The brutal execution of young Jordanian pilot Muath Al Kaseasbeh by Daesh (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) militants has focused the world’s attention on the rising threat of this deranged group of terrorists preaching a narrow-minded “puritanical” version of Islam. They are now in control of vast swaths of land between Syria and Iraq; larger than the size of the United Kingdom. Al Kaseasbeh was burnt alive and his gruesome death was made into a movie and the video of his immolation was put online for all to see. The immediate objective was to shock and intimidate perceived enemies of the so-called “Caliphate”, but it is important to note that Al Kaseasbeh, a Sunni, was put to death because he belonged, in the militants’ view, to an apostate state. The dogma of the militants rests on controversial and ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam that has its roots in the Wahhabi sect of the 18th century and the teachings of Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328) many centuries before that. Today, many scholars consider Wahhabism as a fundamentalist dogma that inspired and produced the modern-day Salafist movement.
In the view of Salafist extremists, including Al Qaida, Al Shabab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria, the main enemy is the West and its secular way of life, but the immediate target of their so-called jihad are the apostate states in the realm of Islam. Only when the militants extend their control over the Muslim states, abrogating borders enforced by the colonialist West in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate in the early 20th century, will the resurging Daesh focus its attention on the common enemy, which is the “infidel West” led by the US. Their objective is not to take the war to the West — the terrorist attacks in Europe and the US notwithstanding — but to lure the enemy to this part of the world and exhaust its resources in various military conflicts.
King Abdullah of Jordan was the first Arab-Muslim leader to sound the alarm bell when he described what was going on as “a war within Islam”. It is a war between Muslims and inside the Islamic world that now extends from Nigeria to Pakistan and beyond. It is a war of ideas and interpretations; a war within Muslim civilisation for the sake of Muslim civilisation. The terrorists believe their cause is right and that their struggle to create a new Muslim Caliphate will eventually succeed.
Accepting this premise means that these militants constitute a direct threat to every Arab and Muslim country. And while their numbers are limited; tens of thousands at best among more than 1.5 billion Muslims, the bigger danger is that their strict dogma is finding a fertile ground in most Muslim countries.
The spread of fundamentalism has been slow but consistent during the latter half of the 20th century. The dismal failure of nationalist-socialist ideologies such as Nasserism and Baathism, between the 1950s and 1980s, created a vacuum that was soon filled by Salafist preachers. It also gave rise to so-called moderate Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet Union and the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 created unprecedented waves of religious zeal in the region. Sunni Mujahideen fighters from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and other nations were encouraged by the US to head to Afghanistan to fight Soviet intruders. These extremists, described by former US president Ronald Reagan as “freedom fighters”, became the precursors of Al Qaida, whose initial objective was not to fight the US directly, but to destabilise Saudi Arabia, overthrow its rulers and liberate it from the Americans.
Also fuelling this religious zeal was Iran’s direct challenge of the US and Israel. The birth of Hezbollah in the 1980s and its waging of guerrilla warfare against Israeli occupation gave rise to the Shiites in Lebanon as a major sectarian force. The eight-year war between Iraq and Iran planted the seeds of Sunni-Shiite violence. It did spill over in the aftermath of America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the toppling of Saddam Hussain.
Today, the region is reeling from religious and sectarian conflicts. The chaos that resulted from the Arab Spring uprisings and the vacuum created by the fall of nation-states in Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Yemen were immediately filled by various terrorist groups fighting under different banners. The more extreme factions seem to have the upper hand in Syria and Iraq. The rise of Daesh militants in the past three years has shocked the region and presented a new global challenge.
King Abdullah has called for an Arab-Muslim coalition to stand up against extremists. The objective is not limited to fighting the militants in the battlefield, but to eradicate fundamentalist dogma that appeals to millions and which has provided a breeding ground for extremists. This “war within Islam” must be won by the moderates and it will take time. The real battle must take place in schools, universities, prisons and in households. It begins with education and the teaching of tolerance and moderation. Moreover, these countries must strive to create egalitarian societies that shun extremism and embrace universal human values. It is a war that we cannot afford to lose.
Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.
