jpr / report           No. 2 1996

Does Islamic fundamentalism pose a threat to the West?

'What defines today's fundamentalists . . . is not the claim to orthodoxy alone but the combination of a desire to return to a holy text with the aspiration for political power.' Fred Halliday

Summary

The rise of terrorist groups which claim legitimacy in the name of Islam, the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the spread of Islamist organizations appear to confirm Islamic fundamentalism as a wave of the future. This Report examines the issue of religious fundamentalism in general and charts the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, particularly in the last twenty years, considering whether it presents a strategic threat to the West.

Fundamentalist movements have a number of common characteristics. First, a narrowly interpreted holy text is linked with aspirations to political power. This religious-political link has been used to justify capitalism, communism, feudalism and even slavery. Second, some fundamentalists claim that these ancient texts solve all the problems of present-day life. Third, these movements pursue power by whatever means, including assassination, mass mobilization and guerrilla warfare. The fourth feature, intolerance, is common to all totalitarian regimes.

There are a number of reasons for the spread of religious fundamentalism in recent years. In some countries, such as Iran, Algeria and India, it has replaced regimes which have failed to meet the aspirations of the masses and have been seen as corrupt. Its appeal can also be explained as a response to the spiritual alienation people sometimes experience in the modern world.

Many express concern about the international dimensions of the growth of Islam, and speak of 'Islam's' challenge to the West. However, such arguments do not acknowledge the essential political failure of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism. Islam is not a united force, as demonstrated, for example, by the war between Khomeini's Iran and Hussain's Iraq, and the Afghan civil war. Although Muslim states have military arsenals and contribute to the supply of oil, and while Islamic fundamentalism is not likely to disappear, the Islamic world is not omnipotent and does not provide a serious economic, social or political threat to the West.

1/ Introduction

The purpose of this Report is to examine the issue of religious fundamentalism in general and to explore the spread of Islamic fundamentalism over the last twenty years in particular. The Iranian revolution of 1979, the rise of terrorist groups claiming legitimation from Islam, and the spread of Islamist organizations all appear to confirm Islamic fundamentalism as a wave of the future.

In three Muslim countries—Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan—movements that could be termed fundamentalist are already in power. Other regimes, such as the former military regime in Pakistan, have adopted aspects of a fundamentalist programme and, in many other Arab countries and communities, fundamentalist movements are gaining ground. Perhaps the most frightening and imminent of these is Algeria, where the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS, Islamic Salvation Front) or its various rivals could come to power in the near future. In Jordan the fundamentalists are well implanted, in Egypt they are chipping away daily at the state, and in Saudi Arabia fundamentalist opinion is said to have the support of possibly 20 per cent of the population.

Among the Palestinians a fundamentalist movement, including both Islamic Jihad and Hamas, has been witnessed, particularly since the beginning of the Intifada in 1987. Islamic Jihad and Hamas are now in a strong position to challenge Yassir Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and now the elected president of the Palestinian National Authority, or to push him in different directions. They claim to want nothing to do with the peace process, but their political wings may seek a deal with Arafat.

Fundamentalism is not specific to the Islamic world. In India there are mass movements of Hindu fundamentalism, whose main object of hatred is the Muslims. They have a very simple slogan which states that there are 'only two good places for a Muslim—either Pakistan or the grave'. However, they also hold that Pakistan should be abolished because they are opposed to the partition of India. Hindu fundamentalism, which dates from the 1920s, began by modelling itself explicitly on Nazism. Fundamentalists stress that they too are an Aryan race, that Sanskrit is, after all, originally an Aryan language, and that they should purify themselves as the Germans sought to purify Germany. If they earlier emphasized the perceived influence of Jews in India, the movement has now turned itself round and declared itself to be pro-Israeli on the grounds that there is a common enemy, namely the  Islamic world. While this bears no relationship to Israeli policy, it is an example of the opportunism these movements can display. In the case of the Hindu fundamentalist movement, the main fire of these people is directed not against the Muslims or even the Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and other communities, but against the secular, liberal, apparently defecting members of their own Hindu community, particularly the Congress Party of India.

This internal hostility is to some extent the case with the Jewish fundamentalist movement too. The resurgence of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel as a mass political phenomenon is relatively recent. Two elements can be identified—the Haredim, who are much more concerned with matters of religious observance, and the Gush Emunim, who are more concerned with nationalist questions, particularly that of territory. Since 1967, and especially over the last ten years, these movements have grown as a response to changes within Israeli society, and currently as a response to the prospect or possibility of peace. While they are unlikely to predominate in Israel, the movements are influential because they are concerned with current issues. Notwithstanding their claims about tradition and their roots being in earlier currents of Judaism, these are—in their current forms of organization and in the mass appeal they exercise—modern, contemporary movements.

Fundamentalist movements within Christianity have emerged within the more fragmented Protestant and Evangelical sects. The word 'fundamentalism' itself originated in the 1920s as a reaction to what was called 'modernism', i.e. a liberal, scientifically-aware interpretation of the texts. Of central importance to Christian fundamentalism was the reaction to Darwin, as opposed to a literal reading of the Bible. Today an estimated 40-50 million people follow the television evangelicals in the United States. Yet the fundamentalists have not succeeded in imposing their political will. When in the 1980s a Republican, Ronald Reagan, was elected president, there was much speculation about the impact of Christian fundamentalism in the United States. However, Reagan, a divorcee, had no intention of conforming; he did not go to church and showed little interest in the most sensitive issue of concern to fundamentalists, abortion. The success of the Republican right in the November 1994 Congressional elections owed a great deal to Christian fundamentalist support but the movement remains, to date, excluded from political power at the national level.

2/ Common features of fundamentalists

What defines today's fundamentalists, in a broad sense, is not the claim to orthodoxy alone but the combination of a desire to return to a holy text with the aspiration for political power. Although fundamentalists claim to adhere to a holy text, most great texts allow for widely different interpretations. This point may be seen from an examination of the form of social system Islam favours: a range of possible answers can be given. Selected quotations from the Qur'an and the Hadith, or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, may be used to justify capitalism, communism, feudalism or even slavery. For example, since the Qur'an says that a people should share water, grass and fire—the instruments of economic life in the nomadic society of seventh-century Arabia—socialists and communists quote the Qur'an as calling for the sharing of the means of economic activity. However, the Prophet's authorization that the owner of a house is permitted to kill anyone who attempts to take it from him could also justify private property. Ayatollah Khomeini, for instance, was insistent on the Islamic right to own property.

                The second aspect of the fundamentalists' claim—apparently the most innocuous but in some ways the most dangerous—is the assertion that holy texts contain the answer to all the problems of the modern world. Leaving aside questions of morality, relations with the divine or relations with one's friends and family, the idea that any book written 1,000-2,000 years ago, transferred or transcribed from God, can provide all the answers to one's present-day life strikes this author as absurd. Such texts may well contain much human wisdom but this claim is extremely worrying.

The third common feature of fundamentalists is the desire for power by whatever means—be it assassination, infiltration of armies, mass mobilization (as seen in Algeria and earlier in Iran), or guerrilla warfare (as in Afghanistan). This concern with power is evident in the case of Iran: in his final months Ayatollah Khomeini issued a new religious doctrine which posed the question 'What does an Islamic government do when Islamic teachings are in conflict with the interests of the state?' He asserted, in terms as clear as any of Machiavelli, that the interests of the state overrode religious prescriptions. Therefore, the  answer to the question 'What is an Islamic government?' is practice. Sudan and Pakistan had military dictatorships in the past, Saudi Arabia has a tribal oligarchy, and no doubt other forms are possible, too.

The fourth common feature, which is most evident wherever the fundamentalists have come to power, is intolerance. This resembles the intolerance of other totalitarian regimes of this century but extends to areas that did not concern other totalitarian regimes, such as women's dress or the consumption of alcohol. As noted above, this intolerance is principally directed against people of their own community, against the perceived traitors in their midst. One sees this in the rhetoric of both Gush Emunim in Israel and in the Islamic case. This intolerance is illustrated by the kind of regime that has been established in Iran, a regime that has imposed its own cultural dictatorship. Soon after Khomeini came to power he organized the Inquilab-i Farhangi (cultural revolution), which was consciously modelled on Mao's exploits in China in this regard. The speeches and the rhetoric dealt with the elimination of foreign influence, imperialism, Christianity, Zionism and communism. It was less concerned, however, with external influence than with trampling on aspects of the cultural diversity within Iran to which Khomeini was opposed, such as the production and consumption of alcohol and the singing of women.

Similarly, the core of the Salman Rushdie case is the fundamentalists' concern that Muslims might read The Satanic Verses and be corrupted by it. Hence Rushdie was denounced for blasphemy. According to Christian tradition, blasphemy is interpreted as insulting God but, in this instance, Rushdie did not insult Allah: he satirized Muhammad, who in Islamic theology is not a divine or semi-divine person. In the history of Western civilization, there have been four great treason trials: Socrates, Jesus, Gallileo and Spinoza were all accused of blasphemy, a political charge which entailed corrupting the young. Thus the central concern of the Rushdie affair was the need to discipline a Muslim, just as Socrates, Jesus, Gallileo and Spinoza were disciplined by their own communities for making claims which challenged existing authority. 

3/ Reasons for the spread of fundamentalism

There is no single explanation as to why fundamentalist movements have spread in recent years, but some general factors are clear. In some states, fundamentalism reflects a failure of existing regimes to meet the aspirations of the masses. In this sense, the Iran of the Shah, the Algeria of the Front de Liberation (FLN, National Liberation Front) and the India of the Congress Party are comparable, as indeed is the rudimentary state apparatus of Yassir Arafat. These regimes are seen by the fundamentalists as corrupt, collaborating and compromising with external forces. Fundamentalism therefore reflects both a cultural and political nationalism and much of its rhetoric concerns a perceived foreign threat. In view of this, it was interesting to see the immediate reaction of Muslim fundamentalists in the Arab world and of the Iranian government to the historic handshake on 13 September 1993 between the late Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin and Yassir Arafat: they accused secular nationalist Arafat of treacherous behaviour and called for a return to 'true' Islam.

        The governments in Algeria and in Iran expended resources derived from the sale of oil without sufficiently improving the welfare of their respective societies. They became increasingly corrupt and were seen to be increasingly out of touch with the masses. In both cases, fundamentalists exploited the perception that a group of foreign-educated or foreign-influenced intellectuals and administrators had taken over the country, leading to shortages of food, housing and work.

Broader cultural issues clearly have an effect on the appeal of fundamentalism, too. Different religions offer diverse responses to the alienation people experience at various times in the modern world. First of all, there are very important theological differences. Perhaps the most important difference is that Christianity and Islam have been the religions of states, empires and conquests for hundreds of years; they retain aspirations within their tradition of hegemony, of subjugating other peoples. Judaism, on the other  hand, has not been a religion of state or an empire, except during a very brief period at the time of King David and King Solomon: it has therefore lacked these political and imperial aspirations, even though some have tried to use King David as a symbol of such a policy. (There are, of course, exceptions, most notably in the case of the Khazars, but such cases have not left evident traces on the Jewish tradition.) There are therefore important ideological, theological and historical differences, as well as differences of organization, between fundamentalist movements.

4/ Features of Islamic fundamentalism

Turning specifically to the question of Islam's political programme, it is possible to discern four particular features of fundamentalism. First is the idea of Hakimiyah—belief in an Islamic government. Although fundamentalists quote the holy texts, Hakimiyah, in its political sense, is an invention of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Furthermore, its meaning has little content. Fundamentalists claim that a model of government was established by the Prophet Muhammad and his four immediate successors in the seventh century. Whether a model of government established for nomadic, urban Arabia in the seventh century can be relevant to the contemporary world is debatable.

Second, a great deal is made of the Islamic tradition of consultation, of Shura. The new consultative council in Saudi Arabia is known as al-Shura, but its meaning is ambiguous. It is not apparent whether women are excluded or how differences of opinion are resolved. Many issues with which democratic theorists have grappled for 2,500 years are simply not mentioned. Indeed, during the last decade, while the idea of Hakimiyah has been practised, there has been virtually no political or intellectual development.

As for the question of economics, some Islamists claim that there is such a concept as al-lqtisad al- lslami' (Islamic economics). References were also made at the time of the Iranian revolution to Iqtisad-i Touhidi' (so-called unitary economics), but again, the meaning was unclear. (One, irrelevant explanation was that the 'Unity' of Islamic economics reflected the 'Oneness' of God.) The only clear principle in Islam concerning economics is the prohibition on taking interest. One person's interest, however, is another person's service charge; the issue of interest may not, therefore, be too problematic for Islamic banks.

Beyond the questions of morality and human  rights, some see the greatest failing of Islamic fundamentalism as the complete lack, not only of an economic programme, but of any interest in economics. Khomeini revealed this when he said 'human beings should pray to God, donkeys should worry about economies'. Partly as a result, Islamic fundamentalists in Iran have clearly ruined the economy.

The legal system should also be considered. The Islamist youth movement currently active in Britain, Hizb al-Tahrir, calls for a return to the pure legal system which it identifies in Islam. Of the 6,000 verses of the Qur'an, however, only eighty have anything to say about legal matters; the rest are commentary. Sharia law, as divinely revealed in the Qur'an, cannot therefore constitute the basis for a modern legal system. Yet this is the most widely accepted idea of fundamentalists.

    The fourth idea is that of moral regeneration, sometimes described as Jihad. While Jihad is often taken to mean conquering and converting non-Muslims or destroying Israel, it does not necessarily mean this. The conversion of non- Muslims, moreover, is the last concern of fundamentalists. Neither Hindu nor Christian fundamentalists are concerned with conversion but with disciplining their own communities. Similarly, Jihad can be a more internally-directed activity, a form of moral regeneration.

Moral regeneration, in and of itself, may be valid or not—it depends what people do with their morality. On its own it is hardly the basis for the development of Muslim society. On closer examination, therefore, the ideas of Hakimiyah, Islamic economics, Sharia law, and Jihad are not only 'stuck' in another time period but they are exiguous.

The movement also gains strength from other ideas, such as the concept of the Umma, or community: this is supposed to bind Muslims from different parts of the world, who speak different languages and have very different cultures. Some even desire a single state, although this seems unlikely to come about. There is in Islam a strong sense of what could be called a demotic or popular culture, of everybody being the same. When the author of this Report visited the big revolutionary prayer meetings in Tehran after the revolution, he was particularly struck by the directness of language and by the  fact that people just wandered in from the street in their everyday work clothes. It certainly contrasted with the hierarchical, congregational behaviour of Christians. This feature of Islam could evidently be used for political purposes.

Islamists share a strong sense of grievance over perceived world conspiracies against them by, among others, atheists and communists. Hindu fundamentalists in India, claiming that the entire world is against them, denounce imperialism and capitalism. The word 'Zionism' has come to mean some kind of phantasmagoria which is dominating the world. The founding document of Hamas even quotes the Protocols of the Elders ofZion—hardly a Qur'anic text—for good measure.

Examined in any comparative perspective, the ideologies of these movements involve a combination of selected traditional themes and disguised elements of modernity. Thus, in addition to the supposedly classical, but reinterpreted themes mentioned here, we find such issues as national independence and cultural imperialism, unequal patterns of international economic distribution, and double standards in the application of Western policy on human rights. Islamist programmes are therefore a combination of the pseudo-traditional and the modern, programmes of this world and of this time, which pretend to be restorations of another, religiously sanctioned epoch.

The ideological appeals of Islamism have been compounded by their practical activities. Islamists have also demonstrated a great abilitity to organize. The newer movements—in Algeria, Egypt and the Palestinian areas—are not only organizing guerrilla groups and demonstrations but also include mother-and-child clinics, primary schools and welfare organizations. In Egypt the Islamists outbid the state in earthquake relief. There is, in other words, a socio-economic structure or organizational network which accounts partly for the success of Hizbullah in Lebanon after 1982, the FIS in Algeria, and Hamas.

5/ A strategic challenge to the West?

Perhaps the most dangerous effect of fundamentalist movements will be the creation of dictatorships, such as that witnessed in Iran, involving the systematic violation of human rights and the denial of any opposition. Among the most frightening violations of freedom are those on ethnic grounds. Universalist in its claims, in practice Islamic fundamentalism becomes an instrument of the dominant ethnic group such as the Persians in Iran, the Pushtun in Afghanistan, and the Arabs in Sudan and Algeria. It should come as no surprise to discover, therefore, that in most Muslim states with a fundamentalist current, the ethnic minorities, even when themselves Muslim, are more secular than the dominant group. This is true of the Kurds in Iran, the Berbers in Algeria, and the Baluchis in Pakistan.

As for the international dimension, much is heard about 'Islam's' challenge to the West—as if Islam were a unitary force. While the difficulties these movements have posed and will pose in future to, for example, Israel, Turkey and France cannot be underestimated, there are a number of reasons for qualifying this charge.

First, several Muslim states are disunited among themselves. The Iranian revolution was fought against Iraqis. The Afghans fought each other. As the rise of fundamentalism is, in several respects, a result of nationalist resentment within the countries concerned, it is not surprising that this should lead to increased resentment towards, and differentiation from, other Muslim communities.  Second, although they have military arsenals, the Muslim states pose no strategic challenge to the West. The Islamic world poses no economic challenge, except for the single issue of oil supply. If there /s a challenge to the political system that exists in Western Europe or the United States, it derives from the economic successes of the Far Eastern states. Nor are Muslims seriously attempting to gain converts. The total number of British people not of Muslim origin or from Muslim countries who converted to Islam in the last twenty years is about 4,500. The idea of a challenge to the West by 'Islam' or of Islam replacing communism is nonsensical.

These movements are not going to disappear. They represent a response to very real problems and grievances in these societies, they are ruthless and they are extremely well-organized. The Algerian government underestimated the FIS and, in the mid-1980s, the Israeli government underestimated Hamas as an alternative to the PLO. The Americans have a lot to answer for in their support of the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan. However, these movements are not omnipotent. Islamic fundamentalists neither constitute a strategic challenge to the West nor provide any viable economic, social or political model. It may, however, be a long and (especially to Muslims) painful time before this fact is acknowledged, not least by fundamentalists themselves.

Report author

Fred Halliday is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a leading expert on the Arab Middle East. He was born in Dublin and studied at Queen's College, Oxford and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC and Chairman of the Research Council at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. His many books include: Arabia Without Sultans (1974), Iran: Dictatorship and Development (1979), The Ethiopian Revolution (joint author: Maxine Molyneux) (1982), Threat from the East (1982), The Making of the Second Cold War (1983), Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen (1992), Arabs in Exile: The Yemem Communities in Britain (1992) and Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East (1995).

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