Looking for passionate singles? Find someone now on the largest erotic personals site. Free signup! Post a Free ad w/5 photos, flirt in chatrooms, view uncensored live Webcams, hookup for real encounters! 30,000 new photos every day! Go there now!
	Seduction Insider Improve your love life by learning seduction. Free newsletter.

During a Radio 4 Moral Maze programme devoted to suicide bombing, Dr Cilla Elworthy of Peace Direct argued that the police were "shooting the symptom", before asking: "why are young men in such a state of fury and indignation?" Despite the frequency of such questions, many of the conclusions arrived at have been eerily similar and deeply inadequate. Left-leaning commentators may assert the need to get to the root causes of jihadist terrorism, but their conclusions seem based on selective blind spots and ideological axe-grinding. Many commentators also seem willing to automatically defend an authoritarian theology about which they appear to know very little, and want to know even less.

Writing in The Guardian, Madeleine Bunting attacked John Ware's Panorama film about the Muslim Council of Britain and its practised ambiguity in matters of extremism. Without a trace of irony, Bunting called the programme "McCarthyite" and accused Ware of "slyly editing" the words of the political philosopher Syed Abul A'la Mawdudi, apparently on the grounds that she couldn't accept Mawdudi's statement that the ideal Islamic state would bear a "kind of resemblance to the fascist/communist states." Apparently, such a comment couldn't possibly be true, and must therefore be taken out of context or wilfully distorted.

However, if Bunting had taken the time to actually read Mawdudi's works, she might have discovered this comment is entirely in keeping with his broader philosophy, and that of his followers. In April 1939, Mawdudi argued: "In reality, Islam is a revolutionary ideology which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals… Islam requires the earth -- not just a portion, but the whole planet…" According to Mawdudi, non-Muslims have "absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God's Earth, nor to direct the affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines." If non-Muslims do hold the reins of political power anywhere on Earth, Mawdudi insisted: "[Muslims are] under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life."

Untroubled by such knowledge, Bunting maintained that Mawdudi is merely a historical curiosity and therefore "less relevant" to British-born Muslims. In fact, Mawdudi was the 'spiritual godfather' of Pakistan, a country visited by three of the four London bombers shortly before their attacks, and Mawdudi's worldview persists today among millions of believers. His ideas directly inspired Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood, who in turn influenced bin Laden. And, however unpalatable they may be, Mawdudi's ideas helped shape the Iranian "revolution."

But such details would not serve the pre-existing agenda shared by Bunting and other commentators, whereby the notion of unilateral American villainy must prevail and the rest of the world must be stripped of any agency. While the NeoConservatives' Project for the New American Century is obligatory reading for many on the left, the elaborate fatwas of bin Laden and Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi -- and Islamic theology in general -- are rather less well-known. Evidently, the ideological lineage to which jihadists appeal must forever remain a tabula rasa, on to which the writer can project the grievance or conspiracy of their choice.

As a result of this selective ignorance, the "root causes" of terror are, allegedly, Western imperialism, or global capitalism, or poverty, or the need for fossil fuels, or whatever phenomenon the commentator in question doesn't like. But this is, in large part, an opportunist projection of motive -- one that imposes a simplistic personal preference onto the actual stated aims of the jihadists themselves, while obscuring the theological imperatives from which they draw legitimacy. Consequently, Islamic terrorism is often depicted as purely reactive, as if the perpetrators had no ambitions of their own.

Many of those who profess a need to "understand" the grievances of al-Qaeda and their ideological peers simply ignore any jihadist statements that do not suit a leftist or anti-Bush agenda. For instance, the repeated demands by bin Laden and al-Zarqawi for the imposition of Sharia in Iraq and across the entire Islamic world go strangely unremarked, as do the implications for religious pluralism and basic human rights.

One of the many websites supporting al-Qaeda in Iraq outlined the movement's totalitarian ambitions: "Islamic Sharia is the right religion and anything else is wrong and rejected, including the [democratic] constitution. No human being is allowed to make laws, which is the right of Allah alone… Participating in drafting legislations and the constitution is equal to infidelism and blatant polytheism. Whoever believes in [democracy] or calls for it is an apostate and an infidel…" In his many audio-taped fatwas, al-Zarqawi has made his agenda abundantly clear: "We have declared an all-out war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology…"

Quite how George Galloway and his righteous associates rationalise the imposition of religious tyranny as "liberation" is a mystery to us all. Equally mysterious is how such vocal champions of multicultural diversity can lend their weight to the eradication of diversity under the heel of a fanatical monoculture. Presumably freedom of belief and the rights of women and non-Muslims are all to be sacrificed in order to give Bush and Blair a bloody nose.

A recent Independent on Sunday headline disregarded such minor details and triumphantly declared: "Iraq war, not religion, caused bombings." However commonplace such claims are, they are nonetheless tendentious and evasive. Few of those advancing this view have paused to ask why events in Iraq would drive a British Muslim to attempt to kill innocent non-combatants in London, many of whom may have opposed the invasion of Iraq. Nor do events in Iraq adequately explain the use of jihadist tactics in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Russia, Chechnya, Germany, Somalia, Sudan, Uzbekistan and elsewhere.

What, other than religious belief, explains the notion of the ummah, the invisible 'nation of Islam' which exists wherever Muslims are, and with which fellow Muslims are obliged to side against the infidel? If not Islamic theology, what exactly explains the jihadist redefinition of 'oppression' and 'innocence', whereby those who are perceived to oppose or inhibit Islam in any way - whether combatants or not - are deemed legitimate targets? And what, if not Mohammed's own repeated instructions, makes suicidal 'martyrdom' an obvious or meaningful course of action?

The Pakistani exile and Muslim reformer Tahir Aslam Gora has challenged these fashionable evasions and suggested the root cause of jihadist terror is not foreign policy or poverty, but ultimately lies within Islam itself. Similar challenges have been voiced by ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch MP and Muslim apostate, whose criticism of Islam necessitates 24-hour police protection. In a recent article, Gora dismissed the party line towed by Robert Fisk, Tariq Ali, Imran Khan, Karen Armstrong and countless others, and asked: "Why is bin Laden a hero in most Islamic countries? Walk the streets of Pakistan, Sudan, Bangladesh and many other Muslim countries and you will see the respect and love shown for bin Laden and other leaders like him. This respect is not a result of illiteracy and poverty but of the way in which Islam is taught. This is why thousands of highly qualified Muslim professionals do not condemn Islamic terrorism."

Gora's comments are supported by several polls, including those conducted by the Pew Research Centre, which revealed that 51% of Pakistan's Muslims support al-Qaeda's aims and methods and have "confidence" in bin Laden.

Yet much of the left has ignored Muslim voices like those of Tahir Aslam Gora, presumably because those voices do not directly reinforce a Marxist critique of capitalism or the left's own grievances with US foreign policy and the Bush administration in general. Also widely ignored are the contradictions of an opportunist alliance between the hard political left and the extreme religious right. Thus we arrive at the perverse spectacle of Ken Livingstone defending Yusuf al-Qaradawi as "moderate", while demonising as "Islamophobic" those who protested against the Egyptian cleric - including, ironically, a number of reformist Muslims. That Qaradawi is the 'spiritual leader' of the Muslim Brotherhood, a xenophobic organisation with well-documented historical links with Nazism, somehow escapes attention. Evidently, when discussing Islam our notions of 'moderate' require drastic recalibration. And one has to wonder how Livingstone, Galloway or Bunting would react if Qaradawi's opinions were being expressed by a white Republican evangelist.

Further weight is added to Gora's argument by the fact that he, like so many of his peers, is now forced to live in exile in the West. Indeed, it is difficult to neatly separate acts of homicidal 'martyrdom' from a tradition of intolerance that prevails throughout much of the Islamic world, and which has prevailed through much of Islam's own expansionist history. Earlier this year, Channel 4's Shariah TV series asked a studio audience of British Muslims how they should respond to criticism of Islam and its Prophet. Roughly 20% of those present shouted "death" and a heated argument ensued.

Nor should we forget that Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the supposed face of 'moderate' Islam, first rose to public attention in 1989 during the riotous burning of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. At the time, Sacranie argued that Rushdie must be "punished" for his "provocation" and said: "death, perhaps, is too easy for him." More recently, Sacranie has insisted: "There is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist. This is deeply offensive." Well, offensive or not, the 50 or so Islamic terrorist organisations which explicitly cite the Qur'an and Sunnah as justifying their actions would obviously beg to differ. Yet Sacranie has maintained that any statement of this fact, or any suggestion to that effect, is "Islamophobic" and a "defamation" of Islam. Only last year, during a Newsnight debate, Sacranie announced that people should be "allowed" not to believe in Islam, but should not be permitted to "criticise or defame" it.

But is it "defamation" to point out that following the publication of Rushdie's book 10,000 Muslims rioted in Islamabad, killing six people and injuring many more? Is it defamatory to point out that translators of The Satanic Verses were subsequently stabbed in Norway and Italy, and murdered in Japan? Or to point out how another translator in Turkey narrowly escaped being murdered when indignant Muslims set fire to his hotel, killing 37 other people in the process? At risk of offending Mr Sacranie's implausibly delicate sensibilities, one could also point out how variations of this mindset have been expressed in almost all forms of Sharia throughout history, and still find expression in the Islamic legal systems of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen; and in Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Maldives, Oman and Qatar -- in fact, wherever Islam has political influence.

Is it, then, "defamation" to suggest that such violence and intimidation might be related to the adversarial tenor of the Qur'an, and the supremacist tenets therein, to which Rushdie and his opponents made reference? And is it so grossly misleading to suggest that this culture of hysterical grievance and violent hostility to criticism might -- just might -- be uncomfortably close to the mindset of the jihadist, and be a root cause of his mysterious "fury and indignation"?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Thompson is a freelance writer whose work appears in The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. He is also a regular contributor to Eye: the International Review of Graphic Design. An archive of his work can be found at his website.

---

GET OUR NEWSLETTER!
	Your Name: Your Email:   Enter your email address above for 3 AM MAGAZINE'S Monthly Newsletter. Each time a new issue is posted, we'll let you know. (Your email address will be kept confidential!)