whatever will accomplish their goals is acceptable, because the ends justify the means. Perhaps because of that, Rahman is relatively unconcerned as to the fates of innocent people getting in the way of terrorist acts.

When Time magazine asked Rahman how he felt about a car bomb that kills people who just happened to be walking by on the street, he replied that if the action "is taken during wartime and people are hurt and have to face violence, it is an act of exchanging violence."

And of course, it isn't clear just whom he would regard as innocent anyway. He certainly doesn't regard tourists in Egypt as innocent. They, and especially the women, are carriers of jahiliyya to Islam:

I send recordings to Cairo in which I call upon my people to attack tourists. I explain to them that we must stop tourism to Egypt. Tourism is a plague. [Western] women come dressed in provocative clothing in order to arouse the believers. Tourists use drugs, they party all night in the clubs and casinos, and feel up the belly dancers. And our people [the Egyptians] their eyes are popping out from envy in trying to imitate the infidel tourists.

Like the earlier extremists in Egypt, Rahman regards the activities of the West as little different from the earlier Western crusades. In fact, he goes even further and identifies the activities of the West as essentially a continuation of the attacks made by the Roman Empire against the Persians. In an interview with Nida'ul Islam magazine, he said:

The centuries are successive. The Roman Empire means the international Crusade and the international Zionism. War with the Crusades is ongoing until the Day of Judgment.

People like Rahman and bin Laden can use Islam as a rallying cry for a number of important reasons. One is its effectiveness in uniting people with an identity and a cause. A second is because they firmly believe that once Islamic law is fully instituted, all of the economic and social ills of his society will simply disappear.

Indeed, that these ills exist is largely due to the fact that rulers are not genuinely Islamic, allowing them to be corrupt and greedy. This is exactly the position taken today by the Jamaat-i-Islami:

If punishments as enjoined in the Islamic shariah are strictly enforced, the law and order situation will be back to normal. That in turn will enhance investment, establishment of industrial units and production and abundant supply of commodities. The result will be reduction in the prices of consumerís goods and capital goods. The present day high cost of living will soon be an old and forgotten story. ...We firmly believe, that given the 'authority' Jama'at-e-Islami can eliminate corruption by applying an iron-hand and get back the looted national wealth. ..., we are not uttering empty words, but are proposing a meaningful and workable solution. Insha'Allah, our period of governance will be one of complete justice, equity and prosperity.

Do you have an opinion about this page? Make it known on the Discussion Forum!