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Islamic
Responses to Terrorism
Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi
INTRODUCTION
Terrorism provokes deep fear
and insecurity - more than other forms of
violence. Terrorists strike innocent civilians,
often randomly, and without warning. Terrorists
know this, and they seek to use intimidation
to impose their political or other agendas.
Terrorism is also used as low-cost strategic
warfare. Terrorism also has a high economic
cost. Technology has also added to the terrorist
threat. Finally, terrorism today is far more
devastating than in the past because of the
mass media. No story plays better, or longer,
than a terrorist attack.
(Ambassador Philip Wilcox,
Jr., State Department Coordinator for Counter-terrorism,
in Patterns of Global Terrorism, Report of
the Office of the Coordinator for Counter-terrorism,
United States, April 2001)
On 10th October, 2001, an emergency conference
of Islamic states’ (OIC) foreign ministers,
meeting in Doha, Qatar, issued an official
statement strongly condemning the “savage
acts of terrorism which targeted the United
States” a month earlier (1). The text emphasized
that such acts contravened the teachings of
divine religions and moral and human values,
and stressed that such acts could not, and
should not, be linked with Islam. It also
stressed the need to track down the perpetrators,
and to punish them. Based on the provisions
of an existing OIC treaty to combat international
terrorism, the conference said that member
states were prepared to actively engage in
a collective international effort to define
terrorism “under the canopy of the United
Nations”, emphasizing dealing with its root
causes, and towards achieving world security
and stability. The conference also rejected
any link between terrorism and the right of
Muslim and Arab peoples, “including the Palestinian
and Lebanese people”, to self-determination,
self-defence, sovereignty, and resistance
against occupation and aggression. These were,
according to the text, legitimate rights guaranteed
both by the Charter of the United Nations
and International Law. This is an important
statement in many respects, not least because
it pledges Muslim and Arab countries to the
so-called war against terrorism and at the
same time contains caveats which, a year on
from the attacks of 11th September, 2001,
are becoming increasingly relevant to our
understanding of the world, past, present
and future. That Muslims were vociferous in
their condemnation of the terrorist atrocities
of 11th September specifically (and terrorism
more generally) is perhaps succinctly encapsulated
in the words of Sayyed Abd al-Majid al-Khoei,
son of the late Shi’a Muslim spiritual leader,
Grand Ayatullah Sayyed Abu al-Qasim al-Musawi
al-Khoei, who emphatically declared in a published
statement (2), “Terrorist acts violate Islamic
law”. In describing what was done as “impermissible
under any pretext”, al-Khoei went on that
the events of 11th September, “regardless
of one’s views and regardless of who the perpetrators
were” (that is, regardless of their religion
also), was in itself a “criminal and barbaric
action totally remote from moral values and
religious and human principles”. Like many
Muslim representatives and scholars, he was
unequivocal in describing the atrocity as
an act that was as much against Islam and
Muslims as against anything else. Al-Khoei
stated that, “Attributing this crime to religion
and [to] devout people is much more dangerous
and harmful than what the external enemies
are inflicting on us”, and went on to describe
it as an Islamic duty “not to lose our moral
existence and forfeit the liberality of Islam’s
message” by opposing such extremism: “While
we reject aggression against Muslims and their
countries and what is imposed on them from
abroad, we must also reject, more seriously,
the aggression against us in the name of Islam
by some who claim to be Muslims”. For those
who have been questioning whether or not Muslims
have undertaken any self-reflection following
11th September, perhaps one can refer them
to such progressive – some would argue truly
Islamic - sentiments and official statements
that are, contrary to the often negative assumptions
that link Islam directly with acts of terrorism,
in fact representative of a vast body of Muslim
scholarly opinion. Majid al-Khoei is not the
only reputable Islamic leader, resident in
the United Kingdom, who thinks that it goes
without saying that the perpetrators of such
atrocities – in this case Usama bin Laden
– usually have no standing to issue an Islamic
religious opinion, or Fatwa. In the wake of
11th September, Muslim leaders and representative
bodies, such as the Muslim Council of Britain
(MCB) have rounded on extremist figures such
as the leader of the fundamentalist al-Muhajiroun
group, Omar Bakri Mohammed (who are calling
for a worldwide ‘caliphate’), and Shaykh Abu
Hamza of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London,
even going so far as referring to such ‘scholars’
– and not in any flippant sense either - as
‘clowns and loonies’.Widely respected modern
scholars of Islam, such as Professor Akbar
S Ahmed, who is currently at the American
University in Washington DC, have made it
clear for a long time that the actions of
hijackers and terrorists, even when carried
out in the name of religion, have absolutely
nothing to do with Islamic theology and can
only be understood in the political context
(3). The Cambridge University Muslim scholar,
Tim Winter, is similarly unequivocal. An insurrectionist
who kills non-combatants is guilty of baghi,
armed transgression, a capital offence in
Islamic law, he argues. The proclamations
of bin Laden, which ignore fourteen centuries
of Muslim scholarship, amounts to an extreme
violation of the normal methods of Islamic
scholarship. Had the authors of such ‘fatwas’
followed the norms of their religion, they
would have had to acknowledge that no school
of traditional Islam allows the targeting
of civilians. A military Jihad (which Islamic
scholars are keen to point out is a ‘lesser’
Jihad, the ‘greater’ being the Jihad, or struggle,
of one’s own self or against one’s own selfishness)
can be proclaimed only by a properly constituted
state; “anything else is pure vigilantism”.In
the Islamic world itself, the General Mufti
(al-Mufti al-‘Amm) of Saudi Arabia, Shaykh
Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Shaykh,
issued an official statement that condemned
the 11th September attack as ‘criminal’ on
the grounds that Islam forbids hijacking of
planes, the terrorizing of innocent people,
and the shedding of blood. He had already,
in fact months before these attacks, condemned
suicide bombings, distinguishing between ‘regular
suicide’ (intihar), which was absolutely forbidden
in Islam, and martyrdom (istishhad), for which
there were limited and conditional exceptions. Even
most radicals agree that suicide in and of
itself is a major sin forbidden in Islam (4).
However, the more extreme use Qur’anic verses,
‘ahadiths (Traditions) and cases from the
early history of Islam to try and prove that
voluntary sacrifice in the cause of Islam
with the objective of defending Muslims and
hurting their enemies is not suicide but a
legitimately sanctioned action, permissible
as a form of fulfilling the individual duty
(fard ‘ayn) of Jihad (of which more later).
Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Head of the Department
of Sunnah Studies at the University of Qatar
and a leading Sunni theologian, argues that
suicide bombings are ‘heroic operations of
martyrdom’, have nothing to do with suicide,
and ‘are the supreme form of Jihad for the
sake of Allah, and a type of terrorism (!)
that is allowed by the Shari’a’. All scholars
agree, however, that someone attempting to
end their life for personal reasons is committing
a forbidden act of suicide. Muhammad Sayyed
Tantawi, Shaykh of al-Azhar, argues that suicide
operations are to be regarded as martyrdom
if the intention is to kill enemy soldiers
but not women or children. Qaradawi responds
that they are legal even if women and children
are killed because Israeli society is militaristic
by nature and women serve in its army. However,
children and the elderly should not be targeted,
though if they are killed accidentally this
can be excused by the principle of Necessity
“which justifies what is forbidden”.
Muslim jurists have historically not focused
on the idea of just cause for war (5). Building
upon the proscriptions of the Holy Prophet,
jurists insisted that there are legal restrictions
upon the conduct of war: Muslim armies may
not kill non-combatants. Vegetation and property
may not be destroyed, waterholes may not be
poisoned, torture, mutilation and murder of
hostages is forbidden under any circumstances.
Importantly, the classical jurists reached
these determinations not simply as a matter
of textual interpretation, but as moral or
ethical assertions. The classical juristic
approach to terrorism was quite different,
however, and those who refused to concede
legitimacy to the juristic class were deemed
muharib (lit. those who fight society).
The denial of juristic legitimacy and the
later development of theological Salafism
is an interesting comparative. Although classical
jurists agreed on the definition of a muharib,
they disagreed about which types of criminal
acts should be considered crimes of terror.
Nevertheless, “the terrorizing of the defenceless
was recognized as a moral wrong and an offence
against society and God”.
The
debate surrounding the legitimacy, or not,
of suicide attacks has been a hot potato in
Islamic scholarship for many years. Contemporary
scholarship across the spectrum of Islamic
schools of jurisprudence (fiqh) remains divided
on this issue, but intriguingly not on sectarian
lines. The head of the Supreme Judicial Council
in Saudi Arabia, Shaykh Salih al-Luheidan,
said that it was incumbent upon his country
to denounce the attacks as the Kingdom was
ruled by Shari’a. He pointed out that the
Saudi ‘Ulema (religious scholars, both Sunni
and Wahhabi) have in the past specifically
denounced the hijacking of planes, viewing
such a crime as a prohibited and unacceptable
act, irrespective of who the passengers were,
“because terrorizing any person is viewed
as Perversion” in Islamic Law. In the Islamic
Republic of Iran, which is a Shi’a theocracy,
President Sayyed Muhammad Khatami, a renowned
scholar in his own right, equally condemned
the attacks of 11th September, and asked for
“the search and destruction of the roots of
terrorism”. Ayatullah Hassan Rouhani, the
powerful Secretary of Iran’s National Security
Council, called for “international cooperation
against terrorism”. And the influential senior
cleric, Ayatullah Kashani, described the attacks
as ‘catastrophic’, demanding ‘global mobilization’
against the perpetrators.
Most
of the Muslim scholars who condemn terrorism,
especially when it uses religion as a weapon
or tool, insist that the Qur’an emphatically
supports their view. Ayatullah Sayyed Fadhil
Milani, a leading Shi’a theologian based in
London, included the following oft-quoted
verses to support what one might refer to
as the progressivist Islamic view:
Take
not life, which God hath made sacred, except
by way of justice and law.
If
anyone kills a human being for other than
manslaughter or for spreading corruption on
earth - it shall be as though he had killed
all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life,
it shall be as though he had saved the lives
of all mankind. (6: 51)
If
they hold aloof from you and wage not war
against you and offer you peace, God allows
you no way against them.(4:90)
If
the enemy incline towards peace, do you (also)
incline towards peace, and trust in God: for
He is the One that Heareth and Knoweth (all
things).(8:61)
Let
there be no compulsion in religion: Truth
stands out clear from Error.(2:256).
Such
scholars also use the pro-integrationist argument
that Muslims are commanded by God to be good
citizens and good community members wherever
they live, and to leave the place a better
one because they lived in it. Other scholars,
like the moderate Shaykh Fadhil Sahlani (6),
director of Al-Khoei Benevolent Foundation
in New York, who participated in the official
remembrance ceremony at Yankee Stadium, New
York, for the victims of the 11th September
attacks, argue that is an integral part of
the fundamental duties of a believer to take
active part in the social and the political
process of a community in order to make positive
changes, not only for themselves, but for
others as well. His approach is both ecumenical
and grassroot.
The
effectiveness of the consultations between
Western government and Muslim representatives
can be discerned by the more recent statements
of those in the vanguard of the military coalition
against terror. President George W Bush, despite
his initial knee-jerk reaction to the event
of 11th September, has since acknowledged
to Congress that the terrorists who are the
target of “the war on terrorism” practice
a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has
been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast
majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement
that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.
The terrorists are traitors to their own faith,
trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself,
he said.
EAST-WEST
MULTILOGUE
In
the West, Muslim leaders have been in a constructive
process of consultation with senior politicians
for almost a decade, and in the wake of September
11 that level of consultation has markedly
increased, particularly in the United Kingdom.
Throughout such meetings, representatives
of Islamic organizations have reaffirmed –
both publicly and in private - their condemnation
of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
For its part, the British Government has reassured
the Muslim community that they would do everything
in their power to protect them from the violent
“backlash” that was expected after the 11th
September attacks. (7) In a meeting following
these attacks, which was also attended by
Tessa Jowell MP (British Secretary of State,
Department for Culture, Media and Sport),
and John Denham MP (Home Office Minister with
responsibility for policing and community
safety), Home Secretary David Blunkett unreservedly
condemned attacks on Muslims or Muslim communities
in the wake of September 11th: “This is not
a question of east versus west, it is about
protecting the freedoms our democracy enshrines.
These are values shared and upheld by Muslims
throughout Britain. I have made it absolutely
clear to the police that protecting those
under threat or attack is an absolute priority
and I will continue to monitor this closely”.
Tessa Jowell added, “We cannot and should
not equate the actions of a group of terrorists
with all the followers of Islam. Everyone
– including the media – must remember that.
This is a time for our country to unite, not
divide”.
But
whilst a sophisticated level of interaction
between some Muslim representatives and government
machinery is apparent – despite criticisms
of elitism and opportunism among some representatives
both individual and institutional - the flipside
of such progress is the reality of “the street”,
where even before 11th September there was
in evidence a marked increase in racist violence
throughout Europe and a disturbing growth
in fascist parties recruiting mainly young
unemployed men whose strong plank now appeared
to be to target Muslims and Muslim religious
and cultural symbols. Islamophobia, which
might be described as a relatively new yet
equally vile form of racism which is also
known as anti-muslimism, is a type of racism,
it is argued (8) wherein “you are hated because
of the way you dress. You are hated because
of the views you might hold. You are hated
because of the religion you uphold. You are
hated not just for what you are but for what
you, in the eyes of others, might become”.
Terrorism
does not have a race, religion or nationality,
as John Austin MP (Erith and Thamesmead) reminded
the British House of Commons following criticisms
of Muslim community representatives not having
been vocal enough in their condemnation of
the terror attacks by former British prime
minister, now Baroness, Margaret Thatcher.
Indeed, quiet mutterings of anger and hostility
among ordinary people (the “backlash” referred
to) have, of course, not been helped by the
rantings of certain leaders, notably Italy’s
premier, Silvio Berlusconi, who went as far
as to claim that the West should be “confident
in the superiority of our civilization” over
the Muslim world. His, and Thatcher’s, outburst
is indicative of a mode of thinking today
that pits Islam and the West at opposite ends
of a very convenient, and easy to explain,
civilizational spectrum which vindicates not
only religious millennialists but also excuses
a lack of clear foreign policy direction,
notably on the part of the greater international
powers.
ISLAMOPHOBIA
The European Union’s race watchdog this
year accused a wide range of British commentators,
politicians and media of helping to foster
an upsurge in anti-Islamic feeling after 11th
September. In a BBC Online survey (9),
approximately half of blacks and Asians said
that they believed the police in Britain to
be racist, vindicating the findings of The
Macpherson Report (10) into the murder of
the London teenager, Stephen Lawrence, which
had earlier labelled the Metropolitan Police
institutionally racist.
In its report, Islamophobia, (11) the
European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia
(EUMC) reported that the biggest rise in violent
attacks had taken place in Britain, Holland,
Sweden, and “most of all” Denmark. Women wearing
the hejab, or headscarf, had been “insulted,
spat at, beaten and even raped” in a wave
of attacks across Europe, causing many to
stop wearing the garment in public. EUMC monitored
the period from 11 September 2001 until the
end of December 2001.
According to figures compiled by Islamic organizations
in the United Kingdom, the rate of attacks
on British Muslims since 11th September
is more than thirteen times higher than in
a typical year. More than four hundred attacks
since that date, ranging from nuisance calls
to fire-bombings, were logged by a team of
three hundred field workers across Britain.
The dossier, compiled by the Islamic Human
Rights Commission (12), shows that Britain’s
Muslims are living in an atmosphere of heightened
hostility and mistrust, which has continued
during the campaign in Afghanistan and after
the arrests of British Muslim individuals
suspected of links to ainternational terrorist
activities. The commission said the number
of incidents reported was more than four times
as many as recorded, on average, in any twelve
month period.
The UK has been at the forefront of addressing
the issue of Islamophobia and antimuslimism
for far longer than have her European counterparts.
Islamophobia, according to the Runnymede Trust
report (13), which was probably the first
coherent study of the phenomenon, is “a dual
demonization of Muslims at home and abroad”.
That process, perhaps more than any other,
kicked into gear a renewed fervour both among
Muslim representatives and the government
to look more seriously into the issue of discrimination
and racism based not on ethnicity or skin
colour but specifically religious persuasion.
An important element of this has been, almost
by definition if not force of circumstance,
Islamophobia’s relationship with anti-Semitism.
This has, over the years, led to an enhanced
contact between Muslim and Jewish organizations
as well as individuals from both faiths eager
to learn from each other’s historical and
contemporary experiences (such as, for instance,
the development of The Maimonides Foundation
in London, and the regular meetings of Muslims
and Jews under the auspices of The Stone-Ashdown
Trust, also in London). Of course, senior
Jewish figures have always been prominent
in interfaith committees, but the Judaeo-Islamic
platform is a relatively new and fascinating
arena of cooperation and outreach from which
there is surely much to be gained.
Perhaps the most significant institutional
development relating to the documentation
and highlighting, in the public arena, of
the issue of Islamophobia was the launch,
in London in 1999, of FAIR (Forum Against
Islamophobia and Racism). Since their establishment,
FAIR have been at the forefront of monitoring
the media and responding to blatantly Islamophobic
articles and commentaries by responding in
a rational, thought-out and systematic manner.
In May, 2002, following a season of programmes
on Islam and Muslims on Channel Four, FAIR
issued their own detailed critique of the
series (14) following meetings held at the
instigation of the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport between the Muslim community
and media regulators and organizations. FAIR’s
analysis of the dedicated Channel Four series
was a detailed case study of current Islamophobic
constructs in the broadcast media. According
to them, in totality the series presented
a tendentious and pejorative view of British
Muslims: “As a whole, the series focused on
extremism, segregation, corruption, the hejab
and difference. Much of the journalistic comment,
for instance, based its analysis on a “closed
view” of Islam, as articulated in the Runnymede
Commission report (above). Thus, “the main
concern was the overall negative stereotyping
of a vulnerable religious minority at a sensitive
time”. This stereotyping was based on “a persistent
focus upon difference, thereby promoting the
idea that being British and Muslim is conflictual,
that the two are hermetically sealed and are
therefore incompatible identities”. FAIR’s
position was that the series started with
the assumption that British Islam is problematic:
anarchic, extreme, disloyal and deviant”.
LEGISLATIVE RESPONSES TO TERRORISM: UK
AND USA
UK
Details of the British Government’s legislative
package to combat terrorism (Emergency Anti-Terrorist
Bill) was outlined by the Home Secretary this
year, who declared in a Home Office press
release: “It is the first job of government
and the essence of our democracy that we safeguard
rights and freedoms, the most basic of which
is to live safely and in peace. The proposed
Bill will include, inter alia, tough financial
controls to staunch the flow of terrorist
funding, powers for account monitoring and
swift asset freezing, seizure of cash in-country,
and strict reporting obligations on the financial
sector, including making it an offence for
a bank not to report a transaction where it
knows or suspects funds may be intended for
terrorist purposes; Measures to allow quicker
and more effective cooperation with fellow
European Union (EU) countries on police and
legal issues; An extension of the incitement
law to cover religious, as well as racial
hatred (both incitement offences will have
an increased maximum penalty from two years
to seven years); A widening of the incitement
law to cover incitement within the United
Kingdom of terrorist acts against groups or
individuals overseas and examining additional
powers in relation to conspiracy; A requirement
on transport companies to keep passenger and
freight information records and make them
available in advance to law enforcement agencies;
The removal of current barriers which prevent
customs and revenue officers providing information
to law enforcement agencies in their fight
against terrorism; Measures to enable communication
service providers to retain data generated
in the course of their business, namely the
records of calls made and other data - not
the content; The strengthening of security
at airports and for passengers; Expanding
the role and jurisdiction of the British Transport
Police, together with those working on enforcement
from the Ministry of Defence and the Atomic
Energy Authority; Powers to give the police
and customs services the authority to demand
the removal of facial covering or gloves;
Clauses to close the gaps in the present legislation
relating to chemical, nuclear and biological
weapons to prevent the use, production, possession
or participation in unauthorized transfers
of these materials; Fingerprints taken in
immigration and asylum retained for up to
ten years in order to improve identification
of individuals”.
The Bill would also “contain robust and streamlined
procedures for dealing with those suspected
of terrorist acts who seek to misuse asylum
and immigration”. These measures would, inter
alia, remove access to judicial review in
decisions made by the Special Immigration
Appeals Commission, the body that deals with
suspected terrorists’ asylum claims; Enable
asylum claims to be rejected where the Secretary
of State certifies the person is a threat
to national security; And detain those who
are a terrorist threat but who cannot be removed
from the country, whilst retaining a right
of appeal. This would require a limited suspension
from Article 5 of the European Convention
on Human Rights (ECHR), using ECHR Article
15 which allows for suspension in the event
of a public emergency: “This will ensure we
remain consistent with our international obligations,
including the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees”,
according to the press release.
The Home Secretary also told Parliament that
in addition to the Emergency Anti-Terrorist
Bill described above, he intended to bring
forward an Extradition Bill “to modernize
and place British laws within the context
of the new international situation”. Such
legislative measures were designed, he stipulated,
to protect and enhance rights, not diminish
them, “otherwise future generations would
never forgive us”.
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