How Islamic is al-Qaeda? The politics of Pan-Islam and the challenge of modernisation - Paper

Although both ISIL and Boko Haram have recently taken the spotlight, the Al Qaeda franchise remains a recognizable actor. Hellmich's paper "How Islamic is al-Qaeda? The politics of Pan-Islam and the challenge of modernisation" looks into Ben Laden's ideology and how it fits into the wider contemporary Islamic discourse.

Abstract

"This article investigates the contested ideology of al-Qaeda through an analysis of Osama bin Ladin’s writings and public statements issued between 1994 and 2011, set in relation to the development of Islamic thought and changing socio-political realities in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Challenging popular conceptions of Wahhabism and the “Salafi jihad”, it reveals an idealistic, Pan-Islamic sentiment at the core of his messages that is not based on the main schools of Islamic theology, but is the result of a crisis of meaning of Islam in the modern world. Both before and after the death of al-Qaeda’s iconic leader, the continuing process of religious, political and intellectual fragmentation of the Muslim world has led to bin Ladin’s vision for unity being replaced by local factions and individuals pursuing their own agendas in the name of al-Qaeda and Islam."

The demise of the Ottoman Empire (and the sense of unity it carried), secularism/modernization and the expansion of literacy have opened up the Muslim world to an internal crisis/revolution. As individual Muslims increasingly interpret Islam for themselves, without making reference to the traditional schools of Sunni law (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii or Hanbali) a divergence within develops. Pan-Islamism, with its core message of Muslim solidarity and the unity of umma, is the message that Ben Laden would send over the world. The appeal he represented was not a radical political/religious ideology (the actual political structure of the future is quite vague) but a social message of solidarity, personal responsibility and victimhood that many Muslims could relate to.

Even before Ben Laden's death, we could see the fragmentation of Al Qaeda along more locally driven agendas under the banner of global action.The fact that most of the victims of Al Qaeda are actually Muslims, the increase fighting along sectarian lines and the more limited objectives of affiliates and franchises show the drift away from Pan-Islamism. Although the rhetoric remains important in order to appeal for funds, foreign fighters and support from the Muslim community, what remains, to paraphrase the known sentence about politics, is that 'all insurgencies are local'. While Al Qaeda's position in the global ranking has diminished, some of the root causes for its appeal are still current and part of the ongoing debate within the Muslim world.