Islamic Philosophies on September 11,

¶ … Islamic Philosophies

On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda operatives carried out an attack on the United States which destroyed the Twin Towers in New York and heavily damaged the Pentagon. The organization behind these attacks, Al Qaeda, claimed that it acted in the interests of Islam, and in the past have declared a fatwa to all Muslims. But there are others who say that Al Qaeda's fatwa goes against traditional Muslim theology, and that Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization are in violation of Islamic law. Still others use traditional Islamic scholarship to give authority to the argument that Islam is more than simply a religion, it is a divinely-commanded way of life. These three points-of-view will be compared and contrasted in an attempt to shed some light on the subject.

The opening line of Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda group's fatwa states that the "killing of Americans and their allies - civilians and military - is an individual duty for every Muslim…" ("Al Qaeda In Its Own Words," 55) There is no doubt that Osama Bin Laden feels that Islamic tradition justifies attacks against those he names as "Americans and their allies." He also makes no distinction between military and civilians in his order to kill. Bin Laden states that the United States "has been occupying the most sacred of the Islamic lands…plundering its riches, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead with which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples." ("Al Qaeda," 55) This is his justification for launching a war of terror against the United States and its allies.

Another writer that seems to support, or at least justify, Bin Laden's attacks is Qutb, whose main point seems to be that Islamic societies have a duty to conquer the world and establish a world-wide Islamic society. Qutb states that Islamic communities have a "God given right to step forward and take control of the political authority so that it may establish the Divine system on earth…" (Qutb) In comparison to Osama Bin Laden, Qutb seems to be justifying the attacks of Al Qaeda as a means of taking control of the political authority of the Middle East. If Al Qaeda wants to establish an Islamic state, as the greatest obstacle to that goal, the United States needs to be removed from the equation. Al Qaeda sees America as occupying strategic Islamic holy sites, particularly the Arabian peninsula, and therefore attacking the United States is a means of liberating Arabia and establishing a strict Islamic state there, is justified. Al Qaeda's war seems to be the first part of Qutb's plan for spreading Islam around the globe.

Qutb also seems to be justifying Al Qaeda's means of using terrorism against civilians by scribing in detail the history of the Jihad. Of the history of the Jihad, Qutb describes Islam as being practical, using what resources "are in accordance with practical conditions." (Qutb) He also justifies whatever acts are necessary to remove any political or social organizations and authorities "which prevent people from reforming their ideas and beliefs…." (Qutb) Osama Bin Laden, who has stated that his goal is the expulsion of the Americans and their allies from the region of the Middle East, chose terrorism as the means by which he would do that because that was the only means he had available to him. Therefore, as the means at his disposal, terrorism would seem to be justified by Qutb, and is this point, the two would seem to agree.

But the third philosophy takes a much different point-of-view. Abdal-Hakim Murad, in his "Bin Laden's Violence is a Heresy Against Islam," generally makes the point that violence against civilians and innocents is not in accordance with Islamic scholarship or tradition. According to Murad, it was a 19th century Iranian reformer called "the Bab" who "ignored the accumulated discussion of the centuries and wrote a Koranic commentary based on his own direct understanding of scripture." (Murad) Over time, Murad asserts that this led to many Muslim groups ignoring Islamic tradition and making their own pronouncements on what the Koran means. One of these groups were the Wahhabi Muslims of Saudi Arabia, who traditionally have been considered "heretics" by mainstream Islamic scholars, but with the influx of oil money in the 1960's, began to export this extreme view of Islam around the world. Because of their seeming ability to decide the meaning of the Koran, Muslims who follow this type of theology can be aroused to anger by their perceptions of the actions of the Americans and their Allies and "read their own frustrations into the text." (Murad) It also allows them to ignore Islamic tradition and seize direct control of political power, become the government, not just guiding it.

When one compares the philosophies of Bin Laden and Qutb with Murad, they seem to be in complete disagreement. Murad maintains that it is traditional Islamic scholarship that should decide how to interpret the Koran, while both Bin Laden and Qutb interpret the Koran as they see fit. Qutb and Bin Laden represent the modern view of personal interpretation, while Murad remains with the traditional view that the scholars know best. Murad claimed that Al Qaeda's proclamations read more like a "list of Anti-American grievances," than a theological discussion. (Murad) And he may be correct, Bin Laden's statement "Urging Jihad against Jews and Christians" in fact does list a number of grievances against the United States. According to Murad, because Bin Laden and Qutb do not respect the wisdom of centuries of Islamic scholarship, they allow their personal grievances to seep into their theology, twisting it into a violent and ultimately un-Islamic way of life.