OPINION Vol.1, No.1 June 2013 - National Defence University

Introduction
AL QAEDA AND THE MUSLIM WORLD
Brand name Al Qaeda continues to haunt the world since last two decades. It is evading its
elimination despite employment of the World’s collective war effort. Anti Al Qaeda war effort led by US
has yet not been able to evolve a consensus policy and strategy to eradicate Al Qaeda’s co-opting strategy.
Al Qaeda, though weak, has still managed to widen the gap between Muslims and the West. Furthermore,
its ingress in the literate Muslim community is evident from the availability of pro Al Qaeda literature in
libraries and internet.
This twenty three year old religious militant organization, despite losing its top leadership,
masterminds and hard-core militants, is still simmering in Muslim world waiting for its re-emergence. In
last two decades, Al Qaeda has been successful in selling their brand through their ideology as the most
inspirational militant organization. Most of its co-opted militant organizations in different parts of the
world draw strength for just being associated to them. This article is aimed at analyzing the evolution of
Al Qaeda and its impact on the Muslim world in general and Pakistan in particular, so as to draw pertinent
recommendations.
Evolution of Al Qaeda
Genesis
Al Qaeda, meaning "the base", was created in 1989 in Afghanistan. Bin Laden himself had
security training from the US and its allies. After differences with Saudi government in 1991, Al Qaeda
leadership moved to Sudan where they operated until forced out under world pressure in 1996. Al Qaeda’s
limited choice could only select friendly Taliban led Afghanistan for pursuance of their Ideology.
Afghanistan remained their operational base until late 2001 when US campaign in Afghanistan dispersed
them in Pak-Afghan border area and remaining Muslim world. Al Qaeda is a loosely knit organization;
which operates across continents as a chain of interlocking networks with little more than shared aims,
ideas and methods, with high degree of autonomy.
Evolution of Al Qaeda’s Ideology 1
To understand the mindset of Al Qaeda’s volunteers one must appreciate their belief system and
the group’s ideology, which as per them was based on Islam and pursuit of Jihad. Its founding ideologues
include Ibn Taymiyyah and later Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab who claimed that Islam was corrupted a
generation or so after the death of Holy Prophet (MPBUH) and professed “bringing back the purity in
Islam”. Abdul Ala Maududi was the first to instrumentalize the concept of “Jihad in a political context” 2 .
Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb developed the idea further in the Middle East, primarily against Israel
and the Jews. Conceptualization of Jihad was marked by “Takfir” whereby willingness to kill apostate was
propagated declaring western civilization the enemy of Islam and denouncing leaders of Muslim nations
for not following Islam closely enough. Jihad as a political concept returned to Asia with the influx of
Arab mujahideen to Afghanistan from 1979 onwards where Abdullah Azzam conceptualized it in a
struggle to defeat Soviets. Later, to legitimize Al Qaeda’s campaign against US and West, Osama based
his arguments on selective choice from his mentor’s writing. One of the key reasons why Osama and
Abdullah Azzam parted ways in the late 1980s was the latter’s firm contention that terrorism was not an
acceptable act. At that point Egyptian veterans of the Afghan campaign were planning to turn to terrorism
on their return home, and having lived in Egypt Azzam understood the implications of their decision. As
an activist as much as an ideologue, Osama and subsequent mentors (al-Zawahiri, al-Turabi, Omar
Sheikh) developed and broadened the appeal of Al Qaeda’s ideology to attract the widest possible support.
Aims and Objectives of Al Qaeda 3
Aims and objectives of Al Qaeda are:-
Unite all Muslims and re-establish an Islamic Caliphate.
Topple pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East.
Remove American military, economic and cultural influence from the Middle East and Islamic
countries.
OPINION Vol.1 No.1 11 June 2013