Al-Qaida's Terror Is Based In Anarchism

international | miscellaneous | other press

Saturday August 06, 2005 11:38

by ms. informed

"For although it founds its ideology on religious references and speaks a language overwhelmed by religious symbols, al-Qaida falls largely within the modern tradition of revolutionary anarchists ..."
writes Soumayya Ghannoushi, a researcher in the history of ideas at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, in an opinion piece in Aljazeera.

The article, which is also published on the Muslim Association of Britain's and other Islamic websites, argues that the ideological motivation behind Al-Qaida's acts of terror comes not from Islam but anarchism's marxist (sic) nihilism

Ghannoushi explains to her readers that like modern anarchists, al-Qaida subscribes to an instrumentalist logic that recognises no distinction between the legitimate and illegitimate, thereby sanctioning acts of terror for the attainment of their ends.

Ghannoushi's expertise as a historian of ideas, based in the academically renowned SOAS department of the University of London, leads her to conclude that in relation to al-Qaida:

"Apart from the ideological justifications it takes recourse to, one would, indeed, be hard put to find much that distinguishes it from Latin American anarchist groups. Their acts share the same destructive ferocity, the same absurdity."

Ms Ghannoushi's article is being widely disseminated across the Muslim world. The orginal text of the article can be found here: