Salafi jihadism

The Egyptian Islamist movements of 1950s are generally considered to be the precursors of contemporary Salafi-Jihadist movements.[39] The theological doctrines of the Syrian-Egyptian Islamic scholar Sayyid Rashid Rida (1865–1935 CE) greatly influenced these movements. Amongst his notable ideas included reviving the traditions of the early Muslim generations (Salaf) as well ridding the Islamic World of Western influences and Jahiliyya by specifically looking up to the model of Khulafa Rashidun. Rida's ideas would set the foundations of future Salafi-Jihadist movements and greatly influence Islamists like Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, and other Islamic fundamentalist figures.[46][47][48][49] Rashid Rida fervently opposed Western ideas and foreign influences, and his activities were focused on overturning the encroachment of secular laws across the Muslim World following the First World War. Rida believed that deference to man-made laws was tantamount to the polytheism of "Jahiliyya" and campaigned for the re-establishment of a Sunni Caliphate that would unite the Muslims. Only this, Rida asserted, alongside the "return to ture and pure Islam" exemplified by the tenets of the Salafiyya movement; could liberate Muslim World from colonialism and restore past Islamic glory.[50][51] Rida's treatises laid the theological framework of future militants who would eventually establish the Salafi-Jihadi movement.[50][52]

The revolutionary ideals advocated by Islamist scholar Sayyid Qutb through his prison-writings constitute the ideological basis of the Salafi-Jihadi movement

Fore-runners of Salafi jihadism principally includes Egyptian militant Islamist scholar and theoretician Sayyid Qutb, who developed "the intellectual underpinnings", in the 1950s, for what would later become the doctrine of most Jihadist organizations around the world, including Al-Qaeda and ISIS.[53][54][55][56] Going radically further than his predecessors, Qutb called upon Muslims to form an ideologically committed vanguard that would wage armed Jihad against the secular and Western-allied governments in the Arab World, until the restoration of Islamic rule.[50][52] Sayyid Qutb's brother, Muhammad Qutb was one of Osama bin Laden’s teachers at university. Sayyid Qutb has been described as "Al-Qaeda's Philosopher". Ayman al Zawahiri, the Egyptian who was second in command and co-founder of Al-Qaeda, called Qutb, "the most prominent theoretician of the fundamentalist movements".[57][58]

In his writings, both before and after joining the Muslim Brotherhood Qutb argued that the Muslim world had reached a crisis point and that the Islamic world has been replaced by pagan ignorance of Jahiliyyah, (which directly translates to "ignorance", a term used by Muslims to describe the "dark" ages of pre-Islamic Arabia). When Qutb went abroad for a two-year scholarship to the United States, it is said he came back with extremist radical beliefs. He used what's been often described by scholars as his "genuine literary excellence" to spread these views of western criticism to form the main intellectual doctrine for the Muslim Brotherhood, which later be adopted by most terrorist organizations worldwide.[59][60]

Qutbism doctrine of Islam interpretation emphasizes how the secular, infidel Muslim leaders and populations have fallen to imitating the western way of life, and that before any prosperity would occur, the Muslim world must revert to the Caliphate-age Shari'ah Law instead of "Man-made laws". He issued ideological & religious debates stating that the violent means are justifiable under Islamic Law for an end as great as returning the Islamic State "days of glory", and these means are often leading a victorious violent holy war (Jihad) against the West.[61]

A part of his writings which have influenced Islamists and terrorist organizations on the nature of The West, can be found in his book "The America that I Have Seen", which he wrote immediately after returning to Egypt from the United States. In it he complained of Western materialism, individual freedoms, economic system, racism, brutal boxing matches, "poor" haircuts,[62] superficiality in conversations and friendships,[63] restrictions on divorce, enthusiasm for sports, lack of artistic feeling,[63] "animal-like" mixing of the sexes (which "went on even in churches"),[64] and strong support for the new Israeli state.[65]

He was appalled by what he perceived as loose sexual openness of American men and women. Qutb noted with disapproval the openly displayed sexuality of American women stating in the same influential book The America that I Have Seen:

the American girl is well acquainted with her body's seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs – and she shows all this and does not hide it.[62]

On 29 August 1966, Sayyid Qutb was executed by hanging by Egyptian president's Gamal Abdel-Nasser's regime for his alleged role in the president's assassination plot.[66][67][68][69] This would later paint him as an Islamic martyr or shahid (he is often called "Shahid Sayyid Qutb" or Sayyid Qutb al-Shahid by admirers) among supporters & Islamist circles, particularly as the trial was alleged to be a show trial.[70] Qutb wrote his major Islamist works (a commentary of the Qur'an, Fi Zilal al-Qur'an (In the Shade of the Qur'an), and a manifesto of political Islam called Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq (Milestones), while incarcerated and allegedly tortured. This, alongside his allegedly extrajudicial execution, elevated the value of these two major writings, giving his radical, violent Islamist doctrine in his writings a stronger influence over future terrorist organizations.[71][72]

The crushing defeat of various Arab states in the 1967 Six-Day War led to the de-legitimization of socialist and nationalist ideologies across the Arab world. Their demise provided a fertile ground for the Salafiyya movement, which spread across the Arab world as well as the wider Islamic world. The rise of oil industry in Gulf states also brought in a large-workforce. The workforce embraced Salafi doctrines and founded Salafi organisations as they returned to their home-countries.[39]

Beginning from 1970s, various Islamist and Jihadist factions attempted to idealize traditional Salafiyya, recasting it as a totalizing political system based on the doctrines of Sayyid Qutb. Majority of Salafis traditionally viewed Salafiyya as a scholarly movement that revived the religious faith of Muslims through teaching and devout adherence to Islamic decrees. Additionally, they advocated Salafism to remain uncontaminated from politics. However, a minority sought the establishment of an Islamic system through violent means, based on Sayyid Qutb's concepts of Hakimiyya (Sovereignty of God). They advocated a global Jihad, with clear political overtones, to fight for Muslim liberation across national boundaries. This movement came to be known as Salafi-Jihadism.[39] Groups like Takfir wal-Hijra, who kidnapped and murdered an Egyptian ex-government minister in 1978, also inspired some of "the tactics and methods" used by Al Qaeda.[11]

(Data from A Persistent Threat, The Evolution of al Qa’ida and Other Salafi Jihadists, Seth G. Jones, 2014, Figure 3.1)

Gilles Kepel writes that the Salafis whom he encountered in Europe in the 1980s, were "totally apolitical".[9][11] However, by the mid-1990s, he met some who felt jihad in the form of "violence and terrorism" was "justified to realize their political objectives". The mingling of many Salafists who were alienated from mainstream European society with violent jihadists created "a volatile mixture".[11] "When you're in the state of such alienation you become easy prey to the jihadi guys who will feed you more savory propaganda than the old propaganda of the Salafists who tell you to pray, fast and who are not taking action".[11]

In Afghanistan, the Taliban were adherents of the Deobandi, not the Salafi school of Islam, but they "cross-fertilized" with bin Laden and other Salafist jihadis.[9]

In his research, Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation finds that Salafi-jihadist numbers and activity have increased from 2007 to 2013. According to his research:

• the number of Salafi jihadist groups increased by over 50% from 2010 to 2013, using Libya and parts of Syria as sanctuary.
• the number of Salafi jihadist fighters "more than doubled from 2010 to 2013" using both low and high estimates. The war in Syria was the single most important attraction for Salafi-jihadist fighters.
• attacks by al-Qaeda–affiliated groups (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al Shabaab, Jabhat al-Nusrah, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula)
• despite al-Qaeda's traditional focus on the "far enemy" (US and Europe), approximately 99% of the attacks by al-Qaeda and its affiliates in 2013 were against "near enemy" targets (in North Africa, the Middle East, and other regions outside of the West).[28]

"Theoreticians" of Salafist jihadism included Afghan jihad veterans such as the Palestinian Abu Qatada, the Syrian Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, the Egyptian Mustapha Kamel, known as Abu Hamza al-Masri.[73] Osama bin Laden was its most well-known leader. The dissident Saudi preachers Salman al-Ouda and Safar Al-Hawali, were held in high esteem by this school. Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri would praise Sayyid Qutb, stating that Qutb's call formed the ideological inspiration for the contemporary Salafi-Jihadist movement.[74] Other leading figures in the movement include Anwar al-Awlaki, former leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP);[75] Abu Bakar Bashir, leader of the banned Indonesian militant group (Jema'ah Islamiyah); Nasir al-Fahd, Saudi Arabian Salafi-Jihadist scholar who opposes the Saudi state, and reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIS;[76] Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of the Nigerian Boko Haram;[77] Omar Bakri Muhammad,[78] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Levant;[79][80] etc.

Murad al-Shishani of The Jamestown Foundation states there have been three generations of Salafi-jihadists: those waging jihad in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq. As of the mid-2000s, Arab fighters in Iraq were "the latest and most important development of the global Salafi-jihadi movement".[81] These fighters were usually not Iraqis, but volunteers who had come to Iraq from other countries, mainly Saudi Arabia. Unlike in earlier Salafi jihadi actions, Egyptians "are no longer the chief ethnic group".[81] According to Bruce Livesey Salafist jihadists are currently a "burgeoning presence in Europe, having attempted more than 30 terrorist attacks among EU countries" from September 2001 to the beginning of 2005".[11]

According to Mohammed M. Hafez, in Iraq jihadi salafi are pursuing a "system-collapse strategy" whose goal is to install an "Islamic emirate based on Salafi dominance, similar to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan." In addition to occupation/coalition personnel they target mainly Iraqi security forces and Shia civilians, but also "foreign journalists, translators and transport drivers and the economic and physical infrastructure of Iraq."[32]

Salafist jihadist groups include Al Qaeda,[14] the now defunct Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA),[34] and the Egyptian group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya which still exists.

In the Algerian Civil War 1992–1998, the GIA was one of the two major Islamist armed groups (the other being the Armee Islamique du Salut or AIS) fighting the Algerian army and security forces. The GIA included veterans of the Afghanistan jihad and unlike the more moderate AIS, fought to destabilize the Algerian government with terror attacks designed to "create an atmosphere of general insecurity".[82] It considered jihad in Algeria fard ayn or an obligation for all (sane adult male) Muslims,[82] and sought to "purge" Algeria of "the ungodly" and create an Islamic state. It pursued what Gilles Kepel called "wholesale massacres of civilians", targeting French-speaking intellectuals, foreigners,[82] and Islamists deemed too moderate, and took its campaign of bombing to France, which supported the Algerian government against the Islamists. Although over 150,000 were killed in the civil war,[83] the GIA eventually lost popular support and was crushed by the security forces.[84] Remnants of the GIA continued on as "Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat", which as of 2015 calls itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.[85]

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, (the Islamic Group) another Salafist-jihadi movement[86] fought an insurgency against the Egyptian government from 1992 to 1998 during which at least 800 Egyptian policemen and soldiers, jihadists, and civilians were killed. Outside of Egypt it is best known for a November 1997 attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor where fifty-eight foreign tourists trapped inside the temple were hunted down and hacked and shot to death. The group declared a ceasefire in March 1999,[87] although as of 2012 it is still active in jihad against the Ba'athist Syrian regime.[86]

Flag of al-Qaeda

Perhaps the most famous and effective Salafist jihadist group was Al-Qaeda.[88] Al-Qaeda evolved from the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), or the "Services Office", a Muslim organization founded in 1984 to raise and channel funds and recruit foreign mujahideen for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It was established in Peshawar, Pakistan, by Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. As it became apparent that the jihad had compelled the Soviet military to abandon its mission in Afghanistan, some mujahideen called for the expansion of their operations to include Islamist struggles in other parts of the world, and Al Qaeda was formed by bin Laden on August 11, 1988.[89][90] Members were to making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.[91] Al-Qaeda emphasized jihad against the "far enemy", by which it meant the United States. In 1996, it announced its jihad to expel foreign troops and interests from what they considered Islamic lands, and in 1998, it issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill Americans and their allies whenever and wherever they could. Among its most notable acts of violence were the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi that killed over 200 people;[92] and the 9/11 attacks of 2001 that killed almost 3,000 people and caused many billions of dollars in damage.

According to Mohammed M. Hafez, "as of 2006 the two major groups within the jihadi Salafi camp" in Iraq were the Mujahidin Shura Council and the Ansar al Sunna Group.[32] There are also a number of small jihadist Salafist groups in Azerbaijan.[93]

The group leading the Islamist insurgency in Southern Thailand in 2006 by carrying out most of the attacks and cross-border operations,[94] BRN-Koordinasi, favours Salafi ideology. It works in a loosely organized strictly clandestine cell system dependent on hard-line religious leaders for direction.[95][96]

Jund Ansar Allah is, or was, an armed Salafist jihadist organization in the Gaza Strip. On August 14, 2009, the group's spiritual leader, Sheikh Abdel Latif Moussa, announced during Friday sermon the establishment of an Islamic emirate in the Palestinian territories attacking the ruling authority, the Islamist group Hamas, for failing to enforce Sharia law. Hamas forces responded to his sermon by surrounding his Ibn Taymiyyah mosque complex and attacking it. In the fighting that ensued, 24 people (including Sheikh Abdel Latif Moussa himself), were killed and over 130 were wounded.[97]

In 2011, Salafist jihadists were actively involved with protests against King Abdullah II of Jordan,[98] and the kidnapping and killing of Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni in Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.[99][100]

In the North Caucasus region of Russia, the Caucasus Emirate replaced the nationalism of Muslim Chechnya and Dagestan with a hard-line Salafist-takfiri jihadist ideology. They are immensely focused on upholding the concept of tawhid (purist monotheism), and fiercely reject any practice of shirk, taqlid, ijtihad and bid‘ah. They also believe in the complete separation between the Muslim and the non-Muslim, by propagating Al Wala' Wal Bara' and declaring takfir against any Muslim who (they believe) is a mushrik (polytheist) and does not return to the observance of tawhid and the strict literal interpretation of the Quran and the Sunnah as followed by Muhammad and his companions (Sahaba).[101]

Flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

In Syria and Iraq both Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS[102] have been described as Salafist-jihadist. Jabhat al-Nusra has been described as possessing "a hard-line Salafi-Jihadist ideology" and being one of "the most effective" groups fighting the regime.[103] Writing after ISIS victories in Iraq, Hassan Hassan believes ISIS is a reflection of "ideological shakeup of Sunni Islam's traditional Salafism" since the Arab Spring, where salafism, "traditionally inward-looking and loyal to the political establishment", has "steadily, if slowly", been eroded by Salafism-jihadism.[102]

Boko Haram in Nigeria is a Salafi jihadism group[104] that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 2.3 million from their homes,[105]

In France, in 2015 police say that salafism is represented in 90 out of 2500 investigated religious communities, which was double the number compared to five years earlier.[106] In November and December 2016, authorities closed four salafist mosque in Ecquevilly, the El Islah mosque in Villiers-sur-Marne and two in Seine-Saint-Denis (Clichy-sous-Bois and Stains).[107]

In December 2017, a salafi-Jihadist mosque in Marseille was closed by authorities for preaching about violent jihad.[108] In August 2018, after the European Court of Human Rights approved the decision, French authorities deported the salafi-Jihadist preacher Elhadi Doudi to his home country Algeria because of his radical messages he spread in Marseille.[109]

According to Deutsche Welle, Salafism is a growing movement in Germany whose aim of a Caliphate is incompatible with a Western democracy.[110] According to the German Federal Agency for Civic Education, nearly all Islamist terrorists are Salafists, but not all Salafists are terrorists. Therefore, the agency evaluated the Salafist movement beyond the actions by Salafists and analysed the ideological framework of Salafism which is in conflict with the minimal foundations of a democratic and open society. Salafists calling for the death penalty for apostasy is in conflict with freedom of religion. The dualistic view on "true believers" and "false believers" in practice means people being treated unequally on religious grounds. The call for a religious state in the form of a caliphate means that Salafists reject the rule of law and the sovereignty of the people's rule. The Salafist view on gender and society leads to discrimination and the subjugation of women.[111]

Estimates by German interior intelligence service show that it grew from 3,800 members in 2011 to 7,500 members in 2015.[112] In Germany, most of the recruitment to the movement is done on the Internet and also on the streets,[112] a propaganda drive which mostly attracts youth.[112] There are two ideological camps, one advocates Salafi-Activism and directs its recruitment efforts towards non-Muslims and non-Salafist Muslims to gain influence in society.[112] The other and minority movement, the jihadist Salafism, advocates gaining influence by the use of violence and nearly all identified terrorist cells in Germany came from Salafist circles.[112]

In 2015, Sigmar Gabriel, Vice-Chancellor of Germany, spoke out, saying "We need Saudi Arabia to solve the regional conflicts, but we must at the same time make clear that the time to look away is past. Wahhabi mosques are financed all over the world by Saudi Arabia. In Germany, many dangerous Islamists come from these communities."[113] In November 2016, nationwide raids were conducted on the Salafi-Islamist True Religion organization.[114][115][116]

According to the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Cologne, the number of Salafists in Germany grew from 9,700 in December 2016 to 10,800 in December 2017. In addition to the rise, the Salafist movement in Germany was increasingly fractured which made them harder to monitor by authorities.[110] According to the office, street distributions of Quran took place less frequently which was described as a success for the authorities.[110] Radicalisation changed character, from taking place in mosques and interregional Salafist organisations to more often happening in small circles, which increasingly formed on the internet. A further development was a rise in participation of women.[110] According to the FFGI at Goethe University Frankfurt, wahhabist ideology is spread in Germany as in other European country mostly by an array of informal, personal and organisational networks, where organisations closely associated with the government of Saudi Arabia such as the Muslim World League (WML) and the World Association of Muslim Youth are actively participating.[117]

In February 2017, the German Salafist mosque organisation Berliner Fussilet-Moscheeverein was banned by authorities. Anis Amri, the perpetrator of the 2016 Berlin truck attack, was said to be among its visitors. In March 2017, the German Muslim community organisation Deutschsprachige Islamkreis Hildesheim was also banned after investigators found that its members were preparing to travel to the conflict zone in Syria to fight for the Islamic State. According to the Federal Agency for Civic Education, these examples show that certain Salafist mosques not only concern themselves with religious matters, but also prepare serious crimes and terrorist activities.[118]

Many Islamic religious buildings were damaged or destroyed in the Bosnian War during the 90s, estimates say up to 80%,[119] and some are rebuilt with the aid of funds from Saudi Arabia in exchange for Saudi control which became the starting point of the Wahhabi influence in Bosnia. According to a study from 2005, over 3% of the mainstream Sunni Muslim population (around 60,000 people) of Bosnia and Herzegovina identified themselves as wahhabist. Despite this, all-covering veils such as niqab and burqa are still a rare sight.[120]

Representatives from the mosque in Gävle are promoting this variant of Islam, which is considered extreme in Sweden. According to researcher Aje Carlbom at Malmö University the organisation which is behind the missionary work is the Swedish United Dawah Center, abbreviated SUDC.[121] SUDC is characterised as a salafist group by a researcher of religious history at Stockholm University and it has many links to the British Muslim Abdur Raheem Green.[121] According to professor Mohammed Fazlhashemi, salafi-Jihadists oppose rational theology and they hate shia Muslims most of all.[121] Three Muslim community organisations in Malmö reportedly invited antisemitic and homophobic salafist lecturers such as Salman al-Ouda. One of the organisations, Alhambra is a student society at Malmö University.[122]

In Hässleholm the Ljusets moské (translated: "mosque of the light") is spreading salafi ideology and portray shia Muslims as apostates and traitors in social media while the atrocities of the Islamic state are never mentioned.[123] In 2009 the imam Abu al-Hareth at the mosque was sentenced to six years in jail for the attempted murder of a local shia Muslim from Iraq and another member set fire to a shia mosque in Malmö.[123] In 2017, Swedish Security Police reported that the number of jihadists in Sweden had risen to thousands from about 200 in 2010.[124] Based on social media analysis, an increase was noted in 2013.[125] According to police in Sweden, salafist-Jihadists affect the communities where they are active.[126]

According to Swedish researcher Magnus Ranstorp, salafi-Jihadism is antidemocratic, homophobic and aims to subjugate women and is therefore opposed to a societal order founded on democracy.[126] According to Anas Khalifa, the salafi movement is present at nearly every major mosque in Sweden "in some form".[127]

A 2017 report found the number of Wahhabi and Salafi-Jihadist mosques in Britain had increased from 68 in 2007 to 110 in 2014.[128] The report found that Middle Eastern nations are providing financial support to mosques and Islamic educational institutions, which have been linked to the spread of Salafi-Jihadist materials which expoused "an illiberal, bigoted" ideology.[129][130]

In several places and times, jihadis have taken control of an area and they have ruled it as an Islamic state, such as ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

Among jihadists, establishing an uncompromising form of sharia law is a core value and goal, but strategies differ over how quickly this should be done. Observers such as the journalist Robert Worth have described jihadis as being torn between wanting to build a truly Islamic order gradually from the bottom up in order to avoid alienating non-jihadi Muslims (the desire of Osama bin Laden), and not wanting to wait for the creation of an Islamic state.[131]

In Zinjibar, Yemen, AQAP established an "emirate" which lasted from May 2011 until the summer of 2012. It emphasized (and publicized with a media campaign) "uncharacteristically gentle" good governance over its conquered territory rather than strict enforcement of sharia law—rebuilding infrastructure, quashing banditry, and resolving legal disputes.[132] One jihadi veteran of Yemen described its approach towards the local population:

You have to take a gradual approach with them when it comes to religious practices. You can't beat people for drinking alcohol when they don't even know the basics of how to pray. We have to first stop the great sins, and then move gradually to the lesser and lesser ones. ... Try to avoid enforcing Islamic punishments as much as possible unless you are forced to do so.[132]

However AQAP's "clemency drained away under the pressure of war",[132] and the area was taken back by the government. The failure of this model (according to New York Times correspondent Robert Worth), may have "taught" jihadis a lesson on the need to instill fear.[132]

ISIS is believed to have used a manifesto which is titled "The Management of Savagery" as its model. The manifesto emphasizes the need to create areas of "savagery"—i.e., lawlessness—in enemy territory. Once the enemy was too exhausted and weakened from the lawlessness (particularly terrorism) to continue to try to govern its territory, the nucleus of a new caliphate could be established in its place.[133] The author of "The Management of Savagery", did not place a lot of emphasis on winning the sympathy of local Muslims, instead, he placed a lot of emphasis on the use of extreme violence, writing that: "One who previously engaged in jihad knows that it is naught but violence, crudeness, terrorism, frightening [others] and massacring – I am talking about jihad and fighting, not about Islam and one should not confuse them."[133] (Social-media posts from ISIS territory "suggest that individual executions happen more or less continually, and mass executions occur every few weeks", according to journalist Graeme Wood.[134])