Islam and Violence - Research Proposal Example

islam and violence The world forever changed the morning of September 11th 2001. The attacks on the World Center represented the most serious terrorist violence ever carried out on U.S. soil. A watershed moment in world history, that fateful morning will forever be engrained in the American national psyche. From a political, social and economic perspective, the hijackings of 9/11 were unparalleled in scope and sheer devastation. In a fascinating article entitled “Measuring the Effects of the September 11 Attack on New York City”, it was estimated that the direct cost of the attack stood at between $33 billion and $36 billion to the City of New York alone. The global ramifications were widespread. In addition to the direct economic costs associated with terrorism and the threat of further terrorism to the City of New York, 9/11 also had important political ramifications. The events that fateful morning have renewed interest in the global terrorist phenomenon and the manifestations of terrorism as a political tool by Muslims seeking political change through violent means (Bram et al. 2005, 33). Islam is a world religion which is one of the three great monotheistic religions and has its heart in the Middle East. Seeking to explore the relationship between Islam and political violence, this research proposal will analyze the terrorist phenomenon and explore the linkages between Islam and modern manifestations of terrorism. Whether acts are carried out by nationalist organizations such as the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka or by a global jihadist network such as al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, terrorism remains one of the greatest threats to global stability and world peace. Terrorist acts threaten governments, weaken economies and effectively destabilize societies. Accordingly, in the post-9/11 world, terrorism and Islam have become synonymous in the minds of many. Whether this is a true correlation or a simple abstraction and overgeneralization remains to be seen. Aiming to be as complete and concise as possible, this proposal will be structured in the following manner: we will begin with an Introduction to the modern terrorist phenomenon and discuss Islam in a general sense. This Introduction will be followed by a Literature Review which will discuss the major research on the linkages between Islam and political violence, expressed through modern terror. Our comprehensive Literature Review will be preceded by a section devoted to our Research Questions and Objectives, to be followed by a brief discussion of the methodology used. Our Timetable for Completion will be followed by a Resources section which will tie up this research proposal. Any and all citations in this proposal will be included in a Reference list at the conclusion of this project. Introduction The supposed linkages between Islam and terrorism have been at the fore of the international media since that fateful morning of September 11th 2001. Increasingly, modern terrorist groups and networks have global aims with international reach. Al-Qaeda, as an extreme fundamentalist Islamist organization, exemplifies this trend. In order to understand the linkages between terrorism, we must begin with a definitional component to guide our analysis. What is a terrorist and how does one define terrorism? The age old adage that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” (Bergesen & Lizardo 2004, 39) remains true and the term terrorist has been notoriously difficult to define. Despite these challenges, a definition of terrorism is integral and must be defined to provide a theoretical basis to this essay. According to Dr. Mia Bloom, terrorism can be defined as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetuated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups, states or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience” (Bloom 2005, 3). We can confidently say then that a terrorist is someone who engages in the act described above. Bloom’s definition is comprehensive enough to guide our essay and complement our analysis of the terrorist phenomenon. Premeditated political violence has been used by organizations as diverse as the Marxist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey to al-Qaeda globally and the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. Accordingly, Dr. Bloom’s definition persuasively demonstrates that all forms of premeditated political violence —including suicide terror, which will be explored later - can be understood within the same analytic framework of other manifestations of terrorism. An understanding of the linkages between terror and Islam must incorporate a definitional component and Dr. Bloom provides an excellent vantage point through which we can commence our analysis. Research Question and Objectives What role does violence play in the Islamic faith? What does the history of Islam tell us about the propensity for violence within the religion? Does Islam serve as a justification for violence in a modern context? Do violent terrorists such as Osama bin Laden do more to pervert Islamic teachings than promote them? These questions, and many more, will be explored with relation to the linkages between Islam and violence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As a global faith with adherents around the world, the relationship between Islam and political violence is an issue which is deserving of important scrutiny and will be analyzed in depth as part of this analysis. Literature Review A variety of theoretical paradigms have grown out of the Middle East in recent times and Islamism is a political theory which seeks to address the particular concerns facing the Arab world. Islam began in the Middle East around 600 A.D. and was shepherded into this world by the Prophet Mohammad. Seeking to address the plight of the people of the Middle East around the seventh century A.D. and growing out of Judaism and Christianity, Islam has now become a world religion with more than 1 billion adherents worldwide. The three most important sites for Islam, Mecca, Medina and the Dome of the Rock, are all in the Middle East and understanding Islam is extremely important for understanding the Middle East today. There are two main streams or branches of Islam, Sunni and Shi’a, and the divisions between the two sects is centuries old. Sunni Islam is the more prominent sect while Shi’a account for between 15-20% of the total Muslim world (Gelvin 2005, 33; Khater 2004, 20-24). Islamism is an ideology which stresses Islam as a guiding political force. Islamism has frequently come into conflict with secular ideologies and regimes, including in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian territories. Islamism has been tied to violence and terrorism and remains an important threat to the stability of the region. The present power in the semi-autonomous Gaza Strip Hamas, self-identifies as an Islamist organization (Khater, 2004). The Muslim resurgence in the past sixty years has been caused by persistent underdevelopment in the Middle East, a legacy of authoritarian rule and rising expectations in a global world. The West has many difficulties with Islam and many in the Western world, before 9/11 as well as after, have little understanding the faith and subsequently of its adherents. The result has been an upsurge in grievances in the Islamic world and the appropriation of terror as a tactic. Accordingly, terrorism has been used a political tool by Islamists to enact change and the use of this option predates modern incantations of terror in the Western world (see Huntington 2005). Islam is said to provide justification for terror and terrorist activities and many terrorists cite the Koran when committing acts of violence. In spite of the fact that Islam is inherently a peaceful religion which promotes the peaceful co-existence of people of different faiths (dhimmi status for example), people have manipulated Muslim doctrine and have reinterpreted the faith for their own political ambition. Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and a variety of global organizations which espoused violence as a political tool justify their actions using Islam. The term jihad is now known universally as a call to arms to the Muslim faithful but this term has been misappropriated and corrupted by Islamic terrorists seeking to impose their will through force. According to many scholars, including Khater and the late Samuel Huntington, terrorism has been appropriated as a political tool and used by a variety of Islamist organizations globally and is a potent threat to geopolitical security and world peace (Gelvin 2005, 33; see Huntington 2005). In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11th 2001, the role that Islam plays in inspiring violent terrorists around the world has become an important point for discussion for policy makers, analysts and law enforcement officials. Accordingly, terrorists today are no longer hindered by national boundaries and have the ability to strike at targets throughout the world. Al-Qaeda provides perhaps the best and the most frequently sited example of the “new” global terrorist and is a extremist Sunni Islamic network whihc purports to be inspired by the Islamic faith. Accordingly, Islamic terrorism is now transnational with the Al-Qaeda network spawning both adherents and imitators from Jakarta to Kabul and from London to Vancouver. The Al-Qaeda network has reportedly been responsible for a myriad of attacks beginning with Yemen in 1992, 9/11 and continuing today as part of the Iraqi insurgency. The Al-Qaeda network, headed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, has mastered the use of modern technology, including the internet as well as the Middle Eastern television network Al-Jazeera, to gain adherents to their global jihad. While their demands vary – from Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories to the overthrow of the conservative monarchy in Saudi Arabia – Al-Qaeda has engaged in suicide terror in countries as diverse as Indonesia and Britain, the United States and Tanzania, as well as the United Kingdom and Morocco, just to name a few. Its reach truly is global. In fact, this particularly insidious network of jihadists represents arguably the most pronounced threat to global peace and international security in modern times. Due to its premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-state actors in a variety of settings, most famously on September 11th 2001, Al-Qaeda fits the conceptual framework provided by Dr. Bloom and represents sub-national terror at its most insidious. Since it advocates a return to the caliphate and claims to represent a “pure” form of Islam, it can be persuasively argued that Islam has significantly influenced the political behavior and violence of this transnational terrorist network. Does Al-Qaeda represent a perversion of Islamic thought? That question will have to be explored further as this is a wholly new realm of exploratory analysis and this dissertation aims to fill preexisting gaps in the literature (BBC 2007). Methodology This project will be the result of extensive research and the bulk of the data explored will be obtained through scholarly analysis and a comprehensive literature review of all current scholarly information on the subject. Since the issue of Tajik remittance is a relatively recent phenomenon beginning largely with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Tajik independence in 1997, the amount of information on the subject, although daunting at first, will be readily accessed through a comprehensive analysis of the scholarly material on the subject. Although primarily qualitative in nature, if quantitative data is available, this information has been integrated into the overall analysis. To this end, scholarly journals websites and the latest books on the subject will be utilized. The methodological focus of this dissertation will rest upon hard, concrete evidence including intelligence scenarios of the Central Asian region found in scholarly journals and in books. This research intends to undertake data collection through extensive research and coding of relevant information. Due to geographic limitations, first-hand qualitative research has not been feasible and this project will rely almost exclusively upon scholarly library research. In addition to scholarly research on the subject, this author has sought out primary documents from a variety of actors including the European Union, the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the Central Asian republics. Although much of the information sought may in fact be confidential as it relates to transnational intelligence and migration trends, a concerted effort has nonetheless been made to uncover any and all primary source data on the subject at hand. The following section will provide a strong framework and timetable for completion as we look towards one of the most compressive analyses of the effects of the global economic crisis on one of the most vulnerable economies in Asia, that of Tajikistan. Timetable for completion Although I do not anticipating potential problems in obtaining research due to the ready accessible of much international content online or through scholarly reverences databases, I have set a six month completion deadline for this dissertation. Initial research has been undertaken and continues to be improved upon. I believe that due to the scope and complexity of this project, six months (36 weeks) will give me ample time to complete this analysis and submit an excellent “A” quality dissertation on the relationship between the Islamic faith and violence. Resources A vast amount of resources exist on the phenomenon of political violence and terror in the post-9/11 world and the challenge here will be applying preexisting knowledge to this analysis of the relationship between Islam and violence. Resources will be obtained through online scholarly research and access should not be a problem for this dissertation. By anticipating any problems, the researcher has undertaken significant preliminary research to conclude that access to information and international documents on the subject under analysis should not be a problem. References Bergesen, Albert J. and Omar Lizardo. 2004. International Terrorism and the World-System. Sociological Theory 22.1: 38-52. Bloom, Mia. 2005. Dying to kill: the allure of suicide terror. New York: Columbia University Press. Bram, Jason, James Orr and Carol Rapaport. 2005. Measuring the Effects of the September 11 Attack on New York City. Economic Policy Review 8.2: 44-69. British Broadcasting Corporation. 2007. “Investigating Al-Qaeda”. Retrieved July 14, 2007 from BBC online Gelvin, J.L. 2005. The modern Middle East: a history. New York: Oxford University Press. Huntington, Samuel. 1996. The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Khater, A.F. 2004. Sources in the history of the modern Middle East. New York: Houghton-Mifflin. Morris, B. 2001. Righteous victims: a history of the Zionist-Arab conflict. New York: Random House. Parker, R. 2003. The politics of miscalculation in the Middle East. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Said, E.W. 1979. Orientalism. London: Vintage. Read More