Beliefs and ideology of Osama bin Laden

rdf:langString Beliefs and ideology of Osama bin Laden

rdf:langString Osama bin Laden took ideological guidance from prominent militant Islamist scholars and ideologues from the classical to contemporary eras, such as Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Sayyid Qutb and Abdullah Azzam. During his middle and high school years, Bin Laden was educated in Al-Thagr model school, a public school in Jeddah run by Islamist exiles of the Muslim Brotherhood; during which he was immensely influenced by pan-Islamist ideals and displayed strict religious commitment. As a teenager, Bin Laden attended and led Muslim Brotherhood-run "Awakening" camps held on desert outskirts; that intended to raise the youth in religious values, instil martial spirit and sought spiritual seclusion from "the corruptions" of modernity and rapidly urbanising society of 1970s Saudi Arabia. While some reporters have speculated that Bin Laden was an adherent of the Wahhabi movement, other researchers have disputed this notion. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology. During his studies in King Abdul Aziz University, Bin Laden became immersed in the writings of the Egyptian militant Islamist scholar Sayyid Qutb; most notably Milestones and In The Shade of the Qur'an. Bin Laden adopted Qutb's anti-Westernism, his assertion that Muslim World has been steeped in a state of Jahiliyya (pre-Islamic ignorance) and embraced his revolutionary call for overthrowing the Arab governments by means of an ideologically committed vanguard. To effectuate his beliefs, Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda, a pan-Islamist militant organization, with the objective of recruiting Muslim youth for participating in armed Jihad across various regions of the Islamic World such as Palestine, Kashmir, Central Asia, etc. In conjunction with several other Islamic leaders, he issued two fatwas—in 1996 and then again in 1998—that Muslims should fight those that either support Israel or support Western military forces in Islamic countries, stating that those in that mindset are the enemy, including citizens from the United States and allied countries. His goal was for Western military forces to withdraw from the Middle East and for foreign aid to Israel to cease as the aid is used to fund Israeli policy in the region.