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THE ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST VIEW of LIFE AS a PERENNIAL BATTLE by David Zeidan*

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THE ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST VIEW of LIFE AS a PERENNIAL BATTLE by David Zeidan* Special Section: September 11, Background and Consequences for the Middle East THE ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST VIEW OF LIFE AS A PERENNIAL BATTLE By David Zeidan* This article analyzes how radical Islamist movements have altered traditional Islamic concepts to justify their worldview. Based on the writings of prominent radical Islamist leaders across a wide spectrum, it analyzes the ideas of a cosmic struggle between good and evil as reflected in the individual and in society. It traces the reinterpretation of traditional Islamic concepts such as jahiliyya, takfir, hijra, mufassala, jihad and istishad to justify indiscriminate violence. Bin-Laden and his al-Qai’da group use these reinterpretations to justify terrorism, while these ideas also mobilize support for their deeds among a far broader sector among Muslims. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist secularism which had reduced its power during attack on the World Trade Center in New-York, recent decades.(1) there is a growing general public interest in Islamist fundamentalism is composed of a Islamist “fundamentalism” as the perceived wide variety of movements and views that offer breeding ground for contemporary international Islam as a total way of life and as a viable terrorism, and a growing confusion in alternative to Western secular ideologies. It explaining its ideas and in categorizing its aims at bringing all of contemporary society various components. This article discusses under God’s sovereignty, rule and law as some basic views of Islamist movements, many revealed in scripture. The restoration of Islamic of them reflected and amplified in the thinking glory will be achieved by purifying society of Usama Bin Ladin and those involved in the from un-Islamic teachings and practices, by a attack on the World Trade Center and other return to Islam’s original pure sources (the targets in the United States. Quran--God’s written revelation through The radical Islamist movement is a fairly Muhammad, and Hadith, the divinely inspired modern phenomenon, part of a wider traditions of the Prophet’s sayings and deeds) resurgence of religion sweeping across the as the only authority, and by the establishment Muslim world, and existing in a symbiotic of an ideal Islamic state modeled on that of the relationship with other trends. It is rooted in the Prophet and his Companions. recurring cycles of revivals characteristic of Most fundamentalist movements are united Muslim history and is also a reaction to the in these goals of Islamizing the total social and severe crisis of modernity converging with the political system of their societies and of rise of charismatic prophetic leaders. It establishing a revived authentic world-wide constitutes a religious reform movement and a Islamic state based on Sharia (the all- political ideology that includes a social element encompassing law ordained by God for humans of protest and a search for identity by the have- and based on Quran and Hadith). The nots of the Muslim world against an oppressive differences between movements stem from world order. Fundamentalism is the spearhead arguments on how best to achieve these goals of religion engaging in a counterattack on the and on whether to emphasize an internationalist Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 4 (December 2001) 26 David Zeidan program or focus on achieving power in a ideologies.(5) However, the manipulation of the specific state as a first step. There is a debate concept of warfare to mobilize followers into between moderate gradualists willing to work activism can easily blur the distinctions within the constraints of a local political system between terms that symbolize moral and and the radical revolutionaries willing to use spiritual battle, such as Jihad, and their force to achieve their aims. reinterpretation in specific contexts to Fundamentalists contrast sharply with legitimize violent struggle excused by an “ends traditionalists in many areas, but especially in justifies the means” ideology.(6) their ideological emphasis on the state. The Islamic fundamentalism offers a radical state is seen as the main instrument for reinterpretation of traditional Islamic concepts, implementing the fundamentalist vision of a and its discourse on the subject of battle serves God-pleasing state under Sharia and as the to mobilize believers, warn them against those guarantor of its survival. Fundamentalists identified as enemies, and encourage them to therefore concentrate their efforts on capturing train, organize, and actively participate in the the state and its centers of power--either legally battle. Tactics differ as some fundamentalists within the democratic framework, or violently tend to withdraw from society temporarily into by revolution or coup d’etat.(2) isolationist separatism, while others actively While fundamentalists are a minority in engage in socio-political affairs to transform most Muslim societies and states, their insistent society.(7) Both responses are forms of battle, and vehement discourse has had much effect on whether they are seen as defensive action the Muslim world, moving into the vacuum left against attacking evil forces or offensive by the failure of secular regimes, redefining campaigns to conquer enemies and transform orthodoxy, reconstituting the boundaries of the world. political power relations, limiting the borders of the permissible, resonating in the hearts of the VARIOUS ASPECTS OF THE BATTLE impoverished masses, and appealing to a new Fundamentalisms view history in dialectical strata of literate people with modern technical terms as a permanent spiritual battle, part of a education.(3) great cosmic and spiritual confrontation This article tries to explain the concept of between God’s forces of good and Satan’s battle, common to most religions, as forces of evil. Some stress the supernatural appropriated by Islamic fundamentalists, and nature of the battle, asserting that invisible evil the different interpretations given to it by powers, fighting to control individuals and various streams across the fundamentalist whole cultures, have infiltrated all societies. spectrum. Every believer who takes a stand for truth is The concept of the world as a battlefield under attack and involved in the fight. It is where the forces of good and evil are fighting therefore imperative to be forewarned and against each other, of a perennial universal forearmed so as not to be taken by surprise. The battle going on everywhere and at all times, is seemingly mundane struggles of believers in common to most prophetic religions, but is this world are seen as reflections of higher especially characteristic of the fundamentalist struggles in the spiritual and heavenly realms. groups within them. Fundamentalists view history as a cosmic struggle between good and Reality of the Battle evil using stark binary dichotomies to describe Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) was the ideologue the opposing camps.(4) This rhetoric stresses of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the that the main battle is spiritual, but nonetheless 1950s and 1960s who was tortured and real, being fought in the realms of personal executed by President Nasser for his book spiritual and moral development, as well as in Milestones (ma‘alim fil tariq) which the sphere of ideas, worldviews and reinterpreted traditional Islamic concepts to Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 4 (December 2001) 27 The Islamic Fundamentalist View of Life as a Perennial Battle justify a violent takeover of the state. His holy sources of Quran and Hadith and not reinterpretation of traditional Islamic concepts operating under Sharia. Qutb also reinterpreted was the catalyst for the rise of radical Islamic jihad to mean the permanent conflict between groups. Qutb posits a real battle taking place in the Islamic system and all contemporary jahili this world between the forces of good and those paradigms. The concepts of the two systems are of evil, between faith and unbelief. True totally incompatible, so there is no possibility believers are to fight and suffer patiently, not of compromise or coexistence between them. for the reward, but because it is their duty Truth is one and indivisible: all that is not true toward God. This world is a battlefield, with is inevitably false, and the mixing of truth with angels looking on to see how believers fight, falsehood is impossible. Islam means total and the struggle is not limited to this earth, but submission to God and his law, while jahili extends into all of space and time. While in this systems are “a deviation from the worship of world there are only partial victories, the final One God and the divinely ordained way of victory of good is assured. While believers do life.”(9) not always win and often suffer defeat and According to Israr Ahmad (1932-), martyrdom, there is no cause for despair as God fundamentalist preacher, writer and Amir of the comforts and encourages them. From God’s Pakistani Tanzim-i-Islami movement which is perspective this world and its affairs are tiny in an offshoot of the better known jama’at-i- comparison with the world to come. Worldly Islami, Islam is actively fighting all types of success does not carry much weight in God’s jahiliyya, both the superstitious jahiliyya of un- scales: Islamic folk-religion and the jahiliyya of secular-materialistic atheism with its moral Real triumph is not limited to permissiveness. In this battle the most powerful immediate victory…in Allah’s market weapon is the Quran, and the challenge is to the only commodity in demand is the cleanse the ideological realm from all atheistic commodity of faith. The highest form of elements, reconstructing Islamic thought in triumph is the victory of soul over contemporary idiom. While the Quran is the matter, the victory of belief over pain, true guide and motivator, its teaching can only and the victory of faith over be effective when coupled to Islamic persecution.(8) activism.(10) The Battle in the Realm of Ideas, Worldviews True Religion as Radical and Revolutionary and Ideologies Fundamentalist writers stress the Fundamentalisms stress the importance of revolutionary character of Islam, viewed as a the battle in the realm of ideas.
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