In 1999, House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare director Yossef Bodansky noted that “starting in the late 1970s, Islamist thinkers could see no way out of the crisis of Islam except for an all-out confrontation with the West.” His pre-9/11 book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, remains revealing and prophetic two decades later in explaining the wider context of Osama bin Laden’s jihad.
Bodansky introduced his book by defining the “term Islamist” that was then relatively obscure but has since become mainstream. Perhaps overoptimistically distinguishing this phenomenon from a historically inherently political Islam, he did not thereby
refer either to someone who might be labeled ‘Muslim’ because of inherited religious beliefs and culture or to aspects of Islam, such as Islamic belief or the Islamic state. The term Islamist denotes the overwhelming prevalence of the political aspect—particularly radicalism, extremism, and militancy—pursued and perpetrated under the banner of Islam as interpreted by the practitioners. While commonly used in professional literature, the term Islamist is not often used by American journalists and other writers, who prefer such terms as Islamic intellectual, Islamic fundamentalist, or Islamic militant. Such usage, however, blurs the distinction between the majority of Muslims, and a minority, comprising extremist terrorists.
“To comprehend Islamist terrorism, one must address its theological-ideological roots,” Bodansky analyzed based on his definition:
Radical militant Islamism—the driving force behind and the ideology justifying international terrorism—emerged from Islam’s conflict with Westernization and modernity. The antagonism between Islamic and Western civilizations has festered for several centuries.
Bodansky described a culture clash between Islamic sharia law and non-Muslims, which the modern world only accentuated:
This crisis reached its first boiling point in the mid-1970s, when the Muslim world, empowered by new petrodollar wealth, was exposed to Western civilization as never before through graduate studies in the West, leisure travel, and satellite TV, still in its infancy. The shock was immense. Leading Islamist intellectuals, who had experienced life in the United States as graduate students, concluded that the personal liberties and materialism they had experienced in the West constituted a mortal threat to traditional Islamic society, which is regimented and bound by strict codes of behavior.
Globalizing technologies only accelerated these confrontations, Bodansky observed:
Today this crisis is escalating because of the widening gap between the West and the Muslim world and the intensifying exposure of the Muslim world to Western civilization through electronic media—from satellite TV to the Internet. The Islamists consider this exposure an onslaught against their way of life, a constant and flagrant reminder of backward Islam’s failures in science and technology.
Simultaneously, “Islamists are convinced that this deviation of Western society (particularly American society, where the separation between church and state is so strongly enforced) from the Islamic divine order of authority is the root cause of its social malaise,” Bodansky wrote. Especially “Bin Laden hates the United States passionately and considers it his principal enemy. He accuses the United States—the locus of Westernization and modernity—of being the source of all crises and trouble afflicting the Muslim world.”
For jihadists such as bin Laden, a “fertile ground exists for anti-Western terrorism” in Muslim societies that can “compel governments to take notice,” Bodansky noted. The “onslaught of Westernization through the electronic media and the growing dependence on imported goods has created a backlash in the Muslim street that the Islamists incite and manipulate to create grassroots hostility.” Meanwhile in many Muslim countries “regimes face internal problems that are nearly impossible to reconcile and resolve,” he added. Therefore, “determined to placate their own citizenry and under growing pressure from the West, more and more regimes…found it expedient to sponsor international Islamist terrorism.”
Bin Laden and allies sought redemption in purging Western influence from Muslim countries. As Bodansky wrote, these jihadists “are convinced that it is only the West, as was so clearly demonstrated during the Gulf War, that saves and sustains subservient Muslim regimes while punishing those that stand up to the West.” Thus
it will be impossible to establish genuine Islamic governments and at once resolve all the problems presently afflicting the Muslim world. Islamist leaders may differ on the fine details of what constitutes a genuine Islamic state, but they all agree that the United States and Western civilization must first be evicted from their midst.
“Since a frontal assault is out of the question, the United States must be terrorized into withdrawing from the Muslim world,” Bodansky noted. Accordingly, “Islamist international terrorism will only escalate.” As he elaborated,
Bin Laden, his colleagues, and the states sponsoring them are all key components of the dominant megatrend in the Muslim world—the rise and spread of radical militant Islamism. They are all theologically motivated and driven, killing and dying in pursuit of an Islamist jihad against the rest of the world.
Appropriately, Bodansky placed bin Laden in a broader Islamic framework:
The story of Osama bin Laden is not just that of an impressive leader and an irreconcilable foe—it is also the story of the events he was part of and the overall dynamics and circumstances within which he strives. It is the story of dedicated zealots driven by hatred unacceptable and incomprehensible to a Westerner.
Bodansky’s book has remained a treasure trove of insights since he first wrote during an era before bin Laden became a household name. A highly important recurring theme in Bodansky’s writing is the ideological nature of jihadist threats, which Western material blandishments, such as development aid programs, cannot defuse, and in some ways might even make worse. Mining his writings on bin Laden’s life for better understanding of jihadism past and present will form the basis for a forthcoming series of articles.
mortimer says
Andrew Harrod has exposed a KEY POINT: namely, that at least 35% of Muslims are merely ‘cultural Muslims’, another 30-40% of Muslims are wishy-washy or pretending, and the only 15% of Muslims worldwide could be called ‘hardcore’ Muslims. These numbers are confirmed by several opinion surveys and by the mullahs who know their congregations.
The ‘hardcore’ Muslims are not certain, though. The 15% hardcore Muslims know better than anyone that ISLAM IS IN CRISIS. It truly is … Muslims don’t believe all that crap! They know Mohammed is a vicious, salacious, sadistic warlord who is not a role model for anyone but a criminal thug.
Muslims of today DO NOT WANT TO IMITATE Mohammed … Mohammed is actually now an EMBARRASSMENT to most Muslims … they simply avoid talking about him or his disgusting, evil character.
Westman says
That seems logical, however, if Muhammad is an embarrassment to Muslims, why are some variants of, and the original, “Muhammad”, some of the most popular baby names in the UK?
James Lincoln says
mortimer says,
“only 15% of Muslims worldwide could be called ‘hardcore’ Muslims.”
Even if that is true, it is one snapshot in time.
Some of the other 85% can always decide to start becoming more devout at any time – and we never know when.
gravenimage says
Mortimer, if so many Muslims are actually embarassed by the “Prophet”, you don’t say why so many are willing to murder over any criticism of this barbaric thug, nor why so many ordinary Muslims are sympathetic to their doing so. You also do not say why majority of Muslims even iun the West want to see the horrors of Shari’ah law imposed–including, of course, blasphemy laws criminalizing any criticism of the “Prophet” himself.
mortimer says
Bodansky’s summary is brilliant: “The story of Osama bin Laden is not just that of an impressive leader and an irreconcilable foe—it is also the story of the events he was part of and the overall dynamics and circumstances within which he strives. It is the story of dedicated zealots driven by hatred unacceptable and incomprehensible to a Westerner.”
Islamism has a pedigree going back to 18th-century Arabia, then it was fine-tuned in the 1920s to the 1940s in Egypt by the fascist Muslim Brotherhood.
Most Muslims don’t understand Islam, don’t want to be part of it, but they at the same time feel a certain guilt that they are not participating in jihad. However, if a large-scale jihad DOES come, then I believe the ‘moderate’ Muslims will not resist the jihad, and many of them will join in with it as auxiliary helpers and conscripted jihadists. This is what happened in Iran.
mortimer says
correction : Most Muslims don’t understand *ISLAMISM* … don’t want to be a part of it
SKA says
And now in Iran only about 22% of the people retain any belief in Islam according to some polls.
gravenimage says
You are right, Mortimer–most Muslims will join the Jihad and do nothing to defend Infidels or civilized Infidel society. In which case, why are we supposed to be overjoyed that so many Muslims are allegedly “moderate”?
eduardo odraude says
And D. Wood comes out with another brilliant tool in the intellectual arsenal to persuade naive Muslims who don’t know their own core texts, and persuade lefties duped by their own ideological prejudices. Persuade them of what, demonstrate what? Demonstrate to them how Muhammad’s teachings are a force for mob violence and for impunity for murder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZYzDwa6XWY
Westman says
“The Islamists consider this exposure an onslaught against their way of life, a constant and flagrant reminder of backward Islam’s failures in science and technology.”
It was necessary for the Christian Church to have its power curtailed for science and invention to flourish. Martin Luther started more than a religious reformation, he gave humanity a fork in the road that led to the Industrial Revolution in England, the discovery of the principles of electromagnetism which set a course to characterize and manipulate the unseen world, and the second (Technical) Revolution – our modern technical world.
These discoveries and mathematical models could not have been made previously since they deal with forces, dynamic fields, that cannot be detected by the normal senses and would have been ascribed to some occult, devilish origin. Imagine Michael Faraday’s experiments done for a Priest in the year 1492? Collect the firewood?
By the time of the Renaissance, Islam had shut down any real scientific thought and stayed behind right through to WWII. Now it’s humiliated by its own failure? Well, Muslim citizens could revolt and secure a future?
“Islamist leaders may differ on the fine details of what constitutes a genuine Islamic state, but they all agree that the United States and Western civilization must first be evicted from their midst.”
Really? Remove all those cell phones, computers, cars, and eat sand instead of imported food? Yossef Bodansky certainly didn’t anticipate today’s world interdependency, 20 years after his book.
Afghanistan and Iraq were defeated but never transitioned out of theocratic rule. Bodansky was right about Westerners being “evicted” but not because of Islam’s strength in the modern world. It’s just not worth staying – and observing the immigration to the West, millions of Muslims think the same.
MaraCassandra says
All of the greats of Science were believers and/or Christians. Isaac Newton believed the Bible from A to Z and wrote more on it than he did on science. Indeed, it is only since we have rejected Christianity in the schools, that we get the kind of ‘science’ that prevails now, pure theoretical Physics without any practical application, resulting in abominations like “climate science”
gravenimage says
“Climate science”–in the sense of “climate change”–has little basis in fact, and so is not real science, but is more about “wokeness”.
And you are right that many believing Christians have been scientists–but mistaken in believing that all of them have been.
Walter Sieruk says
As explained in the comment section in jihadwatch before the so called “words” which are “Islamist” and “Islamism” are bogus terms.
As Muslim Fundamentalist President of Turkey ,Tayyip Erdogan,had so well declared “Islam is Islam.”
Those two fake words just mentioned in the first sentence of this essay are fiction “words’ that were fabricated after 9/11 in oder no to offend non-violent peaceful Muslims.
So let’s be realistic and call Islam by it’s real name, which is “Islam.”
Likewise, in also important to both honest as well as realistic terms and call those dangerous and violent Muslims who are totally committed to the deadly jihad for Islam for what they really are which are rightly and should be called by the fitting terms which are “Muslim terrorist” or “Islamic terrorist” and not by that fake term “Islamist.”
.
Jim says
The problem is how much harm is resulting from mass Muslim immigration, even if only very few want terrorism or war. There were possibly very few hard core Nazis, but in spite of that, most Germans and Austrians fought valiantly for the Axis war effort. Not so many hardcore Nazis were needed to get the rest into the war. Most Chinese and Russians are also not hardcore totalitarians or communists, but the Russians and Chinese are working hard to build up their armies and threaten neighboring countries. And there do seem to be a lot of non-hardcore Muslims supporting the various assaults on Western societies and values. The wave of Islamic migration does not seem to be just people who want a better life and are willing to assimilate. The Mosques and cultural centers around the West do not seem to be preaching assimilation. So, why should the West simply let this wave of alien culture wash over it, because hardly any of the migrants is a hardcore Islamist. It seems as though the clash of civilizations can be very destructive in the West, even if most of the people flooding over the borders are not hardcore ideologues. The drugs being imported thanks to Biden and the left are still killing thousands of people. The new voters coming into the US can help create the one-party state the Democrats are working for with mass amnesty and open borders. The people coming in do not all have to be cartel members or drug dealers or terrorists to be a threat anyway.
OLD GUY says
No way out for Islam but to attack all other religions and societies. Thats probably correct as Islam is ANTI- DIVERSITY, MALE DOMINATE, restrictive of FREEDOM, and a VARY VIOLENT form of DICTATORSHIP RULE.
Look out world here it comes, islam with the atomic bomb and as they see it nothing to lose, you get rewarded for killing non-islamic people and a whole bunch of virgins if you die doing it in the name of Allah. Whats to lose,
gravenimage says
Of course, Pakistan does have the bomb already. But they are becoming more and more Islamized, especially under Khan, so this is also a growing danger to us.
And Iran has directly threatened to wipe out Israel if they get nukes.
gravenimage says
Islam’s Crisis and Osama bin Laden
…………….
Pious Muslims hate *all* Infidels, but the successful free West most of all.