Ciclo de vida del proyecto y organización

The culture and ideology of Islamic revivalism and its zenith in groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda and others are the results of a complex realignment of Islamic law and theology with the type of dialectical thinking that was previously grounded in racial and class- based ideology. It is possible to conclude that the doctrine of neo-jihadism is the product of a single person, time or place, but has been elaborated on, with significant variations by a range of different thinkers who have made progressive contributions. These interpretations range from the vaguely practical thought, such as bin Laden, to the utterly fantastic, in which the introduction of more religious veins of thought has resulted in an understanding of the utility of force that is more spiritual in nature. Much of this divergence may, however, be accounted for in the different objectives of the thinkers in question, or the different positions they occupied within the wider movement. Some of the works discussed were intended for the consumption of other practitioner thinkers, while many addressed the Islamic population instead, with various objectives in mind, ranging from political mobilisation through to the instigation of immediate jihad, intended to motivate “lone wolf” terrorism.

A consistent feature has been how the west and the Islamic world are understood to relate to one another. The west is understood to be currently ascendant, though insufficiently religious, decadent, and ultimately carrying within its essence its own destruction. This is seen as inevitable, and ultimately, a good thing. This acknowledged, our neo-jihadist thinkers have sought to reassert the notion of a global Islamic community, reacting against the decadence of the institutional jurists and oppressive governments of the historically Islamic world, and the interventions of the “west”. This parallels the typical nature of religious conflict established in earlier chapters, and leads this chapter to its first essential point; that neo-jihadism has many parallels with historic incarnations of religious conflict.

In observing modern-day Islamic groups, their own self-image would suggest that since the essential jihadist “pitch” pioneered by Qutb reached the mainstream, modern-day Islamist groups have sought to demonstrate their commitment to the unadulterated Quran, the early communities of Muslims (Salaf) and a range of prominent classical theorists. Maher stresses the importance of the influence of al-

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Wahhabi and Ibn Taymiyyah as key touchstones for modern-day terror scholars.156

This visibly positions neo-jihadists and their associated movements as revivalist in context. Admittedly, the immersion in Islamic scripture and an aspiration to revive a lost Islamic golden age appear as barriers to depicting neo-jihadism as a new ideological product. It is possible to present these features as superficial, however.

The thinker-practitioners discussed in the course of this chapter have progressively taken on increasing responsibility in achieving this aim. They have proved adept in constructing a system of rules and codes that people have found compelling enough to fight for and support. In line with this development, this chapter has sought to discuss the proposed destination of the Islamic community in the neo- jihadist imagination, as well as the manner of getting there. The essential conclusion is that, like the contemporary institutions and leaders they criticize, they have been influenced by some very western ideas. When thinking about the system to which they aspire, as well as jihad, Islamic thought has absorbed a sort of Hegelian framework, from prolonged contact with western ideologies. This positions neo-Jihadist thought within the same epistemological system as earlier ideologies, notably fascism and Marxism.

This is not an argument against the Islamic purity of neo-jihadists. This argument is not terribly useful in the context of this study, though there are perhaps sufficient grounds to assert that neo-jihadist thought is sufficiently corrupted to wrest power from them on theological grounds. Instead, this provides the space to suggest that it is possible to think about them as functioning in the same epistemological universe as Marxists and Nazis. Neo-jihadi thought introduces a religious essence to this framework, though its attempt to reconstitute imperial Islamic distinctions in the contemporary state system is more useful in understanding how jihad relates to contemporary violence, and moreover, connects the neo-jihadist manner of thinking with other ideologically motivated instances of mass violence. It is accurate to characterise modern-day Islamic groups as possessing carefully considered beliefs.157

Due to their ostensible Islamic purity, perhaps those subscribing to these groups are not fully cognisant of the precise nature and provenance of these beliefs. This is not to say that the religious appearance of the neo-jihadist movement is in any way irrelevant;

156 _{Maher (n 19) iv.}

157 _{Graeme Wood, What ISIS Really Wants (2015) <https://thinkprogress.org/what-the-atlantic-left-out-}

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command of Islamic symbol and language is vital as a mobilising factor, as well as serving as a means of contesting one another and more contemporary concepts of jihad.

Western scholars long assumed that a reformation was imminent, in which the notions of Sharia and fiqh would not be in any shape laws, but instead, ethical guidelines. This would additionally discharge any need to defend one’s faith through the force of arms. Yet it has been radicals of the other sort that have taken the initiative. Radical scholars, whether associated with a terrorist movement or not, share the same goal; the reigniting of the global Islamic state concept.158 _{Jihadi thinkers like those}

discussed have been the dominant voices framing this counter-reformation. This condemnation of authoritative scholars does strike Lutheran parallels; just as the Protestant Reformation cast the church in Rome as a corrupted and unnecessary intercessor between God and his people, so thinkers have cast the traditional ulema as being dedicated to the pursuit of wealth and earthly power, irrevocably tethered to corrupt state governments – or, sensationally – the grand Jewish American conspiracy.

Jurisprudence, in this approach, is devolved to the authority inherent in the individual, as personal as his relationship with God, denying any influence from political or scholarly authorities. The individual Muslim can choose the interpretation of Sharia that conforms with his own. This in a sense permits what Solomon calls the “democratisation of Jihad”159 _{in which the right to interpretation of when to act}

violently in the defence of the faith goes right down to street level.160 _{The new jihadist}

benefit from the conservative Islam generated by the Gulf states, as well as modern mass communications that allow them to saturate the global awareness with their revised interpretation, drowning out the voice of more established and moderate juristic establishments ill-adapted to having to compete for allegiance.

158 _{‘[…] describes neither terrorism nor civil war, but rather a “world-historical” movement of Islamic}

revival. Terrorism in this reality-framework is an expression neither of criminal evil nor of an evil vision. Rather, violent radical elements are only a small part of a much broader movement for Islamic restoration, or in the traditional sense inherited from late antiquity, of renovatio. Renovatio, or another Roman favourite, reparatio, speaks more directly to Islamist visions than words like “revival”, which in the western consciousness at least refer more narrowly to simpler religious “awakenings”. For Muslims at least, their vision is one of an entire order restored, of not simply religion but of an entire, “rightly guided” way of life brought back as it should be. For a generation and more the drive for this Islamic restoration has been gathering strength and asserting itself’. See Michael Vlahos, ‘The Muslim Renovatio and U.S. Strategy’ (2004) <http://ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2004/04/the-muslim- renovatio-and-us-strategy.html> accessed 14 July 2018.

159 _{Hussein Solomon, Jihad: A South African Perspective (Sun Media 2013) 20.} 160 _{Ibid 20.}

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The twenty-first-century Islamic discourse is to an extent characterised by the loss of a longstanding and relatively stable system of thought and governance that served to maintain a relationship between the power of law and the faith in a concrete manner. Law in Islam is, after all, a sacred activity. Since the decline of the last Sunni Islamic empire, the dominant philosophical influence acting upon the Islamic world has been purist, conservative, and regressive. Salafism, or its Pakistani fellow traveller deobandism, have served to propagate the notion that the Islamic world would do better to return to its past. Like Hallaq notes, attempts to assert Islamic law within the context of the modern state system are subject to failure and easy to dismiss from a classical Islamic standpoint.161 _{Neo-jihadist thought naturally, therefore, resists the}

state system – a rapid, violent unmaking being the preferred means of dislocating the system of states in favour of the universal Islamic state.

5.5 Examples; how has Neo Jihadist ideology caused unconventional armed