Westminsterresearch Moderations Among Salafists & Jihadists Bokhari, S
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WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Moderations among Salafists & Jihadists Bokhari, S. This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © Mr Syed Kamran Bokhari, 2017. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: ((http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] MODERATIONS AMONG SALAFISTS & JIHADISTS SYED KAMRAN BOKHARI A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements of the University of Westminster for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2017 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………...1 Chapter 2: Literature Review……………………………33 Chapter 3: Methodology………………………………...61 Chapter 4: Theoretical Framework …………………......89 Chapter 5: Salafist Case Study: Hizb al-Nour………....121 Chapter 6: Jihadist Case Study: Afghan Taliban……....151 Chapter 7: Conclusion…………………….....................162 Chapter I - Introduction How do radical Islamists (both violent and non-violent ones) undergo ideological and behavioral transformation? The existing corpus of scholarship offers limited insights into this extremely complicated process. While there is a great deal of work on the converse process of radicalization, there is no systematic study on how Salafist and Jihadist groups undergo moderation. There are existing theories on moderation, however, they do not offer much clarity on what ‘moderation’ means as an end state – much less provide for an explanation of how Islamist actors undergo it in terms of a process. The inclusion-moderation hypothesis, deradicalization and post-Islamism are not able to explain how ideological and behavioral transformation takes place among Salafist and Jihadists. Most of the work focused on these theories examines Muslim Brotherhood type movements, which unlike Salafists and Jihadists, do not reject the existing political structures and processes. This research seeks to fill this gaping hole in the academic literature and is thus original in two respects. First, it offers a new theory of moderation which argues that Islamists change their ideas and behavior when their existing positions become untenable in the faces of changes in their geopolitical operating environment. Second, it examines how two key noteworthy political actors – Egypt’s al-Dawah al- Salafiyah and Afghanistan’s Taliban movement – changed their ideas and actions on how they sought to achieve their stated objectives of an Islamic state. It chronicles the journey of the Egyptian movement from a group that embraced democracy after decades of viewing it as an un-Islamic practice. Likewise, it traces the efforts of the Afghan group to move from being a purely armed insurgent entity to one that can negotiate a power-sharing arrangement. Through a compare and contrast of these 1 two very different type of radical Islamist actors I make the case for multiple types of Islamist moderations. I unpack the enabling factors that both facilitate and inhibit the process of moderation and produces multiple outcomes. I argue that moderation among radical Islamists is not a function of the degree to which they are willing to accept western political ideas. Rather these actors moderate only when faced with geopolitical threats and opportunities, which force them to reinterpret their religious texts so as to adopt newer ways of pursuing their goal and even modifying the objective itself. I gauge this through the changes in their perception of the ideological “self” and “others”. A key issue that I explore in this regard is the birth, adoption and rejection of new concepts within the body. What is the outcome of the struggle between the need to steadfastly adhere to core principles and the imperative to modify them in the face threats and latitudes. The theoretical side to my research seeks answers to the following questions: What is Islamist moderation? How do radical Islamist groups moderate and what factors propel them towards ideological and behavioral change? What are the geopolitical antecedents that force Islamists to undergo these shifts? What is the relationship between the variant Islamist attitudes towards democracy and the corresponding scope of moderation? Is ideological moderation the outcome of the weakening of autocratic systems? What is the interplay between interests and ideas in the making of moderation? As regards the empirical component of this study I looked into a number of related questions. How do these two groups view the relationship between Islam and democracy? What is the degree to which they were willing to cooperate with ideological opponents? Why did they cease to reject mainstream politics how did 2 this change (to the extent that it did occur) take place? How do they view the notion of plurality of religious interpretations? What is their stance on the idea of popular sovereignty? To what extent do they accept minority rights? Can women transcend traditional roles and if so to what extent? How will they manage competing views on the role of religion in politics? What is their understanding of elections? How do they define shariah? To what degree are they open to ideas that are not rooted in the Quran and the practice of the Prophet Muhammad? How far are they willing to evolve beyond medieval political constructs? My main argument is that moderation occurs among Islamists when they face irrelevance and/or they see room for growth, they revise their current political stances through a reinterpretation of religious texts. This is very different from other radical ideological actors that have undergone similar shifts in recent history such as Marxists and Catholic actors in Europe and elsewhere where democratic consolidation and social secularization were a priori conditions. Islamist moderation takes place in multiple forms given the different types of Islamist radicalism. Thus, starting points matter as they determine the path, type and extent of ideological and behavioral change. Islamist moderation also does not take place without a corresponding moderation among the opposing secular or non-Islamist actors (both state and non-state actors). As a result, religious norms evolve when Islamists complement their religious ideas with extra-religious concepts. The global community of scholars studying Islamist moderation is a small one and research on this issue only took-off in the wake the September 11, 2001 attacks. The volume of scholarly work on this issue is much smaller than the political usage of the term ‘moderation’ and how it has been employed in open source discussions. In order to make sense of moderation it is critical to examine 3 how the term has become deeply contested internationally and more specifically in the Muslim world. Therefore, it is important to understand how this term has been conceptualized in this broader space. Doing so will then set the stage for a scholarly discussion of the issue. Before embarking upon this survey of the use of the term ‘moderation’ it is important to define some key terms used in the discussion such as terrorism, Islamism and Jihadism. When I use the word ‘terrorism’ I specifically mean the violent acts perpetrated by Islamists against civilian targets as a tactic to achieve their strategic objective of trying to establish their envisioned Islamic polity. In this regard, terrorism is different from militancy, which is a broader term and includes terrorism but also encompasses the targeting of on non-civilians. Terrorism is also different from insurgency in terms of tradecraft. The latter is the work of a smaller entity (composed of cells) that does not have paramilitary capabilities. Insurgency is an altogether different scale of violence – usually the handiwork of a larger organization with a number of sub-units led by different commanders. Insurgent groups usually target both combatants and non-combatants. ‘Islamism’ is a 20th century ideological construct representing a specific Muslim response to secular modernity. Its adherents (Islamists) feel that incumbent Muslim regimes are un-Islamic and they seek to replace them with ‘Islamic’ state(s). The polity that Islamists desire would implement shariah. Islamism is also a very diverse geopolitical landscape with actors differing on how an ‘Islamic’ state ought to be established (via elections, revolution or armed insurrection) and the structure and scope of the desired state (Islamic republics, emirates, caliphate). Here it is important to note that political Islam is not synonymous with Islamism. The former represents all forms of Muslim politics starting from the dawn of Islam whereas the 4 latter is a subset of political Islam that is currently a major trend (but not the only one) within the Muslim world. ‘Jihadism’ is a small subset of ‘Islamism’ – a sub- ideology of disparate Islamist groups who see armed insurrection as the only way to establish the ‘Islamic’ state. Jihadists have subverted the classical understanding of jihad (in the military sense and a state enterprise) to justify their violent approach to achieving their goal. Competing Narratives on Moderation We live in a time where Islamism and