Islamic Terrorism
A Socio-Cultural-Psychological Perspective
Minghui GAO, May 2003
Since the 9-11 Attack, it’s become common to build a link between Islam and terrorism, insisting “Islam [has been] a breeding ground for terrorism and war.”[1] This is indicated by the coined term “Islamic Terrorism.”[2] The claim sounds reasonable. For example, all the 19 hijackers of the 9-11 Attack were Islamists.[3] Also, of the major terrorist organizations in the globe, 10-15% are in the Islamic world. In Palestine alone, terrorist organizations are supposed to command the allegiance of 25-40% of the population, reaching 60-70% in some spots in the Gaza Strip.[4] It is therefore very easy for many to conjure up such a picture: Islam gives birth to terrorism.
However, this argument is not convincing. First of all, it is methodologically based on the use of a small sample to verify a general hypothesis. As a matter of fact, terrorism is not linked to any particular religion.[5] That Islam is involved in terrorist activity does not mean that it was born to be pro-terrorism. Osama bin Laden does use Islamic terminology to win support and sympathy of the Muslim masses, but this does not make his Al-Qaida an Islamic organization. Osama bin Laden has his own agenda and his acts by no means represent Islamic teachings. No religion in the world, much less Islam, teaches terrorism or inspires any one to kill innocent people. The Koran clearly says that killing any person without a just cause amounts to killing the whole of humanity and saving one person’s life amounts to saving the entirety of humanity.[6] Islam, like most major religions in the world, is essentially a religion of peace. Therefore, though the title of this essay uses the term “Islamic Terrorism,” it does not follow that I agree with the commonsense claim that Islam is pro-terrorism.
Individually experienced religion, viewed as a response to difficulties in the world, is a representation of social realities in ritualized form.[7] Similarly, the present-day terrorist activities in the name of Islam are to some degree responses to the realities of socio-cultural-psychological changes in the Islamic world. A socio-cultural-psychological perspective[8] might help delineate a general picture of the causes of Islamic terrorism. In this sense, this analysis is an attempt to understand the socio-cultural-psychological roles the rise and fall of the Islamic world has played in the evolution of Islamic terrorism.
Mechanism of Societal Crisis and Strategy
Psychological research argues that difficult situations and psychotic anxieties are associated with each other and become the source of the main emotional drives of a group and the ultimate source of group behaviors.[9] When facing failures and humiliations, the people of a society will experience anxiety. This anxiety is consolidated into a powerful momentum for individual or collective actions of hostility and desire to get rid of the frustrations and crises by harming those responsible.[10] Rapid social-cultural transformation and its consequent structural instability reduce material well-being, endanger security, and threaten the self-concept of the society and its members. Societal crisis appears when the self-concept of the society, especially one with a strong sense of glory and high self-concept, is threatened or harmed. Thus arise powerful self-protective motives to defend the self-concept, values, self-esteem and ways of life.[11]
Human’s psychological needs must be controlled, or satisfied. As a common response when things are going badly, blaming others is often one functional way to diminish a group’s own responsibility. By pointing to a cause of the problem, such a response offers a solution by taking actions against the attributed enemy. It also allows the society and its individuals to feel connected as they blame others, thus elevating the group’s self-concept.[12]
However, given sometimes that “those responsible are too powerful, or they are leaders with whom people identify too much to focus their hostility on them,”[13] it is often not possible for the weak side to defeat its powerful opponent through regular approaches, political, economic and military. In contrast, irregular approaches that are difficult to predict and react to, like kidnapping, blackmailing, assassinating, bombing, and so on. not only can help to satisfy the needs of the weak side but also can provide the possibility of weakening and ultimately defeating the enemy.
Irregular approaches usually become attractive to the weak side in conflicts. Terrorism, as a threat to global peace and security, is just such an irregular approach against powerful opponents. It is clear that terrorism is seen as an irregularity, inconsistent with proper conduct. Terrorism is also seen as a deviant, unacceptable behavior, and anything that is tied into the act of terrorism is frowned upon.[14] However, in some cases, terrorist action is the only possible alternative in effecting social or political change.[15] A case in point is Islamic terrorism, which to some extent is exactly such an alternative for Muslims who not only cherish ancient Islamic glory but undergo also the societal humiliations resulted from the decline of Islamic civilization.
The Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization
Past Glory
There is no doubt that human civilization today owes much to Islamic civilization. From the 7th to the 13th century, Arabs built up a powerful empire stretching across parts of three continents including Europe, Asia and Africa. With the geopolitical expansion of the Arab Empire, Islamic civilization underwent splendid advancements. During the Abbasid dynasty (750-1258 A.D), Islamic civilization reached its zenith.
To name a few advances, in mathematics, Arabs, by learning from Indian civilization, introduced to other civilizations the far-reaching “Arabic Numbers” including the Arab-originated “Zero.” In astronomy, Biruni (973-1048), “one of the very greatest scientists of all time,”[16] made an accurate determination of latitude and longitude, and, six hundred years before Galileo, discussed the possibility of Earth’s rotation around its own axis. The greatest name in physics during the Arab Empire was Ibn al-Haytham, who made major contributions to optics, astronomy and mathematics. The development and, indeed, the creation of European medicine might be unimaginable without the Arabs’ contribution. Chemistry was first studied among Arabs in the seventh century A.D.[17]
Islamic civilization is also known for the man whom modern scholars consider the true father of modern historiography and of the science of sociology—Ibn Khaldun. As Toynbee remarked, “Ibn Khaldun has conceived and formulated a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time.”[18] Arab architecture was one of the greatest ornamental glories of the time. Islamic craftsmen displayed a long history of excellence in the bookmaking arts, such as leather binding, which made a deep mark upon Europe.[19] For centuries, Arab learning and scholarship played a leading role in the development of education and academics in the West. A good case in point is that the application of empiricism in all fields of study was rapidly incorporated into the learning system of those who became familiar with Arab methodology.[20]
The past glory of Islamic civilization gave Muslim life a new meaning.[21] It is safe to say that, on the one hand, the glory of Islamic civilization played an important and positive role in the formation of Muslims’ high societal self-concept; on the other, when the glory became merely a good memory and the whole society faced a range of humiliations, the past glory then contributed tremendously to the evolution of Muslims’ societal crisis
Decline and Humiliations
In the 13th century, Islamic civilization started to undergo a great decline. Ranges of reasons have been advanced. An important one was the invasions of Mongolians and the Crusaders. Another was the invasion and governance of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, which, as a different center of Islamic power succeeding the Abbasid Dynasty, launched a series of wars with neighboring countries.[22] These are indeed immediate causes. A particular and important consequence was that the Mongolians’ invasions in the 13th century destroyed Muslim cultural, educational, and academic institutions, and ended the golden age of the Islamic learning, with a few exceptions, like the work by Ibn Khaldun.[23]
However, historians, Muslims and others, have also found flaws in these arguments. After all, Islamic civilization is not the only one that suffered from foreign invasions. They suggest that there are other deeper roots. As Toynbee pointed out, “The failure of a civilization to survive was the result of its inability to respond to moral and religious challenges, rather than to physical or environmental challenges.”[24] As Muqtedar Khan argues, human existence largely depends on the power of ideas; ideas that once liberated a society, if allowed to become stale, will result in stagnation and decline of that society.[25] That arguably is what has happened to the Islamic civilization. With the mega-destruction effected by said foreign invasions, there was a rise in conservatism as an attempt to preserve what remained of Islamic civilization. As a result, “Innovative and original ideas were not welcomed the way they had been before the invasions.”[26] Muslims have since become estranged “from the creative process of idea generation that has stripped the Islamic civilization of its vitality and its brilliance.”[27]
In the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Islamic world experienced a transformation from a producer of ideas to a recycler of the ideas of its forefathers as well as a consumer of Western ideas.[28] Modernizers of the Islamic world have tried many remedies—military, economic and political—but none achieved the desired results; they failed to remedy or even to stop the deteriorating imbalance between the Islamic world and the Western world. It was terrible for Muslims to lose the leadership that they had come to regard as their right, and to be reduced to the role of followers of the West and even East Asian countries, like Japan, South Korea.[29]
Moreover, the 20th century, particularly the second half, brought the Islamic world further humiliations. A case in point is a series of military defeats in Israel-Arab conflicts, for example, the four Arab-Israeli Wars in 1948 (the War of Independence for Israel), 1956 (Sinai War), 1967 (Six-Day War) and 1973 (Yom Kippur War or October War). These defeats occurred despite the Arab nations’ tremendous oil wealth, a total of combined territories 650 fold greater, and a population 50 fold greater than Israel.[30] Particularly, “[the] Six-Day War [most] profoundly humiliated the Arab states, especially Egypt, Syria and Jordan, whose armies were completely destroyed by Israel. In less than a week, Israel had captured three times the size of its territory.”[31] The consequences of the war shocked the Arab world, leaving millions feeling lost, hopeless and helpless. The Arab masses in cynicism, disillusionment and despair crowded into Mosques, looking for consolation and “an outlet to relieve their anger and pain.”[32]
Road from Revivalism to Terrorism
From Elites to Terrorists
Demographic findings indicate that Islamic terrorists are predominantly young male Muslims. Most of them have at least some university education and come from middle-class professional and upper-class families.[33] One outstanding case is Osama bin Laden, who was born in a billionaire family and inherited wealth amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. If he wanted, he could lead a life of luxury; he does not need to fight in Afghanistan and live in mountain caves at all. There must be other deep reasons for his choice. Another case is Mohamed Atta, one of the 19 hijackers in the 9-11 Attack. His will, written in 1996 and found by FBI after the 9-11 Attack, indicates that he had no interest in material wellbeing. Atta wrote, “When I die…I want the clothes I wear to consist of three white pieces of cloth, not to be made from silk or expensive material.” “A third of my money should be spent on the poor and needy.”[34]
These educated Arabs know the glory of their nation and civilization, so they are more likely than the Arab masses to feel the humiliations and weakness of the Islamic world. While they are able to lead a quiet rich life, they choose fighting, bombing, kidnapping and killing. Research indicates that terrorists are in general normal individuals in their psychological profiles.[35] Therefore, a possible explanation is that their strong morality and self-esteem do not allow them to cut themselves off from the fate and future of their nation. The misfortune of reality sets up arenas for their heroism and idealism. They are fighting not for their own wealth or material well-being; they are fighting for their nation or society, to defend their societal self-concept and self-esteem. They were originally members of elites, but turned to terrorism when confronting their nation’s decline and humiliations and the powerful enemies of the Western world and Jews and the U.S. in particular. This does not mean that I agree with their behaviors, nor does it imply what stance I take toward the conflicts in Middle East. I am just examining how Islamic terrorism has evolved and who the Islamic terrorists are.
Looking for Enemies
Since 1948, Islamic terrorists have seen in the Jews—as partners and allies of the new “crusaders” in the West—a new enemy in the global conspiracy against Islam as a culture and religion, and against the Muslim nation in general.[36] Besides, given that the Arab states in the Middle East fall into three groups in terms of their different attitudes toward the West, especially the U.S., and that some of the Arab states are well known for their corruption, Islamic terrorists also view these pro-West/US Arab governments and their corrupted rulers as enemies. In his sermons, Osama bin Laden states, “We still suffer from the injuries inflicted by the [new] Crusaders’ wars on the Islamic world in the last century and by the Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France, which divided the Muslim world into fragments and truncated limbs where [the new] Crusaders’ agents still rule.” [37] He adds, “The Bush-Blair agreement pretends that it wants to put an end to terrorism. However, it is no longer a secret even from the masses that it wants [in fact] to put an end to Islam. Nonetheless, the rulers of the region [i.e., the Middle East] emphasize in their notes and speeches their support for Bush in his war against terrorism, which is [in fact] a war on Islam and Muslims, in flagrant betrayal of both faith and Nation.”[38] As for bin Laden, “The rulers of the Arab states have betrayed Allah, the Prophet and the Nation.”[39]
The terrorist activity of Islamic radical groups has since the early 1980s been aimed primarily at the United States, within the context of the growing global conflict between social-political cultures: Islam and the Muslim world versus America as the leading expression of Western culture. This perception harmonized with the permanent conflict in the Middle East, since WWII gave Islamic radicals an excellent opportunity to expand further the theme of an eternal global rivalry between the main cultures of the world. [40]
Muslims increasingly see the West as an enemy, not necessarily for religious reasons but for socio-economic ones, as with “the growing hatred of the wealthy Western countries; the growing alienation of different factions of societies from one another; together with the burst of nationalistic disputes and open conflicts after the fall of the Soviet Union.”[41] All this has resulted in a sense of global cultural conflict between the U.S.—the principal leader of the West—and the Islamic world, a great part of the so-called Third World. This sense of conflict brought with it a growing “solidarity of the poor,” strengthened by religious ties. And this in turn gave rise to the feeling that an American or Western attack on any Muslim country or internal group constitutes an attack on the whole of the Muslim world. This solidarity is based also on the Islamist view that the unification of the Muslim world is the primary mission of Muslims in their time on Earth. A result of this cohesion is that governments under threat of internal terrorism on a religious basis join the general choir of condemnations of the West. [42]
In addition to the foreign enemies, Islamic radical groups also find their internal enemies. The Arab states in Middle East fall into three groups in terms of their different attitudes toward the West, especially the USA. Some of the Arab states are well known for their corruption. Islamists hope to reunite religion and political power in the Islamic world, dreaming of the revival of their past glory and removing their modern humiliations. They—whether ruled by the elementary doctrines[43] of the Muslim Brotherhood, or by the ideology developed by Sayyed Qutb, father of some of the modern Jihad groups—had long before started to seek the revival of the former Arab empire, the unification of the Muslim world as one nation, and the reclamation of Islamic glory.[44] In order to build up a monolithic state led by an Islamic party, Sayyid Qutb advocated using every violent means necessary.[45] Of the influential Islamist organizations, the Muslim Brotherhood led the road to Islamic terrorism.
Terrorist Activity
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928. It’s known as an Islamic revivalist movement following the collapse of the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the subsequent ban of the caliphate system of government that had united the Muslims for hundreds of years. Hasan Al-Banna, the founder of the Brotherhood, based the doctrines of the Brotherhood on the tenets of what is known today as “Islamism.” He held that Islam was not only a religious observance but also a comprehensive way of life. He insisted on supplementing the traditional Islamic education for the Society’s male students with jihadia training.[46]
The Brotherhood grew as a popular movement of religion, education and politics in 1930s, and started performing terrorist acts inside of Egypt. The Brotherhood blamed the Egyptian government for being inactive against “Zionists.” As a result, the Egyptian government banned the Brotherhood. After a Brother assassinated Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi, the Prime Minister of Egypt, in 1948, the Brotherhood was legalized again, though only as a religious organization.
However, the Brotherhood seemed not to care very much about its status and boundaries as a religious organization; its members actively participated in political affairs, insisting that Egypt be governed under Shari’a (Islamic law). Thus in 1954 again the Brotherhood was banned. A Brotherhood activist who attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Nasser was executed, along with five other Brothers. The Egyptian government also put some four thousand Brothers in jail. Under this circumstance, thousands of Brothers fled to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon, where consequently the spread of terrorist ideology was extremely accelerated.[47]
In 1964, the imprisoned Brothers were granted amnesty, but President Nasser’s policy was welcomed by three more assassination attempts conducted by the Brothers. Two years later, the top leaders of the Brotherhood were executed and many others were imprisoned. Anwar-as-Sadat, Nasser’s successor, promised the Brothers that the Egyptian government would implement Shari’a as the Egyptian law and released all the imprisoned Brothers. However, when Sadat signed the peace agreement with Israel in 1979, the Brothers lost their trust and assassinated Sadat in September 1981.[48]
During the Muslim Brothers’ seventy-plus years of existence, the organization captured 17 seats in the Egyptian Parliament, with members running as independents and holding important offices in professional organizations in Egypt. In spite of being officially banned for some time, it witnessed rapid development and division into violent jihad groups, like al-Jihad and al-Gama’at al-Islamiyya in Egypt, HAMAS in Palestine and mujahideen groups in Afghanistan. It is recognized that the “best” result of nearly 100 yeas of Islamic revivalism is the Taliban in Afghanistan.[49] Though the U.S. defeated Taliban and Al-Qaida without much difficulty, few believe that the social-cultural-psychological roots of Islamic terrorism have been eliminated. And this undoubtedly is a critical factor, up on which the prospect of anti-terrorism campaigns depends.
Can We Prevent Potential 9-11-like Attacks?
For the United States and its people, and even the whole world, there seems to be no other answers to this question: 9-11-like attacks must be prevented. One might say: He will remove terrorists by taking actions against terrorism, like the recent war in Afghanistan. However, even if we can capture or kill most (definitely not all) of the terrorists, this does not necessarily mean that we can eliminate terrorism. If the social, cultural and psychological root causes of terrorism still exist, new generations of terrorists will surely arise. Even if we can eliminate every known terrorist and terrorist cell, we probably cannot eliminate terrorism. It is now obvious that, while Islamic terrorists cannot defeat their powerful enemies like the U.S. on a regular military basis, probably they will continue their irregular hostile approach because they see it as a spiritual struggle.[50]
The causes of Islamic terrorism are complicated. This analysis is just an attempt to understand the general picture. Beginning with the mechanism of societal crisis and strategy, and the rise and fall of Islamic civilization, the analysis delineated the route to Islamic terrorism followed by some major Islamic terrorist organizations, at the end touching on the tricky problem of preventing 9-11-like Attacks. This examination is surely inadequate to explore fully the deep roots of Islamic terrorism. Understanding of Islamic terrorism could be broadened and deepened by considering many other fields, such as, Islamic Fundamentalism, globalization, and psychotic ethno-nationality. Hopefully, even this much of an account will be helpful for those interested in and concerned about the enduring conflicts and instability torturing the Arab Islamic world
