Muslim Radicalism and the Challenge
of Survival

Abstract

While posing a threat to local regimes in the Middle East and beyond, and the West, the militant Islamic organizations are themselves encountering a number of important challenges that will play a crucial role in defining their fate over the coming years. These challenges include fragmentation, the alienation of Muslim public opinion due to their tough and extremist approach, the threat of internecine conflict, the failure to address the needs of the Muslim living in the contemporary age, and the lack of clear and practical policy programmes for governance. These challenges will not result in a decisive defeat for the organizations, but they will weaken and demoralise them, especially if both Muslim regimes and the public lose tolerance towards their approach.

Notes

 1. Ibrahim Karawan, The Islamist Impasse, Adelphi Paper No. 314 (London: IISS 1997).

 2. See Al-Hayat (London) 24 February 1998. For original Arabic text in Al-Quds al-Arabi (London), see http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/fatw2.htm. For English text, see http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm. Four organisations cited in English text, but six named in Al-Hayat.

 3. Montasser Al-Zayyat, The Road to Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Ladin's Right-Hand Man, trans. Ahmed Fekry (London: Pluto Press 2002), pp.68, 109. On this split, see also Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy, Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 2005) pp. 151–84.

 4. Fawaz A. Gerges, ‘The End of the Islamist Insurgency in Egypt? Costs and Prospects’, Middle East Journal (autumn 2000) p.595.

 5. Al-Zayyat (note 3) pp.120–1.

 6. Gerges, The Far Enemy (note 3) p.246.

 7. Ray Takeyh and Nikolas K. Grosdev, ‘Radical Islam: The Death of an Ideology’, Middle East Policy XI/4 (winter 2004) pp.86–7.

 8. Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (London: C.Hurst and Co. (Publishers) Ltd 2004) p.1.

 9. Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (London: C.Hurst and Co. (Publishers) Ltd 2004) p.61.

10. Gerges, ‘The End of the Islamic Insurgency …?’ (note 4) p.593.

11. Gerges, The Far Enemy (note 3) p.144.

12. Yasir Al-Zaatrah, ‘External Islamic Violence, Would It Lose Its Popular Space?’, Al-Hayat (18 March 2004).

13. Al-Hayat (24 July 2004).

14. See ‘Arab Criticism of Muslim Extremist Activities in the West’, Memri Special Dispatch Series, No. 921 (10 June 2005) available at http://memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?, page = archives and ID = 5P92105.

15. See Al-Hayat (8 July 2005); and The Guardian (20 July 2005).

16. Al-Hayat (15 July 2005).

17. Al-Hayat (29 July 2005).

18. Al-Hayat

19. Al-Hayat (30 July 2005).

20. Al-Hayat (17 and 21 September, 1 October 2005).

21. Al-Hayat (11 and 12 November 2005).

22. As quoted in Rana al-Sabbagh, ‘The Amman Explosions Have Pushed Jordanian Society to the Edge of Hostility Towards al-Qaidah and the Suicide Bombers’, Al-Hayat (12 November 2005). Faris Breizat is the Coordinator of the Unit of Studies and Opinion Poll Surveys in the Centre for Strategic Studies of the Jordanian University.

23. The reports were made by the French News Agency and were attributed to Hudhayfah Azzam (son of the Palestinian cleric, Abdullah Azzam, who was killed in Afghanistan in 1989). See Al-Hayat (5 April 2006), which also includes a report about the attitude of Iraqi armed groups towards al-Zarqawi.

24. Gerges, The Far Enemy (note 3) pp.233, 247.

25. Gerges, The Far Enemy (note 3) p.271.

26. See report by Adel Abd al-Alim, ‘Islamists Lack a Program of Political Reform’, in which he summarises the observations of Amin al-Mahdi in his book The Religious Professional Pursuit (al-Ihtiraf al-Dini), Al-Hayat (15 September 1992); see also Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, trans. Carol Volk (London and New York: I.B. Tauris 1994) p.195. Al-Mahdi attributes this failure to ‘Arab fundamentalist movements’, whereas Roy attributes it to Islamic groups in general.

27. Quoted in Bernard Lewis, ‘A Historical Overview’, p.53 – a series of articles entitled ‘Islam and Liberal Democracy’ in Journal of Democracy (April 1996).

28. Bassam Tibi, Islam Between Culture and Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2001) in association with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, p.8.

29. Bassam Tibi, Islam Between Culture and Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2001) in association with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University p.4.

30. Dominique Wolton, La Derniere Utopie (Paris: Flammarion 1993, p.71) as quoted in Tariq Ramadan, Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity, trans. Said Amghar (Markfield, Leicester: The Islamic Foundation 2001), p.4.

31. Tibi (note 28) p.6.

32. Tibi (note 28) p.8.

33. Radwan al-Sayyid, ‘Contemporary Islam: its intellectual and political trends and the cultural transformations in the world’, Al-Hayat (9 April 2005).

34. David George, ‘Pax Islamica: An Alternative New World Order?’ in Abdel Salam Sidahmed and Anoushirwan Ehteshami (eds.) Islamic Fundamentalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press Inc. 1996) pp.72–3.

35. See Shaikh Abdullah Azzam, Defense of Muslim Lands, available at http://www.islamistwatch.org/texts/azzam/defense/defence.html and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner (2001), available at http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ayman_bk.html; and Gerges, The Far Enemy (note 3) pp.131–5.

36. See John L. Esposito, Islam and Politics, 4^th edn (Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press 1998) p.336.

37. P.J. Vatikiotis, Islam and the State (London: Croom Helm Ltd 1987) p.11.

38. Esposito (note 36) p.335.

39. Graham Fuller, The Future of Political Islam (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2003) p.194.

40. Stanley Hoffman, ‘Clash of Globalizations’, Foreign Affairs 81/4 (July/August 2002) pp.104, 112.

41. David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton, Global Transformations (Cambridge: Polity Press 1999) pp.327–8.

42. For details see Fauzi Najjar, ‘The Arabs, Islam and Globalization’, Middle East Policy XII/3 (autumn 2005) pp.93–8, 102–5.

43. In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London: Simon and Shuster UK Ltd 1997) pp.209–18.

44. See al-Zawahiri (note 35); statements by al-Qaidah leaders in Yosri Fouda and Nick Fielding, Masterminds of Terror: The Truth Behind the Most Devastating Terrorist Attack the World Has Ever Seen (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing (Edinburgh) Ltd 2003) pp.25, 105–8, 142 and al-Qaidah's statements in Appendix 1, pp.189–95; and Osama Bin Ladin's statement, ‘Today There is a Conflict between World Heresy Under the Leadership of America on the One Hand and the Islamic Nation with the Mujahideen in its Vanguard on the Other,’ released on 16 December 2004 at http://www.memri.org/sd.html Special Dispatch Series, No. 838 (30 December 2004).

45. al-Zawahiri (note 35).

46. See text of President Khatami's interview with CNN on 7 January 1998, available at http://www.cnn.com/world/9801/07/irap/interview.html.

47. See Ali Ansari, ‘Cultural Transmutations: the dialectics of globalisation in contemporary Iran’, in Toby Dodge and Richard Higgott (eds.) Globalisation and the Middle East, Islam, Economy, Society and Politics (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs Middle East Programme, in association with Division of Research and Studies, Crown Prince Court of Abu Dhabi 2002) p.135; and Joshua Teitelbaum, ‘Dueling for Da'wa: State Vs. Society on the Internet’, Middle East Journal 56/2 (spring 2002) pp.235–8.

48. See Ansari, ‘Cultural Transmutations: the dialectics of globalisation in contemporary Iran’, in Toby Dodge and Richard Higgott (eds.) Globalisation and the Middle East, Islam, Economy, Society and Politics (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs Middle East Programme, in association with Division of Research and Studies, Crown Prince Court of Abu Dhabi 2002) p.135; and Joshua Teitelbaum, ‘Dueling for Da'wa: State Vs. Society on the Internet’, Middle East Journal 56/2 (spring 2002) pp.137–9.

49. Email communication from Professor Richard Bonney on 4 April 2005. For elaboration see his Jihad: From Qur'an to bin Laden (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2004) pp.375–94.

50. Richard Bonney email communication as in ibid.; strategic experts maintained that in the modern era there have been four different but overlapping levels of warfare: first generation, reflecting tactics of smoothbore musket, of line and column; second generation, where tactics were based on fire and movement and they remained essentially linear; third generation, which was marked by the German offensive in 1918 and was mainly characterised by ideas; and fourth generation, which was marked by the use of tank and resort to blitzkrieg. See William S. Lind et al., ‘The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation’, Marine Corps Gazette (October 1989) pp.22–6.

51. See Lt Col Thomas X. Hammes, ‘The Evolution of War: The Fourth Generation’, Marine Corps Gazette (September 1994) available at www.d_n_i./not/fes/hammes.htm.

52. See text of President Bush's speeches of 20 September 2001 available at http://whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/print/20010920-8.html; and of 29 January 2002 available at http://archives.cnn.com/2002/AllpoLITICS/01/29/bush.speech.txt/.

53. See interview with President Bush in the Washington Post (31 August 2004); and his speeches on 12 December 2005 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/print/2005 1212-1.html); 14 December 2005 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/print/2005 1214-1.html); 6 April 2006 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/print/2006 0406-3.html); and 10 April 2006 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/print/2006 0410-1.html).

54. Gilles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, trans. Pascale Ghazaleh (Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2004) p.290.

55. See Bonney, Jihad (note 49) p.394; and Margaret Purdy, ‘Countering Terrorism: The Missing Pillar’, International Journal LX/1 (winter 2004–05) pp.4–16. Purdy details what she regards as the ‘root causes’.

56. Roy, Globalised Islam (note 8) pp.18–19, 339–40; and Gilles Andreani, ‘The War on Terror: Good Causes, Wrong Concepts’, Survival 46/4 (winter 2004–05) pp.38–40.

57. Al-Shaikh Naim Qasim, Hizb Allah: al-Manhaj, al-Tajribah, al-Mustaqbal [Hizbullah: Method, Experiment, Future], 2nd edn (Beirut: Dar al-Hadi for Printing, Publication and Distribution 2002) p.387.

58. Anthony H. Cordesman, ‘Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe in the War on Terror?’, Middle East Policy XIII/1 (spring 2006) p.31.

59. Gerges, The Far Enemy (note 3) pp.275–6.

60. See President Bush's speeches on 14 December 2005 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/print/2005 1214-1.html); and 6 April 2006 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/print/2006 0406-3.html).

61. See interview with Zaki Sa'ad in Al-Hayat (19 April 2006).