Hamza bin laden, the 24-year old son of Osama bin laden, the “Father of Global Jehad”, was launched to the world of Al-Qaeda in August. He was introduced by Bin laden's deputy and Egyptian jehadi Ayman al Zawahiri through an audio recorded last May. With son's rise, Al-Qaeda is likely to turn over a new leaf in the radical movement at a time when it is facing an ever-growing turbulence, both in the ideological and operational front, from its own brethren — ISIS. The radical Islamic worldview as exemplified by laden was medieval and purely reactionary, which sends a fervent appeal to Muslims to return to its glorious seventh century roots. To him, there is an urgent need to reclaim the righteousness of early Islam and implement the Sharia in its purest form either through the machinery of the state or by bringing trust among Muslims. With him, the radical Islamic movement has taken an “ever bigger leap” transcending all barriers of the modern state and, most importantly, by avenging the most spectacular terrorist attack at the heart of America on September 11, 2001.
Hamza, in his audio release, places high esteem for late Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, along with al Zawahiri. He has held high praises for all of Al-Qaeda’s franchises and individual missions in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, the Maghreb, Somalia and India. The goal, he underlines is crystal clear: “To him, the crusader enemy is like an evil bird and the head of the bird is America; and its wings are Israel and NATO; and the body is the apostate leaders of the Muslim states who serve the crusaders like the Saudis. Al-Qaeda’s goal is to destroy the birds head — America —which will kill the bird. He urges the Muslim believers to attack American and Jewish targets around the world, especially in Washington, london, Paris and Tel Aviv. Thus his mission to rejuvenate the dampened (at the moment) Al-Qaeda would surely encourage thousands of Islamic perpetrators to sacrifice their lives in the days to come.
let us take a look at the deep seated ideology of “jehadism” in Al-Qaeda. Islamism today is also known as political Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic revivalism, and is currently recognised as a potential destabilising force almost across the world. The reason behind is very simple: Islamism has become much more organised and institutionalised at the moment than before. The manifestation of an organised Islamism could be well-observed in both Al-Qaeda and ISIS. This form of Islamism swings from the most moderate and modernist to revolutionary and absolutely reactionary. The universal appeals released by Al Qaeda reveal its conscious religious attempts to engage particularly the young Muslims around the world. In one of these appeals, the Base, the Jehadist Forum Administrator echoes:
“Everyone you look into its lands, there are Mujahidin saying:
No Surrender.
And in every side of its hills there are men saying Allahu Akbar,
No Persecution.
We have planted its lands with our heads held high so it grows into glory and blooms.”
From this, we can rightly observe how the multifaceted Islamic concept of ‘jehad’, has enormously assumed a single direction: launch violent movement against the invaders. The global jehadist scholar, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, in his book, Millat Ibrahim (The Religion of Abraham) is urging all Muslims to obey the doctrine of “al-walawal-bara” which roughly implies two things, “First, Muslims must have unquestioning loyalty towards God: a Muslim ought to be loyal and loving to all that is in accordance with God’s law, or Sharia. Second, Muslims ought to reject and disavow all that contradicts Sharia, especially polytheism, democracy and those who advance such deviant ideologies’ [Brachman, Jarret, M. (2010), Global Jihadism, london & New York: Routledge]. Thus the concept of loyalty and disavowal has risen to the fore as the dominant voice while guiding and spearheading the jehadi discourse. Apart from this, the other four pillars of radical Islam are: Tawhid (unity of God), Aqidah (creed), Takfir (excommunication) and Jehad (struggle). Brachman argues, “It is this particularly explosive cocktail of ultra-conservative doctrinal elements, mixed with a flair for waging spectacularly catastrophic acts of violence, that separates jehadis from the other schools of Salafism. Therefore, jehad is intrinsically attached to its root — Salafism. Initially, Salafism, which came up in Egypt by the end of the 20th century, aimed at bringing an intellectual reform movement so that increasing wave of Westernism on Islamic society could be prevented. Finally, the solution was found solely in preaching a puritanical return to Islamic faith obeying the Quran, the Hadith and Sunnah.
With Al-Qaeda, the preaching of monotheism rules all its foundations, which defines Islamic traditions and values, both in individual and collective spheres of life. To all Al-Qaeda believers, Islam is the sole authority, and any authority or political system created by men is a form of polytheism. Hence, any man-made system practicing democracy, socialism or any other ideological foundations must be fought by all Muslims.
The seeds of Al-Qaeda’s war against the West, formally started in 2001, were actually launched during the long holy war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Primarily, the Arabs, who came to join the Afghan War, were largely divided into two groups: the Egyptians and the Yemenis. The Yemeni group attracted more and more religious zealots who descended in Afghanistan from various parts of the world. These freestyle hardliners were basically indoctrinated by Mullahs in their home turfs for raging war against the infidels. The Egyptian group was under the control of the leadership of the underground Egyptian Islamic Jehad Movement of Zawahiri. This camp broadly impressed upon politically and ideologically motivated people and retired army officers of Egypt. They strongly believed that the central reason behind the fall and degeneration of the Arabs was no other than the US and the despotic Muslim rulers of the West Asia who are always masterminded by Washington. The Zawahiri camp, since its inception, emphasised on building a genre of strategic jehad leaders and for this, it strongly focussed on ways and means for ideologically motivating the armies of the Muslim world. While explaining the thinking, the operational style and idiosyncrasies of Al-Qaeda, a few of us have unearthed the origin of the group beyond Osama.
Al-Qaeda itself emerged from another organisation. This was the Maqtab al-Khidamat, the services bureau that Abdullah YousufAzzam set up in the early 1980s to facilitate young Arabs coming from the West Asian nations to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Azzam was assassinated in 1989 and was succeeded by bin laden, one of his leading disciples. Osama bin laden transformed the organisation into Al-Qaeda. However, his was no more than a structural change. Al-Qaeda would not have had the same impact if it had not been preceded by Zawahiri and the Egyptian camps ideology and pattern of struggle. In fact, Zawahiri was the one who actually made Al-Qaeda into the organisation the world knows today. [Shahzad, Syed Saleem (2011), Inside Al Qaeda and The Taliban, london & New York: Pluto Press and Palgrave Macmillan]. The crucial role of Zawahiri could be largely noticed as he was the one who has introduced Hamza, bin laden’s son’s, “as the son of the lion of jehad; in turn, Hamza pledges his loyalty to Zawahiri as the emir of Al-Qaeda’ (Riedal 2015).
However, globalisation has a significant impact on the style, functioning and radicalisation of political Islam. Though initially and in principle, Al-Qaeda vows to fight the US and its ever expansionist neoliberal capitalist propaganda, the group and many other radical Islamic organisations reflect western ways and means: “They term their mobilisation jehad, or sacred struggle, although many Muslims point out that the Prophet called struggle against others the “lesser jehad”, with the internal struggle to lead a good life being the “greater jehad”. Regardless of the ancient terminology, Al-Qaeda and other Islamic groups operate globally like transnational corporations, with affiliates and subsidiaries, strategic partners, community chains, standardised training, off-shore financing and other features associated with contemporary global capital. Indeed, insiders often referred to Al-Qaeda as the “company” [Kurzman, Charles (2012), Bin laden and Other Thoroughly Modern Muslims in Frank J lechner and John Bolied. The Globalization Reader, UK: Wiley & Sons, P. 394]. This mirrors the inevitable juggernaut of untrammeled capitalism in the form of globalisation even on political Islam.
Today, with a resurgent Al-Qaeda, we could distinctly witness, how a common Islamist language of defiance and resistance is gaining strength in a globalised world. Drawing on social psychology, historical evidence, cultural differences and post-colonial studies, it can be well argued that Al-Qaeda and like-minded jehadi forces are here to stay. They all, irrespective of ideological differences, would definitely derive their source of sustenance from innumerable experiences of humiliation and repression, whether real or perceived imposed on the Muslims by the invaders. Notwithstanding the diverse scholarly positions and points of sheer contentions, the mission jehad would be endured among the fundamentalists as it strongly promotes an alternative socio-political order of freedom and high esteem articulated by their interpretation of Islam.
(The writer is an independent political writer based in Delhi)