Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1957, Osama bin Laden cemented himself into world history by waging a lifelong jihad in pursuit of an Islamic homeland, attacking both Middle Eastern and Western countries using networks of armed militias funded by his personal wealth. Having had his Saudi citizenship revoked for excoriating the kingdom over its liberal theology and complicity with Western powers, by 1994 bin Laden had found an ideological home among the Taliban of Afghanistan, who had recently united the country after a long period of fractious, sectarian warfare. Like the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, a fundamentalist theocrat who imposed strict and conservative laws across Afghanistan, bin Laden was incensed by the effects of modernization on Middle Eastern Islamic civilization. The impact of Western culture on traditionally conservative communities, the cozy economic and military relationship between governments like Saudi Arabia and Western powers, often leveraged to oppress conservative minority populations, and especially the Palestinian Israeli conflict were core issues against which bin Laden, his regional network of guerilla-style fighters, and the Taliban army fought.
In response, “Muslim religious leaders around the world denounced Taliban ‘Islamic’ policies as aberrant,” reinforcing the view of bin Laden and other jihadists that “oppressive policies towards their own people” made these leaders jahili – from the Arabic jayilliyyah and referring to a society and its governors who have refused God. Furthermore, as scholar James Gelvin notes, Western support of the Zionist movement establishing the Israeli state, dispossessing indigenous inhabitants of Palestine of their lands, indeed “define by its opposition to the indigenous habitants of the region,” was an affront to bin Laden. “The Taliban brand of Islamic radicalism has been significantly influenced by a militant neo-Deobandi [reformist] movement in Pakistan,” and the radical reform for which bin Laden and similarly placed jihadists fought was a purely Islamic society, the ummah, ruled by traditional religious law (sharia) dictated by learned ulama, that was conservative and aimed to convert populations the world over. These competing values and ideologies – conservatism, globalism, progressivism, and nationalism – have come to define the ‘Western experience’ for conservative, theocratic militants like bin Laden who view modernization as a threat to the society they envision for themselves and their communities. This history of conflict, embodied in the bold attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. in 2001, perpetrated by bin Laden and his network of fighters, represents continued resistance to modernization as the Palestinian Israeli conflict rages on today.
Bibliography
Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York, New York. Modern Library. 2002.
Esposito, John L. Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam. New York. Oxford University Press. 2002.
Gelvin, James L. Modern Middle East, The: A History. 4th ed. Oxford University Press. New York. 2016.
