Special Section: September 11, Background and Consequences for the Middle East
THE ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST VIEW OF LIFE AS A PERENNIAL BATTLE By David Zeidan* This article analyzes how radical Islamist movements have altered traditional Islamic concepts to justify their worldview. Based on the writings of prominent radical Islamist leaders across a wide spectrum, it analyzes the ideas of a cosmic struggle between good and evil as reflected in the individual and in society. It traces the reinterpretation of traditional Islamic concepts such as jahiliyya, takfir, hijra, mufassala, jihad and istishad to justify indiscriminate violence. Bin-Laden and his al-Qai’da group use these reinterpretations to justify terrorism, while these ideas also mobilize support for their deeds among a far broader sector among Muslims. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New-York, there is a growing general public interest in Islamist “fundamentalism” as the perceived breeding ground for contemporary international terrorism, and a growing confusion in explaining its ideas and in categorizing its various components. This article discusses some basic views of Islamist movements, many of them reflected and amplified in the thinking of Usama Bin Ladin and those involved in the attack on the World Trade Center and other targets in the United States. The radical Islamist movement is a fairly modern phenomenon, part of a wider resurgence of religion sweeping across the Muslim world, and existing in a symbiotic relationship with other trends. It is rooted in the recurring cycles of revivals characteristic of Muslim history and is also a reaction to the severe crisis of modernity converging with the rise of charismatic prophetic leaders. It constitutes a religious reform movement and a political ideology that includes a social element of protest and a search for identity by the havenots of the Muslim world against an oppressive world order. Fundamentalism is the spearhead of religion engaging in a counterattack on the
secularism which had reduced its power during recent decades.(1) Islamist fundamentalism is composed of a wide variety of movements and views that offer Islam as a total way of life and as a viable alternative to Western secular ideologies. It aims at bringing all of contemporary society under God’s sovereignty, rule and law as revealed in scripture. The restoration of Islamic glory will be achieved by purifying society from un-Islamic teachings and practices, by a return to Islam’s original pure sources (the Quran--God’s written revelation through Muhammad, and Hadith, the divinely inspired traditions of the Prophet’s sayings and deeds) as the only authority, and by the establishment of an ideal Islamic state modeled on that of the Prophet and his Companions. Most fundamentalist movements are united in these goals of Islamizing the total social and political system of their societies and of establishing a revived authentic world-wide Islamic state based on Sharia (the allencompassing law ordained by God for humans and based on Quran and Hadith). The differences between movements stem from arguments on how best to achieve these goals and on whether to emphasize an internationalist
Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 4 (December 2001)
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