The Roots of Jihadism: An Intellectual Investigation of the Sources of Jihadist Ideology
By Tim Edge, International Affairs Staff Writer 

An ancient Greek legend describes the monstrous Hydra as a terrible beast with many poisonous heads capable of striking from long serpentine necks. The Greek hero Hercules had the unfortunate task of attacking the powerful Hydra as part of his many exploits. Each time the hero chopped off one of the beast’s many heads, two more grew back in its place, and as he hacked and slashed at the serpent, it only became stronger and more dangerous. Hercules realized that he would have to do something more to win the day. He grabbed a burning torch and every time he severed a head, he burned the stump of the neck so that the two new heads could not grow back. With this strategy, all of the Hydra’s heads were soon destroyed and the monster lay dead. Instead of continuing with his counterproductive efforts, Hercules cut to the very root of the problem and used a burning torch to defeat the beast at its core.

Like a modern-day Hydra raising its head from the sands of the Middle East, a new phenomenon called Jihadist terrorism now poses a dangerous threat to global peace and prosperity in the Twenty-First Century. This new type of terrorism has emerged in a specifically Muslim context, but bears much in common with fanatical movements that have arisen in Western Europe. A small number of radicalized Muslims scattered throughout many nations have acted on the Jihadist ideology, which advocates the use of indiscriminant violence in a military jihad against the forces of moral corruption perceived to be destroying Islam both at home and abroad. The legitimization of this violence has enabled Jihadists to perpetrate horrific acts of terror in places as diverse as Spain, the US, Great Britain, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Indonesia, and Kenya. The Jihadist group par excellence is, of course, Al-Qaeda, which has united many diverse factions under its banner of radical anti-Western jihad. This amalgam of terrorists forms a modern-day Hydra, whose many heads have attacked US interests on hundreds of different occasions.

Like Hercules slashing at the numerous heads of the beast, military and police actions around the globe have destroyed cell after cell of terrorist operatives. Yet for each terrorist killed or captured, it seems as if two more spring up in his place. These new terrorists may not even take orders from the original Al-Qaeda, whose leadership has been largely decimated, but they do spring from the same ideological source, the worldwide Jihadist vision. Many counterterrorism efforts may have actually increased the number of terrorist threats by creating a certain degree of sympathy for terrorists in Muslim countries. These failures are a result of the failure of the American government and other opponents of Jihadist terrorism to combat this ideology at its core. The philosophical sources of Jihadism have gone largely unexplained and untargeted in the global struggle against terrorism.

As Robert O’Brien briefly discusses in his article, “Beyond the Military: Effective Tactics in the War on Terror,” there are many considerations to take into account when dealing with terrorist violence. Some experts place heavy emphasis on the social and situational factors that contribute to the growth of terrorism. This line of thinking analyzes the material environments—the convenient modes of transportation, the facility of communication, the availability of weapons, and the lack of security—which enable terrorist groups to operate. [1] Other analysts only consider the economic situation of a country when examining terrorist phenomena. Some blame a sense of relative deprivation for the growth of marginalization, global instability and violence. [2] While there are varied theories as to why certain men use indiscriminant violence to pursue their goals, very few bring a philosophical outlook to their analysis. Instead of addressing terrorism in the light of its ideological roots, most scholars of terrorism focus on its more tangible aspects: the structure of terrorist organization and the psychology of individual members. Perhaps it is this myopic focus on the minutia of terrorist groups that has made so many counterterrorism campaigns so counterproductive.

Policymakers and public figures have relied on simplistic catchphrases like “they hate our freedoms” to explain why some Muslims have undertaken a violent campaign against ‘Western’ targets across the globe. [3] This oversimplification may work as political rhetoric, but as a basis for an intellectual understanding of Jihadism, it will simply not suffice. To break the cycle of creating two new terrorists every time one is defeated, analysts need to re-focus their attention on the larger context of terrorist violence. To adequately respond to the Jihadist threat, policymakers and leaders should learn all they can about the historical perspectives and philosophical influences that have produced such a violent and dangerous phenomenon. Only by understanding the ideas and philosophies that contribute to the growth and renewal of Jihadist ideology can this phenomenon be defeated. In response to this need, this article will examine the intellectual context and sources which have contributed to the rise of the Jihadism. To shed some new light on the subject, this essay will discuss the Islamic context from which Jihadists have ostensibly emerged, while also exploring the role of modernity and capitalist society as sources of Jihadist violence. While far from all-encompassing, this article will hopefully highlight some of the more important factors to consider when searching for ways to combat the Hydra of Jihadism at its innermost core.

The cleverest and most dangerous subversion is not the one that betrays itself by too obvious singularities easily noticed by anyone, but it is the one that deforms the meaning of symbols or reverses their import while making no change in their outward appearance. [4]

René Guénon, The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, 1945

When trying to uncover the roots of Jihadist ideology, the best place to begin is with the meaning of the word jihad itself. The semantic origin of jihad is found in the Arabic root jhd, whose primary meaning is ‘to strive’ or ‘to exert oneself.’ [5] While the word has primarily been translated as “holy war” in European languages, the Islamic understanding of the word is much more complex. At its most essential, Muslims understand jihad to mean “exerting oneself for the sake of God.” The manifestations of this holy exertion can range from charitable efforts on behalf of the poor to ignoring distractions during prayers to physically fighting against injustice. There are even traditional Islamic anecdotes that declare the ‘jihad of women’ to be the making of the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca or the labor pains of childbirth. [6] In this sense of the word, jihad has “a wide application to nearly every aspect of human life” as understood by traditional Islam. [7] This phrase, “traditional Islam,” basically means the religious worldview embodied in the many collections of religious writings and scholarly commentaries that form the intellectual heritage of Islamic civilization. The collections are built upon the customs (sunnah) and sayings (hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad as well as the warnings and injunctions of the Shari’ah and the Qur’an itself. The total religious system described and created by these textual sources, coupled with what is left of the Islamic oral tradition, forms an enormous intellectual universe that can be known as traditional Islam.

It is from within this body of traditional knowledge that one must begin to examine the meaning of jihad and its relation with Jihadism. Drawing on these sources, one can distinguish two complementary understandings of the word. As with most spiritual concepts in Islam, “the term ‘jihad’ has been understood to possess two poles: an outward pole and an inward pole.” [8] While the word jihad can apply to any pious effort, there is a definite hierarchy of importance in jihad’s many traditional meanings. The clearest explanation of this hierarchy of importance is found in a hadith of the Prophet Mohammed. This anecdote relates that, one day during the early years of the Islamic community, the Prophet of Islam was returning from a battle in defense of the first Muslim city, Medina, and spoke to his companions the following words: “We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.” [9] With this statement, the Prophet clearly delineated the lesser importance of the violent jihad of the sword in relation to the peaceful jihad of the soul. Drawing on this hadith, traditional Islamic thinkers strongly emphasized the importance of the greater jihad against one’s own “passionate, carnal soul that constantly seeks its own self-satisfaction above all else, being forgetful of God.” [10]

Given this traditional inner meaning of jihad, it appears that the Jihadist mindset has actually reversed the Prophetic hadith and now strongly promotes the violent meaning of jihad, instead of focusing on the struggle against one’s own passionate soul. The best example of this reversal of meaning is found in the writings of Hasan Al-Banna—the founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood—whose organization emphasized the necessity of physical jihad and helped lay the groundwork for the development of current Jihadist ideology. In one of his discussions of the above hadith, Hasan al-Banna cast aspersions on the authenticity of the anecdote and argued that even if it were true, it “would never warrant abandoning jihad” or ceasing to prepare for it. He strongly emphasized the importance of physical jihad and especially highlighted its martial aspect. He wrote, “Nothing in [other forms of struggle] confers on their advocate the supreme martyrdom and the reward of the strivers in jihad, unless he slays or is slain in the way of God.” [11]

Through speeches and writings like this, al-Banna promoted his inverted meaning of jihad to millions of Muslims struggling to cope with the economic and social problems of pre-revolutionary Egypt. Between 1929 and 1949, al-Banna built a powerful social and political organization based on the premise that “jihad is a religious duty obligatory of every Muslim.” [12] Instead of advocating just any type of exertion for the sake of God, al-Banna limited the meaning of this exertion to one specific aspect: the pursuit of the lesser, militant jihad. Through the propaganda work of al-Banna’s Muslim Brothers throughout the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of Muslims lost sight of the spiritual component of the greater jihad, and instead began to glorify the militant jihad. From this seed planted by Hasan al-Banna in the fertile ground of decolonizing Muslim countries, the weed of an ideology based on militant jihad began to grow.

The Legitimization of Violence

Why is this inversion of the meaning of jihad so significant? Although jihad was ideally intended to be against one’s own imperfect ego, a military jihad was fought in early years of Islam, so why is it a surprise that Muslims in modern times have begun a military jihad as well? These questions bring the discussion to a second aspect of the Islamic context of jihad. While the Prophet Mohammed did undertake a military jihad and violence did play a real role in the early Islamic community, there is a qualitative difference between the way in which this historical violence was justified and the way in which modern Jihadist violence has been legitimized. The early Muslims justified their violence under certain circumstances by following specific limitations; modern Jihadists accept no limitations and legitimize their violence through hatred and revenge.

Throughout the history of Islamic civilization, Muslims who used violent force tried to adhere to the norms and regulations developed by both the Prophet Muhammad and the early Islamic community (ummah) in the years following the Prophet’s death in 632 C.E. Muslims continue to see the collections of hadith and commentaries originating from this period of the first four “righteous” caliphs (khalifa) as some of the purest explanations of their religion. In these sources, a violent jihad can only be legitimate and just if it conforms to certain qualifications and explicit limitations. The first qualification of a violent jihad comes directly from the Qur’an:

Fight in the way of God against those who fight you, but transgress not the limits. Truly, God does not love the transgressors [of limits].
And slay them wheresoever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. 2:190-191 [13]

According to the American Muslim scholar, David Dakake, early commentators, such as Al-Tabari (225-310 A.H./839-923 C.E.), believed that this verse was “not to be read as a carte blanche to attack any and all non-Muslim peoples.” While Jihadist terrorists today consider the indiscriminant killing of Jews and Christians to be legitimate, Al-Tabari believed that the verse was revealed “specifically in relation to fighting the idolaters of Makka,” and did not “pertain to either Jews or Christians.” Because Christians and Jews were “People of the Book” (ahl al-kitab), they had protected status in the Islamic community. While the Qur’an and traditional commentaries did support a violent jihad against unbelievers (kafirun), Jews and Christians did not automatically fall into this category because they had their own laws and their own belief systems. Dakake writes that, in traditional sources, the command to fight the kafirun ‘by the sword’ applied only to some among the Jews and Christians and not to these communities as a whole. [14] Thus, the indiscriminate attacks on Jews or Christians by Jihadists clearly transgress the traditional Islamic limits set on the violent jihad.

        Besides the injunctions against killing Jews and Christians, traditional sources like Al-Tabari place even wider limitations on the military tactics and targets of the mujahidun [those who conduct jihad]. One account dating back to the first generation of Muslims places clear restrictions on the targets of jihad:

Do not kill women, or children, or the old, or the one who greets you with peace, or [the one who] restrains his hand [from hurting you], and if you do this you have transgressed.

This list of traditional non-combatants shows that a total war using indiscriminant attacks and anonymous violence cannot be considered a legitimate jihad. Al-Tabari reinforces the authenticity of these limitations by citing another early commentator, the Ummayyad Caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz or ‘Umar II (99/717-101/720 C.E.). This early Islamic leader explained the limits mentioned in verse 2:190 as: “…do not fight he who does not fight you, that is to say women, children, and monks.” [15] Even outside of Al-Tabari’s collection, these same limits are still accepted as the only legitimate expression of jihad. According to the writings of Ibn Kathir (d. 774 A.H./1372 C.E.), the famous Qur’an commentator and theologian Hasan al-Basri (d. 107 A.H./ 728 C.E.) commented that “the acts which transgress the limits of war are:

…mutilation (muthla), [imposing] thirst (ghulul), the killing of women (nisa’), children (sibyan), and the old (shuyukh)—the ones who have no judgment for themselves (la ra’y lahum), and no fighters are among them, [the killing of] monks and hermits (ashab al-sawami’), the burning of trees, and the killing of animals for other than the welfare [of eating]. [16]

Clearly, even if a Muslim fights a military jihad against enemies of Islam, he still must not transgress the clearly defined limits. The use of indiscriminate violence against any and all targets directly contradicts the traditional tenets of Islamic violence, as witnessed by these early commentators on the Qur’an. Attacks in the middle of crowded streets, on public buses, or on skyscrapers, are clearly “transgressions” in the classical sense of the word and would be abhorred by the earliest generations of Muslims.

How then do Jihadist terrorists claim to represent Islam, if their actions so clearly contradict the limitations placed on them by the early Islamic sources? A few religious authorities and many unqualified Muslims have taken it upon themselves to twist Islamic teachings to allow for modern terrorist techniques like suicide bombing and the targeting of non-combatants. Certain religious leaders like Sheikh Muhammad Sayyad Tantawi, head of the influential Al-Azhar Islamic University in Cairo, Egypt, have made statements in favor of suicide attacks. While Sheikh Tantawi observed that Islamic injunctions do not approve the killing of children, old people, and other specified non-combatants, he did observe that those conducting suicide operations are “in a state of legitimate self-defense against those who attack them and do not show mercy to old people, children, or women.” [17] Instead of justifying suicide bombing based on traditions stemming from the Prophet, Sheikh Tantawi’s approach is that of ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ His reasoning appears to be an emotional response to the inhumanity of certain actions perpetrated by the Israeli government rather than a spiritual legitimization of suicide bombing. The vindictive attitude revealed by this ruling of Tantawi shows how alienation and inhuman treatment can cause the Islamic tradition to be distorted in subtle ways. Muslim leaders like Tantawi have legitimized horrific violence in response to the political and social stresses that have rocked the Muslim world in modern times. It is hard to see how these rationalizations of Jihadist violence can be truly Islamic when early writers like Ibn Kathir point out that “acts of brutality committed against Muslims are not an excuse for Muslims to respond in kind.” [18]

The obvious contrasts between modern Jihadist attacks and the Islamic limitations on jihad described above illustrate just how far Jihadism lies outside the scope of traditional Islam. The inversion of jihad’s traditional meaning by ideologues like Hasan al-Banna under the guise of religious rhetoric has subtly changed many Muslims’ understanding and acceptance of violence. While one cannot presume to judge the ultimate “Islamic-ness” of Jihadist ideology, the words of Islam’s early thinkers seem to speak for themselves. In the eyes of these early Muslims, the Jihadist terrorism being conducted around the world would seem utterly alien to the true Islamic tradition.

To apply the words of the philosopher René Guénon to the present topic, the Jihadist ideology may be the cleverest and most dangerous subversion ever seen by traditional Islam. Ideologues have given new meanings to ancient words, while pretending that these inversions derive from the Islamic faith. This new Hydra of Jihadism is far more complex and dangerous than a group of religious fanatics who “hate our freedoms.” It symbolizes the widespread acceptance of subversion and the rampant growth of uncertainty in one of the most powerful religious traditions the world has ever seen.

In light of this monstrous subversion, one must ask where it came from. How did such violent waywardness appear in such a strong, deeply-rooted tradition? The answer to this question comes not from the Middle East, but from forces found in the West itself. To gain a better idea of how the Jihadist mentality has departed from the Islamic tradition, one needs to examine certain traits that emanate from what has been called the ‘Western’ or ‘modern’ civilization. Specifically, one needs to look at the interplay of economic capitalism, social instability, and psychological alienation in Muslim societies around the globe.

Western Influences on the Jihadist Ideology

They’re the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the twentieth century… by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism, and totalitarianism. [19]

President George W. Bush, Address to Congress, September 20^th, 2001

As President Bush rightfully acknowledged in the weeks after September 11^th, the Hydra of Jihadism shares more in common with the radical ideologies of early twentieth-century Western Europe than the more moderate worldview of traditional Islam. Like Fascism and Communism, Jihadism acts as both a product and a critique of the social stresses inherent in ‘modern’ civilization. The sense of psychological alienation and social instability associated with the capitalist mode of production caused the fascist and communist totalitarian movements that tried to re-establish some form of secure, comfortable social order. This same feeling of alienation and instability fuels the growth of Jihadism today. The ongoing conquest of Muslim economies by the capitalist mode of production indicates the more subtle penetration of Muslim society by tides of social disruption, personal objectification, and psychological alienation.

The social disruptions caused by the capitalist system created the foundation of the desperate Jihadist mindset. The growth of capitalism began on the European continent but its development followed a similar course in the Muslim world, albeit many years later. This pattern of growth, as the noted social theorist Max Weber pointed out in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, indicated the triumph of profit-driven economics over the ancient spirit of economic traditionalism. Weber defined “economic traditionalism” as the behavior in which “a person does not ‘by nature’ want to make more and more money, but simply live—to live in the manner in which he is accustomed to live, and to earn as much as is necessary for this.” [20] He suggested that wherever capitalism began to increase human productivity by intensifying labor, it ran into age-old principles of economic traditionalism that resisted efforts to increase human output beyond traditional norms. Prior to the complete triumph of the spirit of capitalism on the European continent, Weber pointed out that the textile industry, while it adhered to a nominally “capitalist” form of organization, was still a “traditionalist economy if one looks at the spirit.” [21] In this industry, “relations between competitors were amicable, and there was a large measure of agreement on the ‘principles of business.’” [22] Workmen did not slave away at machines to produce an over-abundance of goods, but rather contented themselves with manufacturing what was necessary and no more. This system valued the quality of life over the shortsighted pursuit of wealth. A web of professional relationships built on mutual respect, principled negotiation, and a spirit of moderation characterized this traditional economy.

The traditional guild system formed the bedrock of “economic traditionalism.” The guilds set the tempo for economic production and organized different economic sectors into coherent units that could provide for the material needs of both buyers and sellers. Economic integration was achieved through a strict hierarchy of novices, journeymen, and masters who worked together to produce the products unique to their guild. The protected ‘monopolies’ of the guilds insured that each member could make a day’s living and provide his family with reasonable security for the future. As the renowned social psychologist Erich Fromm observed: “Although there were always some who had to struggle hard to earn enough to survive, by and large the guild member could be sure that he could live by his hand’s work.” [23] The economic historian Karl Polanyi supports this understanding of the guild system: “it is the absence of the threat of individual starvation which makes primitive society, in a sense, more humane than market economy, and at the same time less economic.” [24] Because of the relative rigidity of the traditional economy, most members were assured not to starve, but were also guaranteed not to rise above their allotted ‘station.’ The lack of a market economy enabled pre-capitalist society to enjoy a fair degree of economic equilibrium and social balance.

In the Muslim world, the pre-capitalist economic system endured for many more centuries than it did in Western Europe. In the Ottoman Empire, which survived until 1922, “practically all crafts, trades, professions, and services were organized into guilds, each with its own rules, duties and character.” [25] While Muslim merchants from Anatolia, Arabia, or Persia may have accumulated large amounts of capital through their transcontinental trade, their professional interaction was characterized by the same communal spirit and amicability that Weber had noticed among the textile manufacturers of Europe. In fact, the bonds among guilds, merchants, individuals and communities in the Islamic context were much stronger than any to be found in Europe during Weber’s era. The Arab scholar Yusuf Ibish provides an insightful description of the strengths and functions of the Islamic guilds, known as hiraf:

These hiraf were the social cement that functionally tied together individuals, whilst also acting as the leaven by which spiritual influence entered and uplifted the entire community. However much the winds of political influence and fortune changed, the basic social fabric was so tightly woven—not just by the hiraf but also by the Shari‘a and the Sufi orders, elements which interacted harmoniously, and mutually strengthened one another—that society as a whole was little affected. [26]

Economic activity was regulated by the Islamic pattern of life in such a way that each man knew his place in society and felt connected to the larger community. The basic needs of men were provided for and social security was guaranteed through the action of traditional Islamic guilds. The ordinary artisan, upon being received into a guild, felt a real connection with the rest of his community through the hierarchy of authority that radiated down from the caliph through the guild structures.

While the stable traditional economy of Europe collapsed in the sixteenth century, in some Muslim countries, the Islamic guild system and all that it entailed lasted almost four hundred years longer. [27] Yusuf Ibish was able to observe for himself “what remained of [the] guilds in Damascus” as a “young man in the inter-war years.” [28] The debasement of this “economic traditionalism” by the spirit of capitalism—and its attendant social problems—only began to produce visible strains in some Muslim societies towards the middle of the Twentieth Century. After World War II, the victorious Western powers reorganized the map of the Middle East and started building national economies according to the capitalist model. This action destroyed the last remnants of the guild system which the colonial experience had gradually weakened. The gradual triumph of the profit-driven mentality in the Muslim world caused, in the memorable words of Karl Marx, “all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations” to be “pitilessly torn asunder.” [29] While the Marxist analysis of capitalism may over-exaggerate the speed and violence with which traditionalism was overtaken, Marx was still correct in his criticism of the many social consequences of the new capitalist system. Among a modernized portion of Muslim society, the growth of the capitalist mindset “left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment.’” [30] The infamous bourgeoisie began to tear away from the family “its sentimental veil” and to “reduce the family relation to a mere money relation.” The “halo” of “every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe” was destroyed by the introduction of the profit motive. [31] Instead of the amicable business relations that had characterized the traditional economic system, this new capitalism promoted fierce competition and cold manipulation of both men and materials in the name of profit.

One important product of the spread of the capitalist spirit to Muslim countries was the increase of social instability. The newly introduced system depended on the “constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, [and] everlasting uncertainty and agitation.” [32] Instead of ancient Islamic patterns of production that maintained social stability and provided traditional man with a sense of belonging, the new capitalist society encouraged the development of a new type of individual whose business relationships, to twist the words of Thomas Hobbes, were nasty, brutish and short—“His was the chance of success, his was the risk to lose and to be one of those killed or wounded in the fierce economic battle in which each one fought against everybody else.” [33] Substantial sections of the Muslim populace experienced social upheaval during the initiation of this economic battle at the end of the colonial era. Immigration to cities and the stresses of urban labor helped remove traditional man from his normal social security net and alienate him from the rest of his fellow men. Muslim society, like Christian European society before it, experienced the rise of the “cynical detached attitude” which derived from psychological alienation on a fundamental level. In this new social mindset:

Other individuals were looked upon as ‘objects’ to be used and manipulated, or they were ruthlessly destroyed if it suited one’s own ends. The individual was absorbed by a passionate egocentricity, an insatiable greed for power and wealth. [34]

A process that can be called ‘objectification’ began to change the way in which different people related to each other. Buyers and sellers, leaders and followers, even family members, became objects of manipulation to one other. Instead of communal ties based on membership in a religious community, an economic guild-system, or an extended family group, these new economic individuals were “no longer bound by a fixed social system, based on tradition and with a comparatively small margin for personal advancement beyond the traditional limit.” [35]

For the past century, Muslims from many different regions have experienced the dislocation, ‘objectification,’ and alienation that result from the modern system embodied in the capitalist mode of production. The wild success of this economic system in material accumulation has caused many Muslims to move to Western countries seeking material gain. Others have traveled to Europe and the United States in hopes of learning the secrets of the Western system, only to be ultimately repulsed by the stark individualism and cold economic manipulation of the modern social system. Since one of the main sources of the West’s power is the “recognition that all of life is not governed by a single, all-knowing and all-powerful authority—by a divine force,” many Muslims find Western society inherently atheistic and irreligious. [36] Because the Western system has destroyed the traditional structures of social stability and Muslims are experiencing increasing levels of alienation from themselves and others, it comes as little surprise that a radical, totalitarian ideology like Jihadism would arise and flourish.

Well-known Jihadists like Seyyid Qutb, Osama bin Ladin, and many of his “suicide warriors,” were all “flecks of foam on the giant wave of immigration to the modern West” in recent years. [37] They lived, worked, and learned in the West, “spending years of their lives inhabiting two universes at the same time—the here-and-now of their Western and modern reality, and the faraway cosmos of their remembered homelands.” [38] These men experienced that “cynical detached attitude” associated with capitalist society while at the same time inventing an illusionary memory of the ‘golden age’ of Islam. Osama bin Ladin and his compatriots had been dislocated from the ordinary social constraints passed down from the time of the Prophet and instead were thrown into a passionate, profit-seeking world that provided no moral guidance or social security whatsoever. It must be admitted that the capitalist system provided some of them with stunning success in material accumulation—bin Ladin himself became fantastically rich. Although, and perhaps because, these dislocated men experienced the great prosperity and freedom of modern society, they did not decide to embrace it. In the words of Erich Fromm:

Freedom, though it has brought [them] independence and rationality, has made [them] isolated and, thereby, anxious and powerless. The isolation is unbearable and the alternatives [they are] confronted with are either to escape from the burden of this freedom into new dependencies and submission, or to advance to the full realization of positive freedom which is based upon the uniqueness and individuality of man. [39]

Osama bin Ladin and his colleagues did not find a way to “advance to the full realization of positive freedom” but rather tried to return to the old sense of security found in the original message of Islam. However, because of the degree of alienation and dislocation they had experienced, they created an entirely new totalitarian movement far removed from the original spiritual submission found in Islam. To counteract the dissolution and confusion of modern society, these new Jihadists preached a physical kind of ‘submission,’ one that appears to be Islamic but is in fact totalitarian. Just like the Communists in Russia, the Jihadists acted on the a model developed by the radical intellectual Seyyid Qutb and gathered themselves into a ‘vanguard’ of true believers who would undertake a physical jihad against the forces of corruption. [40] This vanguard believed it was following in the footsteps of Muhammad, but their actions did not conform to the traditional limitations placed on jihad. In an attempt to address the alienation and instability inherent in the modern profit-driven mentality, the Jihadists, proclaimed that “Islam was a religion for all mankind, and must sooner or later be accepted by all mankind.” [41] This new version of the Islamic faith seemed “parochial rather than cosmopolitan, angry rather than loving, proselytizing rather than ecumenical, zealous rather than rationalist, sectarian rather than deistic, ethnocentric rather than universalizing.” [42] At its core, it was a desperate and emotional response to modern stimuli, rather than an atavistic holdover from the glory days of traditional Islam.

Instead of adhering to the guidelines set by the Islamic tradition, this elite vanguard believed that the justice of their jihad transcended any limitations. They rejected the intellectual universe of Islam and denied the validity of every early commentary that disagreed with their violent jihad. They reduced the Islamic faith to a set of impossibly strict laws and a literal understanding of the Qur’an. The father of Jihadism, Seyyid Qutb, went so far as to promote the belief that even mainstream Muslim society was irredeemably impure and un-Islamic. He called this society jahiliyya, in reference to the corrupt social system of pre-Islamic Arabia criticized in the Qur’an. In this regard, Qutb wrote,

Our whole environment, people’s beliefs and ideas, habits and art, rules and laws is jahiliyya, even to the extent that what we consider to be Islamic culture, Islamic sources, Islamic philosophy, and Islamic thought are also constructs of jahiliyya!

Qutb’s concept of jahiliyya society was very singular, even in comparison to other Islamic activists. He advocated a complete break with all traditional authorities and a rejection of all facets of modern Muslim society, even those that still conformed outwardly to the model of the Prophet. His position was contrary to the position adopted by most Islamist activists—even those who remained part of Hasan al-Banna’s Muslim Brotherhood. Most Muslim reformers maintained that there could be no breaking with a society which was, however imperfectly, Islamic, and that believers should preach within it for the true establishment of Islam. [43] But Qutb rejected these limitations and preached an all-out separation from the jahiliyya society. Through his words, Qutb endowed Jihadists with an absolutist vision that placed the Jihadist cause on a pedestal of justice far above the inconvenient limitations of tradition. The burning disdain for their fellow humans, both Muslims and non-Muslims, exhibited by Jihadists was a result of the ‘objectification’ and alienation that they had experienced as laborers and intellectuals in modern society.

This fanatic vanguard then undertook a monstrously violent jihad to bring their twisted message of ‘submission’ to the ordinary people of both the Western and the Muslim world. Ignoring the traditional sense of jihad, the Jihadists undertook a total war embodied by the words of Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Ladin’s ideological instructor: “Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences, no dialogues.” [44] Following this line of thinking, bin Ladin announced to the Western world, “So as you kill, you shall be killed, and as you bomb, you shall be bombed.” [45] He funded suicide bombing and indiscriminant violence with a heartless dedication derived from the “cynical detached attitude” of modern society. With intricate plans and blind ‘submission’ to the will of God (as interpreted by bin Ladin and other leaders), the Jihadists became ‘objects’ to be used and manipulated by themselves and others. They were ruthlessly destroyed if it suited the needs of the ideology, while being promised security, prosperity, and exoneration in the hereafter. Bin Ladin may have clothed his rhetoric in the colors of Islam, but his actions reveal his ideology to be a mirror of the modern mentality that he was fighting. The power of their religious rhetoric allowed the Jihadists to spread rapidly, since the alienated and dislocated Muslim masses were crying out for spiritual reintegration and traditional security. However, like the most dangerous subversions, Jihadism provided neither of these things. Not many in the Muslim world exerted enough effort to think clearly about the nature of Jihadism because its opponents were quickly labeled “irreligious.” [46] Jihadism’s subsequent products, however, have revealed it to be a totalitarian ideology, inhospitable to true intellectuality and deeply rooted in the social crisis caused by the capitalist system. This intimate relation with modernity is explained by the fact that “an amazing number of the Arab and Muslim terrorists do turn out to have second and even primary identities as Westerners.” [47] The social upheavals and philosophical attitudes characteristic of Western society subtly influenced the Jihadist terrorists while they were in the West and led them to create the Hydra of Jihadism facing the world today.

Because no serious international effort has been made to counter its ideology, the robust Islamist milieu continues to provide recruits and financial support for Islamist terrorists. In crude terms, the rate of production of Islamists prepared to turn to terrorism is greater than that at which they are being killed or captured. [48]

Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al-Qaeda, 2002

The roots of Jihadism, therefore, cannot be traced to traditional Islam, but rather to the deep-seated psychological crises associated with modern civilization. The dark side of modern society—especially its tendency to produce individual isolation, social insecurity, and callous ‘objectification’—has directly contributed to the creation of the Jihadist ideology. Without capitalism’s disruptive influence on the economic traditionalism of the Muslim world, a desperate mentality like that of Jihadism would not have come into being. Popular opinion in the United States may believe that an alien culture produced the terrorists of September 11^th, but in reality, the Jihadist ideology has roots in the very same Western culture that Americans hold so dear.

Jihadist terrorism is actually more symptomatic of the subversion of civilization rather than a sign of the infamous ‘clash of civilizations.’ The old social patterns that flourished under the pre-capitalist guild system have been largely destroyed in Muslim societies, allowing extremists like Osama bin Ladin to subvert traditional symbols and spread their dangerous ideology. The Islamic intellectual tradition, although far from dead, has perhaps been weakened to the point where it cannot defeat the spread of Jihadist ideology by itself. There is a danger that Islam will begin to succumb to waves of reaction and counter-reaction the way Christianity did in the face of the modern capitalist mentality. Regardless, the United States and other targets of terrorist violence will not stand by and wait for Muslims to sort out the Jihadists on their own. While the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent occupation may have dulled the American public’s appetite for direct military action in the Muslim world, a substantial portion of the country that still believes military force to be a useful tool in the War on Terror.

However, as the researcher Rohan Gunaratna observed, the international effort to defeat terrorism has simply focused on killing or capturing the terrorists, without countering the spread of their ideology. The United States needs to realize that when military or police force is used—especially in Muslim countries—for every terrorist that is neutralized, many more join the Jihadist ranks. Force-based counterterrorism efforts have been hacking at the many heads of the Hydra for five years now, without defeating it at its ideological core. Jihadism will continue to attract followers and renew its strength as long as the underlying social issues that drive it continue to exist.

Jihadist violence obviously contradicts the limitations placed on jihad by early Islamic sources, so a reinvigorated Islamic education system that incorporated the totality of traditional knowledge might be one method by which to curtail the growth of this ideology. Instead of allowing a few countries to promote a form of Islamic education that has a myopic vision and ideological bent, world leaders should support the revival of the Islamic intellectual tradition that has existed continuously from the founding of the first Islamic community to the present day. Despite the prevalence of non-traditional forces in the Muslim world, the spread of traditional Islamic knowledge will provide the proper antidote to the radicalism and subversion that have appeared in certain sectors of Muslim society.

As the social commentator Eric Hoffer wrote, “the discontent generated in backward countries by their contact with Western civilization is… the result of a crumbling or weakening of tribal solidarity and communal life.” [49] Violent terrorism has developed in Muslim countries because modern forces have undermined the cohesion of traditional society. Efforts to combat Jihadism should not seek to exacerbate social problems like alienation and insecurity because these influences lead directly to the destruction of cohesion and the growth of Jihadism. What Western countries might see as help—spreading individual autonomy and promoting capitalism—can actually translate into more individualism, more alienation, and more insecurity in the countries they are trying to serve. Calls by some public figures for the aggressive ‘modernization’ of Islamic society may find that their efforts will produce more harm than good. If the unity of the Islamic world continues to be weakened, Jihadist violence will continue to spread. Future counterterrorism campaigns should find ways to promote social cohesion, economic stability, and political integration so that potential adherents of the Jihadist ideology do not find it appealing. If the United States really wants to bring prosperity and freedom to Muslim countries, then it must find a way to combat social alienation and encourage communal cohesion.

Whether the traditional restraints that prevented this sort of violence can be re-imposed remains to be seen. In light of larger trends throughout the world, this effort may be futile. However, identifying and supporting the real tradition while rejecting the false subversion is in the interest of both the Western and the Muslim worlds. Ironically, the world’s greatest weapon against the menace of Jihadism may lie within the Islamic tradition itself. It is only by re-kindling the light of Truth that the reign of darkness can be destroyed.

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[1] Rex Hudson, Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why: The 1999 Government Report on Profiling Terrorists (Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 1999), 24.

[2] John Rapley, Globalization and Inequality: Neoliberalism’s Downward Spiral (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 2, 137.

[3] George W. Bush, “Address to a Joint Session of Congress, September 20, 2001,” in Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East: A Documentary Reader, eds. Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 323.

[4] René Guénon, The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, translated by Lord Northbourne, 4th, rev. Ed. (Ghent, NY: Sophia Perennis, 2001), 206.

[5] Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Traditional Islam in the Modern World (London: KPI Limited, 1987) 28.

[6] David Dakake, “The Myth of a Militant Islam,” in Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition: Essays by Western Muslim Scholars, ed. Joseph Lumbard (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, Inc., 2004), note 1, pg. 30.

[7] Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Traditional Islam in the Modern World, 28.

[8] David Dakake, “The Myth of a Militant Islam,” 3.

[9] Ibid., citing Aljuni, Kashf al-Khafa, (Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 1968), hadith n. 1362

[10] Ibid., 3.

[11] Hasan Al-Banna, Five Tracts of Hasan Al-Banna (1906-1949), translated by Charles Wendell (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), 155.

[12] Ibid., 133.

[13] David Dakake, “The Myth of a Militant Islam,” 9.

[14] David Dakake, “The Myth of a Militant Islam,” 13.

[15] Ibid., 10.

[16] Ibid., 25-26.

[17] Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, “Suicide Operations Are Legitimate Defense (April 8, 1997),” in Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East: A Documentary Reader, eds. Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin. Oxford: (Oxford University Press, 2002), 36.

[18] David Dakake, “The Myth of a Militant Islam,” 26.

[19] George W. Bush, “Address to a Joint Session of Congress, September 20, 2001,” 323.

[20] Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism and Other Writings, eds. and trans. Peter Baehr and Gordon C. Wells, (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2002), 16.

[21] Ibid., 20.

[22] Ibid., 21.

[23] Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961), 52.

[24] Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), 172.

[25] Yusuf Ibish, “Traditional Guilds in the Ottoman Empire” in “Turkey—The Pendulum Swings Back” (Islamic World Report, 1988), 2.

[26] Ibid., 3.

[27] For approximate date of collapse of Western traditional economy, see Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 55.

[28] Yusuf Ibish, “Traditional Guilds in the Ottoman Empire,” 8.

[29] Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, ed. Frederic L. Bender. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1988), 195.

[30] Ibid., 57.

[31] Ibid., 58.

[32] Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, ed. Frederic L. Bender, 58.

[33] Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961), 106.

[34] Ibid., 46-48

[35] Ibid., viii

[36] Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004), 37.

[37] Ibid., 18.

[38] Ibid., 19.

[39] Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961), viii

[40] Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, 93.

[41] Ibid., 93.

[42] Benjamin R. Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld,” in Globalization and the Challenges of a New Century, eds. Patrick O’Meara, Howard D. Mehlinger, and Matthew Krain (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000), 31.

[43] Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World, trans. Alan Braley, (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 20.

[44] Abdullah bin Umar, “Abdullah Azzam, the Struggling Sheikh (July 1996),” in Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East: A Documentary Reader, eds. Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 63.

[45] Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, (New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group, 2003), xlix, from a full translation of the audio communiqué by Osama bin Laden, broadcast by Al Jazeera on November 12, 2002.

[46] Fouad Zakariyya, Myth and Reality in the Contemporary Islamist Movement, trans. Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi’, (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Pluto Press, 2005), 24.

[47] Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004), 21.

[48] Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, (New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group, 2003), xlii

[49] Erich Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1951), 39.