Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ISLAMIC GROUP • 301selective implementation of Islamic law and that would not excludenon-Muslims from political participation in the various Muslim nations.The use of the term jihadism as a generic term for fundamentalism hasbeen criticized, since even reformist and other non-violent Muslimsaccept the principle of jihad as a religious duty but may regard it as beingprimarily an internal spiritual struggle rather than violence towardnon-Muslims. Despite these attempted distinctions, popular discourseand journalism tend to use these terms interchangeably.It should also be noted that there is another strain of populist, fundamentalistIslam that is radically nonpolitical, namely, Sufism (Arabic:Tassawuf or ‘Irfan), which represents an intensely personal andexperience-oriented mysticism. In the 19th and early 20th centuries,the devotees of Sufism, known as dervishes or Sufis, joined in mysticalbrotherhoods, or tariqat, found throughout the Islamic world, anddid engage in armed rebellions against European colonialism, suchas the revolt of the Sudanese Mahdi in Khartoum; however, duringrecent decades these orders have tended to be apolitical and evenopenly critical of more politically oriented variations of Islamic fundamentalism.Therefore, as one means of counteracting the influenceof fundamentalist militants within Egypt, President Hosni Mubarakhas given much official support to the Sufi orders, both to bolster hisown Islamic credentials and also to divert pietistic tendencies amongthe ordinary faithful into channels that do not threaten the state.It should be noted in any case that the vast majority of Muslimswho hold what may be considered fundamentalist beliefs are notengaged in extremist politics or revolutionary violence, and many ofthem abhor the violence of the extremist militants.ISLAMIC GROUP (IG). The Gama’a al Islamiya is a nonstate Islamicfundamentalist group that sought the overthrow and replacement ofthe current secular regime in Egypt by its version of an Islamic state.It claimed Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman as its spiritual leader andthreatened retaliation against Americans and U.S. interests after hewas sentenced to life imprisonment on 17 January 1996. The IG hastargeted tourists, Coptic Christians, and senior Egyptian officials inits attempts to topple the Hosni Mubarak regime. On 26 August 1994the IG machine-gunned a bus full of Spanish tourists near Nag Hammadi,killing a 13-year-old boy. On 26 June 1995 IG gunmen openedfire on Mubarak’s motorcade in Addis Ababa; the two gunmen and