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Sayyid
Qutb, Physician Ayman Al-Zawahiri
and
Al-Qa‘eda: The Beginning*
By:
Adnan A. Musallam
**
CONTENTS
I.
Islam, Radical Islamism and
Global jihad: Terms
II.
The Emergence of the Islamist
Sayyid Qutb
III.
Controversy Surrounding the
Execution of Sayyid Qutb and Aftermath
IV.
The World Wide Demonization of
Sayyid Qutb
V.
Sayyid Qutb’s Radical Influence:
The Impact on Physician Ayman
Al-Zawahiri
VI.
‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, Osama Bin Laden and
Physician Ayman al-Zawahiri: The
Beginning of Al-Qa'eda
VII.
Conclusion
I.
Islam, Radical Islamism and Global
jihad: Terms
Islam is an Arabic word which
means complete submission and obedience
to Allah (God). More than a billion and
a half persons, or a fifth of humankind
are Muslims who follow the Islamic
religion. Unlike the religion of Islam,
the creed and the basic set of beliefs,
Islamism (Islamic fundamentalism /
political Islam) is a political
ideology, which insists that Islam is a
way of life encompassing the religious ,
political, economic, social, and all
other spheres of life.
___________________________________________________________
*This paper is based on the author’s
book, From Secularism to Jihad:
Sayyid Qutb
and the
Foundations of Radical Islamism
,Westwoot, CT,USA: Praeger
Publishers,October 2005
**Adnan Musallam,
Ph.D., is a member of the Board of
Al-Liqa’ Center and is an associate
professor and Chair of the Department of
Humanities at Bethlehem University,
Bethlehem.
Islamism advocates a Shari‘ah (Islamic
code) based society to replace the
un-Islamic secular oriented governments
and societies. Islamists, however, do
not hesitate to participate fully in a
pluralistic political systems and to
take active part in democratic elections
as was seen in Algeria, Egypt and
Palestine. On the other hand radical
and revolutionary Islamism and global
jihadism advocate the overthrow of
infidel secular regimes by force if
necessary and the establishment of
Shari‘ah based Islamic societies
throughout the world. Al-Qa‘eda
symbolizes the radical trend in Islamism
/ global jihadism.
The word “jihad”, which is derived from
the trilateral Arabic root “jhd” (to
strive, to endeavor, to exert oneself)
and the verb “jahada” (to fight for a
cause, or to wage holy war against
infidels) means exertion of one’s power
in Allah’s path, that is, to spread the
belief in Allah and to make his word
supreme over the world. “Jihad” by
heart is concerned with combating the
devil and evil things and was regarded
by The Prophet Muhammad as the “greater
jihad.” Whereas “jihad” is regarded by
most Muslim jurists as a collective duty
when the Muslim community and the faith
are subject to aggression, Sayyid Qutb
and Jihadist Islamists disagree. They
insist that “jihad” is an individual
obligation as well as a collective duty
and one of the six pillars of Islam.
II.
The Emergence of the Islamist Sayyid
Qutb
The period, from 1919 to 1952 in Egypt
is the formative stage of Sayyid Qutb’s
life and thought and his emergence as an
independent Islamist. It is a period of
transition from tradition to modernity.
It is a colorful period full of vitality
and contradictions. It is also the
formative stage for contemporary
thought, literature, theatre and cinema,
among other things, in modern Egypt.
The Westernization process which had
begun early in the nineteenth century
was by now fully evident in all aspects
of life in Egypt. A secular educational
structure dominated the nation, leading
to widening the gulf between those with
secular and religious education.
The liberal nationalist forces
that drew much of their inspiration from
the Western world appeared to have
gained the upper hand in the aftermath
of the 1919 - 1922 Revolt and the
introduction of the constitutional
parliamentary system of government in
1923. They managed to leave their mark
on the intellectual life of the country
in the 1920’s and to open the doors for
the emulation and mimicry of Western
civilization. However, the more the
Westernizers proceeded and gained
momentum the more violent was the
reaction of the Islamists and the more
polarized the country became.
By the mid-thirties a widespread
reaction against rampant Westernization,
Western suppression of the nationalist
movements in the Arab East and Arab
West, and the failure of the liberal
nationalist establishment to achieve the
independence of the Nile Valley and to
solve society’s pressing problems was
taking place even among the liberal
literati such as Sayyid Qutb. World War
II and its adverse effects on the
political, social and economic life of
the Egyptians further alienated the
one-time adherents of the liberal
nationalist ideal and discredited the
liberal nationalist politicians.
Following the war the country slipped
into a period of increasing violence and
breakdown of law and order.
Thus, in the seven-year period
preceding the July 1952 military revolt
led by Nasser, the country was dominated
by a sense of anger, grief and despair
at the established political
institutions, only to be exacerbated by
the Egyptian defeat in the 1948
Palestine War. The result was the
defection of many Egyptians to the camps
of the two viable alternative groups who
were prepared to challenge the existing
order, namely the Marxists and the
Muslim Brothers.
It is within this context that the
transformations in Sayyid Qutb’s life
and thought can be understood.
Sayyid Qutb (1906 – 1966), a
secular man of letters in 1930’s and
1940’s became an Islamist in the late
1940’s. It was during World War II that
drastic changes took place in his
outlook including his focus on Qur’anic
studies. The Qur’an became a refuge for
his personal needs and for answers to
the ills of his society. As a result he
forsook literature permanently for the
Islamic cause and the Islamic way of
life. Qutb’s stay in the United States,
1948 – 1950, reinforced his deeply held
belief that Islam is man’s only valid
salvation from the abyss of Godless
materialism of both capitalism and
communism. Qutb’s active apposition to
the secular policies of the late
President Nasser of Egypt (d. 1970) led
to his imprisonment, 1954 – 1964, during
which time his controversial radical
writings appeared in which he accused
all societies including that of Egypt as
Jahili (pagan) and called for the
overthrow of these societies and their
replacement with a true and a just
Islamic society. Indeed, Qutb's
writings on the "Jahili" society,
especially his charge that all
contemporary societies including that of
Egypt are "Jahili" because they do not
submit to God's rule (Hakimiyyah) as
well as his articulation of the notion
of "al-'uzlah al-shu'uriyyah"
(separation from others by feelings) had
a far reaching effect. Subsequently, he
was rearrested and tried for leading an
underground apparatus and was executed
in August 1966.
III.
Controversy Surrounding the Execution of
Sayyid Qutb
There was no logical explanation or
justification for the executions of
1966. The regime of the late President
Nasser did not need these executions in
order to firmly establish the pillars of
rule, as he needed such executions at
the end of 1954 when he liquidated the
elements whom he saw as determined to
destroy him at the formative stages of
his regime. The Egyptian political
system in 1966 was standing on solid
ground popularly, politically,
economically, and internationally.
These executions and the preceding
executions of 1954 will remain a black
page in the history of the Arab
liberation movement which the late
president symbolized.
It is true that President Nasser’s
regime was able to eliminate Sayyid Qutb
physically. However, the same thing
cannot be said of the regime’s attempts
to eliminate his revolutionary ideas
contained in his prison writings. By
eliminating Qutb, the regime,
intentionally or unintentionally,
created a new martyr for the Islamic
resurgence of the past forty years,
whose revolutionary writings have become
a manifesto for Islamists and global
jihadist everywhere.
While President Nasser’s pan-Arab ideas
were reaching their zenith by the time
of Qutb’s execution in 1966, forty years
later these same ideas have been
marginalized in the Arab streets and
have failed to win the hearts of the
Arab masses. In addition, the
unmitigated failures of the Arab regimes
to build socioeconomic justice in their
societies, and their failures in both
war and peace with the Israelis, have
only served as a fertile ground for the
proliferation and growth of Qutb’s ideas
in both the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Had the regime not executed Sayyid Qutb,
there would have been a fair possibility
that Qutb would have clarified many of
the controversial terms he had posited
in his writings. Instead, with Qutb
gone, his writings were left wide open
for radical interpretations of all
kinds, which led many circles in the
West since September 11, 2001, to dub
him “the godfather ideologue of Osama
bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and
al-Qa‘eda.”
IV.
The World Wide Demonization of Sayyid
Qutb
One only needs to search the web for
Sayyid Qutb to realize the extent to
which he has been demonized throughout
the world, and the extent to which his
ideas have been presented in the West by
many anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sources
as forming the ideological cornerstone
of the so-called Islamic terror.
Among the more prominent widely read
articles appearing on the web since
September 11, 2001, which focused
totally on Sayyid Qutb, is Paul Berman’s
article title “The Philosopher of
Islamic Terror,” which was published by
the New York Times Sunday Magazine,
on March 23, 2003, but which has been
disseminated widely since then via web
sites.
Likewise, Sayyid Qutb’s writings have
been harshly treated by some Muslim
clerics in the Arab World. His Qur’anic
commentary In the Shades of the
Qur’an and his controversial
Milestones have been declared as
innovation and deviations from the
Islamic dogma and teachings. According
to these clerics, a beginning student of
knowledge “who is incapable of
distinguishing between the fat and the
thin” should not read the writings of
Qutb because they would misguide the
student and lead the student to
deviation. Accordingly, that is what
has happened in the case of the
al-Takfir wa-al-Hijrah (Penance and
Retreat) group in Egypt who were misled
by Qutb’s writings and who as a result
deviated from the Islamic dogma.
Likewise, Qutb’s notion put forth in
Milestones that claims, (the Islamic
Ummah / Nation) has ceased to exist, and
which was reiterated most recently by
his follower, Shaykh Salman al-‘Awda, in
his al-Ummah al-Gha’ibah (The
Absent Ummah / Nation), to excommunicate
the whole nation on the grounds of
Jahiliyyah (Paganism), are rejected
totally as innovations and deviations;
for the Islamic Ummah is forever present
as a reality and will always include
among its members truthful believers,
hypocrites, and disbelievers. These
deviations and innovations such as those
of Sayyid Qutb and others, lead to “evil
mistakes in the Islamic dogma,” say
those refuting Qutb’s writings.
Accordingly, it is “obligatory upon the
people of knowledge to clarify the
truth… (and) whoever refutes them, then
he is regarded as a mujaahid in
the Path of Allah.”
V.
Sayyid Qutb’s Radical Influence: The
Impact on Physician Ayman Al-Zawahiri
Qutb’s books have been translated into
most languages that Muslims read
including Persian, which was carried out
by Iranian supreme spiritual leader
Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, and the Afghan
language of Dari, which was carried out
by former Afghan President Burhanuddin
Rabbani. Qutb’s writings had a
formative influence on the Taliban
movement as well. Qutb’s influence has
been felt on the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front in the Philippines and on radical
Islamists in Europe and the former
Soviet republics. Qutb’s thought has
spread as well with al-Qa‘eda’s
international network.
One can detect Qutb’s influence on the
Islamic Salvation Front and the Armed
Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria as well
as on both the Islamic Resistance
Movement (HAMAS) and the Islamic Jihad
in Palestine. The latter views itself
as the “Islamic vanguard” Sayyid Qutb
talks about in his Milestones.
Qutb’s impact was especially felt on
young Egyptian radical Islamists turned
global jihadists of al-Qa‘eda such as
Physician Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second
man in command of al-Qa‘eda after Osama
Bin Laden.
Hamid Mir, a Pakistan journalist and a
biographer of Bin Laden, concluded that
“the real brains of the outfit
(al-Qa‘eda) stand in Bin Laden’s
six-foot five-inch shadow, specifically
Egyptian radical Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Attorney Muntasir al-Zayyat, a
biographer of al-Zawahiri, claims that
“al-Zawahiri is for Bin Laden like the
brain to the body.”
Born on June 19, 1951, Ayman al-Zawahiri
began his activism at the early age of
fifteen, while attending secondary
school in Cairo’s suburb, Maadi, in 1966
in the aftermath of events surrounding
the uncovering of Sayyid Qutb’s
underground vanguard apparatus in 1965.
Sayyid Qutb’s writings and the eventual
execution of Qutb in August 1966 left
deep impressions on al-Zawahiri.
Al-Zawahiri became convinced then that
young Muslims must organize themselves
in order to defend Islam. In 1966 –
1967, Ayman and a group of high school
students formed an underground
apparatus, which was led by Nabil
al-Bur‘i, a jihadist student of Sayyid
Qutb. The group’s basic objective was
to set up an Islamic government in Egypt
through a military coup. This apparatus
continued in the 1970s. Al-Zawahiri
eventually became its leader and was
joined by Nabil al-Bur‘i, Ismai‘il
al-Tantawi, ‘Isam al-Qamari, and others
who would play a role in the
preparations that led to the
assassination of President Sadat.
Mohammad Salah of London’s Arabic
language daily, al-Hayat,
commented on al-Zawahiri’s early
involvement in organized work that
“people usually start in their 20’s
[but] for Zawahiri working so young with
these groups allowed him to develop a
very organizational brain, which was
able to create sophisticated
organizations”.
Al-Zawahiri graduated from medical
school in 1978 and was posted as a
surgeon in the Egyptian army for the
next three years. Al-Zawahiri’s studies
of medicine at the University of Cairo
(1974 – 1978) coincided with the
flourishing of Islamists’ activities on
university campuses at the time when
President Sadat was using the Islamic
elements to counter the Nasserite and
radical leftist forces who were deeply
entrenched in society in the aftermath
of President Nasser’s death in 1970. At
this time, student Islamist groups like
the Gama’ah al-Islamiyyah (the Islamic
Group) were in control of Egyptian
campuses. President Sadat’s visit to
Israel in 1977 and the eventual signing
of the Camp David Accords in 1979,
however, ended the working relationship
between Sadat and the Islamist groups.
By 1980, all student groups were
outlawed.
In the meantime, radical Islamic groups
were encouraged by the successes of the
Iranian Islamic revolution led by
Khomeini in 1979. In the same year,
three of the jihadist underground groups
merged to form the Jihad organization.
In the summer of 1980 and again in March
1981, al-Zawahiri traveled to Peshawar,
Pakistan, to tend to the medical needs
of Afghan refugees who were fleeing
their country in the wake of the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan. Al-Zawahiri
was impressed by the “miracles” of the
jihad against the Soviets and regarded
Afghan jihad as “a training course of
the utmost importance to prepare the
Muslim mujahideen to wage their
awaited battle against the superpower
that now has sole dominance over the
globe, namely, the United States.”
In the wake of the assassination of
President Sadat on October 6, 1981,
hundreds of Islamic radicals were
rounded up, including al-Zawahiri, who
did not agree with the timing of the
assassination. Instead, al-Zawahiri had
wanted the group to wait until the
opportunity was ripe for a military
coup. Al-Zawahiri spent three years in
prison, obtaining his release in 1984.
Soon after that, he left Egypt to go to
Saudi Arabia to work in a Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia medical clinic. There he met
Osama Bin Laden, a very wealthy young
Saudi who had received his education in
the schools of Jeddah and who studied
management and economics at King ‘Abd
al-‘Aziz University, where leading
Islamists taught, including Sayyid
Qutb’s brother Muhammad Qutb and a
global jihadist who led the mujahideen,
the holy war warriors in Afghanistan in
the 1980s, Dr. ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam. Like
al-Zawahiri, Osama was radicalized by
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Soon both were in Pakistan to help the
Afghan mujahideen.
In his book Knights under the
Prophet’s Banner (2001), Ayman
al-Zawahiri underlines the impact of
Sayyid Qutb’s life and thought on the
jihadists and the Islamic revolution.
Qutb’s affirmation of God’s oneness and
sovereignty, his call for battle against
man-made laws that totally contradict
God’s Shari‘ah, according to
al-Zawahiri, “helped the Islamic
movement to know and define its
enemies. It also helped it to realize
that the internal enemy was not less
dangerous than the external enemy and
that the internal enemy was a tool used
by external enemy as a screen behind
which it hid to launch its war on
Islam.”
Qutb’s execution by the Nasser regime,
al-Zawahiri adds, only made his words
more influential than those of any other
scholar. Qutb had refused to ask for a
pardon from President Nasser in order
for his death sentence to be commuted.
Instead, Qutb answered: “the index
finger (which holds the prayer beads)
that testifies to the oneness of God in
every prayer refuses to request a pardon
from a tyrant.” Thus, “he became an
example of sincerity and adherence to
justice… and paid his life as a price
for this.”
Al-Zawahiri says further that the
Egyptian regime thought that it had
dealt a deadly blow to Islamists with
the execution of Sayyid Qutb. However,
Qutb’s ideas were “the beginning of the
formation of a nucleus of the modern
Islamic jihad movement in Egypt.”
Furthermore, al-Zawahiri says that the
underground jihad, which he had joined
at an early age, was the nucleus of
Islamic society (which Qutb posits in
his Milestones).
VI. ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, Osama Bin Laden
and Physician Ayman al-Zawahiri: The
Beginning of Al-Qa'eda
In Pakistan, Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri
worked together with the doyen of the
Arab mujahideen against the Soviets, the
Palestinian Dr. ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, a
member of the Society of Msulim
Brothers. ‘Azzam, a graduate of Damascus
University and al-Azhar University in
Cairo and a devout student of Sayyid
Qutb’s thought, acknowledges the
profound influence of Sayyid Qutb’s
thought on him. Qutb had shaped his
intellectual orientation.
‘Azzam, a native of the West Bank town
of Silat al-Harithiyya in the Jenin
district, is the first global jihadist
par excellence and was considered, until
his assassination in 1989, the doyen of
jihadists and its main fund raiser.
‘Azzam is often quoted by Islamists.
According to one of his famous dicta:
“Love of jihad has taken over my life,
my soul, my sensation, my heart and my
emotions. If preparing [for jihad] is
terrorism, then we are terrorists. If
defending our honor is extremism, then
we are extremists. If jihad against our
enemies is fundamentalism, then we are
fundamentalists.” ‘Azzam’s book
al-Difa’ ‘an aradi al-Muslimin ahamm
furud al-a‘yan (The Defense of
Muslim Lands, the Most Important
Personal Duty), which appeared in 1987,
became a manifesto for jihadists
everywhere. The book’s central theme is
that Islamic land that was under Islamic
rule must be returned only through
jihad, and it is a personal duty of
every Muslim to participate in the jihad
in order to restore Muslim land to
Islamic rule. ‘Azzam has become a role
model for many jihadist organizations,
including the Palestinian HAMAS.
In Peshawar, Pakistan, ‘Azzam lectured
at the College for Preaching and Jihad,
from which many mujahideen who fought
against the Soviets in Afghanistan
graduated. Earlier he taught briefly at
the University of Jordan, at King ‘Abd
al-‘Aziz University in Jeddah, and at
the International Islamic University in
Islamabad, Pakistan. ‘Azzam became the
spiritual mentor of Bin Laden. They met
at the College for Preaching and Jihad
in Peshawar and began working jointly to
set up the infrastructure for the
service of the mujahideen volunteers who
came to fight the Soviets, such as
Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) for recruiting,
services, and training. ‘Azzam named
this project “al-Qa‘eda al Sulba” (The
Firm Base). Thus, the idea of
“al-Qa’eda” was born at this time.
In 1986, ‘Azzam and Bin Laden took part
in the battle against the Soviets in
Jalalabad. However, Bin Laden differed
with ‘Azzam as to the scope of Jihad.
‘Azzam believed that jihad cannot be
waged against Muslims, while Bin Laden
and al-Zawahiri espoused the idea that a
holy war must be waged in Muslim lands
as well, such as in Egypt and Saudi
Arabia.
‘Abdallah ‘Azzam’s global jihadist
career in Pakistan and Afghanistan came
to an end on November 24, 1989, when
‘Azzam and two of his children, Muhammad
and Ibrahim, were assassinated in
Peshawar by alleged Soviet agents.
In 1989, Soviet invasion and occupation
of Afghanistan came to an end. Many
Afghan Arab mujahideen returned home
early in the 1990s to Egypt or to
Alegeria to continue their jihad against
the “infidel” regimes. Others
volunteered their jihadist services in
three-year war in the Balkans or in the
war of independence of Chechnya.
Others, such as Bin Laden and
al-Zawahiri, met prior to leaving
Afghnistan to discuss the future of
jihad. This meeting resulted in the
reemergence of al-Qa’eda (The Base),
which comprised individual Afghan war
veterans from the Muslim world and
groups including the Jihad group of
Egypt. The Financial aspects of this
newly founded organization were under
the control of Bin Laden.
Among the Egyptian jihadist members of
al-Qa‘eda and followers of al-Zawahiri
who became prominent following September
11, 2001, were Mohammad ‘Atef, also
known as Abu Hafs al-Misri, who was in
charge of the military wing of al-Qa‘eda
and whose name along with that of
al-Zawahiri became associated with many
deadly anti-American operations in Saudi
Arabia, Africa, and Yemen in the 1990s;
and Muhammad Makkawi, also known as Seif
al-‘Adl, who according to one of
Lawrence Wright’s sources, as early as
1987 suggested that the “jihad group
hijack a passenger jet and crash it into
the Egyptian People’s Assembly.” The
source asserts that Seif al-‘Adl, thus,
‘is the father of September 11th.”
Al-Zawahiri visited the United States on
two occasions, in 1989 and 1993, to
raise funds for jihadist activities in
Afghanistan. Earlier, President Reagan
“compared the mujahideen (in
their struggle against the Soviets in
Afghanistan) to American’s founding
fathers.” In 1989, al-Zawahiri visited
“the mujahideen’s Services Bureau
branch office in Brooklyn.” In the
spring of 1993, al-Zawahiri came as
representative of the Red Crescent of
Kuwait and stayed in California, where
he visited Santa Clara and mosques in
Sacramento and Stockton.
Al-Zawahiri and his Jihad group froze
all their activities in Egypt between
1981 and 1994. Fathi al-Shaqaqi, the
founder and head of the al-Jihad group
in Palestine until his assassination by
the Israeli Mossad, suggested to
al-Jihad groups in Egypt that they focus
their jihadist activities against
Israel. Al-Zawahiri was firm in his
dictum that “the road to Jerusalem
passes through Cairo.” Later, when
al-Zawahiri allied himself with Bin
Laden, that dictum was adjusted to mean
that “the road to Jerusalem passes
through Washington.”
In May 1996, al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden
were expelled from Sudan, leading Bin
Laden to take refuge in Jalalabad in
eastern Afghanistan, then under Taliban
control. Al-Zawahiri and his companions
traveled to Chechnya to set up “a new
home base” for his group, but they were
arrested in Dagestan for “entering the
country illegally.” The group was
released later. Al-Zawahiri then joined
Bin Laden in Jalalabad in May 1997,
where Islamists from all over the world
were joining Bin Laden’s training camps.
In the February 23, 1998, issue of
London's al-Quds al-'Arabi (The
Arab Jerusalem) daily, al-Zawahiri was
one of the signatories along with Bin
Laden and an alliance of Jihadist groups
from Egypt and from throughout the
Muslim world, Europe, Asia, and Africa
announcing the formation of al-Jabha
al-Islamiyyah al-'Alamiyyah li-Qital
al-Yahud wa-al-Salibiyyin (International
Islamic Front for Jihad against the
Jews and Christians) and issued a
religious ruling (fatwa) authorizing an
individual duty (Fard 'Ayn) on every
Muslim to kill Americans and their
allies in any country "in which it is
possible to do it." Open warfare now
erupted between the United States and
al-Qa'eda. The U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) kidnapped many
Jihad cell members in Azerbaijan and
Albania. In response, Jihadist carried
out suicide bombings that destroyed the
American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
in the simmer of 1998.
On August 20, 1998, Tomahawk cruise
missiles were targeted at Bin Laden,
Al-Zawahiri, and other al-Qa'eda
leaders, but they missed their targets.
By June 2001, the Islamic Jihad group of
al-Zawahiri and al-Qa'eda merged to form
Qa'edat al-Jihad (The Base of
al-Jihad). The leadership was for the
most part Egyptian and Saudi.
On September 11, 2001, al-Zawahiri, Bin
Laden, and other jihadists fled to the
mountains to listen to the radio's
reports concerning the suicide attacks
on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. It is believed that
al-Zawahiri was one of the masterminds
behind the planning for September 11.
It was reported that al-Zawahiri's wife
and several children were killed during
the heavy bombardment of the mountains
in Afghanistan in November or December
2001. Many videotapes and audiotapes of
al-Zawahiri have appeared, however, on
Al-Jazeera and other Arab satellite
stations since 2001. For example, on
Friday, October 1, 2004, he called on
Muslim opinion and experienced leaders
to formulate a unified command for the
Islamic resistance. In that audiotape,
al-Zawahiri urged young Muslims to begin
preemptive strikes and "not to wait any
longer, otherwise we will be devoured,
one country after the another."
Al-Zawahiri reminded listeners that
liberating Palestine is an individual
duty (Fard 'Ayn) for every Muslim. That
Muslims cannot give up Palestine even if
the whole world does so. But
al-Zawahiri warned that limiting the
battle to fighting the Jews alone "will
not restrain America and the Crusaders
against us." He urged fighters to carry
on even if al-Qa'eda leaders were killed
or arrested.
VII. Conclusion
Radicalism is not inherent in Islam,
Christianity or Judaism. Rather,
followers of each religion abuse the
holy texts by their own free
interpretations of these texts to fit
their own political ideology and
agenda. These holy texts must be
guarded from individual or group abuse
by distinguished learned religious
scholars in each religion who are well
known for their objectivity and fairness
and who can make the public aware of
these abuses through religious and civic
education and the mass media.
Violence, which the Arab citizen in the
Arab world has been reaping the bloody
consequences of, is the result of the
deeply rooted despotism and absence of
social justice in Arab societies in
recent decades. The safety valve which
provides opportunities for all,
including the opposition, to participate
in the democratic game, which is
well-known in the pluralistic system, is
not available in most Arab societies.
This in turn has led and is still
leading to frustration and despair among
young people and to waves of violence
and anti-violence in society, which
eventually destroys the society's
internal texture.
In order to get out of this
swamp of violence, it is necessary to
have pluralism and dialogue. Pluralism
and dialogue require adopting democracy
as a constant value politically,
economically, socially and
intellectually, as well as practicing it
and translating it into a perceptible
reality at home, at school, at work and
in the street. The Arab educational
strategy should include a comprehensive
program to spread democratic concepts as
a constant value. This strategy should
ultimately connect the democratic
process to the economic needs of society
and guide the Arab individual towards
economic production. Political
stability will remain a mere illusion if
it is not supported by self-sufficiency,
production and social justice. This is
the pluralistic formulation will enable
all Arab elements, including Islamists,
nationalists, socialists, and others, to
participate effectively in building
successful Arab societies. Any other
strategy that is not tied to the
democratic project is only a futile
attempt to adhere to the despotic
unitary order in its different
manifestations, which has brought only
successive catastrophes for the Arab
people. Adopting a pluralistic system
does not mean abandoning our culture and
our cultural specificity, or blind
mimicry of the materialistic
civilization. Rather, it means
tolerance and acceptance of others who
differ from us, with an open mind.
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