Talk to the young Muslims wearing jeans and New York Yankees T-shirts and you will discover that many of them admire Osama bin Laden. They regard bin Laden in much the same way that an American teenager might regard a Hollywood celebrity or rock star. Nor is this enthusiasm restricted to the younger generation. Across the Muslim world—among young and old, men and women, Sunni and Shia—bin Laden is celebrated and in some cases even revered. A poll taken by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2004 found that bin Laden is viewed positively by 45 percent of the people in Morocco, 55 percent in Jordan, and 65 percent in Pakistan. Bin Laden has his critics, notably among traditional Muslims who disagree with his tactics, or think that he is harming the cause of Islam. But even bin Laden’s enemies seem to give him a grudging respect, and qualify their objections with qualities that they admire in him. Muslim writer Jamal Ismail conveys a common sentiment: “Although we may disagree with Osama about his ideological and political views, no one can place him among the enemies of the Islamic community and its aspirations.”2
Why is bin Laden so popular? Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington State, thinks she has it figured out. “He’s been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health-care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful.”3 Here is liberal ethnocentrism in full gear. In Murray’s view, bin Laden is revered for promoting across the Muslim world the liberal, welfare-state causes that Patty Murray happens to advocate in the United States. In reality, bin Laden hasn’t built any schools, hospitals, or day-care facilities. His popularity stems from two sources. First, just about everyone who has met bin Laden describes him as a quiet, well-mannered, thoughtful, eloquent, and deeply religious person. Even those who oppose bin Laden characterize him in these terms.4 For many Muslims, it is remarkable that a man born into a multimillion-dollar empire, a man who could be on a yacht in San Tropez with a blonde on one arm and a brunette on the other, has chosen to live in a cave in Afghanistan and risk his life for his beliefs. Second, bin Laden is popular because of what he is fighting for: he is standing up for Islam and striking out against the United States.
At first, I was reluctant to credit effusive descriptions of bin Laden’s personality and courage. My impression of bin Laden, formed largely in the aftermath of 9/11, was one of a dark-eyed fanatic, a gun-toting extremist, a monster who laughs at the deaths of three thousand innocent civilians. I thought of bin Laden in much the same way that I envisioned the ayatollah Khomeini, his unforgiving, fanatical visage imprinted on my mind since the days of the hostage crisis in 1979 and 1980. Somewhat to my surprise, I discovered that this is not at all how Khomeini is perceived, even today, in his home country.
In Iran, for the past quarter century, Khomeini has been widely regarded as a great and noble man, a veritable modern prophet or imam. The Muslim scholar Hamid Algar conveys a common Muslim view that “this man is a kind of embodiment of the human ideal.”5 Khomeini’s face, which looks down at you on Iranian streets and in public buildings, is not in the least frightening but rather is gentle, avuncular, even giving the hint of a smile. Many people who live in Iran revile the mullahs who are now ruling the country, but Khomeini remains popular even with critics of the revolution. Khomeini’s gravesite near Tehran draws tens of thousands of devoted visitors each year. Unknown to most Americans, before Khomeini became the ruler of Iran, he was famous both as a scholar and a mystical poet. Like bin Laden, Khomeini is highly regarded for his modest demeanor, frugal lifestyle, and soft-spoken manner. He, too, is hailed for his willingness to undertake great personal risks for Islam, and for his bravery in challenging the country he called the “Great Satan,” the United States.
Khomeini and bin Laden are the two most important figures in the history of modern Islam. To understand them—their ideas, goals, and popularity—we must begin with their statements and writings. But we must also go beyond them to understand the full force of the argument for radical Islam, an argument that is winning converts throughout the Muslim world and gaining political ground for radicals against traditional Muslims in every Islamic country, including “moderate” countries like Malaysia and “secular” countries like Turkey. One way to understand radical Islam is to travel through the Muslim world and converse with Muslims. Another is to peruse news and commentary on popular Islamic Internet sites, or in the various outlets of the Muslim press: the Qatar-based TV channel Al Jazeera, the independent news satellite station Al Arabiya, the Iranian channel Al Alam, the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram, and so on. But perhaps the best way to learn about Islamic fundamentalism is by studying the influential thinkers who are shaping radical minds in the Muslim world. This has been my focus for the past few years.
Who are these thinkers? Khomeini is an original and influential thinker in his own right, but bin Laden is not, and neither is his chief deputy and strategist, al-Zawahiri. Most of the Islamic radicals are planners and executors who are trying to implement the vision and the political program of the leading thinkers of Islamic radicalism: Khomeini and Ali Shariati in Iran, Maulana Mawdudi in Pakistan, Sheikh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah in Lebanon, Hassan Turabi in the Sudan, and the man who has done the most to inspire Islamic radicalism around the world, Sayyid Qutb of Egypt. These thinkers, anchored in the Islamic tradition and yet well versed in the ways of the West, have developed a critique of America and the West that is far more sophisticated and comprehensive than anything produced by the Marxists and the communists. They are the brains behind bin Laden and the intellectual juggernaut behind the global resurgence of radical Islam. Some of them may seem obscure in the West, but we can be sure that they are carefully read by people who plot to kill Westerners. If we want to understand “why they hate us,” it is time that we pay attention to these intellectual architects of 9/11.
IF YOU CAREFULLY read bin Laden’s statements, not to scoff at the ravings of a maniac but to genuinely understand what the man is trying to communicate, two major themes emerge. One is that the Islamic world and Islam itself are gravely threatened, and the other is that America is the chief threat to the survival of both. In 1998 bin Laden claimed that “since God put down the Arabian peninsula, created its desert, and surrounded it with its seas, no calamity has ever befallen it” like the one it faces now. That same year bin Laden warned that the danger was not just one of political control but that “our religion is under attack.” In a videotape released shortly after 9/11, bin Laden revealed how serious he considers the attack: for the first time since Muhammad, he warned, Islam faces a threat to its very survival. The war on terror, bin Laden has repeatedly said, is an intrinsic part of the “Zionist-Crusader war on Islam.”6
This threat to Islam cannot be due to American troops in Mecca, since there are no American troops in Mecca. The American base in Saudi Arabia is more than five hundred miles from Islam’s holy sites, and the troops there rarely venture off their bases and have nothing to do with Saudi society. Nor can Islam be threatened because of the presence of Israel, a small irritant within the vast expanse of Islamic territory. Consequently, bin Laden’s occasional condemnations of Israel, as well as his demand that American troops be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia, must be understood in a metaphorical sense. Bin Laden views Israel’s presence, and its ability to pistol-whip the entire Arab world, as symptomatic of a deeper malaise confronting Islam. It is for the purpose of saving and restoring Islam that bin Laden seeks the removal of American and Western influence not only from Saudi Arabia but also from the rest of the Middle East. The reason for bin Laden’s emphasis on America emerges from his second main theme, which is that America is, in his words, “the worst civilization in the history of mankind.” Moreover, as he sees it, America aims “to get rid of Islam itself.” America is, in bin Laden’s memorable phrase, the “head of the snake.”7 Therefore, he concludes, Islam can survive only if America is driven out of the Muslim world or completely destroyed.
Contrary to the ass
ertions of many on the left and even some on the right, bin Laden’s primary objection is not to American foreign policy. The suicide bombers of radical Islam are not blowing themselves up because they are distressed over the Gulf War of 1991 or because they are in solidarity with the Palestinians. These are some of the reasons why liberals have held protest marches in the West, but they have little to do with the grievance of the Islamic radicals. From bin Laden’s point of view, the Gulf War was a response to one infidel regime (Saddam Hussein’s Iraq) invading another infidel regime (Kuwait). Consequently for America to intervene in favor of the latter to get rid of a former was, for bin Laden, a matter of indifference. What bin Laden objected to was America staying in the Middle East, importing with it the immoral ingredients of American values and culture. In order to keep the United States out, bin Laden volunteered to assemble an army of Muslim true believers to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. When the Saudi government refused his request, bin Laden became an outlaw. In a December 2004 audiotape, addressed to the people of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden condemned Saddam Hussein as “a thief and apostate.” At the same time, he attacked the Saudi regime for adopting Western laws that amount to “changing our religion” and producing “educated slaves who will be loyal to America.”8
So what about the Palestinians? Surely—many will insist—bin Laden is enraged by Israeli occupation and supports the idea of Palestinian self-determination and a Palestinian state. Yet as of this writing Al Qaeda has not launched a single attack against Israel. Abdel Bari Atwan, a Muslim journalist who has interviewed bin Laden, remarks that bin Laden hated Arafat and condemned the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as an atheist group inimical to Islam. Yes, bin Laden opposes Israeli occupation because in his view it constitutes foreign rule over Muslims. But as bin Laden sees it, the deeper problem is a conspiracy on the part of Israel and America to take over the Muslim world. This is what bin Laden means by the “alliance of Zionists and Crusaders” that he warns is swarming across the Muslim world “like locusts, eating our fruits and wiping out our plantations.” If bin Laden opposes Israeli occupation, however, he does not do so in the name of Palestinian sovereignty or Palestinian self-determination. In fact bin Laden opposes Palestinian self-determination and a Palestinian state. Bin Laden is not a nationalist: he has repeatedly called for the integration of Muslims into a global Islamic community. When bin Laden uses the term “nation” he means “the Muslim nation.”9
For bin Laden and other Islamic fundamentalists, the issue has always been the fate of Islam and the perceived existential threat to Islam. Here, however, we are confronted with a critical fact. American foreign policy may oppose Muslim interests on this or that point, but it has no way to threaten the existence of Islam. Yet bin Laden speaks of the United States as a nation worse than the Nazis, worse than the communists, the worst civilization in history. How is this possible? Bin Laden himself supplies the answer. America, he asserts, is “the modern world’s symbol of paganism.” In his writings bin Laden periodically refers to “the American devils” and to America’s allies as “the helpers of Satan.”10 Of course the Nazis and the communists were also pagans, but bin Laden’s point is that these are vanquished forms of paganism, while America’s paganism is of the powerful, successful kind that threatens to overrun Islam and take over the world.
In his “Letter to America,” released in November 2002, bin Laden enumerates his grievances against the United States. Contrary to “the deceptive lie that you are a great nation,” bin Laden informs the American people that theirs is a country based on “oppression, lies, immorality, and debauchery.” He calls on Americans to “reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and trading with interest” and instead to embrace “manners, principles, honor, and purity.” American culture, he says, had become a kind of “abyss.” Specifically, “You are a nation that permits acts of immorality and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom.” Bin Laden cites, as an example of this, “President Clinton’s immoral acts committed in the Oval Office.” Moreover, “You are a nation that permits gambling in all its forms…the sex trade in all its forms.” According to bin Laden, the United States is the world’s largest consumer of alcohol and drugs. He accuses America of generating, through its sexual immorality and drug use, “diseases such as AIDS that were unknown to man in the past” but now are being spread throughout the world. In addition, “You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products” after which “you then rant that you support the liberation of women.” Finally, bin Laden calls America a civilization in rebellion against God because “you separate religion from your policies” and thus “contradict the absolute authority of the Lord and Creator.”11
Does the radical Islamic case against America, then, not have a foreign policy component? Of course it does. But as bin Laden and his associates see it, U.S. foreign policy is the vehicle for the coercive transmission of corrupt American values to the Muslim world. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda’s former head of operations in Iraq, charged that “America came to spread obscenity and vice and establish its decadence and obscene culture in the name of freedom.”12
Other stated objections to U.S. foreign policy by bin Laden and his lieutenants have a similar moral thrust. Thus in his “Letter to America” bin Laden faults the United States with being “a nation without principles” because it tries to prohibit other countries from possessing weapons of mass destruction while America and Israel possess untold numbers of such weapons. Moreover, America calls those who oppose its policies “terrorist,” while its own war crimes and those of Israel against Muslim populations are ignored and excused. America’s casualties, as at 9/11, provoke worldwide grief and mourning—“The entire world,” bin Laden writes, “rose and has not yet sat down”—while the deaths of Muslims, although far greater in number, do not inspire any American sympathy. Through force, bin Laden alleges, the United States supports corrupt infidel governments in Muslim countries, and they introduce the immoral ways of the West, “preventing our people from establishing the Islamic sharia.” America—a nation without faith, honor, decency, and respect—has declared war on Islam, which bin Laden describes as “the nation of monotheism…the nation of honor and respect…the nation of martyrdom.”13
From the point of view of the Islamic radicals, the issue of “terrorism” is a smokescreen. Bin Laden calls this “accusing others with your own affliction in order to fool the masses.”14 It is illuminating for us to try and see why. For us in the West, a terrorist is a member of an outlaw group or community that is willing to kill civilians, even women and children, in pursuit of its political goals. This is regarded, across the political spectrum in the West, as utterly reprehensible. The Islamic radicals complain that the West has cleverly defined terrorism so that the resistance of Muslims to occupation and oppression is automatically considered evil while the state-sponsored massacres of a far greater number of Muslims by the American and Israeli war machines is never understood as “terrorism”—only a justified reaction to Muslim atrocities.
No matter how many women and children Israel kills, bin Laden says, “the United States stops any efforts to condemn Israel.” He reminds Muslims that America firebombed numerous German and Japanese cities during World War II, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. In his 1997 interview with Peter Arnett, bin Laden spoke of the civilian horror produced when America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: “The United States does not consider it a terrorist act to drop atomic bombs…which killed so many women and children that up to this day the traces of those bombs remain in Japan.”15
Bin Laden’s point is not that America is failing to live up to its moral standards, or that terrorism is bad no matter who engages in it. Rather, his point is that terrorism can be good or bad depending on who is being terrorized. As bin Laden said in one of his interviews, “Terrifying and terrorizing innocent people is clearly not right” whereas “terrorizing oppressors,
criminals and thieves is necessary…to abolish tyranny and corruption.” It is in light of this distinction that we can better understand bin Laden’s otherwise cryptic assertion that “the terrorism we practice is of the commendable kind.”16
To those in the West, and in the Muslim world, who ask how supposedly religious Muslims can justify killing innocent civilians, bin Laden answers that the civilians who are targeted are not innocent. In bin Laden’s view, attacks on Iraqi civilians or foreign workers in Iraq are warranted because these are the people who support the governing infrastructure established by the infidel occupying power. Even attacks on civilians in America are justified, bin Laden argues, because in a democracy the citizens are not detached from the actions of their government. The basic idea of democracy is that the people are the government. As bin Laden puts it, “It is a fundamental principle of democracy that the people choose their leaders, and as such approve and are party to the action of their leaders.” The American people are ultimately accountable, he contends, because “they chose their government, and voted for it despite their knowledge of its crimes.”17
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