"Al Qaeda's Egyptian ideological origins"

Al Qaeda's Egyptian ideological origins
By Austin Bay
Published December 29, 2006

The pre-Christmas rants of al Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri backfired in
both Palestine and Washington, D.C.
Zawahiri -- al Qaeda's terror emir No. 2 -- ordered the
Palestinians to wage his globalist brand of jihad. In the midst of
their own vicious civil war, Hamas and Fatah quickly told Zawahiri to
*** out.
Zawahiri's history lesson for Washington Democrats elicited yawns.
Zawahiri argued the "the Muslim... vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq...
won [the U.S. election], and the American forces and their crusader
allies are the ones who lost." Cave life in Pakistan evidently limits
the al Qaeda firebrand's ability to affect current events. It isn't
simply a feat to simultaneously flop in the Beltway and Gaza Strip --
it's a defeat.
Zawahiri's December case of tin ear is small encouragement,
however, for his insistent message remains an enormous menace. At the
end of 2006, al Qaeda is a shattered organization, but not yet a
shattered idea.
The ideology al Qaeda and its "affiliated cadres" empowers a still
potent enemy. Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh provided a domestic
American example of the horror a handful of driven, delusional and
violent men can wreak. McVeigh, however, was truly isolated.
Al Qaeda's dark genius -- or, more accurately, the dark genius of
the Egyptian strain of internationalist jihadism -- has been to connect
the Muslim world's angry, humiliated and isolated young men with a
utopian fantasy preaching the virtue of violence. That utopian fantasy
seeks to explain and then redress roughly 800 years of Muslim decline.
The rage energizing al Qaeda's ideological cadres certainly predates
the post-Desert Storm presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia.
After the terrorist attacks on America of September 11, 2001, the
popular press focused on Osama bin Laden's Saudi money rather than
Zawahiri's Egyptian militancy, but together the Saudi-Egyptian link was
the combination that forged al Qaeda operationally and philosophically.

Zawahiri's inspiration, mentor and fellow Egyptian, Sayid Qutb, is
the modern father of jihadist rage and violence. Counterterror experts
have long acknowledged Qutb's resilient appeal. In his book "Assassins
and Zealots," terror expert Stephen Sloan notes Qutb "demonized"
Western and secular Muslim leaders "as agents of revived jahiliyah
[pre-Islamic heathenism] who... could be attacked at will by true
believers."
Lawrence Wright's magnificent new book, "The Looming Tower: Al
Qaeda and the Road to 9/11," provides the most literate narrative
history available of the origins and operations of al Qaeda. In doing
so, Mr. Wright examines Qutb, Zawahiri, bin Laden and their cohorts in
extraordinarily informed detail.
"The Looming Tower" treats Qutb rigorously and poignantly. Qutb
possessed a brilliant intellect, and his American sojourn (1948-1950)
had a profound effect on the man. Qutb visited New York and California,
and attended college in Greeley, Colo. Mr. Wright says the freedom of
American women led Qutb to conclude "Islam and modernity were
completely incompatible." Qutb was palpably threatened by, yet deeply
attracted to, Western women. Personal repulsion and fascination fed a
lurking sense of cultural and political humiliation.
Qutb key facts: Qutb was born in 1903. He died in 1966 -- executed
by Egypt's Gamel Abdel Nasser, at the time a Soviet ally.
Qutb's rage fed Zawahiri and ultimately shaped bin Laden. The same
rage continues to feed disaffected and isolated young Muslims trapped
in corrupt autocracies and denied other political, cultural and
aesthetic avenues of expression.
Both Zawahiri and bin Laden grew up in comparatively privileged
circumstances. Mr. Wright's sources on Zawahiri's early years include
family members and family friends, providing a remarkable psychological
record of a young, politically active intellectual on the road to
global murderer. Mr. Wright documents bin Laden's inept record during
the Afghan war against the Soviets. Hardened mujahideen regarded bin
Laden as a buffoon and poseur.
Azza Zawahiri, Ayman's wife, also receives tragic attention.
Trapped in the debris of an air attack in Afghanistan, Azza chose to
remain beneath the rubble rather than risk men seeing her face. She
died there. The Wright vignette illustrates the fierce, unbending will
of al Qaeda's most committed cadres. And it demonstrates why they
remain a threat.

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