Salafi jihadism

(Data from A Persistent Threat, The Evolution of al Qa’ida and Other Salafi Jihadists, Seth G. Jones, 2014, Figure 3.1)

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Gilles Kepel writes that the Salafis whom he encountered in Europe in the 1980s, were "totally apolitical".[3][5] However, by the mid-1990s, he met some who felt jihad in the form of "violence and terrorism" was "justified to realize their political objectives". The combination of Salafi alienation from all things non-Muslim – including "mainstream European society" – and violent jihad created a "volatile mixture".[5] "When you're in the state of such alienation you become easy prey to the jihadi guys who will feed you more savory propaganda than the old propaganda of the Salafists who tell you to pray, fast and who are not taking action".[5]

According to Kepel, Salafist jihadism combined "respect for the sacred texts in their most literal form, ... with an absolute commitment to jihad, whose number-one target had to be America, perceived as the greatest enemy of the faith."[20]

Salafi jihadists distinguished themselves from salafis they term "sheikist", so named because – the jihadists believed – the "sheikists" had forsaken adoration of God for adoration of "the oil sheiks of the Arabian peninsula, with the Al Saud family at their head". Principal among the sheikist scholars was Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz – "the archetypal court ulema [ulama al-balat]". These allegedly "false" salafi "had to be striven against and eliminated", but even more infuriating was the Muslim Brotherhood, who were believed by Salafi jihadists to be excessively moderate and lacking in literal interpretation of holy texts.[20] Iyad El-Baghdadi describes Salafism as "deeply divided" into "mainstream (government-approved, or Islahi) Salafism", and jihadi Salafism.[7]

Another definition of Salafi jihadism, offered by Mohammed M. Hafez, is an "extreme form of Sunni Islamism that rejects democracy and Shia rule". Hafez distinguished them from apolitical and conservative Salafi scholars (such as Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani, Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen, Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz and Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh), but also from the sahwa movement associated with Salman al-Ouda or Safar Al-Hawali.[21]

According to Mohammed M. Hafez, contemporary jihadi Salafism is characterized by "five features":

• immense emphasis on the concept of tawhid (unity of God);
• God's sovereignty (hakimiyyat Allah), which defines right and wrong, good and evil, and which supersedes human reasoning is applicable in all places on earth and at all times, and makes unnecessary and un-Islamic other ideologies such as liberalism or humanism;
• the rejection of all innovation (bid‘ah) in Islam;
• the permissibility and necessity of takfir (the declaring of a Muslim to be outside the creed, so that they may face execution);
• and on the centrality of jihad against infidel regimes.[21]

Another researcher, Thomas Hegghammer, has outlined five objectives shared by jihadis:[22]

• Changing the social and political organisation of the state, (an example, being the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the former Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) which fought to overthrow the Algerian state and replace it with an Islamic state.)[22]
• Establishing sovereignty on a territory perceived as occupied or dominated by non-Muslims, (an example being the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (Soldiers of the Pure) in Indian-administered Kashmir and the Caucasus Emirate in the Russian Federation).[22]
• Defending the Muslim community (ummah) from external non-Muslim perceived threats, either the "near enemy" (al-adou al-qarib, this includes jihadists Arabs who travelled to Bosnia and Chechnya to defend local Muslims against non-Muslim armies) or the "far enemy" (al-adou al-baid, often affiliates of Al-Qaeda attacking the West).[22]
• Correcting other Muslims' moral behaviour. (In Indonesia, vigilantes first used sticks and stones to attack those they considered "deviant" in behavior before moving on to guns and bombs).[22]
• Intimidating and marginalising other Muslim sects, (an example being Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which has carried out violent attacks on Pakistani Shia for decades, and killings in Iraq.[22])

Robin Wright notes the importance in Salafi jihadist groups of

• the formal process of taking an oath of allegiance (Bay'ah) to a leader.[23] (This can be by individuals to an emir or by a local group to a transglobal group.)
• "marbling", i.e. pretending to cut ties to a less-than-popular global movement when "strategically or financially convenient". (An example is the cutting of ties to al-Qaeda by the Syrian group Al-Nusra Front with al-Qaeda's approval.[23]

According to Michael Horowitz, Salafi jihad is an ideology that identifies the "alleged source of the Muslims' conundrum" in the "persistent attacks and humiliation of Muslims on the part of an anti-Islamic alliance of what it terms 'Crusaders', 'Zionists', and 'apostates'."[24]

Al Jazeera journalist Jamal Al Sharif describes Salafi jihadism as combining "the doctrinal content and approach of Salafism and organisational models from Muslim Brotherhood organisations. Their motto emerged as 'Salafism in doctrine, modernity in confrontation'".[25]

Antecedents of Salafism jihadism notably includes Egyptian Islamist author Sayyid Qutb, who developed "the intellectual underpinnings", in the 1950s, for what would later become the doctrine of most Jihadist organizations around the world, including Al-Qaeda and ISIS.[26][27][28][29] In fact, Qutb was one of Osama bin Laden’s teachers at university, He has even been called ‘Al-Qaeda’s Philosopher’. Ayman al Zawahiri, the Egyptian who was second in command and co-founder of Al-Qaeda, calls Qutb, "the most prominent theoretician of the fundamentalist movements[30][31]

In his writings, both before and after joining the Muslim Brotherhood Qutb argued that the Muslim world had reached a crisis point and that the Islamic world has been replaced by pagan ignorance of Jahiliyyah, (which directly translates to "Ignorance", a term used by Muslims to describe the "dark" ages before Muhammed's foundation of Islam). Qutb had actually been a secular in his youth, but when he went abroad for a two-year scholarship to the United States, it's said he came back with extremist radical beliefs. He used what's been often described by scholars as his "genuine literary excellence" to spread these views of western criticism to form the main intellectual doctrine for the Muslim Brotherhood, which later be adopted by most Terrorist organizations worldwide.[32][33]

Qutbism doctrine of Islam interpretation emphasizes how the secular, infidel Muslim leaders and populations have fallen to imitating the western way of life, and that before any prosperity would occur, the Muslim world must revert to the Caliphate-age Shari'ah Law instead of "Man-made laws". He issued ideological & religious debates stating that the violent means are justifiable under Islamic Law for an end as great as returning the Islamic State "days of glory", and these means are often leading a victorious violent holy war (Jihad) against the west.[34]

A part of his writings which is still the main societal ideology for most Terrorist organizations regarding their views on the west, can be found in his book "The America that I Have Seen", which he wrote immediately after returning to Egypt from the United States, where his writing became explicitly critical of things he had observed in the United States, stating: its materialism, individual freedoms, economic system, racism, brutal boxing matches, "poor" haircuts,[35] superficiality in conversations and friendships,[36] restrictions on divorce, enthusiasm for sports, lack of artistic feeling,[36] "animal-like" mixing of the sexes (which "went on even in churches"),[37] and strong support for the new Israeli state.[38]

He was appalled by what he perceived as loose sexual openness of American men and women. Qutb noted with disapproval the openly displayed sexuality of American women stating in the same influential book "The America that I Have Seen": "the American girl is well acquainted with her body's seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs – and she shows all this and does not hide it."[35]

On 29 August 1966, Sayyid Qutb was executed by hanging by Egyptian president's Gamal Abdel-Nasser's regime for his alleged role in the president's assassination plot.[39][40][41][42] This would later paint him as an Islamic Martyr among supporters & Islamist circles, particularly as the trial was alleged to be a show Trial.[43] Qutb wrote his major Fundamental Islamist books (a commentary of the Qur'an Fi Zilal al-Qur'an (In the Shade of the Qur'an), and a manifesto of political Islam called Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq (Milestones), whilst incarcerated and allegedly tortured. This, alongside his allegedly extrajudicial execution, elevated the value of these two major writings, giving his radical, violent Islamist doctrine in his writings a stronger influence over future Terrorist organizations.[44][45]

The group Takfir wal-Hijra, who kidnapped and murdered an Egyptian ex-government minister in 1978, also inspired some of "the tactics and methods" used by Al Qaeda.[5]

In Afghanistan, the Taliban were of the Deobandi, not Salafi, school of Islam but "cross-fertilized" with bin Laden and other Salafist jihadis.[3]

Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation finds in his research that Salafi-jihadist numbers and activity have increased from 2007 to 2013. According to his research:

• the number of Salafi-jihadist groups increased by over 50% from 2010 to 2013, using Libya and parts of Syria as sanctuary.
• the number of Salafi jihadist fighters "more than doubled from 2010 to 2013" using both low and high estimates. The war in Syria was the single most important attraction for Salafi-jihadist fighters.
• attacks by al-Qaeda–affiliated groups (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al Shabaab, Jabhat al-Nusrah, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula)
• despite al-Qaeda's traditional focus on the "far enemy" (US and Europe), approximately 99% of the attacks by al-Qaeda and its affiliates in 2013 were against "near enemy" targets (in North Africa, the Middle East, and other regions outside of the West).[12]

According to Seth G. Jones of the Rand Corporation, as of 2014, there were around 50 Salafist-jihadist groups in existence or recently in existence ("present" in the list indicates a group's continued existence as of 2014). (Jones defines Salafi-jihadist groups as those emphasizing the importance of returning to a “pure” Islam, that of the Salaf, the pious ancestors; and those believing that violent jihad is fard ‘ayn (a personal religious duty)).[1]

Thousands of Muslim leaders and scholars and dozens of Islamic councils have denounced Salafi jihadism. Some scholars, policy institutes, and political scientists have noted a growing concern that Salafism and Wahhabism can be a gateway to terrorism and violent extremism.[74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84] Notable challenges in countering Salafi jihadism are funding from oil-rich Gulf nations and private donations which are difficult to track,[85][86][87] Saudi efforts to propagate its Wahhabi ideology around the Muslim world,[88] resentment for Western hegemony, authoritarian Arab regimes, feeling defenseless against foreign aggression and that "Muslim blood is cheap,"[89] weak governance, extremist Salafi preaching that counters moderate voices, and other challenges.[90]

• Oliver, Haneef James. "Sacred Freedom: Western Liberalist Ideologies In The Light of Islam". TROID, 2006, ISBN 0-9776996-0-9 (Free)
• Global jihadism: theory and practice, Brachman, Jarret, Taylor & Francis, 2008, ISBN 0-415-45241-4, ISBN 978-0-415-45241-0
• Kepel, Gilles (2002). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674010901.

• Robert Manne, Sayyid Qutb: Father of Salafi Jihadism. ABC Religion and Ethics