United States Aggression Against Islam

The book “How Terrorism End; Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns”, written in 2011 at the height of Al-Qaeda, the most well-known international terrorist group of our time. The author of this work, Audrey Cronin, at the time of print, served as a professor of strategy at the United States National War College in Washington D.C., and a senior associate at Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Program. Both positions allowed her to impact strategic policy making in the execution of the Global War on Terror by allowing her access to senior military and civilian policymakers. Her previous area of her prior work has been mainly focused on international terrorism with an emphasis on al-Qaeda. She has authored

The freedom fighter Nelson Mandela once said, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” After the memorable attacks in New York, London, and Madrid, the West became a unwelcoming and hostile place for Muslims, and the world started to be known as the “Islamic World” and “The West”. The Islamic world as in the picture is a place where men oppress women, a place vicious to technological advancements and a place where Muslim children are raised with the thought that the west is an unfavorable place for them. The “West” however

To understand the convoluted events of Al-Qaeda’s reign of terror on America I had to delve into the history of Al-Qaeda’s origins and

Within the past twelve years, Islam has grown to be the second largest religion practiced around the world. Growing up, there weren’t many Muslim people that practiced Islam as there are now. Ten years ago, I would only see about one or two Muslims as I walked down the street, but now I see many more. In Philadelphia, there are more than 200,000 people who are Muslim, and 85% of those people are African-American. In this city when people see African-American Muslims who are garbed up they don’t discriminate against them. To be a Muslim in this society it causes controversy because people are constantly pointing out all of the flaws within them.

“Terrorism's particularly heinous but highly attractive means to achieve political objectives or even radically restructure political foundations is manifest within societies in all reaches of the world. While the practical application of terrorist methodologies comes across as a relatively straightforward craft, the conceptual and ideological understanding, and subsequent evaluation of its socio-political influence, implementation, and psychological impacts present difficult questions, and in some cases conceivably insurmountable obstacles” (Romaniuk 2014, para

In his 1996 FATWA, Usama bin Laden placed personal responsibility upon each individual Muslim to unify and fight oppressive forces, particularly the United States. With this FATWA comes the distinction of the “near” and “far” enemy, an innovative philosophy utilized by bin Laden and Al Qaeda that illustrates the overarching oppressive nature of the United States to Salafi Jihadist sympathizers. Integrating this ideology into the Salafi Jihadist movement is particularly useful for terrorist organizations, as their fighters—particularly their suicide bombers—are ideologically validated for their actions, and are confident that they will receive a reward in the afterlife should they strike against the enemy.

Al Qaeda (the base) a life-changing event founded by Osama Bin Laden. Al Qaeda is known to be one of the most powerful terrorist organizations in the world. This networking organization has an enormous responsibility of the September 11th attack and other bombings that has brought a great amount of grief, sadness, and sorrow to our country. It shows that everyone is different in the way think in this world and how they perform there actions. The mind of a maniac of how Osama Bin Laden had complete control over his people and how he thought he ruled the world to lead to September 11th is just sick. But it did change America’s hearts forever. We all now have a bond so strong that it can never be broken.

“A declaration of Jihad,” on August 23, 1996 deals with Osama bin Laden order to sanction a defensive war (jihad) after he gained refuge in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is a well-known terrorist and is the leader and founder of al-Qaeda. In 1979, the origins of al-Qaeda can be traced back to this year because that is when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Originally, Osama bin Laden used al-Qaeda as a way to enlist Muslim into the resistance. After, the Soviets left not shortly after the United States came and establish military bases in the homeland of bin Laden in conjecture to the First Gulf Wars. The actions of the United States infuriated bin Laden because the United States intruded to one of Islam’s holiest shrines. In addition, bin Laden isolation from the Saudi ruling family causing him launch a series of bombings directed at the United States embassies, ships, barracks, and then the awful attacks on New York (twin towers) and Washington in 2001. The insert begins with bin Laden shifting the blame to Judeo-Christian alliance and supporters (e.g. the United States). He elaborates by recounting the amount of Muslim blood has spilled across the Middle East and Asia because of their enemies. Bin Laden progresses by saying the reason of the meeting is to find a plan to rectify what has happened to the Islamic world, particularly in Saudi Arabia. The passage details how Americans in Saudi Arabia have unrightfully incarcerated righteous scholars of Islam. It continues with

As I stood among Cairo’s thriving chaos, I began to think about the divide that made two cultures, both defined to a great extent by religion, almost incomprehensible to each other. Many Muslims, whose disenchantment with the United States evoked an almost nihilist disdain, seemed to cast Bin Laden as militant rather than terrorist, dissident rather than executioner (Shadid 652).” Shadid states that by defying the United States, Bin Laden is seen as a hero, mainly because they believed the West would take away freedom from the Muslim world. And United States didn’t look too kindly toward to them.

In chapter six, “The Two Jihads”, of Ruthven’s book, she describes jihad as a collective obligation for Muslims, distinct from the individual duties such as prayer. This religious doctrine was formed during a time when Islamic states were at war with multiple nations and experiencing a rapid expansion. Its standards were somewhat similar to those of Roman principles of just war, rules such as sparing women, children, the sick and the weak, and those who are “People of the Book”. On the other hand, the doctrine is split into two different sectors. The sphere of Islam, or dar al-islam, and the sphere of War, otherwise known as dar al-harb.

Islam is portrayed and is commonly accepted as the most violent and largest direct threat to the West. This is a generalization made by most of the West, but it is not particularly the West or the Islamic people’s fault. There is constant turmoil in Islamic countries in the Middle East and these conflicts are what make the news in the West. The only representation in the media that the Islamic nation gets is that of war. Though most Islamic people are not violent, the select few that do participate in terrorist groups give the rest of the Islam nation a bad image.

One can scarcely turn on the television, or the radio, or open up a web browser without the mention of Islamic terrorism or unrest around the world. Though the United States and the rest of the world may not be engaged in a protracted religious war, for radical Muslim fundamentalist they are. Bernard Lewis brings to light possible reasons for the issues facing the world dealing with Islamic terrorism. The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror explains these issues in historical context as well as how some of the actions professed in the name of Islam and claim to

The connection between Islam and terrorism was not intensified until the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center that pushed the Islamic faith into the national and international spotlight (Smith, 2013). As Smith (2013) articulated, “Many Americans who had never given Islam a second thought before 9/11 now had to figure out how to make sense of these events and relate to the faith tradition that ostensibly inspired them” (p. 1). One way in which people made sense of these events was through the media channels that influenced their overall opinions by shaping a framework of censored ideas (Yusof, Hassan, Hassan & Osman, 2013). In a survey conducted by Pew Forum (2012), 32% of people reported that their opinions of Muslims were greatly influenced by the media’s portrayal of Islam that depicted violent pictorials and fundamentalist Muslims. Such constant negative depiction is likely to lead to the inevitable—prejudice and hate crime. For instance, in 2002 alone there were approximately 481 hate crimes that were carried out against Muslims (Smith, 2013). Ever since the 9/11 attacks Muslim people have been the target of “suspicion, harassment and discrimination” (Talal, n.d., p. 9).

The concept of Jihad was not widely known in the western world before the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Since then, the word has been woven into what our media and government feed us along with notions of Terrorism, Suicide Bombings, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, and now, Jihad. Our society hears exhortations resounding from the Middle East calling the people to rise up in Jihad and beat back the imperialist Americans. Yet, if we try to peel back all of these complex layers of information we can we attempt to find out what Jihad really means. Webster’s Dictionary defines Jihad as “a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty or a crusade for a principle or belief” (1). Often, media depicts

Differing accounts on either pole focus on al-Qaeda’s continued relevance as the premier terrorist network, whether it is any longer effective or not. From there, the natural conclusion comes around to asking how effective al-Qaeda is, and by which mechanisms does it project that effectiveness. Aside from this, both parties agree that al-Qaeda has an uncanny habit of surviving in the turbulent international dialectic that spawned radical Muslim distress, vicariously.