Jihadism

During the Islamic Revolution of Iran (1978-1979) and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), the cult of the martyrs in Iran has had a lasting impact on the dynamics of revolution and war.[20][21] The soldiers, clergy, and other individuals who died during the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran were regarded as martyrs and have often been buried in special martyrs' cemeteries. In the 1980–88 Iran–Iraq War, commanders of both the Sunni Iraqi and the Shi'ite Iranian forces in particular commonly used martyrdom as a source of motivation for their fellow combatants. Tens of thousands of Iranian youths—many motivated by the religiously-based ideas of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution—volunteered to serve in the armed forces during the conflict, sometimes participating in human wave attacks against the Iraqis. Those who died in battle were considered martyrs.[3]

During the Bosnian war, the term was used among troops of the Bosniak Muslim Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina[22]

A black flag reportedly used by Caucasian jihadists in 2002 displays the phrase al-jihad fi sabilillah above the takbir and two crossed swords.

Flag of ISIL/ISIS/IS/Daesh

According to Rudolph Peters, scholar of Islamic studies and history of Islam, contemporary traditionalist Muslims "copy phrases of the classical works on fiqh" in their writings on jihad; Islamic Modernists "emphasize the defensive aspect of jihad, regarding it as tantamount to bellum justum in modern international law; and the contemporary fundamentalists (Abul Ala Maududi, Sayyid Qutb, Abdullah Azzam, etc.) view it as a struggle for the expansion of Islam and the realization of Islamic ideals."[23]

Jihad has been propagated in modern fundamentalism beginning in the late 19th century, an ideology that arose in the context of struggles against colonial powers in North Africa in the late 19th century, as in the Mahdist War in Sudan, and notably in the mid-20th century by Islamic revivalist authors such as Sayyid Qutb and Abul Ala Maududi.[24]

The term jihadism (earlier Salafi jihadism) has arisen in the 2000s to refer to the contemporary jihadi movements, the development of which was in retrospect traced to developments of Salafism paired with the origins of al-Qaeda in the Soviet–Afghan War during the 1990s.

Jihadism has been called an "offshoot" of Islamic revivalism of the 1960s and 1970s. The writings of Sayyid Qutb and Mohammed Abdul-Salam Farag provide inspiration. The Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) is said to have "amplified the jihadist tendency from a fringe phenomenon to a major force in the Muslim world."[25] It served to produce foot soldiers, leadership and organization. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam provided propaganda for the Afghan cause. After the war veteran jihadists returned to their home countries and dispersed to other sites of conflicts involving Muslim populations such as Algeria, Bosnia, and Chechnya creating a "transnational jihadist stream."[26]

• Kashmir conflict (Lashkar-e-Taiba, 1990–present)
• Somali Civil War (1991–present)
• Algerian Civil War (1991-2002)
• Bosnian war (Bosnian mujahideen, 1992–1995)
• Afghan civil war (Taliban 1994–present)
• East Turkestan irredentism (East Turkestan Islamic Movement, 1997–present)
• Chechen war and Insurgency in the North Caucasus (Arab Mujahideen in Chechnya, 1994–present)
• Nigerian Sharia conflict (Boko Haram 2001–present)
• Iraqi insurgency (Islamic State of Iraq, 2003–present)
• Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen (Abyan Governorate, 2010–present)
• Syrian Civil War (Al-Nusra Front to Protect the Levant 2011–present)
• Syrian Civil War (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant 2013–present)

ISIL's territory in Iraq and Syria (in grey), at the time of its greatest territorial extent in May 2015.[27]

An explanation for jihadist willingness to kill civilians and self-professed Muslims on the grounds that they were actually apostates (takfir) is the vastly reduced influence of the traditional diverse class of ulama, often highly educated Islamic jurists. In "the vast majority" of Muslim countries during the post-colonial world of the 1950s and 1960s, the private religious endowments (awqaf) that had supported the independence of Islamic scholars and jurists for centuries were taken over by the state. The jurists were made salaried employees and the nationalist rulers naturally encouraged their employees (and their employees interpretations of Islam) to serve the rulers' interests. Inevitably the jurists came to be seen by the Muslim public as doing so.[28]

Into this vacuum of religious authority came aggressive proselytizing funded by tens of billions of dollars of petroleum-export money from Saudi Arabia.[29] The version of Islam being propagated (Saudi doctrine of Wahhabism) billed itself as a return to pristine, simple, straightforward Islam,[30] not one school among many, and not interpreting Islamic law historically or contextually, but the one, orthodox "straight path" of Islam.[30] Unlike the traditional teachings of the jurists who tolerated and even celebrated divergent opinions and schools of thought and kept extremism marginalized, Wahhabism had "extreme hostility" to "any sectarian divisions within Islam".[30]

The term jihadist is almost exclusively used to describe Sunni extremists.[31] In Syria, where there are thousands of foreign Muslim fighters engaged in the civil war, for example, non-Syrian Shia are often referred to as "militia", and Sunni foreigners as "jihadists" (or "would-be jihadists").[Note 3][Note 4] One who does use the term "Shia jihad" is Danny Postel, who complains that "this Shia jihad is largely left out of the dominant narrative."[34][35] Other authors see the ideology of "resistance" (Arabic: muqawama) as more dominant even among extremist Shia groups. Therefore, and for the disambiguation, they suggest to use the term "muqawamist" instead.[36]

The Houthi flag, with the top saying "God is the greatest", the next line saying "Death to America", followed by "Death to Israel", followed by "A curse upon the Jews", and the bottom saying "Victory to Islam".

Some observers[38][39] have noted the evolution in the rules of jihad—from the original "classical" doctrine to that of 21st century Salafi jihadism. According to the legal historian Sadarat Kadri,[38] during the last couple of centuries, incremental changes in Islamic legal doctrine (developed by Islamists who otherwise condemn any bid‘ah (innovation) in religion), have "normalized" what was once "unthinkable".[38] "The very idea that Muslims might blow themselves up for God was unheard of before 1983, and it was not until the early 1990s that anyone anywhere had tried to justify killing innocent Muslims who were not on a battlefield."[38]

The first or the "classical" doctrine of jihad which was developed towards the end of the 8th century, emphasized the jihad of the sword (jihad bil-saif) rather than the "jihad of the heart",[40] but it contained many legal restrictions which were developed from interpretations of both the Quran and the Hadith, such as detailed rules involving "the initiation, the conduct, the termination" of jihad, the treatment of prisoners, the distribution of booty, etc. Unless there was a sudden attack on the Muslim community, jihad was not a "personal obligation" (fard ‘ayn); instead it was a "collective one" (fard al-kifaya),[41] which had to be discharged "in the way of God" (fi sabil Allah),[42] and it could only be directed by the caliph, "whose discretion over its conduct was all but absolute."[42] (This was designed in part to avoid incidents like the Kharijia's jihad against and killing of Caliph Ali, since they deemed that he was no longer a Muslim). Martyrdom resulting from an attack on the enemy with no concern for your own safety was praiseworthy, but dying by your own hand (as opposed to the enemy's) merited a special place in Hell.[43] The category of jihad which is considered to be a collective obligation is sometimes simplified as "offensive jihad" in Western texts.[44]

Based on the 20th-century interpretations of Sayyid Qutb, Abdullah Azzam, Ruhollah Khomeini, al-Qaeda and others, many if not all of those self-proclaimed jihad fighters believe that defensive global jihad is a personal obligation, which means that no caliph or Muslim head of state needs to declare it. Killing yourself in the process of killing the enemy is an act of martyrdom and it brings you a special place in Heaven, not a special place in Hell; and the killing of Muslim bystanders (never mind Non-Muslims), should not impede acts of jihad. Military and intelligent analyst Sebastian Gorka described the new interpretation of jihad as the "willful targeting of civilians by a non-state actor through unconventional means."[39]

Islamic theologian Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir has been identified as the key theorist and ideologue behind modern jihadist violence.[45] His theological and legal justifications influenced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of al-Qaeda as well as several jihadi terrorist groups, including ISIS.[45] Zarqawi used a manuscript of al-Muhajir's ideas at AQI training camps that were later deployed by ISIS, referred to as The Jurisprudence of Jihad or The Jurisprudence of Blood.[45][46][47]

The book has been described as rationalising "the murder of non-combatants" by The Guardian's Mark Towsend, citing Salah al-Ansari of Quilliam, who notes: "There is a startling lack of study and concern regarding this abhorrent and dangerous text [The Jurisprudence of Blood] in almost all Western and Arab scholarship".[46] Charlie Winter of The Atlantic describes it as a "theological playbook used to justify the group's abhorrent acts".[45] He states:

Ranging from ruminations on the merits of beheading, torturing, or burning prisoners to thoughts on assassination, siege warfare, and the use of biological weapons, Muhajir’s intellectual legacy is a crucial component of the literary corpus of ISIS—and, indeed, whatever comes after it—a way to render practically anything permissible, provided, that is, it can be spun as beneficial to the jihad. [...] According to Muhajir, committing suicide to kill people is not only a theologically sound act, but a commendable one, too, something to be cherished and celebrated regardless of its outcome. [...] neither Zarqawi nor his inheritors have looked back, liberally using Muhajir’s work to normalize the use of suicide tactics in the time since, such that they have become the single most important military and terrorist method—defensive or offensive—used by ISIS today. The way that Muhajir theorized it was simple—he offered up a theological fix that allows any who desire it to sidestep the Koranic injunctions against suicide.[45]

Psychologist Chris E. Stout also discusses the al Muhajir-inspired text in his book, Terrorism, Political Violence, and Extremism. He assesses that jihadists regard their actions as being "for the greater good"; that they are in a "weakened in the earth" situation that renders terrorism a valid means of solution.[47]

The Syrian Civil War became a focus for Sunni fighters waging jihad on Shia. The al-Nusra Front is the largest jihadist group in Syria.[48] The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has called for jihad against the Syrian government and against that government's Shi'ite allies.[49] Saudi Arabia backs the jihad against the Shia in Syria using proxies.[50] Sunni jihadi converge in Syria from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, as well as other Arab states with Chechnya, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Western countries.[51]

During the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s, many Muslims received calls for a jihad against atheists.[52] Mujahideen were recruited from various countries including Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.[53] The conflict gradually turned from one against occupation to one seen as a jihad.[54]