Islamic terrorism

=== Religious motivation ===
[[Daniel Benjamin]] and [[Steven Simon]], in their book, ''The Age of Sacred Terror'', argue that Islamic terrorist attacks are motivated by religious fervor. They are seen as "a sacrament ... intended to restore to the universe a moral order that had been corrupted by the enemies of Islam." Their attacks are neither political nor strategic but an "act of redemption" meant to "humiliate and slaughter those who defied the hegemony of God".<ref>{{cite book|title=The Age of Sacred Terror|page=40|author=Daniel Benjamin|author2=Steven Simon|year=2002|isbn=978-0-7567-6751-8|publisher=Random House}}</ref>

According to Indonesian Islamic leader Yahya Cholil Staquf in a 2017 [[Time (magazine)|''Time'']] interview, within the classical Islamic tradition the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is assumed to be one of segregation and enmity. In his view extremism and terrorism are linked with "the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy" and that radical Islamic movements are nothing new. He also added that Western politicians should stop pretending that extremism is not linked to Islam.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=http://time.com/4930742/islam-terrorism-islamophobia-violence/|title=Orthodox Islam and Violence 'Linked' Says Top Muslim Scholar|magazine=Time|access-date=27 December 2017|quote=Western politicians should stop pretending that extremism and terrorism have nothing to do with Islam. There is a clear relationship between fundamentalism, terrorism, and the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy. So long as we lack consensus regarding this matter, we cannot gain victory over fundamentalist violence within Islam. Radical Islamic movements are nothing new. They've appeared again and again throughout our own history in Indonesia. The West must stop ascribing any and all discussion of these issues to "Islamophobia." Or do people want to accuse me—an Islamic scholar—of being an Islamophobe too?}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.faz.net/1.5157757|title=F.A.Z. exklusiv: Terrorismus und Islam hängen zusammen|date=18 August 2017|work=Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung|access-date=27 December 2017|language=de-DE|issn=0174-4909}}</ref>

According to journalist [[Graeme Wood (journalist)|Graeme Wood]] "much of what" one major Islamic terror group -- [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant|ISIS]] -- "does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment" of Muhammad and his companions, "and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse" and [[Last Judgment#Islam|Judgement day]]. ISIS group members insist "they will not—cannot—waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers".<ref name="WOOD-wants-2015">{{cite journal |last1=WOOD |first1=GRAEME |title=What ISIS Really Wants |journal=The Atlantic |date=March 2015 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ |access-date=9 August 2019}}</ref>

Shmuel Bar argues that while the importance of political and socioeconomic factors in Islamist terrorism is not in doubt, "In order to comprehend the motivation for these acts and to draw up an effective strategy for a war against terrorism, it is necessary to understand the religious-ideological factors — which are deeply embedded in Islam."<ref>Bar, Shmuel, "The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism", ''Policy Review'', June/July 2004</ref>

Examining Europe, two studies of the background of Muslim terrorists—one of the UK and one of France—found little connection between terrorist acts performed in the name of Islam and the religious piety of the operatives. A "restricted" 2008 UK report of hundreds of case studies by the domestic counter-intelligence agency [[MI5]] found that there was no "typical profile" of a terrorist, and that

{{blockquote|[f]ar from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts. Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.<ref name="Travis-20-8-2008">{{cite news|last1=Travis|first1=Alan|title=MI5 report challenges views on terrorism in Britain|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/20/uksecurity.terrorism1|access-date=6 November 2015|work=The Guardian |location=London |date=20 August 2008 }}</ref>}}

However, while the motivation of the individuals directly involved in carrying out the terror attacks are not necessarily religious and may stem from other reasons, religiously motivated organizations and governments are very often behind such attacks. Fundamentalist organizations and governments often encourage, fund, assist, incentivize or reward the actions of individuals they recognize as susceptible to be coerced into committing terror attacks, thus using people who are not always religiously motivated themselves to achieve religious ends. [[Hamas]], for example, is known for [[Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund#Hamas|paying]] the families of imprisoned terrorists and of [[suicide bomber]]s. The [[Iran|Islamic Republic of Iran]] intends billions of US dollars annually for [[Militia|militia fighters]] and terrorists,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Iran spends $7 billion per year on terror network |url=https://embassies.gov.il/un/NewsAndEvents/Pages/Iran-terror-network-.aspx}}</ref> exploiting the extreme economic difficulties faced by people in countries such as [[Economy of Yemen|Yemen]], [[Economy of Lebanon|Lebanon]] and [[Economy of Syria|Syria]] by offering them cash in exchange for terror activity.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.iranintl.com/en/202302054479|title=Exclusive: IRGC Officers Pocket Millions Intended As Salaries For Proxies|website=Iran International|date=16 November 2023 }}</ref>

A 2015 "general portrait" of "the conditions and circumstances" under which people living in France become "Islamic radicals" (terrorists or would-be terrorists) by Olivier Roy (see above) found radicalisation was not an "uprising of a Muslim community that is victim to poverty and racism: only young people join, including converts".<ref name="roy-inside">{{cite magazine |last=Roy |first=Olivier |date=18 December 2015 |title=What is the driving force behind jihadist terrorism? |url=http://insidestory.org.au/what-is-the-driving-force-behind-jihadist-terrorism |access-date=25 February 2016 |magazine=Inside Story |issn=1837-0497 }}</ref>

Roy believes terrorism/radicalism is "expressed in religious terms" because

# most of the radicals have a Muslim background, which makes them open to a process of re-Islamisation ("almost none of them having been pious before entering the process of radicalisation"), and<ref name=roy-inside />
# jihad is "the only cause on the global market". If you kill in silence, it will be reported by the local newspaper; "if you kill yelling 'Allahu Akbar', you are sure to make the national headlines". Other extreme causes—ultra-left or radical ecology are "too bourgeois and intellectual" for the radicals.<ref name=roy-inside />

Somewhat in contradiction to this, a study surveying Muslims in Europe to examine how much Islamist ideology increases support for terrorism, found that "in Western countries affected by homegrown terrorism ... justifying terrorism is strongly associated with an increase in religious practice". (This is not the case in European "countries where Muslims are predominant"—[[Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia]], [[Albania]], etc. -- where the opposite seems to be true, i.e. the more importance respondents assigned to religion in their life, the less likely they were to "justifying political violence".)<ref name="Egger-2021">{{cite journal |last1=Egger |first1=Clara |last2=Magni-Berton |first2=Raul |title=The Role of Islamist Ideology in Shaping Muslims Believers' Attitudes toward Terrorism: Evidence from Europe |journal=Studies in Conflict & Terrorism |year=2021 |volume=44 |issue=7 |pages=581–604 |doi=10.1080/1057610X.2019.1571696 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

==== Denominations/Ideologies ====
Most strains of thought/schools/sects/movements/[[religious denominations|denominations]]/traditions of Islam do not support or otherwise associate themselves with terrorism.{{#tag:ref| Shia Muslims have been involved in violence primarily at the state level<ref name="Jacobsen-12-3-19" /> ([[Hezbollah]] attacks on Israeli targets and Iran's use of [[Iran–Iraq War#Differences from other conflicts|shaheeds]] against [[Saddam Hussien]]'s [[Ba'athist Iraq|Iraq]] for example). The small [[Quranism|Quranist]] (Muslims who follow only Quran) and [[Ahmadi]] groups (who believe jihad should be peaceful) have "zero history of violence".|group=Note}}
According to Mir Faizal, only three sects or movements of Islam—the Sunni sects of [[Salafi]], [[Deobandi]], and [[Barelvi]].{{#tag:ref|Faizal calls these groups "sects", Wikipedia calls them "movements".  |group=Note}}—have been associated with violence against civilians.<ref name="Jacobsen-12-3-19">{{cite news |last1=Jacobsen |first1=Scott Douglas |title=Is There a Link between Islam and Terrorism? |url=https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/islam-terrorism-sjbn/ |website=good men project |access-date=9 August 2019 |date=12 March 2019}}</ref> Of the three, only Salafi Islam—specifically [[Salafi jihadism]] Islam—can be called involved in global terrorism, as it is connected with [[Al-Qaeda]], [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant|ISIS]], [[Boko Haram]] and other groups. (Terrorism among some members of the  [[Barelvi]] sect is limited to attacks on alleged blasphemers in Pakistan, and the terrorism among [[Deobandi]] groups has "almost no" influence beyond Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indian.)<ref name="Jacobsen-12-3-19" /> Another sect/movement known as [[Wahhabism]] (intertwined with ''non''-jihadist [[Salafism]]) has been accused of being the ideology behind Islamic terrorist groups,<ref name="worldaffairsjournal.org">{{cite journal|date=May–June 2015|title=The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global Jihad|url=http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/saudi-connection-wahhabism-and-global-jihad|journal=[[World Affairs]]|first1=Carol E. B.|last1=Choksy|author2=Jamsheed K. Choksy|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150509000307/http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/saudi-connection-wahhabism-and-global-jihad|archive-date=9 May 2015}}</ref>  but [[Al-Qaeda|Al Qaeda]] and other terrorists are more commonly  described as  following a ''fusion'' of [[Qutbism]] and [[Wahhabism]].<ref name=ayoob-many-58>{{cite book |last1=Ayoob |first1=Muhammad |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.189346
|title=The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World |page=58 |date=2008 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |doi=10.3998/mpub.189346 |jstor=10.3998/mpub.189346 |hdl=10356/90575 |isbn=978-0-472-09971-9 |access-date=31 May 2021}}.</ref><ref>Moussalli, Ahmad. "Wahhabism, Salafism and Islamism: Who is the Enemy?" ''A Conflict Forum Monograph'' (January 2009).  10.</ref><ref>International Crisis Group. "Understanding Islamism." Middle East Report, no. 37 (2 March 2005).  2.</ref>

Outside of these sects or religious movements, the religious ideology of [[Qutbism]] has influenced Islamic terrorism, along with religious themes and trends including  [[Takfir]], [[suicide attacks]], and the belief that Jews and Christians are not [[People of the Book]] but infidels/kafir waging "[[war on Islam]]". (These ideas are often related and overlapping.)

===== Qutbism =====
Qutbism is named after Egyptian [[Islamism|Islamist]] theoretician [[Sayyid Qutb]], who wrote a manifesto (known as ''[[Milestones (book)|Milestones]]''), while in prison. Qutb is said to have laid out
the ideological foundation of [[Salafi jihadism]]  (according to Bruce Livesey);<ref>{{Cite web|last=Livesey|first=Bruce|date=25 January 2005|title=The Salafist Movement|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/sala.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628202818/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/sala.html|archive-date=28 June 2011|publisher=PBS}}</ref>  his ideas are said to have formed "the modern Islamist movement" (according to Gilles Kepel);{{#tag:ref|Kepel wrote that "the modern Islamist movement"<ref name=KepelJihad-32 /> was "rebuilt" around "the ideas" of Qutb, rebuilt because the [[History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (1954–present)#The Brotherhood under Nasser, 1954–1970|Muslim Brotherhood was crushed after 1954]] by the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser.  In 1954 another a second unsuccessful assassination was attempted against Egypt's prime minister (Gamal Abdel Nasser), and blamed on the "secret apparatus" of the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood was again banned and this time thousands of its members were imprisoned.|group=Note}}
which along with other "violent Islamic thought", became the  ideology known as "[[Qutbism]] that is the "center of gravity" of al-Qaeda and related groups  (according to [[U.S. Army]] Colonel Dale C. Eikmeier).<ref name="eikmeier" />
Qutb is thought to be a major influence on Al-Qaeda #2 leader, [[Ayman al-Zawahiri]].<ref>Lawrence Wright (2006). ''The Looming Tower''. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41486-X. p.37</ref>{{#tag:ref|[[Qutbism]] has been used as a close relative,<ref name="Manne-2017-17-22">{{cite book |last1=Manne |first1=Robert |title=The Mind of the Islamic State |date=2017 |publisher=Prometheist Books |location=NY |pages=17–22 |isbn=978-1-63388-371-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Es41DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 |access-date=9 March 2021}}</ref><ref name="Shultz-2008">{{cite book |last1=Shultz |first1=Richard |title=Global Insurgency Strategy and the Salafi Jihad Movement. |date=2008 |publisher=USAF Institute for National Security Studies |location=Colorado |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0s0gAQAAIAAJ |access-date=9 March 2021}}</ref> or variety of Salafi jihadism.|group=Note}}

In his manifesto (called "one of the most influential works in Arabic of the last half century"),<ref>''The Age of Sacred Terror'' by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, New York : Random House, c2002, p.63</ref> Qutb preached:
*the absolute necessity of enforcement of [[sharia]] law ("even more necessary than the establishment of the Islamic belief", without which Islam does not exist);<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.89, 9</ref>
*the need for violent jihad as well as preaching to bring back sharia law and spread Islam, (a vanguard "movement" will use "physical power and Jihad",<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.55</ref> to remove "material obstacles");<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.59</ref>
*that offensive jihad—attacking non-Muslim territory—ought not neglected by true Muslims in favor of defensive jihad, (this "diminish[s] the greatness of the Islamic way of life",<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.71</ref> and is the work of those who have been "defeated by the attacks of the treacherous Orientalists!"<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.69</ref>  Muslims should not let lack of non-Muslim aggression stop them from waging Jihad to spread sharia law because ''"truth and falsehood cannot coexist on earth"'' in peace.<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.65</ref>
*a loathing of "the West" (a "rubbish heap ... filth ... hollow and worthless");<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.139, 136</ref>
*... which is deliberately undermining Islam (pursuing a "well-thought-out scheme" to "demolish the structure of Muslim society");<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.116</ref>
*... despite the fact it "knows" it is inferior to Islam (It "knows that it does not possess anything which will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence", so that when confronted with the "logic, beauty, humanity and happiness" of Islam, "the American people blush");<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.7, 139</ref>
*and a loathing and hatred of Jews ("world Jewry, whose purpose is to eliminate ... the limitations imposed by faith and religion, so that Jews may penetrate into body politics of the whole world and then may be free to perpetuate their evil designs [such as] usury, the aim of which is that all the wealth of mankind end up in the hands of Jewish financial institutions ...").<ref>Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.110-111</ref>

Eikmeier summarizes the tenets of Qutbism as being:
* A belief that Muslims have deviated from true Islam and must return to "pure Islam" as originally practiced during the time of [[Muhammad]].
* The path to that "pure Islam" is only through a literal and strict interpretation of the [[Quran]] and [[Hadith]], along with implementation of Muhammad's commands.
* Muslims should interpret the original sources individually without being bound to follow the interpretations of Islamic scholars.
* Any interpretation of the Quran from a historical, contextual perspective is a corruption, and that the majority of Islamic history and the [[Fiqh|classical jurisprudential tradition]] is mere sophistry.<ref name="eikmeier" />

While [[Sayyid Qutb]] preached that ''all'' of the Muslim world had become [[Apostasy in Islam|apostate]] or ''[[jahiliyah]]'', he did not specifically takfir or call for the execution of any apostates, even those governing non-sharia governments {{#tag:ref|(Qutb wrote ''Milestones'' in prison and "died before he could fully explain his theories" and clear up "his use of the term jahiliyya and its dire consequence, ''takfir''")<ref name=KepelJihad-31 />|group=Note}}      Qutb did however emphasize that "the organizations and authorities" of the putatively Muslim countries were irredeemably corrupt and evil<ref name="Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, p.55">Sayyid Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.55</ref> and would have to be abolished by "physical power and Jihad",<ref name="Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, p.55" /> by a "vanguard"<ref>Sayyid Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.12</ref> movement of true Muslims.<ref>Sayyid Qutb, ''Milestones'', p.101-103</ref>

One who did argue this was [[Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj]], the main theoretician of [[Egyptian Islamic Jihad|the Islamist group]] that [[Assassination of Anwar Sadat|assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat]].  who in his book  ''Al-Farida al-gha'iba'' (The Neglected Duty), cited a fatwa issued in 1303 CE by the celebrated strict medieval jurist [[Ibn Taymiyyah]]. He had ruled that fighting and killing of the Mongol invaders who were invading Syria was not only permitted but obligatory according to Sharia. This was because the Mongols did not follow sharia law, and so even though they had converted to Islam (Ibn Taymiyyah argued) they were not really Muslims.<ref>Kepel, Gilles, ''The Prophet and the Pharaoh'', (2003), p.194-197</ref> Faraj preached that rulers such as Anwar Sadat were "rebels against the Laws of God [the shari'ah]",<ref name=Faraj-Duty>Faraj, ''al-Farida al-gha'iba'', (Amman, n.d.), p.28, 26; trans. Johannes Jansen, ''The Neglected Duty'', (New York, 1986)</ref><ref name=Cook-understanding-192>Cook, David, ''Understanding Jihad'' by David Cook, University of California Press, 2005  p.192, 190</ref> and "apostates from Islam" who have preserved nothing of Islam except its name.<ref>Kepel, Gilles, ''The Prophet and the Pharaoh'', (2003), p.197</ref>

===== Wahabism/Salafism =====
Another Islamic movement accused of being involved in terrorism is known as [[Wahabism]].<ref name="School2015">{{cite book|author=Naval Postgraduate Naval Postgraduate School|title=Wahhabism: Is It a Factor in the Spread of Global Terrorism?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=25JPrgEACAAJ|date=19 March 2015|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform|isbn=978-1-5089-3613-8}}</ref><ref name="Allen2009">{{cite book|author=Charles Allen|author-link = Charles Allen (writer)|title=God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dKK0_bM-4n8C|date=1 March 2009|publisher=Da Capo Press, Incorporated|isbn=978-0-7867-3300-2}}</ref><ref name="DeLong-Bas2007">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nwX_UJ-p2rsC&pg=PA4|title=Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad|publisher=I.B.Tauris|year=2007|isbn=978-1-84511-322-3|pages=4–|author=Natana J. DeLong-Bas}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-yousaf-butt-/saudi-wahhabism-islam-terrorism_b_6501916.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in | work=HuffPost | title=How Saudi Wahhabism Is the Fountainhead of Islamist Terrorism | date=20 January 2015}}</ref><ref name="worldaffairsjournal.org" />

Sponsored by [[International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism|oil exporting power]] [[Saudi Arabia]], [[Wahabism]] is deeply conservative and anti-revolutionary (its founder taught that Muslims are obliged to give unquestioned allegiance  to their ruler, however imperfect,  so long as he leads the community according to the laws of God),<ref name="LofC">{{cite web|year=1992|title=Saudi Arabia. Wahhabi Theology|url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+sa0044%29|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041107123733/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd%2Fcstdy%3A%40field%28DOCID+sa0044%29|archive-date=7 November 2004|access-date=13 January 2022|work=[[Wayback Machine]]|publisher=Library of Congress Country Studies}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=House, Karen Elliott|title=On Saudi Arabia : Its People, past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future|publisher=Knopf|year=2012|page=27|quote=Not only is the Saudi monarch effectively the religious primate, but the puritanical Wahhabi sect of Islam that he represents instructs Muslims to be obedient and submissive to their ruler, however imperfect, in pursuit of a perfect life in paradise. Only if a ruler directly countermands the commandments of Allah should devout Muslims even consider disobeying. 'O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. [surah 4:59]'}}</ref>
Nonetheless, this ideology and its sponsors have been accused of assisting terrorism both
*indirectly—by "creating" an environment from late 1970s to 2010 that "supported the spread of extremist ideologies";<ref name="Dillon-Factor-2009-72">{{cite book |last1=Dillon |first1=Michael R. |title=Wahhabism: Is It a Factor in the Spread of Global Terrorism? |date=September 2009 |publisher=Naval Post Graduate School |page=72 |url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA509109.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518221709/https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA509109.pdf |url-status=live |archive-date=18 May 2021 |access-date=18 May 2021}}</ref> despite its conservatism, Wahhabism shares important doctrinal points with forms of Islamism—a strong "revulsion" against [[Westernization|Western influences]],<ref name=Commins-141>{{cite book|last=Commins |first=David |title=The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia |publisher=I.B.Tauris |year=2009 |url=http://ebooks.rahnuma.org/religion/Muslim_Sects/The-Wahhabi-Mission-and-Saudi-Arabia.pdf |page=141|quote=[MB founder Hasan al-Banna] shared with the Wahhabis a strong revulsion against western influences and unwavering confidence that Islam is both the true religion and a sufficient foundation for conducting worldly affairs ... More generally, Banna's [had a] keen desire for Muslim unity to ward off western imperialism led him to espouse an inclusive definition of the community of believers. ... he would urge his followers, 'Let us cooperate in those things on which we can agree and be lenient in those on which we cannot.' ... A salient element in Banna's notion of Islam as a total way of life came from the idea that the Muslim world was backward and the corollary that the state is responsible for guaranteeing decent living conditions for its citizens.}}</ref> a belief in strict implementation of injunctions and prohibitions of [[Sharia|''sharia'' law]],<ref name=Kepel51>{{cite book|last=Kepel|first=Gilles|title=Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam|date=2006|publisher=I.B. Tauris|page=51|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OLvTNk75hUoC&pg=PA61|quote=Well before the full emergence of Islamism in the 1970s, a growing constituency nicknamed '[[petro-Islam]]' included Wahhabi ulemas and Islamist intellectuals and promoted strict implementation of the sharia in the political, moral and cultural spheres; this proto-movement had few social concerns and even fewer revolutionary ones.|isbn=978-1-84511-257-8}}</ref> an opposition to both [[Shia Islam]] and popular Islamic religious practices (the [[Veneration#Islam|veneration]] of [[Wali|Muslim saints]]),<ref name=roy-117>{{cite book |last=Roy |first=Olivier |author-link=Olivier Roy (political scientist) |year=1994 |title=The Failure of Political Islam |location=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/failureofpolitic00royo/page/117 117] |isbn=978-0-674-29141-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/failureofpolitic00royo |url-access=registration |access-date=2 April 2015 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |quote=The Muslim Brothers agreed not to operate in Saudi Arabia itself, but served as a relay for contacts with foreign Islamist movements. The MBs also used as a relay in South Asia movements long established on an indigenous basis (Jamaat-i Islami). Thus the MB played an essential role in the choice of organisations and individuals likely to receive Saudi subsidies. On a doctrinal level, the differences are certainly significant between the MBs and the Wahhabis, but their common references to Hanbalism ... their rejection of the division into juridical schools, and their virulent opposition to Shiism and popular religious practices (the cult of 'saints') furnished them with the common themes of a reformist and puritanical preaching. This alliance carried in its wake older fundamentalist movements, non-Wahhabi but with strong local roots, such as the Pakistani Ahl-i Hadith or the Ikhwan of continental China.}}</ref> and a belief in the importance of armed [[jihad]].<ref name=Kepel2004-156>{{cite book|last1=Kepel|first1=Gilles|title=The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West|date=2004|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/warformuslimmind00kepe/page/156 156]|url=https://archive.org/details/warformuslimmind00kepe |url-access=registration|access-date=4 April 2015|quote=In the melting pot of Arabia during the 1960s, local clerics trained in the Wahhabite tradition joined with activists and militants affiliated with the Muslims Brothers who had been exiled from the neighboring countries of Egypt, Syria and Iraq ... The phenomenon of Osama bin Laden and his associates cannot be understood outside this hybrid tradition.|isbn=978-0-674-01575-3}}</ref>
*and directly—through [[International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism#Other jihads|inadvertent and intentional funding of terrorist groups]]<ref>{{cite book |title=A History of Saudi Arabia |last=Al-Rasheed |first=Madawi|author-link=Madawi al-Rasheed |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-521-74754-7 |page=233|publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref><ref name=Cordesman-2002-6>{{cite book|last1=Cordesman|first1=Anthony H.|title=Saudi Arabia Enters The 21st Century: IV. Opposition and Islamic Extremism Final Review|date=31 December 2002|publisher=CSIS|pages=6–7|url=http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/s21_04.pdf|access-date=26 November 2015|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304110757/http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/s21_04.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> and through its influence on at least two major terrorist groups<ref>The Taliban were responsible for 4,990 terrorist deaths in 2019, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2020, an 18 per cent decrease from 2018. {{cite web |title=Global Terrorism Index 2020 |url=https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GTI-2020-web-1.pdf |website=Vision of Humanity |publisher=Institute for Economics & Peace |access-date=18 May 2021 |page=15}}</ref> --  [[International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism#Afghanistan Taliban|the Taliban]]<ref name=LICHTBLAU>{{cite news|last1=LICHTBLAU|first1=ERIC|title=Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/middleeast/24saudi.html|access-date=17 August 2014|work=The New York Times|date=23 June 2009|quote=The new documents, provided to The New York Times by the lawyers, are among several hundred thousand pages of investigative material obtained by the Sept. 11 families and their insurers as part of a long-running civil lawsuit seeking to hold Saudi Arabia and its royal family liable for financing Al Qaeda.}}</ref> and the [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant|Islamic State]].

Up until at least 2017 or so (when [[Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia|Saudi Crown Prince]] [[Muhammad bin Salman]] declared Saudi Arabia was returning to "moderate Islam"),<ref name="bbc-moderate-2017">{{cite news |title=Crown prince says Saudis want return to moderate Islam |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41747476 |access-date=18 May 2021 |publisher=BBC |date=25 October 2017}}</ref>
Saudi Arabia  [[International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism|spent]]  many billions, not only through the Saudi government but through Islamic organizations,  religious charities, and private sources,<ref name=house-groups>{{cite book |last=House |first=Karen Elliott |author-link=Karen Elliott House |title=[[On Saudi Arabia|On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future]] |publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-307-47328-8 |page=234 |quote=To this day, the regime funds numerous international organizations to spread fundamentalist Islam, including the [[Muslim World League]], the [[World Assembly of Muslim Youth]], the [[International Islamic Relief Organization]], and various royal charities such as the Popular Committee for Assisting the Palestinian Muhahedeen, led by Prince [[Salman bin Abdul-Aziz]], now minister of defense, who often is touted as a potential future king [and who became king in 2015]. Supporting da'wah, which literally means 'making an invitation' to Islam, is a religious requirement that Saudi rulers feel they cannot abandon without losing their domestic legitimacy as protectors and propagators of Islam. Yet in the wake of [[September 11 attacks|9/11]], American anger at the kingdom led the U.S. government to demand controls on Saudi largesse to Islamic groups that funded terrorism.}}</ref>
on ''dawah wahhabiya'', i.e. spreading the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam,<ref name=lacey-95-embassies>{{cite book|last=Lacey|first=Robert|title=Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia|url=https://archive.org/details/insidekingdomkin00lace_0|url-access=registration|date=2009|publisher=Viking
|page=[https://archive.org/details/insidekingdomkin00lace_0/page/95 95]|isbn=978-0-670-02118-5|quote=The Kingdom's 70 or so embassies around the world already featured cultural, educational, and military attaches, along with consular officers who organized visas for the hajj. Now they were joined by religious attaches, whose job was to get new mosques built in their countries and to persuade existing mosques to propagate the ''dawah wahhabiya''.}}</ref>
This funding incentivized Muslim "schools, book publishers, magazines, newspapers, or even governments" around the world to "shape their behavior, speech, and thought in such a way as to incur and benefit from Saudi largesse," and so propagate Wahhabi doctrines;<ref>{{cite book|last= Abou El Fadl |first=Khaled|title=The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists|url= https://archive.org/details/greattheftwrestl00abou  |url-access= registration |publisher= Harper San Francisco |year=2005 |page=[https://archive.org/details/greattheftwrestl00abou/page/74 74] |isbn=978-0-06-056339-4|quote=A wide range of institutions, whether schools, book publishers, magazines, newspapers, or even governments, as well as individuals, such as imams, teachers, or writers, learned to shape their behavior, speech, and thought in such a way as to incur and benefit from Saudi largesse. In many parts of the Muslim world, the wrong type of speech or conduct (such as failing to veil or advocate the veil) meant the denial of Saudi largesse or the denial of the possibility of attaining Saudi largesse, and in numerous contexts this meant the difference between enjoying a decent standard of living or living in abject poverty.}}</ref>

The hundreds of Islamic colleges and Islamic centers, over a thousand  mosques and schools for Muslim children, it financed {{#tag:ref|One estimate is that during the reign of [[Fahd of Saudi Arabia|King Fahd]] (1982 to 2005), over $75 billion was spent in efforts to spread Wahhabi Islam. The money was used to establish 200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques, and 2,000 schools for Muslim children in Muslim and non-Muslim majority countries.<ref name=threat-alliance>{{cite news|last=Ibrahim|first=Youssef Michel|title=The Mideast Threat That's Hard to Define|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=11 August 2002|url=http://www.cfr.org/religion/mideast-threat-s-hard-define/p4702|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140904022847/http://www.cfr.org/religion/mideast-threat-s-hard-define/p4702|url-status=dead|archive-date=4 September 2014|access-date=21 August 2014|quote=... money that brought Wahabis power throughout the Arab world and financed networks of fundamentalist schools from Sudan to northern Pakistan.}}</ref> According to diplomat and political scientist [[Dore Gold]], this funding was for non-Muslim countries alone.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gold |first1=Dore |title=Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism |date=2003 |publisher=Regnery |page=126}}</ref>|group=Note}}
often featured Wahhabi-friendly curriculum and religious materials<ref name=lynch-schools>{{cite web|last1=Lynch III|first1=Thomas F.|title=Sunni and Shi'a Terrorism Differences that Matter|url=http://gsmcneal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/sunni-and-shia-terrorism-differences-that-matter.pdf|website=gsmcneal.com|publisher=Combating Terrorism Center at West Point|access-date=31 October 2014|page=30|date=29 December 2008|quote=Although Sunni‐extremist fervor dissipates the further one travels from the wellsprings of Cairo and Riyadh, Salafist (and very similar Wahhabi) teaching is prominently featured at thousands of worldwide schools funded by fundamentalist Sunni Muslim charities, especially those from Saudi Arabia and across the Arabian Peninsula.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Focus on Islamic issues |last=Malbouisson |first=Cofie D. |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-60021-204-8 |page=26|publisher=Nova Publishers }}</ref><ref name=Cordesman-17-18>{{cite book|last1=Cordesman|first1=Anthony H.|title=Saudi Arabia Enters The 21st Century: IV. Opposition and Islamic Extremism Final Review|date=2002|publisher=Center for Strategic and International Studies|pages=17–18|url=http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/s21_04.pdf|access-date=31 October 2015|quote=Many aspects of the Saudi curriculum were not fully modernized after the 1960s. Some Saudi textbooks taught Islamic tolerance while others condemned Jews and Christians. Anti-Christian and anti-Jewish passages remained in grade school textbooks that use rhetoric that were little more than hate literature. The same was true of more sophisticated books issued by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Practices. Even the English-language Korans available in the hotels in the Kingdom added parenthetical passages condemning Christians and Jews that were not in any English language editions of the Koran outside Saudi Arabia.|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304110757/http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/s21_04.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>
such as textbooks explaining that all forms of Islam except Wahhabism were deviation,<ref name=Husain-wahhab>{{cite book|author=Husain, Ed|title=The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left|publisher=Penguin|date=2007|page=250|quote=My Saudi students gave me some of their core texts from university classes. They complained that regardless of their subject of study, they were compelled to study 'Thaqafah Islamiyyah' (Islamic Culture) ... These books were published in 2003 (after a Saudi promise in a post-9/11 world to alter their textbooks) and were used in classrooms across the country in 2005. I read these texts very closely: entire pages were devoted to explaining to undergraduates that all forms of Islam except Wahhabism were deviation. There were prolonged denunciations of nationalism, communism, the West, free mixing of the sexes, observing birthdays, even Mother's Day }}</ref> or the twelfth grade Saudi text that "instructs students that it is a religious obligation to do 'battle' against infidels in order to spread the faith".<ref name=SACoI-9>{{cite book|title=Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance|date=2006|publisher=Center for Religious Freedom of Freedom House with the Institute for Gulf Affairs|page=9|url=https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/CurriculumOfIntolerance.pdf|access-date=10 November 2015}}</ref>

Wahhabi-friendly works distributed for free "financed by petroleum royalties" included those of [[Ibn Taymiyyah]]<ref name=kepel-158-taymiyyah>{{cite book|last=Kepel |first=Gilles |title=The War for Muslim Minds|url=https://archive.org/details/warformuslimmind00kepe |url-access=registration |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |year=2004 |page=[https://archive.org/details/warformuslimmind00kepe/page/158 158]|isbn=978-0-674-01575-3 |quote=Starting in the 1950s, religious institutions in Saudi Arabia published and disseminated new editions of Ibn Taymiyya's works for free throughout the world, financed by petroleum royalties. These works have been cited widely: by Abd al-Salam Faraj, the spokesperson for the group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981; in GIA tracts calling for the massacre of 'infidels'during the Algerian civil war in the 1990s; and today on Internet sites exhorting Muslim women in the west to wear veils as a religious obligation.}}</ref> (author of the fatwa mentioned above against rulers who do not rule by sharia law).<ref name=Faraj-Duty /><ref name=Cook-understanding-192 />

Not least, the successful 1980–1990 jihad against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan—that inspired non-Afghan jihad veterans to continue jihad in their own country or other—benefited from  billions of dollars in Saudi financing, as well as "weaponry and intelligence".
<ref name=Rashid-taliban-1308>{{cite book
 | last = Rashid
 | first = Ahmed
 | author-link = Ahmed Rashid
 | title = Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
 | publisher = I.B. Tauris
 | year = 2000
 | location = London
 | page = 130}}</ref>

==== Religious interpretations ====
The "root cause" of Muslim terrorism is extremist ideology, according to Pakistani theologian [[Javed Ahmad Ghamidi]], specifically the teachings that:
*"Only Muslims have the right to rule, non-Muslims are meant to be subjugated";
*"Modern nation states are unIslamic and constitute [[Kafir|kufr]] (disbelief)";
*the only truly Islamic form of state is a unified Muslim Caliphate;
*"when Muslims obtain power they will overthrow non-Muslim governments and rule";
*"The punishment of kufr (disbelief) and [[irtidad]] (apostasy) is death and must be implemented".<ref>{{cite web
 | url =http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/junaid-jahangir/freedom-of-speech_b_9004740.html
 | title =Freedom Of Speech Does Not Mean Freedom To Hate
 | last =Jahangir
 | first =Junaid
 | date =18 January 2017
| website =HuffPost
 | access-date =6 April 2017
| quote =Islamic grand teacher, Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, who is in self-imposed exile due to death threats, has clearly stated that the root cause of Muslim terrorism is religious ideology. }}</ref>
Other authors have noted other elements of extremist Islamic ideology.

=====Martyrdom/Istishhad=====
{{Main|Istishhad}}
Terror attacks requiring the death of the attacker are generally referred to as [[Suicide attack|suicide attacks/bombings]] by the media, but when done by Islamists their perpetrators generally call such an attack ''Istishhad'' (or in English "[[martyrdom operation]]"),<ref name=":32">{{Cite book |last=Romero |first=Juan |title=Terrorism: the Power and Weakness of Fear |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-032-19806-4 |series=Routledge Studies in Modern History |location=Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY |pages=145-146 |chapter=Rules of jihad}}</ref> and the suicide attacker ''[[shahid]]'' (pl. ''shuhada'', literally 'witness' and usually translated as 'martyr'). The idea being that the attacker died in order to testify his faith in God, for example while waging ''[[jihad|jihad bis saif]]'' ([[jihad]] by the sword). The term "suicide" is never used because Islam has [[Islamic views on suicide|strong strictures]] against taking one's own life.

According to author Sadakat Kadri, "the very idea that Muslims might blow themselves up for God was unheard of before 1983, and it was not until the early 1990s that anyone anywhere had tried to justify killing innocent Muslims who were not on a battlefield." After 1983 the process was limited among Muslims to Hezbollah and other Lebanese Shi'a factions for more than a decade.<ref name=kadri-168>{{cite book|last1=Kadri|first1=Sadakat|title=Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia ...|date=2012|publisher=macmillan|isbn=978-0-09-952327-7|page=168|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ztCRZOhJ10wC&q=Heaven+on+Earth:+A+Journey+Through+Shari%27a+Law}}</ref>

Since then, the "vocabulary of martyrdom and sacrifice", videotaped pre-confession of faith by attackers have become part of "Islamic cultural consciousness", "instantly recognizable" to Muslims (according to [[Noah Feldman]]),{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}} while the tactic has spread through the Muslim world "with astonishing speed and on a surprising course".{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

{{blockquote|First the targets were American soldiers, then mostly Israelis, including women and children. From [[Lebanon]] and Israel, the technique of suicide bombing moved to Iraq, where the targets have included mosques and shrines, and the intended victims have mostly been [[Shia|Shiite]] [[Iraqi people|Iraqis]]. ... [In] [[Afghanistan]], ... both the perpetrators and the targets are orthodox [[Sunni]] Muslims. Not long ago, a bombing in Lashkar Gah, the capital of [[Helmand Province]], killed Muslims, including women, who were applying to go on [[Hajj|pilgrimage]] to [[Mecca]]. Overall, the trend is definitively in the direction of Muslim-on-Muslim violence. By a conservative accounting, more than three times as many Iraqis have been killed by suicide bombings in just three year (2003–6) as have Israelis in ten (from 1996–2006). Suicide bombing has become the archetype of Muslim violence&nbsp;– not just to Westerners but also to Muslims themselves.<ref name="nytimes.com">[[Noah Feldman]], [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/magazine/29islam.html "Islam, Terror and the Second Nuclear Age"], ''The New York Times'', October 29, 2006</ref>}}

;Jihadist comparisons of life and death

Below are jihadist statements comparing life and death:
*"We love death like our enemies love life" ([[Hamas]] leader [[Ismail Haniyeh]] on [[Al-Aqsa TV]] in 2014)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weber |first1=Joseph |title=Divided Loyalties: Young Somali Americans and the Lure of Extremism |publisher=MSU Press |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XzLwDwAAQBAJ&q=%E2%80%9CWe+love+death+like+our+enemies+love+life%E2%80%9D+haniyeh&pg=PT133 |chapter= 13. The Glory of the Shahid |date=September 2020 |isbn=978-1-62895-407-4 |access-date=15 July 2021}}</ref>
*"The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death." (Afghan jihadist Maulana Inyadullah addressing a British reporter in 2001)<ref name="Blair-2001">{{cite news |last1=Blair |first1=David |title=The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death. |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1341470/The-Americans-love-Pepsi-Cola-but-we-love-death.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1341470/The-Americans-love-Pepsi-Cola-but-we-love-death.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=15 July 2021 |work=The Telegraph |date=24 September 2001}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
*"The world is but a passage ... what is called life in this world is not life but death" ([[Ruhollah Khomeini|Ayatollah Khomeini]] in 1977, commemorating his son's death)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Figueira |first1=Daurius |title=The Al Qaeda Discourse of the Greater Kufr |date=November 2004 |publisher=iUniverse |isbn=978-0-595-33613-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YCDMiksuRdYC&q=%22what+is+called+life+in+this+world+is+not+life+but+death%22+khomeini&pg=RA1-PT21 |access-date=15 July 2021}}</ref>
*"...The sons of the land of the two holiest sites [<nowiki/>[[Mecca]] and [[Medina]]] ... I say this to you, These youths love death as you love life" (Osama bin Laden addressing U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry in 1996 fatwa)<ref name="Declaration of Jihad ObL">{{cite web |last1=bin Laden |first1=Osama |title=Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holiest Sites. (Expel the infidels from the Arab Peninsula). A message from Usamah Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin |url=https://ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Declaration-of-Jihad-against-the-Americans-Occupying-the-Land-of-the-Two-Holiest-Sites-Translation.pdf |website=Combating Terrorism Center |access-date=15 July 2021 |page=(Document page 3) |archive-date=7 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210807052959/https://ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Declaration-of-Jihad-against-the-Americans-Occupying-the-Land-of-the-Two-Holiest-Sites-Translation.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

=====Justification for killing noncombatants =====
Al-Qaeda justification for the killing of civilian bystanders following its first attack (see above) based on a [[Ibn Taymiyyah]]'s fatwa was described by author Lawrence Wright,
{{blockquote| Ibn Taymiyyah had issued a historic fatwa: Anyone who aided the Mongols, who bought goods from them or sold to them or was merely standing near them, might be killed as well. If he is a good Muslim, he will go to Paradise; if he is bad, he will go to hell, and good riddance. Thus the dead tourist and the hotel worker [killed by Al-Qaeda] would find their proper reward.<ref name="auto1">[source: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et.al., quoted in ''Looming Tower'', by Lawrence Wright, NY, Knopf, 2006, 174-5</ref>}}

An influential tract ''[[Management of Savagery]]'' (''Idarat at-Tawahhush''), explains away mass killing in part by the fact that even "if the whole umma [community of Muslims] perishes they would all be martyrs".<ref name="auto2">Najji, ''Management of Savagery'', p.76; quoted in ...</ref><ref name="Gerges-18-3-19">{{cite journal |last1=Gerges |first1=Fawaz A. |title=The World According to ISIS |journal=Foreign Policy Journal |date=18 March 2016 |url=https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/03/18/the-world-according-to-isis/ |access-date=17 August 2019}}</ref> Similarly, author [[Ali A. Rizvi]] has described the chat room reaction of a Taliban supporter to his (Rizvi's) condemnation of the [[2014 Peshawar school massacre]]—that the 132 school children the Taliban slaughtered were "not dead" because they had been killed "in the way of God ... Don't call them dead. They are alive, but we don't perceive it" (citing, {{qref|3|169|b=y}} Never think of those martyred in the cause of Allah as dead. In fact, they are alive with their Lord, well provided for—), and maintaining that those whose Islamic faith is "pure" would not be upset with the Taliban's murder of children either.<ref name="interview">{{cite web |last1=POWELL |first1=CALEB |title=Leaving The Faith, THE SUN INTERVIEW, Ali Rizvi. |url=https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/504/leaving-the-faith |website=The Sun Magazine |access-date=26 August 2019 |date=December 2017}}</ref>

===== "War against Islam" =====

A tenant of Qutbism and other militant Islamists is that Western policies and society are not just un-Islamic or exploitive, but actively anti-Islamic, or as it is sometimes described, waging a "[[war against Islam]]". Islamists (such as Qutb) often identify what they see as a historical struggle between [[Christianity]] and [[Islam]], dating back as far as the [[Crusades]],<ref name="Qut-Decieve-1982-159">{{cite book |last1=Qutb |first1=Sayyid |title=Milestones |date=1982 |publisher=Mother Mosque Foundation |location=Iowa |isbn=0-911119-42-6 |pages=159–160 |quote=Enemies of the Believers may wish to change this struggle into an economic or political ... struggle so that the Believers become confused concerning the true nature of the struggle and the flame of belief in their hearts becomes extinguished ... We see an example of this today in the attempts of Christendom to try to deceive us by distorting history and saying that the Crusades were a form of imperialism. The truth of the matter is that the latter-day imperialism is but a mask for the crusading spirit, since it is not possible for it to appear in its true form, as it was possible in the Middle Ages.}}</ref> among other historical conflicts between practitioners of the two respective religions.

In 2006, Britain's then head of [[MI5]] [[Eliza Manningham-Buller]] said of Al-Qaeda that it "has developed an ideology which claims that Islam is under attack, and needs to be defended". "This," she said "is a powerful narrative that weaves together conflicts from across the globe, presenting the West's response to varied and complex issues, from long-standing disputes such as Israel/Palestine and Kashmir to more recent events as evidence of an across-the-board determination to undermine and humiliate Islam worldwide."<ref name="EM-B">{{cite web|first=Eliza|last=Manningham-Buller|author-link=Eliza Manningham-Buller|url=http://www.icjs-online.org/index.php?article=1121|title=Transcript of speech: The International Terrorist Threat to the UK|publisher=ICJS Research|date=10 November 2006|access-date=4 August 2016|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304185657/http://www.icjs-online.org/index.php?article=1121|url-status=dead}}</ref> She said that the video wills of [[United Kingdom|British]] suicide bombers made it clear that they were motivated by perceived worldwide and long-standing injustices against Muslims; an extreme and minority interpretation of Islam promoted by some preachers and people of influence; their interpretation as anti-Muslim of UK foreign policy, in particular the UK's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan."<ref name="EM-B" />

In his call for jihad, [[Osama bin Laden]] almost invariably described his enemies as aggressive and his action against them as defensive.<ref name="KNAPP-90">{{cite journal|last1=KNAPP|first1=MICHAEL G.|date=Spring 2003|title=The Concept and Practice of Jihad in Islam|url=https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/articles/03spring/knapp.pdf|url-status=dead|journal=Parameters|publisher=[[Wayback Machine]]|page=90|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170517024926/https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/articles/03spring/knapp.pdf|archive-date=17 May 2017|access-date=14 January 2022}}</ref>

===== Enmity towards non-Muslims, Western society and LGBT+ =====
The enmity towards non-Muslims among Islamist militants, leaders and scholars is driven by theological beliefs that deem Christians and Jews as "[[Infidels in Islam|infidels]]". This hostility is further extended to [[Western world|Western society]] due to its secular values and practices, which are viewed as contrary to Islamic principles. These include issues such as the proliferation of [[pornography]], perceived [[immorality]], and the acceptance of [[homosexuality]] and [[feminism]].

An example of this ideological stance in practice was provided by Karam Kuhdi, an Islamist arrested in Egypt in 1981 for his involvement in a series of robberies and murders targeting Christian goldsmiths. In this period, tourists, often non-Muslim, were also frequently targeted by Islamic terrorists in Egypt. During police interrogation, Kuhdi surprised authorities with his unconventional beliefs. He rejected the traditional Islamic doctrine that Christians were "[[People of the Book]]" entitled to protection as [[Dhimmi|''dhimmis'']], instead considering them infidels subject to violent jihad. Kuhdi supported his stance by citing Quranic verses such as 'Those who say that God is Jesus, son of Mary, are infidels' and 'combat those of the people of the book who are infidels', explaining the Islamists view that the infidels are "the People of the Book, since they have not believed in this book".<ref>Kepel, Gilles, The Prophet and the Pharaoh, (2003), p.208-209</ref>

According to a doctrine known as ''al-wala' wa al-bara{{'}}'' (literally, "loyalty and disassociation"), Wahhabi founder Abd al-Wahhab argued that it was "imperative for Muslims not to befriend, ally themselves with, or imitate non-Muslims or heretical Muslims", and that this "enmity and hostility of Muslims toward non-Muslims and heretical had to be visible and unequivocal".<ref>{{cite book|last= Abou El Fadl  |first= Khaled |title= The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists |publisher= Harper San Francisco  |year=2005 |pages=49, 50 |quote=Significantly, Abd al-Wahhab also insisted that it was a sign of spiritual weakness for Muslims to care for or be interested in non-Muslim beliefs or practices. Pursuant to a doctrine known as ''al-wala' wa al-bara{{'}}'' (literally, the doctrine of loyalty and disassociation), Abd al-Wahhab argued that it was imperative for Muslims not to befriend, ally themselves with, or imitate non-Muslims or heretical Muslims. Furthermore, this enmity and hostility of Muslims toward non-Muslims and heretical had to be visible and unequivocal. For example, by not being  the first to greet a non-Muslim, orby ever  wishing a non-Muslim peace.}}</ref>

Although bin Laden almost always emphasized the alleged oppression of Muslims by America and Jews when talking about the need for jihad in his messages, in his "[[Letter to the American People|Letter to America]]", he answered the question, "What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?" with:

{{blockquote|We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest (...) You separate religion from your policies, (...) You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions (...) You are a nation that permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants (...) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality (...) You are a nation that permits gambling in its all forms. (...) You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'] accessed 24 May 2007</ref>}}

This principle has been emphasized by [[Ayman al-Zawahiri]] (leader of al-Qaeda since June 2011),  [[Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi]] (Jihadi theorist), [[Hamoud al-Aqla al-Shu'aybi]] (conservative Sudi scholar who supported the 9/11 attacks), and a number of Salafi preachers, [[Ahmad Musa Jibril]], [[Abdullah el-Faisal]].<ref name="Gilliam-2018">{{cite journal |last1=Gilliam |first1=Joshua |title=Why They Hate Us An Examination of al-wala' wa-l-bara' in Salafi-Jihadist Ideology |journal=Military Review |date=15 February 2018 |url=https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Online-Exclusive/2018-OLE/Feb/They-Hate/ |access-date=1 June 2021}}</ref>

Following the 2016 [[Pulse nightclub shooting|Orlando nightclub shooting]], described as a "hate crime" due to the victims being customers of an LGBT nightclub,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Blinder |first1=Alan |last2=Robles |first2=Frances |last3=Pèrez-Peña |first3=Richard |date=16 June 2016 |title=Omar Mateen Posted to Facebook Amid Orlando Attack, Lawmaker Says |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/us/orlando-shooting.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160618111744/http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/us/orlando-shooting.html |archive-date=18 June 2016 |access-date=18 June 2016 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> allegedly targeted in retaliation for American airstrikes against ISIS, the official ISIS magazine [[Dabiq (magazine)|Dabiq]] responded: "A hate crime? Yes. Muslims undoubtedly hate liberalist sodomites. An act of terrorism? Most definitely. Muslims have been commanded to terrorize the disbelieving enemies of Allah."<ref>{{cite magazine |date=July 2016 |title=Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You |url=http://clarionproject.org/factsheets-files/islamic-state-magazine-dabiq-fifteen-breaking-the-cross.pdf |access-date=2 February 2018 |journal=Dabiq |page=30 |issue=15}}</ref><ref name="Gilliam-2018" />

===== Takfir =====

According to traditional Islamic law, the blood of someone who leaves Islam is "forfeit"—i.e. they are condemned to death.<ref name=KepelJihad-31 />  This applies not only to self-proclaimed ex-Muslims, but to those who still believe themselves to be Muslims but who  (in the eyes of their accusers) have deviated too far from orthodoxy.  {{#tag:ref|(The punishment is agreed on by all the [[madhhab|schools of fiqh]] (Islamic jurisprudence) both [[Madhhab#Sunni|Sunni]] and [[Madhhab#Shia|Shia]],<ref name="punishment">{{cite book |last1=Abul Ala Mawdudi |title=The Punishment of the Apostate According to Islamic Law |date=1 January 1994 |publisher=The Voice of the Martyrs |chapter=Chapter one. The Problem of the Apostate's Execution from a Legal Perspective }}</ref> and has traditionally been undisputed.)<ref name="Schirrmacher-2020-85">{{cite book |last1=Schirrmacher |first1=Christine |editor1-last=Enstedt |editor1-first=Daniel |editor2-last=Larsson |editor2-first=Göran |editor3-last=Mantsinen |editor3-first=Teemu T. |title=Handbook of Leaving Religion |date=2020 |publisher=Brill |page=85  |url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/43466/external_content.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |access-date=6 January 2021 |chapter=Leaving Islam}}</ref>|group=Note}}

Many contemporary liberal/modernist/reformist Muslims believe [[Apostasy in Islam#Supporters and opponents of death penalty|killing appostates]] to be in violation of the Quranic injunction 'There is no compulsion in religion....' (Q.2:256), but even earlier generations of  Islamic scholars warned against making such accusations (known as ''[[takfir]]''), without great care and usually reserved the punishment of death for "extreme, persistent and aggressive" proponents of religious innovation (''[[bidʻah]]'').<ref name="Lewis-229">{{cite book|last1=Lewis|first1=Bernard|title=The Middle East: a Brief History of the Last 2000 Years|date=1995|publisher=Touchstone|isbn=978-0-684-83280-7|page=229}}</ref> The danger, according to some (such as [[Gilles Kepel]]), was that "used wrongly or unrestrainedly,  ... Muslims might resort to mutually excommunicating one another and thus propel the [[Ummah]] to complete disaster."<ref name=KepelJihad-31>Kepel, Gilles; ''Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam'', London: I.B. Tauris, 2002, page 31</ref>

Kepel noted that some of Qutb's early followers believed that his declaration that the Muslim world has reverted to pre-Islamic ignorance ([[Jahiliyyah]]), should be taken literally and everyone outside of their movement takfired;<ref name=KepelJihad-32>Kepel,  ''Jihad'', 2002, p. 32</ref> and Wahhabis has been known for their  willingness to takfir non-Wahhabi Muslims.<ref name="TCSI2010: 48">{{cite book|last=Halverson|first=Jeffry R.|year=2010|title=Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-10658-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IYzGAAAAQBAJ |pages=48–49}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Islam and power in Saudi Arabia|editor-first=John L.|editor-last=Esposito|editor2=Emad El-Din Shahin|encyclopedia=The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|year=2013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hc7iAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA412|pages=412–413|isbn=978-0-19-539589-1}}</ref>

Since the last half of the 20th century, a "central ideology"<ref name="OISO" /> of insurgent [[Wahhabi movement|Wahhabist]]/[[Salafi jihadism|Salafi jihadist]] groups<ref>Oliveti, Vincenzo; ''Terror's Source: the Ideology of Wahhabi-Salafism and its Consequences,'' Birmingham: Amadeus Books, 2002</ref> has been the "sanctioning" of "violence against leaders" of Muslim majority states<ref name="OISO" /> who do not enforce [[sharia]] (Islamic law) or are otherwise "deemed insufficiently religious".<ref name="OISO">{{cite web |title=Takfiri |url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2319 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117234531/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2319 |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 January 2013 |website=Oxford Islamic Studies Online |access-date=18 December 2020}}</ref>
Some  insurgent groups -- [[Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya]] of Egypt, and later [[Armed Islamic Group of Algeria#Antar Zouabri and takfir|GIA]], the [[Taliban's rise to power#Ethnic massacres and persecution|Taliban]],  and [[Ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant#Takfir|ISIL]]) -- are thought to have gone even further,  applying takfir and its capital punishment against not only to Sunni government authorities and Shia Muslims, but to ordinary Sunni civilians who disagree with/disobeyed insurgent policies such as reinstituting slavery.

In 1977, the group ''[[Jama'at al-Muslimin]]'' (known to the public as ''[[Takfir wal-Hijra]]''), kidnapped and later killed an  Islamic scholar and former Egyptian government minister Muhammad al-Dhahabi.  The founder of ''Jama'at al-Muslimin'', Shukri Mustaf  had been imprisoned with [[Sayyid Qutb]], and had become one of Qutb's "most radical" disciples.<ref name=pbs>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/etc/script.html|title=Transcript &#124; Al Qaeda's New Front &#124; FRONTLINE |publisher=PBS}}</ref> He believed that not only was the Egyptian government [[Apostasy in Islam|apostate]], but so was "Egyptian society as a whole" because it was "not fighting the Egyptian government and had thus accepted rule by non-Muslims".<ref name=Mili-29-6-2006>{{cite journal|last1=Mili|first1=Hayder|title=Jihad Without Rules: The Evolution of al-Takfir wa al-Hijra|journal=Terrorism Monitor|date=29 June 2006|volume=4|issue=13|url=http://www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=822&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=181&no_cache=1|access-date=18 December 2015}}</ref>  While police broke up the group, it  reorganized with thousands of members,<ref>Wright, Robin ''Sacred Rage'', 1985, p.181</ref> some of whom went on to help assassinate the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat,<ref name="Rabasa">{{Cite book|first=Angel|last=Rabasa|title=Radical Islam in East Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x96UabsFz4AC&pg=PA70|year=2009|publisher=Rand Corporation|page=70|isbn=978-0-8330-4679-6}}</ref> and join the [[Algerian Civil War]] and Al-Qaeda.<ref name="Dalacoura">[https://archive.org/details/islamistterroris0000dala/page/113 ''Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East''] By Katerina Dalacoura, p.113</ref>  During the 1990s, a violent Islamic insurgency in Egypt, primarily perpetrated by [[Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya]], targeted not only police and government officials but also civilians, killing or wounding 1106 persons in one particularly bloody year (1993).<ref>Murphy, Caryle ''Passion for Islam : Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience'', Scribner, 2002, pp. 82-3</ref>

In the brutal 1991–2002 [[Algerian Civil War]], takfir of the general Algerian public was known to have been declared by the hardline Islamist [[Armed Islamic Group of Algeria]] (GIA). The GIA amir, Antar Zouabri claimed credit for two massacres of civilians ([[Rais massacre|Rais]] and [[Bentalha massacre]]s), calling the killings an "offering to God" and declaring impious the victims and all Algerians who had not joined its ranks.<ref name=GKJTPI2002:272-3>[[#GKJTPI2002|Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002]]: p.272-3</ref> He declared that "except for those who are with us, all others are apostates and deserving of death,"<ref>''[[El Watan]]'', 21 January (quoted in Willis 1996)</ref> (Tens, and sometimes hundreds, of civilians were killed in each of a series of massacres that started in April 1998.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Nesroullah Yous |author2=Salima Mellah |title=Qui a tué a Bentalha?|publisher=La Découverte, Paris|year=2000|isbn=978-2-7071-3332-8}}</ref> However, how many murders were the doing of GIA and how many of the security forces—who had infiltrated the insurgents and were not known for their probity—is not known.)<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20050401070834/http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1543&l=2 Entre menace, censure et liberté: La presse privé algérienne se bat pour survivre], 31 March 1998</ref><ref name=Ajami-2010>{{cite magazine|last1=Ajami|first1=Fouad|title=The Furrows of Algeria|magazine=New Republic|date=27 January 2010|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/the-furrows-algeria|access-date=4 June 2015}}</ref>

In August 1998 the Taliban insurgents slaughtered 8000 mostly Shia [[Hazaras|Hazara]] non-combatants in [[Mazar-i-Sharif]], Afghanistan. Comments by Mullah Niazi, the Taliban commander of the attack and newly installed governor,  declared in a number of post-slaughter speeches from Mosques in Mazar-i-Sharif: "Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shi'a. They are kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras. ... You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan. ...",<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hrw.org/report/1998/11/01/afghanistan-massacre-mazar-i-sharif|title=THE MASSACRE IN MAZAR-I SHARIF|publisher=Human Rights Watch|date=1 November 1998 |access-date=25 December 2020}}</ref>  indicated that along with revenge, and/or ethnic hatred, [[takfir]]  was a motive for the slaughter.

From its inception in 2013 to 2020, directly or through affiliated groups,  [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant|Daesh]]), "has been responsible for 27,947 terrorist deaths", the majority of these have been Muslims,{{#tag:ref|according to Jamileh Kadivar based on estimates from Global Terrorism Database, 2020; Herrera, 2019; Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights & United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Human Rights Office, 2014; Ibrahim, 2017; Obeidallah, 2014; 2015<ref name="Kadivar-2020" />|group=Note}} "because it has regarded them as kafir".<ref name="Kadivar-2020">{{cite journal |last1=Kadivar |first1=Jamileh |title=Exploring Takfir, Its Origins and Contemporary Use: The Case of Takfiri Approach in Daesh's Media |journal=Contemporary Review of the Middle East |date=18 May 2020 |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=259–285 |doi=10.1177/2347798920921706 |s2cid=219460446 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

One example of Daesh takfir is found in the 13th issue of its magazine ''Dabiq'', which  dedicated "dozens of pages ... to attacking and explaining the necessity of killing Shia", who the group refers to by the label ''Rafidah''
{{blockquote|Initiated by a sly Jew, [the Shia] are an apostate sect drowning in worship of the dead, cursing the best companions and wives of the Prophet, spreading doubt on the very basis of the religion (the Qur'ān and the Sunnah), defaming the very honor of the Prophet, and preferring their "twelve" imāms to the prophets and even to Allah! ...Thus, the Rāfidah are mushrik [polytheist] apostates who must be killed wherever they are to be found, until no Rāfidī walks on the face of earth, even if the jihād claimants despise such...<ref name="Pillalamarri-why-hate-29-1-2016">{{cite news |last1=Pillalamarri |first1=Akhilesh |title=Revealed: Why ISIS Hates the Taliban |url=https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/revealed-why-isis-hates-the-taliban/ |access-date=26 December 2020 |agency=The Diplomat |date=29 January 2016}}</ref>}}

Daesh not only called for the revival of slavery of non-Muslims (specifically of the [[Yazidi]] minority group), but declared takfir on any Muslim who disagreed with their policy.
{{blockquote|Yazidi women and children [are to be] divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the [[Northern Iraq offensive (August 2014)|Sinjar operations]]  ... Enslaving the families of the [[kuffar]] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Koran and the narrations of the Prophet ... and thereby apostatizing from Islam.<ref name="what-isis-really-wants" />}}

Starting in 2013, Daesh began "encouraging takfir of Muslims deemed insufficiently pure in regard of ''tawhid'' (monotheism)". The Taliban were found "to be "a 'nationalist' movement, all too tolerant" of Shia.<ref name=infighting-2019 /> In 2015 ISIL "pronounced [[Jabhat al-Nusrat]] -- then al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria -- an apostate group."<ref name=infighting-2019>{{cite journal|journal=Perspectives on Terrorism |volume=13 |issue=1 |last1=Bunzel |first1=Cole |title=Ideological Infighting in the Islamic State |date=February 2019 |pages=12–21 |jstor=26590504 |access-date=17 December 2020 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26590504}}</ref>

===== Interpretations of the Qur'an and Hadith =====
{{See also|Quran and violence}}

Donald Holbrook, a Research Fellow at the [[Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence]], analyzes a sample of 30 works by jihadist propagandists for references to Islamic scripture that justifies the objectives of violent jihad.<ref name=holbrook1 /> [[An-Nisa]] (4:74–75) is quoted most frequently; other popular passages are [[At-Taubah]] (9:13–15, 38–39, 111), [[Al-Baqarah]] (2:190–191, 216), and [[Sword Verse|Surah 9:5]]:

{{blockquote|But when these months, prohibited (for fighting), are over, slay the idolaters wheresoever you find them, and take them captive or besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every likely place. But if they repent and fulfill their devotional obligations and pay the zakat, then let them go their way, for God is forgiving and kind.}}

Holbrook notes that the first part "slay the idolaters ..." is oft quoted but not the limiting factors at the end of the [[ayat]].<ref name=holbrook1 />

==== Jihad and Islamic jurisprudence ====
{{Main|Jihad}}

[[Islamic military jurisprudence|Techniques of war]] are restricted by classical Islamic jurisprudence, but its scope is not. [[Bernard Lewis]] states that ultimately Jihad ends when  the entire world is brought under Islamic rule and law.<ref>Lewis, Bernard, ''The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years'', pp. 233–34</ref> [[Fiqh#Diagram of early scholars|Classical Islamic jurisprudence]] imposes, without limit of time or space, the duty to subjugate non-Muslims, (according to Lewis).<ref>Lewis, Bernard, ''The Political Language of Islam'', p. 73</ref> [[Wael Hallaq]] writes that some radical Islamists go beyond the classical theory to insist that the purpose of jihad is to overthrow regimes oppressing Muslims and bring non-Muslims to convert to Islam. In contrast, [[Islamic modernism|Islamic modernists]]–who Islamists despise–view jihad as defensive and compatible with modern standards of warfare.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IbOtAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA338|title=Sharī'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2009|pages=338–39|author=Wael B. Hallaq|isbn=978-1-107-39412-4}}</ref> To justify their acts of [[Islam and violence|religious violence]], jihadist individuals and networks resort to the nonbinding genre of Islamic legal literature (''[[fatwa]]'') developed by [[Salafi jihadism|jihadi-Salafist]] legal authorities, whose legal writings are shared and spread via the [[Internet]].<ref name="French 2020" />

;Al-Qaeda
While Islamic opponents of attacks on civilians have quoted numerous prophetic hadith and hadith by Muhammad's first successor [[Abu Bakr]],<ref name="Wiktorowicz-2003-86">{{cite journal |last1=Wiktorowicz |first1=Quintan |last2=Kaltner |first2=John |title=Killing in the Name of Islam: Al-Qaeda's Justification for September 11 |journal=Middle East Policy |date=Summer 2003 |volume=X |issue=2 |pages=86|url=https://www.aclu.org/files/fbimappingfoia/20111110/ACLURM001177.pdf |access-date=12 August 2019}}</ref> Al-Qaeda believes its attacks are religiously justified.
After its first attack on a US target that killed civilians instead (a [[1992 Yemen hotel bombings|1992 bombing of a hotel in Aden Yemen]]), Al Qaeda justified the killing of civilian bystanders through an interpretation (by one Abu Hajer) based on medieval jurist [[Ibn Taymiyyah]] (see above).

In a post-9/11 work, "A Statement from Qaidat al-Jihad Regarding the Mandates of the Heroes and the Legality of the Operations in New York and Washington", Al-Qaeda provided a more systematic justification—one that provided "ample theological justification for killing civilians in almost any imaginable situation."<ref name="Wiktorowicz-2003" />  Among these justifications are that America is leading the countries of the West in waging war on Islam, which (al-Qaeda alleges) targets "Muslim women, children and elderly". This means any attacks on America are a defense of Islam, and any treaties and agreements between Muslim majority states and Western countries that would be violated by attacks are null and void. Other justifications for killing and situations where killings is allowed based on precedents in early Islamic history include:  killing non-combatants  when it is too difficult to distinguish between them and combatants when attacking an enemy "stronghold" (''hist''), and/or non-combatants remain in enemy territory; killing those who assist the enemy "in deed, word, mind", this includes civilians since they can vote in elections that bring enemies of Islam to power; necessity of killing in the war to protect Islam and Muslims; when the prophet was asked whether Muslim fighters could use the catapult against the village of Taif, even though the enemy fighters were mixed with a  civilian population, he indicated in the affirmative; killing women, children and other protected groups is allowed when they serve as human shields for the enemy; killing of civilians is permitted if the enemy has broken a treaty.
<ref name="Wiktorowicz-2003" />

Supporters of bin Laden have pointed to reports according to which the Islamic prophet Muhammad attacked towns at night or with catapults, and argued that he must have condoned incidental harm to noncombatants, since it would have been impossible to distinguish them from combatants during such attacks.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wiktorowicz |first1=Quintan |last2=Kaltner |first2=John |title=Killing in the Name of Islam: Al-Qaeda's Justification for September 11 |journal=Middle East Policy |date=Summer 2003 |volume=X |issue=2 |pages=85–90 |url=https://www.aclu.org/files/fbimappingfoia/20111110/ACLURM001177.pdf |access-date=12 August 2019}}</ref><ref name="peters-cook">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2014 |title=Jihād |encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref:oiso/9780199739356.001.0001/acref-9780199739356-e-0263 |last1=Peters |first1=Rudolph |first2=David|last2=Cook |url-access=subscription |isbn=978-0-19-973935-6}}</ref> These arguments were not widely accepted by Muslims.<ref name=peters-cook />

;''Management of Savagery''
Al-Qaeda's splinter groups and competitors, [[Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad]] and the [[Islamic State of Iraq and Syria]], are thought to have been heavily influenced<ref name=McCoy-12-8-2004 /><ref name=Crooke-30-8-2014>{{cite web|last1=Crooke|first1=Alastair|title=The ISIS' 'Management of Savagery' in Iraq|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/iraq-isis-alqaeda_b_5542575.html|website=The World Post|access-date=2 December 2015|date=30 August 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Hassan |first=Hassan |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/08/isis-islamic-state-ideology-sharia-syria-iraq-jordan-pilot |title=Isis has reached new depths of depravity. But there is a brutal logic behind it |work=The Guardian |date=8 February 2015 |access-date=10 February 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=McCoy |first=Terrence |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/12/the-calculated-madness-of-the-islamic-states-horrifying-brutality/ |title=The calculated madness of the Islamic State's horrifying brutality |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=12 August 2014 |access-date=1 September 2014}}<br />{{bullet}}{{cite news |first=Alastair |last=Crooke |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/iraq-isis-alqaeda_b_5542575.html |title=The ISIS' 'Management of Savagery' in Iraq |work=HuffPost |date=30 June 2014}}<br />{{bullet}}{{cite news |last=Hassan |first=Hassan |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/08/isis-islamic-state-ideology-sharia-syria-iraq-jordan-pilot |title=Isis has reached new depths of depravity. But there is a brutal logic behind it |work=The Guardian |date=8 February 2015}}</ref><ref name="Ajjoub 2021">{{cite book |last=Ajjoub |first=Orwa |year=2021 |title=The Development of the Theological and Political Aspects of Jihadi-Salafism |url=https://www.cmes.lu.se/sites/cmes.lu.se/files/2021-02/orwa_ajjoub_rapport_a4_0203_interaktiv.pdf |url-status=live |location=[[Lund]] |publisher=Swedish South Asian Studies Network (SASNET) at the [[Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University]] |pages=1–28 |isbn=978-91-7895-772-9 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210210042321/https://www.cmes.lu.se/sites/cmes.lu.se/files/2021-02/orwa_ajjoub_rapport_a4_0203_interaktiv.pdf |archive-date=10 February 2021 |access-date=6 July 2021}}</ref> by a 2004 work on jihad entitled ''[[Management of Savagery]]'' (''Idarat at-Tawahhush''), written by Abu Bakr Naji<ref name="Ajjoub 2021" /> and intended to provide a strategy to create a new Islamic [[caliphate]] by first destroying "vital economic and strategic targets" and terrifying the enemy with cruelty to break its will.<ref name="nyJune14">{{cite magazine |last=Wright |first=Lawrence |title=ISIS's Savage Strategy in Iraq |url=http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/isiss-savage-strategy-in-iraq |magazine=The New Yorker |date=16 June 2014 |access-date=1 September 2014}}</ref>

The tract asserts that "one who previously engaged in jihad knows that it is naught but violence, crudeness, terrorism, deterrence and massacring,"<ref name=NEGUS-1-4-2015>{{cite news|last1=NEGUS|first1=STEVE|title='ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror,' and More|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/books/review/isis-inside-the-army-of-terror-and-more.html|access-date=3 December 2015|work=The New York Times|date=1 April 2015}}</ref>  and  that even "the most abominable of the levels of savagery" of jihad are better "than stability under the order of unbelief"—those orders being any regime other than ISIL.<ref name=McCoy-12-8-2004>{{cite news|last1=McCoy|first1=Terrence|title=The calculated madness of the Islamic State's horrifying brutality|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/12/the-calculated-madness-of-the-islamic-states-horrifying-brutality/|access-date=2 December 2015|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=12 August 2014}}</ref><ref name=Atran-nybooks-11-16-15>{{cite news |last1=Atran |first1=Scott |last2=Hamid |first2=Nafees |title=Paris: The War ISIS Wants |url=http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/nov/16/paris-attacks-isis-strategy-chaos |work=[[The New York Review of Books]] |access-date=20 November 2015 |date=16 November 2015}}</ref>
Victims should not only be beheaded, shot, burn alive in cages or gradually submerged until drowned, but these events should be publicized with videos and photographs.<ref name=cnn-12-8-15>{{cite news |last1=Lee |first1=Ian |last2=Hanna |first2=Jason |title=Croatian ISIS captive reportedly beheaded |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/12/middleeast/isis-croatian-hostage/ |access-date=12 August 2015 |publisher=CNN |date=12 August 2015}}</ref>

;''The Jurisprudence of Blood''
[[File:Slogan of the Houthi Movement.svg|150px|thumb|right|The [[Houthi]] flag, with the top saying "''[[Takbir|God is the greatest]]''", the next line saying "''[[Death to America]]''", followed by "''Death to Israel''", followed by "''[[Antisemitism in Islam|A curse upon the Jews]]''", and the bottom saying "''Victory to Islam''".]]

Some observers<ref name="Poljarevic 2021" /><ref name="1Kadri-2012">{{cite book |last=Kadri |first=Sadakat |year=2012 |title=Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]] |location=[[London]] |isbn=978-0-09-952327-7 |pages=172–175 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ztCRZOhJ10wC}}</ref><ref name="Gorka-2009">{{cite web|title=Understanding History's Seven Stages of Jihad|url=https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/understanding-history%E2%80%99s-seven-stages-of-jihad|last=Gorka|first=Sebastian|date=3 October 2009|website=Combating Terrorism Center|access-date=1 November 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304082911/https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/understanding-history%E2%80%99s-seven-stages-of-jihad|archive-date=4 March 2016}}</ref> have noted the evolution in the rules of jihad—from the original "classical" doctrine to that of 21st-century [[Salafi jihadism]].<ref name="Ajjoub 2021" /> According to the [[legal historian]] Sadarat Kadri,<ref name="1Kadri-2012" /> during the last couple of centuries, incremental changes in Islamic legal doctrine (developed by Islamists who otherwise condemn any ''[[bid'ah]]'' (innovation) in religion), have "normalized" what was once "unthinkable".<ref name="1Kadri-2012" /> "The very idea that [[Muslims]] might blow themselves up for God was unheard of before 1983, and it was not until the early 1990s that anyone anywhere had tried to justify killing innocent Muslims who were not on a battlefield."<ref name="1Kadri-2012" />

The first or the "classical" doctrine of jihad which was developed towards the end of the 8th century, emphasized the "jihad of the sword" (''jihad bil-saif'') rather than the "jihad of the heart",<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=Bernard |author-link=Bernard Lewis |year=1988 |title=[[The Political Language of Islam]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/politicallanguag00lewi_680/page/n80 72] |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |location=[[Chicago]] |isbn=0-226-47693-6 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref> but it contained many legal restrictions which were developed from interpretations of both the [[Quran]] and the [[Hadith]], such as detailed rules involving "the initiation, the conduct, the termination" of jihad, the treatment of prisoners, the distribution of booty, etc. Unless there was a sudden attack on the [[Ummah|Muslim community]], jihad was not a "personal obligation" (''fard 'ayn''); instead it was a "collective one" (''[[fard al-kifaya]]''),<ref name="Khadduri-1955-60">{{cite book |last=Khadduri |first=Majid |author-link=Majid Khadduri |title=War and Peace in the Law of Islam |year=1955 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |location=[[Baltimore]] |page=60 |chapter-url=https://actforamericaeducation.com/downloads/All_Files_by_Type/khadduri.pdf |access-date=26 October 2015 |chapter=5. Doctrine of Jihad |quote=[Unlike the five pillars of Islam, jihad was to be enforced by the state.] ... 'unless the Muslim community is subjected to a sudden attack and therefore all believers, including women and children are under the obligation to fight—[jihad of the sword] is regarded by all jurists, with almost no exception, as a collective obligation of the whole Muslim community,' meaning that 'if the duty is fulfilled by a part of the community it ceases to be obligatory on others'.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151128192525/http://www.actforamericaeducation.com/downloads/All_Files_by_Type/khadduri.pdf|archive-date=28 November 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> which had to be discharged "in the way of God" (''fi sabil Allah''),<ref name="2Kadri-2012">{{cite book |last=Kadri |first=Sadakat |year=2012 |title=Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]] |location=[[London]] |isbn=978-0-09-952327-7 |pages=150–151 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ztCRZOhJ10wC}}</ref> and it could only be directed by the [[caliph]], "whose discretion over its conduct was all but absolute."<ref name="2Kadri-2012" /> (This was designed in part to avoid incidents like the [[Khawarij|Kharijia]]'s jihad against and killing of [[Ali as Caliph|Caliph Ali]], since [[Takfir|they deemed]] that [[Apostasy in Islam|he was no longer a Muslim]]).<ref name="Poljarevic 2021" /> [[Shahid|Martyrdom]] resulting from an attack on the enemy with no concern for your own safety was praiseworthy, but dying by your own hand (as opposed to the enemy's) merited a special place in [[Jahannam|Hell]].<ref name="ARSI-BL-xii">{{cite book|last1=Lewis|first1=Bernard|title=The Assassins, a radical sect in Islam|orig-year=1967|year=2003|publisher=Basic Books|page=xi–xii |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sRVmL_h_PcsC&q=suicide |access-date=13 October 2015|isbn=978-0-7867-2455-0}}</ref> The category of jihad which is considered to be a collective obligation is sometimes simplified as "offensive jihad" in Western texts.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Edwards |first1=Richard |last2=Zuhur|first2=Sherifa |title=The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and|page=553|publisher=ABC-CLIO|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YAd8efHdVzIC&pg=PA553|isbn=978-1-85109-842-2 |date=12 May 2008}}</ref>

Based on the 20th-century interpretations of [[Sayyid Qutb]], [[Abdullah Azzam]], [[Ruhollah Khomeini]], [[al-Qaeda]] and others, many if not all of those self-proclaimed jihad fighters believe that defensive global jihad is a personal obligation, which means that no caliph or Muslim head of state needs to declare it. Killing yourself in the process of killing the enemy is an act of martyrdom and it brings you a special place in [[Jannah|Heaven]], not a special place in Hell; and the killing of Muslim bystanders (nevermind Non-Muslims), should not impede acts of jihad. Military and intelligent analyst [[Sebastian Gorka]] described the new interpretation of jihad as the "willful targeting of civilians by a non-state actor through unconventional means."<ref name=Gorka-2009 />

[[Islamic theology|Islamic theologian]] Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir has been identified as one of the key theorists and [[ideologue]]s behind modern jihadist violence.<ref name="Ajjoub 2021" /><ref name="CP265">{{cite journal |last=Bunzel |first=Cole |date=18 February 2016 |title=The Kingdom and the Caliphate: Duel of the Islamic States |url=https://carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_265_Bunzel_Islamic_States_Final.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Carnegie Papers |volume=265 |pages=1–43 |publisher=[[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328062426/https://carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_265_Bunzel_Islamic_States_Final.pdf |archive-date=28 March 2016 |access-date=5 July 2021}}</ref><ref name="Atlantic 2016">{{cite magazine |last1=al-Saud |first1=Abdullah K. |last2=Winter |first2=Charlie |title=Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir: The Obscure Theologian Who Shaped ISIS |magazine=[[The Atlantic]] |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |date=4 December 2016 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/isis-muhajir-syria/509399/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612140424/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/isis-muhajir-syria/509399/ |archive-date=12 June 2018 |url-status=live  |access-date=28 September 2020}}</ref><ref name="Guardian">{{cite news |last=Townsend |first=Mark |date=13 May 2018 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/12/isis-jihadist-manual-analysed-rebutted-by-islamic-scholar |title=The core Isis manual that twisted Islam to legitimise barbarity |work=[[The Guardian]] |location=London |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180609090007/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/12/isis-jihadist-manual-analysed-rebutted-by-islamic-scholar |archive-date=9 June 2018 |url-status=live |access-date=5 July 2021 }}</ref> His theological and legal justifications influenced [[Abu Musab al-Zarqawi]], al-Qaeda member and former leader of [[al-Qaeda in Iraq]], as well as several other jihadi terrorist groups, including ISIL and Boko Haram.<ref name="Ajjoub 2021" /><ref name="CP265" /><ref name="Atlantic 2016" /><ref name="Guardian" /> Zarqawi used a 579-page manuscript of al-Muhajir's ideas at AQI training camps that were later deployed by ISIL, known in Arabic as ''Fiqh al-Dima'' and referred to in English as ''The Jurisprudence of Jihad'' or ''The Jurisprudence of Blood''.<ref name="Ajjoub 2021" /><ref name="CP265" /><ref name="Atlantic 2016" /><ref name="Guardian" /><ref name="ChrisStout">{{cite book |last=Stout |first=Chris E. |author-link=Chris Stout (psychologist) |year=2018 |orig-year=2017 |title=Terrorism, Political Violence, and Extremism: New Psychology to Understand, Face, and Defuse the Threat |location=[[Santa Barbara, California]] |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |pages=5–6 |chapter=The Psychology of Terrorism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QvHeDgAAQBAJ&q=jurisprudence+of+blood+ISIS&pg=PA5 |isbn=978-1-4408-5192-6 |oclc=994829038}}</ref> The book has been described by counter-terrorism scholar Orwa Ajjoub as rationalizing and justifying "suicide operations, the mutilation of corpses, beheading, and the killing of children and  non-combatants".<ref name="Ajjoub 2021" /> ''[[The Guardian]]''{{'}}s journalist Mark Towsend, citing Salah al-Ansari of [[Quilliam (think tank)|Quilliam]], notes: "There is a startling lack of study and concern regarding this abhorrent and dangerous text [''The Jurisprudence of Blood''] in almost all Western and Arab scholarship".<ref name="Guardian" /> Charlie Winter of ''[[The Atlantic]]'' describes it as a "theological playbook used to justify the group's abhorrent acts".<ref name="Atlantic 2016" /> He states:

{{Blockquote|Ranging from ruminations on the merits of beheading, torturing, or burning prisoners to thoughts on assassination, siege warfare, and the use of biological weapons, Muhajir's intellectual legacy is a crucial component of the [[Ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant|literary corpus of ISIS]]—and, indeed, whatever comes after it—a way to render practically anything permissible, provided, that is, it can be spun as beneficial to the jihad. [...] According to Muhajir, [[Suicide attack#Islam|committing suicide to kill people]] is not only a theologically sound act, but a commendable one, too, something to be cherished and celebrated regardless of its outcome. [...] neither Zarqawi nor his inheritors have looked back, liberally using Muhajir's work to normalize the use of suicide tactics in the time since, such that they have become the single most important military and terrorist method—defensive or offensive—used by ISIS today. The way that Muhajir theorized it was simple—he offered up a theological fix that allows any who desire it to sidestep the Koranic injunctions against suicide.<ref name="Atlantic 2016" />}}

Clinical psychologist [[Chris Stout (psychologist)|Chris E. Stout]] also discusses the al Muhajir-inspired text in his essay, ''Terrorism, Political Violence, and Extremism'' (2017). He assesses that jihadists regard their actions as being "for the greater good"; that they are in a "weakened in the earth" situation that renders Islamic terrorism a valid means of solution.<ref name="ChrisStout" />