The Deep Intellectual Roots of Islamic terrorism

The Deep Intellectual Roots of Islamic Terror are examined in the Times today. Turns out bin Laden is "tapping into a minority Islamic tradition with a wide following and a deep history" that stretches back to medieval times:

Although many Muslims are horrified at the notion that their faith is being used to justify terrorism, Mr. bin Laden's advocacy of jihad, or holy war, against the West is a natural extension of what some radical Islamists have been saying and doing since the 1930's. These radicals were jailed, tortured and often executed in their home countries, particularly in Egypt during the 1950's and 60's, for their attacks on Western influences and their efforts to replace their own regime with an Islamic state.

The Muslim extremists, members of Islamic Jihad, who assassinated the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981, for instance, left behind a 54-page document titled "The Neglected Duty" that provided an elaborate theological justification for what they had done. Addressed to other Muslims rather than to the West, the document drew on earlier thinkers in arguing that rebelling against one's rulers ‹ which is forbidden by most Islamic authorities ‹ is in fact a duty if those rulers have abandoned true Islam.

Doesn't this idea echo the Declaration of Independence where Jefferson says:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This was a dangerous idea in the 18th Century and it becomes even more dangerous when adopted in a culture that makes no distinction between religion and the state. Especially so, when these religious radicals are deciding for themselves what the Koran says-- as bin Laden has in his decision that "killing innocents or even Muslims is permitted if it serves the cause of jihad against the West." Will the Islamic world have religious wars like those that wracked Europe after the Reformation?

Posted by shilohbucher at October 13, 2001 10:37 AM