Please note that this is BBC copyright and may not be reproduced or copied for any other purpose. RADIO 4 CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS THE THEOLOGY OF TERRORISM TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDED DOCUMENTARY Presenter: Edward Stourton Producer: Innes Bowen Editor: Nicola Meyrick BBC White City 201 Wood Lane London W12 7TS 020 8752 7279 Broadcast Date: 21 July 2005 Repeat Date: 24 July 2005 Tape Number: PLN529/05VT1029 Duration: 27’43” Taking part in order of appearance: Abu Khadeeja Abdul-Waahid, Specialist in Islamic Affairs & Minister Of Religion, Salafi Institute & Salafi Publications Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi (archive recording) Tariq Ramadam, Professor of Philosophy, leader European Islamic scholar and author of To Be A European Muslim. Dr Malise Ruthven, writer and lecturer on Islamic affairs and author of A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America. Professor Richard Bonney, Director of the Centre for the History of Religious and Political Pluralism, University of Leicester and author of Jihad: from Qur'an to bin Laden Dr Maha Azzam, Associate Fellow, Royal Institute of International Affairs “Khalid”, former member of Egyptian militant group Gamma Islamiya Aminul Hoque, post graduate student at Goldsmith’s College, University of London Noman Benotman, former member of the Shura Committee of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and founder member of the Libya Human and Political Development Forum. Judge Hamoud al Hitar, leader of Yemeni project to re-educate Al Qaeda prisoners in Islamic theology Abdullah Islam, Assistant general secretary, Dawatul Islam, Shadwell, East London. Blair This is not an isolated criminal act we are dealing with it is an extreme and evil ideology whose roots lie in a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of the religion of Islam. (Archive clip: Tony Blair) Sacranie These people who we believe have committed these acts of atrocity are misguided individuals. They happen to be Muslim. And it is not Islam that is the problem it is those individuals and the criminality that is there. (Archive clip: Sir Iqbal Sacranie, Muslim Council of Britain) Bakri If martyrdom is what you want, make sure you have nothing left behind you to think about or to cry for and fight in the name of Allah!” (Archive clip: Omar Bakri Mohammed, former leader of al Muhajiroun) Stourton The possibility of a direct connection between Islam and violence is the elephant in the room of polite political conversation, the huge fact that no one wants to address. Or at least it was until the London bombings forced the Prime Minister and some of the country’s most prominent Muslim leaders to confront it directly at this week’s meeting in Downing Street. There is an intense debate being fought out within Islam itself about what can and what cannot be justified by Islamic theology on the use of violence, and the bombings have thrown it into sharp relief. Listen to these two judgements on the ethics of suicide bomb attacks. One of them comes from a Muslim fundamentalist, the other from a leading Islamic scholar. Abu Khadeeja Suicide bombings are strictly forbidden in the Islamic sharia, the tradition of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in which he said that any person who takes his own life then he will continue to take his own life eternally in the hell fire. Al-Qaradawi It is not suicide, it is martyrdom in the name of God. Islamic theologians and jurisprudence have debated this issue referring to it as a form of jihad under the title of jeopardising the life of the mujahid. Abu Khadeeja Allah’s messenger, peace be upon him, the Prophet Mohammed forbade the killing of anyone from the civilians in any aspect what so ever. Al-Qaradawi Israeli women are not like the women in our society because Israeli women are militarised. Abu Khadeeja Yes the Israelis are oppressive, no doubt, but at the same time there is no justice in sending Muslim children and Muslim women and Muslim men and brainwashing them and sending them in to the ranks of the Israeli society and causing them to blow themselves up. If the Prophet Mohammed was alive today then he would be spearheading the campaign against these terrorists. Stourton That clear condemnation of suicide bombing as un-Islamic you heard first comes from the fundamentalist – Abu Khadeeja, a Birmingham preacher. The apologist for the tactic who believes that Israeli civilians are legitimate targets is Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi – he is regarded as a moderate by many Muslims and was invited to come to Britain next month to address a big conference in Manchester. These are shifting theological sands. And since the bombings in London there’s been much talk about the need for firm theological foundations for judgements about what is and what is not legitimate in the eyes of Islam. Tariq Ramadan, is a distinguished Muslim professor of philosophy currently teaching in France. Ramadan You have to explain that we have limits here and explain, Islamically speaking, that things that are not acceptable and the killing of innocents is not. Stourton This is an attempt to get behind the often heard platitude that “Islam is a religion of peace” – and the less often voiced but widely felt prejudice that, because it was born in war, Islam is in fact a religion of the sword. Like all debate about Islam it has to begin with the sacred text of the Koran and the life of the Prophet Mohammed. As well as listening to some very varied Muslim voices, we talked to people who have studied Islam as outsiders - with the discipline of academic objectivity. Malise Ruthven has spent much of his career writing and lecturing about Islam, and he finds a degree of ambiguity about violence at the birth of the faith. Ruthven Well of course there are of course the famous sword verses in the Koran that say kill the idolaters where ever you find them, but do not commit aggression. So there’s a kind of ambiguity right from the start. From that point of view it was something actually akin to the institutionalisation of warfare within an overall moral framework which departed significantly from the kind of rules of war which had been applied during pre-Islamic times amongst the warring Arabic tribes. But of course it becomes extraordinarily successful because once you have this idea of the new Muslim super tribe all the energy that had previously been consumed by internecine strife amongst the Arabs is expanded outwards and that was one of the reasons why they were so extraordinarily successful in that remarkable early period of expansion. Stourton So it is both, if you like, a civilising influence but also a very efficient one. Ruthven It’s a civilising influence certainly and one that I think can, if you look at the early Arab empire with it’s doctrine of jihad, be seen as successor empire to the Romans and the empire of Alexander. Those imperial movements created large states which opened up trade roots and ensured a sort of modicum of order and military authority. Stourton Within a century of the Prophet’s death Muslim lands stretched from the Atlantic to the borders of China. Muslim culture and intellectual life became highly sophisticated, and a theology of jihad was worked out by Islamic scholars to fit the new reality. Richard Bonney is the author of a book on the history of Jihad. Bonney It’s only after the conquest in the first 60 years or so after the prophet’s life time that we have doctrines of jihad thoroughly worked out by jurists in the Islamic tradition. Stourton And broadly what were those doctrines? Bonney The emphasis is on jihad as a defensive warfare. So, not going into the question of whether or not the expansion was a good or a bad thing, they were saying effectively the lands are now Islamic, we have a right to defend them. But it is not necessarily a right to expand those lands further. And something that is not usually pointed out, I think which is very important about jihad is that it was not total warfare. Jihad was actually an attempt to limit warfare. Women, children, innocent bystanders were not to be killed, property was not to be needlessly plundered. Stourton So there was quite a sophisticated set of the rules of war, if you like developed in that period? Bonney Yes. And they were the most elaborate in any civilisation at the time. I think that’s quite clear. Stourton That “classical” understanding of the theology of war would certainly seem to exclude anything remotely like a suicide bomb attack on the London Underground. But over the past century something has shifted deep in the foundations of the Islamic faith, and it’s thrown up ideas like those of Sayyid Qutb, the one-time Egyptian civil servant who is now seen as the intellectual godfather of both the modern jihadi movement as well as the more mainstream Muslim brotherhood. Qutb was shocked by the face of western culture he encountered when he was sent to study in the United States in the late 1940’s and called for the creation of a vanguard of believers to fight jahiliyya - the “pagan ignorance and rebellion against God”. He was jailed, tortured and eventually executed by the regime of the Egyptian leader Nasser, and his understanding of Islam is strongly coloured by political ideology. And he was writing at a time when the traditional mechanisms by which the Islamic world made up its collective mind on questions of theology was under strain, a process that’s still continuing. Dr Maha Azzam, herself Egyptian, covers Islamic issues at Chatham house. Azzam What we are undergoing today in the Muslim world is a kind of reformation. It is not necessarily a reformation towards greater opening up – it’s a reformation like the reformation in Europe. It breeds extremism in initial phases. It’s essentially a reformation whereby certain individuals who are perhaps extremist, who have very little knowledge in Islam, are saying we can interpret the Koran in the way we want to interpret it, we can justify violence in a particular moment in history and this is acceptable and it isn’t up to the scholars and jurists that are seen by many as upholding the legitimacy of the state to be the only interpreters of Islam. Stourton When did that process really start? I mean, was it people like Qutb began that? Azzam I think it started before Sayyid Qutb in Egypt because they have always been those who have sought to reinterpret Islam but they’ve always been on the fringes of society. However, with the establishment of the nation state and the beginnings of a secular society in much of the Muslim world, the doors were open to greater reinterpretation of religion, to secular thinking, to the legitimisation of violence in the name of Islam. Essentially, it is a political response to a political situation that has very little to do with Islamic tradition or Islamic values. Sourton Without clarity about theological authority the question of what’s “un-Islamic” became increasingly difficult to settle – and with Osama bin Laden came another departure from traditional ideas about the rules of jihad; the right of self-defence was extended to cover attacks on the soil of countries which are judged to be oppressing Muslims – thus September 11th, and indeed, London. Richard Bonney has found no precedent for that in Islamic history. Bonney Traditionally the appeal was essentially national. So, in history, there’s not a general globalised struggle. What has happened – and it’s a consequence in part of globalisation and modern technology and means of communication – is that what was formerly conceived as a localised conflict, can become rapidly internationalised. And, indeed, bin Laden and his military strategists - because, of course, it’s not simply an ideology, it’s also a military strategy - have seen that the weak link for the Western societies is not in the countries that they’re allegedly oppressing and occupying, the weak link is back home in those capital cities and so on where vast numbers of people are very close together and buildings and transport systems are very difficult to defend. Bakri Somebody fly aeroplane and he decides to land the aeroplane over 10 Downing Street, for example, or over in the White House. We call this a form of self sacrifice operation. Stourton This is the radical cleric Omar Bakri addressing a meeting at a mosque in London last spring. Despite the open presence of a BBC team he was happy to advocate suicide attacks. Bakri People like to call it suicide bombing, we call it self sacrifice operation. Stourton The Islamic prohibition against taking one’s own life is absolute – so suicide attacks become self-sacrifice and martyrdom instead. Changing the rules gets easier as you settle into the habit. Malise Ruthven Ruthven The religious authorities, to some extent, could be said to follow the actions of the activists and the fist suicide bombing was committed by the Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1983 and, of course, it killed a very large number – several hundred – American and French soldiers and, of course, the US withdrawal from Lebanon. So this was seen as a famous victory. And Sheikh Fadlallah who was the spiritual leader of the Hezbollah in Lebanon eventually came up with a legal ruling saying that under certain circumstances if you succeed in inflicting very large casualties on an enemy who is occupying your country, suicide bombing is legitimate. And I think what has happened as events have become polarised in many different theatres is that the limitations and restrictions that had been advocated by religious leaders have become eroded and it’s simply, if you like, developed into a military tactic. Khalid When I was in the Gamma Islamiya people talked a lot about the theological aspect of the whole thing. Stourton “Khalid” has seen the process from the inside. At 14 he joined Gamma Islamiya, at the time the main militant group in Egypt with a strong of terrorist attacks to its name. He left at 21. Khalid They came to a conclusion that if there are Muslims who would be killed, it’s okay, let’s do it. Because in the old days - and this phrase you would hear it a lot in any Islamic group - in the old daysw hen Mongols invaded land of Islam, Muslims fought them although they used some lines of Muslims in the front lines. So, from this event, the radical Islamists understood that even if there are Muslims involved, just go with it, do it and let Muslims die and God would see where they should go. Stourton It sounds like theology being made up on the hoof to suit the circumstances. Khalefa No, it’s like any other movement. They are searching for new strategies and because they have 14 century old history behind them so you can find anything you want to find in this history and in this religion. Stourton Part of the Islamic response to the London bombings has been to talk about the politics behind the bombers’ motivation – Britain’s involvement in Iraq, for example, and the sense of alienation from British society felt by many young Muslims. The way to stop anything like the bombings happening again, runs the argument, is to address those political causes. But the outcome of this week’s Downing Street meeting – the decision to set up a task force to counter extremist ideas – is a recognition that theology matters just as much. Aminul Hoque is doing a PhD at Goldsmith’s College in London which has involved research into the thinking of young Muslims in this country. He argues that while political and economic factors can make them receptive to extreme ideas, it is the electrical charge of religion that changes disenchantment into something more dangerous. Hoque The message is twofold. Firstly, it’s saying that you’re not British – you are a Muslim first and foremost. You are united to other brothers and sisters around the globe who also believe in the same things you do. Okay. So that’s the number one message. Number two, and this is where it goes more towards the extreme element, is that if you die in the name of your religion a) it’s honourable, b) it’s a guaranteed passport into paradise. Stourton And who’s promoting these ideas? Hoque Dare I say it, there are community leaders and there are also the mujahideens – the warriors, the fighters - who used to be in Bosnia, in Afghanistan. By and large these people become role models and symbols of what can be achieved. It’s a deep kind of thinking such as, well, these people were prepared to give up their lives, they’ve come back and now they’re passing on their wisdom and experience on to us so we want to be just like them. Stourton And the evidence we have gathered for this programme from talking to those who have been actively involved in jihad suggests that the theology of what they are doing matters to them very much indeed. Noman Benotman is a Libyan exile living in London. He’s from an older generation of jiahdis – his jihad was fighting the communists in Afghanistan. He says that when he was a fighter the status of the religious leaders who issued fatwas – or religious rulings – about the conduct of warfare was critical in settling the questions raised by his own conscience and he says that’s as true now as it was then. Benotman There’s a huge debate between the scholars in the jihadi movement itself. For instance, just one of the clerics based here in London – his name is Abu Basir - well know worldwide, he classified as a jihadist, he issued a statement and made it clear what happened in London is against Islam and it shouldn’t take place, you know. And a lot of people they start to attacking him but I think he’s brave enough to issue that statement with his name. Stourton Does that debate have a resonance with ordinary jihadists, with the foot soldiers, if you like? Benotman Oh yes. Stourton It does? I mean, when they hear that challenge made to Al-Qaeda, does it make them question what they’re being told? Benotman Oh yes, sure. I think it happened even during the Afghan jihad, you know. I myself, I witnessed, I did witness such a thing, you know. I said no. When it comes to fatwa we’d like to hear the fatwas from our clerics in Saudi Arabia. Stourton You had to be assured on what you saw as good authority? Benotman You’re right. It’s critical and it’s part of the religion because you are responsible, you know. Myself, I’m … I don’t trust any fatwa without name – do not trust. And I think it’s something against Islam. Stourton It’s quite difficult though, isn’t it, particularly for a young and inexperienced man to judge which names carry real weight because there’s a great deal of … Benotman It’s very easy. Honestly, believe me, it‘s very easy in the Muslim world because respectable clerics, they prove themselves through their history, their background. It’s years and years until everybody starts saying, yes, I trust that guy, I trust this one. You can talk to them, if you like, with them. There’s telephone. You can go and visit them. But other people it’s just like kind of ghosts, you know. You can find no-one. Stourton Noman Benotman says al Qaeda’s failure to put names to its fatwas makes its theology irredeemably suspect – and that is one reason he condemns the London bombings without qualification. Governments in the Middle East which feel threatened by the jihadi movements are well aware of this mindset and have come to the very obvious conclusion that if religious feeling is such a salient characteristic of the jihadi outlook, it must make sense to fight extremism theologically as well as trying to deal with it through conventional security methods like surveillance. Dr Maha Azzam of Chatham House. Azzam This is a process that has been under way in Yemen, in Saudi Arabia and in Egypt. There is an understanding at the governmental level that’s it’s important to use scholars to create an environment where the young and others in society understand that this is Islamically unacceptable and to re-educate. Stourton Perhaps the most striking practical example of a theological challenge to the jihadi movement is the experiment that has been conducted in Yemen by one of the country’s judges, Hamoud al Hitar. He has pioneered a re-education programme for hundreds of Al Qaeda supporters who were rounded up in Yemen in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. It involves hours of debate and close textual analysis with the prisoners, but he believes the dividends have been well worth the effort. Hitar [Translation voiced over Arabic] Our first question to them was, do you agree with spilling blood of innocent people? Their response was, “Yes, if they are infidels. The Koran and our religion allows us to go after them and kill them.” We told them, no, that’s not he case. The Koran does not say that. And we gave them concrete evidence from the Koran and the Prophet’s sayings that actually says that Islam is against shedding people’s blood irrespective of their religion or gender unless it’s a case of war. We quoted to them that in the Koran itself there are a hundred and twenty four chapters that actually ask people to be kind to non-believers and only one reference that says if non-Muslims attack Muslims in their own homeland then maybe you can launch war against them. Since 2002, the number of terrorist attacks in Yemen dropped by 90% and that’s due first of all to our programme. Stourton Judge Al Hitar was invited to Britain by the government last year to talk about his programme. It’s self evident that the most extreme elements are likely to be the most difficult to persuade but the police in Britain have come to a strategic position that the battle of ideas is worth fighting and that it can only be won if they’re willing to engage with thinkers and groups who have ideas that would shock most of us. The strategy of course carries a significant risk. Some of the clerics most popular with practising young Muslims here are people such as the Egyptian born cleric Yusuf al Qaradawi, who we heard earlier in the programme justifying suicide bombings in Israel. And in the immediate aftermath of the London bombings the Metropolitan Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers were the target of an angry editorial in The Sun for sponsoring a visit to Britain by the Geneva-based philosopher Tariq Ramadan, who we also heard from earlier in this programme. Professor Ramadan is currently banned from the United States for, in the American judgment, “endorsing terrorist activity”. But the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, has said “unless we hear these voices, we are going to be in trouble”. Dawatul Islam centre atmos There is certainly nothing secretive about the groups that have invited Professor Ramadan to Britain – this is a school and community centre run by one of them, Dawatul Islam, in East London. And here the professor is regarded as very much part of the Muslim mainstream. . Abdullah Islam is the organisation’s assistant general secretary. Islam So far, what we know about him, is that he strongly condemns extremism and he encouraged community cohesion. He encouraged the Muslim community in Britain and all over Europe to integrate with the society at large. So we see him as moderate, you know, Islamic scholar who is well respected. If he comes then it will help the community to combat extremism and fanaticism. Stourton Professor Ramadam, like Sheikh Qaradawi is associated with the Muslim brotherhood. When I spoke to him this week, he certainly didn’t sound like an al Qaeda sympathiser; his condemnation of the London bombings has been unequivocal. But I also asked him about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and about attacks on coalition forces and foreign civilians in Iraq. Ramadam As long as you are in a nation and the people have the impression that they are oppressed or colonised they can say our existence is kind of colonisation. So in Islamic terms what is needed in Iraq is intra- community dialogue of Muslims, you have to think about the best way and the right way to resist and it should not be at all accepted to target innocent people, civilians and to kidnap journalists. Stourton Does that mean you can target the American and the British army in Iraq legitimately, in your judgement? Ramadam If these people are entering countries, cities and killing people you have the right to resist, yes. But the American army today are not targeting civilians and my perception is that it’s not legitimate now to be involved in an armed resistance towards this presence. Stourton What is then legitimate in the Palestinian and Israeli context, in your judgement? Ramadam I think that an armed resistance against the Israeli army has been, for the last 50 years, Islamically legitimate because this is an occupying army and they are killing and oppressing. Stourton And do the tactics in that resistance, which you regard as legitimate, today include suicide bomb attacks against Israeli military targets as opposed to civilian targets? Ramadam No, I think that the, you know, suicide bombings, for me, they are … they are not legitimate. The point here is that some scholars are saying, look, if you see the situation of the Palestinians, they cannot reach the Israeli army by any weapons – they don’t have them. So they using their bodies to do that and their life. Stourton You’ve acknowledged that there are different interpretations. It’s quite difficult to hear a clear Islamic voice when the waters are muddied like that, isn’t it? Ramadam You’re totally right and I think this is our problem as Muslims today. We cannot deny the fact that we have a crisis as to the authoritative voices. But, we have to draw the line and to say that these things are not acceptable Islamically speaking. Stourton One of the clearest voices raised against terrorism on religious grounds in fact comes from one of this country’s most radical preachers. Abu Khadeeja is a Salafi – a member of a particularly rigorous and purist strand of the Wahabi form of Islam which dominates Saudi Arabia, and runs a Salafi school, mosque and bookshop in Birmingham. Abu Khadeeja Jihad requires a Muslim ruler who has a government and has an army and has all of the apparatus of government. And that type of jihad is made behind that ruler just like you have the context of warfare in the West. So which of the Muslim rulers today from the Islamic lands have called Muslims to come out to make jihad? And even if they do call the Muslims to come out and make jihad they’re going to call their own army. They’re not going to call myself from England or to call some guy living in a cell in Germany. This is not how jihad is to be made. Stourton Do you think we hear that very clear message from Muslim leaders in Britain in the way we should? Abu Khadeeja They will condemn the bombings in Madrid and they will condemn, maybe, 9/11 or they will condemn what happened in London but in reality what they really need to condemn is the root of the whole of this issue which means that they have to condemn not only what took place in London, they have to condemn the suicide bombings in Iraq, in Palestine, on buses in Jerusalem where a person is going out and making what they … what they call Jihad. They have to condemn it from its root. Stourton Abu Khadeeja’s views are compromised in the eyes of some British Muslims because of his association with Saudi Arabia – a country run by what many of them regard as a corrupt regime sustained in part by the theological backing of what are contemptuously referred to as “scholars for dollars”. And the Salafi group are a tiny minority of Muslims in Britain. The views of the new generation of British born Muslims are probably better represented by scholars like Professor Ramadan and Sheikh Qaradawi. Malise Ruthven. Ruthven People really do feel that where Muslims are being oppressed they feel they themselves are being oppressed. The problem that comes out of that of course is that once you say well the reason that the Muslim world is being occupied by foreign forces is because of the overwhelming power of the United States and European countries. We cannot attack them on the ground in our country. You can sort of push it just a little bit further and then say, well, it’s legitimate to attack the heartland of the enemy because this is a total war situation. And I don’t think the rhetoric of the war on terror has actually impeded that process. It has actually helped to justify and rationalise that process. Stourton So you do start with justifying Iraq or Palestine - suicide bombers there - and you wind up with London. I mean there’s a sliding scale. Ruthven There is a sliding scale. There’s a slippery slope, you can say, and everybody will have to draw the line at some point. Stourton And while the theological debate between different schools of Islam remains unresolved it’s not entirely surprising that it’s difficult for ordinary young Muslims to make a clear judgement on what is and what is not un-Islamic. 16