Hassan al-Turabi, once the speaker of Sudan's parliament and the ideological power behind its Islamist revolution, was kicked out of office in May 2000 and is now in prison, held by the military powers which once supported him. But where does he fit into the puzzle of Al-Qaeda's origins and the development of Osama bin Laden's ideas about Islam? Although it's true that all of the ideas so far discussed were disseminated widely enough that bin Laden couldn't possibly be unaware of them, al-Turabi provides a very interesting personal link.
As a young man, al-Turabi came to Khartoum in 1951 to study law. While other students promoted more Western solutions to the problems in Sudan, al-Turabi joined the fledgling Muslim Brotherhood. With them, he advocated purely Islamic solutions to the ills facing society. Al-Turabi even later took over the Brotherhood, soon after Sudan gained its independence and during the same time that Sayyid Qutb was in jail, writing down his developing ideas.
During the late 1970s he worked closely with Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the Mahdist political party and grandson of The Mahdi. Later in his life he also developed a close personal relationship with Osama bin-Laden, but perhaps more important is the fact that he was a mentor of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Zawahiri was the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group which he merged with Osama bin-Laden's al-Queda group to create the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.
Al-Zawahiri, in turn, has had a profound influence on bin Laden, helping him become much more radical, more violent and more anti-American. Al-Zawahiri is the second in command of bin Laden's organization, serves as its ideological leader, and is the most likely to take over when bin Laden dies. Some, in fact, argue that bin Laden never would have been quite the terrorist leader without al-Zawahiri.
Al-Turabi, in an interview with NPQ Editor Nathan Gardels, expressed many of the ideals of Islamism which currently drive Al-Zawahiri and bin Laden. The first is that Islam is vital not only to people forming a personal identity, but also to their overcoming national, ethnic and class divisions:
- Awakened Islam today provides people with a sense of identity and a direction in life, something shattered in Africa since colonialism. In the African context in particular, it offers a sense of common allegiance.
Second, al-Turabi argued that Islam is vital for creating a just society and that current ills are due to the lack of Islamic law:
- Under shari'a no ruler could suppress his own people. So the individual was protected and society was autonomous. People felt that the norms that governed the society were their norms because they were God's laws.
Third, al-Turabi argued that with Islam the people will excel and eventually challenge the hegemony of the West:
- To the rich West that may sound strange. But what role did Puritanism play in carving America out of the wilderness? What role did the Protestant ethic play in the development of the European economies? Religion is a motor of development.
All of these ideals al-Turabi certainly taught to his protegé, al-Zawahiri, who has surely discussed them with bin Laden. When we add to them the specific political program promoted by extremists like Sayyid Qutb, where the use of terror and violence are valued, we have an explosive mix.
