Ethno-Religious Conflict in Europe

ETHNO-RELIGIOUS CONFLICT
IN EUROPE
TYPOLOGIES OF RADICALISATION IN EUROPES
MUSLIM COMMUNITIES
EDITED BY
MICHAEL EMERSON
AUTHORS
OLIVIER ROY
SAMIR AMGHAR
THEODOROS KOUTROUBAS, WARD VLOEBERGHS & ZEYNEP YANASMAYAN
TINKA VELDHUIS & EDWIN BAKKER
RACHEL BRIGGS & JONATHAN BIRDWELL
PATRICIA BEZUNARTEA, JOS MANUEL LPEZ & LAURA TEDESCO
ALEKSEI MALASHENKO & AKHMET YARLYKAPOV
CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN POLICY STUDIES

BRUSSELS
The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) is an independent policy

research institute based in Brussels. Its mission is to produce sound
analytical research leading to constructive solutions to the challenges facing
Europe today. CEPS Paperbacks present analysis and views by leading
experts on important questions in the arena of European public policy,
written in a style geared to an informed but generalist readership.
The views expressed in this report are those of the authors writing in a
personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect those of CEPS or any other
institution with which they are associated. This project has been funded by
the European Unions 6th Framework Programme. CEPSs broader work
programme on Islam-related issues is supported by grants from the
Compagnia di San Paolo and the Open Society Institute, which are
gratefully acknowledged.
With grateful thanks to Franois Schnell for allowing us to use his photo on the
cover, showing a burning car in Strasbourg torched during the 2005 riots.
ISBN 978-92-9079-822-4
Copyright 2009, Centre for European Policy Studies.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
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CONTENTS
Preface...................................................................................................................... i
1.
Introduction and Summary

Michael Emerson ......................................................................................... 1
2.
Al-Qaeda in the West as a Youth Movement: The Power of a

Narrative
Olivier Roy ................................................................................................. 11
Case Studies
3.
Ideological and Theological Foundations of Muslim Radicalism

in France
Samir Amghar ............................................................................................ 27
4.
Political, Religious and Ethnic Radicalisation among Muslims

in Belgium
Theodoros Koutroubas, Ward Vloeberghs & Zeynep Yanasmayan ... 51
5.
Muslims in the Netherlands: Tensions and Violent Conflict

Tinka Veldhuis & Edwin Bakker............................................................. 81
6.
Radicalisation among Muslims in the UK

Rachel Briggs & Jonathan Birdwell ..................................................... 109
7.
Muslims in Spain and Islamic Religious Radicalism

Patricia Bezunartea, Jos Manuel Lpez &Laura Tedesco ............... 136
8.
Radicalisation of Russias Muslim Community

Aleksei Malashenko & Akhmet Yarlykapov ....................................... 159
About the Authors............................................................................................ 193
PREFACE
his book comes from a large research endeavour of the European

Unions 6th Framework Programme, called Microcon, standing for
the micro-foundations of violent conflict. In its entirety, Microcon
consists of 28 component projects undertaken by 22 research centres across
Europe, under the coordination of Sussex University. The Microcon website
(www.microconflict.eu) gives a full account of participants, objectives and
results. The project runs from 2007 to 2011.
The present collection of papers represents the first half of one
component project, under the title Ethno-Religious Conflict, directed by
Michael Emerson and Amel Boubekeur. Its second half will address issues
of Changing Models of Multiculturalism, and will be initiated in 2009
with approximately the same team of researchers who contributed to the
present book.
This sequence of working stages is deliberate, in that the present book
analyses ethno-religious conflict in Europe as a problem, whereas the
second will address the search for constructive solutions.
The book also forms part of a wider set of studies on Islam-related

issues undertaken by CEPS. Most relevant to the present work was a
volume published in 2007, European Islam The Challenge to Society and
Public Policy, edited by Samir Amghar, Amel Boubekeur and Michael
Emerson, which dealt with the social, economic, cultural and political
conditions affecting the new Muslim minorities within the EU. Another
CEPS book published in 2007, Political Islam and EU Foreign Policy, edited by
Michael Emerson and Richard Youngs, analysed the role and ideologies of
democratic Islamist parties in the south Mediterranean states, followed by a
further work, Travels among Europes Muslim Neighbours, on the same theme
by two Members of the European Parliament, Joost Lagendyk and Jan
Wiersma.
Brussels, 16 February 2009
|i
1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

MICHAEL EMERSON
his book addresses what is perhaps the greatest source of societal

tensions and violent conflict in contemporary Europe: tensions and
violence involving people from minority groups of Muslim culture.
Six country studies are presented: on Belgium, France, the Netherlands,
Spain, Russia and the United Kingdom. The societal tensions are flowing
typically from two quite different sources: on the one hand, the broad and
relatively soft issues of social and economic disadvantage and
discrimination affecting Mulsim groups on an extensive scale, and, on the
other hand, the narrowly concentrated but very hard issues of terrorist
violence inspired by radical ideas. Both types are seen in the countries
under study to some degree. The justification for addressing both together
is that, while categorically different, they are nonetheless dynamically
inter-connected, feeding on each other and leading, in some cases, to
escalation.
The selection of case studies is not comprehensive, but it does
encompass a range of essential variables, notably as regards the length of
time the Muslim minorities have been established in Europe and their
countries of origin. A core West European group in the sample Belgium,
France, the Netherlands and the UK all have immigrant Muslim
communities that started coming in large numbers early in the second half
of the 20th century. Thus the Maghrebians in Belgium, France and the
Netherlands, and the Turks in Belgium and the Netherlands, and the South
Asians in the UK are often now families with second or even third
generations born in their new homelands. Spain, however, has a shorter
experience of immigration, which became important only towards the end
of the 20th century. At the other extreme one finds Russias Muslim
minorities, who are mainly not immigrants at all, such as the Volga Tartars
and the inhabitants of the Northern Caucasus, representing centuries of
history from the early expansion of Islam and then of the Russia empire.
|1
2 | MICHAEL EMERSON
All these communities have been affected in some degree by the

waves of radical Islamic influence building up in recent decades,
intensified by the after-shocks of the iconic global terrorist act of September
11th, 2001, and other subsequent acts that have been at least mentally filed
under the same category by much of the population, irrespective of
whether or not the terrorists had al-Qaeda connections. Five of the
countries studied have experienced their own iconic events, which had
massive media and political impact. Three countries witnessed horrific
terrorist acts: the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004, the London
bombings of 7 July 2005, and in Russia all too many events on an even
bigger scale including the Beslan hostage-taking of 1 September 2004. In the
Netherlands, it was the successive assassinations of Pim Fortuyn on 6 May
2002 and Theo Van Gogh on 2 November 2004 and in France the
categorically different riots of the Paris suburbs and other urban centres in
November-December 2005.
The incidence of terrorist violence has been highly variable from one
country to another. Russia has seen the most numerous and deadly
terrorist acts, but there the development of Islamic radicalisation has been
grafted on top of the war of attempted secession by Chechnya in the 1990s.
In Western Europe the UK has seen the most extensive series of terrorist
acts; in Spain there has been just one major case; in France mostly foiled
attempts; and in the Netherlands some individualised assassinations.
Belgium, for reasons we shall explore later, has an immigrant community
of the same order and origins as neighbouring France and the Netherlands,
but it has so far escaped major violence.
Irrespective of the frequency, or absence of terrorist acts, this book is
concerned with the full range of tensions and trends towards violence
involving the minorities of Muslim culture or faith. While the acts of terror
are highly individualised, societal tensions between the Muslim
communities and the majority populations are highly diffuse. In some
cases, broader societal grievances and tensions have spilled over into
collective violence, the most notable examples being the race riots that
afflicted some northern English cities in the 1990s and the even more
destructive riots in the Parisian suburbs in 2005. Here the ethnic aspect has
been conspicuous while the religious aspect was largely absent.
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY | 3
1.
Typologies
This variety in the nature of violent conflict led the team to adopt a formal
analytical matrix on the typology of violence, formulated by Samir
Amghar, and presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Matrix-typology of radicalisation generating tensions through to violent conflict
Muslims to
non-Muslims
Non-Muslims
to Muslims
Muslims to
Muslims
Politico-religious
Jihad, Islamist terrorism
Religious, non-political
Apolitical, neofundamentalists
(Salafism, Ahbashs,
Tabligh)
Customary, pseudo-religious
(honour killings, female
mutilation)
Political, non-religious
Banlieues riots/violence, rap,
extreme left, and extreme
right movements of native
populations
Three broad categories of tension and violence are distinguished. The

first is what might be called politico-religious radicalisation, where the
inspiration is grounded in Islamic texts or interpretations that can range
from the scholarly to simplistic fantasies. This justifies the jihad, which
employs terrorist violence with a view to overthrowing the secular or nonradical Islamic political regimes of Muslim states, or even in the most
fantastic visions of installing Islam in non-Muslim states.
The second category concerns religious but non-political movements.
These are fundamentalist in theology and doctrine, but abstain from
politics or societal integration. While these groups may themselves abstain
from violence, it is sometimes argued that they serve as the breeding
ground and stepping stone for individuals to pass in due course into
violent action of the jihadist type.
4 | MICHAEL EMERSON
A very different sub-category are customary or pseudo-religious

traditions that involve violence, including so-called honour killings and
female mutilation, and which might be called family terrorism. While
their incidence in Europe may be quite limited, this category is significant
for its impact on the climate of relations between Muslim minorities and
the majority populations, since these practises are widely mediatised, and
create negative prejudices on a wider scale.
Finally, the third category concerns radicalisation of attitudes and
behaviour leading to collective violence of the types seen in recent years in
some northern English cities, and the French suburbs. We here observe
violent conflict that is not terrorism, nor does it have religious motivation.
These are largely spontaneous movements that amount to political
statements of grievance by loose collections of people with some ethnic
identity in common. The grievances may concern housing and employment
prospects, or perceptions of discrimination.
In the other dimensions to the matrix there is place to register the
violence that may be detonated or provoked not only by Muslims towards
non-Muslims, but also by non-Muslims towards Muslims and between
Muslims. The provocation of violence by non-Muslims towards Muslims
concerns the actions of some extreme right political parties or groups.
Instances of conflict between Muslims in Europe are also reported, for
example between Kurds and Turks.
In the next chapter, Olivier Roy presents hypotheses of interpretation
of al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism as a deterritorialised and globalised
phenomenon. He presents two main theses on the roots of terrorism, the
first being a top-down vertical approach where al-Qaeda acts as a
revolutionary organisation indoctrinating its militants with the political
objective of toppling corrupted regimes in the Middle East and replacing
them with a caliphate based on sharia law. The strategy also includes
attacks on the West itself in order to undermine the support it gives to
current Arab regimes. The second line of analysis, termed horizontal,
focuses on the role of individuals who perpetrate terrorist acts in Europe,
and who are not so interested in either the Middle East or Islam as a faith,
but rather in the struggle against the US global hegemon or more broadly
radical anti-imperialist struggles of the types seen already several decades
ago (for example Che Guevara, the Baader Meinhof gang, etc., which had
nothing to do with Islam). This leads the author to reject the idea of a
general theory of terrorism, because the very terminology confuses
Muslims fighting for local political causes such as Palestine and Chechnya
with those who have no concrete political agenda beyond the statement of
protest and quest for heroic glory and matyrdom. The distinction is of
strategic policy significance for Western Europe, whose experiences of
terrorist acts at home best fit into the second category. Al-Qaeda in Western
Europe is best understood as a youth movement, in which young guys
jump into violence, after a short and thin period of radicalisation. The
degree of success achieved by Bin Laden has been not so much to have
spread theology or ideology, but to have invented a narrative that could
allow rebels without a cause to connect with a cause.
Roys major recommendation that follows from this logic is the need
to destroy precisely this narrative in the minds of the young populace, by
integrating Islam as a normal religion, by de-Islamising perceptions of alQaeda rather than branding it as bad Islam, and by portraying the
radicalised terrorists as unsuccessful delinquents and losers rather than
heroes.
The present project is about analysing the micro foundations of
conflict, hence its abbreviated name of Microcon. The thesis that emerges
is that Europes experience with globalised terrorism turns out, perhaps
paradoxically, to be indeed much more micro than might have been
supposed. Illustrating this micro aspect of the globalised terrorism
through the story of an individual, Roy cites the case of a Hindu from East
Africa, who after settling in Great Britain went on to Kasmir where he
married a Malay woman from Thailand, and then became involved in
terrorist plots in London and New York.
2.
Six case studies
The ideological and theological foundations of the major Islamic groups in

France serve as the major focus of the chapter by Samir Amghar,
distinguishing in particular between radicalised religious movements that
have no political agenda or involvement in violence, and those that
combine religious inspiration with politically motivated violence. In the
first category, the 1990s saw the arrival in France of militant Salafists,
fleeing from the repression of the Algerian regime, whose original purpose
was the violent overthrow of that regime. After some years this group has
been changing its approach, and espouses a pious non-political Salfism
with withdrawal from and rejection of French society. Further movements
sharing these characteristics are the Ahbash, led originally by Lebanese
6 | MICHAEL EMERSON
students in France, and the Tabligh which spread to the continent from its
Indo-Pakistani base in the UK. Notwithstanding the peaceful ideology of
these groups, the French authorities have viewed them as breeding
grounds for individuals who may pass on to violent radicalisation. Of the
jihadist groups devoted to politically motivated violence, the author traces
the evolution of three tendencies. First are those aiming at the
revolutionary overthrow of repressive regimes in their countries of origin,
notably the Algerian Groupes Islamiques Armes (GIA), who turned to
terrorist acts in France itself (the St Michel metro bombing in 1995) with the
intention to dissuade the French government from supporting the Algerian
and other Arab regimes. Its actions in France also involves small-scale
criminal operations to collect funds and weapons to support operations in
the home country. Second, and reflecting the failure of these first strategies,
support develops for actions of al-Qaeda inspiration aimed at the US
hegemon and Jewish state. The nature of their combat changes not only by
its de-territorialisation, but also by its technique and ideological foundation
from guerilla warfare to suicidal martyrdom. Third, there develops a
tendency for radicalized individuals to go and fight in support of fellow
Muslims under attack elsewhere in the world, for example in Bosnia, Iraq,
Afghanistan, etc. All these tendencies have been manifest in France, but
without any major terrorist attack on French territory, attributable in part
to the vigilance of the French security services. However France did have
its own iconic event in 2005, with the massive riots in the suburbs of Paris
and other French cities over a period of some weeks. These riots involved
disillusioned youths of Muslim backgrounds, but without religious
motivation, or precise political agenda; rather, they represented protest
movements against social and employment conditions and perceived
discrimination.
Tinka Veldhuis and Edwin Bakker review the tensions and violent
conflicts involving Muslims in the Netherlands. The first signs of Islamic
radicalisation in the Netherlands are traced back to the 1980s, although it
was only in 1996 that its security services spoke of possible terrorist attacks.
There has developed a rich collection of Islamic movements or groups,
many of which are Dutch branches of Islamic multinational organisations.
The Netherlands has not experienced either major terrorist acts as in the
UK, or violent confrontations in urban or suburban settings as in France.
On the other hand, inter-ethnic tensions have been mounting in recent
years, undermining the countrys image as a liberal, tolerant and pluralistic
society. Two assassinations highlight this. In May 2002 came the murder of
Pim Fortuyn, head of a populist party and outspoken critic of Islam and
Muslims in the Netherlands. Even though the murderer was a native Dutch
left-wing activist, it provoked deepening inter-ethnic tensions, and
mounting racist and anti-Islam sentiments among right-wing youth
groups. In spring 2004, the security services issued warnings of growing
radicalisation among certain Muslim groups alongside growing antiMuslim sentiment in Dutch society. And then in November 2004, a young
Dutch-born man of Moroccan descent, member of the Hofstadgroep,
murdered the film-maker Theo van Gogh, whose works were blatantly
provocative towards Muslims. This further inflamed inter-ethnic tensions,
to the point that the spectre of escalating conflict was conceivable. But then
a surprise occurred when Gerd Wilders, a Member of Parliament who is
notorious for his anti-Muslim statements, released a film that many feared
would trigger a replay of the Danish cartoon affair of 2005 and provoke
violent reactions on a global scale. Contrary to expectations, this did not
happen. The reactions of the Muslim community in the Netherlands were
mild. In their conclusions, the authors wonder whether the tide may have
turned; or more precisely whether the idea of a breakdown of traditional
Dutch values has been exaggerated, and that its society has begun to
rediscover its traditional values of tolerance and mutual respect.
The least violent of the six cases studied is that of Belgium, analysed
by Theo Koutroubas, Ward Vloeberghs and Zeynep Yanasmayan. In
Belgium there have been no terrorist acts, no major riots, no assassinations.
This must make the researcher ask why, since the Muslim ethno-religious
minorities in Belgium are in their scale, origins and history typical of
Western Europe, and most similar to neighbouring France and the
Netherlands. Belgium, however, has not been without its tensions. Its ArabEuropean League movement has been adamant in pushing for equal rights
for Muslim people, in criticising Islamophobia in Europe, and in its support
of the Palestinian cause. This has both provoked, and been provoked by,
the extreme-right wing Vlaams Blok party (which after being banned in
2004 reconfigure itself as Vlaams Belang), with clashes in Antwerp verging
on the violent, involving patrols of quasi-militia Arab groups. In Brussels
there have been serious tensions within the Turkish community, with
rowdy demonstrations seeing nationalist Turks in verbal and physical
conflict with Turkish Kurds, mixed up with protests at the heavy-handiness
of the Belgian police. There have been reports of one or two terrorist attacks
on the EU institutions being planned in Morocco, which were foiled at the
preparatory stage. But there has been no real act of terrorism. Why? The
8 | MICHAEL EMERSON
comparison with the Netherlands is particularly striking. One hypothesis is

that Belgiums linguistic-cultural-political divisions become an asset in the
present context. If the nations divisions seem at times to make it
ungovernable at the federal level, the corollary is that the immigrant
groups face less of a monolithic other in the shape of the domestic
national identity, from which they may perceive exclusion. Living in a
complex multi-cultural society, the Muslim immigrants may perceive
discriminatory attitudes and practices less intensely than elsewhere in
neighbouring countries, and this means a less fertile ground for
radicalisation. This has to be a speculative interpretation, but not one to be
dismissed.
By contrast the United Kingdom has seen the most terrorist acts of
West European countries, and perhaps the most pervasive set of radical
Islamic networks, as analysed in the chapter by Rachel Briggs and Jonathan
Birdwell. The British security service, MI5, believes there are 2,000
individuals in the UK who pose a direct threat to national security, and
since 2001 there have been more than 200 terrorist convictions. The London
bombings of 7 July 2005, with multiple and simultaneous attacks on public
transport, manifestly drew inspiration from New Yorks 9/11, and became
similarly engraved in public awareness as Londons 7/7. The authors
wrestle with the question of causes of these dreadful acts. They identify
radicalising agents, and in an interesting table place numerous terrorist
acts into several such categories, including key places, charismatic
leaders, relationships, experiences and grievances. But it remains
difficult to know which factors have been instrumental, rather than just
present. The authors go on to discuss the huge number of Islamic groups or
movements in the UK within the three categories set out in the matrix
above the religious and political, the religious and non-political and the
non-religious but political. They confirm that these analytical categories
have to be seen as a rough approximation, with many groups moving
across these boundaries in practice. While the authors consider that the
threat from radicalisation and violence will remain for a long time yet, they
see nonetheless a positive side to the rich mosaic of political mobilisation of
Muslims in the UK. This mosaic has to be better understood, for it may
contain elements of solutions through offering alternative venues other
than violent radicalisation for those who feel disillusioned and voiceless.
Unlike the situation in all the other countries studied, the majority of
Muslims over the age of 16 in Spain are first-generation immigrants, with
57% of them coming from Morocco. Jose Manuel Lopez, Patricia
Bezunartea and Laura Tedesco in their chapter show that on the whole this
immigrant population retains relatively favourable views of their new
home country, compared to the conditions in their countries of origin. The
authors see this as an opportunity for Spain to avoid the mistakes made by
other European countries as its immigrant communities become more
deeply entrenched. However any complacency over this relatively benign
situation was shattered by the multiple and coordinated bombings in
Madrid of 11 March 2004, in which 191 people were killed and 1,755
injured. The perpetrators of the Madrid bombings were found to be youths
of Moroccan origin, some of whom were childhood friends from Tetouan.
In the course of their trial it became evident that al-Qaeda certainly
inspired them, but did not organise or control them. They were part of the
virtual Jihad space fed by the Internet, where cells decide individually on
their operations. Subsequently there have been several arrests of
individuals forming part of international terrorist groups, such as the
Algerian and Moroccan al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The Madrid
bombings have created a new state of public awareness and opinions, in
which the community of people earlier characterised by Spanish society as
just immigrants are now seen as Muslims, and this focuses attention on
the quest for adequate methods of political representation and models of
societal integration.
The Muslim population of Russia is around 20 million, considerably
more than in the EU as a whole, and the incidence of terrorist violence over
the last decade has caused incomparably more fatalities than in the whole
of Western Europe. Aleksei Malashenko and Akhmet Yarlykapov provide a
detailed survey of radicalisation within the Muslim community in Russia,
citing 24 terrorist acts over the last decade causing 1,566 deaths (this
excludes the wars within Chechnya). While the large majority of Russian
Muslims come from communities in the Northern Caucasus and the Volga
basin, which were Muslim well before their incorporation into the Russian
empire, there is also a sizeable new immigrant community of around 3.5 to
4 million. Radical Islam is most strongly present in the Northern Caucasus,
with elements from Chechnya moving into neighbouring districts. Radical
elements have been detected in the Volga area on a much thinner scale.
Radical tendencies developed seriously from the 1990s, especially among
youth jamaats in the Northern Caucasus, with Dagestan as the main
breeding ground. In the second half of the 1990s, the leadership elements
gradually changed, as young imams returned from studies in the Middle
East, with the profile of young intellectuals. An apparently stable set of
10 | MICHAEL EMERSON
young, radical Islamic leaders seems established, with support for them
boosted in reaction to the growing Islamophobia in mainstream Russian
society. In the view of the authors, violence inevitably follows from the
ideology of radicalisation. The chapter records the long list of terrorist
bombings in Russia in the decade from 1996 to 2006, with many minor acts
in addition to major hostage-taking tragedies such as occurred at Beslan in
2004. Looking ahead, however, the authors judge it unlikely that there will
be a repetition of acts on this scale, quoting one North Caucasian separatist
leader as saying that the big terror acts were a tactical failure achieving
nothing, since the Kremlin refused to negotiate at any cost. In addition no
charismatic leader is likely to emerge since the killing of Shamil Basaev. On
the other hand the Russian state policy has been too crudely repressive,
and the authors plead for a more flexible and selective policy, combining
contacts with relatively moderate elements with the suppression of
extremists. The authors see a continuing Islamisation among Russias
Muslim communities, with an increasing expansion of sharia law to be just
a matter of time.
So where does this leave Europe? The decade of the 2000s was indisputedly
the decade of global terrorism, starting with the attacks of 9/11 of 2001,
amplified by President Bushs war against terror, and sustained in the
rapid succession in 2004 and 2005 of the Madrid bombings, the London
bombings, the Van Gogh murder and Beslan. Since those events, has the
tide turned? This might be suggested by the absence of further spectacular
terrorist events, and for example by the low-key response in 2008 to the
Gerd Wilders film in the Netherlands. The turningof-the-tide thesis might
be based on the view that European civil society is trying to work harder at
integrating its immigrant minorities, while the great majority of the Muslim
communities have other preoccupations than the jihad, with the al-Qaeda
narrative maybe indeed on the wane. Several of the country studies
cautiously hint at this. To be sure the advent of the second decade of the
21th century is now being marked by a different crisis, that of the global
economy suffering a financial crash and recession on a scale not seen since
the 1930s. Does this mean that this other story is taking over? There should
be no betting on this. The truly remarkable failings of the Western
economic model now on display may perhaps come just in time to give a
renewed boost to Islamic radicalisation.
2. AL-QAEDA IN THE WEST AS A YOUTH

MOVEMENT: THE POWER OF A
NARRATIVE
OLIVIER ROY
hy do we bother, in Europe, about Islamic radicalisation? The

answer seems obvious. There are at least two good reasons: one
is terrorism, with its security implications; the other is the issue
of integrating second-generation migrants in Europe, apparently the most
fertile ground for recruiting terrorists. For most observers, the link between
terrorism and integration is a given fact. Al-Qaeda-type terrorist activities
carried out either in Europe, or by European residents and citizens abroad,
are seen as the extreme form, and hence as a logical consequence, of Islamrelated radicalisation. There is a teleological approach consisting of looking
in retrospect at every form of radicalisation and violence associated with
the Muslim population in Europe as a harbinger of terrorism.
This approach is problematic, not so much because it casts a shadow
of suspicion and opprobrium on Islam as a religion and on Muslims in
general, but because it fails to understand the roots of violence and it
arbitrarily isolates Muslim violence from the other levels of violence
among European youth. This, in turn, has two negative consequences: it
does not allow us to understand the motivations for violence among people
joining al-Qaeda (who are far from being, as we shall see, devoted Muslims
fighting for their Middle Eastern brothers), and it unduly concentrates on
what is the problem with Islam, precisely playing on al-Qaedas own
terms, and spawning a debate that will have little or no impact among the
segments of the population who are susceptible to joining al-Qaeda. As we
shall see, comparing good Islam to bad Islam does not make sense, not
because Islam is all bad or all good, but because the process of violent
radicalisation has little to do with religious practice, while radical theology,
as salafisme, does not necessarily lead to violence.
Any counter-terrorist policy has to be based on an analysis of the
roots of terrorism. If not, such a policy could not only be ineffective, but
| 11
12 | OLIVIER ROY
also counter-productive, by inducing some of the phenomena it claims to

combat.
Roughly speaking, there are two approaches: one vertical, one
horizontal. The vertical approach involves establishing a genealogy of
radicalisation from the Koran and the first Islamic community to the
present Islamist radicals, going through radical theology (Ibn Taymiyya),
ideologisation (Hassan al Banna and the Muslim brothers) and the history
of Middle Eastern conflicts, from Bonapartes campaign in Egypt to the
present conflicts in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. This approach tends to
lump together all kind of violence linked with Muslim populations, for
example ethno-cultural tensions affecting migrants (crimes of honour),
petty delinquency and terrorism. The horizontal approach, by contrast,
consists of putting the leap into terrorism into the context of the
contemporary phenomena of violence affecting our societies in general, and
specifically youth. The two approaches are not exclusive of course, but I
will argue that the link between them is to be understood less in
sociological and political terms than in terms of a narrative. The success of
Osama Bin Laden is not to have established a modern and efficient Islamist
political organisation, but to have invented a narrative that could allow
rebels without a cause to connect with a cause.
We examine the two views below.
1.
The debate on the roots of terrorism
1.1
The vertical approach
Al-Qaeda is a revolutionary organisation in the continuation of the Middle

Eastern Islamist movements (Muslim Brothers, Said Qotb, Ayman al
Zawahiri). Its strategy is defined by a precise ideology: to topple the
existing regimes in the Middle East and replace them with a caliphate
based on sharia law. Hence the political radicalisation is part of a process of
theological radicalisation, known as salafisme. Islam is at the core of alQaeda legitimacy and thinking. It plays on the nostalgia of the Muslim
community for a Golden Age.
Ideology is the key: people join al-Qaeda because they share its
ideology and political goals. Indoctrination is the basis of recruitment:
militants do read books and leaflets, even if they use the internet more than
the street corner bookshop. Conflicts in the Middle East are at the core of
AL-QAEDA IN THE WEST AS A YOUTH MOVEMENT | 13
the Muslim wrath; Muslims living in Europe do identify with their

oppressed brothers of the greater Middle East.
To counter al-Qaeda, one should address the political grievances of
the sympathisers. Whatever different conceptions exist about a settlement
of conflicts in the Middle East, there will be no de-radicalisation without
improving the situation in the Middle East. A global war on terrorism
makes sense because similar trends and ideas are at work among most of
the Muslims involved in local as well as global conflicts.
This vertical approach is at present largely dominant among
politicians, journalists and experts of the Middle East. It can lead to two
different conceptions, both based on the premises of the clash of
civilisations theory. The first assumes that there is a definitive gap between
Islam and the West, and the only policy is authoritarian integration
(banning the burqas and even the veil, enforcing acculturation, limiting
religious freedom). Personalities as different as Daniel Pipes, Fadela
Amara, Fritz Bolkenstein and far rightists are on this line. The second
approach is to promote good Islam, through the so-called dialogue of
civilisation, bringing together Western thinkers and Middle East religious
authorities, as well as European authorities and Muslim community
leaders, and promoting some sort of multi-culturalism or reasonable
accommodation, in order to try to establish a common ground between
East and West. The Alliance of civilisations project and the interfaith
conferences recently promoted by the Saudi government are along these
lines.
1.2
The horizontal approach
This approach is based on the analysis of the individual biographies and

trajectories of people who have been actually involved in terrorist activities
in the West or who left the West to perpetrate terrorist activities in the
Middle East. It concludes that the vertical approach does not help to
understand the process of radicalisation, and considers it more productive
to establish a transversal comparison between the different forms of
violence existing among the various milieus that could support terrorists. It
tends to downplay the impact of Middle Eastern conflicts and Islamic
religious radicalisation. The arguments run as follows:
x
There is a break between al-Qaeda and the traditional Islamists

movement: al-Qaeda has no real political programme of establishing
a territorial Islamic state based on sharia. There is a clear gap between
14 | OLIVIER ROY
islamo-nationalism (Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran) and the global deterritorialised jihad of al-Qaeda. AQs references to Islam are for the
sake of creating a narrative, not of establishing a genuine political
agenda. Ayman Zawahiri, Bin Ladens deputy, is an exception (the
only AQ member coming from the elite of the Muslim Brothers) and
is unduly seen as the ideologist of al-Qaeda.
x
Instead of promoting a territorial caliphate in the Middle East, alQaeda is committed to a global struggle against the world power (the
US) in the continuation of the radical anti-imperialist struggles of the
1960s and 1970s (Che Guevara, the Baader-Meinhof gang). It stresses
political activism and addresses a wider audience than just the
Muslim community (hence the converts).
Al Qaeda does not play a vanguard or a leading role in the conflicts

of the Middle East, but is trying to impose its own agenda even
against the local Islamists (Hamas). There are continuous tensions
between internationalist fighters and local insurgents in Iraq,
Afghanistan and even Lebanon.
The West should address the different Middle Eastern conflicts from
a political perspective (a struggle for territorial control from different
actors) and not by ascribing to them an ideological perspective
(caliphate and sharia).
Ideology plays little role in the radicalisation of the jihadist

internationalist youth: they are attracted by a narrative not an
ideology.
The process of radicalisation is to be understood by putting it into

perspective with the other forms of violence among European youth.
Any process of de-radicalisation should address youth populations,

and not an elusive Muslim community, which is more constructed
(particularly by government policies and by self-appointed
community leaders) than real.
This perspective is undoubtedly a minority view. But it is finding

more ground among police and intelligence practitioners, who now have
an important database of radicals coming from or acting in Europe, and see
the discrepancy between the individual profiles of the radicals and the
motivations that are attributed to them from outside.
If we adopt the first version, the Middle East is at the centre of the
process of radicalisation and hence should be at the centre of the de-
radicalisation policy. There is no real difference between islamonationalists and territorialised movements such as Hamas on the one hand
and internationalist jihadists of al-Qaeda on the other. We should study
radicalisation essentially from the top down: How do ideas and
propaganda spread from AQ headquarters to would-be radicals? What is
AQs strategy of recruiting? In this sense the young radicals are picked and
manipulated by the organisation.
If we adopt the other view, we should, as a necessary first step,
delink territorialised and nationalist conflicts from supra-national jihadism,
both in the Middle East (such a policy has been the basis of the surge
strategy initiated by General Petraeus in Iraq) and in Europe (by stopping
the mixing-up of radicalisation and the Middle East). We should also
acknowledge that ideology has little to do with radicalisation. We should
study radicalisation essentially at the individual level, addressing the
reasons why young people who are not linked with a given conflict would
join AQ. The main de-radicalisation objective is to destroy al-Qaedas
narrative, not to provide an ideological or theological alternative, because
both dimensions (ideology and theology) are simply not relevant.
1.3
Is there a general concept of terrorism?
The general category of terrorists or suicide bombers is not very helpful.

We should put terrorist actions into their political and strategic contexts.
If we consider terrorist activities in the Muslim world, there is clearly
a difference between territorialised violence (Palestine, Chechnya) and deterritorialised violence (al-Qaeda). The first is linked with a struggle for
national liberation and is part of a broader use of politically motivated
violent means with a precise objective: to free a territory from what is
perceived as a foreign occupation. This violence does not spill over in other
countries except occasionally into the territory of the occupying country. It
goes along with other forms of violence (from intifada to guerilla warfare)
and is hinged on a precise political agenda; the violence thus could be
suspended or triggered according to the circumstances and the expected
results.
By contrast, global terrorism is defined by the following criteria:
x
The terrorist action is not part of a broader spectrum of political and

military actions; it is relatively isolated from the local political
context.
16 | OLIVIER ROY
There is no concrete political agenda (although there might be, as we

shall discuss, a strategy of confrontation with the dominant power).
Terrorists are not rooted in a given society (even if they are

integrated): they dont fight in their country of origin (with the
possible exception of Saudi Arabia), and they have no or little
background of militancy or participation in communal works. They
are often circulating between three countries: country of origin of
their family, country of residence and radicalisation and country of
action, although the last two could coincide (the London bombings in
2005).
2.
Al-Qaeda as a global de-territorialised movement
The first and probably more common explanation of radicalisation, as we

saw, is to understand it as a consequence of the conflicts in the Middle East,
and of the sense of humiliation they create among Muslims. But, if we refer
to the bios of terrorists from Europe, it is clear that the motivating factor for
violence is not based on personal humiliation or oppression experienced by
the terrorists. There is an almost radical discrepancy between the map of
the actual conflicts in the Middle East and the map of recruitment.
Terrorists operating in the West are home-grown terrorists. When they
have a foreign familial or personal background, it is North Africa, Pakistan,
East Africa, the Caribbean islands or just Europe. There is also a
significant proportion of converts. Al-Qaeda is not only the sole Islamic
political organisation to have a very high level of converts (estimates range
from 9 to 20%), but it is the only one to give them positions of responsibility
(both Muslim Brothers and the Islamic revolution of Iran attracted some
converts, but none of them was ever to be found in a position of
responsibility; Hizb ut-Tahrir has many converts but, until now, none is in
the leadership). Lets mention the French Christophe Caze, Jean-Marc
Grandvisir, Jrme Courtailler and the German Christian Ganczarski
(Djerba attack in 2002), and more recently the Frenchman Willie Brigitte
(tried in 2007 in Paris), the British Yeshi Girma (born in Ethiopia), wife of a
man convicted for the 21 July 2005 failed attempt in London, the British
Andrew Rowe (arrested in 2005) and Dhiren Barot, the Dutch (and former
policewoman) Martine van der Oeven, member of the Hofstadt group,
Abdallah Andersen sentenced in Copenhagen (2008), Fritz Gelowicz,
arrested in Germany in 2007, Anthony Garcia (also known as Rahman
Benouis), sentenced in 2007 in London, and Pascal Cruypeninck, sentenced
in 2008 in Brussels. Many converts are of Caribbean origin (French and

British): they find in the Islamist milieus a fraternity free from racism and
may recast the anti-racist and anti-colonial struggle in Islamic terms;
within al-Qaeda they achieve positions of responsibility that they would
not have access to elsewhere. We may mention Grandvisir, Brigitte,
Jermaine Lindsay (London 2005) or Abu Izzadeen (born Trevor Brooks)
(sentenced in April 2008 by a British court). Here traditional antiimperialism merges with Islamism.
The Europeans in al-Qaeda tend to take one of two routes to
conversion: there are those who have pursued a personal path and joined
AQ after having converted in a mosque, and those who followed their
Muslim buddies, when, often after a story of petty crimes, they decide to
go for action, usually under the influence of a group leader, seen as a
guru. The group effect, as Marc Sageman1 calls it, is far more effective in
terms of triggering radicalisation than reading propaganda books. Dhiren
Barot, born a Hindu from parents who left East Africa to settle in Great
Britain, and who went to Kashmir, married a Malay woman from Thailand
and was involved in different plots both in London and New York,
embodies the perfect example of the de-territorialised jihadist. A
remarkable case is that of the Belgian Muriel Degauque (who carried out a
suicide bombing in Iraq with her husband in 2005), for it signals a recent
development: the arrival of a generation of women in al-Qaeda, which until
now has tended to be misogynistic (which shows that the converts also
bring another form of deculturation).
Interestingly enough, very few Western Muslims from Iraqi or
Palestinian origin are involved, not only in terrorist actions perpetrated in
Europe, but also in their countries of origin (the argument that it is because
they are fighting in their own country does not make sense: during the
1970s, Palestinians were heavily involved in international terrorism). By the
same token the jihadists who travelled inside the Middle East to fight in
Iraq are presently mostly Saudis and North Africans (including Libyans),
and not people who have experienced a direct Western form of aggression.
Furthermore al-Qaeda has seldom attacked Israeli or Jewish targets
(contrary to more secular Palestinian movements like Abu Nidal), with of
Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia
University Press, 2004.
18 | OLIVIER ROY
course some exceptions (Istanbul and Casablanca). And finally, with the
exception of some Pakistanis, no second-generation radicalised Muslim has
gone back to the country of origin of his or her family to fight a local jihad.
To sum up, the process of radicalisation in Europe is not a direct
consequence of the conflicts in Middle East, although these conflicts are reinterpreted through the narrative of al-Qaeda.
I consider that a dominant characteristic of al-Qaedas type of
violence is de-territorialisation: specific conflicts play a role only as
narratives and not as geo-strategic factors; the radicals are not involved in
actual conflicts, but in an imaginary perception of the conflicts. The deterritorialisation factor might also explain new forms of radicalisation
among Middle Eastern Muslims. The third generation of Palestinian
refugees in Lebanon for instance (insurgents of the Nahr al Barid camp in
Northern Lebanon) have experienced a process of de-Palestinisation; they
are no more geared towards Palestinian politics, have no hope of ever
coming back, but did not receive a new identity or citizenship in exchange.
They may jump from a desperate national struggle into identification with
the global ummah. The phenomena may happen in Palestine itself because
the hope to achieve a viable statehood is receding (as illustrated by the
unexpected breakthrough of the Hizb ul-Tahrir party in the West Bank in
2007-08, for which the caliphate is more important than the nation-state).
Al Qaedas senior figures, grassroots cells, transnational networks
and chain of command are thus rooted in personal bonds, forged either in
Afghanistan or at the local level in the West, and which are then transposed
to a transnational, de-territorialised dimension (trips, moving to other
countries, multiple nationalities, etc.). The West is the key place of
radicalisation. Interestingly enough, many of the North Africans involved
in radical violence in North Africa had at a time a project of migration to
Europe. An FBI team sent to Kabul in 2001 to fingerprint all arrested
insurgents made a surprising discovery: hundreds of arrested people in
Afghanistan who were supposed to be local fighters (1% of the total) were
already in the FBI's database for arrests ... in the US. Many arrests were for
drunken driving, passing bad checks and traffic violations. That means that
there were probably a far higher percentage of arrested insurgents who
went through the US without being arrested, and that the already arrested
guys had normal delinquency, not related to Islam.2
A second factor supposed to explain international terrorism (after the
reaction against the conflicts in the Middle East) is al-Qaedas strategy and
ideology, embodied in the far enemy/near enemy theory. It defines alQaeda as the ultimate stage of an ongoing Islamist revolutionary
movement that strived to create Islamic states in Muslim countries, and
then to establish a caliphate based on sharia. The subsequent failure to
establish an Islamic state in a given country (whatever the reason: pressure
of imperialism, lack of support among the population, strength of the
ruling regimes or acknowledgement that utopia does not work) is
supposed to have pushed the Islamists to go global, leading to the
prevalence of the ummah on the nation, and putting jihad against the West
on the forefront, because there was no way to defeat the near enemy (the
Arab regimes) as long as the distant enemy was not checked or destroyed.
Jihad is defined as a personal compulsory duty.
But in fact few of the present radicals have been involved in domestic
Islamic radical activities in their country of origin (with the notable
exception of Ayman al Zawahiri). Bin Laden himself turned against the
Saudi monarchy after joining the global jihad. Meanwhile the strategy of
AQ is to entrap US troops in protracted local conflicts and to parasite these
local conflicts, without defining a coherent political strategy to attract the
local population. There is no political blueprint from al-Qaeda on what to
do the day after. They just dont care. The testimonies of the volunteers
who joined al-Qaeda show that they go for jihad and martyrdom, not to
create an Islamic State or impose sharia.
We tend to over-ideologise al-Qaeda in order to understand its
attractiveness.
Although a study of the takfiri and jihadi thought certainly has its
interest, it does not explain the personal radicalisation phenomena (even if
it might provide an aftermath rationalisation),
To my knowledge, none of the arrested terrorists or suspects had
Zawahiri or other books in their house, while they often have handbooks
Ellen Nakashima, Post-9/11 Dragnet Turns Up Surprises: Biometrics Link

Foreign Detainees to Arrests in U.S., Washington Post, 6 July 2008.
2
20 | OLIVIER ROY
on how to make bombs or videos about atrocities perpetrated against

Muslims. Contrary for instance to the Hizb ut-Tahrir members, who always
formulate their positions in elaborate ideological terms, al-Qaedas
members do not articulate before or after having been caught a political or
an ideological stand (most of AQ suspects keep silent or deny any
involvement during their trial, a very unusual attitude for political
militants, who traditionally transform their trial into a political tribune).
We should certainly not discard entirely the fact that some quarters in alQaeda are writing or thinking in terms of ideology, but this does not seem
to be the main motivation for joining al-Qaeda.
A third explanation puts alienation at the core of the radicalisation
process. There is certainly some truth in that, but the problem is how to
define alienation. The socio-economic definition (deprivation, poverty,
racism, social exclusion) is not supported by data. We find people from all
backgrounds in al-Qaeda: engineers, former drug-addicts, social workers ...
The fringes from where the radicals come are not socio-economic. Another
definition of alienation is based on the clash of cultures: the radicals
become violent because they are torn between two cultures.
This ethno-cultural approach is reflected in the association of
terrorism and crimes of honour under the label of Islam-related violence.
Notwithstanding the fact that crimes of honour are a paradoxical proof of
integration (they show that young Muslim girls no longer abide by
traditional rules), there is no correlation between them and political
radicalisation. Crimes of honour are always strictly connected with the
ethnic (and often tribal) background: perpetrators are mainly Anatolian
Turks (mostly Kurds) and rural Pakistanis, and involve very few North
Africans, urban Turks, or Arabs from the Near East. Except for Pakistanis,
there is no connection between the map of honour crimes and the map of
political radicalisation. Moreover honour crimes are an endeavour to
restore the integrity of the family or of the clan; they usually involve a
tight-knit family, where sons obey their parents. On the contrary, joining alQaeda is usually a posture of defiance towards parents and traditional
family. Matrimonial patterns among al-Qaeda members are relatively
modern: there is little difference in age between spouses, spouses choose
each other, one often marrying a convert or the sister of comrades in arms,
but never a cousin chosen by the family. In the group responsible for the
Madrid attack, Serhane Fakhet married his friend Mustapha Maymounis
sister in 2002. In France, Jamel Beghal married Johan Bontes half-sister.
Malika al Aroud, widow of Abdessatar Dahmane, the murderer of
commandant Masud in Afghanistan, is a good example: she previously

bore a daughter out of wedlock, married a Tunisian, while she was a
Moroccan-born Belgian; after the death of her husband, she married Moez
Garsalloui, a man younger than her, whom she met through the internet;
they live in Switzerland. While perfectly westernised (she writes and
speaks in French and does not know Arabic), she behaves as a modern
militant of a cause, but more as a dissident from inside the Western society
than as a representative of a traditional Muslim culture.
Clearly, pro-Al Qaedas radicalisation process is not linked with the
outspoken condemnation of Western sexual liberalisation that is pervasive
among conservative Muslim circles: homosexuality, co-education, sexual
promiscuity (swimming pools), specific teachings (sexual education,
biology) are never part of the agenda of al-Qaeda. Not to mention the fact
that this rejection of loose morality is also on the agenda of many nonMuslim religious communities. AQ recruits are not specifically puritanical
and often live or have lived the usual life of western teenagers.
3.
Al-Qaeda as a violent youth movement
In fact it is more productive to understand al-Qaeda in Europe as a youth

movement, which shares many factors with other forms of dissent, either
political (the ultra-left), or behavioural: the fascination for sudden suicidal
violence as illustrated by the paradigm of random shootings in schools (the
Columbine syndrome).
The generational dimension is obvious: most of the radicals have
broken with their families or become estranged. They define for themselves
what should be the principles of their lives. They never refer to traditions
or to traditional Islam, they dont mention fatwas from established clerics.
They act on an individual basis and outside the usual community bonds
(family, mosques and Islamic associations). They usually remain aloof from
the communal group. The group effect concerns the small group: the
process of radicalisation takes place in the framework of a small group of
friends (they knew each other before, used to have a common place of
meeting: campus, local neighbourhood, networks of petty delinquency,
etc). Many travelled together to Afghanistan. It is a movement of age
peers, not based on hierarchy.
A transversal approach (comparing youth violence among nonMuslims with al-Qaeda recruitment) sheds much light on the present
process of radicalisation among youth, and seems more fruitful than a
22 | OLIVIER ROY
vertical approach in terms of Islamic intellectual legacy (from the Koran to

Sayyid Qotb, through Ibn Taymiyya). Instead of looking vertically through
Muslim history and theology to explain al-Qaedas violence, one should
connect it to the general phenomena of radical violence among youth.
The leap to violence is not the result of a long process of
indoctrination and maturation. We have already noted the predominance
of activism on ideological and intellectual formation: there is a very short
time between religious re-conversion and passage to violent action.
Violence is at the core of the fascination for al-Qaeda.
We underline below three aspects of this transversal fascination for
violence.
i) The recasting of a traditional leftist anti-imperialism into Islamic terms
AQ is an avatar of the ultra-leftist radicalism. Its targets are the same as the
traditional targets of the ultra-left: US imperialism, symbols of
globalisation. When Bin Laden referred to Vietnam in his video speech of
September 2007, instead of quoting the Koran, he was in fact addressing an
audience more sensitive to the political dimension than to the religious one.
When AQ executed western hostages in Iraq, it staged the execution by
using the same mise en scne invented by the Red Brigades when they killed
Aldo Moro.
The continuity is indicated by the map of recruitment of radicals in
France. The map of radicalisation does not really fit with that of the Muslim
population. As expected, there are many radicals coming from the Parisian
suburbs, Lille/Roubaix/Tourcoing and Lyon, where there is a huge
Muslim population. But why are there so few radicals coming from
Grenoble and Marseille, where there is also a huge Muslim population?
There has been a tradition of leftist radicalism in the first three places
mentioned, which did not really exist in Marseille. Nevertheless Grenoble
was also a centre of the ultra-left (Maoists and Action Directe). Why are
there so few young Muslim radicals coming from Grenoble? In fact there is
a lot of violence related to second-generation Muslims in Grenoble, but it is
linked with organised crimes, not with the usual petty delinquency. The
issue of the link between Islamic radicalisation and youth delinquency,
although far from being systematic, should nevertheless be approached a
bit more in depth.
ii) A delinquent generation?

There is a clear connection between radicalisation and petty delinquency,
but not with high organised crime. Many radicals have a background of
drug addiction and delinquency. Jamal Ahmidan, a mastermind of the
Madrid bombings, was a drug dealer (and a womaniser); many of his
accomplices from Morocco were also delinquents. It is also a common
pattern for many converts, who have ambivalent feelings towards
conversion or a return to religious practice. On one hand, it is a way to
redeem oneself, but on the other hand, ties are not severed with the less
religious-minded former gang members, who are used to find money and
logistical support. It is well known that in European jails, secondgeneration Muslims are overrepresented and may constitute the absolute
majority of the inmates, which explains why jails are probably the best
recruiting field, including for converts. But on the other hand, it should be
kept in mind that Muslims are not responsible for the worst crimes: serial
killings, mafia-related murders and armed robberies are more often
perpetrated by whites than by Muslims. The generational phenomenon is
obvious in these differential patterns of delinquency. But the more secondgeneration Muslims are aging, the more they tend to integrate hard
delinquency, but this time at the expense of their political engagement.
This may have unexpected consequences. Paradoxically, the
formation of ethnic mafias used to be associated with integration, as
illustrated in the US during the first half of the 20th century. When secondgeneration migrants join organised crime, they are less tempted by political
radicalisation. If we go back to the example of Grenoble and Marseille, the
lack of political radicalisation may be linked with the rise of an ethnic
organised crime, where young (well, less and less!) North Africans are
involved: they are superseding the traditional Corsican and Italian gangs.
Grenoble is presently (2007-08) the scene of a high-level and bloody mafia
war involving second-generation North Africans: the field of potential
violence is taken by non-political forms of radicalisation. By contrast,
elsewhere in France, second-generation Muslims are more involved in
petty delinquency and thus remain in the floating margins of society. But
we should add a caveat: in all these sorts of deviant violence (organised
crimes, petty delinquency, terrorism), the involved groups are never
entirely ethnic: mixed ethnicity is a general pattern, although there is
usually a dominant ethnic pattern.
iii) Individual suicidal violence
24 | OLIVIER ROY
A third category of transversal violence is the sudden leap into suicidal

violence, as illustrated by the Columbine syndrome, i.e. the random killing
by a student of schoolmates and teachers in his school, before shooting
himself or being shot. There are many patterns in common with radical
terrorists: a possible history of drug addiction, a lack of social life, the
fabrication of a narrative through the internet, the recording of a video
before taking action, search for fame, use of the internet, the attribution of a
collective responsibility to the targeted random victims. In fact, the stress
put on al-Qaeda by politicians, media and public opinion is probably
concealing the increase of a more diluted phenomenon of youth terrorism
(as illustrated by radical animal defence groups). The figure of the lone
terrorist is more and more pervasive (as illustrated by the Frenchman who
almost killed himself while making bombs to blow up road radars in June
2008).
4.
Al-Qaeda and recruitment: The power of a narrative
But there remains a question: if there are common roots and patterns to
explain a phenomenon of generational violence that is pervasive in the
West, why do many youngsters choose jihad and not the other forms?
More precisely, why do some who choose political violence, instead of recreating ultra-leftist movements, join precisely al-Qaeda? It is because AQ
provides a powerful narrative.
Al Qaeda provides not so much an ideology as a narrative. The first
part of the narrative is the suffering of the ummah. But this ummah is a
virtual one: all crimes (depicted through gruesome videos) committed
against Muslims anywhere in the world are put on the same level. These
stories are not contextualised: the picture of a tortured man could come
from Bosnia, Chechnya or Kashmir. The ummah is presented as an
undifferentiated whole.
The second part of the narrative is centred on the individual who is
suddenly put in the situation of becoming a hero who would avenge the
sufferings of the community. It addresses an individual by combining
different elements:
x
Self-image: all personal humiliations or shortcomings are redeemed

by the act of terrorism. The death is staged as is the self itself (hence
the video, declaration, will, etc.).
Salvation and death: there could be only one definite action that will
turn the suicide bombers into a permanent icon; death is the definite
seal on the story, it is part of the story.
The third part of the narrative is the religious qotbist dimension,

which also plays its role here: jihad is a personal compulsory duty, the
vanguard of the ummah is made of a few outstanding and devoted heroes;
salvation is through sacrifice and death. Sources and authors who were
seen by the vertical view as of utmost importance make a comeback here:
occasional references to Ibn Taymiyya, Said Qotb or Palestine may be called
to illustrate the narrative. The narrative allows the would-be terrorist to
connect with history and religious genealogy.
But a fourth part of the narrative is less religious: it is the enactment
of the fight against the global order. To people not specifically motivated
by religion, al-Qaeda is the only organisation present on the market that
seems to be effective in confronting the evil that is the West. The fact that
AQ is constantly presented by Western leaders as the biggest threat gives
more value to the decision to join it. The narrative is substantiated by the
Western reaction to it.
Al Qaeda gives a meaning to the flow of information that comes from
the media, describing a world of violence, explosions, blood and wars. AlQaeda presents its action as some sort of a video game, where youngsters
can easily identify themselves as actors. al-Qaeda also makes use of the
dominant discourse on the clash of civilisation by inversing the values. It
fits with the division of the world into two competing principles, good and
evil. AQ plays on the mirror effect: we are what you say we are, that is your
worst enemy, and the proof is not what we do, but what you say.
With respect to these four dimensions of the narrative, it is clear that
al-Qaeda would not have such an impact without the amplification effect of
the media and without its constant assimilation with THE evil alternative
to civilisation.
De-radicalisation
The most effective way to combat terrorism is a combination of two levels:
one level employs traditional intelligence and legal techniques to trace and
neutralise cells and networks. But it is very difficult to prevent young guys
from suddenly leaping into violence who have previously shown no
inclination to do so. The very nature of AQ-related violence makes it
26 | OLIVIER ROY
difficult to pre-empt radical action. The second level would hence be to

destroy AQs narrative, that is, to de-legitimise it.
We should stop endorsing the mirror effect that is playing alongside
AQs words. As mentioned earlier, AQs main assertions are:
1)
AQ is the vanguard and the paroxysm of the Muslim wrath.
2)
Terrorists are heroes.
3)
AQ embodies radical Islam, or more precisely radically embodies

Islam.
To nullify the first statement, we should stop speaking of Muslims

through the lens of terrorism, and should establish a coherent long-term
process of integration of Islam as simply a religion in a Western context. To
destroy the second assertion, we should stress the real nature of the
radicals: not powerful devils, but petty and often unsuccessful delinquents,
in a word, losers, who have no future. And by the way, this image already
seems to be emerging: the repetitive dimension of AQs actions diminishes
their power of fascination and attraction; the fact that there are more
attempts that failed miserably (the attack on Glasgow airport, for example)
stresses the growing vacuity of terrorism. For the third element, we should
stop promoting good versus bad Islam, because it supports the idea that
AQ is a religious organisation. AQ is not a religious organisation; it is not
the armed branch of salafisme. And by the way, to promote good Islam
through governmental means is to give the kiss of death to liberal Muslim
thinkers. If AQ is a modern phenomenon and not the expression of
fundamentalist Islam, there is no point in promoting modern liberal Islam
against AQ. The process of secularisation or accommodation of Islam in the
West may take place, but to be successful it should be undertaken outside
the anti-terrorism framework.
We should address the other issues related to secondgeneration
Muslims (crimes of honour, salafisme) as they are, i.e. a socio-cultural
transition, and not as harbingers of terrorism. We should de-Islamise AQ
not demonise it as bad Islam. That is what secularism means.
3. IDEOLOGICAL AND THEOLOGICAL

FOUNDATIONS OF MUSLIM
RADICALISM IN FRANCE
SAMIR AMGHAR
ith nearly 5 million Muslims, France is home to more people of

Islamic faith than any other European country. The French
territory is regularly shaken by events relating to its Muslim
population. While the French public authorities worry about the risk of
terrorist attacks inspired by Islam, it appears that Islamic crises are
multiplying from the Muslim riots in 2005 and the development of the
re-Islamisation phenomena, to the threats made by al-Qaeda against
France. In the French public arena the Islamic threat, widely mediatised at
the time of the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, has taken
on a connotation of combat and revolution and become a synonym of
violence and terrorism. Yet, far from constituting a homogenous
movement, the Islamic threat is polymorphous. Islamic radicalism is
neither incarnated in, nor limited to, al-Qaeda. It is a composite,
heterogeneous movement based on the diverse projects (not always
coordinated) of autonomous organisations or individuals acting alone or in
small groups. As a circle of influence, it is both complex and continually
evolving. It covers a wide range of political sensibilities stretching from
religious radicalism, which is socially conservative and politically weak,
and of which the sphere of action is based on religious training, to jihadism,
which defends direct action, often with third-worldist overtones. Despite
their divergences, these different veins of the Islamic threat have something
in common: they have a direct impact on Muslim populations. In this
chapter, we document the different forms of radicalism in France, with a
view to understanding its permutations over the last 20 years, along with
the various motivations of the members and sympathisers of these diverse
forms.
| 27
28 | SAMIR AMGHAR
1.
Religious radicalism and sectarian groups
1.1
Three religious groups convey religious radicalism
Salafists
This movement was established in France at the beginning of the 1990s
through ex-militants of the Salafist wing of the Islamic Salvation Front
(Front islamique du salut, FIS) who were refugees in France, fleeing the
repression of the Algerian regime.1 In its initial phases, Salafism in France
was very strongly impregnated with the political issues and situation of
Algerian Islamism, particularly through the FIS. At the Tariq Ibn Ziyad
Mosque on Rue Myrrha in the 18th district of Paris, Abdelbaki Sahraoui, the
imam and vice president of the FIS, was strongly critical of the repressive
policies of the Algerian regime in his sermons at the Friday prayer services.
He was assassinated in 1995 by members of the Armed Islamic Group
(Groupes islamiques armies, GIA).
This first-generation Salafism, combining a spiritual mission with
political vision and revolutionary objectives was also represented by
Abdel-Hd Doudi, the current imam at the al-Sunna al-Kebira Mosque, on
the so-called international boulevard in Marseille. Graduating from the
University of al-Azhar at the beginning of the 1980s, Abdel-Hd Doudi
was also the brother-in-law of Moustapha Bouyali (the founder of the first
Algerian resistance movement in 1983) and the teacher of Ali Benhadj. He
belonged to the Algerian Salafist movement, which later became part of the
FIS at the beginning of the 1990s. He was sentenced to death by the
Algerian regime, and then to life imprisonment for his support of the
attacks led by his brother-in-law. But his sentence was later commuted to
life in prison. He arrived in France in 1987 with the consent of the Algerian
services, and was responsible for the introduction of the movement in the
region around Marseille and in the Parisian suburbs, especially in Nanterre.
Revolutionary vision, political perspective and religious rigour were
the characteristics of the Salafism of the 1990s. But, owing to the emergence
of the second generation of Muslims born in Europe and the international
evolutions of political Islam, it was progressively to become an actor in reIslamisation.
See S. Amghar, Les salafistes franais : une nouvelle aristocratie religieuse,
Maghreb-Machrek, No. 185, printemps-t 2005.
1
FOUNDATIONS OF MUSLIM RADICALISM IN FRANCE | 29
While in its initial stages, Salafism incarnated a form of religiosity

that was linked to a political and revolutionary vision impregnated with
the realities of Algerian politics. From the mid-1990s, however, it became
more and more an expression of social and political conservatism, distinct
from an obsession with the conquest of the state. This shift towards an
apolitical and pietist Salafism can be explained by two factors: the
marginalisation of political Salafism under Algerian influence and the
emergence of a new centre of influence in the Arabian Peninsula.2
Simultaneous with the decline of Algerian Salafism was the
development, from the mid-1990s, of a new centre of influence in Salafism,
stemming from Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula more broadly (the
dar al-hadith (Islamic university) in Dammaj in Yemen, under the direction
of Sheik Mqbil, the al-Albani centre in Amman and the sharia department
in Damascus). Within this framework, it was less a case of the decline of
Algerian Salafism than of the rise of Saudi Salafism. This shift was partly
owing to the policy of the Saudi royalty, who decided as early as the 1960s
to establish themselves as a religious superpower.3 The expansion of this
doctrine was essentially the work of proselytising by European students
returning from Saudi Islamic universities (and training centres in Yemen),
especially those in Medina. In France, it was thanks to the predication of
the first generations of European graduates who had gone to Saudi
Arabia to study theology that Saudi Salafism gained a foothold on the
Continent.4 This was the case for example of Abdelkader Bouziane, who
was behind the development of the movement in the region around Lyon.
Before becoming an imam in various mosques in the Rhne-Alpes region of
France in the 1990s, he spent two years in Medina studying Islam with
Salafist theologians. It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia has three Islamic
2 Saudi Arabia played a central role, but countries like Jordan where Sheik Nassir
ud-dn al-Albani lived, and Yemen, with Sheik Mqbil ibn Hadi, also contributed
to the spread of Salafism in Europe and in France.
See S. Amghar, Islam de France et acteurs internationaux, Politique trangre,

No. 1, 2005. Numerous pro-Saudi international institutions were created and the
Muslim World League (Rabitat al-islamiyya al-alamiyya), created in 1963, is one of
the largest Saudi institutions to participate in the expansion of Salafism in the
world.
This is true of Reunion, for example. Salafism is present through two mosques,
the imams of which were educated at the University of Medina.
30 | SAMIR AMGHAR
universities (Medina, Riyadh and Mecca), although non-Saudi foreigners

may only study in Medina. Numerous French students are attracted by the
quality and reputation of the Saudi teaching as well as the scholarships on
offer.
Moreover, encouraged by certain French students, religious teachers
of a Salafist persuasion came to France from Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Jordan.
Sheik Abdel Salam al-Bourjis (a disciple of the former mufti of Saudi
Arabia) or Sheik Muhammed Bazmoul, who was Egyptian and a professor
at the University of Mecca, participated in several religious conferences in
France (as well as in Belgium, the UK and the US). Until 2001, a pious form
of Salafism developed and was successful in France, especially with the
arrival of Saudi teachers. Mosques were built (or taken over), and there was
even talk of setting up an axis of Salafism in France. There were roughly 20
Salafist cultural centres in France (Marseille, Paris, Lyon, Roubaix, Valence,
Romans-sur-Isre, Aix-en-Provence, Stains, etc.) that organised many
events. Every year since 1998, a large Salafist convention has been
organised in the Parisian suburbs by a middle-aged Dutchman named
Yacoub Leenen, who now lives in Saudi Arabia and directs a publishing
house that translates works from Arabic into French. In 2001, this gathering
attracted close to 1,000 participants from all over France, but also from
Germany. Following the attacks of 11 September 2001, the French police
authorities decided to limit the development of the movement they saw as
being behind the terrorist attacks perpetrated against the West, particularly
as Salafism was beginning to develop internationally and establish an
organisational structure. Salafist sheiks were therefore refused entry to
France; a Salafist convention to be held in June 2001 was suspended and the
theologians who had come to address it were arrested at the Charles de
Gaulle airport and sent back to their countries. Moreover, numerous imams
were expelled or placed under surveillance. The imam who was behind the
introduction of Salafism in Lyon, Abdelkader Bouziane, was sent back to
Algeria for misogynist imprecations. The imam of the mosque in
Argenteuil, Ali Yashar, of Iraqi origin, was dismissed; he now lives under
surveillance in the region of Lozre.
Ahbch
Originating in Lebanon, this movement was founded by Sheik Abdallah alHabachi in the 1950s before developing in France in the 1990s. The
movement developed thanks to the proselytism of students from Lebanon
studying in France. In 1988, a young science student of Lebanese origin,
Khaled al-Zanat, created an association in Montpellier. In that town, the

Ahbch controlled a 400-seat mosque in a converted abbey: the al-Tawba
Mosque. Simultaneously, in Paris, an Ahbch activist network was set up
by a Lebanese computer scientist named Tamim Abdelnasser. In 1991, he
co-founded the Association for Islamic Charity (Association bienfaisance
islamique, AIB). With the arrival of the leader of this movement, Sheik alHabachi, in 1996, the Parisian leaders decided to federate all these
associations to create the French division of the Ahbch: the Association for
Islamic Charity Projects in France (lAssociation des projets de bienfaisance
islamique en France, APBIF). In this new structure, the Lebanese members
(notably Khaled al-Zanat in Montpellier, Walid Dabbous5 in Nice and
Tamim Abdelnasser in Paris) formed the ideological and administrative
backbone, although they were surrounded by young persons from Muslim
immigrant families (from north and sub-Saharan Africa). The group has 20
or so centres at its disposal (in Saint-Etienne, Saint-Dizier, Nice, etc.), which
are particularly well anchored in the south of France (Narbonne, Perpignan
and Avignon) and in Paris, where they have a 300-seat mosque. Very
dynamic, the movement has opened a number of places of Islamic teaching
and learning as well places of worship over the last few years (in Marseille,
Toulouse, Lyon, Strasbourg and Als). As a place of postulation, France is
of strategic interest for the Ahbch because the French Muslim community
is the largest in Western Europe; indeed, it is larger than the Muslim
population of Lebanon. As proof of the particular attention paid to French
Muslims, Sheik al-Habachi (who died in September 2008) came regularly to
France, as did the president of the Lebanese branch, Houssam Qaraqira
(himself married to a French woman who is also a member of the
movement).
Tabligh
This movement was founded by Muhammad Ilyas in 1927, in Mewat in
India, then under British administration. Responding to a desire to reIslamise the local populations that he judged only superficially Islamised,
Walid Dabbous is currently president of the French branch of the Ahbch, the
APBIF. Having arrived in France in the mid-1990s to study, he graduated with a
Doctorate in Computer Science. The author of numerous articles, he is currently a
researcher at the National Institute of Research in Technology and Computer
Science.
5
32 | SAMIR AMGHAR
the founder of this movement sought to preserve Indian Islamic identity

through religious postulation, and protect it from what he saw as the
dangers of the English presence and Hindu hegemony. Before establishing
itself in France, the movement had a significant impact on the entire Indian
sub-continent, such that many individuals were converted or re-Islamised
through contact with the proselytism of the Tabligh.
In 1944, upon the death of the founder, Ilyass son decided to
internationalise the movement by taking its proselytising beyond the
borders of the Indian sub-continent and setting up permanent missions
throughout the world. At the beginning of the 1950s, the movement settled
on the pilgrimage routes in the Middle East and in East Africa. In the 1960s,
it spread to West Africa and South East Asia. In the space of a few years,
the Tabligh became a religious multinational, following the example of the
Muslim Brotherhood. Wherever it is found, the organisation operates a
policy of systematic management of the Islamic domain through the control
or the construction of mosques, and through the numerous preaching
activities that it organises. The internationalisation of the movement, which
led to its presence in a number of countries, was the response of its leaders
to their desire to spread the universal message of Islam, following the logic
of proselytism. At the end of the 1940s, when the movement reached its
peak on the sub-continent, it was also a matter of ensuring the continued
development of the organisation by not hesitating to recruit in other parts
of the world. Indeed, even at that time, there was a high turnover in the
structure of the organisation: many of those who were re-Islamised through
contact with the Tabligh left it after a certain number of years. In this
context, it became vital for a movement as structured as this one was to
find new populations to seduce in order to ensure the continuation of the
movement.
In the 1960s, the movement was also established in the UK through
the Indo-Pakistani population, and it then increasingly turned towards
Europe as a new land of postulation. Thus it was that the early Tabligh
missions emerged at the same time as immigrants from the sub-continent
settled in the UK. The leaders of the movement set up their European
centre in Dewsbury in Yorkshire. They then spread to France in 1968
following a mission run by Pakistani preachers operating with immigrant
workers, in what is probably the oldest re-Islamisation movement in
France. Under the authority of Sheik Hammami, the movement was
officially established in 1972 with the creation of the Muslim association
Faith and Practice (Foi et Pratique). Not long afterwards, the movement
founded the mosque of Abou Bakr on the boulevard Belleville in Paris, in

1973. The mosque can hold 800 faithful and is one of the largest in the
capital. Other mosques were created (in Mantes la Jolie, Creil,
Goussainville, Le Mans, Rouen, Lyon, Toulouse, Marseille, Roubaix, etc.).
In the middle of the 1980s, the movement underwent a crisis as a
result of an internal conflict, when the authority of the charismatic figure of
Sheik Hammami was contested. Under the instigation of a young Lebanese
man, a dissident association was set up called Tabligh wa daoua ila llah.
In 1985, it organised a large gathering in Lille. Despite being a new
association, it managed to draw a certain number of the founding members
of the Tabligh and the auspices of Indo-Pakistani leaders into its wake. At
the end of the 1980s, this association had become the official representative
of the movement in France. Its leaders founded their French centre in SaintDenis in the Parisian suburbs, where they could accommodate close to 500
faithful. Faith and Practice and Tabligh wa daoua ila llah control roughly
50 places of worship in France (Marseille, Saint-Denis, Dreux, Montereau,
Mulhouse, etc.). In spite of having few mosques under their authority, the
influence of the Tabligh extends beyond these places of worship. Indeed, a
non-negligible number of first-generation immigrants were re-Islamised
through the predication of the Tabligh. Today, many of those in this first
generation are imams or leaders of independent mosques and even those
who are no longer official members of the Tabligh maintain friendly
relations with Tabligh missionaries. Thus, Tabligh missionaries are
authorised to preach in certain mosques. For example, in the mosque
cathedral in Evry-Courcouronne, the rector Khalid Merroun (himself a
former member of the Tabligh) regularly hosts Tabligh meetings. In Sens, a
town of 30,000 residents, Tabligh missionaries from Auxerre preach with
the agreement of the managers of the mosque.
1.2
The content of the radicalism of these movements
These movements set up a sort of safety barrier between their militants

and society, between a community that is conceived of as pure and French
society that is seen as corrupt. This endows the movement with a number
of the features that are characteristic of a sect in the sense that the German
sociologists Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber6 understood it. These
See E. Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of Christian Churches, Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1931.
34 | SAMIR AMGHAR
movements developed a negative attitude towards France:7 they did not

recognise the dominant values of society as legitimate. Indifferent to
projects of social reform or to the political solutions to social problems
even when they concern Muslims these movements have all the qualities
of pietist sects as defined by the sociologist of religions, Bryan R. Wilson.8
Proponents of these movements prefer to withdraw from the world in
order to bask in the self-assurance of their own personal sanctity and the
feeling of belonging to a chosen people. They are opposed to all forms of
political participation in French society by Muslim populations, on the
pretext that such participation is contrary to Islam. Democracy is thus
assimilated into a form of associationism (shirk), which gives way to heresy
because French ministers legislate in the name of values that are not those
of sharia, and which occasionally even contravene Islamic norms such as
the 2004 law on the wearing of religious symbols at school. In France, they
defend the idea of reticence, bordering on indifference, with regard to
official politics, even when the debates concern French Muslims. During
the demonstrations against the proposed law banning religious symbols at
school that were organised by Muslim associations in December 2003 and
January 2004, members of these movements were rare among the several
thousand participants, according to personal observations. More recently,
in 2005 and 2006, the demonstrations organised in support of Lebanon
during the Israeli bombing or against the cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammed did not attract many Salafist or Tabligh participants. Along
these lines, Salafist websites encouraged individuals to refrain from
participating in these gatherings. The conspicuous absence of these
movements from these marches, which contrasted with the presence of
militants and sympathisers close to the Muslim Brotherhood, should be
interpreted as a form of generalised indifference to the questions of
citizenship and foreign policy that affect Muslims in France and the Arab
world. In the words of one Salafist from the Parisian suburbs, when there
are demonstrations by Muslims to defend other Muslims, my brothers and
I never go along. We shouldnt use Western methods to make our voices
7 See M.E. Marty, Sects and Cults, Annals of American Academy of Political and
Social Science, No. 332, November 1960, pp. 125-134.
8 See B.R. Wilson, Typologie des sectes dans une perspective dynamique et
comparative, Archives des sciences sociales des religions, Vol. 16, 1963, p. 58.
heard. I dont want to mix Islam up with the politics of the French. The
[s]heiks tell us not to go. 9
For these movements, Islam is thus above political parties and issues.
Consequently, the Muslim religion cannot be restrained through
negotiation with the state, which implies that questions of secularism
(lacit) do not concern them. Their interpretation of religious faith as being
based on the primacy of Islam over all other systems especially secular
ones prevents them from considering themselves actors in a non-Muslim
political system. Participation implies recognising an identical status
between social questions and Islamic ones. An Ahbch in Paris stated: If I
demonstrate or sign petitions or if I vote, its as though Im putting Islam,
the best of religious and the best of humanity, in with the political baseness
of the French. Never in my life! I prefer to do nothing. In any case, thats
not how you should act.10
Although the Salafists, the Tabligh or even the Ahbch are perceived
by the French authorities as just a step away from violent action, one
cannot help but notice that they do not constitute a vector of political
radicalisation in the name of Islam even if they are very critical of France.
This form of religiosity is opposed to any form of political engagement in
the name of Islam. Lacking in any will to involve themselves in French
society and without a political project other than messianic expectation
(with no immediate implications), they defend an apolitical and nonviolent vision of Islam. This is founded on a desire to organise all of their
existence around the advice of their religious leaders.
Out of fear of fitna [division] and anarchy, they advocate the noncontestation of political authority, even when the power is in the hands of
non-Muslims. The Salafist preacher Sheik al-Albani, who was of Syrian
origin and who died in 1999, argued that the only solution to the problems
of Muslims was not the Islamisation of the state but what he called altasfiyatu wa-tarbiyya: the purification of education. On the one hand, this
suggests the purification of the Muslim religion from all the forms of
innovation that have marred its precepts and dogmas, in order to return
to the original religion such as it was conveyed to the Prophet. On the other
hand, it implies educating Muslims so that they conform to this purified
9
Derived from an interview with Abdelkrim, aged 19, Paris, 23 February 2004.
10
Derived from an interview with Abdelkader, aged 34, Paris, 25 February 2004.
36 | SAMIR AMGHAR
religion and leave behind their bad habits. Persuaded of the inevitability of
Allahs reign on earth, they deem that the establishment of Koranic law will
follow a number of stages. Through education, they aim at creating an
Islamic consciousness, and through predication at provoking a total
reversal of the social hierarchical organisation of the world that will leave
them collectively dominant. Hence, they are waiting for a future social and
political revolution, as only then will the return of the true Islam lead to the
emergence of a social movement that will allow the development of an
Islamic state. 11
Still, are these movements as apolitical and as pious as they pretend?
It seems clear that the relations they maintain with the public sphere are
not based on a strictly religious vision of Islam. Their discourse is in many
ways very politically charged. In the Arab world, the appearance of
neutrality presented by these movements with regard to political life
conceals their support for the regimes in place.12 In Lebanon, the Ahbch
benefited from the support of the Syrian regime in exchange for the
movements defending pro-Syrian positions. In Algeria, President
Abdelazziz Bouteflika encouraged the development of Salafism to combat
the development of jihadist Salafism. He institutionalised and
operationalised many actors within this movement, and in Algeria, an
exponential growth of this form of Salafism has been observed. From
Algiers to Constantine and Bjaa, Salafism has become the primary reIslamisation movement in the country, well ahead of the Muslim Brothers
and the Sufi Brotherhood. Although the Saudi theologians advocate a pious
vision of Islam, they openly support the monarchy, which they consider the
best guarantee of Islamic values and the national cohesion of the country. A
young person becoming Salafist reproduces the ideological positions of the
Salafist clerics in France, and thus s/he also becomes pro-Saudi. One young
person who has turned to Salafism told us that
See S. Amghar, Le salafisme en France : de la rvolution islamique la

rvolution conservatrice, Critique internationale, no. 40, aot-juillet 2008.
11
Algerian Salafist preachers have always supported the Algerian regime and this
is particularly true of that of Abdelazziz Bouteflika, who encouraged the
development of the movement. Even the Saudi Sheik Uthaymin, before his death
in 2001, had been the object of praise by the Algerian president for his policy of
national reconciliation, through his civil agreement.
12
Saudi Arabia is a magnificent country. Ive never been but one day,
God-willing, Ill go. Its magnificent, its a country that defends
Muslims throughout the world in contempt of the West. When you
see documentaries on TV on Saudi Arabia that show how its a
bizarre society or that its corrupt, its just propaganda and
manipulation by journalists. Saudi Arabia is the land of Muslims, is
my country in a way, if I can say that. 13
In this context, the numerous French youth who embrace Salafism

constitute a loyal client network that is uncritical with regard to Saudi
Arabia. Through these Salafist theologians, the Saudi monarchy facilitates
the greater visibility of Saudi foreign policy by portraying themselves as a
patron of European Muslims while simultaneously discrediting the
demands of certain Islamists for a more equitable repartition of oil revenue.
A young French person wishing to study in Saudi Arabia will often benefit
from scholarships and lodgings from the Saudi authorities. This strategy
enables Saudi Arabia to inscribe itself in the minds of the French Salafists as
the only religious and political power that benefits European Muslims.
Through their pro-Saudi position, the Salafists contribute to maintaining
the symbolic influence of that country in the construction of an ideological
and religious zone of influence. Eventually, the objective is to defend the
national and strategic interests of the Saudi kingdom through the
promotion of a vision of Islam that is favourable to Saudi Arabia.
While in the Arab world they have developed a form of loyalty and
established non-conflictual relations with the authorities, in France these
movements represent a powerful critical voice vis--vis the political system.
Both their preachers and the Arab world more broadly rail regularly
against the political, moral and social values of France. Salafists encourage
the faithful to leave France, which they consider a land of kufr
[unbelievers], for a Muslim country. They condemned the 2005 law on the
wearing of ostentatious religious symbols at school. Although this
discourse might lead young Salafists to refuse the examination of their
wives by a male doctor or to physically threaten an imam whom they
consider too conciliatory in his attitudes towards France, the trend tends
simply to be avoidance. Salafists or Tabligh members have a tendency to
flee from contact that might lead to clashes. Instead of continuing to go to
13
Derived from an interview with Nadir, aged 27, 28 May 2003, Saint Denis.
38 | SAMIR AMGHAR
the mosque of an imam of whom he is critical, a Salafist or a Tabligh

member will move to a place of worship that better corresponds to his
religious and ideological expectations. Rather than accompanying his wife
to a hospital where he knows a male doctor will examine her, he will opt
for a clinic where he can choose the doctor.
Yet, neither their verbal violence towards France, nor their orthodox
conception of Islam should be taken as the prelude to an engagement in
jihad (even if this was the case in the 1990s). On the contrary, this form of
religious radicalism and the anti-French tirades of its militants act as a sort
of safety valve that diverts the militants from direct action. Hence,
violence is no longer necessary. Moreover, the Salafists, the Tabligh and the
Ahbch living in France continue to affirm that they respect the laws in
force in their host country. According to them, they do not call for violence
and rebellion each time their movement is accused of terrorism. A Salafist
in the Lyon region explained to us that the minhaj salafi [Salafism] has
nothing to do with terrorism. The expectations of Salafists, the real ones,
are never attained. The Sheiks teach us peace and good behaviour. It
annoys me that Salafism is confused with terrorism. 14
2.
Politico-religious radicalism (jihadism)
Since 2002, a hundred activists have been jailed in the fight against
terrorism, according to the figures given to members of parliament by the
then Minister of the Interior Nicholas Sarkozy on 23 November 2005.
Actions of the French security services included the neutralisation of a
Chechen group in the suburbs of Lyon and Paris in 2002, the dismantling
of Farid Benyettous group in the 19th district of Paris in January 2005, and
the identification and arrest of volunteers leaving for Iraq in 2005. There
were also arrests of militants associated with the Salafist Group for
Preaching and Combat (Groupe salafiste pour la prdication et le combat,
GSPC), in September 2005 in the Yvelines. This armed Algerian
movement has been directed by Saf Bourrada, himself already associated
with the 1995 bombings in Paris.
As noted earlier, far from representing a homogenous and wellstructured trend, the politico-religious radicalism of these movements is
made up of several tendencies and sensibilities. It stems from a composite,
14
Derived from an interview with Jamel, age 23, 3l March 2004, Vnissieux.
heterogeneous group, based on the diverse projects (not always

coordinated) of individuals acting alone or in small groups, or of
autonomous organisations. A trend that is both complex and evolving, it
covers a large spectrum of political sensibilities. From the different
examples of Islamic-inspired terrorism that can be seen in France, we can
identify three types of radical or jihadist mobilisations of a politicoreligious persuasion. We should also emphasise the great diversity of
positions within this form of radicalism.
2.1
Islamo-nationalist radicalism: The construction of an Islamic state

or a caliphate in immigrants countries of origin
The first trend among these movements that can be seen in France concerns
groups that seek to conquer power in order to establish an Islamic state
(dawla islamiyya) in their countries of origin. Many organisations follow this
kind of jihad, such as the GIA, the Takfir wal hijra (Anathema and Exile),
and the GSPC, of which some members distinguished themselves in
Afghanistan. Before it developed its terrorist actions in Algeria, the armed
violence of the GIA struck French residents in Algeria. Shortly after the
attacks, foreign residents were instructed to leave the country on pain of
execution.15 On the 24th of December 1994, the GIA struck outside Algeria: a
commando hijacked an aeroplane leaving from Algiers, with the apparent
intention of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower. Because of its colonial past,
France appeared to be a scapegoat on which the jihadists of the GIA pinned
the responsibility for Algerias woes. These actions were designed to
demonstrate that the Algerian state was not capable of ensuring the
security of those whom it was supposed to be protecting, to make an
impact on public opinion internationally and to make Western
governments question the appropriateness of their support for the Algerian
government. Because of their link to the problems of Algerian politics,
these structures are principally composed of persons of Algerian origin,
including some who were members or sympathisers of the FIS, such as
Mohamed Chalabi. They also include new immigrants, such as Chellali
Benchellali, and young persons of immigrant origin, such as Khaled Kelkal
and Jamel Beghal. In 1995, the GIA organised a series of bomb attacks in
the stations at Saint-Michel and Maison-Blanche in Paris. In 1998, to
The first foreign victims were French: land surveyors killed in Sidi Bel-Abbs on
the 18th of October 1993.
15
40 | SAMIR AMGHAR
prevent possible attacks during the football World Cup, a hundred

members of the GIA were arrested. On the 11th of June 1999, by way of a
threatening letter to the press, the GIA announced a jihad on French
territory.
Expressing the return to a former political order that was perceived
as ideal, these movements are prone to seeking Islamisation of the state by
force. Often incarnating the most radical of the different currents of
Islamism, this form of radicalism is the product of both state repression in
the countries of origin and deception born of the vote-catching strategies of
Islamism. Its central core is often composed of former mujahideen fighters
who had joined the Islamist opposition in their own countries at the end of
the war in Afghanistan. Within the Islamist opposition in Muslim
countries, these militants were allied with those groups that had the most
experience with political strategies. This form of radicalism believes that
the jihad constitutes the only instrument capable of Islamising the state and
then society if the political option does not work. Faced with state
repression and the closure of the political sphere, the partisans of this
movement encourage the whole Islamist movement and the wider
population to take arms and rise up against the state. Considered the only
obstacle to the establishment of an Islamic regime, the state is accused of
taghut.16 The urgency is thus placed on the mobilisation of combatants
rather than on the political strategies of the Islamists, who are criticised for
having negated the effects of an Islamic revolution. Although they
continually attack political Islam, of which they are extremely critical, this
movement does consider its objectives in line with those of the Islamists:
the establishment of an Islamic state.
The terrorist attacks became progressively more frequent. Fearing for
the political stability of the region, France acted by multiplying its
declarations of support and its supply of material aid to the Arab
governments. In fact, France was concerned that the insurrectionist
rationale of the jihadists would bring the Islamists to power. The jihadists
saw France as being a barrier to the establishment of the Islamic state, in
Taghut is the name that the Islamists give the state. In the jihadist vocabulary, it
means tyrant, oppressor and false god worshipped out of fear. See L. Martinez,
Le cheminement de la violence islamiste en Algrie, Critique internationale, no. 20,
juillet 2003.
16
cohort with the authoritarian regimes that curb the Islamic revolution.
From then on, the jihadists sought to convince France to withdraw its
support for the Arab regimes and particularly Algeria by direct action.
France was not directly targeted but the attacks were seen as a way of
destabilising and then overthrowing the regimes in the various countries of
origin. The aim was to export the political crises of these countries into
France to the 5 million or so Muslims residing there.
Embodying an important anti-colonial message, this form of
radicalism accused France, a former colonial power, of having designs on
the economic, cultural and political domination of the region and of
continuing to support the Arab regimes. In these countries, this accusation
was accompanied by violent action directed against political, economic and
military personnel seen as being the manifestation of the state structure.
Advancing the idea of the destruction of all non-Islamic authority and the
rejection of the order of things, this form of jihadism assumes an anarchist
and nihilistic dimension. The dominant figure of this jihadist militancy is
that of the mujahideen. The jihadist Salafists consider themselves
combatants for justice who are fighting for a legitimate cause: the
construction of the Islamic state that is to precede the coming of divine
justice on earth. This feeling of fighting for a noble cause is reinforced by
certain religious authorities who authorise this type of jihad, whereas
others, without explicitly legitimising it, do so by not condemning it.17
Moreover, they believe that they have the support of Muslim communities
in Europe, of whom they consider themselves the representatives. In
polarising the attention of the masses through their actions, their objective
is to awaken the popular consciousness of Muslims in Europe.
2.2
The politico-religious radicalism of al-Qaeda: Fighting American

imperialism
Many organisations claim to belong to the same kind of jihadist Salafism as

the Gang of Roubaix. In 1995, Christophe Caze and Lionel Dumont, two
French converts, went to Bosnia with friends of Algerian origin to fight
against the Serbs. When they returned to France, they embarked on
recruiting their friends and did not stop until they had convinced all of
Youssouf al-Qardawi never condemned this kind of jihad. See M. el Oifi, La
guerre en Algrie vue du monde arabe: le cas de la chane satellitaire dal Jazeera,
Pouvoirs, No. 86, Le Seuil, 1998.
17
42 | SAMIR AMGHAR
them to take part in the jihad in Bosnia. The following year they launched a
number of attacks in the north of France, against businesses and armoured
vans to collect funds to finance the jihad, before they were shot by police.
Several years later, in 2002, another group of a dozen or so individuals was
arrested in the suburbs around Lyon. The police suspected them of
preparing terrorist attacks against France. This group was organised
around the Benchellali family, of Algerian origin, of which the father was
an imam in the working-class area of Minguettes. Just before 1990, he
created a humanitarian association called Openness (Ouverture) with a
friend who was a nurse. These two men collected funds, medicine and
supplies for the Chechen cause. They went regularly to Bosnia in a truck
carrying humanitarian aid. On one of these trips in 1993, Benchellali was
captured by the Croatians, who suspected him of being an Islamic soldier.
He was released some months later, after undergoing torture. His son, on
the other hand, left with some friends for Chechnya to fight the Russian
army.
This form of radicalism is incarnated for the most part by al-Qaeda,
and all the organisational structures that have set up allegiances with it in
France, such as the GSPC. These are organisations that originally operated
within a nationalist paradigm (often Algerian nationalism), and which are
now reorienting their activism according to the jihadist ideology advanced
by al-Qaeda. This recycling of the Algerian jihadists into the al-Qaeda
network is explained by the strong links between those who are active in
France and the members of Osama bin Ladens organisation. In many
cases, the Algerian jihadists first took up arms in the war in Afghanistan.
Moreover, there was a lack of well-known Algerian spiritual guides some
of whom had been assassinated, such as Mohammed Sad capable of
influencing the ideological direction of the jihad in Algeria. This lack led
the Algerian jihadists to turn to leaders of other nationalities, who were
also active in other forms of jihad and often moved by internationalist
visions. Finally, the pressure for security by the Algerian army and the
French secret services led the Algerian emirs to reconsider their strategy
and find another ideology for the fight. It was thus that in 1998, the emir of
the GSPC, Hassan Hattab, swore allegiance to the World Islamic Front for
Jihad against Jews and Crusaders, created by Osama bin Laden.
Although the terrorist attacks perpetrated by the first form of jihadist
radicalism are part of a process of extending the activism of Islamonationalist radical movements in foreign countries, the violent action of the
second kind of jihadist mobilisation is no longer an imported reality. It now
concerns French (European) residents and draws on an anti-imperialist

Islamised discourse, fed by the questions of Palestine and Iraq, as well as
the question of discrimination in France.18 The combat is now of a different
nature. Whereas the first form of jihadist radicalism aimed at seizing power
and establishing an Islamic state in a given country, the second form is part
of a larger confrontation with the enemies of the resolutely transnational
Islamic community (umma). Contrary to the first kind of mobilisation,
which had a nationalist dimension, the second is part of an international
rationale that sanctions the transfer of the oppositional struggles in the
Arab world to the international scene. Several factors are behind the
emergence of this kind of violent radicalism. Faced with police action from
the secret services, the lack of success in mobilising Muslim populations
living in France (as well as in Europe) in support of insurrection, and
incapable of changing the foreign policy of Western countries in their
support of Arab regimes threatened with Islamic terrorism, this form of
Islamo-nationalist jihadism has progressively reoriented itself towards
international networks. The enemy is ever less specific countries that
support Arab states and ever more the new world order dominated by the
US, the government of which makes demonstrative use of Christian
religious references. Even if the choice of targets remains the same, the
reasons for targeting them have changed. Unlike the first type of jihadism,
in which the criticism of France was part of an anti-colonialist rationale, the
second is characterised by its anti-imperialist dimension. The globalisation
of American power is increasingly answered by the internationalisation
and the re-territorialisation of armed combat.19 According to its supporters,
the universal battle must set in opposition a coalition composed of jihadist
movements from the different lands of Islam and a clearly defined enemy
Western countries such as France and the US (the latter being the principle
enemy to be defeated).
While the first form of jihad followed a political logic of negotiation
by violence aimed at pressuring states and eventually overthrowing them,
See the report by the International Crisis Group, La France face lislam :
meutes, jihadisme et dpolitisation, Brussels, March 2006.
18
See F. Burgat, La gnration al-Qada. Les courants islamistes entre

dnominateur commun identitaire et internationalisation de la rsistance
islamique, Mouvements, no. 36, novembre-dcembre 2004, p. 84.
19
44 | SAMIR AMGHAR
the second form of jihad does not seek to negotiate or compromise but
annihilate the opposition. Motivated by an extremist logic, their action
seeks neither to change political power relations nor to overthrow the
regime but to upset the social order profoundly. The combatant feels
compelled by a mission: saving an endangered Islam and the project of an
Islamic state is merely a necessary utopia that serves to maintain a tension
that liberates bellicose energy. From that point on, violence is understood
as a sacrifice cloaked with meta-political significance. Indeed, jihadist
violence has risen above politics to become a vector of meaning that gives it
an air of intransigence, of non-negotiability and the religious impact of
absolutism. This is de-territorialised violence, beyond borders, and the
issues that it targets are so vital to its militants that they are willing to
sacrifice their very existence for them.
Although it is not in the logic of political negotiation, this is not
apolitical violence: the political elements of its objectives are just associated
and subordinated to other goals, defined in cultural and religious terms,
which will suffer no concession. This violence is about identities, which is
foreign to the political sphere. This jihadist militantism applies the sectarian
disqualification to those it means to fight: Muslims, who in their eyes are
not sufficiently Muslim, as well as Jews and Christians. Faced with another
Muslim, the rhetoric of takfir [excommunication] is mobilised to deny the
adversary the guarantees of legitimate belonging. Faced with a nonMuslim, the person is disqualified through recourse to the identity of the
unbeliever (kufr). Whereas the first kind of radicalism is aimed against the
taghut state, the second form of radicalism is aimed at the society that is
accused of impiousness. Excommunication, takfir, is the response in this
case. The movement holds that the society is in the jahiliyya (a period
before the Islamic divine revelation) and the combatant is not regarded as
noble (as a jihadist would normally be), but as a pure figure in a sullied
world. The jihadist militant is no longer a mujhid [warrior of the holy war]
but a shahid [martyr]. In this kind of jihad, the repertoire of action in
combat is not taken from the guerrilla logics of bombing and so forth, but
from that of suicide attacks. The objective is not to set up an Islamic state
but to create hell on this world for all those who, for one reason or another,
are not considered Muslim.20
20
See O. Roy, Lislamisme mondialis, Paris: Seuil, 2002.
The first form of jihad found the justification to overthrow the state in
certain fatwas, approved by some of the Muslim population who saw
democratic virtues in the holy war. The second form, however, is
unanimously condemned by the entire body of Muslim theologians and
Muslim populations of Europe. Thus, the day after the attacks in New York
on 11 September 2001 and after the attacks in Madrid on 11 March 2004, the
religious authorities of Islam in both the West and the Muslim world
condemned these acts, which according to them had nothing to do with
Islam. It is worth noting that some of these clerics simultaneously justified
the first form of radicalism.
Stemming from a feeling of belonging to the global umma, and not
being linked to any country of origin, the defenders of this kind of jihad
take little account of nationalities and national reasoning. This movement is
transnational because the networks have become global and intertwined
with the international operators of jihadism. This undoubtedly explains the
diverse national origins among these jihadists, compared with those of the
first category, and their recognition of themselves more easily in
internationalist claims. Therefore, compared with the first form of jihad in
which there was an over-representation of persons of Algerian origin, this
second form of jihadist radicalism mobilises individuals of different origins
(e.g. Moroccans and Tunisians). This jihad also facilitates the conversion of
French-born members, the centrepiece of the jihadist operation in France
since 1995 and an increasingly important one. These new networks evolve
in a de-territorialised imaginary space.
2.3
Radicalism mobilising the defence of Muslims agenda
The third movement of jihadist radicalism does not seek to fight against
Jews and Crusaders by direct action and the use of violence, nor does its
action seek the establishment of an Islamic state and society, as it is not
concerned with the question of dawla islamiyya. The jihad actually waged
by this group aims at defending and supporting Muslim populations
whose territorial, political and physical integrity is threatened by foreign
powers. For its members, the use of violence is legitimate if it is consecrated
to the defence of Muslims put in danger by non-Muslim armies. In the
name of transnational Islamic solidarity, they have an obligation to provide
military and financial assistance to their brothers in arms, in the defence of
dar al-Islam and in maintaining the cohesion of an imaginary umma.
Within the logic of patriotism and Islamic independence, this jihadist
radicalism takes the form of a national war of liberation, in mobilising a
46 | SAMIR AMGHAR
sovereigntist discourse.21 Comparing himself with the International

Brigade, a jihadist told us during an interview that we are for the jihad in
Iraq or anywhere because our brothers are in mortal danger. We want to
defend them and France doesnt understand, even though some French
people did the same thing in the 1930s to defend the Spanish democrats
against the dictator Franco. Therefore, while the dominant figure of the
second type of jihadism is that of the kamikaze, the third type is
characterised by the figure of the mhtal or the mndil [resistance fighter]
or the mqatil al-oumma [the fighter of the umma] fighting against
occupation. They consider themselves the protectors of Islamic unity and
fight to save the morality and piety of Muslims who could no longer live
their Islamic way of life under the occupation of impious armies. These
jihadists wage a sacred war to defend a sacred nation, a belief that
reinforces in their mind their feeling of performing a higher task. Contrary
to the kamikaze, death is not the goal of these jihadists, but rather military
victory against the occupying armies. This is what constitutes the ultimate
objective of this form of jihad. It is heavily marked by mythologised stories
of a war in which the Afghans threw rocks at the [S]oviet tanks and made
them explode, where an army of mountain people defeated the most
powerful army in the world, according to one former soldier who today
runs a Koranic school in Paris. He suggests that this holy war is part of a
logic of negotiation by force: to cause the opposing army to capitulate so
that it leaves dar al-Islam. The soldiers of the opposing armies are
undoubtedly deemed impious but this religious disqualification is only
relevant in the context of the war.
The jihad does not happen in the West; instead, it is deployed in all
the conflict zones in which Muslims and non-Muslims are in opposition
(Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, Afghanistan and Iraq). Although these
jihadists are very critical of the West and they condemn its bellicose politics
towards Muslim countries, this movement maintains peaceful relations
with Europe. It draws a parallel between the situations of Muslims in war
against foreign armies where it is necessary to go and fight on the one
This support operates on several levels: first, it involves the collection of funds to
help Muslim populations that are victims of war to buy weapons; second, the aim
is to gain media coverage for the conflict to facilitate the exchange of opinions.
Finally, this logistical support is complimented by the sending of militia troops to
join national forces.
21
hand, and on the other hand the conditions of Muslims in Europe who,
although they are subject to discriminations, are not threatened militarily
by the armies of the Old World. Farid Benyettou told us, before he was
arrested for having been behind the Iraqi group, that
France is a country of unbelievers. I dont like this country. It
doesnt respect Muslims, there is discrimination and Islamophobia.
We must fight in France to defend Muslims but we must do so by
legal means. We must turn democracy against France. But we must
not use arms or lay bombs. France has not declared war on us.
It is thus that he demonstrated (peacefully) against the American
military intervention in Iraq in March of 2003. To the question of which
Muslim country he would choose in order to live his Islam fully, he replied
You think Im going to say Saudi Arabia, Yemen or Algeria. These are not
countries that are benevolent towards Islam. I would choose the United
Kingdom or the United States. There they respect Muslims and I could be
active in the defence of the Muslims of the world. Whereas the jihadists of
the second group live their engagement as a deviance and a social
transgression that is punishable by the security forces, the third category is
convinced of the legitimacy of its cause. This feeling is all the stronger for
the fact that Arab countries tolerate imams who rail against non-Muslim
armies that attack impious Muslims, to take the words of a religious
leader and public servant during a Friday service in an Algerian city. In the
eyes of these jihadists, this holy war is all the more legitimate because it
benefits from the support of Muslim populations living in Europe (but also
in the Muslim world) and has the backing of theologians. In fact,
theologians encourage their followers through numerous fatwas to go and
fight the impious armies that are attacking Muslims. From Youssouf alQardawi to the Salafist theologians in Saudi Arabia, they all justify this
jihad, considering it an act of rightful defence and resistance. Because
armed combat is part of the defence of the umma, the ethnic origin of the
jihadist combatants is highly variable as was the case for the second group.
As such, we find young persons of different origins (e.g. Moroccan and
Tunisian) as well as converts in this group. The core of this third group,
however, remains of Algerian origin (Benchellali, Benyettou and Fateh
Kamel).
48 | SAMIR AMGHAR
3.
Secular political radicalism
This kind of radicalism or radicalisation is carried out by political groups

and individuals of Muslim origin who do not incorporate a religious
argument into their radical position. Their rhetoric is based on secular
politics. It is in the name of political and ideological values that the
partisans of this form of radicalism attempt to defend their position by
force. This concerns groups such as those involved in the urban riots in the
French suburbs in November and December 2005, and extreme left, rap
groups.
The riots in the suburbs are the first form of this a-religious political
radicalisation. This violence can be analysed as the eruption of an
accumulated tension from daily frustrations and general annoyance about
economic difficulties and precarious living conditions, the absence of
opportunities, the perceived contempt of the political class, discrimination
in housing, work and daily life, and so forth. For others, they were also
witness to the general unhappiness over the policies of Nicolas Sarkozy.
Most of the early acts of vandalism were spontaneous and isolated
movements of idle youth in the streets among the housing estates. These
acts then became veritable riots, notably involving direct combat with the
riot squad. The riots were sparked by the death of two young men who
were being chased by the police in Clichy-sous-Bois in the Parisian
suburbs. They were also clearly the product of a yearning to break with
what was seen as a repressive situation, linked to the inflationary security
policies that had been in force in these areas for many years (Minguettes in
1983, Vaulx-en-Velin near Lyon in 1990, the suburbs north of Marseille and
riots in the suburbs in November and December 2005). More than through
the temptation of jihadism, it is through popular revolt that political claims
are made when the citizenship structures are lacking.
The blaze in the suburbs at the end of 2005 was an episode without
religious content or actors. In spite of a number of attempts to bring calm to
the situation, the Muslim organisations did not play the role of social
regulator expected of them. This showed that Muslim actors do not
organise the riots, nor do the neighbourhoods, although sometimes they
are active in the latter on a local level. These riots were manifestly the result
of a desire to fight against an order perceived as authoritarian and
repressive, especially stemming from the security policy in place in these
areas since 2002.
This movement is part of a demand for social recognition, through

the use of violence. In choosing to attack institutions, it is the state that is
targeted for its shortcomings, e.g. the police for its repression, the bus
stations because of geographical isolation and schools because they
reproduce social failure.
The second element within this radical mobilisation is rap music. Part of
the French rap scene aims at being radical. Its messages are provocative and
seem to signify a desire for rupture, often by violence. In thematic compilations
(e.g. Patrimoine du ghetto, 2005; Yzo, 2005; Prison, 2005) or through
albums of groups such as Sniper, Bakar or Mdine, the rappers point the
finger at those guilty for social misery and exclusion. Among the accused,
the state is represented as an oppressive machine, of which the armed
presence is the police, the number one enemy. Constant identity checks,
blunders, arbitrary arrests and so on, lead rappers to think of the police as
an organised gang. Behind their critique of the institution of the police
force, the state is incriminated, accused according to a vision of the world
that resembles a conspiracy theory. Below are some extracts of their songs:
For the kids with hands of vengeance
To burn the police state and send
The Republic to burn at the same stake, yeah...
Why are we waitin to screw up their game,
Why are we waitin to not play by their rules
(What are we waiting for?, NTM)
Fuck the system; theyll get fire cos they spread hate
Burn them, hang them, throw them in the Seine
The youth of the ghetto have rage in their veins
Gotta break the chains
(The System, Sniper)
Despite the dimension of extreme protest calling for an insurrectional

uprising, these texts essentially play a role in channelling that violence. The
violence expressed in these texts has a cathartic effect on rappers and the
youth who listen to this music.
The third group that defends the idea of secular political violence
concerns individuals belonging to movements on the extreme left. In the
1960s, there were already signs that small groups on the extreme left were
50 | SAMIR AMGHAR
trying to organise Muslim immigrant workers. Other structures for

students of Middle-Eastern origin (e.g. Lebanese and Pakistani) who were
close to the national liberation movements occupied themselves with
radical political activities (political assassinations and hostages). Today, the
Islamic extreme left is principally incarnated by the Movement for
Immigration and the Suburbs (Mouvement de limmigration et des
banlieues, MIB), which regroups former Maoists and uses direct action
against discrimination in the legal system and against police violence, of
which youth in the suburbs are often the victims.
Conclusions
The forms of radicalism among the Muslim populations in France are
multiple and varied. To overplay the religious variable would prevent us
from seeing the great plasticity of the phenomena of radicalisation. Political
violence can take its source from religious justifications, or religious
references can impede radicalisation, or Islam is absent altogether, even
though the radicalism is practised by Muslims. Beyond this, it is necessary
to recognise that all these different forms of radicalism are the product of
experiences of injustice and exclusion, which can be directly linked to
realities on the ground or to the political trauma of young persons having
known delinquency and homelessness, personal failure, long-term
unemployment and so on.
Yet, the link between Muslim populations and radicalism cannot be
reduced to an economic equation in which poverty is the common
denominator. It seems more likely to be the inadequacies of social and
political regulation that is a problem, along with the lack of recognition,
contempt and the great wall in the words of Khaled Kelkal22 (one of the
perpetrators of the terrorist attacks in 1995) separating the estates where
most of Frances Muslims live and the rest of the towns.
22
See the article, Moi, Khaled Kelkal, Le Monde, 7 Octobre 1995.
4. POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS AND ETHNIC

RADICALISATION AMONG MUSLIMS
IN BELGIUM
THEODOROS KOUTROUBAS, WARD VLOEBERGHS

& ZEYNEP YANASMAYAN
ere we to believe alarmist reports on Islam in Belgium, such as

that of the Dutch journalist Arthur van Amerongen, a major
terrorist attack against Brussels is only a matter of time.1 A bit
further away from Europes capital, other journalists keep announcing the
imminent introduction of the sharia in Flemish municipalities,2 who
trembled some years ago at the prospect of Muslim patrols antagonising
the police. Responsible for the security of the several international
institutions established on its soil and eager to avoid a repetition of the
terrorist attacks experienced by other states, the Belgian authorities in fact
already take such threats seriously. In December 2007, following the receipt
of intelligence reports of an alleged plot to liberate Tunisian-born al-Qaedarelated convict Nizar Trabelsi, extraordinary measures were adopted in
See for example the interviews of Arthur van Amerongen in Knack, Aanslag in
Brussel is kwestie van tijd (Attack on Brussels is matter of time), 8 August 2007
and in De Morgen, De islam woekert hier als een roos op een mestvaalt (Islam
thrives here like a rose on a dung heap), 27 January 2008. A Dutch journalist, Mr
van Amerongen claims to have infiltrated Brussels Moroccan Islamist circles and to
have lived among them during a whole year, an experience he chronicles in a book
Brussel: Eurabia, published by Uitgeverij Atlas (Amsterdam) in February 2008.
2 See Ooit wordt de sharia hier ingevoerd (One day, the sharia will be introduced
here), Knack, 12 March 2008.
| 51
52 | KOUTROUBAS, VLOEBERGHS & YANASMAYAN
order to protect the capital from an imminent threat.3 Some months

afterwards, in May 2008, the Moroccan authorities announced the
dismantlement of a small Islamist group, based in their country but
involving a Belgian resident Moroccan as well, allegedly aiming at
bombing buildings of the European Commission in Brussels.4
Notwithstanding the accuracy of such information, both its impact
and the frequency with which it occurs prove at least that there is a broad
perception of the Muslim community5 of Belgium as being increasingly
radicalised.
Whether or not this perception is accurate is of course a matter for
debate, as several other observers seem to refute such an evolution,
pointing rather towards the emergence of a distinctively Belgian or
European Islam, well integrated in the Western cultural values.6
What is clear, however, is that the time is past when it was sufficient
that issues relating to this community could be successfully managed or
so it seemed by a handful of charismatic mayors and personalities
responsible for areas with a high concentration of Turkish and North
African populations.7 Individuals with leadership and vision can certainly
See for example Le Soir, 22 December 2007, La menace terroriste sous le sapin de
Nol (The terrorist threat under the Christmas tree). Fourteen persons were
arrested in relation to this alleged plot, only to be released two days afterwards for
insufficient
proof
(Le
Soir,
24-25
December
2007).
See
also
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2007/12/22/01003-20071222ARTFIG00126alerte-antiterroriste-a-bruxelles-.php
3
See for example Le Soir, 19-20 May 2008 (also in http://www.lesoir.be/actualite/

belgique/demantelement-d-un-reseau-2008-05-19-599389.shtml
The term is used here to describe both believers in Islam and persons coming
from a Muslim cultural background.
5
See e.g. La Libre Belgique, Lislam sintgre bien chez nous (Islam is well
integrated among us), 12 March 2008. Also see Felice Dassetto, Brigitte Marchal
and Silvio Ferrari, Islam in the European Union: Whats at stake in the future?, study
prepared for the European Parliament (IP/B/CULT/ST/2006_061), May 2007 (PE
390.031).
6
Such as for example former mayors such as Guy Cudell of Sint Joost ten Node or
the Socialist Partys heavyweight Philippe Moureaux of Molenbeek St Jean. To a
less successful extent, the same applies to the city of Antwerp, with figures such as
Bob Cools and, more recently and more efficiently, Antwerps mayor, Patrick
7
RADICALISATION AMONG MUSLIMS IN BELGIUM | 53
still produce good work, but with only 54 of the at least 333 mosques
operating legally in Belgium, it is obvious that more carefully designed,
long-term efforts are needed.8
In this paper, we propose to discuss a number of different types of
radicalisation that have been observed among persons of Islamic faith or
culture in Belgium, highlighting the conflicts it has caused or it could
become the cause of. Of course, the authors are well aware that there are
numerous other issues, completely unrelated to the presence of a Muslim
community, that can cause conflict at a micro level in Belgium.
1.
Political radicalisation
1.1
The countrys political context
Religion has never been absent from Belgiums political life. Since its
declaration of independence from the Netherlands in 1830, the small
country has in fact almost always counted a Christian party amongst the
components of its successive coalition governments, whilst the consensual
model that still characterises the countrys governance is based on a
perpetually renewed balance between the Catholic (Socio-Christian), the
Liberal (originally strongly linked to Free-Masonry and rather anti-clerical)
and the Socialist political families. At the same time, the Belgian royal
family, whose constitutional powers and influence continue to be quite
important, has never made a secret of its strong links with the Roman
Catholic Church. Thus, issues such as the financing of faith-based schools
or the legalisation of abortion, have become landmarks in the history of the
lengthy and subtle negotiations that Belgian politicians are famous for,
with inventive solutions of compromise assuring every time the
continuation of internal peace and the stability of the regime.
Notwithstanding how difficult and sometimes divisive such issues might
have been, it is interesting to point out that, neither these nor the everpresent grievances and rivalries between the Flemish North and the
Wallonian South have caused any serious violent conflict in the land. This
tradition of non-violent co-existence between people of different
Janssens. On the impact of Cudell, see F. Dassetto, Immigrs et communes. Equilibres
difficiles. Le cas de Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia, 1991.
De Standaard, Vlaanderen erkent moskeen (Flanders recognises mosques), 2223 December 2007, pp. 14-15.
convictions, culture, faiths or language is still a major source of pride

amongst Belgians.
As is the case in most countries of Western Europe, the last 20 years
have witnessed a progress of secularism in the Belgian society. By the mid2000s, the once rather conservative country was amongst the first countries
to legalise marriage between same-sex persons and euthanasia with a
broad consensus. With the numbers constantly diminishing of those
regularly attending church services, joining the clergy or baptising their
children, the two Christian parties have begun to play down their RomanCatholic identity, putting forward a humanistic profile and vocally
dissociating themselves from Vatican guidelines on moral issues.
This period also witnessed the emergence of a growing involvement
of Muslims and other persons coming from an Islamic cultural background
in Belgian politics, first at the local and then at the regional and the federal
levels. Most of these citizens were of Moroccan or Turkish origin whilst
Algeria and Tunisia constituted respectively their third and fourth source.9
The access of citizens of foreign origin to elected office was far from being a
taboo in the country at the time Muslims started becoming interesting
potential candidates for political parties.10 Despite common beliefs that
religious practice and values are higher among citizens hailing (or having
parents who hail) from predominantly Muslim countries,11 it is the
traditionally agnostic and morally liberal Socialist Party (both in the South
and in the North of the country) that seems to take the biggest share of their
vote and counts most of those elected within their ranks. It is interesting to
note that during all recent debates and votes on legislation strongly rejected
by the official representatives of the most organised religions recognised by
the Belgian state,12 Muslim members and officials of political parties have
Open Society Institute, EU Monitoring and Advocacy Programme, Muslims in the
EU: Cities Report Belgium, Preliminary research report and literature survey, 2007.
10 An example amongst many others, Dr. Elio di Rupo, a son of Italian immigrants,
who has occupied several ministerial seats including the position of Vice-Prime
Minister, and was Minister-President of Wallonia in the 2000s. Dr. di Rupo is
currently the President of the French-speaking Socialist Party (PS).
11 According to the preliminary research report of the Open Society Institute, op.
cit., there is a lack of academic knowledge regarding religious practice and beliefs
among Muslims in Belgium.
12 Islam has this status since 1974.
9
chosen not to differentiate themselves from party lines (at least openly),
even when those lines where clearly opposed to the opinions of their
communitys religious leaders.
In the pages to come, we are going to discuss the attempts of some of
the members of Belgiums Muslim community to establish Islamic or
community-based political parties, their discourse and the tensions they
have or could create.
1.2
Islamic political parties
The first attempt to set up an Islamic political party in Belgium took place
in Flanders, with the creation of the Moslim Volkspartij van Brussel en
Vlaanderen in 1992. The party never submitted a list to elections at any
level and was rather quickly disbanded.
More organised than the leaders of the Moslim Volkspartij, Mr.
Redouane Ahrouch has founded Noor Le Parti Islamique in 1999. The
party, self-defined as an Islamic movement, was created out of concern for
the fact that the Jewish / Christian values are no longer the foundations of
the political orientations that have determined the future for all over the
centuries and with the belief that religion provides the solution for the
problems society is facing.
Its short manifesto, figuring in the initial page of what is a very basic
(six pages only), non-interactive website (http://noor.ovh.org), uses a
discourse often proposed by radical religious groups/movements of all
denominations. The partys programme, distributed in mailboxes during
electoral campaigns, contains 40 points, presented as simple headlines with
no further explanation. A small number of these points express ideas that
do seem radical in the current Belgian socio-political context, such as the
re-establishment of capital punishment,13 or the promise to favour
marriage in adolescence. Other points address concerns common to
several religious-minded voters such as the real protection of the family,
the struggle against alcoholism, smoking, drugs and debauchery or the
need to render divorce more difficult.
The author makes it precise: for odious crimes (murders of innocents)

(http://noor.ovh.org/Franais/program.htm).
13
Most of the programme, however, seems to contain promises

obviously aimed at pleasing voters in a country with a high level of
taxation (abolition of the VAT, the tax on work, etc.).
Absent from the federal elections of June 2007, Noor, which didnt
manage to get more than 0.02% of the votes in those of 2003, seems today
almost dismantled. Initially designed to contain pages in French, Dutch,
Arabic and Turkish, its website was, in May 2008, unavailable in most
languages and it was obvious that no updating had been done for a long
time. No activity of the party was mentioned in the countrys written,
electronic or radio-televised press for the last two years, thus rendering its
visibility almost non-existent.
Noors (rather discreet) existence did not prevent the Belgian convert
to Islam, Jean-Franois Abdullah Bastin, to found, together with another
group of converts and Muslims coming from Muslim families, the Parti
Citoyennet Prosperit (PCP) in 2003.
The party became quickly visible thanks to its active opposition to the
ban of the Islamic scarf or hijab in school premises by an institute of
secondary education in one of Brussels municipalities (Laeken), and its
vocal defence of the female students who defied that decision. The
interdiction of wearing the hijab during school hours, adopted by several
other schools in Brussels and Wallonia during the years 200304 became
indeed an issue of tension and controversy in Belgium at that time, and
PCPs militancy did bear fruit in the federal elections of 2003. The (new)
party, which had presented lists only in the Brussels-Halle-Vilvorde
district, scored a mere 0.13% at the national level. It did however manage to
obtain almost 3% of the vote in a number of the capitals communities with
a high percentage of Muslim population,14 thanks to a programme
including a lot of specifically Islamic proposals, such as the right of
Muslim women to wear the Islamic scarf both in class and in their identity
card picture, the inclusion of halal menus in school cantinas, the creation of
Islamic cemeteries, etc.
Considered to be radical because of its founders often controversial
statements (discussed later in this paper) the party was nevertheless
declaring that it does not contest the legitimacy of the government or any
democratically constituted authority in the country and explicitly
14
See, for example, Le Monde diplomatique, June 2004.
denounced any terrorist activity, any armed or violent expression of a

religious, ideological or political revendication.
Almost one year after PCPs foundation, Jean-Franois Abdullah
Bastin has resigned from membership denouncing the partys sectarian
and arrogant re-orientation of its ideology by its spiritual guide, Sheikh
Bassam Ayachi. A few months after his departure, Citoyennet et
Prosperit took part in the June 2004 elections for the regional government
of Brussels-Capital, realising a score of 3.281 votes, or 0.84% of the Frenchspeaking electorate with a list including an important number of new
Muslims (converts to Islam).
By May 2008 however, this party was also all but extinct according to
all indications: it did not present lists for the June 2006 federal elections, it
had no presence on the web and in the media and no activity was reported
even in those of the capitals municipalities that used to constitute its
stronghold.
Last in the list of inactive Muslim political parties in Belgium, the
ephemeral Moslim Democratische Partij was founded by the then leader of
the Arab European League (AEL), Dyab Abou Jahjah, in an effort to
translate the Leagues alleged popularity among youths of Arabic origin in
Flanders into elected representation at the local, regional and federal levels.
An advocate of Arab nationalism,15 Abou Jahjah had already
participated in the federal elections of 2003 as a candidate of the far left
coalition RESIST obtaining 0.90% of the vote in the city of Antwerp,
headquarters of AEL. Given the rather non-religious political discourse of
the League (to be discussed in the following pages) and its (very) secular
political allies within RESIST (the Parti du Travail de Belgique), the choice
of Muslim as an adjective describing the nature of the new party was
rather surprising, and is certainly characteristic of a tendency among
Muslim candidates (and not only) to often confuse religious affiliation
with national origin in order to serve their agendas. Anyhow and despite
its founders hopes,16 the Moslim Democratische Partij got worse results
See
his
lengthy
interview
to
the
Open
Democracy
(http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/article_1908.jsp).
15
In his interview to the Open Democracy, op. cit., Abou Jahjah was predicting
that the new party would grow so much that by 2006 it would be able to have a
higher vote and perhaps win one or two representatives in city hall.
16
than RESIST in Flanders (Antwerp and East Flanders) at the regional

elections of 2004 (0.27% in Antwerp and 0.14% in East Flanders) and is now
completely disbanded.
The only Islamic party really active in Belgium by May 2008, when
this chapter was written, was the Parti Jeunes Musulmans (PJM), founded
in 2004 by Jean-Franois Abdullah Bastin after his resignation from the
PCP. PJM considers itself to be the party of all Muslims and of all the
generations that have definitively turned the page of colonialism and
humiliations and according to its statutes conceives its activities in total
harmony with the rules of democracy and the applying legislation in the
Kingdom of Belgium .17
Much like Noor and several other radical Christian political
movements in Europe, the party deplores a world that has banished the
sacred in a stupid and dangerous way and calls upon all men and
women of good will who (are) scandalised by the programmed
disappearance of every moral sense.18 Like its predecessor, the PCP, PJM
also supports the right of Muslims to wear the hijab in schools, insist upon
halal menus in cantinas, have holidays during Islamic feasts and be
educated in religious schools respectful of the principle of separation
between the sexes. At the same time, it pleads for the right of parents to
have the ultimate choice on all activities proposed to their children in the
framework of their school curriculum (including, for example, museum
visits) and promises a free of charge and less West-centred compulsory
education.19
Its allegiance to the rules of democracy and the Belgian laws seem
however much less sincere after a careful study of the ideas proposed in its
website. When presenting the democratic nature of the party, for example,
the authors of the electronic portal of PJM admit that the latter plays the
game (of democracy)respects scrupulously its rules but this does not
prevent it from promoting another game, another form of governance,
more elaborate, more appropriate to the destiny of Muslims, of Islam, of
humanity in general and whose rules are not fixed by men but by God.
When the day will come, it will stand up from the table of the game, along
17
http://www.mvjm.be
18
See the Statutes of the party, updated June 2006, on its website, op. cit.
19
Op. cit., Enseignement.
with all the Muslims who have played beside it in the most civilized
manner, it will thank its hosts and it will re-join its country (its State).20
Some (web)pages further, state that the party its objective is obviously, in
no way to install an Islamic State in Belgium, only to observe immediately
afterwards that it is perfectly conscious of the fact that the Muslims cannot
live but elsewhere, and in due time, when God shall decide, (there will be)
an Islam integrally re-established in its original authenticity, in a really
Islamic and independent State, perfectly respectful of and respected by the
other States of the international community.21
At the same time, PJMs leaders are often using in public a
provocative discourse, likely to raise tensions or create conflict both within
the community they have pleaded to defend and between the different
components of Belgian society. As an example, during the time of the 2007
electoral campaign, the partys chairman, Mr Bastin, has caused significant
controversy by declaring in an interview with TV Brussel that there is a
Muslim party and thus all Muslims must defend their party..., claiming
that all learned men of Islam and not only the Salafistshave condemned
in the most explicit way as being haram all Muslim votes for a non-Islamic
party where the possibility of that choice exists.22 Bastin often uses an
ironic, aggressive and bitter tone, against those Muslims who do not
support his party and have denounced his politics and discourse as being
un-Islamic, challenging the sincerity of his conversion. His attitude is not
very different from that of many of PJM representatives who often
participate in public debates on issues relating to religion and secularism,
and defend their views in an aggressive way. Their reports published
afterwards in http://www.mvjm.be are all but polite towards those who
express different ideas.23
20
Op. cit., Parti Dmocrate.
21
Op. cit., Etat islamique.
Lettre ouverte Monsieur Jean-Franois Abdullah Bastin, Parti Jeunes

Musulmans and Rponse de Abdullah Bastin la lettre ouverte de Salim
Haouach, op. cit.
22
23 See, for example, in the page Le PJM y tait the partys coverage of the
conference on the issue, La lacit, rampart contre les intgrismes le racisme,
lantismitisme, la misogyny et lhomophobie, organised in Brussels in December
Aggressive campaigning didnt succeed, however, to raise PJMs

popularity. Despite being the only Islamic party competing in the latest
federal elections (with candidates in the district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvorde
like the PCP four years before) the Young Muslims obtained a mere 0.07%
of the vote at the national level. Their score was even inferior to that of the
PCP in 2003 (0.13%),24 when Mr Bastin was still the leader of Citizenship
and Prosperity.
Born to parents of Belgian origin (his father was a University
professor), PJMs chairman has become a familiar and rather picturesque
figure in Belgian households thanks (at least partially) to his oriental dress,
headgear and long beard, that constitute a striking antithesis with the
western clothing of almost all politicians with Arabic or Turkish origin in
the country. The later often point out the important presence of converts in
PJMs lists (5 out of 14 candidates in 2007), as well as Bastins own origins,
in order to contest his right to represent a Muslim community still quite
divided along ethnic lines. The verbal vehemence with which Mr Bastin
usually attacks his coreligionist political opponents have made him
persona non grata in numerous manifestations on community-related
issues and in several mosques.25 Last but not least, his active support to
radical Christian organisations at the time of the discussion of the law
opening adoption to same-sex couples in Belgium earned PJM a reputation
of extreme right-wing movement. It is interesting to note here that some of
these organisations, like Belgique et Chrtient26 do not hesitate to use a
strong anti-Muslim discourse in their defence of the countrys Christian
roots, in spite of their alliance with the PJM against the destruction of the
last ramparts of civilisation.27
Often a cause of (micro)tension mostly within the Muslim
community, the Parti Jeunes Musulmans did not appear to have the
2005 by the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and Secular Jewish Community
Centre (CCLJ).
See the comparative results of the 2003 and 2007 federal elections in the Belgian
governments federal web portal (http://polling2007.belgium.be/fr/cha/results/
results_graph_etop.html).
24
25
See, as an example, his own complaints in his answer to Salim Haouach, op. cit.
26
See http://www.bechrist.be
27
See the Marche pour la Famille page in the PJM website, op. cit.
potential for the creation of serious conflict or violence between

communities in Belgium at the time these lines were written. As the
electoral results demonstrate, its influence was diminishing among voters
and its presence in the media seemed to be more due to its leaders dress
code than to the partys real importance. PJMs radical discourse however,
and especially the parts relating to a future Islamic State to be founded on
an unidentified space, can be used as a weapon by the countrys extreme
right-wing parties which are constantly growing in popularity in the North.
Not really a political party, but important enough to make the
headlines of the international press, Malika El-Aroud, a Belgian of
Moroccan origin, spouse of the Tunisian Abdessatar Dahmane and one of
the assassins of Afghanistans anti-Taliban leader, Ahmad Chah Massoud,
is also worth mentioning here. Viewed as the Belgian woman who wages war
for al-Qaeda on the web,28 Ms El-Aroun is managing to successfully
manipulate Belgiums legal requirements on e-publishing in order to
diffuse particularly heinous discourse against the West and to overtly
encourage terrorist activities, rallying, notably, Muslim women to support
them.29 Allegedly unwilling to arrest her in order to avoid attracting further
publicity around her name,30 the Belgian authorities are closely monitoring
her actions. At the time these lines were written, a serious study on the
impact of El-Arouds message amongst the population of Islamic culture or
faith in Belgium was yet to be carried out.
1.3
Non-religious political radicalisation
The Arab-European League (AEL)

Founded in 2000 by Dyab Abou Jahjah, the Arab-European League defines
itself as a political and social movement that stands for the Rights of the
Arab and Muslim communities in Europe and the Arab causes in general.
.31 The movement, which proclaims that it also stands for solidarity with
all Muslim peoples and communities and all the oppressed peoples of the
world, declares that its members objective is to abide and strive for 19
See for example the International Herald Tribune, 27 May
(http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/27/europe/terror.php?page=2).
28
29
See for example http://minbar-sos.com/
30
See Le Monde, 17 June 2008.
31
See its website (http://www.arabeuropean.org).
2008
principles and goals, 6 of which concern the Arab Diaspora and 13 the Arab
world in general.
The goals of the League regarding Arabs in Europe are not radically
different from those of many an immigrant-friendly political party or NGO
in modern-day Belgium. AEL pleads in fact for the right of Arab
immigrants to cultivate their cultural identity while engaging actively as
European citizens in the countries of residence, with equal rights and
treatment, and vows to combat racism, Islamophobia, discrimination in
the fields of employment, housing and education, as well as attempts to
breach their freedom of expression, religion, religious practice or any other
of their human rights.
It is however the Arab Nation, and not so much its Diaspora in
Europe, that seems to be the target of the movements manifesto. AELs 13
declarations towards the Arab world are in fact nothing less than a
project for the creation of an Empire, redrafting the current map in order
to give birth to the Unity of the Arab people in one democratic federal
State. (points 7 & 8). The Leagues vision includes a whole constitution for
its ideal future Arab homeland, the borders of which would extend from
the Atlantic to Iran. Political freedom, freedom of expression, social rights,
eradication of poverty, measures against the concentration of power
including the field of the media, rights for linguistic minorities, internal
autonomy for the provinces of Rif, Sous and Kabilya, no detail has been
left out from the movements ambitious plan!
The son of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, Abou Jahjah calls
for a secular State that will also respect religious diversity provide all
individuals and groups the freedom to practice their religion (and) grant its
citizens the protection in order to be able of changing religion, or practicing
no religion at all without being persecuted or discriminated. (point 11).
Despite that, and probably for historical reasons or in order not to
completely alienate religious-minded from potential AEL membership, the
movement affirms that the Arab Constitution will refer to Islam as the
Religion of the Arab State. It is obvious however that we are here far away
from the PJMs imaginative future Islamic realm. For the League in fact,
democracy is the only acceptable system of government and has links to
the Arab tradition. In that context, AEL makes clear its disapproval of the
current Arab regimes albeit falling short from openly denouncing them
(point 6).
These ambitious declarations of intentions would have certainly not

justified the classification of the Arab-European League among the
examples, of political radicalisation within Belgiums Muslim
community,32 if it werent for the discourse and activities with which it has
chosen to promote its goals, and, of course, for its attitude regarding the
State of Israel. Already in the fourth point of its declarations of intentions,
the movement defines itself as an anti-colonial and anti-Zionist
organisation. Point 6 becomes even more explicit: We reject the Zionist
project in Palestine and we call for the dismantling of the Zionist entity and
the establishing of a united Palestinian democratic state in all historical
Palestine. The terminology of the League is very close to that often used
by the Hamas, or the Hizbullah, even if Abou Jahjahs movement does not
(at least officially) wish to see the entire Jewish population extinct from an
historical Palestine but rather calls for an Arab state where Arabs and
Jews can coexist peacefully enjoying equal rights without any
discrimination..
With an important part of its activities in Belgium concentrated in the
city of Antwerp, which also serves as a traditional centre of the countrys
orthodox Jewish community, the absence of tensions between the latter and
the Arab-European League would have been indeed a surprise. In April
2002, the AEL made its debut in the Belgian media by organising a proPalestinian demonstration close to Antwerps Jewish neighbourhood.
Condemned by the citys union of mosques, the event degenerated into
violence and soon Dyab Abou Jahjah became a household figure in a
context marked by the growing popularity of the openly anti-immigrant,
far-right-wing party Vlaams Blok in Flanders.33 It was one of this partys
MPs, Filip Dewinter, who triggered the event that gave the movement a
visibility without precedent in Belgian annals. A confidential note of the
police, announcing an intensification of controls towards youths of
Moroccan origin, was in fact transmitted to the Flemish press by the
extremist parliamentarian, who was obviously aiming at raising intercommunity tension in order to serve his partys scaremongering goals. AEL
reacted almost immediately by announcing the creation of Arab squads
The term Muslim community of Belgium signifies here not only the believers in
Islam but all those who have origins in countries where Islam is the dominant
religion and/or cultural tradition.
32
33
See Le Soir, 23-24 November 2002.
composed of young men who would patrol the city with cameras in order
to monitor police excesses against Antwerps (mainly North African) Arab
community. The appearance of the first AEL patrols (dressed in black) on
the streets of the Flemish metropolis caused a wave of outrage among all
Belgian political parties, greatly increasing the perceived importance of
what was in reality a group with no more than 800 members (according to
its own estimations).34 A dreadful coincidence, the assassination of a
Moroccan-born young schoolteacher by a 66-year-old pensioner (described
as being mentally unstable by the prosecutors) just days after the setting up
of the patrols, pushed Antwerp into at least two days of violent riots in
which the League played a prominent role. Accusing the AEL of
attempting to create areas of no-go for the police, the authorities arrested
Abou Jahjah, charging him with conspiracy to cause disorder, whilst PrimeMinister Guy Verhofstadt was announcing an investigation on his
movement and the Parliament was debating how to handle the affair.35
Eventually, the unrest in Flanderss biggest city calmed down, no
incriminating evidence was found regarding AELs finances nor any links
to terrorist groups (a suspicion initiated, again, by the Vlaams Blok,
nowadays re-named Vlaams Belang) and Dyab Abou Jahjah was released36
with a brand new reputation as Belgiums Malcolm X37 and a storm of
invitations for interviews by media from all over Europe. In the years that
followed, the League and its President have fully exploited their prestige as
champions of the immigrant youths cause, establishing a strong branch in
BBC News was referring to Abou Jahjah at the time as Belgiums Arab Leader
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2529683.stm).
35 To get an idea of how these events were covered by the Belgian and international
media, see for example Le Soir of 23-24 November 2002, op. cit., La Libre Belgique
(http://www.lalibre.be/index.php?view=article&art_id=90032
and http://www.lalibre.be/index.php?view=article&art_id=92644), De Standaard
(http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail.aspx?artikelId=DST21112002_008&wor
d=Dyab+Abou+Jahjah),
or BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2526895.stm,
and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2522987.stm)
36 His trial for these events before the appeals court of Antwerp was still going on
at the time these lines were written.
37 See BBC News:
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/2847621.stm).
34
the Netherlands and profiting from different controversial debates in order

to make their voice heard.
As mentioned in the previous pages, the AEL did try to translate its
visibility into votes by forming a cartel with the Marxist-Leninist Parti du
travail de Belgique - Partij van de Arbeid van Belgi (PTB - PVDA) and was
not discouraged by its poor electoral results in the federal elections of
2003.38 Acting in a way that could be viewed as political opportunism given
the organisations and his own secular credo, Abou Jahjah founded soon
afterwards the Moslim Democratische Partij (MDP). A month before MDPs
first (and last) electoral test, in an interview with Open Democracy, he
was defining himself as a moderate Muslim, albeit insisting on his Arabnationalist ideology:
It is easier to mobilise if you talk only about Islam. But we chose a
more difficult and complex route. Having taken up that challenge,
we are succeeding despite the obstacles. This is because when you
talk to people for a while they realise that their identity is more
complex than just their religion. They know it in themselves.39
Voters did not seem to share his views, however, and the MDP had a
very short existence. After this second electoral defeat, the movement
began to concentrate on the political developments in the Middle East,
organising demonstrations against the war in Iraq or Israeli occupation of
historical Palestine and using an increasingly radicalised discourse.
During the controversy caused by the caricatures of Muhammad published
by a Danish newspaper, the League encouraged the drawing of antiSemitic, anti-gay or anti-European cartoons in retaliation, and its current
website still hosts a couple of particularly heinous ones under the cynical
title: Freedom of speech Campaign.40 The League had already become so
vehemently anti-Israel by then that it didnt hesitate to publish its support
for some of the most extremist enemies of the Jewish State.41
See Dyab Abou Jahjahs interview with Rosemary Bechler of Open Democracy,
op. cit. (http://www.opendemocracy.net).
39 Ibid.
40 http://www.arabeuropean.org/newsdetail.php?ID=95
41 See for example: Zionism is racism: Ahmadinajad said it but we mean it
(http://www.arabeuropean.org/article.php?ID=49).
38
At the time of the HizbullahIsraeli conflict of 2006, Dyab Abou

Jahjah resigned from the AEL leadership and left for Lebanon in order to
join the fighting. He delivered a particularly theatrical adieu to his
comrades:
This might be the last thing Ill write before going home on a trip
that might be my lastI lived my life for this Nation and not a hair
in me will hesitate in laying it down for this Nation too. When
oppression rises above the sun to cover it, and injustice defies the
wind and the Wicked and the Evil feast on the Flesh of innocent
men, women and children, from within the darkness and the orgy
of blood, a sword will shine, and the brave will murmur: What a
beautiful day to die.42
At the end, Mr Abou Jahjah didnt die a martyr, nor did he realise his
dreams to see the AEL expanding in France, gaining seats in Antwerp and
Utrecht city councils and becoming a European trans-national party.43 He
did continue to write though, with the same militant attitude. His personal
diary, Dagboek Beiroet Brussel, parts of which were published in the Dutch
newspaper Trouw,44 betrays however a certain fatigue towards his fellow
Arab-Belgian compatriots, considered by him to be very conservative in
matters of religion (and) strictly following an approach that excludes any
rationality ( een kritiekloze benadering) when it comes to faith in its most
orthodox form. Still active within the movement, AELs former President
nowadays has his own blog,45 from where he keeps attacking Zionism,
and those of his fellow Belgians of Arab origins who were luckier than him
with the voters, or less critical of their country of adoption.46
The Arab-European League was still active by May 2008, mostly in
Flanders. Its discourse hasnt changed much from its days of glory (the
latest item posted on the website was a call for demonstration against the
crimes of the Zionist entity) but its presence in the media was severely
http://www.arabeuropean.org/article.php?ID=117
See interview with Open Democracy, op. cit.
44 http://www.trouw.nl/deverdieping/overigeartikelen/article690699.ece/
Dyab_Abou_Jahjah_Maro
45 http://www.aboujahjah.com
46 http://www.aboujahjah.com/?p=110#more-110
42
43
reduced and it has never tried to put forward candidates in elections since
2004.
The movement still represents a potential source of severe tension
and violent conflict in Brussels and the North of the country, albeit less
than it used to, but it seems to have lost a great deal of its credibility among
the immigrant youth and to have become rather marginalised within the
Belgian Muslim community.
2.
Religious, non-political radicalisation
Non-political religious radicalisation can be observed among Belgian

Muslims both at an individual and at a collective level. By May 2008, a
number of organised radical religious groups without known or openly
expressed political ambitions were active in the country. We discuss below
the more important and visible among them.
It is, at this point, necessary to keep in mind that the existence of
organised groups animated by and practising a radical form of religion
one that totally or partially rejects the ways of society and proposes a
conservative interpretation of sacred texts as absolute rules for everyday
life is a phenomenon as old as organised religion itself. Some of these
groups have a mystic, monastic approach to their self-appointed mission
(constantly praying for the salvation of humanity for example), and some
other a militant one (proselytising the infidels and calling upon the
sinners to repent, in ways that vary, from preaching to coercion). Extreme
militancy in a number of these groups leads to violent or even terrorist
activities.
It goes of course without saying that immigrants and their sons and
daughters are far from being the only category of persons that could be
tempted to join these groups. It is interesting to note in this context that
converts, born to non-Muslim autochthon parents, constitute a privileged
target for some of the most militant among the radical Islamic religious
groups in Belgium. It is a sad fact that the only Belgian Muslim who ever
committed a suicide attack, Muriel Degauque (in Iraq in 2005), was a
convert to Islam of Belgian origin.
By May 2008, a highly diversified but not always inter-related
network of Islamic associations was operating in Belgium. The countrys
capital was home to approximately 39% of all Belgian Muslims, 70% of

whom were of Moroccan origin.47 The community was geographically very
concentrated (75% of its members were residing in 5 of the 19
municipalities of the Brussels region) and well organised. One could
observe that Muslims of Turkish origin have the tendency to more easily
set up organisations than their co-religionists of Arab or Berber
background.
Milli Gr
Today a major, if not the major movement among religious-minded persons
of Turkish origin in Western Europe, Milli constitutes a significant actor in
Belgiums Islamic scene. Even though the literal translation of its name,
National Vision,48 bears no mention of Islam, the word Milli does in fact not
refer to the Turkish nation but to the Quranic notion of Millet.49
In Belgium, the organisation has never demonstrated political
ambitions. Its actions evolve around strengthening and inspiring Islamic
practices among families and youth. It also runs a number of educational
institutions and boarding schools. Unlike official Turkish Islam, the Milli
Gru preaches what it considers to be a filter-less religion, 50 understood
as a close following of the literal meaning of the sacred texts of Islam. It
could be said in fact that it takes a rather holistic approach to religion and
claims that Islam provides all necessary guiding principles for a Muslims
(everyday) life. These ideas have given the organisation a political
dimension in Turkey, where it has traditionally supported political parties
sharing its vision.
Despite its Turkish frame of reference, Milli Gr does place
religious identity higher than national affiliation and works for the
dissemination of a traditionalist Islamic ideology in a European context. Its
discourse and activities seem to progressively take into consideration the
See Corinne Torrekens, Concentration des populations musulmanes et
structuration de lassociatif musulman Bruxelles, Brussels Studies, No. 4, 5 March
2007, pp. 1-15.
47
The name of the organisation refers to the title of a pamphlet published in 1973
by Turkish politician Necmettin Erbakan.
48
For further information, see http://www.igmg.de/verband/islamic-community-milligoerues/what-does-milli-goerues-mean.html.

49
50
Interview by the authors with a representative of Milli Gr in Belgium.
need of the communitys full integration in Belgian society and it has

recently began to propose Koranic courses in French and Dutch.
Currently, the organisation has a significant number of adherents in
the provinces of Limburg (Flanders), Hainaut (Wallonia) and in the
Brussels-Capital region. They all operate under the name Belika-Islam
Federasyonu, the Islamic Federation of Belgium, established in 1986. It
estimates that its members constitute up to 30% of all persons of Turkish
origin living in Belgium, and attributes its influence to its operating of
some 30 mosques.
Sleymancilar
Founded in Turkey during the 1940s by Sleyman Hilmi Tunahan,
Sleymancilar began its activities in Western Europe in 1973. Its followers,
the Sleymancis, attribute saintly powers to the founder and call
themselves the disciples of Sleyman, being often accused of being
heretics despite the fact that they claim not to constitute a sect.
The movement is thought to be the first of its kind established among
the Turkish immigrants living in Europe. An Islamic judge under the
Ottoman Sleyman Hilmi Tunahan was disenchanted by the attitude of the
secular Turkish Republic towards Islam. His (and the movements)
activities have thus taken the form of opposition to the new regime,
responsible for the abolition of the Islamic Caliphate, which Sleymancilar
still strives to restore albeit by non-violent means. In Turkey, its Koranic
schools oppose the official Imam-Hatip schools that are under the control
of the secular authorities, and they are often identified with (right-wing)
radical extremism.51 Notwithstanding that, the organisation has no
(known) political activities or ambitions in Belgium.
Today, Its members concentrate on changing secular practices among
the society through the setting up of new mosques and education facilities,
as well as through publications and lectures, notably in Antwerp, in
Brussels and in the province of Limburg. The movement is in fact running
approximately 13 Islamic cultural centres throughout Belgium, called
Belika Islam Kltr Merkezleri Birlii. Unlike Milli Gr, it is very
discreet when it comes to publicity and it does not seek many contacts with
Jrgen Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University

Press, 3rd Edition, 2004, p. 150.
51
other organisations or the political authorities. Hence, it is not considered

to be a major actor in the national debates concerning Islam or the
integration of Turkish immigrants in Belgian society.52
Tablighi
Jamaat al-Tabligh was founded by Mohamed Ilyas (1885-1944) in the first
half of the 20th century in Northern India. The centre of the movement is
located in Nizam ud-Din, in the vicinity of Delhi.
This religious movement has at times been labelled as Islams
Jehovahs Witnesses, mainly because of its organisational structure and
activities, which evolve around mobile Koranic schools (madrassas), doorto door proselytising and continuously renewed preaching teams, formed
by volunteers trained to reach even those parts of the population generally
ignored by similar other groups.
Peaceful behaviour constitutes a key notion for the Tablighi, since
according to their founder a religious act can never result from coercion. As
a consequence, the movement claims not to be interested in any quest for
(political) power and its members observe strict neutrality towards political
parties, viewing them as a cause of division among Muslims. Tablighis
practice a radical form of Islam, studying the scripture and transmitting53
the faith. They believe in a struggle to imitate the way of life of the prophet,
with poverty, simple ways and a meticulous regulation of corporeal facts
and gestures. The nucleus of the organisation is in fact formed by a
relatively small number of such missionaries.
In Belgium Tablighi is active within different mosques and nonprofit-making associations, the first and most central of which was
established in 1975. Since the 1980s it has became more visible in all parts of
Belgium and has obtained a legally recognised status.54 Because of their
strong organisation, the movement has quickly managed to become the
first effective and successful alternative for an Islam of the people in the
Meryem Kanmaz, Des organisations turques aux fdrations flamandes: 40 ans
de vie associative en Flandre, Nouvelle Tribune, No. 34, December 2003.
52
Tablgh (Arabic) can be translated as transmission or as conveyance and

hence as conveyance or transmission of a message.
53
See Felice Dassetto, Le Tabligh en Belgique. Diffuser lIslam sur les traces du Prophte,
Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia, Sydibi papers, Vol. 2, 1988, p. 14, fn 15.
54
country and by 1985 it was able to set up a Federation of Mosques and

Cultural Islamic Organisations (Fdration des Mosques et des
Associations Culturelles et Islamiques de Belgique). This federation
gradually evolved, cunningly using the attention of the media, into a very
influential element within Belgian Islam. Since the 1990s, however, the
movement appears to have lost some of its influence, notably amongst the
younger generation.55 Most of its members today seem to be of Moroccan
origin, although the organisation can still count on the loyalty of many well
connected Pakistanis as well.
Muslim Brotherhood
The Jamaiyyat al-ikhwn al-muslimn, very well known for its actions in
the Middle East, is particularly active among Muslims of Arab origin in
Belgium. Composed of a myriad of fractions, the brothers are also divided
between an Egyptian and a Syrian obedience. The organisation seems to
raise members and sympathisers by proposing an authentic religious
discourse that does not resent the reform of some of the most antiquated
traditions and encourages the merging of the faithful within their host
societies. Its activities in Belgium mainly evolve around preaching and
education with an emphasis on the renewal of moral norms.
Hizbullah
The party of God is also present in Belgium, albeit not significantly so. Its
members seem to be working to raise funds to finance its Lebanese
activities. It is mentioned here mainly because of its purely religious
activities, which include preaching and dissemination of sermons. Even
these endeavours however are most often framed within a discourse
denouncing the Israeli occupation of Palestine,56 whilst issues proper to the
Muslim community of Belgium do not seem to belong to its top priorities. It
is interesting to mention that Hizbullah is one of the few Shiite
organisations in the overwhelmingly Sunni landscape of Islamic
movements in Europe.
Brigitte Marchal, Courants fondamentalistes en Belgique, Journal dtude des

relations internationales au Moyen-Orient (MERIA), Vol. 3, No. 1, March 2008, pp. 6578.
56 The most recent (small) demonstration with a free Palestine theme organised by
the movement took place in the centre of Brussels on Sunday, 4 May 2008.
55
Other Groups
Belgian citizens or residents belonging to Sufi orders have organised
themselves according to different traditions of Islamic mysticism. The most
significant ones include the Naqshbandiyya (with different branches), the
Barelwi (originating from the Indian peninsula), the Deobandi (reformist
soufis focusing on traditional learning) and the Nurcu (attaching particular
attention to personal devotion and the compatibility of Islamic revelation
with discoveries in natural science). Very few Belgian Muslims (of Turkish
origin concentrated mainly in Lige) are believed to be members of
Kaplancilar,57 an Islamic movement outlawed in Germany.
3.
National/Ethnic Tensions
Our analysis of the landscape of the Belgian Muslim community could not
be complete without the discussion of groups whose activities are related to
the politics of the countries of origin of its members. Such groups are
particularly present in the associative life of Turkish immigrants: It is
believed in fact that the combination of interlinked dynamics such as
economic exclusion due to rural origins, cultural and linguistic
marginalisation and residential concentration made it possible for Turkish
immigrants to keep very close links with their home country.58
Indeed, for many among the Turkish community in Brussels,
nationalism provides an overarching framework for self-definition. To
quote a Belgian politician of Turkish descent, regardless of their stance in
the political spectrum, everyone is a bit of a nationalist here.59 The results
of a survey60 very recently conducted indicate in fact that 42% of BelgianTurks feel equally close to their country of residence and to that of origin.
According to the same research, their close attachment to the home country
does not seem to decrease according to the length of the period they have
been residing abroad or according to their political affiliation. Thus, even
Ural Mano, Des organisations socio-politiques comme solidarits islamiques
dans l'immigration turque en Europe, Les Annales de l'Autre Islam, Institut national
des Langues et des Civilisations orientales, No. 4, 1997, pp. 97-133.
57
58
Ibid.
59
Interview with the authors, our translation.
Ayhan Kaya and Ferhat Kentel,Belgian-Turks: A Bridge or a Breach between Turkey

and the European Union?, Brussels: King Baudouin Foundation, 2007, p. 52.
60
groups such as the Milli Gr, which aim to address Belgian Muslims
rather than Belgian Turks, would have had a hard time recruiting members
if theyd dare to completely estrange themselves from the notion of
Turkishness.
Milli Gr participation in the organisation of a demonstration
entitled Condemning the terror Invitation to solidarity can be seen as
an acknowledgement of this fact. The event in question took place in
Brussels on 3 November 2007, and its analysis is very helpful in
understanding the current feelings within the Turkish community in
Belgium.
At the end of October 2007, the killing of 12 soldiers by PKK in an
ambush in the Southeast of Turkey led to violent reactions throughout
Europe. In Brussels, Turkish youngsters, mostly teenagers, demonstrated
their anger in the streets of Schaarbeek mainly along the Chausse de
Haecht which is heavily populated by Turkish immigrants. The protest
degenerated into acts of vandalism (breaking the glass windows of cafs,
throwing stones at the police, beating up journalists, etc.), widely attributed
by the Belgian media to ultra-nationalist groups. Even though such groups
were also to be blamed for the aggression, the media coverage of the events
underestimated the complex nature of the youngsters behaviour.
Of course, the deep-rooted rivalries between the Turkish and the
Kurdish populations have played a significant role in the genesis of the
violence and so have done the extreme-right wing organisations. It is not
by coincidence that the Turkish youngsters attacked cafs and shops
known to be owned by Kurds. These intolerable acts were indeed
committed by a band of Turkish ultra-nationalists and a number of illadvised teenagers who received SMS and e-mails about the venue and time
of the demonstration from sources they have refused to name. The Turkish
associations of Brussels said to be unaware of the senders of these messages
and claimed that they believed the manifestation to be spontaneous. Both
the silence of the youngsters and their elders, and the fact that many
inhabitants of the area have shown their sympathy to those arrested by
driving around in cars bearing Grey Wolves stickers61 is an indicator of the
vulnerability of the Turkish population in Schaarbeek to radical nationalist
discourse.
61
Kaya and Kentel, op. cit., p. 40. See below for more on the Grey Wolves.
But the youngsters who demonstrated against the PKK have been
also particularly aggressive towards the Belgian police. Far from being
impulsive behaviour, this reflects a wider frustration caused by their
perception of the way the Belgian authorities dealt with the issue. Many
Belgian Turks felt in fact that they had been unfairly treated and that their
grief had not been respected, an impression shared and spread by the
major community organisations. Moreover, several Turkish-speaking
media have accused Belgium of being tolerant towards the activities of
organisations considered to be terroristic in Turkey.62 The escape of Fehriye
Erdal, from the hands of the Belgian justice whilst she was wanted for
murder in Turkey, has contributed to this feeling.
One of the reasons many within the Turkish community are eager to
condone nationalistic discourse is their economic and educational situation,
which seems to be worse than that of other immigrant groups.63 Coupled
with the Belgian Turks tendency to concentrate their residencies,64 this
situation provides the perfect ground for nationalist discourses to flourish.
Hence, a triggering event such as the killing of soldiers in the Southeast of
See for example, http://yenisafak.com.tr/arsiv/2002/mayis/05/g7.html,

http://www.belturk.be/go.php?go=3031562&do=details&return=summary,
http://www.euractiv.com.tr/ab-ve-turkiye/article/belcikada-okullarda-pkkpropagandasi, http://www.belturk.be/go.php?go=3030952&do=details&return=
summary&pg=125.
62
A number of studies confirm this; see in particular Ural Mano and Altay Mano,
La scolarit des enfants issus de limmigration musulmane: difficults et actions
positives, in U. Mano (ed.), Voix et voies musulmanes de Belgique, Brussels:
Publications des Facults Universitaires, 2000.
63
Saint-Louis, pp. 4154., Ural Mano (2001), Populations musulmanes de Belgique et la

stratification du march du travail, Hasan Bousetta and Laure-Anne Bernes (2007),
Muslims in the EU: Cities Report, Belgium, Open Society Institute, EU
Monitoring and Advocacy Program, Ayhan Kaya and Ferhat Kentel (2007), BelgianTurks: A Bridge or a Breach between Turkey and the European Union?, Brussels: King
Baudouin Foundation.
To understand how the policies of the municipality in which the Turkish
community lives can contribute to their marginalisation, see Ural Mano and
Meryem Kanmaz, From Conflict to Co-operation between Muslims and Local
Authorities in a Brussels Borough: Schaerbeek, Journal of Ethnic and Migration
Studies, 31 (6), 2005, pp. 1105-1123.
64
Turkey, combined with a provocation orchestrated by the ultra-nationalist

groups, is sufficient to provoke serious tensions. Failing to understand the
complexity of these sociological dynamics could largely undermine the
effectiveness of policies aiming at addressing the issues creating them and
their (more visible) effects.
Tensions between a big part of the Belgian Turkish community and
the Turkish authorities in Belgium should be also taken into consideration
in the analysis of the November 2007 events. Many have in fact criticised
the Turkish embassy for downplaying their national sensitivities. At the
same time, the embassys failure to address in a sensitive manner the
communitys feelings has facilitated the stirring up of these feelings by the
ultra-nationalists, leading eventually to the violent demonstrations.65
Criticism has also been addressed to Belgian politicians of Turkish descent.
Instead of intervening in order to calm feelings, a number of them have
allegedly tried to increase their popularity by using a double discourse,
including statements such as We are all soldiers.66
We have tried to demonstrate that radical nationalistic groups are not
solely responsible for the violence and conflict within Belgiums Turkish
community. In the sections that follow we discuss a number of movements
that exalt ethnic identity among Belgians of immigrant origin and that
might become a source of serious tensions in the years to come.
Grey Wolves
Although its formal name in Turkish is lkcler, the youth organisation
of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is better known as the
Grey Wolves, a reference to a Turkic legend in which a female wolf is
believed to have fed a wounded boy and to have helped him reproduce a
new generation of Turks.
The lkc ideology puts accent on Turkish history insisting on its
glorious days and exploiting events such as the establishment of the first
Turkish States in Central Asia, almost tracing a Turkish race.67 At the
This might actually reveal a wider trend for the survey study of Kaya and
Kentel, op. cit., p. 40, show that only 7% of the Belgian-Turks reported that they
appreciate the efforts of official Turkish bodies in Belgium.
65
66
Evening news bulletin of the Belgian channel La Une on 26 October 2007.
67
See the official webside of the lkc (http://www.ulkuocaklari.org.tr/).
same time, its conception of the Turkish nation is blended with Islam. The
principle of what they consider to be the synthesis of Turkishness and
Islam is very dominant in their rhetoric and activities. Mottos like Your
doctor will be a Turk and your medicine will be Islam reflect their feelings
on the issue. The Wolves are also characterised by a strong emphasis on
leadership and hierarchical, military-like organisation.
In Belgium, the largest among the organisations considered to be
affiliated with or sympathetic to the Wolves is the Belika Trk
Federasyonu (BTF). BTF came under considerable criticism during the 2006
regional and local elections when mainstream parties such as the Parti
Socialiste (PS) and the Centre Dmocrate Humaniste (CDH) chose to
include BTF members or sympathisers on their lists of candidates and were
thus accused by Belgian media at belonging to a fascist ultra-nationalistic
movement.68 In fact, some of these candidates have regularly attended
organised events of a nationalistic character, such as the ceremony to
commemorate the death of the Great Turkish Idealist leader69 Alparslan
Trke, founder of the Nationalist Movement Party in Turkey.
The official aim of the Grey Wolves in Belgium is to foster loyalty
among young people of Turkish origin to their ancestral culture, religion
and history and to keep alive the Turkish identity in Europe.70 BTF claims
to oppose not the integration of Belgian-Turks into their host society but
rather their assimilation by it. Most of its activities seem to be centred on
issues relevant to Turkish national sensitivities. It has a strong stance
towards the Armenian genocide controversy and the Kurdish question and
its demonstrations, such as, for example the one against the erection of an
Armenian monument in Brussels, have often led to violence and/or
tensions between members of different communities.
To read a few press articles, see http://archive.indymedia.be/news/2003/07/

70265.html,
http://www.lesoir.be/regions/bruxelles/2006/08/25/article_van_
gorp_chez_l_extreme_droite_turque.shtml
68
69
Our translation from the speech of the President of the BTF.
Emre Arslan, Turkish Ultra-nationalism in Germany: Its Transnational

Dimension, in Thomas Faist and Eyp zveren (eds), Transnational Social Spaces:
Agents, Networks and Institutions, Ashgate Publishing, 2004, p. 134.
70
Kurdish Institute of Brussels

The association was established in 1978 in order to raise awareness of the
Kurdish cause and to help the integration process of Kurdish immigrants.
Its activities have always been in line with this double objective. The
institute organises many cultural events such as concerts and folkloric
dance shows in order to better acquaint Belgian society with Kurdish
civilisation. Largely dominated by Turkish Kurds, it also assists the
immigrants by offering French, Dutch and Kurdish language courses. In
parallel to these activities, the Kurdish Institute has a very explicit political
agenda, served by other actions, such as press conferences or
demonstrations, designed to draw attention to violations of human rights
in Turkey and the precarious situation of the Kurdish people in the
Southeast of the Republic. These actions are sometimes organised jointly
with other associations of immigrant groups with issues against past and
present Turkish policies, such as its stance vis--vis the Armenians.
Belgium also hosts other Kurdish organisations active in promoting
the Kurdish national cause, such as the Kurdish Cultural Centre or the
Confederation of Kurdish Associations in Europe. At the time of
publication, the latter was pursuing a campaign to prevent Europeans from
going to Turkey for holidays arguing that their money would be financing
the war against Kurds. The campaign in question is an example of how
issues relating to the homeland politics can cause tension in the host
country.
All these organisations are looked upon with suspicion by Belgiums
Turkish associations. The latter believe them to be supporters or
sympathisers of the PKK, and demand that they denounce it as a terrorist
organisation before entering into dialogue with them.71 The Kurdish
organisations refrain from condemning PKKs acts but they often underline
that their problem is not with the Turkish people as such but with the
politics of Turkey.72 Thus, for the time being a constructive dialogue
between the two communities seems rather unlikely. This lack of
As remarked in interviews with representatives of local Turkish associations and
the comments by the secretary-general of the EYAD in a broadcasted debate on
Tl-Bruxelles on 4 November 2007, following the violent events.
71
As stated by the representative of the Kurdish Cultural Centre in a Broadcasted

debate on Tl-Bruxelles on 4 November 2007, following the violent events.
72
communication is further accelerated by physical separation. While Belgian

Turks predominantly live and socialise in Schaarbeek, Kurds reside in the
neighbourhood of Saint Josse.
Conclusions
Our research and interviews suggest that the majority of Muslim Belgians
seem to have embraced the spirit of compromise and moderation prevalent
in the countrys political scene. Despite the presence of several radical
movements within its borders, Belgium in fact was largely spared the very
serious violence and conflict that were recently experienced by some of the
neighbouring countries with large populations of Islamic cultural
backgrounds.
Nevertheless, a number of the groups and movements discussed
have indeed represented a challenge to the peaceful co-existence between
Belgian societys cultural components and the attempt to create a
distinctively Belgian Islam is far from bearing fruit.
One of the most important conclusions to draw from this brief study
is the considerable antithesis between the visibility and mediatisation of
radical movements and the very poor results they have obtained every time
they have tried to transform their alleged popularity into electoral gains. It
seems to us in fact that the attention often given by the media to such
movements is attributable more to a quest for the dramatic and sensational
than to a genuine wish to raise awareness about the different tendencies
within Belgiums relatively large Muslim community.
Even the most radical organisations in the countrys Muslim
community have never really been the cause of an incident more serious
than the usual tensions one witnesses at the end of football competitions
between long-standing rivals. At the same time, however, an important
number of initiatives and activities launched and carried out by other
groups originating from the same community but striving for much less
provocative or spectacular effects are barely mentioned, with the excuse
that they concern only a minority of Belgian Muslims. It is our belief
however, that electoral results are a very reliable test of real popularity and
one that none of the radical groups that often occupy the national and
regional television channels or newspaper front pages has managed to
pass.
Many Belgian citizens of Islamic cultural background in fact deeply
disapprove of radicalisation tendencies within their community and
wholeheartedly condemn all criminal acts. These citizens appreciate what

they experience as being the benefits of living in Belgium (freedom of
religion, freedom of speech,). And unfortunately, these citizens are the
first victims of the stigmatisation of the Muslims in Belgium or the
Moroccans/Turks in Belgium, as a consequence of unfounded
generalisations, or manipulation of public opinion by extreme right-wing
political parties, such as the Vlaams Belang.
As is well known, religion can be both a personal mystical
experience and a collective one. In Belgium, as in several other countries,
many youngsters born to immigrant parents (and not only) feel alienated
by both the cultural values of their families and those of the society
surrounding them. In search of stronger beliefs that could provide them
with a feeling of belonging, these youngsters are often tempted by radical
groups, where such a feeling is particularly stressed. Inside such groups
their energy is channelled into activities designed to make them feel
accepted, important and even self-righteous, when many among their
autochthon compatriots are quick to collectively hold them responsible for
anti-social behaviour or an alleged rise of criminality.73 At the same time,
membership/participation in such movements offers them the opportunity
to express their discontentment, in a way that is dignified by the prestige
of a great religious/cultural tradition, with what they perceive as being
unfair treatment by Belgian authorities and society as well as with their
own parents attitude towards them (and towards life in general). This is
not an unavoidable or irreversible process, however, and it is important to
keep in mind, as we have already discussed elsewhere,74 that, far from
being static, identity is a dynamic process, a conception that is lived and
experienced day by day in an ever-changing/evolving society and
throughout life. As such, identity has by definition a changing nature. It is
something that can be easily claimed but cannot be authoritatively
attributed.
On this topic, see Ed Husain, The Islamist: Why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what
I saw inside and why I left, London: Penguin Books, 2007.
73
See Theodoros Koutroubas and Ward Vloeberghs, De lidentit impute:

propos de lislam comme appartenance ethnique, La Revue Gnrale, February
2008, pp. 33-38.
74
In a multicultural society such as ours the risk of micro conflicts is

always present and in fact unavoidable. The realities we have analysed can
easily lead us to predict that issues such as evolution of the political
situation in Iraq and the related reaction of Turkey is likely to create
tensions between the Turkish and Kurdish communities living in Belgium.
Likewise, the liberation of Palestine will continue to be a major issue of
mobilisation and tension for Belgian residents with Arab sensibilities and
groups such as the ones we have observed will certainly try to capitalise on
the unrest. And of course, xenophobic and fear-mongering parties in both
the North and the South of the country are likely to use tensions (or an
eventual terrorist attack) as grounds for promoting their own agendas.
On the whole, however, Belgiums Muslims are likely to remain no
more radicalised than their Christian or their Jewish compatriots. At a time
when religious radicalisation has become almost synonymous with Islamic
radicalisation, it is important to remember that the need for political parties
that express religious concerns or are inspired by a faith-based world view
is present in all communities and is not likely to disappear as long as there
are persons who place faith high among their priorities. As for political
radicalisation, the phenomenon does occur in Belgium in many contexts,
and unfortunately no faith, language, culture or any other element-based
community is immune.75
Can we say that everything is ok then? No, it is not. Youngsters of
immigrant origin, who feel excluded from both their parents culture and
their autochthon compatriots world, constitute a huge potential source of
tension and an easy prey for radical groups. There are many of them in
Belgium, but fortunately they are not yet lost to our society.
As witness to this statement, a book published in Brussels by the citys Dutchspeaking free university in 2001 discusses the rise and fall of radicalisation in
Belgium (seen as leftist liberal thought) without even mentioning Islam as a
relevant issue. See Johan Basiliades, De lotgevallen van het radicalisme in Belgi.
Het ontstaan, de opkomst en de ondergang van een negentiende-eeuwse linksliberale stroming, in Sven Gatz and Patrick Stouthuysen (eds), Een vierde weg?
Links-liberalisme als traditie en als orintatiepunt, Brussel: VUB Press, 2001, pp. 33-62.
75
5. MUSLIMS IN THE NETHERLANDS:

TENSIONS AND VIOLENT CONFLICT
TINKA VELDHUIS & EDWIN BAKKER
he release of the anti-Islam movie Fitna by the Dutch Member of

Parliament Geert Wilders, early 2008, aroused anxious fears of angry
responses by Muslims communities. As happened in the Danish
cartoon crisis, people expected the movie to trigger violent demonstrations,
boycotts, the burning of flags and other aggressive responses by Muslim
communities, both in the Netherlands and around the world. Months prior
to the actual release of the movie, the Dutch prime minister already spoke
of a crisis, predicting violent confrontations between Muslims and nonMuslims, and devastating consequences for Muslim integration in Dutch
society.
Contrary to the wide anticipation that Muslims would respond
violently to the movie, there were few incidents. In the Netherlands, there
were no noticeable incidents at all. Eloquent young Muslims stepped
forward as representatives for their communities and of Islam, explicitly
distancing themselves from radical or violent action by Muslims in answer
to the film. Likewise, orthodox Muslims made strong pleas to react in a
non-violent and dignified way to Fitna. Outside the Netherlands, there
were only a few incidents, like the attack on a Dutch consulate in Indonesia
by a group of students and the expected burning of the Dutch flag in
countries like Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, the Dutch fear of violence involving Muslims typifies
the implicit association that people easily seem to make between Muslims
and violence. Almost irrespective of the actual level of violent incidents,
Muslims seem to project an image of responding violently to every political
incident. How did this image come into being? In the Netherlands, what
types of incidents and developments have occurred that led to potentially
violent tensions and conflicts in which Muslims were involved?
| 81
82 | VELDHUIS & BAKKER
This chapter seeks to answer this question. For that purpose, it first
elaborates on radicalisation and on tensions and violent conflicts, both
within and between social groups, and on the underlying mechanisms that
are responsible for causing inter-group conflicts. Thereafter, we give an
overview of radicalisation and tensions and violent conflicts involving
(elements of) Muslim communities in the Netherlands. We focus on three
different categories of events: Muslims attacking non-Muslims, nonMuslims attacking Muslims and confrontations between or within Muslim
communities. In the concluding part, we elaborate on global trends
regarding the peaceful or not-so-peaceful co-existence of different social
groups and focus on the current situation in the Netherlands.
1.
Tensions, conflicts and radicalisation
Essentially, we are interested in types of incidents and developments that

have or may have posed a threat to a) the democratic order, b) society at
large or c) that have or may have otherwise undermined integration of
minorities or relations between and within social groups in the
Netherlands. That is, the focus lies on violent incidents, or incidents that
may potentially have led to violent outcomes.
For example, in October 2007, Bilal Bajaka, a young Dutch Muslim
from Moroccan descent, entered a police station in Amsterdam, pulled a
knife and stabbed two police officers. In self-defence, one of the officers
shot the man who died on the spot. Immediately, the incident prompted
questions about the perpetrator's motivations. Was Bajaka a radical
Islamist, inspired by fundamentalist ideologies and beliefs that instructed
him to attack any representation of the Dutch state? Was this an act of
terrorism or was the perpetrator simply a criminal whose acts were not
religiously or politically charged? It was rapidly publicised that Bajaka was
probably not radicalised; apparently, he was a suicidal schizophrenic who
had just left a psychiatric clinic where he had been treated for mental
problems. Nevertheless, especially after it turned out that in 2005, Bajaka
had had loose contacts with some of the members of the Hofstadgroep
the radical network that included the murderer of filmmaker Theo van
Gogh the media started speculating about whether Bajaka was a radical
Islamist and whether the Netherlands was the target of a terrorist attack.
Although the Bajaka case was unrelated to radicalisation or terrorism, the
incident triggered riots among young Muslims in immigrant
MUSLIMS IN THE NETHERLANDS | 83
neighbourhoods in Amsterdam and fuelled tensions between Muslim and

the non-Muslim communities in the Netherlands.
The foregoing example illustrates the implicit association that is often
made between incidents involving Muslims and radicalisation, although
this link is often not justified. Particularly after the assassination of Theo
van Gogh, who was murdered by a radical Islamist named Mohammed
Bouyeri, radicalisation of Muslim youth received extensive attention by
Dutch media, policy-makers, politicians and academics. Radicalisation is
only one manifestation of intergroup conflicts, however, and in contrast to
what often seems to be popular belief, most Muslim-involving tensions and
conflicts are not associated with radicalisation. In fact, radicalisation of
Muslims is a very rare phenomenon. In comparison with other European
countries, the Netherlands is home to a relatively large Muslim community:
according to the latest estimations, over 857,000 Muslims live in the
Netherlands, comprising approximately 5% of the total population.1
According to the Dutch Minister of Integration, between 20,000 and 30,000
of them are potentially attracted to Salafi ideologies, and yet another 2,500
might be susceptible to violent radicalisation.2 The latter figure represents
only a mere 0.3 percent of the total Muslim population. Although
radicalisation of Muslims can have profound societal consequences, it is
quite rare.
1.1
Defining radicalisation
What is radicalisation exactly? Despite the increased scientific attention to

radicalisation and its causes and consequences, scholars have not yet
developed a generally accepted definition. Nevertheless, faced with
pressure to tackle radicalisation, policy-makers have developed a few
definitions. In particular, the European Commission came up with a clear
and frequently applied definition of violent radicalisation: The
phenomenon of people embracing opinions, views, and ideas which could
Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (2007), Naar een nieuwe schatting van het
aantal islamieten in Nederland (Towards a new estimate of the number of
islamists in the Netherlands), CBS (http://www.cbs.nl).
R. Kloor (2007), Radicale Islamstroming Islamisme Rukt Op (Radical Islam

movement Islamism progresses), Elsevier, 5 September.
lead to acts of terrorism.3 This definition accounts for a few distinct

features of radicalisation that illustrate the differences with other types of
tensions and conflicts.
Primarily, although it can occur very rapidly, radicalisation is a
gradual process that has no strictly specified beginning or end. It is a twofold process including a shift in thinking towards fundamentalism and a
heightened readiness to act on behalf of a cause. Secondly, its gradual
nature indicates that in most cases, the direct causes or triggers of
radicalisation are unclear and can even be unknown to the radicalising
person. Rather, radicalisation is the product of a combination of causal
factors that interact and that is unique for every individual.4 People are
drawn to radical movements or ideologies for different reasons, of which
some are more conscious than others. Whereas some are primarily inspired
by ideological or political motivations, others might simply be attracted by
action and adventure or seek group membership to obtain a positive
identity. Even more so, radicalisation can occur beyond the consciousness
of the relevant person, who might not be aware that he or she is in a
process of radicalisation.
Again, the Bajaka case, which was unrelated to radicalisation but
triggered violent behaviour by young Muslims in Amsterdam, illustrates
how radicalisation is only one factor in the emergence of tensions and
conflicts involving Muslims. Therefore, the present study aims to widen the
scope and focuses on a broad spectrum of incidents and developments that,
over the last three decades, have led to tensions and conflicts, including
cases of radicalisation, in which elements of the Muslim community have
been involved. In doing so, however, one essential question deserves
further exploration. How do tensions and conflicts between social groups
emerge and under what circumstances are they likely to be sustained and
result in violent outcomes?
3
European Commission (2006), Terrorist recruitment: Commission
Communication addressing the factors contributing to violent radicalisation,
MEMO/05/329.
T.M. Veldhuis and E. Bakker (2007), Causale factoren van radicalisering en hun
onderlinge samenhang (Causal factors of radicalisering and their mutual
consistency), Vrede & Veiligheid, 36 (4): 447-470.
4
1.2
Inter-group tensions and violent conflicts
The first academic notions on the origins of inter-group tensions and

conflicts date back several decades. Initially, the main premise was that
realistic competition between groups leads to favouritism of the own group
(in-group) and hostility towards other groups (out-groups).5 Since that
time, however, our understanding of the wellspring of inter-group conflicts
has grown considerably sophisticated. Decades of empirical investigations
of the roots of inter-group conflict have reached the conclusion that,
irrespective of the presence of competition or conflicting group interests,
the mere act of categorising individuals into groups can generate tensions
and conflicts between groups.6 According to social identity approaches and
self-categorisation theories,7 people define themselves not so much in terms
of self, but rather in terms of group membership. People are driven by a
powerful need to belong,8 and simply categorising people based on
random, meaningless associations like colour preference or even by the flip
of a coin, can trigger the sense of belongingness in people. To feel good
about themselves, people thus need to feel good about the group and seek
collective self-esteem.9 In doing so, people make biased judgments. For
See for example, M. Sherif and C.W. Sherif (1953), Groups in harmony and
tension, New York, NY: Harper & Row; M. Sherif (1966), In common predicament:
Social psychology of intergroup conflict and cooperation, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
5
E.g. H. Tajfel (1970), Experiments in inter-group discrimination, Scientific

American, 223, pp. 96-102; Tajfel and Turner, 1989.
H. Tajfel and J.C. Turner (1979), An integrative theory of intergroup conflict, in

W.G. Austin and S. Worchel (eds), The social psychology of intergroup relations,
Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole, pp. 3347; N. Ellemers, R. Spears and B. Doosje (2002),
Self and Social Identity, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 53, pp. 161-186; J.C.
Turner (1982), Towards a cognitive redefinition of the social group, in H. Tajfel
(ed.), Social identity and intergroup relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 15-40; J.C. Turner (1984), Social identification and psychological group
formation, in H. Tajfel (ed.), The social dimension: European developments in social
psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 518538.
7
R.F. Baumeister and M.R. Leary (1995), The need to belong: Desire for
interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation, Psychological
Bulletin, Vol. 117, No. 3, pp. 497-529.
8
J. Crocker and R. Luhtanen (1990), Collective self-esteem and ingroup bias,

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, pp. 60-67.
9
example, they tend to attribute superiority to the in-group over out-groups

and derogate other groups and their characteristics as inferior. In addition,
they tend to believe that whereas the in-group is heterogeneous, members
of the out-group are all similar to one another10 and very different from
members of the in-group.11 Hence, the mere perception that one belongs to
a social group can be sufficient to activate stereotypes and discrimination of
out-groups and can eventually result in violence between groups.
Having said this, two important implications become clear if we look
at how conflicts involving Muslims can emerge. First, an identity crisis can
have profound consequences for peoples well-being and behaviour. An
identity crisis can arise under various circumstances, for example, when the
group we wish to affiliate with rejects us or when we are unsure which
group we identify with. Scholars often suggest that many young, secondgeneration Muslims in the West face an identity crisis.12 On the one hand,
they face a generational conflict with their parents. On the other, they do
not feel fully accepted by Dutch society. Buijs and his colleagues,13 for
example, suggest that Moroccan youngsters in the Netherlands feel
alienated from both their parents and Dutch society and have a hybrididentity that is not recognised and accepted by their direct environment.
Consequently, they find a satisfactory identity in the Ummah that connects
them with other Muslims and for which nationality, be it Moroccan or
Dutch, becomes irrelevant.
P.W. Linville and E.E. Jones (1980), Polarised appraisals of out-group member,
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, pp. 689-703; P.W. Linville, G.W.
Fischer and P. Salovey (1989), Perceived distributions of the characteristics of
ingroup and outgroup members, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, pp.
165-188.
10
T.F. Pettigrew (1997), The affective component of prejudice: Empirical support

for the new view, in S.A. Tuch and J.K. Martin (eds), Racial attitudes in the 1990s:
Continuity and change, Westport, CT: Praeger, pp. 76-90.
11
12 T. Choudhury (2007), The Role of Muslim Identity Politics in Radicalisation (A Study in

Progress), London: Department for Communities and Local Government; S. Malik
(2007), My brother the bomber, Prospect Magazine, 31 May.
F.J. Buijs, F. Demant and A. Hamdy (2006), Strijders van eigen bodem. Radicale en
democratische moslims in Nederland (Worriers of own soil. Radical and democratic
Muslims in the Netherlands), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
13
Second, once people have categorised themselves into a social group

and this group has become an important part of their social identity, issues
that concern the group also concern the individual. This implies that
members of a group will perceive and treat a threat to the group as a
personal threat.14 Given that Muslims perceived the anti-Islam film Fitna
as an illegitimate assault on Islam, the release of the movie definitely had
the potential to result in violent outcomes. Indeed, prior to the release of
Fitna the public, the media and even the government suspiciously eyed
the Muslim community in anxious anticipation of violent responses.
Fortunately, violent manifestations remained absent but the release
illustrates how incidents that prompt a sense of being threatened among
Muslims can easily erupt in violent outbursts or otherwise negatively affect
inter-group relations with Muslim communities.
2.
Radicalisation and organised groups
In the Netherlands of today, Muslim communities are rightly or wrongly

associated with tensions, violence and radicalisation. It should be stressed
that this is a rather new perception. In the past Muslims were at first
associated with work many Dutch no longer wanted to do. During the
1960s and 1970s, the larger Dutch companies recruited a considerable
number of so-called guest workers from Turkey and Morocco.
Additionally, refugees and immigrants from former colonies like the
Antilles, Suriname and Indonesia were arriving in substantial numbers and
creating large communities of immigrants in the Netherlands. Initially,
guest workers were encouraged to return home as soon as the Dutch labour
market no longer required their services, but most did not. On the contrary,
a process of family reunification took place, bringing thousands of new
immigrants, mainly women and children. Since the early 1980s, sizable
communities emerged from Morocco, Turkey, and Suriname, mainly
concentrated in the larger cities and industrial areas. During this period,
the Netherlands experienced its first encounters with radical Islam and
tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims. Naturally, the societal
See e.g. E.R. Smith (1993), Social Identity and Social Emotions: Toward new
conceptualisations of prejudice, in D.M. Mackie and D.L. Hamilton (eds), Affect,
cognition, and stereotyping: Interactive processes in group perception, Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 183-196.
14
context as it is today is a product of developments and incidents that

occurred over decades. In other words, in order to understand the
contemporary relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims in the
Netherlands, it is essential to take into account the historical context in
which these relationships developed. For that reason, we include incidents
of tensions and conflicts involving Muslims in the Netherlands that
occurred within a time span of approximately three decades; from the
1980s until today. First, however, we discuss the rise and increase of
radicalisation in Muslim communities.
2.1
Radicalisation in practice
Radicalisation among Muslims in the Netherlands is not a post-9/11

phenomenon. However, since the attacks on the United States in 2001, this
process and in particular radical Islamism has been generally regarded as a
threat to the state, Dutch society and Muslim immigrant communities in
general. This feeling was intensified by a series of terrorist incidents and
numerous scandals in the Netherlands that revealed extremist,
discriminatory and illegal practices by a number of radical Islamist groups
and institutions.
The first signs of radicalisation date back to the 1980s, when
individuals and groups started to organise themselves around issues such
the start of the first Palestinian intifada in 1987, and the row over Salman
Rushdies Satanic Verses in 1988. The demonstrations related to these events
alarmed the Dutch Minister of the Interior, who was aware that these
incidents could lead to increasing tensions in the Netherlands with regard
to Islamism.
Following the Rushdie affair, fears regarding the influence of radical
Islamism within Muslim communities increased. This concern led to
publication of the first public reports on radical Islamist groups activities,
produced by the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (then
known simply as the Security Service). In 1991, the Service revealed the
existence of small groups of militant fundamentalists and expressed
concern regarding their consequences for the integration of Muslims into
mainstream society; the Service indicated the possibility that these militants
might offer their services to foreign powers or that these countries were
already directing them.
Partly based on the idea that the existence of such groups could
hamper the integration process, the Erasmus University of Rotterdam was
asked to investigate this potential threat. Their classified study, whose

main conclusions were made public in 1994, found that radical Islamists
had indeed attempted to impede this process but had not been very
successful in their endeavour. Furthermore, it concluded that very few
Muslims wanted to challenge existing social structures in the Netherlands.
In its 1995 annual report, the Service reaffirmed the idea that the
threat of radical Islamism was rather limited. It stated that there was no
real threat from Islamic society in the Netherlands. However, it noted
serious prejudices toward Islam that had a negative impact on the
integration of Muslims into mainstream society. Various terrorist attacks by
Islamists including those in France (attacks by the Algerian Groupe
Islamique Arm), Israel (suicide attacks on buses in Jerusalem) and the
United States (the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center) were among
the factors leading to such negative stereotypes.
After 1995, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Services
abandoned the idea that the threat posed by radical Islamism was
insignificant. From 1996 onwards, all public documents on this issue
repeated warnings about the potential danger. Moreover, the 1996 annual
report spoke for the first time of information on possible attacks in the
Netherlands, by Hizballah, which had been investigated by the Service.
In response to the increase in Islamist terrorist activities worldwide as
well as growing concern over domestic developments, in 1998 the Service
published a report on political Islam in the Netherlands. It described the
various political organisations based on Islam. Most of them, in one way or
another, rejected Western society and the integration of Muslims into that
society. Yet the report revealed that only small groups of Muslims had
radical opinions and were prepared to pursue their ideal of an Islamic state
or world order through violent means. With regard to mosques, the report
depicted them as political arenas in which many different political actors
operated. The main political issues were integration and education. Some
of the actors were supported or influenced by foreign powers, with Iran,
Libya and Saudi Arabia being mentioned as examples. In addition, the
governments of some of the mother countries of Muslim migrants were
known to be interfering in the political-religious lives of their (former)
nationals in the Netherlands something particularly evident in the cases
of Morocco and Turkey.
The interference of external forces was also apparent in the field of
education. For instance, the Libyan al-Dawa movement (which is linked to
the Islamic Call Society), was involved in the establishment of an Islamic

university in Rotterdam. The same holds for the Turkish governments
Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet Iserli Baskanligi).
Concerning political-religious organisations, the report showed that
most were established on a national basis. Their focus of interest mainly
pertained to their countries of origin and not the fate of the Muslims in the
West. However, they did try to gain support from this Diaspora by way of
taking a strong anti-Western, anti-integration and isolationist position.
Although anti-Western feelings and resistance to integration were
relatively widespread, the Service concluded that political Islam played a
minor role within Muslim communities. Moreover, it did not anticipate
that the more radical variants of political Islamism in the Netherlands
would gain in power and size. However, it did warn that ongoing
marginalisation of Muslim immigrants would possibly pose a long-term
threat with regard to the growth of radical groups. Ideological polarisation
between Muslims and their surrounding society was considered a likely
consequence, which could possibly lead to a negative impact on the
integration process, as well as undermine the peaceful and democratic
coexistence of different cultures in the Netherlands.
By the end of the 1990s, the threat of radical Islamism in the
Netherlands was still more or less a distant one. Threat perceptions were
dominated by events taking place both outside the Netherlands and even
beyond Europe. Moreover, on its territory, the main players were foreign
in the sense that the groups mainly consisted of foreign nationals who
predominantly focused on their mother countries without receiving active
support within the local Muslim communities. Nonetheless, the diversity of
these groups continued to grow.
One of the leading causes of this growth was the increase in both
legal and illegal immigrants with an Islamist background, including
asylum seekers from Algeria, Bosnia, Chechnya, Egypt, Iraq and Syria. In
the Netherlands, these individuals established political-religious
organisations that were strongly oriented towards their mother countries.
Examples include fundraising organisations for the Palestinians, Bosnia,
Chechnya, Afghanistan and Algeria; some of these groups emphasised
both ties to their mother countries and a strong rejection of the Western
society in which they lived.
After the attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, the idea
that Muslims posed a threat to Dutch society even to the extent of
considering them a Trojan horse or a fifth column was gaining ground.

This perception was bolstered by reports about the deaths at the hands of
Indian security forces in Kashmir of two Dutch citizens of Moroccan
descent who were believed to be jihadists. The boys who died in December
2001 shortly after their arrival in the troubled Indian territory were
associated with one of the most radical mosques in the Netherlands, the AlFourqaan mosque in the city of Eindhoven.
These incidents also worried many politicians and policy-makers,
leading them to request information about the extent and nature of Islamist
terrorism in the Netherlands from the Dutch General Intelligence and
Security Services. In a report published in March 2004, the Service
estimated the numerical strength of radical Islamists to be between 100 and
200 activists. According to the General Intelligence and Security Services,
this group included so-called veterans from Afghanistan and Chechnya,
who played an important role in the conversion of young Muslims into
potential jihadists. Moreover, the Service contended that there were several
dozen young Muslims preparing for jihad. This jihad includes both conflict
areas in the Muslim world and potential targets in Europe.
Furthermore, the role of these veterans is not the decisive factor in
the development of new recruits. Indeed, internal dynamics within groups
of radical young Islamists play an important developmental role as well.
This was observed through intensive Internet discussions among young
Muslims on the developing patterns of strife in arenas of conflict such as
Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq, which resulted in the development of
increasingly radical opinions. Additionally, anti-Muslim feelings brought
on by incidents in the Netherlands as well as the Madrid bombings and
other Islamist terrorist attacks abroad also contributed to this
radicalisation. Consequently, a number of these Muslim youths developed
an exceedingly hostile attitude towards the Dutch state and society to the
extent that these youngsters, predominantly of Moroccan descent,
developed views so extreme as to embrace the use of violence. In
November 2004, one of them, Mohammed Bouyeri, killed Dutch filmmaker
Theo van Gogh. This young Moroccan, born and raised in Amsterdam, was
a member of the Hofstadgroep, a loose-knit radical Islamist group of
mostly young Dutch Muslims.
2.2
Radical groups
The Hofstadgroep is probably the most extreme and infamous radical

Muslim organisation in the Netherlands. There are, however, quite a
number of other organisations that can be regarded as radical Muslim
organisations. These include political groups, religious groups and all
kinds of mixes between these two categories. Below is a list of the most
important formal organisations and informal groups in alphabetical
order. It should be stressed that a number of these organisations do not
consider themselves as radical. Nonetheless, they are generally considered
as such by the authorities or scholars.
Al-Jama'a al-Islamia (AJAI)
Al-Jama'a al-Islamia, or the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, is an Islamist group
active since the late 1970s, with origins in the Muslim Brotherhood. The
organisations primary goal is to overthrow the Egyptian government and
replace it with an Islamic state. The organisation is responsible for several
terrorist attacks against high-level Egyptian government personnel and
official US and Egyptian facilities. A few key members of AJAI live in the
Netherlands, among them Usama Rushdie Ali Kalifa (who lived there until
2003).
Arab European League (AEL)
The Arab European League is a pan-Arabist political and social movement
that is active in Belgium and the Netherlands. The AEL was founded and is
led by Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Lebanese-born Shi Muslim who emigrated
from Lebanon in 1991 to study political science in Belgium. The
organisation strives to develop an Arab Muslim communalist movement in
Europe. Particularly in Belgium, mainstream political parties sharply
attacked the AEL for anti-integrative ideas, alleged anti-Semitism and for
disturbing the social peace. In 2002, its leader was arrested and detained for
several days after he allegedly organised riots and called for violence (see
chapter on Belgium). In the Netherlands, the AEL was never associated
with violence. Nonetheless, the organisation was under observation of the
Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD).
Groupe Islamique Arm (GIA)
The Armed Islamic Group is a militant Islamist organisation with the
declared aim of overthrowing the Algerian government and replacing it
with an Islamic state. The GIA adopted violent tactics in 1992, after the
Algerian military government voided the victory of the Islamic Salvation

Front in the first round of legislative elections held in December 1991. It
conducted a violent campaign of civilian massacres in Algeria. The GIA has
also established a presence in Europe. In France, it was responsible for
several terrorist attacks, and some of its members who were wanted by
French authorities reportedly are hiding in the Netherlands.
Hamas/al-Aqsa Foundation
Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist
organisation. At the beginning of the first intifada in 1987, Hamas was
established by Shaikh Ahmad Yassin of the Gaza wing of the Muslim
Brotherhood. The European Union lists it as a terrorist organisation. About
a dozen individuals of Palestinian descent are actively involved in Hamas
in the Netherlands, receiving financial support from a few hundred
sympathisers. One of the institutions that channelled these funds was the
al-Aqsa Foundation, which had a local branch in the Netherlands until the
EU put it on the list of terrorist organisations and it was banned as an
illegal organisation.
Hizb al-Tahrir
Established in 1953 by Shaikh Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, Hizb al-Tahrir (Party
of Liberation) is an Islamist political party whose goal is to re-establish the
caliphate. The party has been banned in many Arab countries, Central Asia
and a few Western countries (such as Germany). Its activities in Europe are
concentrated in the United Kingdom, though the organisation also has a
branch in the Netherlands. Most of its supporters are of Turkish or
Moroccan background. They are organised in small groups numbering a
few dozen people each. Their activities include the organisation of (protest)
meetings against alleged attacks on Islam, such as the Danish cartoons, and
the activities of the Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders. These
events have always been non-violent.
Hofstadgroep
The Hofstadgroep is an Islamist organisation of mostly young Dutch
Muslims of mainly Moroccan descent. The name Hofstad was originally
the codename the Netherlands secret service used for the network and
leaked to the media. The name refers to the nickname of the city of The
Hague, where some of the members used to live. In total, a few dozen of
people were part of this loose-knit network of radicals. In the end, only a
dozen of them were tried on membership of a terrorist organisation. Other

charges included obstructing the work of Members of Parliament,
including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and the illegal possession of firearms. Some
members were acquitted for lack of evidence, while others were found
guilty and sentenced ranging from one to fifteen years imprisonment.
Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of Van Gogh, was also sentenced for
membership of the group. In January 2008, however, the Dutch Court of
Appeals overturned a number of the convictions in the Hofstadgroep case.
Although the Court of Appeals concluded that the alleged network
members embraced and incited radical attitudes and ideologies, it stated
that it could not be proven that the Hofstadgroep was a terrorist
organisation and that these acts would inevitably result in terrorist
engagement.15
According to the Ministry of Interior, there exists a number of other
loose-knit informal groups similar to the Hofstadgroep. Not very much is
known about these radical groupings. The exception is the group around
Samir Azzouz, also described as the Piranha Group, which is further
described below.
slami Bykdou Aknclar Cephesi (IBDA-C)
The Great Eastern Islamic Raiders Front follows the Great East ideology of
Necip Fazil Kisaktrek, a well-known Turkish author and Islamist
ideologue. This organisations goal is the creation of a Sunni Islamist
federal state in the Middle East and the re-establishment of the caliphate.
The Front is responsible for a series of terrorist attacks in Turkey, including
the dual synagogue bombings in Istanbul in November 2003 as well as the
subsequent attack on the HSBC Bank and the British consulate. While
support for this movement exists in the Netherlands, it has been limited in
scope.
Milli Grs
Milli Grs, or National Vision, is a Turkish orthodox-Islamic movement
that has clear political aspirations. Its aim is to Islamise the Turkish state
and society through democratic ways. Milli Grs has approximately
40,000 members in the Netherlands. The movement is part of the European
F. Jensma (2008), Niet zomaar te straffen voor terrorisme (Not to punish just
like that for terrorism), NRC Handelsblad, 24 January.
15
Milli Grs organisation whose headquarters are located in Cologne,

Germany. The movement is widely considered to be of a politico-religious
nature. The Dutch branch is considered more moderate than the German
and Turkish branch.
Piranha Group/Samir Azzouz
In October 2005, the police arrested a young Dutch national of Moroccan
descent, Samir Azzouz, on suspicion of attempting to procure firearms and
planning terrorist attacks in the Netherlands, a case that was codenamed
Piranha Group.16 Azzouz had been apprehended twice before on
suspicion of terrorist activities, but had not been convicted. This time he
and two others ended up in jail. In December 2006, Azzouz received a
sentence of eight years for membership of an organisation with terrorist
intentions, for preparing an attack and recruiting followers. He was not
sentenced for membership of the Hofstadgroep, although he had close
contacts with some of its members, including Mohammed Bouyeri.17
Azzouz is also known for his failed attempt to join the jihad in Chechnya.
At 17 years of age, he and a friend were arrested at the border between
Russia and Ukraine and sent back to the Netherlands.
Teblig movement (Islami Cemiyet ve Cemaatlar Birligi)
The Teblig movement, also known as Kaplanci's, is a radical splinter group
of the Milli Grs movement. Its goal is the establishment of an Islamist
Turkish state, using force if necessary. Following the death of its spiritual
leader Cemaleddin Kaplan in 1995, the organisation broke up into different
factions. In the Netherlands, and today there are about 200 Muslims active
within two separate Kaplan factions.
3.
Types of tensions and violent conflicts
As mentioned earlier, we look at three types of tensions and violent

conflicts involving Muslims: incidents in which Muslims attack nonMuslims and vice versa, as well as incidents within and between Muslim
communities. We look at politically inspired events, as well as politicalDistrict Court of Rotterdam, 7 December 2006, 10/600052-05, 10/600108-05,
10/600134-05, 10/600109-05, 10/600122-05, 10/600023-06, 10/600100-06.
16
A. Benschop (2005), Chronicle of a political murder foretold, Jihad in the

Netherlands, University of Amsterdam, SocioSite (www.sociosite.org).
17
religious and apolitical-religious or pseudo-religious violence. It should be

stressed that it is sometimes rather difficult to make distinctions along
these two lines. As in most conflicts, when two or more groups clash it is
never easy to distinguish the perpetrators from the victims. The same holds
for the nature of incidents. When is something politically inspired or more
of a political-religious nature? Is a violent demonstration of Muslims
against the occupation of Palestine purely political, and what if some of the
demonstrators wear burqas and djelabas?
Regarding the Netherlands, most of the violent attacks of Muslims
against non-Muslims are associated with violent Islamists, who are
considered political-religious. Most of the violent attacks by non-Muslims
on Muslims are of a right-wing political nature, although the low level of
political awareness of some of these groups and individuals raises
questions. The tensions and violent conflicts between Muslim communities
are both of a political and a-political nature. The same holds for
confrontations within the same community.
We have singled out the incidents that attracted the most attention
and that had most impact on communities and Dutch society as a whole. In
the following sections, we first look at non-violent tensions, followed by
violent incidents. Relatively much attention is paid to the only deadly
incident, the murder of Theo van Gogh.
3.1
Muslims versus non-Muslims
The al-Moumni affair

In May 2001, a Moroccan imam, Khalid al-Moumni of the al-Nasr Mosque
in Rotterdam, was interviewed on television. The interview took place
against a backdrop of growing discrimination against homosexuals by
Moroccan youth. When questioned about homosexuality, al-Moumni
described it as a disease that was pandemic the world over and that posed
a threat to Muslim youth. The interview led to a public outcry, causing
leading members of parliament, NGOs and ministers to hold weighty
discussions. Following this incident, a news agency began investigating alMoumnis past. The agency revealed that the controversial imam was
forced to leave Morocco because of his fundamentalist views and sermons
in which he described Christians as pigs. The interview and article about
al-Moumni led to debates in Parliament that called for closing Islamist
mosques and possibly expelling radical imams. Even key members of
liberal Muslim groups supported the idea of the closure of certain mosques.
Resulting from this and other comparable incidents, the Dutch government
received a lot of pressure from Parliament, the media and the public to take
a tougher stance on Islamism than it did before. After the al-Moumni
incident, more would follow and a few radical Imams were indeed
extradited from the Netherlands.
Cheering young Moroccans on 9/11
In the city of Ede, a group of young Muslims of mainly Moroccan descent
allegedly was loudly celebrating the attacks on the United States on 11
September 2001. Journalists were shooting pictures of some young man
who had quickly printed a picture of Osama bin Laden. It remains unclear
to what extent members of the media incited this small group of teenagers
to produce this picture. Nonetheless, the incident provoked a lot of
criticism and could be considered one of the starting point for journalists to
hunt scoops like this by finding out all kinds of worrisome developments
within Muslims communities. At one official state-sponsored Islamic
school, for instance, journalists found Hamas propaganda and posters
glorifying attacks against the West.
Foiled attack on the US embassy in Paris
In July 2001, a Frenchmen of Algerian descent, Djamel Beghal, was arrested
in Dubai. He subsequently confessed to plotting an attack against the
American embassy in Paris and was extradited to France in September
2001. His network included Kamel Daoudi, a number of other (French)
Algerians and three French converts. In multiple court cases, in France and
elsewhere, members of this network were sentenced to prison terms
between one and 10 years. In The Netherlands, two persons were convicted
on terrorism charges. One was a French convert, the other an Algerian
living in France.
Plot to threaten Dutch politicians and to make an explosive device
In September 2004, two youngsters of Moroccan descent were arrested and
accused of terrorist activities. On 14 February 2005, a court sentenced one
of them, Yehya Kadouri, to 140 days jail and forced admission to a
psychiatric institution. He was convicted of publishing death threats on the
internet towards Dutch politicians and collecting information and raw
materials to make an explosive device. The individual was radicalised
almost entirely via the internet.
The murder on filmmaker Theo van Gogh

In spring 2004, against the backdrop of growing anti-Muslim sentiment and
increasing radicalisation among certain groups of Muslims, the Dutch
General Intelligence and Security Service issued a clear and unprecedented
warning in its report Background of Jihad Recruits in the Netherlands (10
March 2004). The report warned about a growing number of Muslims who
feel [that they are] treated disrespectfully by opinion-makers and opinionleaders In addition, from their perspective, the governments attitude is
[either] not impartial enough or not impartial at all. These feelings were
deeply shared by a small group of radical Islamists, but they also existed
among the larger community of Muslim individuals who felt loyal to the
democratic principles of the Dutch state. In particular, young secondgeneration and third-generation Muslim immigrants appeared to feel
strongly about the alleged alienation between society and Muslim citizens.
In particular, it was found that this group of Muslim youth felt that they
were treated disrespectfully, which potentially made them a vulnerable
target for radicalisation and possibly recruitment efforts.
One of these opinion-makers was the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who
had earned a reputation in the Netherlands as an outspoken provocateur.
In his short film Submission, shown on Dutch television, van Gogh adopted
an adversarial stance concerning Islamism. It challenged the abuse of
women in the Islamic world based on verses from the Koran, which were
projected onto the bodies of naked women wearing only veils. A Dutch
parliamentary deputy, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a woman of Muslim Somali origin,
wrote the script. A member of the liberal Freedom and Democracy Party,
Hirsi Ali is a known critic of Islamism. Following the showing of the film
Submission, both Hirsi Ali and Theo van Gogh received death threats via
the internet.
One such individual who took the issuance of these threats very
seriously was a young man of Moroccan descent by the name of
Muhammad Bouyeri, who was born in 1978 and raised in the Netherlands.
Friends and acquaintances described him as a shy but intelligent man.18
Bouyeri had been an eager and successful student in secondary school19
J. Alberts, J. Chorus, S. Derix and A. Olgun (2005), De wereld van Mohammed
B (The world of Mohammed B), NRC Handelsblad, 9 July (www.nrc.nl).
18
19
Albert Benschop (2005), Chronicle of a Political Murder Foretold, Utrecht: Forum.
and easily advanced on to studying at college. Nevertheless, although he

started several studies he never finished any of them until finally, after five
years, he dropped out of college all together.20 In the same period, his
mother died and a number of his ideas to improve the situation of
youngsters in his neighbourhood failed to get the support of the
authorities. For whatever precise reason, he started to become radicalised.
He spent months attempting to gain a more in-depth knowledge of Islam
and radical interpretations of the Koran. Often, he would lock himself up in
his home and sit behind his computer for hours, downloading, reading and
translating radical Islamist texts, writing articles and distributing his work
via the internet under a pseudonym. Meanwhile, Bouyeri became
embedded in a network of similar-minded peers all of whom frequented
the same mosque and met at regular basis at Bouyeris home to discuss
Islam-related issues. During these meetings, Bouyeri played videos of
decapitations in the Middle East and attempted to persuade his friends to
participate in violent jihad against the West.21
By the summer of 2003, Bouyeri had become so radicalised that he
even rejected the most prototypical orthodox al-Tawhid Mosque as being
too liberal. In his radicalisation, Bouyeri adopted an ideology contending
that violence against both non-believers and moderate Muslims often
characterised as renegades was justified. On 2 November 2004, Bouyeri
assassinated Theo van Gogh. In a threat letter, which he stabbed with a
knife to Van Goghs body, Bouyeri expressed anger and disgust against
Western societies and their governments foreign policies. He accused the
Dutch Liberal Party of being anti-Islamic and accused Member of
Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali of terrorising Islam.22 Bouyeri was
apprehended by police while attempting to die a martyrs death a fact
confirmed by a farewell letter, which was found on him. While Bouyeri
E. Vermaat (2005), The Hofstadgroup: A radical Islamic network, Soesterberg:

Uitgeverij Aspekt; E. Vermaat (2006), Nederlandse Jihad. Het proces tegen de
Hofstadgroep (Dutch Jihad. The trial against the Hofstadgroep), Soesterberg:
Uitgeverij Aspekt
20
21
Alberts et al., 2005.
H. Jansen (2005), De brief van Mohammed B., bevestigd aan het lijk van Theo
van Gogh (The letter of Mohammed B., stuck to the body of Theo van Gogh),
Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, Vol. 118, No. 3, pp. 483-491.
22
may have failed to become a martyr, he succeeded in underscoring the

home-grown terrorist threat to the Netherlands.
Soon after the murder of Van Gogh, it became clear that although
Bouyeri proclaimed to have acted independently, he was one of the central
figures in the Hofstadgroep. The event very much shocked the
Netherlands. It became obvious that extreme ideologies as vented by alQaeda and other radical terrorist organisations had gained ground in the
Netherlands, even among those born and raised in the country. It also
became clear that radicalism among Muslims in the Netherlands had a
home-grown terrorist dimension that could no longer be ignored, as had
been the case with the Kadouri case and a number of other thwarted plots.
Violent arrests and convictions
In the investigation following the murder of Van Gogh, the police arrested
several youngsters allegedly embedded in the radical network surrounding
Bouyeri. Approximately one week after Bouyeris arrest, the police set out
to investigate a building in a neighbourhood called the Laakkwartier in The
Hague. Jason Walters and Ismail Akhnikh, two members of the
Hofstadgroep, were inside the building. One of them threw a grenade at
the police, injuring four police officers of whom two were seriously hurt.
The incident was the start of a 14-hour stand-off during which several
attempts to arrest the suspects failed. Ultimately, the police used tear gas to
force the two suspects out of the building and shot one in the shoulder.
In the year following the murder of Van Gogh, more than a dozen
alleged members of the Hofstadgroep stood trial. In March 2006, the court
convicted nine of them and sentenced them to between one and 15 years
imprisonment. In its verdict, the court stated that the Hofstadgroep aimed
at destroying existing Dutch structures and terrorising Dutch society. At
that time, Bouyeri was already sentenced to life imprisonment in a separate
court case.
Plot to prepare a terrorist attack and attempt to recruit a fellow-prisoner
In February 2006, Bilal Lamrani, a young Dutch Muslim was given a threeyear sentence.23 According to the court in Rotterdam, Lamrani was
LJN: AV1652, Rechtbank Rotterdam, 10/600017-05; Buro Jansen & Janssen,
Overzicht terrorisme, angst of aan terrorisme gerelateerde arrestaties in Nederland
sinds 11 september (Overview of terrorism, fear or terrorism-related arrests in the
23
preparing a terrorist attack and had tried to recruit a fellow prisoner while
in jail for threatening a leading Dutch Member of Parliament. In his home,
the police found hundreds of (digital) copies of radical Islamist texts and
information on how to make explosive devices. The 21-year old had close
contact with some members of the Hofstadgroep and Mohammed Bouyeri
who murdered Theo van Gogh.
Plot to attack politicians and a government building
Samir Azzouz, a long-time suspect of terrorism, was arrested with nine
others in October 2005, on suspicion of preparing terrorist attacks on
politicians and a government building. Azzouz was close to most of the
members of the Hofstadgroep. One of the other suspects in this case had
already been sentenced for membership of the Hofstadgroep. Of the 10
persons arrested in October 2005, three were convicted. As mentioned
earlier, Azzouz and the other two were given sentences for membership of
an organisation with terrorist intentions, for preparing a terrorist attack
and for their recruiting activities.
Dutch jihadi terrorists abroad
Besides the loose-knit, home-grown terrorist networks, the Netherlands has
been confronted with a number of locally embedded international
networks controlled from abroad, or in a manner whereby foreign
recruiters residing in the Netherlands play a key role. These networks and
recruiters have managed to find young Muslims in the Netherlands willing
and able to go on jihad. In the past decade, two of them, associated with a
radical Salafi mosque in the city of Eindhoven, died in Kashmir. Some
Dutch Muslims are believed to be fighting in Iraq. Six of them, from the city
of The Hague, were ostensibly on a journey to Chechnya or Dagestand.
Religious leaders and family members successfully persuaded them to
return from Azerbaijan and not to continue their assumed journey. It is not
clear whether this trip was organised by an internationally operating
Netherlands as from 11 september), 12 July 2006; NOS Journaal, Drie jaar cel voor
Bilal L. (Three years of jail for Bilal L.), 14 February 2006; Hofstadgroep plande
aanslag op Wallen (Hofstadgroup planned an attack on Wallen), De Telegraaf, 10
December 2004; A. Benschop (2005), Kroniek van een Aangekondigde Politieke
Moord. Jihad in Nederland (Chronicle of a Political Murder Foretold. Jihad in the
Netherlands), op. cit..
network or a more autonomously decided adventure. The latter seemed to

have been the case with the earlier mentioned failed attempt by Samir
Azzouz to join the jihad in Chechnya.
3.2
Non-Muslims versus Muslims
Following the attacks of 11 September 2001, growing anti-Muslim

sentiments in reaction to cases such as the al-Moumni affair escalated.
Newspaper reports about a group of nine adolescents of Moroccan descent
celebrating the terrorist attacks caused public fury and rendered
substantial damage to the image of Muslims in the Netherlands. In
addition, a series of arrests of suspected Islamist terrorists led some to
question the loyalty of Muslim communities towards the Dutch state,
norms and values. Spurious findings by opinion polls employing
questionable methodologies further added fuel to the fire by fostering the
notion that there was indeed a lack of loyalty exhibited in the Dutch
Muslim population. Moreover, in the weeks following the attacks, the
media revealed many scandals and potential threats, thereby exacerbating
the situation. For example, there was a report about propaganda in Islamic
schools that glorified terrorism and quoted from radical anti-Western
speeches by Salafi imams. Although many of these reports later turned out
to be based on hearsay or misinterpretations of texts and events, with most
of the suspected terrorists being released within days or weeks, the damage
had already been done.
The impact of September 11th and the previously mentioned incidents
was profound, resulting in a tougher tone of debate. While in the past, few
in the Netherlands dared to speak out against Islamist radicalism, the
Dutch community suddenly became unbridled in its (often negative)
expressions regarding Islamism.
A number of public opinion polls in the months following these
attacks consequently revealed strong anti-Muslim sentiment and a fear of
Islam. One survey indicated that about three-quarters of the Dutch
population were in favour of providing military support to the United
States. At the same time, 60% also feared that this might lead to terrorist
attacks in the Netherlands. Another poll showed that a clear majority of the
Dutch wanted to expel Muslims with anti-Western opinions from the
country. A survey among Muslims that appeared in a multi-cultural
weekly further fed these opinions and fears. The results of the survey
showed that the majority of those interviewed believed there was at least
some justification for the attacks on the United States.
Pim Fortuyn
As the relationship between non-Muslims and Muslims in the Netherlands
grew increasingly tense, the flamboyant right-wing Pim Fortuyn entered
the Dutch political arena. Being a former member of the Social-Democratic
Party, he became the head of the populist party Leefbaar Nederland
(Liveable Netherlands) in 2001. Fortuyn, who was openly gay and
appeared to enjoy controversy, was forced to leave this party after some
very provocative statements regarding Muslims and Islam in the
Netherlands. More specifically, he emphasised that the Netherlands should
put a hold on immigrant flows from, in particular, Islamic countries. He
proclaimed that if he were to be elected into the next government, he
would grant citizenship to large groups of Muslims already residing in the
Netherlands, but at the same time would heavily restrict Muslim influx. He
considered Islam a backward culture that had never undergone a period of
Enlightment and was therefore unfit to integrate into modern western
societies.24
After being rejected by LN, Fortuyn founded his own political party,
Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) in February 2002, and was running for the
upcoming governmental elections that were to be held in May that year.
During his political career, Fortuyn continued to make provocative
statements, hereby fuelling existing tensions between Muslims and nonMuslims. The taboo on conservatism and right-wing politics seemed to
disappear, and Fortuyn appeared to have triggered a revival of extremeright lobbying groups and organisations. On 6 May 2002, approximately
one week prior to the governmental elections for which he was running,
Pim Fortuyn was assassinated after having given a radio-interview in
Hilversum. Initially, the common assumption among the Dutch public
seemed to be that Fortuyn had become the victim of radical Islamists
seeking revenge for his anti-Islam statements. Even though it was soon
publicised that Fortuyns murderer, Volkert van der Graaf, was a left-wing
environmental activist, the killing of Fortuyn increased the tension between
Frank Poorthuis and Hans Wansink, De islam is een achterlijke cultuur (Islam
is a retarded culture), De Volkskrant, 9 February 2002.
24
Dutch and non-Dutch populations, particularly focusing on Muslims.

During the days after the murder, representatives of the radical right-wing
vented anti-Islam sentiments and in cities in the eastern part of the country
incidents were reported of harassment of immigrant youngsters by rightwing extremists.25 Despite the assassination, the elections continued one
week later with Fortuyn as a posthumous candidate winning 26 out of 150
seats in the Parliament. Nevertheless, the LPFs success was not to remain;
after the next elections in 2004, it lost 18 seats and by 2006, the party was
elected out of the parliament. Ultimately, the party fell apart by January
2008. Nevertheless, although Fortuyns political career was relatively short,
his provocative statements contributed significantly to the debate about
multiculturalism in general and multiculturalism in the Netherlands in
particular.
Violent reactions to the Van Gogh murder
Immediately after the murder of Van Gogh, the authorities realised it might
provoke violent reactions by non-Muslims, but they did not react with a
strong statement urging everyone to remain calm. And the situation did
not remain calm. Dutch society was shocked not only by the crime itself,
but also by the manner in which the basic principles of the Netherlands
democratic constitutional state had been so brutally attacked. Not only did
Dutch society exhibit outrage over the murder, but many also sought
violent revenge against those Muslims. Youngsters with racist and rightwing ideas exploited the situation to incite hatred and violence against
Moroccans, Muslims and immigrants in general. As Albert Benschop
elaborates in Chronicle of a Political Murder Foretold, the Islam-inspired
murder of van Gogh was grist to the political mill of extremely nationalist
and racist groups [who] seized the event to give vent to their violent and
venomous opinions.26 Consequently, the Netherlands has witnessed a
growing climate of intolerance in its non-Muslim community followed by
increased episodes of attacks against Muslims and cases of discrimination.
In the days following the murder of the film maker, there were more than
100 incidents of arson and assault directed at mosques, Islamic schools and
Blanke terreur in de Kempen (White terror in the Kempen), NRC Handelsblad, 2

June 2003.
26
Benschop, op. cit.
25
individual Muslims. In reaction, young Muslims also attacked a number of

churches and individuals.
Attacks by right-wing youngsters
In the context of the inflamed racial tensions that followed the Van Gogh
murder, right-wing extremists launched a renewed assault on the Dutch
Muslim communities in 2005. In particular, the so-called Lonsdale youth
received extensive attention by the media as well as by politicians.
Lonsdale is a popular clothing brand among right-wing elements of the
gabber youth, a subgroup that is largely defined by a preference for house
music. In a study of the Lonsdale issue, Van Donselaar27 concluded that the
Lonsdale subgroup is very diverse in both nature and size. Between 2002
and 2005, the authors counted more than 100 groups in the Netherlands
that were either right-wing-oriented or had been involved in extreme rightwing or racist incidents. After a fight between right-wing and immigrant
youngsters in Venray and an attack on an Islamic primary school in Uden,
early in 2005, the Intelligence Service started an investigation into Lonsdale
youth.28 In the report, the Service concluded that at present, Lonsdale youth
do not pose a considerable threat to the democratic order, and that the
subgroup mostly consists of unorganised, loosely-knit structures that are
not defined by political ideologies. The threat for society is mostly long
term, in the sense that provocative statements and symbolism prompt
frequent confrontations with immigrant youngsters and can erode social
cohesion and multicultural relations within the Dutch society.
Geert Wilders
In recent years, Member of Parliament Geert Wilders has made a name for
himself as the leading politician on immigration and integration issues.
Many Muslims (and non-Muslims) perceive MP Geert Wilders as having
an anti-Muslim agenda. The earlier-mentioned movie Fitna was not his
first provocative statement concerning Islam. Other well-known statements
of his include comparing the immigration of Muslims with a tsunami wave,
Jaap Van Donselaar (ed.), Monitor racisme en extremisme: zevende rapportage
(Monitor racism and extremism: seventh report), Amsterdam: Anne Frank
Stichting; Leiden: Universiteit Leiden, 2006.
27
AIVD, Lonsdale jongeren in Nederland (Lonsdale youngsters in the Netherlands),

The Hague, 2005.
28
comparing the Koran with Hitlers Mein Kampf accompanied with a plea for
a ban on the Koran, and questioning the loyalty of Dutch politicians with
a Moroccan or Turkish background. His alleged anti-Muslim attitude and
remarks have led to several charges against Wilders for inciting hatred of
Muslims or insulting them. He was never convicted in court, however, and
repeatedly has stated that he respects the rule of law. Nonetheless, he is
generally regarded as contributing to a harsh, polarised debate on the
integration of Muslim communities in the Netherlands. The popularity of
Geert Wilders and his ideas did result in his Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV,
Party For Freedom) winning nine (out of 150) seats in Parliament.
3.3
Muslims versus Muslims
Kurds and Turks

There are many different levels and types of tensions and violent conflicts
between Muslims. If we look at incidents between Muslim communities,
the most striking ones are of a political nature, especially concerning
tensions and violence between Turks and Kurds. Both have their own
groups and organisations. Think of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) or
the Turkish nationalist Grey Wolves. This is not to say that tensions and
incidents are always formally organised through groups like these. There
are also quite a number of locally organised or spontaneous incidents,
such as provocative behaviour of young Kurds in front of a Turkish
coffeehouse just after an important European football match in which
Galatasaray or Besiktas were beaten. In addition, the invasion of Turkish
troops in Iraq in early 2008 caused an increase of tensions between the two
groups, both accusing the other of terrorism and organising protest
meetings or demonstrations. There have been a number of arson bombings
of Turkish and Kurdish targets. However, it remains unclear whether these
incidents were of a political nature or criminals fighting criminals. The
latter type of tensions and violence is perhaps one of the most serious ones,
at least in terms of people killed or injured, but falls beyond the scope of
this study.
Customary and pseudo-religious violence
Within some Muslim communities, dramatic incidents have occurred
involving family members beating up and even killing girls and women.
These honour crimes have added to the earlier-mentioned association
between Muslims and radical behaviour and violence, in particular
towards women. Of course, this kind of pseudo-religious behaviour not

only gives Islam and the Muslim communities a bad-image problem, but it
is also a very serious social problem within communities between
generations. The problem is even more serious within families between
parents and children and between couples of which one partner is born and
raised in the Netherlands and the other is the imported partner.
Whereas in the past, these kinds of crimes were more or less ignored
or considered as crimes of passion, today they are given widespread
attention in the media and receive special attention by social workers, the
police and public prosecutors. The exact number of honour crimes is
unknown but in recent years, more than a dozen cases have led to hefty
debates, including in Parliament. In fact, political parties are currently
pushing the authorities to restart investigations into the murder of a young
Kurdish woman by her ex-husband (who committed suicide immediately
after killing her).
Conclusions
In recent decades, the world has witnessed a trend of globalisation that
brought forth an increase in interaction, interdependency and networking
between social groups. However, one of the side effects of these
developments is that they also led to an increased awareness of social
heterogeneity. Cultural diversity becomes increasingly salient, not only
across borders but also within them. For social groups with different
values, different norms, different historical backgrounds and different
beliefs to coexist peacefully, it is important that they can agree on a basic
set of common rules and values and that there is a minimum level of
mutual respect and understanding.
In the Netherlands, many different cultural, ethnic and religious
groups have lived together peacefully and successfully for decades. The
country has experienced hardly any violence between social groups. In
contrast to countries like France and the United Kingdom, the Netherlands
has not been confronted with many serious terrorist attacks. There have not
been riots like those in Paris or Bradford, and there have not been violent
confrontations with extreme-right groups like there have been in Germany.
In other words, the Dutch experience with inter-group violent conflict is,
fortunately, rather limited.
However, in recent years, a few incidents and developments have
occurred that have led to tensions and conflicts between Muslims and non-
Muslims and that have eroded the idea of the Netherlands as a peaceful
and tolerant country. This new image of the Netherlands as a place of harsh
debates, polarisation and violence did not only take root outside the
country, but also among many Dutch citizens. There are as yet no
convincing explanations of how and why this happened. The single
incidents that probably added to the polarised political and social climate
are the attacks on the United States in 2001, the discoveries by the media
of extreme radical behaviour among Muslims and the murder of Theo van
Gogh in 2004. These and other incidents inflamed inter-cultural and interethnic tensions between different social groups and have led, in some
occasions, to violent outbursts. They also contributed to political
polarisation over issues related to Muslims (and other immigrants), as well
as to the implicit association that presently seems to be easily made
between Muslims and violence. The fact that the release of the anti-Islam
movie Fitna did not lead to angry responses by Muslim communities may
indicate two things. Either the idea of intolerance and polarisation has been
exaggerated, or that Dutch society has gradually rediscovered its traditions
and the importance of adhering to common rules and values and showing
a minimum level of mutual respect and understanding. Probably it is a bit
of both.
6. RADICALISATION AMONG
MUSLIMS IN THE UK
RACHEL BRIGGS & JONATHAN BIRDWELL
uslim communities in the UK have come under intense scrutiny

in recent years, but especially since 7 July 2005 (7/7). The
emergence of a home-grown threat raised concerns not just about
the threat of future attacks, but it also played on deeper anxieties about
Britains growing diversity and apparent loss of a cohesive identity. The
current terrorist threat and the UKs responses to it should be viewed
against this wider backdrop. Since 7/7, the extent of the problem has
become clearer as new plots have been unearthed and a succession of trials
has provided rare glimpses into the lives of the radicals. This chapter
outlines the details of the main plots.
Many theories have been offered about the drivers or causes of
radicalisation, but they are rarely able to prove more than the exception,
never the rule. In fact, it is almost impossible to say with any certainty what
the causes are as it is so difficult to know whether a factor is instrumental,
or merely present. It is perhaps more helpful to think about radicalising
agents factors that are present (though not necessarily causal) and which
appear frequently across different cases. This chapter highlights a number:
key places, charismatic leaders, relationship links, experiences and stated
and assumed grievances.
One of the most frequent theories about radicalisation is that certain
organisations or movements play central roles in indoctrinating individuals
into a set of fundamental beliefs and an acceptance that violence is a
legitimate tool for solving their problems. This collaborative research
project divides Muslim organisations into three broad categories for the
purposes of this study: non-political religious groups, religious and
political groups and non-religious political groups. This chapter provides a
| 109
110 | BRIGGS & BIRDWELL
brief synopsis of the main organisations and movements under each

heading and offers, where it exists, evidence about their links to violence.
It should be acknowledged that this is a problematic framework. Few
groups fit neatly into one category and often move between them over time
or depending on their activities. It is also highly unlikely that they would
self-categorise themselves in these terms. It also assumes that organisations
as corporate entities are important players within the radicalisation
process, rather than the individuals who pass through them. In fact, in
many cases individuals go in and out of these organisations, often leaving
when they do not find what they are looking for. To conclude that their
presence confirms the organisations role would be misleading. Finally,
these organisations can find themselves being used as convenient spaces
for individuals to convene often in the margins where the culpability of
the organisation is due more to its poor visibility and governance than a
commitment to violence.
This chapter sets out the position of Muslims in the UK, the threat to
the UK from al-Qaeda-linked and -inspired terrorism through an account
of the main terror plots, outlines the main radical groups and movements
under the three-pronged categorisation outlined above and closes with an
explanation of latest UK government policy responses. It concludes with a
note of caution about misinterpreting the nature and intention of these
groups and notes the role that many with some notable exceptions
could play in the effort to tackle radicalisation in the UK.
1.
Muslim communities in the UK
There are around 2 million Muslims in the UK, the largest faith group after
Christians.1 Most trace their roots to migration and settlement after the
Second World War, although their presence dates back as far as the 17th
century. Almost half (46%) were born in the UK,2 with three-quarters
having South Asian heritage. The community is becoming more diverse:
Z. Bunglawala, M. Halstead, M. Malik, and B. Spalek, Muslims in the UK:

Policies for Engaged Citizens, Open Society Institute, EU Monitoring and
Advocacy Program, November 2004, p. 12.
1
Ibid.
RADICALISATION AMONG MUSLIMS IN THE UK | 111
there are now 56 nationalities represented and 70 languages spoken.3

Muslims have the youngest age profile of all faith groups; in 2001, onethird (33.8%) were under the age of 16, compared to one-fifth of the
population overall (20.2%).The average age is 28, 13 years below the
national average.4 This has a bearing on the extent of political activism
within the community, with most being youth-led.
Muslims constitute some of the most deprived communities in the
UK. Almost one-third of Muslims of working age have no qualifications,
the highest proportion for any faith group.5 Muslim children experience
high levels of the risk factors associated with child poverty (national
average figures are shown in brackets): 42% live in crowded
accommodation (12%); 12% live in households without central heating (6%)
and over one-third (35%) are growing up in households where there are no
adults in employment (17%).6 Muslims are the most disadvantaged faith
group in the British labour market; they are three times more likely to be
unemployed than the majority Christian group. Of those that are
employed, job prospects are poor; Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are 2.5
times more likely than the white population to be unemployed and 3 times
more likely to be in low-paid jobs.7 Muslims are over-represented in the
prison system. They make up 3% of the population but 9% of the
population of prisoners.8
The relationship between Muslim communities and mainstream
British society (as if there were such a thing) has been the subject of much
debate and analysis in recent years. A survey conducted by several Muslim
groups found that since 9/11, 80% of Muslim respondents reported being
H. Khan, Unite but follow me: The tragic comedy of Muslim representation, Q
News, March 2004, pp. 24-25; H. Khan, Portfolio: Who speaks for British
Muslims, Q News, March 2004, p. 23; S. El-Hassan, A Report on a Consultation
with Individuals from the Muslim Community, IQRA Trust, 2003, p. 2.
A. Yunas Samad and Kasturi Sen, Islam in the European Union:Transnationalism,

Youth and the War on Terror , Chapter 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
5 Bunglawala, Halstead, Malik and Spalek, op. cit., p. 14.
4
Ibid.
Samud & Sen, op. cit.
F. Guessous, N. Hooper and U. Moorthy, Religion in Prison 1999 and 2000, England
and Wales, Home Office, 2001, 15/01, p. 1.
8
subjected to Islamophobia; 68% felt they had been perceived and treated
differently; and 32% reported being subjected to discrimination at UK
airports.9 Some have argued that young Muslim men suffer
disproportionately; Alexander suggests that they have emerged as the new
folk devils of popular and media imagination,10 and Archer notes that in
public discourse Muslim men are not only conceptualised as dangerous
individuals with a capacity for violence and/or terrorism, but also as
culturally dangerous as threatening the British way of life.11
A succession of opinion polls have shown many Muslims are
uncomfortable with life in the UK, more so than those in mainland
Europe.12 The polling organisation, Pew, created a religious-cultural
negativity index based on seven characteristics (selfishness, arrogance,
immorality, violence, greediness, generosity and honesty). Britains score,
based on the perception of British Muslims of Western non-Muslims with
regards to these characteristics, was higher than other European Muslims,
and in fact, closer to the score (opinion) of Muslims in Muslim countries.
British Muslims are more inclined to see a conflict between Islam and
modernity; more likely to self-identify along religious lines than national
lines; and more deeply concerned about the future of Muslims in Britain.
When asked, Is there a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living
in a Modern society?, almost half of British Muslims (49%) felt there was.
At the same time, there is an ongoing and concerted campaign
against Islamism by a coalition of both left and right who criticise the UK
government for what they call a policy of appeasement towards these
groups. Martin Bright of the New Statesman went so far as to claim that
these organisations were engaged in a sophisticated strategy of
Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism, Al-Khoei Foundation and the Muslim
College, Counter-Terrorism Powers: Reconciling Security and Liberty in an Open Society:
Discussion Paper A Muslim Response,London, FAIR, 2004, p. 22, quoted in
Bunglawala, Halstead, Malik and Spalek, op. cit., p.19.
C. Alexander, The Asian Gang, ethnicity, identity, masculinity, Oxford: Berg, 2000,
p. 6 quoted in Bunglawala, Halstead, Malik and Spalek, op. cit., p. 19.
10
L. Archer, Race, Masculinity and Schooling: Muslim boys and education,

Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2003, p. 157,quoted in Bunglawala, Halstead,
Malik and Spalek, op. cit., p. 19.
11
12
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=253.
implanting Islamist ideology among young Muslims in Western Europe.13

The groups to which he and others refer are, on the whole, actually pretty
mainstream, often progressive ones, such as the FOSIS (Federation of
Student Islamic Societies), which is the Muslim equivalent of NUS
(National Union of Students) and Leicesters Islamic Foundation which has
been at the forefront of efforts to foster understanding between
communities. Islamism is not inherently violent,14 but these nuances are
rarely acknowledged and casual links are made between these groups and
more specific concerns about violent extremism. This makes balanced
debate difficult and affects the analysis of many of the groups outlined in
later sections of this paper.
2.
Al-Qaeda-linked and -inspired terrorism
MI5, the British security service, has said that it believes that there are 2,000
individuals who pose a direct threat to national security and public safety,
and a further 2,000 who are actively plotting but not individually known to
the authorities. It is thought that the UK faces 30 known plots, and the
security service is monitoring 200 networks.15 The threat was described by
MI5 chief, Jonathan Evans as the most immediate and acute peacetime
threat in the 98-year history of my service. He also said that recruits are
getting younger and that international influences are now much more
diverse; it is no longer just links to Pakistan.16
There have been more than 200 terrorist convictions in the UK since
11 September 2001; the following summarises the details of the most
notable cases and is correct as of June 2008.17
Martin Bright, When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries, Policy Exchange,

2007.
13
Sara Silvestri, Europe and Political Islam: Encounters of the Twentieth and
Twenty-first Centuries, in Tahir Abbas, Islamic Political Radicalism: A European
Perspective, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
14
15
Gorden Browns statement to Parliament, 19 March 2008.
16
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2205608,00.html
Thousands pose UK terror threat

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7078712.stm).
17
7/7 Co-conspirators
On 22 March 2007, Waheed Ali (born Shipon Ullah), 26, Sadeer Saleem, 27,
and Mohammed Shakil, 31, all from Beeston, Leeds, were arrested on
allegations that they were co-conspirators in the London bombings of 7 July
2005, and are currently on trial at Kingston Crown Court.18
It is alleged that Waheed Ali and Mohammed Shakil travelled with
Mohammed Sidique Khan to Pakistan and it is believed that Shakil trained
with him in a terrorist training camp there.19 All three men have admitted
that they travelled to London in December 2004 with 7/7 bomber Hasib
Hussain, met up with Germaine Lindsay and visited together various
London locations. The prosecution argues that these were scouting trips for
the eventual attacks, something the defendants deny.20 Prosecutors also
claim that Khan and Shakil met with convicted terrorist Mohammed Junaid
Babar and another man at Islamabad Airport on 24 July 2003. There is
allegedly evidence on Alis computer of frequent visits to jihadi affiliated
websites, and police found a piece of paper in Shakils possession with
instructions for sending money to the Taliban embassy in Pakistan, and a
long letter on his computer praising the 9/11 attackers. Similar documents
about 9/11 were found on Saleems seized computer.
On 9 May 2007, Khalid Khaliq, 34, was arrested on suspicion of
commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. He pleaded
guilty to possession of an al-Qaeda training manual and was sentenced at
Leeds Crown Court to 16 months.21 Khaliq was apparently a single,
unemployed father of three children. He was also a volunteer and trustee at
Iqra Bookshop, which served as a centre for Muslim youth: 7/7 bombers
Tanweer and Khan were also trustees of the bookshop. Khaliq is featured in
a photograph along with Tanweer and Khan white-water rafting in
Northern Wales.
18
More time to quiz 7 July suspects, BBC News On-line, 23 March 2007.
David Williams and Lucy Ballinger, Stunned families of 7/7 victims see first
images of suicide bombers in the moments before they brought carnage to Tube,
The Daily Mail, 11 April 2008.
19
20
Ibid.
21
Man jailed over al-Qaeda training manual, Sky News On-line, 11 March 2008.
21/7 Co-conspirators
Muktar Ibrahim (or Ibrahim Muktar Said),22 29, Ramzi Mohammed, 25,
Hussain Osman, 28, and Yassin Omar, 26, were found guilty of this
attempted attack and sentenced to life imprisonment on 11 July 2007.
Manfo Asiedu, 35, believed to be Ghanian, is considered to be the fifth
bomber, abandoned his bomb and went back to Ibrahims apartment to
defuse a booby-trap bomb. He was convicted of conspiring to cause
explosions and sentenced to 33 years.
All four would-be bombers had come under the influence and
guidance of Abu Hamza and Abdullah el-Faisal in their teens and early
twenties.23 Ibrahim had apparently trained for jihad in Sudan in 2003 and
was under surveillance in May 2004. He was also stopped and questioned
at Heathrow on his way to Islamabad in December 2004, and the
prosecution speculated that he might have attended the same training
camp as Sidique Khan.24 He had been involved in criminal gang activity for
which he picked up a custodial sentence.
Yassin Omars flat in New Southgate, North London, served as the
bomb-making factory. Omar was born in Somalia, and came to London in
1990 with his sisters where he was placed under the care of the local
authority. He became increasingly attracted to Islam around 2000, began
wearing a robe instead of Western clothes and started espousing support
for the Taliban.
The fourth would-be bomber, Ramzi Mohammed, came to the UK
from Somalia via Kenya when his father was forced to fight in one of the
warring militias there.25 He was placed in the care of social services in
Slough. Until 2003, Mohammed led a Western lifestyle, but he then began
attending the Finsbury Park Mosque and going to Hyde Park to listen to
sermons. In January 2004, he began associating with Ibrahim and Omar.
Police found a suicide note to his girlfriend and two children and extremist
literature in his apartment.
This is how he is referred to in the following article: Ten in court for shielding
21/7 attackers, Times On-line, 11 August 2005.
22
Sandra Laville, 21/7 bombers: ringleader slipped through police net, The
Guardian, 10 July 2007.
23
24
Profile: Muktar Ibrahim, BBC News, 11 July 2007.
25
Profile: Ramzi Mohammed, BBC News, 9 July 2007.
A number of individuals have been found guilty of helping the 21/7

plotters. Adel Yahya, 25, from Ethiopia was sentenced to 6 years and 9
months for collecting information that was useful to a person preparing a
terrorist attack. He met Omar at school and they attended Finsbury Park
Mosque together. Yahya accompanied the other bombers on the training
trip to the Lake District in 2004 and extremist literature was found in his
apartment.
The following individuals were found guilty of giving assistance and
protection to the bombers while they were in hiding. Muhedin Ali, 29, from
Ladbroke Grove was sentenced to 7 years (Ramzi Mohammeds suicide
note was found in Alis apartment). Wahbi Mohammed, 25, from
Stockwell, brother of Ramzi Mohammed, was sentenced to 17 years. Ismail
Abdurahman, 25, from Lambeth was sentenced to 10 years for failing to
disclose information about Said and assisting Osman in evading arrest.
Siraj Yassin Addullah Ali, 33, from Enfield, was sentenced to 12 years for
failing to disclose information about Ibrahim and Omar. Ali was fostered
by the same family as Omar and lived in the same block of flats in
Southgate. Abdul Sherif, 30, from Stockwell, brother of Hussain Osman,
was sentenced to 10 years. Osman travelled to Italy with Sherifs passport.26
A number of other individuals have recently been found guilty of
assisting Osman: his wife, Yeshiemebet Girma,27 31, from Stockwell was
jailed for 15 years for failing to inform police of her husbands plans to
launch a terrorist attack and helping him to escape to Rome; Esayas Girma,
22, from Stockwell (brother of Yeshi Girma) and Mulumebet Girma, 23,
from Brighton (sister of Yeshi Girma) were both sentenced to 10 years each;
and Mohammed Kabashi, 23, (boyfriend of Mulu Girma) was jailed for 9
years.
London Fertiliser Plot
The group charged with this plot had purchased over 600 kg of ammonium
nitrate in order to construct a bomb and had stored it in an Access SelfStorage unit in Hanwell, West London, and surveillance revealed a number
26
The accomplices to terror, BBC News, 4 February 2008.
27 Wife failed to report bombers plans, Channel 4 News On-line, 27 February

2008.
of targets including the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London and

Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.
Omar Khayam, the ringleader, is a British citizen born and raised in
Crawley, West Sussex in a largely secular Muslim home. He attended AlMuhajiroun meetings and travelled to Pakistan to train in a Mujahideen
training camp to fight in Kashmir. After returning home to Britain, he left
again for Afghanistan in 2001 and met with members of the Taliban. He
was deeply affected by the war in Iraq, and after the invasion returned to
Pakistan, met with al-Qaeda member Abdul Hadi, and began planning
attacks in the UK.
Jawad Akbar was born in Pakistan but moved to Crawley when he
was eight. He attended Brunel University where he became involved in a
radical Islamist political group. Akbar travelled with Khayam to Pakistan
in 2003.
Salahuddin Amin was born in London but raised in Pakistan. He
attended Al-Muhajiroun meetings in Luton, where he met individuals who
were attempting to set up jihadi support networks between the UK and
various groups abroad. Eventually Amin moved back to Pakistan, where
UK officials claim he was a facilitator between the UK and extremists in
Pakistan. In 2005 he was sent to Britain where he apparently gave a full
and frank interview that figured prominently in the trial. He later
retracted his story, denying any knowledge of the plot.
Waheed Mahmood met Khayam at the local mosque in Crawley, and
participated in meetings held in Luton. Mahmood had a family home in
Pakistan where the plotters met and decided to attack the UK. Mahmood
had dismantled his hard drive and thus there was only verbal evidence
against him. He was caught on tape praising the attacks on Madrid as a
beautiful job, and discussing possible attacks on Bluewater shopping
centre in Kent.
Anthony Garcia (born Rahman Benouis in Algeria) claimed that
seeing videos of atrocities in Kashmir was a turning point for him. He
travelled to Pakistan in 2003 and attended the same training camp as
Khayam. Back in the UK, Garcia was the individual who purchased the
fertiliser and accompanied Khayam and Nabeel Hussain to the Access
Storage Unit.
Mohammed Khawaja, of Pakistani origin, was born and raised in the
suburbs of Ottawa, Canada. He attended the same training camp in
Pakistan as the other plotters and agreed to provide the detonator for the
bombs. He is still awaiting trial in Canada.28
Mohammed Babar acted as the key witness for the prosecution, after
turning against the other defendants. He is an American of Pakistani
descent who travelled to Pakistan shortly after the 9/11 attacks, reportedly
to take part in the jihad, and while there came into contact with the other
defendants in the case. He is serving three years in an American prison a
reduced sentence given in exchange for his testimony in the UK and will
enter the Witness Protection Program once he is released.
Abu Hamza
Abu Hamza (Mustafa Kamel Mustafa) emigrated to the UK from Egypt in
1979. He came into contact with Afghan Mujahideen fighters who had
come to the UK to seek medical attention, and eventually left the UK to
work and fight in Afghanistan, where he suffered the loss of his hand and
eye. He also served in Bosnia. When he returned to the UK he became a
leading figure in the Islamist movement and began to establish himself at
the Finsbury Park Mosque, where he eventually gained de facto control. He
was questioned about plots, including the massacre of tourists in Luxor,
Eygpt, and the alleged bomb plots in Yemen, for which his son was jailed
for three years. The mosque was raided in January 2003, in connection with
the so-called ricin plot of 2002, after which Hamza lost control of the
mosque, although he continued to preach outside it. In 2004, the US
government named Hamza as a terrorist facilitator with global reach. He
was successfully convicted on 11 counts and sentenced to seven years in
jail.29 In February 2008, the Home Secretary approved his extradition to the
US, an appeal against which he recently lost.30
Ian MacLeod, Supreme Court rejects terrorism law challenge, National Post, 3
April 2008.
28
Information taken from BBC Profile: Abu Hamza, BBC News, 8 February 2008.
See
also
Timeline:
Hamza
Trial,
BBC
News
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4644030.stm).
29
David Batty, Abu Hamza loses legal fight against extradition to US, The
Guardian, 20 June 2008
30
Plot to attack the US and UK Dhiren Barot

Dhiren Barot was the mastermind behind a number of plans to attack
targets in the UK and US, for which he was sentenced to life in prison.
Seven other men also received jail sentences as co-conspirators. Their plans
included blowing apart a London Underground tunnel and bombings
using an explosives-packed limousine and a dirty radiation device. Barot
allegedly showed his plans to al-Qaeda operatives who were hiding in
Pakistan, while the other seven individuals made preparations back in the
UK.
Barot was born in India to a Hindu family who emigrated to
Kingsbury, in northwest London shortly after he was born. Barot converted
to Islam when he was 20, reportedly after a visit to Kashmir.31 In 1995, he
allegedly went to Pakistan where he attended a terrorist training camp.
Police found a manual with extensive notes on various weapons, chemicals
for bomb-making and bomb-making instructions. Intended targets in the
US included the IMF and World Bank in Washington, D.C., the Stock
Exchange and Citigroup headquarters in New York and the Prudential
Building in Newark, NJ.32
The co-conspirators were: Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, 27, of Harrow,
North London, who was sentenced to 20 years; Junada Ferozem, 31, of
Blackburn, who was sentenced to 22 years; Mohamed ul-Haq, 28, of
Wembley, who was sentenced to 18 years; Abdul Aziz Jalil, 24, of Luton,
who was sentenced to 26 years; Omar Abdul Rehman, 23, of Bushey,
Hertfordshire, sentenced to 15 years; Quaisar Shaffi, 28, of Willesdon,
sentenced to 15 years; and Nadeem Tarmohammed, 29, of Wembley, who
was sentenced to 20 years.33
Transatlantic attack
In August 2006, a number of people were arrested on suspicion of plotting
to blow up transatlantic planes using explosives disguised as soft drinks.
Sandro Contenta, He embraced Islam, then terrorism, Toronto Star, 16 October

2006.
31
32
Profile of Dhiren Barot, BBC News, 7 November 2006.
Information taken from: Dhiren Barots co-conspirators, BBC News, 15 June

2007.
33
Eight men are currently on trial in the UK,34 facing charges of

conspiracy to murder and prepare acts of terrorism. All deny the charges.
The prosecutions evidence consists of jihadi-related literature and images
found in their homes, and martyrdom videos made by six of the eight
defendants.35 Those on trial are: Abdula Ahmed Ali, 27, of Walthamstow;
Tanvir Hussain, 27; and Assad Ali Sarwar, 28, who have all pleaded guilty
to conspiracy to cause explosions and conspiring to cause public nuisance
by distributing al-Qaeda-style videos threatening suicide bomb attacks in
Britain.36 They stand alongside Umar Islam and Ibrahim Savant, 27 (who
reportedly left a suicide note for his wife),37 both of whom admit conspiring
to cause a public nuisance. Alongside them are Mohammed Yasar Gulzar;
Wabeed Zaman, 22, of Walthamstow and reportedly follower of Tabligh
Jamaat; and Waheed Arafat Kahn, 24, of East London.38 Khan was a student
at London Metropolitan University, was president of the Islamic Society
affiliated with FOSIS, and he was also reportedly a Tabligh Jamaat
follower. Two others are charged with failing to disclose information, but
have not yet come to trial: Cossor Ali, 25, of Walthamstow; and Mehran
Hussain, of Chingford.39
Rashid Rauf, a British-born citizen, was thought to be the mastermind behind the attacks and was arrested by Pakistani authorities at the
urging of British and American authorities in August 2006. Pakistani courts
ruled that there was not enough evidence to convict him of terrorismrelated charges, so the charges were reduced to forgery, although Britain
and the US continued to press for his extradition. He is alleged to have
escaped police custody,40 although there are suspicions that the Pakistani
authorities still have Rauf in custody but simply do not want to extradite
him to Britain for reasons unknown.41
34
Taken from: http://www.dawn.com/2008/04/05/top13.htm.
35
See http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/display.var.2177305.0.0.php.
36
See Terror Trial: Three admit parliament bomb plot, The Guardian, 15 July 2008
37
Paradise plea by plotter, The Sun, 19 April 2008.
38
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7348936.stm.
39
Two Terror plot suspects freed, BBC News, 24 August 2006.
Pakistan manhunt for escaped terror suspect, The Guardian, 17 December 2007.
The mysterious disappearance of an alleged terrorist mastermind, The
Guardian, 28 January 2008.
40
41
London and Glasgow airport plots (29/30 June 2007)

The most recent high-profile terrorist plots occurred on 29 and 30 June
2007, when two cars loaded with explosives were parked outside a
nightclub in Londons West End and the next day an attempt was made to
drive a truck loaded with explosives into the entrance of Glasgow airport.
The two men who drove the truck into Glasgow airport Dr. Kafeel
Ahmed, 27, from Bangalore, India and Dr. Bilal Abdullah, 27, an Iraqi
doctor registered to work in the UK are thought also to have parked the
bomb cars in London. Dr. Ahmed suffered 90% burns and died in
hospital, while Dr. Abdullah was charged with conspiracy to cause
explosions and was scheduled to stand trial in October 2008 with Dr.
Mohammed Asha, a doctor from Jordan of Palestinian descent who is
charged with conspiracy to cause explosions.42
Five other individuals were arrested, including Dr. Ashas wife, but
three were released shortly after without charge. A fourth individual, Dr.
Mohammed Haneef, was arrested in Australia but all charges against him
have been dropped. Additionally, Dr. Kafeel Ahmeds brother, Dr. Sabeel
Ahmed, was arrested and charged with withholding information about the
attacks. Kafeel Ahmed had emailed his brother on the morning of the
attack to instruct him to withhold information from the police. Dr. Sabeel
Ahmed pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to 18 months in jail,
a lesser sentence due to the fact that he received the email after the attacks
had already occurred. It was reported in various Indian papers that the two
Ahmed brothers had undergone a change after becoming members of
Tabligh e-Jamaat.43
Lessons from UK terrorism cases
Many academics have sought to construct overarching theories about the
causes and drivers of radicalisation, but these normally seem to prove only
the exceptions rather than the rule. The case studies above show that few
if any patterns are universal, and that it is difficult to draw causal links.
However, these cases do highlight a number of factors that are often
present, although it is impossible to know with any certainty how
42
Bomb plot: Arrests and releases, BBC News, 5 October 2007.
See http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1109091.
http://sundaytimes.lk/070708/International/i503.html.
43
instrumental each one is on the path to violence. Several factors illustrated

in the table below stand out as important, namely places, leaders,
relatinships, experiences and grievances.
Factor
Key places
Charismatic
leaders
Relationship
links
Examples
x Finsbury Park Mosque (now known as North London
Mosque, apparently purged of its radical elements) (21/7)
x Speakers Corner, Hyde Park (21/7)
x Iqra bookstore in Beeston (7/7)
x Local mosques (fertiliser plot)
x Trips to Pakistan (fertiliser plot; Khan reportedly met
Khayam and others involved in the fertiliser plot at a
training camp in Pakistan)
x Tablighi Jamaat meetings/events (transatlantic attack plot,
London/Glasgow airport plot)
x Universities, Islamic students groups: London
Metropolitan University (transatlantic attack plot, 21/7
plotters); Brunel University (fertiliser plot)
x Websites (Numerous individuals in different plots had
evidence of accessing jihadi websites; Al-Muhajioun
now known as Ahl ul-Sunnah Wa al-Jamma operates
exclusively by invitation-only internet chat room)
x Al-Muhajiroun meetings Crawley, Luton: (fertiliser plot)
x Abu Hamza (influenced 21/7 plotters)
x Sheikh el-Faisal (influenced Germaine Lindsay of 7/7,
Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui)
x Omar Bakri (influenced fertiliser plotters)
x Dhiren Barot (influenced his co-plotters, as well as Ramzi
Mohammed, 21/7)
Family Links (Britain and Pakistan, in particular):
x Rashid Raufs (transatlantic attack plot) wife is reportedly
closely related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar,
the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed, an armed group that
fought in Kashmir and was connected to Pakistans
intelligence service, ISI*
x Waheed Mahmood (fertiliser plot) had a family house in
Pakistan where the conspirators met to plan
Friendships (Britain and Pakistan):
x Salahuddin Amin (fertiliser plot) was born in Britain but
raised in Pakistan and was the facilitator between British
extremists and al-Qaeda
Local friendships:
Experiences
Stated/assumed
grievances
x 7/7 plotters all grew up together in Beeston, Leeds. Khan

referred to his friends in one of his videos as his
daughters uncles
Immigration and asylum systems: Yassin Omar, Ramzi
Mohammed, Adel Yahya (21/7); Jawad Akbar, Anthony
Garcia (fertiliser plot); Dhiren Barot (UK/US plots); Dr Kafeel
Ahmed, Dr Bilal Abdullah (London and Glasgow airport);
Social services: Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed (21/7)
British foreign policy: Mohammed Siddique Khan (7/7);
Omar Khayam, Anthony Garcia (fertiliser plot); Abu Hamza
* Duncan Campbell and Randeep Ramesh, Mysterious Disappearance of an alleged

Terrorist Mastermind, The Guardian, 14 August 2006.
3.
Radical Groups and Movements
What follows is an account of organisations and networks within the three

categories of radicalisation that form the structure for this collaborative
research project: non-political religious, religious and political, and nonreligious political. Where there is evidence of links to violence, this is
documented, although in many cases this is based on subjective judgments
and fragmentary evidence. It is therefore more appropriate to view these
groups as radical rather than radicalised, where the latter term is assumed
to infer an intention to use violence. Groups often cross the boundaries
between the three categories so this should be viewed as a broad analytical
tool rather than a precise typology.
3.1
Non-political religious groups
Tablighi Jamaat
Britain is the current locus of Tablighi Jamaat in the West, with the
Dewsbury Central Mosque in West Yorkshire serving as its European
headquarters, although the group is highly decentralised.44 It has been
claimed that terrorists have used membership of this apolitical group as
cover,45 and that it has served as a first stop to violent extremism. But
although its fundamentalist ideas are appealing, its apolitical stance means
Ibid.
See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?
in_article_id=466015&in_page_id=1770
44
45
that many move on. It has even been criticised by some Muslims for failing
to condemn Israel or release comments in support of Muslims in Chechnya,
Kashmir and elsewhere. 46
Tablighi Jamaat attracts a wide range of individuals, from business
and political leaders to those seeking to turn their lives around after going
off the rails. Its anti-Western, isolationist and fundamental characteristics
also draw young Muslims who are disillusioned with modern society.
Farad Esack, a South African Islamic scholar who spent 12 years with the
group in Pakistan, said of the group, that it attracts angry people -- people
who need absolutes, who can't stand the grayness of life.'47 Convicted and
suspected terrorists in the UK who have been or are suspected of being
members include: Richard Reid, Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, Mohammed
Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, and some of those involved in the
transatlantic plot.
Deobandism
Deobandism advocates a return to traditional interpretations of Islam and
is often associated with Tablighi Jamaat. Some have argued that it has
connections to violent groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but its
followers claim these groups have distorted their faith.48 Deobandism is
now the dominant force in British Islam.49 Riyadh ul Haq reportedly in
line to become the spiritual leader of Britains Deobandi adherents runs
an Islamic Academy in Leicester and used to be imam at Birmingham
Central Mosque. One of the main reservations concerns its alleged
advocacy of separatism. It is claimed that Riyadh ul Haq has urged
Muslims to segregate themselves from non-Muslims; he has reportedly
stated that friendship with Christians and Jews makes a mockery of
Allahs religion, that football is a cancer that has infected our youth, and
that music is the Satanic web Jews spread to corrupt Muslim youth.50 It
46
Ibid.
47
Ibid.
Randeep Ramesh, Indian Islamic Group attacks BBC Film for Bin Laden Link,
The Guardian, 29 October 2007.
48
49
Ibid.
Andrew Norfolk, Hardline Takeover of British Mosques, The Times, 7

September 2007.
50
has also been claimed that he has argued that Muslims ought to shed
blood overseas in jihad, in defence of Islam. 51
Salafism (Saudi-Wahhabism) (dawa)
Salafism in the UK is organised under the name of Markaz Jamiat Ahl-eHadith and is centred at the Green Lane Masjid/Mosque in Birmingham.
There are over 40 M.J.A.H branches throughout England and two based in
Scotland.52 The Green Lane Mosque was brought to national attention
when a Channel 4 Dispatches programme claimed to uncover hateful
sermons delivered at the Mosque;53 speaker after speaker uttering hate
speech against unbelievers, Jews, women and homosexuals.54 The mosque
complained that the programme had taken a handful of phrases out of
context.55 A report by the right-wing think tank, Policy Exchange, went on
to claim that UK Islamic organisations were receiving significant funding
from Saudi government-related groups who espouse a fundamentalist
view of Islam.
Salafism has come under scrutiny because groups such as al-Qaeda
and the Taliban draw their interpretation of Islam from Salafist origins.
However, as Trevor Stanley notes, there are various groups of Salafis who
claim to be true Salafist and who consider others such as al-Qaeda as
takfiris or ex-communicators. Moreover, while they share similar beliefs
about the interpretation of a pure form of Islam, they disagree over the
means of changing society either through dawa or through violence. An
article in the Studies in Conflict & Terrorism Journal argues that there are
three different types of Salafists: purists, politicos and jihadists.
51
Ibid.
See http://www.mjah.org/ContactUs/MJAHVenuesCircles/tabid/65/
Default.aspx.
52
The Guardian, reporting on the Channel 4 Dispatches programme, mentions

radical imams and sermons at the Green Lane and Sparkbrook Mosques. Jamie
Doward, Revealed: preachers messages of hate, 7 January 2007.
53
54
The Hijacking of British Islam, The Policy Exchange, London, p. 19.
55
Ibid., quoting another source.
3.2
Religious and political groups
Hizb ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party)

Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded in 1953, in Jordanian-ruled Jerusalem by
Taqiuddin al-Nabhani with the goal of uniting Muslims under one
supreme Islamic state or caliphate. Officially, HT disavows violence, but
defends the right to self-defence (by means of violence). The organisations
lack of clarity on this issue leaves it open to accusations of promoting
violence. The group is said to be at its strongest and best organised in
Britain (although membership remains low in comparison to other groups)
and Croydon Mosque has been considered a base for HT events and
operations. HT first became prominent in the UK in the mid-1990s with a
noticeable presence on university campuses. In fact, throughout its history,
there has been a keen focus on recruiting university students. HTs leader
in Britain during the mid-1990s was Omar Bakri, who left the group in 1996
to form the more radical Al-Muhajiroun.
The group seemed to fade in the late 1990s, but has re-emerged in an
ostensibly more respectable incarnation. Following the attacks in London
on 7 July 2005, the British government sought to ban HT,56 but was forced
to back down after police and intelligence agencies reported that there was
no direct and explicit connection between HT and violent extremism. HT
was, however, banned from UK university campuses by the National
Union of Students, although it is thought to continue to operate covertly.57
Controversy surrounding the group continues. In a 2007 BBC Panorama
programme, a former member argued for the organisation to be outlawed
in Britain, claiming that the softer image presented by HT Britain is a ploy
to enable its continued legal functioning. He also claims that Asaf Hanif
and Omar Sharif, the two British citizens responsible for a terrorist attack
on a bar in Tel Aviv in 2003, were members of HT in Britain, and that Bilal
Abdulla was also part of HT circles with Maher in Cambridge.58
56
PM forced to shelve Islamist group ban, The Independent, 18 July 2006.
Steve Bloomfield, Raymond Whitaker and Sophie Goodchild, Islamic group in

secret plan to recruit UK students, The Independent, 4 September 2005.
57
Hizb ut-Tahrir under Increasing Pressure in the UK, Terrorism Focus,

Jamestown Foundation, Volume 4, Issue 29, 18 September 2007.
58
Al-Muhajiroun, The Saviour (or Saved) Sect and Al Ghurabaa

Al-Muhajiroun was founded by Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed in 1996,
and he shared leadership with Anjem Choudary. Its version of Islam is
described as neo-Kharijite, which is a sect of Islam distinct from Sunni and
Shia. The group gained notoriety when it held the now infamous
Magnificent 19 conference glorifying the 9/11 hijackers at Finsbury Park
Mosque. It has been reported that three of the 9/11 hijackers were
connected with the group in Germany, and former students from British
universities have been discovered fighting amongst terrorists abroad at
one point leading the Russian government to ask Britain to ban the group
when British students were found fighting in Chechnya.59 Al-Muhajiroun
disbanded in 2004 in anticipation of a ban, and split into two separate
groups, The Saviour Sect and Al Ghurabaa. These two groups were banned
under the British Terrorism Act of 2006, but by the time the ban had come
into force these groups had already created dozens of front organisations,
many of which were located in Britain.60
There is evidence to suggest a link to violence. Abu Izzadeen and
Sulayman Keeler both found guilty of inciting terrorism were members
of both groups.61 Other alleged members include Abdul Saleem, 32 years
old, charged with inciting terrorism, but cleared of fundraising; Ibrahim
Hassan, 25 years old, charged with inciting terrorism, but cleared of
fundraising; Shah Jilal Hussein, 25 years old, found guilty of funding
terrorism remains missing after failing to turn up to court; Abdul Muhid,
25 years old, found guilty of funding terrorism; Hussain Rajib Khan, 29
years old, was cleared of funding terrorism, and the jury was unable to
reach a verdict on a charge of inciting terrorism; and Omar Zaheer, 28 years
old, for whom the jury were unable to reach a verdict on a charge of
inciting terrorism.
Muslim student group linked to terrorist attacks, The Guardian, 19 September

2001.
59
Ian Cobain and Nick Fielding, Banned Islamists spawn front organisations: Al
Ghurabaa tries to ensure survival with groups across UK, The Guardian, 22 July
2006.
6060
61
Islamist Activist guilty of funding terror, The Guardian, 18, April 2008.
Ahl ul-Sunnah Wa al-Jamma (ASWJ)

Sulyaman (Simon) Keeler formed ASWJ in 2005 as the reunification of The
Saved Sect and Al Ghurabaa, with Omar Bakri Mohammed, Abu Yahya,
Abu Izzadeen, Abu Uzair, and Anjem Choudary all extensively involved.
They have claimed it is not a jihadist group, but evidence from their inviteonly Internet forum suggests otherwise. Infiltrators to the site claim that
Bakri preaches under a number of aliases, and has been quoted as praising
the 7/7 attackers saying they were in paradise.62 It has also been
reported that the ASWJ website has called for British Muslims to travel to
Somalia to fight against Ethiopian troops, who they claim are supported by
Western countries and Israel.63 The group claims to have 1,000 followers.
Islamic Council of Britain
This organisation was apparently formed by Abu Hamza and centred
around the Finsbury Park Mosque. It was responsible for organising the
infamous conference held there celebrating the 9/11 attackers. It seems it
was disbanded with the arrest and conviction of Abu Hamza and the
instatement of new mosque leadership (the mosque is now known as the
North Central London Mosque).
Alleged Jamaat-e-Islami Affiliates
Jamaat-e-Islami is primarily an Islamist political party based in Pakistan. It
was founded in 1941 by Abu al-Ala al-Mawdudi and is the oldest political
party within Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami opposes all types of Westernisation,
including democratically structured government and seeks to establish an
Islamic state in Pakistan. JI also supports, and is affiliated with, the Muslim
Brotherhood. There is disagreement over whether JI supports or condones
violent struggle. JI itself claims to work only through non-violent means of
persuasion, but US intelligence claims to have found links between JI and
al-Qaeda after the arrest of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other al-Qaeda
members in the homes of JI members.64 While Jamaat-e-Islami does not
have an explicit party or group in Britain, some commentators have
62
Covert preaching of banned cleric, BBC News, 14 November 2006.
63
UK Website: Join Somalia Jihad, www.ynetnews.com, 28 December 2006.
Jamaat-e-Islami, Hizbul Mujahideen & Al Qaeda, South Asian Analysis Group,

www.southasiananalysis.org, 29 May 2003.
64
claimed that a number of British Muslim organisations including the

Muslim Association of Britain, the Islamic Foundation, and the United
Kingdom Islamic Mission have close ties to Jamaat-e-Islami.65 Ed Hussain
has claimed that East London Mosque is controlled by the Bandladeshi JI
and that the mosque serves as a gateway to extremism. 66
Muslim Association of Britain
MAB was founded in 1997 and describes itself as a mainstream grass roots
organisation which actively seeks to dispel the misconceptions about
Muslims and helps to act as a bridge to promote better understanding
between the UK and the Muslim World. It has worked closely with the
Stop the War Coalition and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It has
been accused of links to Hamas and other such groups. Policy Exchange
claims it is the closest thing in Britain to the Muslim Brotherhood and
Jamaat-e-Islami and MP Louise Ellman claims that Azzam Tamimi has
been an adviser to Hamas and a spokesperson for the Muslim Brotherhood.
She also quotes him in a number of instances making comments in defence
of suicide bombers in Palestine as martyrs: do not call them suicide
bombers, call them Shuhada [martyrs; they [Israelis] have guns. We have
the human bombs. We love death, they love life; For us Muslims,
martyrdom is not the end of things, but the beginning of the most
wonderful of things.67 He made the following comment to the BBC:
Sacrificing myself for Palestine is a noble cause. It is the straight way to
pleasing God and I would do it if I had the opportunity. Although
individual accusations have been made, there is no evidence to suggest
MAB has played any role in violent extremism in or towards the UK.
3.3
Non-religious political groups
In recent years, there has been a substantial rise in the amount of political
activism within Muslim communities in the UK. This developed in two
waves: first, that sparked by the build up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003,
65
Most notably the Policy Exchange report cited previously
Dr. Muhammed Abdul Bari, now Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of

Britain, was chairman of the East London Mosque. See report by Denis MacEoin,
The Hijacking of British Islam, Policy Exchange, London, 2007.
66
67
Ibid.
and second following 7/7 when communities decided to organize

themselves helped by a massive influx of government funding for capacity
building. This activity is, on the whole, entirely non-violent and groups
include the Asian Youth Movement (which no longer exists); the Stop the
War Coalition; the Respect Coalition; School Students against War
(affiliated with Stop the War); the Socialist Workers Party; Globalise
Resistance; Permanent Revolution (UK); and the Workers Power. Most
groups are small-scale, tend to have regional bases rather than national
reach, and are often allied to other issues, such as housing, foreign policy,
deprivation, student politics, and so forth. Only the Stop the War Coalition
is large enough to merit a detailed description, and is also important
because it is linked to and spawned so many of the other movements and
organisations.
Stop the War Coalition
The Stop the War Coalition is important for a number of reasons: it gained
huge traction politically; it attracted a massive following, not just in the UK
but in many other countries; it became a focal point for other protest; and
because it brought Muslims and non-Muslims working together for a
common goal. The key actors in the movement are the Socialist Workers
Party and the Muslim Association of Britain (mentioned in the previous
section); and its most notable members are George Galloway, Tony Benn,
Tariq Ali and Salma Yaqoob.
One of the other interesting things about the Stop the War Coalition is
that it managed to span the generational divide that runs deep within
many Muslim communities, where older generations have often tended to
stay out of formal politics. While the Coalition was led by the young, it
attracted older participants, too. As Mobeen Azhar said of the Coalitions
activity in Leeds, I have grown up in a climate of disagreement and
apathy in the mosque. My peers (and organisations like MPAC) will bear
testament to the frustration of many in my generation with the
depoliticised mentalities so unavoidably associated with many of our
religious leaders. To get my parents generation engaging, talking and
organising was a very personal breakthrough for me.68
R. Briggs, A new political landscape: Whos afraid of the Respect Party? Dissent
and Cohesion in Modern Britain, Renewal, 1 June 2007.
68
In most cases, these non-violent forms of political activism make a

positive contribution to political and civic life in the UK and are
empowering for communities which suffer high levels of deprivation (and
are therefore in need of activism to change their circumstances). They
might also prove to be part of the solution to violent extremism. As Salma
Yaqoob says, the dominant character of Muslim radicalisation in Britain
today points not towards terrorism or religious extremism, but in the
opposite direction: towards political engagement in new, radical and
progressive coalitions that seek to unite Muslim with non-Muslim in
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary strategies to affect change. She
added, it is only by encouraging the widening of this progressive
expression of Muslim radicalism that the political purchase of strategies
based on either terrorism or Muslim sectarianism can be minimised.69
Some have sought to present these movements as dangerous and
have described their emergence as a sign of the Muslim communitys desire
for separatism.70 But this is not supported by polling which shows that
young Muslims are keen to engage.71 Analysis of the 2003 Home Office
Citizenship Survey suggests that political activity by Muslims positively
contributes to their sense of identification with Britain. Whats more, in a
recent survey four-fifths (81%) of Muslims said it was important to
proactively engage in British politics,72 and in another, two-thirds of
Muslim students said they did not see a conflict between loyalty to the
Ummah and to the UK.73 Set alongside Pews data, this creates a confusing
picture of the Muslim community in the UK. However, one must remember
S. Yaqoob, British Islamic political radicalism, in T. Abbas (ed.), Islamic political

radicalism: A European perspective, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
69
When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries, Martin Bright, Policy Exchange,

London, 2007.
70
It should be noted that many opinion polls have been conducted in recent years
on these themes. However, very few can be considered reliable as they tend to
draw on a very small sample that cannot be seen as representative.
71
S Gohir, Understanding the Other Perspective: Muslim and non-Muslim relations,

Birmingham, Muslim Voice UK, 2006.
72
Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), The Voice of Muslim Students:

A report into the attitudes and perceptions of Muslim students following the July
7th London attacks, FOSIS, London, 2005.
73
that community attitudes are never straightforward and there is not

necessarily anything contradictory in a community feeling unhappy about
life in the UK and also wanting to do something about it through increased
political activity.
Riots in northern towns
Although not a movement or organisation, it is worth noting in this section
the disturbances in Northern towns which saw violence on the streets in a
number of places which was in large part explained by the socio-economic
circumstances of Muslim and Asian communities set out in an earlier
section. In the summer of 2001, a number of northern towns experienced
violent clashes predominantly caused by racial tensions, exacerbated by
orchestrated rivalries between criminal gangs. In Oldham, the riots took
place over three successive nights in May and left 86 police officers injured.
Violence then erupted in Burnley, resulting in clashes between hundreds of
white and Asian youths and widespread damage to property and
businesses. On 7 July 2001, the worst violence broke out in the
Manningham area of Bradford when 1000 young men took to the streets,
leaving 120 police officers injured.74
The causes of the riots differed in each place; in Oldham they were
due to racial tensions between Asian and white communities caused by
social division and poverty; in Burnley gang rivalries were blamed; and in
Bradford, tensions flared when an Anti-Nazi League march led to a standoff with National Front supporters. A number of independent reviews were
commissioned for each city, along with an overarching national report
authored by community cohesion expert, Ted Cantle. He pointed to the fact
that many communities lived parallel lives and made recommendations
around a number of underlying causes, including housing, youth,
regeneration, politics and education.75
Q&A: 2001 northern town riots, http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/print/

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5032166.stm (accessed 21/07/2008)
74
Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team, Ted Cantle

(Chairman), UK Home Office.
75
4.
Policy Responses
The UK governments counter-terrorism policies are brought together

under the CONTEST strategy. It is a 4-pronged approach which covers the
so-called four ps: prevent, pursue, protect and prepare. The governments
security budget (which covers all security, not just counter-terrorism
spending) was 2.5 billion in 2007 and will rise to 3.5 billion by 2010,
reflecting the growing importance of security. Increased resource to the
Security Service (MI5) gives a clue as to the importance placed specifically
on counter-terrorism; its staffing levels were 2000 in 2001, but by 2007 they
had risen to 3,300 and will grow until they reach 4000 in the next few years.
The Prime Minister also announced at the end of 2007 that the government
had established dedicated regional counter-terrorism units with more than
2000 police and support staff.
There have been two significant changes to government policy in the
last year or so: increased emphasis on prevent, and the realisation of the
importance of language and communication.
Engagement work with Muslim communities began in earnest after
7/7 when the Home Office set up a formal process called the Preventing
Extremism Together (PET) working groups. The process was a step in the
right direction, but was widely criticized for being rushed, government-led,
and involving too narrow a group of individuals,76 but it established the
principle of engagement and many lessons have been learned as a result.
Since then, the government has greatly widened the range of individuals
and organisations it engages and works with and has injected much needed
money into creating, sustaining and developing community infrastructure
that in many cases wasnt there to begin with. But decisions about
engagement are always fraught, especially when so much is at stake and
the complexities of community politics are difficult for outsiders to
navigate. In July 2008, there was considerable controversy surrounding the
second bi-annual Islam Expo, whose main organizers include individuals
involved with MAB. Some accused them of being supporters of Hamas,77
Bringing it Home: Community-based approaches to counter-terrorism, Rachel Briggs,

Catherine Fieschi and Hannah Lownsbrough, Demos, London, 2006.
76
77
Stop pandering to the Islamist extremists, Ed Husain, Evening Standard, 070708
which led the Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, to ban any government
involvement in the event.78
The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, signaled his commitment to the
prevent agenda by announcing several hundreds of millions of pounds of
new funding over the next three years. This includes an additional 240
million to the Home Office between now and 2011 towards counterterrorism policing; 400 million in the next 3 years invested through the
Foreign Office, Department for International Development, and the British
Council to tackle radicalisation and promote understanding overseas; and
70 million towards community projects dedicated to tackling violent
extremism. In announcing this spending in a November 2007 speech to
Parliament, he said:
To deal with the challenge posed by the terrorist threat we have to
do more, working with communities in our country, first, to
challenge extremist propaganda and support alternative voices;
secondly, to disrupt the promoters of violent extremism by
strengthening our institutions and supporting individuals who
may be being targeted; thirdly, to increase the capacity of
communities to resist and reject violent extremism; and fourthly,
to address issues of concern exploited by ideologues, where by
emphasizing our shared values across communities we can both
celebrate and act upon what unites us.
The second and related major change has been a marked shift in
government tone and language in recognition of the fact that the
government was often making matters worse. The Research Information
and Communications Unit (RICU), a unit within the newly formed Office
for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) in the Home Office but with
cross government reach, is seeking to improve government language in a
way that avoids playing into the hands of the violent extremists and wins
the hearts and minds of Britains Muslim communities. Ministers will no
longer use the phrase war on terror; they will talk about a struggle rather
than a battle and will stop talking about the Muslim problem.79 While
Hazel Blears speech to Policy Exchange seminar can be accessed:

http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/Events.aspx?id=688
78
79
this shift in Ministerial and offical language is visible, it has yet to make
significant inroads at the operational level.
The policy setting for Muslims is also influenced by a wider range of
policies, such as immigration, integration, citizenship and cohesion, and in
these areas the rhetoric has on the whole become harder in response to
wider public concerns about security and fairness in resource allocation. In
terms of policies relating to living together, there has been a shift from
multiculturalism and the celebration of difference towards integration (for
example, the Commission on Integration and Cohesion and the Green
Paper on Citizenship), with the emphasis on immigrants and minority
communities fitting into life in Britain, becoming active citizens, learning
the language and playing a role in wider society. These specific initiatives
are happening against the backdrop of an increasingly vocal debate about
Britishness and identity.
Conclusions
The threat to the UK from radicalisation will remain present for a long time
yet; it has been described by MI5 as the most serious danger to face the UK
for the last century. As we search for solutions, it is perhaps not surprising
that suspicion falls on a range of groups and individuals whose behaviour
may on the surface appear dangerous or subversive. However, if
alienatiion of the next generation of young Muslims is to be avoided, it will
be important to engage in greater depth with these groups, understand the
complexities of community politics, and come to a more nuanced
understanding of the rich mosaic of political mobilisation that is now
flourishing across large parts of our Muslim communities. This
mobilisation will in fact, with some notable exceptions, offer part of the
solution to radicalisation: it gives positive alternatives for those who feel
disillusioned and voiceless, it provides vehicles for solving the deeply
entrenched problems associated with deprivation suffered by many
Muslims, these organisations can challenge extremist rhetoric and build
community resilience, and it will eventually provide a mechanism for
political integration.
7. MUSLIMS IN SPAIN AND ISLAMIC

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM
PATRICIA BEZUNARTEA, JOS MANUEL LPEZ &

LAURA TEDESCO
Introduction
Spain has historically been considered a country of emigration, but this has
recently changed. The year 2000 was a turning point, as since then the
immigration issue has been on the political agenda. Indeed, the
administrative institutions for managing immigration were created
between 2000 and 2004. Spains immigration law was amended four times
during that period and four regularisation processes were implemented. A
further 600,000 immigrants underwent a regularisation process in 2005.
Immigration is the most important socio-economic change that has
taken place in Spain in recent years, putting an end to Spains demographic
stagnation and energising its economy. Between the years 2001 and 2006,
50% of GDP growth was owing to the positive effect that immigration had
had on per capita income.1
Immigration in Spain is thus a recent phenomenon. As a result, there
are no clear models with which to approach this issue, nor are there wellestablished social structures to deal with possible conflicts or social
confrontations. There is still much to be done and while this is the cause of
uncertainty, it is also the source of many opportunities to improve and
learn from other European experiences.
See Cmara Madrid, Las Relaciones entre Europa y Amrica Latina a debate, Cmara
Oficial de Comercio e Industria de Madrid, October 2007.
136 |
MUSLIMS IN SPAIN AND ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS RADICALISM | 137
This chapter starts from the assumption that the process of

integration in Spain is different from that in other EU countries and that it
is marked by two main characteristics. First, immigrants from Muslim
countries are fewer in number than immigrants from Latin American
countries. Second, the existence of domestic terrorism, through the Basque
separatist group ETA, tempers the impact of tensions and conflicts from
radical Islam.
Recent polls indicate that immigration and terrorism are among the
main concerns of Spaniards. According to the 2007 Opinion Barometer
survey conducted by the Sociological Research Centre (CIS)2, immigration
(a concern for 11.6% of the population) stands fourth behind terrorism
(23.6%), unemployment (14.4%) and housing (14.1%) in terms of the
problems perceived as affecting Spain most acutely. This reference to
terrorism focuses more on that perpetrated by ETA than that of the Islamic
terrorist cells. Of course, the 2004 Madrid attacks changed many aspects of
Spaniards perception of Islamic terrorism, making it much more real and
threatening. Nevertheless, ETAs permanent campaign and the failed
Basque peace processes are still much more at the forefront of peoples
minds.
Therefore, the tensions and conflicts having the greatest impact on
Spain do not appear to focus on immigrants from Muslim countries. These
groups blend together with other groups of immigrants the majority of
whom are South American and the threat of Islamic terrorism is blurred
by the ETA attacks, street violence in the Basque country, extortion of the
Basque business community, court trials of ETA members, the capture of
wanted terrorists and the permanent debate among the majority parties on
the nations stance against ETA.
Taking all these issues into consideration, this chapter offers an
analysis of the situation of immigrants in Spain from predominately
Muslim countries. A first section focuses on recent immigration into Spain
from all sources to help put the situation of Muslim immigrants into
perspective. The second gives a brief recent history of the Muslim
community in Spain and a description of how its institutions have been
formed. The third section provides a study of the tensions and conflicts
See Centro de Investigaciones Sociolgicas (CIS), Barmetros de Opinin, CIS,
Madrid, 2007 (retrieved from http://www.cis.es).
2
138 | BEZUNARTEA, LPEZ & TEDESCO
revolving around the 11 March 2004 attacks, their political impact, the court
trial and judgement. A final section looks briefly at the situation of the cities
of Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish enclaves in Morocco. The conclusions offer
some reflections on the future of the Muslim community and its potential
for integration.
One of the overarching questions dealt with in this volume is how
one can change the al-Qaeda narrative and undo the relationship
established between Islam, al-Qaeda and international terrorism.3 We feel
that this is genuinely possible in Spain if the government is able to help the
first and second generations of immigrants to integrate, especially the
Moroccans as the largest group, because it is our belief that, for the time
being, the Muslim community in Spain has not embraced violence but
rather integration.
1.
Recent immigration in Spain
As mentioned above, immigration has grown considerably over the last

several years. A closer look at the figures helps to put the reality of Spains
Muslim communities into context.
Immigration in Spain is very recent and has progressed swiftly. In
just a decade, the number of immigrants has skyrocketed, growing from
half a million in the middle of the 1990s to over 5 million today. The largest
group is from Morocco (676,405) followed by Ecuador (451,072), Colombia
(326,459), Argentina (287,760), Bolivia (238,605), Peru (160,603), Brazil
(140,942), Venezuela (142,709) and the Dominican Republic (113,681). There
are in total 2,273,324 Latin American immigrants residing in Spain (the sum
of Central and South Americans plus Mexicans) compared with
approximately 800,000 from Arabic-speaking and Muslim countries
(Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan).4
These figures point to a clear difference between Spain and the other
European countries analysed in this volume, where in most cases the
number of Muslim immigrants is well over the 1 million mark. For
example, in France, Muslim immigrants account for between 7 and 10% of
the total population while in Spain that figure is barely above 1%.
See O. Roy, LIslam mondialis, Paris: Seuil, 2002.
See Instituto Nacional de Estadstica (retrieved from http://www.ine.es).
Of the Muslim immigrants, the Moroccans are those who tend most
to come with their families, 20% of them being under the age of 16, while
those from Nigeria, Senegal, Algeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India are
mostly men who immigrate alone in search of employment. According to
the National Statistics Institute, on 1 January 2008 there were 676,405
Moroccans, 55,042 Algerians, 44,898 Senegalese and 33,692 Nigerians
legally residing in Spain. There are 944,672 total immigrants from Africa.
Additionally, there are 47,422 immigrants from Pakistan, 28,367 from India
and 7,565 from Bangladesh. There are 281,402 total immigrants from Asian
countries, the majority of whom are from China, accounting for 125,301.5
A study of the immigrant Muslim population was conducted in 2007
by Metroscopia, funded by the Ministries of Justice, Labour and Social
Affairs and the Interior.6 The survey was conducted during June and July
2007, involving 2,000 persons from Morocco (57% of the sample), Senegal
(12%), Pakistan (11%), Algeria (5%) and Gambia, Mali, Bangladesh,
Mauritania and Nigeria (all under 5%). The questions were designed to
discover Muslim immigrants perception of their integration process in
Spain, their standard of living, their work and family situations, their
image of Spain and their expectations. The results showed a Muslim
population that is integrated into Spanish society, Westernised and
tolerant. This mirrors the results of the study conducted by the PEW
Research Centre of Washington D.C., which in 2005 confirmed that Spain
had a Muslim community that was very well integrated.
Immigrant integration has been a concern of the Spanish government,
and at the national, regional and local levels, it has begun to create an
infrastructure designed to formulate and implement immigration policy.
Over the last several years, at the national level the Comisin
Interministerial de Extranjera [Interministerial Commission for Alien
Affairs], the Foro para la Integracin Social de los Inmigrantes [Forum for
the Social Integration of Immigrants], the Observatorio Permanente de la
Inmigracin [Permanent Immigration Observatory], the Consejo Superior
Although there are no figures grouping immigrants by religious affiliation, these
numbers broken down by nationality help us to calculate the number of Muslims
residing in Spain.
5
See Metroscopia, Musulmanes de Espaa: Segunda Oleada del Estudio de Opinin a

Poblacin Musulmana de Origen Inmigrante, Metroscopia, Madrid, 2007.
de Poltica de Inmigracin [High Council for Immigration Policy] and the

Fundacin Pluralismo y Convivencia [Pluralism and Co-existence
Foundation] have been created.
In February 2007, at the request of the Ministry of Labour and Social
Affairs, the cabinet of the Spanish government approved the 200710
Strategic Plan for Citizenship and Integration. This plan targets both
immigrants and Spanish nationals in that it holds that integration is an
issue concerning all members of the community. The plan follows the
directives of the European Commission and seeks more suitable
management of migratory flows and integration processes. It is considered
the framework plan for cooperation among all stakeholders, its principles
being equality and non-discrimination, citizenship and interculturalism.
The plans main areas of action are reception, education, employment,
housing, social services, health, children and youth, equality, women,
participation, awareness-raising and co-development. The budget for 2007
10 is 2,005 million, 40% of which is earmarked for education, 20% for
reception and 11% for employment.7
Muslim immigration in Spain is part of a recent immigration flow
that has been diverse but largely from Latin America. As such, the
challenges for immigration in Spain are not so much based on the
integration of Muslim immigrants but rather on the integration of nearly 2
million Latin Americans. In this connection, the tensions and conflicts focus
as much on Muslim immigrants as they do on those from Latin America.
Two recent attacks against immigrant women in Barcelona and Madrid
involved Ecuadorians. The Latin gangs formed by young immigrants have
caused concern in some local communities owing to a few isolated cases of
aggression. In Barcelona, the Latin gangs turned things around and formed
an association for immigrant youth rejecting the violence of the young gang
members.
Immigration was an important factor in the debates leading up to the
March 2008 elections. In some of these debates, it was argued that
immigrants are inundating the free health services offered in Spain. The
most provocative references in this connection were directed at Latin
For further information, see the website of the Ministry of Labour and Social
Affairs
(http://www.mtas.es/migraciones/Integracion/Planestrategico/Docs/
160207pecitextocompleto.pdf).
Americans who, given their numbers, are the most visible.8 The nearly
simultaneous arrival of immigrants of different nationalities minimises the
impact of Muslim immigrants, differentiating Spain from the rest of the
cases studied in this volume.
2.
Recent history of Islam in Spain
To understand the social reality of Muslims in contemporary Spain, it is

necessary to begin in the middle of the 1950s, when General Francos
regime began to close the cultural gap with countries of the Near East.
Cultural exchanges were encouraged, including the arrival of students at
Spanish universities. These initial contacts resulted in the influx of
hundreds of students at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s
from countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt. In
1971, some of these students formed the Muslim Association of Spain
(Spanish abbreviation AME). Some of them were influenced by Islamic
currents rooted in their home countries that have had a degree of influence
on the Muslim community in Europe such as the Muslim Brothers or Attalai (known as Atalayas in Spanish), which evolved into associations in the
main Spanish cities, especially in Granada and Madrid. The AME acted for
some time as a federation of Spains 17 regions9 and has maintained its
legal personality. Prior to the formation of the AME, a small Muslim
community called the Muslim Community of Melilla had arisen in the city
of Melilla in 1968. No other organisation was formed in Spain until after the
establishment of democracy and the ratification of the 1978 Constitution
and the new Religious Freedom Act of 1980.
This initial, minority Islamic movement changed after 1990 with the
appearance of immigrants from the Maghreb and the rising number of
mixed families, mostly Spanish-Moroccan, within the Islamic community.
Owing to the settlement process during this period of economic
immigration from countries where the majority of the population is Muslim
(many from Morocco), Islam has become increasingly visible in Spain in the
See newspapers of February and March 2008 such as El Pas, El Mundo, ABC or La
Vanguardia. El Mundo published declarations from a Peoples Party politician who
complains about the number of immigrants, referring especially to those from
Latin America (El Mundo, 7 February 2008).
Spain is divided into 17 autonomous communities.
form of personal symbols (e.g. the headscarf and chilaba) and community
structures (prayer houses, mosques and halal butcher shops).
Hence, the Muslim communitys arrival and settlement process in
Spain has taken place in two major stages. The first started with the
creation of the first Muslim religious organisation at the beginning of the
1970s and went on to the signing of the Cooperation Agreements between
Spain and the Spanish Islamic Commission (CIE) in 1992, which had been
created to represent all Muslims in dealings with the government. The
second stage began with the immigration of citizens from countries where
the majority of the population is Muslim and it continues up to today. The
turning point, however, was not the approval of the Cooperation
Agreement between Spain and the CIE but rather the growing wave of
immigration. Both of these events (the increase in immigration and the
signing of the Agreement) took place around the same time in 199192.
During the first stage, the Spanish Muslim community was very
small and had two main components, a scholarly group of
immigrants/students from Muslim countries and the first native-born
Spaniards who converted to Islam during these two decades.
The aim of the scholarly group, formed mainly of young, single or
recently married men with a high level of education and from a middle or
upper social class, was to complete their studies, collect their diplomas and
return to their country of origin rather than settle down and form families
in Spain. Given that their stay was temporary, most did not feel the need to
group together into an organised community in order to protect their rights
and places of worship. From a socio-economic perspective, being university
students and economically well-off, in contrast to the majority of todays
Muslim immigrants, facilitated their integration. As for religious practices,
the majority of this group was Sunni but there was also a minority Shiite
component, mostly from Lebanon and Iraq. Many made their way to Spain
as refugees fleeing from their countries for political reasons or because of
armed conflicts plaguing the Middle East: the Palestinian conflict, the civil
war in Lebanon and the war between Iraq and Iran.
Regarding the Spanish who converted to Islam, two generations can
be identified: the generation of those who converted in the 1970s and 1980s,
almost all of whom are Sunnis (although there is also a Shiite minority),
and the generation of converts from the 1990s. The former were mostly
university students who yearned for cultural exposure and identified with
Islam in the public sphere, and almost all of whom were associated with
Sufism. The latter features men and especially women who married
immigrants from predominately Muslim countries and who converted to
Islam either before or after marriage.
The majority of the converts who embraced Islam were originally
Catholics who did not identify with the Catholic religion and felt attracted
by Islam as an alternative for religious, political and social reasons. These
reasons include the fact that Islam is a religion without clergy, in other
words it has no ecclesiastical hierarchy. There was also a degree of
idealisation of the Arab and Muslim world within the sphere of art and
culture, which in some cases had to do with a certain exotic flavour related
to the hippie movement, but was mostly the path taken by some groups
that participated in the May 1968 movements.
Finally, new groups of Muslim immigrants began arriving in Spain
around 1990. These were primarily economic immigrants. Currently, the
largest group of Muslim immigrants comes from Morocco, with Algeria a
distant second source, mostly along the eastern Mediterranean coast. These
two countries are followed in number by immigrants from Senegal,
Nigeria, Ghana, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Muslims from other European
and Asian countries account for the lowest percentage: Kosovars,
Albanians, Bosnians, Tatars, Chechens and Azerbaijanis. Generally
speaking, there are more men than women immigrants from countries that
are predominately Muslim, although in the case of Morocco the percentage
of women is gradually nearing that of men. For the rest of the countries, the
percentage of men is much higher.
While the second stage of immigration is more significant from a
quantitative standpoint, it was during the first that the Muslims organised
themselves. At the end of the 1980s, the government offered minority faiths
(Jewish, Protestant and Muslim) the possibility of signing Cooperation
Agreements with the condition of appointing a single representative for
each. The Muslims had already formed two federations, the Federacin
Espaola de Entidades Religiosas Islmicas [Spanish Federation of Islamic
Religious Groups, FEERI] and the Unin de Comunidades Islmicas de
Espaa [Union of Islamic Communities in Spain, UCIDE]. The Federation
was the first of the two organisations. Because of internal differences, a
splinter group later formed the UCIDE. Faced with the requirement of
having a single representative, the two federations formed the abovementioned CIE, although the two federations do not have a close
relationship. This is why the two federations have maintained their legal
identities within the CIE. There are, therefore, two secretary generals, one
for each federation, as well as two representatives of each of the federations
(four in total). The two federations operate independently of one another
and the CIE only meets when it has to communicate with the national
government. Hence, coordination within the CIE is anything but seamless.
In terms of the number of communities, as of 31 March 2008, 559
Muslim communities were registered in the Ministry of Justices registry of
religious organisations: 315 from UCIDE, 57 from FEERI and 187 that were
not affiliated with either of the two federations. Registration of religious
communities in Spain is not compulsory and thus there are unregistered
Muslim communities. The total number of communities (both registered
and non-registered) is estimated at 700.
The main catalyst behind this process was the creation of the
Fundacin Pluralismo y Convivencia by the Spanish government. The aim
of the foundation is the funding of cultural, educational and social action
projects of minority faiths that have signed a Cooperation Agreement with
the government, i.e. Muslims, Jews and Protestants. More important than
the very limited economic support earmarked for projects, the foundation
has secured the recognition of these communities as social actors and this
has sparked their own further calls for recognition. They are now on the
political agenda and hence more open and no longer relegated to the
private sphere. This openness has been evident at both state and local
levels where they have begun to interact with city councils and other social
organisations. The other important element in this recognition process has
been the publication of the first school textbook on the Islamic religion
entitled Descubrir Islam [Discover Islam]. The Muslims have been given the
opportunity to teach religion in public schools in accordance with the
Cooperation Agreements signed in 1992, but this has been done without
any printed material and in Arabic. The publication of this book in Spanish
by a Catholic publishing house has contributed to the mainstreaming
process.
This important movement has also had an impact on the
reorganisation of the federations within the CIE and the emergence of new
initiatives and community groups, which will eventually lead the CIE to
rethink its structure to adapt to the political organisation of Spain (and its
17 autonomous communities). Now there are at least four new, federal-type
initiatives that are grouping communities together and seeking to form part
of the CIE.
Regarding different groups within Islam, there is a movement

attempting to join like-thinking groups together in the CIE restructuring
process. This is more evident in those regions where there are a large
number of communities (Madrid, Catalonia and Murcia) but is much less
significant in other places where there is only one mosque per municipality
(or even per district) attracting all of the Muslims of the area regardless of
their branch of Islam. There are, therefore, many neutral mosques where
attempts to establish a particular branch of Islam are not meeting with
success.
Finally, the proximity of Morocco to Spain has had an effect on the
kind of person immigrating to Spain and the influence this country
attempts to hold over this group. Yet, this factor may be more significant
when attempting to classify communities rather than currents or branches
of Islam.
3.
The 11 March 2004 attacks
The terrorist attacks of 11 March 2004 are crucial to understanding the

process that Islam has undergone in Spain. It is even possible to speak of a
new stage in the Muslim reality in Spain resulting from the attacks. After
more than four years since those events, however, it remains clear that
objectively there is hardly any connection between the Islam of the
religious communities in Spain and the Islam of the attacks two worlds
whose paths have not crossed, and are still not crossing now. This specific
idea must be at the centre of any political proposal for action.
According to the 28 September 2005 decision of the Criminal
Chamber of the National High Court delivered by Magistrate Juan del
Olmo regarding the 11 March attacks, Islamic activities carried out in Spain
prior to 2002 can be broken down into three stages:
1)
initial organisation, which began at the start of the 1990s;
2)
expansion and interconnection with other networks of the jihad and

the recruiting of new members from among the immigrant
community; and
3)
a third stage after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington,
D.C., with growing hostility towards Spanish interests.
During all of this time, jihad members had been using Spain to escape
from the persecution they were subject to in their countries of origin. They
soon took advantage of their refuge to devise propaganda activities, recruit
new members and send them to training camps, collect funds and transfer
them to terrorist cells in other countries, falsify documents, purchase
material and seek support for their fight against governments considered
unfriendly in predominately Muslim countries. Their functions were
mostly logistical, consisting of support for combat cells. It has even been
proven that Spain was used during the preparation of the 9/11 attacks.10
The first attack of this sort in Spain occurred on 12 April 1985 at a
restaurant in the vicinity of what was then the American base at Torrejon
de Ardoz (Madrid). Eighteen people were killed and a further hundred
were injured in this attack, and although the target was clearly the US
military personnel who frequented this establishment, all of those killed
were Spanish nationals. The ensuing investigation was unable to determine
who was responsible for the attack.
Still, the establishment of Islamic terrorist cells and networks in Spain
is more recent. The first arrests were made in 1997, indicating that the first
contacts and establishment of residence in Spain took place at the
beginning of the 1990s. Fifteen Algerians linked to the GIA (Armed Islamic
Group) were arrested in Valencia and Barcelona. This was a support cell,
typical of the role played by these groups in Spain with varying importance
over time.
As early as 2003, some experts11 were already suggesting a series of
preventive measures as part of a strategy to thwart Islamic terrorism,
which remain valid in 2008:
x
Assume that terrorists can carry out attacks in Spain and that their
consequences could be extremely serious, as was borne out by the 11
March 2004 attacks.
Involve the Islamic communities settled in Spain in the prevention and fight
against Islamic terrorism. At that time, it was already believed that
Islamic communities were not a security problem per se and that they
should be sheltered from terrorist penetration, because they could
potentially contribute to terrorist objectives.
See J. Jordn, Las redes de terrorismo islamista en Espaa. Balance y

perspectivas de futuro, ARI No. 119-2003, Real Instituto Elcano, Madrid, 13
October 2003 (retrieved from www.realinstitutoelcano.org).
10
11
Ibid.
Foster the integration of immigrants from predominately Muslim countries.

The importance of the socio-economic and cultural integration of
immigrants and especially their descendents as an effective
preventive measure to head off the emergence of radicalism had been
highlighted prior to the 11 March attacks.12
Among the reasons Madrid was chosen as the site for a new major
attack is the prior existence of radical Islamic networks organised in Spain
for the provision of logistical support and the alignment and active
participation of the Spanish government in the decisions leading up to the
occupation of Iraq, with Spain being the weakest member of that strategic
alliance (formed basically by the US and the UK). The reasons also include
the far greater political priority and effort placed on the fight against
domestic terrorism (ETA), thus drawing attention away from this new
threat.
On 11 March 2004, Spain suffered the greatest terrorist attacks in its
history, an event that has marked the subsequent years of Spains political
and social life. That morning, ten explosions on four commuter trains took
place between 06:45 and 07:40. In the event, 191 persons lost their lives and
2,057 were injured.
The first official versions claimed that the Basque separatist terrorist
group ETA was responsible for the attacks, but during the course of the
day, it became increasingly clear that the attacks had been perpetrated by
radical Islamic groups. The proximity of the date of the attacks to the
general elections (scheduled for 14 March) led to insistence on the part of
the government (Peoples Party, PP) that ETA was responsible. The PP was
accused by different media of manipulating information, for example by
sending a note to Spanish embassies abroad urging them to blame ETA and
its efforts to force through a UN resolution condemning ETA for the attack.
The general media confusion caused a political and social rift that set the
tone for the whole of the legislative period that followed, and which
remained apparent in 2008.
On 12 March, nearly 11 million people marched through the streets of
Spain condemning the attacks. On 14 March, the PP-led government lost
the general elections. An endless round of political debates ensued, which
Subsequent events point to the partial failure of these policies throughout the
European Union.
12
mostly claimed that the perpetrators of the attacks had won given that they
had managed to alter the results of the elections. Although it is true that the
polls prior to 11 March indicated that the PP would win the election by an
absolute majority, the reasons for the Socialist Partys (PSOE) victory are
complex. In the aftermath of the attack, the Spanish electorate decided to
punish the ruling PP party. Spains participation in the war in Iraq was
repudiated by nearly 90% of the population. The Spanish people viewed
the 11 March attacks as a consequence of Spains participation in the
invasion. The PP governments manipulation of information in the initial
hours following the attacks, doing everything in its power to link them to
Basque terrorism, was what triggered the population to take a stand
against the government. These events prompted a much higher-thanexpected voter turnout and that is what led to the PSOEs victory in the
elections. In his electoral campaign, Jos Luis Rodrguez Zapatero had
announced that if elected, he would bring Spanish troops home unless the
UN took charge of the situation in Iraq. This measure was one of the first he
implemented after he won the elections. The Madrid attacks and the search
for those responsible monopolised the political arena for quite some time.
On 3 April 2004, as a result of a police siege, eight members of the
Islamic cell responsible for the attacks blew themselves up in Leganes (a
neighbourhood in Madrid). An assistant police inspector belonging to the
National Police Corps Special Operations Group also lost his life in that
explosion.
For its part, the Spanish parliament called for the creation of an
investigation commission (enquiry) charged with analysing the political
consequences of the attacks and with tabling proposals to address similar
situations in the future. The report was approved with the votes of all
members of parliament with the exception of the PP. In addition to
recommendations and proposals, the report censured the media
manipulation and the actions taken by the government at the time of the
attacks and proposed five overarching principles on which the fight against
international terrorism should be based:
x
solidarity with the victims of terrorism;
unity among all democratic political forces;
cooperation at different levels, i.e. international and European,

collaboration among the national, regional and local governments and
coordination among the state police and security forces and
intelligence services;
international initiatives to eradicate the underlying causes conducive

to or aiding the criminal actions of terrorists; and
protection of civil liberties and citizens rights.13
Court proceedings and the judgement concerning the 11 March attacks14

After several years of investigation and numerous arrests, the legal order
that brought the investigative stage of the terrorist attacks to a close put 29
individuals on trial (9 of whom were Spanish nationals). This same court
decision affirmed that the attacks had been inspired but not executed by alQaeda and identified the Islamic Moroccan Combatant Group, the most
representative group of the jihad Salafist movement in Spain, as being
responsible for the attacks.
The judgement convicted those directly responsible for the attacks
but failed to find sufficient evidence to convict those accused of being the
intellectual planners. Of the 29 accused, 7 were acquitted by the judgement
and another was exonerated during the trial. The participation of ETA was
also ruled out. Among those accountable for the massacre (aside from those
convicted and those who died in Leganes), 4 remain at large and 7 genetic
profiles have yet to be identified. Appendix A reports those who were
convicted.
The trial of the leaders of the attacks concluded with the certainty
that al-Qaeda inspired the attacks but did not order or organise them. The
group that carried out the attacks was formed by young immigrants, some
of whom were childhood friends from Tetun (Morocco), who had ended
up taking part in a network selling hashish. The genesis of this group was
around phone centres and not mosques. In fact, one of the groups most
violent members was expelled from Madrids main mosque because of his
violent opinions. It was the community itself that had expelled him.
These Islamic terrorist groups are composed of very young persons
whose community of reference is not visible but rather virtual and who see
themselves as heroes. They do not have direct contact with al-Qaeda
leaders but nonetheless form part of a virtual space that nourishes them
See the opinion containing the conclusions of the investigation debated at Spains
Cortes Generales at the 22 June 2005 session.
13
The judgement was delivered by Section Two of the National High Courts
criminal chamber on the 11 March 2004 attacks.
14
with ideology. Within this space is a jihad composed of cells that

individually decide on their objectives. It was within this framework that
the 11 March attacks were perpetrated.
Today, it is the communities themselves that have the greatest vested
interest in preventing violent movements within their ranks and swiftly
expelling those who upset the community. A close look at the arrests made
through anti-terrorist operations in the last three years that have targeted
Islamic violence in Spain shows that only one focused on a mosque-based
group. All of the arrests, with the exception of those made in January 2008
in Barcelona at a mosque frequented mostly by Pakistanis, were of persons
who recruited at the community level (appendix B).
4.
The situation in Ceuta and Melilla
An analysis of the situation in Spain requires special mention of Ceuta and

Melilla, which, owing to their geo-strategic location, play a major role
concerning the ArabMuslim world in Spain. Approximately 50% of the
population of these two autonomous cities professes the Muslim religion,
which makes them an ideal observatory to study potential conflicts and the
possibility of the co-existence and cohesion of a multi-faith society.
A close look at the local press indicates that these issues appear much
more frequently than in other regional or national media. The basic
problems of inter-religious relations are much more evident and the
political discourse of Spains major parties makes exceptions when
referring to the populations of Ceuta and Melilla.
Political discourse opposed to Muslim women wearing the hijab,
claiming that this poses a threat to Spains alleged national Christian
essence (some right-wing and extreme right-wing groups), or a threat to
the separation of church and state (some left-wing parties), is toned down
in references to Ceuta and Melilla. Womens right to wear the Islamic veil
freely is defended because they are Spanish, or comment is simply
withheld.
Owing to their geographical and geo-strategic position, these two
cities are also key to some of the most important issues on the political
agenda in Spain. These two small enclaves are consistently at the heart of
matters such as immigration, foreign relations with the Moroccan
government and Islamic religious radicalism. The issue of radicalism and
terrorism is crucial not only because these cities have been or could be
terrorist targets as temporary homes to potential jihadists or operation
centres for radical Moroccan groups, but also over and above the pride
felt for the harmonious mix of cultures there is a growing concern about
the tension between Catholics and Muslims caused by fear of terrorism.
Yet, of the 32 persons arrested up to August 2008 for their alleged ties
with Islamic terrorism, only 2 were arrested in Melilla and that was the
fruit of police cooperation with Morocco, where they had been wanted by
the judicial authorities.
Conclusions
When addressing the issue of Islam it is fair to say that we have two very
different groups operating in two very different contexts but which are
perceived by Spanish society as a single group, and this could have
negative consequences if an active policy is not implemented.
First, we have a group that includes the vast majority of Spanish
Muslims, whose numbers in 2008 reached 800,000. This group is composed
of immigrants practicing their faith who are from predominately Muslim
countries and who have permanently settled in Spain. The second
generation (their descendents) is becoming Spanish citizens, and is in the
process of finding their place in society. In other words, even if they are not
yet all Spanish citizens they are destined to be in the near future.
Not all are Muslims. According to recent studies15 nearly 20% of the
immigrants from predominately Muslim countries consider themselves
non-believers. It is therefore erroneous to confuse Moroccan with
Muslim or Muslim with immigrant. The second generation is caught up
in the same processes as the rest of the Spanish youth. A strong
secularisation process is giving rise to a fall in the number of believers.
Before the 11 March attacks, what the public saw were immigrants
rather than Muslims. After that date, the religious factor was used to refer
to this group of immigrants. In other words, the collective mindset viewed
this as more of a cultural than a religious phenomenon.
Second, there are the international terrorist groups operating in
Spain. These groups are ideologically aligned with al-Qaeda, especially the
Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and more recently the
15
See Metroscopia (2007), op. cit.
Moroccan al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. While there are other factions16
motivated through Islamic websites, these groups do not have strategic
interests in Spain17 but rather use Spanish territory as a base for fundraising
and the recruitment of persons willing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their operations revolve around phone centres but they have no roots or
relationships with the religious communities. Nearly all authors agree that
these groups have no real intention of recovering the ancient al-Andalus,
the latter only forming part of a narrative to attract young persons willing
to fight for an intangible cause. Their real objective is to radicalise their
societies of origin by attacking Western societies as a tactical ploy.
Although what we have here are two different worlds, we must also
be aware that under certain circumstances they may intersect and therefore
feed off one another. Such a situation would be more liable to arise if a
deep sense of belonging is not developed among young Spanish Muslims
and a generation of socially maladjusted youth emerges. Here we run the
risk that if a person does not have a clear identity associated with the
society in which s/he lives and is compatible with the latter, this identity
may be sought in virtual Islam. 18 This situation is especially prevalent in a
context of economic crisis linked to economic cycles and processes
involving the dismantling of the welfare state. To keep situations such as
these from emerging, sufficiently specific, active policies must be
implemented so that society is capable of clearly distinguishing between
these two phenomena. Spain could be at a crucial crossroads in the
prevention of radicalism of second- and third-generation immigrants by
See J. Jordn, El terrorismo yihadista en Espaa, JihadMonitor.org, 2005

(retrieved from http://www.Jihad.monitor.org) and also Jordn (2003), op. cit.
16
See J. Halliday, Tendencias internacionales: seguridad y conflictos in M. Mesa

and M. Gonzalez (eds), Poder y Democracia. Los retos del multiculturalismo, Barcelona:
Icaria Editorial, 2008 and J. Avils, Una amenaza compartida: la Yihad Global en
Europa y el Magreb, ARI No. 15/2005, Real Instituto Elcano, Madrid, 2005
(retrieved from http://www.realinstitutoelcan.org).
17
See M. Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 2004 and also M. Sageman, La nueva generacin de
terroristas, Foreign Policy (Edicin espaola), AprilMay 2008.
18
promoting their integration and drawing a clear distinction between their

identity and that of Islamic terrorists.19
We identify two differentiated lines of political action based on the
situation described. One involves police intervention at both national and
international levels fighting against terrorist networks. The other focuses
on integration processes and generating a sense of belonging with an
irrefutable national and even European component. The latter action is the
most complex but requires the greatest attention in Spain.
These politico-religious radical groups operate outside the network of
mosques and places of worship in Spain and largely have logistical
functions of recruiting individuals willing to fight in Iraq or fundraising.
The political objectives of these groups are in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the
use of Spain as a base for their terrorist actions is a strategic decision (a
means but not an end in itself); still, owing to the seriousness of the acts
perpetrated, this is extraordinarily serious all the same.
We have also observed growing unease on the part of Spanish society
stemming from co-existence with different cultural or religious groups,
including immigrants from Latin America and Muslim countries. Despite
the high opinion held by immigrants from predominately Muslim
countries of Spain, of Spanish society and of opportunities gained and
freedoms enjoyed, these groups are not highly regarded by Spanish society.
Nevertheless, social conflict and rejection on the part of society has more to
do with the very rapid growth of immigration in Spain than with issues
relating exclusively to the religious factor. Not only is Spains immigration
model not exhausted but it is also safe to say that it is still under
construction, thus providing an opportunity to make co-existence and
social cohesion a constructive and enriching reality for all.
Hence, Spain could create a different narrative, moving away from
radical Islam towards integration and an identity rooted in a different
starting point, since the Muslim immigrants are part of a larger and diverse
group of immigrants and the threat from ETA seems to be more real than
that from radical Islam.
See F. Fukuyama, Identity, Inmigration and Democracy, Journal of Democracy,

Vol. 17, No. 2, 2006.
19
Appendix A. Individuals convicted in the judgement on the 11

March 2004 attacks
Jos Emilio Surez Trashorras, Spanish
Essential collaborator; sold explosives used in the attacks that he stole from
the mine where he worked; contacted by Jamal Ahmidan through Raf
Zouier to supply the explosives subsequently used in the attacks.
Jamal Zougam, Moroccan
Member of the terrorist cell that perpetrated the attacks; directly
responsible for planting the explosives; owner of the mobile telephone shop
and phone centre that supplied the telephones used as detonators.
Othman El Gnaoui, Moroccan
Member of the terrorist cell that perpetrated the attacks; responsible for
handling and falsifying documents; delivered his ID documentation to
Jamal Ahmidan knowing that they would be falsified.
Hassan El Haski, Moroccan
Member and leader of an armed terrorist organisation; leader of the
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group wanted by the Belgian authorities;
arrested on 17 December 2004.
Basel Ghalyoun, Syrian
Member of an armed terrorist group; had numerous contacts with
Mohamed Larbi Ben Sellam; recruited and indoctrinated future terrorists
and provided support and assistance to seasoned terrorists; closely linked
to the leaders of the cell that committed suicide in Leganes.
Fouad El Morabit Anghar, Moroccan
Member of an armed terrorist group; recruited and indoctrinated future
terrorists and provided support and assistance to seasoned terrorists;
closely linked to the leaders of the cell that committed suicide in Leganes
and with Rabei Osman El Sayed Ahmed (convicted in Italy in 2006 for
forming part of a terrorist organisation).
Mouhannad Almallah Dabas, Syrian
Member of an armed terrorist group; recruited and indoctrinated future
terrorists and provided support and assistance to seasoned terrorists; in
charge of one of the premises where the activities were carried out; closely
linked to the leaders of the cell that committed suicide in Leganes.
Appendix A. contd
Sael El Harrak, Moroccan
Member of an armed terrorist group; member of the cell that committed
suicide in Leganes; had close personal and telephone contacts with the
other members of the group.
Mohamed Bouharrat, Moroccan
Member of an armed terrorist group; a recruiter who compiled information
on possible targets for violent attacks, which he then delivered to the cell.
Youssef Beljadt, Moroccan
Member of an armed terrorist group; a member of one of the groups of the
al-Qaeda network and a proselytiser who was involved in fundraising
activities to finance international jihad activities. He lived in Brussels where
he undertook his operations and housed radicals and jihadists. He was in
Spain from the middle of February until 3 March 2004, and was arrested in
Brussels on 1 February 2005.
Mohamed Larbi Ben Sellam, Moroccan
Member of an armed terrorist group; his mission was to indoctrinate,
recruit and support individuals in the formation of a jihad; had close
relations with Jamal Ahmidan, Mohamed Oulad Akcha and Said Berraj.
Rachid Aglif, Moroccan
Member of an armed terrorist group and keeper of explosives; in charge of
buying and handling explosives; had contact with Jamal Zougam.
Abdelmajid Bouchar, Moroccan
Member of an armed terrorist group and keeper of explosives; in the
Leganes flat with the suicide terrorists, but had left to take out the rubbish
when the police raid took place and consequently escaped.
Hamid Ahmidan, Moroccan
Member of an armed terrorist group and drugs trafficker; drugs, cash and
false documentation bearing the name of Jamal Ahmidan were found in his
home; personal effects belonging to the user of the stolen van used to
transport the terrorists responsible for the attacks were found in his car.
Raf Zouhier, Moroccan
Trafficker and supplier of explosives in collaboration with a terrorist
organisation; police confidant; the contact person between Jos Emilio
Surez Trashorras and Jamal Ahmidan for the sale of explosives.
Appendix A. contd
Agdelilah El Fadoual El Akil, Moroccan
Collaborator with an armed organisation and a friend of Jamal Ahmidans;
in Holland in the 1990s, he and Ahmidan contacted Imad Eddin Brakat
Yarkas, the person responsible for recruiting jihad terrorists at that time; he
shipped a car used to transport the explosives to Ceuta.
Nasreddine Bousbaa, Algerian
Falsifier of official documents; forged two passports and driving licenses
that he then gave to Jamal Ahmidan; these were delivered before 6 March
2004 to the Lavapies neighbourhood of Madrid.
Mahmoud Sleiman Aouin, Lebanese
Falsifier of official documents; carrying false documentation when arrested.
Ral Gonzlez Pelez, Spanish
Supplier of explosives; collaborated in the organisation of the transport of
explosives.
Antonio Ivn Reis Palicio, Spanish
Transporter of explosives; transported explosives from Asturias to Madrid
on 9 January 2004 for a fee of 300.
Sergio lvarez Snchez, Spanish
Transporter of explosives; transported a 40kg bag of explosives from
Asturias to Madrid on 5 January 2004 for a fee of 600; these were delivered
to Jamal Ahmidan and used in the attacks.
Gabriel Montoya Vidal, Spanish
Transporter of explosives; convicted by Juvenile Court given that he was a
minor at the time the crime was committed; transported explosives from
Asturias to Madrid at the end of January or beginning of February.
Source: Derived from the judgement delivered by Section Two of the National High
Courts criminal chamber on the 11 March 2004 attacks.
Appendix B. Arrests of alleged Islamic terrorist cells in Spain,

during the period 200508 Dates, places (numbers
arrested) and description
January 2005, Bilbao (1)
One Algerian individual in relation to the 11 March court case
February 2005, Legans, Madrid and Melilla (6)
Individuals related to the 11 March court case
March 2005, Fuenlabrada (1)
April 2005, Madrid (14); Operation Saeta
May 2005, Madrid and Granada (3)
Individuals related to the 11 March court case; arms traffickers and those
involved in financing their business
July 2005, Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia and Cadiz (18); Operation Tigris
Individuals from the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda involved in fundraising
activities
July 2005, Madrid (5); Operation Sello
November 2005, Alicante (8), Granada (2) and Murcia (1)
Algerian members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat who
stole cars and other property, printed counterfeit cards and were involved
in drug trafficking to finance their activities in Algeria
December 2005, Malaga (7)
Algerian members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat who
harboured Algerian terrorists on their way to Iraq
December 2005, Malaga (9), Lleida (3), Seville (1) and Palma (1)
Individuals who recruited others to send to Iraq
January 2006, Vilanova i la Geltr (16), Madrid (3) and Lasarte (1)
Individuals who frequented phone centres with the aim of recruiting others
to carry out terrorist attacks in Iraq
December 2006, Ceuta (11)
Individuals who formed part of a Moroccan Salafist cell under surveillance
by the police of that country
Appendix B. contd
June 2007, Barcelona (2)
Individuals who formed part of a group known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, composed of Moroccans recruiting followers for operations in
North Africa
January 2008, Barcelona (14)
Arrest at a mosque of Pakistanis who met in one of the mosques in the El
Raval neighbourhood; material intended for the manufacture of explosives
was confiscated
February 2008, Vitoria (3)
Arrest of persons at a phone centre, who had a police record for petty crime
April 2008, Melilla (2)
Arrest of individuals wanted by the Moroccan police force for alleged
involvement in Islamic terrorism networks and arms trafficking; one of
those arrested was linked to the Maghreb Mujahideen Movement and to
the Casablanca attacks of 16 May 2003. The other was linked to a terrorist
network dismantled by the Moroccan authorities in February 2008.
June 2008, Barcelona, Castelln and Pamplona (8)
Eight Algerians were arrested, accused of indoctrination and economic and
logistical support of terrorists forming part of the al-Qaeda structure in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQMI). Most of those arrested belonged to the Salafist
Group for Preaching and Combat.
July 2008, Huelva and Guipzcoa (4)
Algerian Salafist group accused of funding al-Qaeda activities in the
Maghreb by falsifying documents and brand-name clothing. Those arrested
were allegedly linked to an investigation conducted in the UK in 2001.
August 2008, Alicante (1)
One person was arrested in Alicante in relation to the June 2008 arrests,
having escaped to Algeria on that occasion. He was accused of recruiting
mujahideen and sending funds to the Maghreb to finance the AQMI.
October 2008, Burgos (6)
Algerian group accused of fundraising for terrorists imprisoned for the
Casablanca attacks and of recruiting and indoctrinating mujahideen
through the Internet; according to those leading the investigation, the cell
was based in Spain but formed part of a more complex structure operating
internationally. Its leader had a record for petty crime.
Source: Data based on press clippings from Spanish newspapers.
8. RADICALISATION OF RUSSIAS
MUSLIM COMMUNITY
ALEKSEI MALASHENKO & AKHMET YARLYKAPOV
he phenomenon of Islamic radicalism is an extremely significant

one for Russia because of at least two circumstances: a) there are
about 20 million Muslims living in Russia (including 3.5 to 4 million
migrant Muslims), and b) in the 15 years since the collapse of the USSR,
Russia has been shaken by ethno-political conflicts with an apparent
confessional component.
Islamic radicalism has become an integral feature of the internal
situation in Russian society, exerting an influence on the countrys public
policy. It includes two closely intertwined components a purely religious
and a political one. To ensure a correct assessment of radicalism, however,
it is advisable not to combine these two trends into one. In addition, as
noted further on, religious radicals may be loyal to the authorities in
respect of specific issues.
Not infrequently, information about Islamic radicals activities is
inaccurate. Its source is law enforcement bodies, which for various reasons
present it in a distorted form, and therefore this type of information needs
to be verified.1 Information coming from their opponents, who aim at
presenting themselves solely as fighters for social justice and for purity of
This tendency is explained by the fact that religious radicalism (and extremism)
in Russia is used as a political tool of the ruling establishment. In certain periods,
the role of extremism was exaggerated, so that the authorities had a sufficient
pretext for a general tightening of the screws, curtailing the freedom of the press,
etc. Since approximately 2003, however, the ruling circles have been trying in every
way to demonstrate their successes in the struggle against radicals, and therefore
restricting information about their activities.
1
| 159
160 | MALASHENKO & YARLYKAPOV
religion, also needs verification. Nor are the mass media always objective in
covering issues relating to Islamic radicalism either.
Russias Muslim community is not uniform. Singled out in it may be
two socio-cultural realms, the Northern Caucasian and the Tatar-Bashkir
(for simplicity we call it Tatar), which, as a consequence of increased
migrations, have recently been in active contact with each other alongside
the direct participation of a third force Central Asian Muslims. Without
touching upon the differences between them, we note one characteristic: in
the Northern Caucasus, radical tendencies and sentiments are stronger
than in the rest of Russia. This characteristic sometimes makes it necessary
separately to describe processes and situations related to Islamic
radicalism.
1.
The spread of radicalism
The eastern and central parts of the Northern Caucasus Dagestan,

Chechnya and Ingushetia, and also the adjoining districts of the Stavropol
territory with its substantial Muslim population are the most radicalised
regions. While it is true that radical elements in Chechnya are being
squeezed out of the republic, they are settling down in the neighbouring
territories. As a result, Dagestans Islamic jamaats [Muslim communities]
are growing stronger, indicative of which is the increasing activity of the
republics law enforcement bodies, which are compelled regularly to carry
out special operations against militants. Radical sentiments are quite
widespread in Kabarda, Balkaria and Karachai, although the situation there
is somewhat quieter than in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia. The level
of Islamic radicalism is lowest in the Republic of Adygeya and the
Krasnodar territory in which it is located, among other things because
ethno-nationalism has not yet been superseded there by religious
radicalism. Nevertheless, Islamic radicals have been stepping up their
activity in the Republic of Adygeya.
In the rest of Russia, there is less activity by radicals and it is not
structured. Their small groups are scattered across the Volga area, the
southern Urals and southern Siberia. Manifestations of radicalism have
been noted in Tatarstan (Naberezhniye Chelny, Almetyevsk, Nizhnekamsk
and Kukmor), in Bashkiria (Agidel, Baimak, Oktyabrsky, Sibai and Ufa), in
Mordovia (Belozerye), in the Samara region (Togliatti), and in the Kurgan,
Orenburg, Penza, Perm, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk and Tyumen regions.
Radicals have also been detected in Moscow, although no activities on a
RADICALISATION OF RUSSIAS MUSLIM COMMUNITY | 161
permanent basis have been observed there on their part. Small,

unconnected groups of radicals exist even in cities remote from Islamic
hotbeds such as in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea and Vladivostok on the
Pacific. If you were to mark areas of Islamic radicalism on the map of
Russia, the resulting picture would be quite impressive.
Opposition forces advocating radical Islamic ideology are called
fundamentalists and Islamists; the term Wahhabites has become
particularly widespread in Russia. It would be more correct to call them
Salafists, since their ideology goes back to the 8th9th centuries AD, when
those who urged believers to adhere to the norms of religious and
everyday life followed by the righteous ancestors (as-Salaf as-Salihun)
called themselves Salafists. Todays radicals act as preservers of that
tradition, referring to the medieval ideologists of Salafism; adjusted for
time, they may be regarded as neo-Salafists.
On the other hand, there exist various schools of thought within the
framework of Islamic radicalism. In particular there are differences
between Salafists proper and Hizb ut-Tahrir al Islamiyya (HTI the Islamic
Liberation Party),2 which has come to Russia from Central Asia. The main
goal of HTI is a political one the establishment in the territory of Central
Asia (and its subsequent expansion) of an Islamic state, the caliphate,
whereas the Salafists are focused on a gradual (re-)Islamisation of society
and the establishment of sharia. In addition, the ideology of Salafism places
emphasis not only and not so much on struggle against the regime as on its
transformation from within. The Salafists, acting very diplomatically, are
gradually penetrating administrative bodies, avoiding making outspoken
statements that contradict the official precepts. But they remain radicals,
even though their radicalism is of a more subtle character.
In Russia, the authorities turn out to be somewhat disoriented, for in
confronting Islamic opposition groups, whose members they call bandits,
they are in fact fighting against one of the movements in Islam that enjoys
wide popularity and claims to possess the final truth in both religion and
the socio-political sphere.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, founded in 1953 in East Jerusalem, has managed to retain its
influence in Central Asia, above all in Uzbekistan.
2
2.
Radical movement participants and their activities
In the Northern Caucasus, the basic cell of radicalism is the jamaat. The
Arabic word jamaah means society or community. Jamaats are an
elementary, grass root form of organisation of Muslim society. It is an
association of Muslims performing congregational prayer; ideally, a jamaat
is a group of Muslims attending the same mosque. The spiritual leader of a
jamaat is an imam the prayer leader in a mosque who delivers a sermon
on Fridays, a person who plays a great role in the life of the community
because of his authority and knowledge. Underlying an imams authority is
the fact that as a rule, he is elected by the entire community from among
the worthiest Muslims on a whole number of criteria: he should not only
have the best knowledge of the Koran, the Sunna and the cult, but also be a
model of morality and a fulfilment of the precepts of the Muslim religion.
Normally, a jamaat and an imam are closely bound to each other with a
hundred cords; they meet together not only on Fridays for a communal
prayer but also on many other varied occasions. Naturally, it is very
difficult for the imams of large jamaats to maintain strong ties with their
congregations, particularly so in major cities.
In Russia, the very notion of a jamaat implicitly suggests the
definition of radical. Every time the word jamaat is mentioned in the
Russian scholarly press or mass media, it implies precisely a collective of
radically-minded Muslims, which more often than not corresponds to the
actual state of affairs.
Characterised by the young age of their participants, these may be
called youth jamaats. Organisationally, they took shape in the late 1980s
and early 1990s. What contributed to their separation into distinct bodies
was the sharply oppositional attitude of a substantial share of the young
persons who formed their backbone. They were in opposition, on the one
hand, towards the official Islamic bodies the Muslim religious boards
and on the other towards so-called traditional Islam, whose proponents
are mainly members of the older generation advocating the observance of
all the popular traditions. In the opinion of youth leaders, these popular
traditions are often contrary to Islam. In Dagestan, Chechnya and
Ingushetia, Muslim youth leaders have often spoken out against the local
form of Sufism, which they consider full of pagan remnants. (Most often,
funeral and commemorative rituals have acted as irritants.)
Initially, local youth jamaats were headed by young imams. In most
cases, they were self-taught. The level of knowledge possessed by these
leaders and other mullahs was approximately the same, and polemics were
conducted in a rather half-hearted fashion, only occasionally reaching fierce
proportions. The leaders of youth jamaats made use of that time for
strengthening themselves organisationally. Perfecting their ideology was
the task of the next generation of leaders, who entered the scene in the early
1990s. At that time, young men who had obtained an education abroad,
mostly in the countries of the Middle East, began to return home. They
gradually became urban and rural leaders and united jamaats into a kind of
network of associations of Islamic youth.
The breeding ground of youth jamaats is the Republic of Dagestan,
where these associations (circles) began to be formed among the disciples
of local Sufi sheikhs as far back as the 1970s. It is precisely these circles that
the Soviet security services dubbed Wahhabite for the first time (following
the example of the sheikhs, who had lost control over their disciples). At
the time, however, the State Security Committee (KGB) quite soon got a
handle on them.
Wahhabism in Dagestan reached its heyday in the 1990s. It was then
that the Wahhabite communities in Kizilyurt, Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi,
Gubden and other Dagestani populated areas began to gain in strength.
Despite the bitter opposition of the Sufis, they succeeded in establishing
their rule in a number of districts. In particular, Wahhabites managed to
establish an independent territory in the so-called Kadar zone, which
included three villages in the Buinaksk District of DagestanKaramakhi,
Chabanmakhi and Kadar. Even though up to half the residents of the
enclave did not support the Wahhabites ideology or practice, the latter
were able to keep their rule and their power for three years (199799).
During that period, the secular authorities were in fact non-existent in
the enclave. And yet the enclave had all the attributes of a self-governing
territory: it had a shura [council] a body of government of an Islamic
territory, its own militia (police) and even its own court of sharia law
(Mahkama Shariyya). Throughout the three years of its actual independence,
the extremist jamaat flourished thanks to its members entrepreneurial
activities, and the surrounding mountains were a convenient place for the
training of future mujahideen. In the enclave itself, especially in the villages
of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi, extremists entrenched themselves in
quite a professional manner militarily, which proved true in the course of a
military operation against them conducted in 1999. Notwithstanding
several nooses drawn around them, practically all of the extremists leaders
managed to leave the fighting zone and get across into Chechnya. It is from
that time that extremists in Dagestan began step-by-step searches for
possibilities to preserve their movement. Gradually they adopted the
network principle, which thereafter formed the basis of their activity.
In the mid-2000s, after the end of the war in Chechnya and the
suppression of a number of major Wahhabite centres in Dagestan, the
Kabardino-Balkarian Jamaat became the best-known and best-organised
network association. Other networks of youth jamaats known to exist today
are those in Dagestan, Chechnya, Karachaevo-Cherkessia and the Stavropol
territory. Today, youth jamaats are being formed before our eyes in the
Republic of Adygeya.
Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, these networks were already
connected to one another and exchanged information about themselves and
their activities. Their leaders were personally well acquainted with one
another and were thoroughly familiar with the state of affairs in the
neighbouring jamaats. Nevertheless, jamaats have always preserved broad
internal autonomy.
Ideologically, youth jamaats are unstable. Their members represent
highly varied views, spanning the ideological spectrum from extremism to
moderate radicalism. The activities and form of organisation of youth
jamaats have been patterned after the forms and experience of Muslim
organisations in the Middle East, which are distinguished by the unity of
ranks, internal mutual assistance and charity.
In the Caucasus, youth jamaats turned out to be quite an easy catch
for destructive forces, including separatists, which gradually infiltrated the
youth setting, exerting an ever-greater effect on it. As a result, in the 1990s a
substantial proportion of youth jamaats turned into a base of the separatist
movement, whose ethnic character (war for the liberation of Chechnya)
was replaced by a religious one the proclamation of a Northern
Caucasian emirate as a first step towards building a worldwide Islamic
state.
The second half of the 1990s saw a slow but steady change in the
qualitative composition of the leadership of the radical Islamic movement
in the Caucasus. Its first semi-literate leaders, who at best had received a
local education in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet years, were replaced
by young imams, who had obtained a fundamental Islamic education
abroad, mainly in the Middle East. A few examples of such leaders are
Musa Mukozhev, Anzor Astemirov (the Kabardino-Balkarian Jamaat) and
Kurman Ismailov (the jamaat of Russia famous health resort of Mineralniye

Vody) among others.
Anzor Astemirov, calling himself Amir Sayfullah [Sword of Allah], a
descendant of a family of Kabardin princes, was born in 1976. In the early
1990s, the Muslim religious board of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic sent
him to study at Imam Muhammad bin Saud University in Saudi Arabia to
obtain a theological education. Having graduated from the university, he
returned home, where he preached at one of the mosques in Nalchik, the
capital of Kabardino-Balkaria.
In 1993, with the active participation of Astemirov and his associates,
the Islamic Centre of Kabardino-Balkaria (ICKB) was founded. Soon a
Kabardino-Balkarian Jamaat emerged on the basis of the ICKB, and then
later became the most serious force in opposition to the official Muslim
religious board of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. Anzor Astemirov was
a close friend and deputy to Artur (Musa) Mukozhev, the amir [head] of
the jamaat. The numerical strength of the jamaat kept growing and reached,
according to its leaders, 10,000 persons (in all, there are about 650,000 socalled ethnic Muslims living in the republic).
In 19992001, Anzor Astemirov was more than once suspected of
committing wrongful acts. Attempts were mainly made to charge him with
participation in preparations for terrorist acts; however, the law
enforcement authorities failed to prove his guilt. The persecution of the
Kabardino-Balkarian Jamaat members increased, and Anzor Astemirov
drifted towards more radical positions.
On 14 December 2004, there was an attack on the Department of the
Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation for the KabardinoBalkarian Republic in Nalchik. The law enforcement authorities accused
Anzor Astemirov and Ilyas Gorchkhanov, a resident of Ingushetia (leader
of the Taliban Jamaat), of mounting the attack.
On 13 October 2005, more than 200 militants attacked all the
buildings in Nalchik associated with the security forces of the KabardinoBalkarian Republic. In the two days of fighting, 80 militants, 33 law
enforcement officers and 12 civilians were killed in the city. Subsequently,
about 70 persons who (in the opinion of the security services) had been
involved in the raid were arrested and more than 20 others were put on the
wanted list.
On 17 October 2005, in a statement posted on the Chechen-separatist
website KavkazCentre.com, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed that
the attack on Nalchik was carried out by combatants of the KabardinoBalkarian segment of the Caucasian Front under the command of Amir
Sayfullah that is, Anzor Astemirov. In a video recording attached to the
statement, the latter was shown beside Basayev during a sitting of the
majlis [council] of Kabardino-Balkarian mujahideen in a forest outside
Nalchik on the eve of the 13 October events. The law enforcement agencies
of the Russian Federation put Astemirov on the wanted list.
On an ever-greater scale, young intellectuals are joining the Islamist
movement. One example is the Dagestani Abuzagir Mantayev, who
defended his candidates degree in Political Science on the topic of
Wahhabism in Moscow and then turned up in the ranks of the extremists.
Mantayev was killed together with other extremists by security forces in
Makhachkala on 9 October 2005. Another example is Makhach (better
known as Yasin) Rasulov, born in 1975. This graduate of Dagestan State
University worked for some time as a religious columnist for the
newspaper Novoye delo and anchored a religious show on Dagestani
television. Over the course of a year, he secretly cooperated with extremists
and even earned the title Amir of Makhachkala, having participated in
several audacious attacks on Dagestani police officers. On 10 April 2006,
the authorities announced that he had been killed in the course of a special
operation in Makhachkala.
Since the late 1990s, a major restructuring of the separatist
underground has been taking place in the Northern Caucasus. This
restructuring includes the distribution of forces across the widest possible
territory and the creation of a network structure, in which the nodes are
formally autonomous yet closely communicate with each other to
coordinate their actions using communication agents and electronic means
of telecommunication. In setting up this network, use is also made of
influence agents, particularly disgruntled local residents and especially
those who have been abused by the local law enforcement agencies.
The organisational structure of the separatist communities jamaats
does not coincide with that of traditional Muslim communities in the
region, which are also called jamaats. The traditional jamaats incorporate the
population of a single village or one or several city districts grouped
around a mosque. That is, the traditional jamaats are organised according to
a territorial principle, whereas the separatist jamaats are extra-territorial
and dispersed. One jamaat may encompass many small groups, united into
one or several networks. Such is the case, for example, with the Dagestani
jamaats Shariat and Dzhennet. They were created on the basis of loyalty
to the ideology and practice of the separatist movement. Organisationally,
these jamaats do not represent any kind of united association. Their
structure includes de facto autonomous groups, made up of a small
number of members who frequently are not acquainted with the members
of the other cells. It is particularly difficult to unravel such a network since
finding one cell usually does not lead to uncovering others. While making
it difficult to manage such a network, this kind of organisation helps the
entire network to survive confrontations with the security forces.
The jamaats are international in composition; usually their members
are from the different ethnic groups of the Northern Caucasus, but there
are also representatives of other countries, including Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,
Pakistan and the countries of the Middle East. Official Russian statements
typically describe them as mercenaries, yet many of them have come to the
region for ideological reasons, as participants in a world jihad against kafirs
[non-Muslims], Jews and Crusaders. Those who have extensive battlefield
experience work as instructors. Foreigners, however, do not always become
instructors: sometimes they are just rank-and-file fighters, which
particularly applies to those coming from Central Asia. Through the
foreigners, the groups often establish ties with donors from Islamic
countries. Delivery of financial aid to the separatists is frequently
criminalised: for example, through these channels counterfeit hard
currency is laundered. Other types of fundraising are also employed such
as donations from various supporters and ransoms collected from the
relatives of hostages.
Sometimes the separatists form special units battalions organised
along ethnic lines. Thus have come into existence the Nogai, the
Karachai and other ethnic battalions. In reality, no such battalions exist as
permanent military units. Armed forays and terrorist acts ascribed to one
ethnic battalion or another are carried out by the members of separatist
jamaats of the corresponding nationality (even though the jamaat itself is
international). In particular, the Nogai battalion typically includes members
of the Shelkovskoi Jamaat, which is based in the Shelkovskoi District of
Chechnya and the Neftekumsky District of the Stavropol territory. The
Shelkovskoi Jamaat has become notorious for large-scale actions against the
federal troops, including the recent clashes in the village of Tukui-Mekteb
of the Neftekumsky District. Its activities receive wide attention because
raids often take place beyond the borders of the Northern Caucasian
republics, angering the federal government. And yet the Shelkovskoi

Jamaat is not the largest network structure of the separatist forces.
With respect to the rest of the Muslim space in Russia, the concept of
jamaat is practically never used. What is found in its place is simply a small
community or even just a circle composed of a few persons or two to three
dozen.
The communities exist in towns or they are formed around mosques.
The latter is less and less frequently the case, since an overwhelming
majority of mosques are controlled by Muslim religious boards loyal to the
authorities and are constantly monitored by the security services. In 1999,
Islamist communities were formed in Kumkor (200 persons), Vyatskiye
Polyany (in the Kirov region 100150 persons), and Neftekamsk (in the
Perm region up to 50 persons). In the Republic of Tatarstan, in an
abandoned village located in the Ogryz District, 30 Islamists attempted to
reproduce the experience of the Dagestan village of Karamakhi and formed
a so-called Islamic territory. Quite soon, however, the community was
dispersed by the local administration and law enforcement bodies.
A mosque may also turn out to be a centre of religious radicalism.
Similarly, a madrasah or Islamic institute functioning at a mosque may turn
out to be such a centre. It should be noted that the title of institute rarely
corresponds to the level of education provided by an Islamic educational
institution positioning itself in this way. An overwhelming majority of
Russias Islamic institutes may be ranked with certain reservations as
secondary educational institutions.
In the Northern Caucasus, where the jamaat is the organisational
basis, the mosque may be regarded rather as its adjunct, whereas in the
Tatar-Bashkir area a mosque and an Islamic educational institution act as
an independent or even the main centre of attraction.
In nearly each region with a sizable Muslim community, there is one
or sometimes several radically-oriented mosques (with a madrasah or
institute it runs). They include, for example, the White (Gilyan) Mosque in
the Astrakhan region, the so-called Historical Mosque in the Samara
region, the Rahman and al-Bukhari mosques in the territory of the Ural
Federal District, the mosque at the Imam Fakhretdinov Institute in
Almetyevsk (Bashkortostan) and the mosques in Nizhnekamsk (Tatarstan).
In Moscow, the authorities have brought charges of supporting radicals
against the Historical Mosque and the recently built mosque on
Poklonnaya Hill.
A stressful situation developed around a mosque and madrasah in

the city of Buguruslan in the Orenburg region (bordering on Kazakhstan).
According to the law enforcement agencies, the training of militants was
conducted at that madrasah: six men who took part in terrorist acts in
Moscow (the seizure of hostages at the theatre on Dubrovka street) and
Beslan (the hostage-taking and murder of schoolchildren) had been trained
at that madrasah.3
In 19992002, the most prominent hotbed of Islamism was the Yodyz
Mosque and madrasah in Naberezhniye Chelny, where Arabian Islam
was taught and where, according to the security services, militants were
also trained. Later on, some of them were detained on suspicion of
connections with al-Qaeda.
In addition to jamaats, mosques and Islamic educational institutions,
several radical Islamic organisations have been active in Russia. At one
time, the most prominent of them was the Islamic Revival Party established
in Astrakhan in 1990, which gave an impetus to the politisation of Islam
back in Soviet times. It had a branch in Dagestan, which adopted the name
of the Islamic Party of Dagestan. Despite the relatively hard phraseology
of its leaders, the Islamic Revival Party can hardly be fully identified with
Islamic radicalism. It may be described as a moderately radical
organisation. Ahmed Qadi Akhtayev, the leader of the party, was rather in
favour of dialogue with both Islamic traditionalists and the secular
authorities. Yet after his death in 1998, radical and even extremist
sentiments grew stronger in the Islamic Revival Party; it was true, however,
that by that time the party was close to disintegration and soon it ceased to
exist.
In Tatarstan, the Iman Youth Islamic Cultural Centre, formed in 1990,
characteristic of which were separatist sentiments, adhered to radical
positions. (In 1991, the Iman Centre even applied to the Organisation of the
Islamic Conference (OIC) with a request to accept Tatarstan as a member.)
That same year, the radical nationalist party Ittifaq was founded in the
republic, with the Islamic component very prominent in its ideology. The
3 See Uspekh zavisit ot kazhdogo [Success Depends on Everyone], an interview
with Kharun Karchayev, Head of the Department of the Federal Security Service of
Russia for the Orenburg region, Pervaya Redaktsiya, Orenburg, 8-14 March 2008, p.
3.
programme of Ittifaq stated that the party fights for purity of religion, for
faithfulness to the precepts of the Koran.4
On the whole, in contrast to the Northern Caucasian jamaats, radical
groups in the rest of Muslim Russia do not pose any serious threat to
stability. They are supported by an insignificant number of Muslims. On
the other hand, it should not be ignored that 15 years ago there were no
such groups in Russia except in Tatarstan and three or four Russian cities.
Therefore, while recognising their insignificance in the overall religious and
political palette, one cannot but notice the presence, even if slowly
growing, of Islamic radicalism in the Russian Federation.
3.
The absence of charismatic Muslim leadership
In Muslim Russia today there are no charismatic figures whose influence

would encompass the entire Islamic community. For example, Talgat
Tadzhutdin, Chairman of the Central Religious Board of Muslims of
Russia, claims the status of an all-Russia Muslim authority, yet even in the
Republic of Bashkortostan where his residence is located, he has been
recognised as a spiritual leader by only 18.5% of Muslims.5 Ravil
Gainutdin, Chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia, Chief Imam of the
Moscow Cathedral Mosque, enjoys countrywide popularity in Russia, but
he also lacks strong influence. It should be noted that neither Tadzhutdin
nor Gainutdin can be classed among the radicals.
Perhaps Mukaddas Bibarsov, Chairman of the Muslim Religious
Board for the Volga area, who, despite his general loyalty to the authorities,
sometimes ventures risky statements and acts, has some elements of
regional-level influence.
Certain features of charismatic leadership, albeit inert, are displayed
by Nafigulla Ashirov, Chairman of the Religious Board of Muslims of
Asian Russia. While not directly participating in the activities of radical
organisations, Ashirov has won renown for his numerous statements in
support of Hamas, the Taliban and even al-Qaeda, as well as his criticisms
of the Russian Orthodox Church, his call to remove the cross from the coat
See Altyn Urda, No. 6, Kazan, 1993.
See A.B. Yunusova, Islam v Bashkortostane [Islam in Bashkortostan], Ufa, 1999, p.

301.
5
of arms of the Russian Federation, etc. He occupies an intermediate

position between classical radicalism and the clergy loyal to the
authorities. Still, it is true that in the last few years his popularity has
waned.
In the mid-1990s, Geydar Dzhemal, one of the founders of the Islamic
Revival Party, who later on became chairman of the Islamic Committee of
Russia, claimed the role of a charismatic figure in Russias Muslim
community. He failed to reach this goal, however. Coming from the Soviet
and subsequently post-Soviet intellectual underground, he was perceived
as an Islamic ideologist mainly by Russian non-Muslims, scaring them with
his radicalism and even with his formidable appearance, and he actually
turned into a sophisticated showman.
Finally, we mention Tatar poet Fauziya Bairamova, an ideologist of
local nationalism, who is also not averse to Islamic rhetoric. Even so, her
appeal is limited to the narrow circle of admirers of her literary talent.
The authority and popularity of the radicals proper do not go beyond
the boundaries of their milieu. The political conditions for the emergence of
charismatic figures existed in the Northern Caucasus. It was there that
politicians and ideologists with leadership ambitions emerged in the 1990s.
They included the above-mentioned Ahmed Qadi Akhtayev, Sheikh
Bagauddin (Bagauddin Kebedov), a leading ideologist of the Salafists in the
1990s, and Nadirshah Khachilayev, head of the Union of Muslims of Russia
(killed in 1999). But none of them ever succeeded in becoming a fullfledged popular leader.
Perhaps Shamil Basayev, one of the leaders of Chechen separatism
(killed by the federal security services in 2004), approached closest to it;
however, his charisma was mainly of a political nature, while Islam served
above all as an instrument for preserving his political prestige.
It seems highly unlikely that charismatic figures will emerge in
Russias Muslim community in the near future. First, there are no
appropriate political conditions for this; second, the security services, ready
at any time to isolate an exceptional personality, are keeping a close watch
on Muslims; third, a majority of Russias Muslims are not very susceptible
to radical ideas and slogans tinged with a revolutionist hue. Today, only
one Muslim politician, Ramzan Kadyrov, the young president of Chechnya,
boasts charisma. There is a growing Islamic motivation in Ramzans
politics, but he cannot be classed with Islamic radicals and therefore his
portrait is not a subject of our analysis.
4.
Texts propagating the ideas of radicalism and their impact
Texts propagating the ideas of radicalism in Muslim Russia not only in

the Caucasus but also in other regions are quite varied. In the Northern
Caucasus, they have a broader audience; in the 2000s, however, materials
of this kind have become relatively widespread in Tatarstan, the southern
Urals, western Siberia and the Volga area. In the 1990s, at a number of
bookstores in Russia one could buy fundamentalist literature Russian
translations of works by Ibn Taimi and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founders
and ideologists of fundamentalism, Hassan al-Banna, the first head of the
Muslim Brotherhood organisation, and Sayyid and Muhammad Qutb.
Works by contemporary Islamic radicals, such as Abd as-Salam Farag,
Ayman az-Zawahiri, Abbud az-Zumr and natives of Russia Magomed
Tagayev (The Army of the Imam) and Nadir Khachilayev (Our Road to
Gazavat), are being published.
The most traditional forms of presenting the material are leaflets,
brochures and sermons. In the early 1990s, publications of texts in religious
newspapers and magazines played a crucial role. Their impact can hardly
be overestimated; for example, a whole generation of young Islamic
radicals in the region has been brought up reading the Dagestani
newspaper Al-Qaf. In the Urals, western Siberia and the Volga area, Islamic
radicals read al-Wai, a printed organ of HTI.
Sermons were video-recorded, and their dissemination was one of
the leading methods of propagandising radical ideas among the peoples of
the Caucasus in the 1990s. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, video began to
be ousted by the Internet, which today has become one of the main
resources for spreading radical views and an efficient lever for influencing
young Muslims in Russia.
In addition, mention should be made of lectures delivered by
ideologists of radicalism at educational institutions and militant training
camps that operated in the Caucasus throughout the 1990s. Sometimes
texts of the lectures were disseminated in other regions of Russia as well,
including Moscow. Records of the lectures that have come down to us are
amazing for the scale of ideological brainwashing of young students, who
were offered a systematic, integral view of the world through a radical
interpretation. This approach was clearly presented and substantiated with
quotations from the Koran and the Sunna, along with examples from
history and the present-day world political situation.6
Still another method of propagandising radical ideas was the use of
possibilities offered by seemingly innocuous Arabic language textbooks.
Sheikh Bagauddin, a major, radical ideologist of the Caucasus, widely used
the principles of the Wahhabite doctrine in an Arabic language textbook
that he had written. In his textbook for the first year of study, a great deal
of interesting thoughts are to be found in texts for translation into Arabic,
such as the following: We are fighting with gyaurs (i.e. infidels), and
gyaurs are constantly fighting with us. Today they are possessors of power
and possessors of numerous weapons, but we are possessors of iman
[faith], that is why we will definitely win, for we have Allah and they have
Satan.7 Here are a few more characteristic quotations from the textbook: I
have understood the lesson well. We must be soldiers of Islam. We must
learn at schools and at institutes and at universities. And we must defend
our religion and our homeland. We must defend our Muslim brothers.
Long live our state, a state of Islam!8 Next, This article has been written
about spreading Islam among the peoples of the world, especially among
young people. Why among young people? Because they [young people] are
quick in understanding everything, and as for old people, they never
understand.9 And, finally, Big and small states all over the world should
unite and create a Great Islamic Power.10
By way of an illustration of Sheikh Bagauddins methods, we draw
from records made by one of his students, which can be unequivocally
described by the title, the Wahhabite Students Summary Notes. 11
6
Similar texts are familiar to the authors from materials obtained in Central Asia.
See B. Muhammad, Uchebnik arabskogo yazyka. Perviy god obuchenya [Arabic

Language Textbook, for the First Year of Study], Moscow: Santlanda Publishing
House, 1992, pp. 173-174.
Ibid., p. 97.
Ibid., p. 124.
10
Ibid., p. 161.
Here and further below, the text cited (with minor punctuation corrections) is
from lecture summary notes kept in one of the authors personal archives. Some of
these summary notes have been published; however, since their unpublished parts
will often be cited, reference is made to the authors personal archives.
11
The basis of the Wahhabite doctrine is the requirement for

comprehensive implementation of the principle of tawhid [monotheism].
This requirement proceeds from a literal understanding of this principle
with very strict limitations. The Wahhabite Students Summary Notes read,
Most Muslims, who very often repeat, There is no god but Allah, know
no sincerity or meaning or do this out of tradition or custom. Most of their
deeds are emulation or following the example, and they best correspond to
the Word of Supreme Allah in His Koran: We follow what we found our
fathers upon. In other words, it is recognised here that most Muslims are
not sincere believers and their Islam is mainly inherited, and they regard
themselves as Muslims by force of habit.
The ideology of the Caucasus Wahhabites is based on recognition of
only the Koran and the authentic as they emphasise Sunna as the source
of the doctrine. The Wahhabite Students Summary Notes add that
Muslims must wholeheartedly embrace the teaching of Islam embodied in
the Holy Koran the Word of Allah, and the Sunna sayings of the
Prophet Muhammad. Hence, there is the Wahhabites call for cleansing
Islam of impermissible innovations (bidah) with which, in their opinion,
Islam has become fouled in the Northern Caucasus. They come out sharply
against many of the local Muslims customs and rituals such as the cycle of
commemorative rites including Koran reading for the deceased, the ritual
for redeeming the sins of the deceased (deur), distribution of alms at the
graveyard and the celebration of Mawlid (the birthday of the Prophet
Muhammad). Moreover, the Wahhabites are particularly irreconcilable
towards local Sufism and the related cult of saints. The Wahhabites regard
the veneration of sheikhs, zikrs [religious remembrances], pilgrimages to
the graves of holy sheikhs (ziyarat) and many other things from the
practices of the followers of local tarikats [Islamic religious orders] as an
indication of their most profound and conscious fallacy, polytheism (shirk)
and disbelief (kufr). Not only are the followers of tarikats accused of
disbelief: the Wahhabites also declare as infidels all the Muslims who do
not share their point of view. There is only one way out for them: they must
repent and embrace Islam once again: A Muslim who has committed at
least one of these [deeds] must renew his Islam by doing Tawba
[repentance], and embracing Islam once again, since all the above is the
abandonment of Islam or the gravest sin.12
The ideologists of Wahhabism allot one of the leading places to jihad,
understood as an armed struggle for the faith. The Wahhabite Students
Summary Notes state that Islam is a religion of jihad and life. Islam
prescribes to every Muslim to spare neither his property nor his energies
for the sake of the victory of Islam.13 In other words, the Wahhabites
regard the conducting of jihad as an obligation of every Muslim. For
example, in 1999, in declaring the revival of the Islamic state of Dagestan,
the Islamic Shura of Dagestan expressly pointed out that jihad in
Dagestan is farzain [i.e. personal religious obligation] for every Muslim.14
They believe that today jihad invariably takes the form of an armed
struggle against the enemies of Islam. In one of the leaflets disseminated in
Dagestan by the so-called Badr Islamic Call Centre, jihad (again, naturally
understood as an armed struggle) is named under number four among the
ten pillars of an Islamic jamaat. Sheikh Bagauddin pursued this idea
consistently and methodically: he called for conducting an armed struggle
against infidels not only in his sermons and writings but also in such
literature, seemingly remote from ideological disputes, as Arabic language
textbooks.
Another accusation advanced by the Wahhabites against the rest of
Muslims is an accusation of departure from monotheism (shirk). In the
Wahhabites opinion, they are becoming mushriks, i.e. polytheists, or kafirs,
i.e. infidels. This applies in the first place to the Northern Caucasian
followers of Sufism and near-Sufi cults. Here is what we find in the
Wahhabite Students Summary Notes:
Mushriks venerating their sheikhs or their graves utter the
testimony La-ilaha-illallah [there is no god but Allah] with their
tongues and contradict its meaning with their deeds. They utter the
testimony and then deify someone else besides Allah, turning their
worship to him, be it love, praise, fear of him, hope, recumbence,
Derived from the authors (A.Ya.) personal archives, the Wahhabite Students
Summary Notes.
12
13
Ibid.
See R.G. Gadzhiyev, Vakhkhabitskii factor v kavkazskoi geopolitike [The Wahhabite

Factor in Caucasian Geopolitics], Grozny, 2004, p. 262.
14
prayer, and its other varieties, for all of these are worship, but
Allah, the Exalted and Mighty, is the only one who deserves to be
worshipped.15
This last statement, which is quite correct from the point of view of
any Muslim believer, is treated out of proportion by the Wahhabites.
Basing themselves on this postulate, the Wahhabites flatly refuse to
recognise any religious authority whatsoever and emphatically express
defiance against the traditions of respecting elders, widespread in the
Northern Caucasus (which they interpret as veneration of feeble old men).
In a Wahhabite community, an emphasised equality of all of its members
reigns supreme. No one, not even the amir is given any special deference.
Interestingly, it is precisely their lack of deference to elders that opponents
of the Wahhabites from among ordinary Muslims have often mentioned as
the Wahhabites negative trait.
Naturally, the ideology of a Great Islamic Power or of the caliphate
has always had (and still has) limited popularity in Russia. In the late
1990s, it spread in the Northern Caucasus, when Shamil Basayev spoke of a
Dagestani-Chechen Caliphate, which was subsequently to incorporate
the rest of the Northern Caucasus. Incidentally, most of the Dagestanis and
the peoples of the Northern Caucasus in general held a cautious, negative
attitude towards the idea of a caliphate, viewing it above all as an
embodiment of the ambitions of the Chechen separatist leadership.
At approximately that time, there appeared leaflets and other texts
mentioning a Volga Caliphate, which was to incorporate the Ulyanovsk,
Saratov, Samara, Volgograd and Astrakhan regions, and also Tatarstan and
Bashkortostan. Interestingly, the leaflets were anonymous (or signed by
fictitious names, which gave rise to talk that they were a provocation of the
security services). None of the Islamic authorities of any significance
admitted to being their author.
At the same time, the talk about the possibility of creating a caliphate
in the territory of the Russian Federation attests to the existence among
Muslims of radical sentiments, which of course reflect certain utopias but
which, on the other hand, stay on in the mind, awakening in it feelings of
religious solidarity with radicals in the rest of the world in the Middle
Derived from the authors (A.Ya.) personal archives, The Wahhabite Students
Summary Notes.
15
East, Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe. This also promotes the emergence of
hope for a future Islamisation of Russia.
It should be noted that the Russian authorities are keeping a close
watch on religious literature, imposing a strict censorship on publications
that, in their opinion, preach religious intolerance. Books by Ibn Abd alWahhab and a number of other classics of Islamic radicalism have been
banned in Russia. In 2008, still another list of banned literature was drawn
up. It was stressed that the banned books that are already in libraries
(mainly at Islamic educational institutions and mosques) are subject to
destruction.
This censorship sparked strong protests, including public ones, on the
part of the Muslim community. Curiously, certain Russian liberals sided
with this view, believing that in this case works by Vladimir Lenin (the
founder of the Soviet state, who openly preached hatred among various
groups of society and hatred for religion) should also be destroyed.
5.
A portrait of adherents of radicalism and converts
Recently, the qualitative composition of radically-minded Muslims as a

group has changed substantially. Now they are by no means poor,
uneducated, jobless persons having a low social status. Today, the young
and the intelligentsia are perhaps the main sources for replenishing the
ranks of radically-minded Muslims. The young respond very keenly to the
problems of a society thoroughly penetrated with corruption, clannishness
and economic problems. The intelligentsia also respond to the problems of
society, for they are by definition prone to reflecting on the subject.
Contributing to the broad spread of radicalism is also the de facto
absence of civil society and actual public discussion, alongside a growth in
nationalism both Russian nationalism and the nationalism of ethnic
minorities. In the Northern Caucasus as well as among natives of that
region living in the centre of Russia, negative emotions are nourished by a
feeling of their second-ratedness compared with the non-Muslim majority.
Todays Muslim radical is, as a rule, a young man engaged in some
business such as trade or the transit of goods. He is an active, energetic and
sociable individual. The last trait is of particular significance, for the ability
to establish contact with another person and convince him of ones
rightfulness constitutes half the success of propaganda. It is hard to single
out any specific group that is most prone to radical propaganda. It is
designed for everyone, including drunkards, drug addicts and life

wasters, as well as intellectuals who are indifferent to Islam.
It should be added that many, if not a majority, of Muslim radicals
avoid public expression of their views. In this respect, they may be likened
to Soviet dissidents, who expressed their true convictions, in the phrase of
the day, while sitting in the kitchen. This line of conduct is widespread, in
particular among students. The short period of existence of post-Soviet
Russia does not make it possible draw a conclusion about the stability of
Islams impact on the minds of the young. World experience tells us that as
an individual grows older, s/he becomes more pragmatic and backs away
from radical attitudes. And yet the same experience attests to the possibility
of a permanent reproduction of radicalism in the youth milieu. Somehow
or other, a stable niche of Islamic radicalism has been formed among the
young, which is expanding, albeit slowly. Contributing to the abovementioned causes is the growing level of Islamophobia in society.
Therefore, Islamic radicalism is to a certain extent a reaction to the negative
view of Islam.
Finally, a growing number of neophytes of Slavic origin are to be
found among Islamic radicals. It is known that in the late 1980s, the
conversion of Slavs (Russians and Ukrainians) to Islam had to do with the
shock that Soviet servicemen went through in Afghanistan. Psychologists
explained their conversion to the enemys religion by a feeling of guilt
before the people against whom they had been fighting and by the
recognition of the strength of Islam. Later on, the conversion of some
individuals to Islam was their response to and a kind of resentment against
the attitude towards them by Russian society and the state. It was also
because of their disenchantment with their own Orthodox faith. It may be
said that the change of religion was, in a sense, a result of a crisis of Russian
(on a broader scale, Slavic) identity, which began back in the days of
perestroika.16
Today, for some the conversion to Islam (the number of neophytes
runs into hundreds and probably already thousands) is a continuation of
In 1995, Vladimir Khotinenko, the noted Russian film director, made the film The
Muslim, telling the story of a Russian soldier who had embraced Islam. The
Council of Muftis of Russia awarded the film director a special Golden Minbar
prize.
16
their search for identity, an attempt to find a radical, even extreme, form of
self-expression, for Islam is perceived as a religion of resolute action. AntiAmericanism, which is widespread in Russian society, also leads one to
embrace Islam. Islamic radicals of Slavic origin have been noticed in the
Rostov, Samara and Saratov regions, in the Stavropol territory, in the Urals
and in Tyumen. Russian Muslim Viktor Senchenko participated in the
attack on Nalchik on the militants side.17 Another Russian Muslim,
Vyacheslav Panin, distributed HTI leaflets.18 Certainly, the role of Slavic
Islamists should not be overestimated; however, Muslim ideologists and
propagandists consider their presence valuable, for it offers proof of the
supranational nature of Islam and neophytes readiness to take a direct part
in jihad, as well as still another confirmation of the point that the
Islamisation of Russia has gotten underway.
6.
Methods of violence or manifestations of tension
Violence inevitably follows from the ideology of radicalism. In the

Caucasus, practical violence substantiated by religious ideology may be
divided into two types with respect to its object: violence in relation to nonMuslims, including that against the state and its structures, and violence in
relation to Muslims. A list of the numerous major terrorist acts in Russia
from 1994 to 2006 is given in appendix A.
Radicals represent the modern secular state to be devoid of divine
blessing and therefore deserving destruction. It should be replaced with a
state founded on divine laws, which will be built by an appropriate
society. From this follows, first, participation by true Muslims in militant
jamaats and the conduct of military actions against power structures the
army, the security services, the militia, etc. Second, acts of terrorism are
called for to spread panic among peaceful populations and to stir antiRussian sentiments in its midst. Quite often, acts of terrorism are directed
against carriers of Russian cultural influence Russians and Russianspeaking people, as well as teachers, public servants, etc.
See R.F. Pateyev, Islam v Rostovskoi oblasti [Islam in the Rostov Region], Moscow:
Logos, 2008, pp. 38-39.
17
See V.V. Semyonov, Islam v Saratovskoi oblasti [Islam in the Saratov Region],
Moscow: Logos, 2007, p. 70.
18
The concept of charging fellow Muslims with unbelief (takfir) gives

the radicals grounds to state that many Muslim politicians have actually
renounced Islam. Hence, there is the active use of violence against ethnic
Muslims serving in state power structures and not against them alone.
Militia officers who are members of the local ethnic groups in Dagestan,
Chechnya, Ingushetia and the eastern districts of the Stavropol territory are
among the terrorists main targets. Islamists believe that the family
members of militia officers and other representatives of the authorities may
be killed because they voluntarily stay with apostates and therefore
support their position. A true Muslim must disown such relatives. Those
who accidentally die in acts of terrorism will become shahids [martyrs] and
go directly to paradise.
With the exception of the Northern Caucasus, calls to violence on the
part of Islamic radicals in the other regions practically have not been
noticed. Quite the contrary, even HTI followers stress in every way possible
that they do not view confrontation with the authorities as their main
objective, laying the key emphasis on propaganda. An interesting fact is
that, in detaining HTI members in the territory of Russia, none of them
could be charged with violent methods of struggle. The detention,
however, was done not without grounds by the authorities of the Central
Asian states of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, to which the detainees were
extradited.
In the mid-1990s, the question began to be debated among some of
the young Tatars, especially those who had been in contact with the
Chechen separatists, about possible direct support of the separatist fighting
in Chechnya and about rendering it assistance with concrete actions in the
rest of the territory of the Russian Federation. Yet, things never came to
practical action: only a few Tatars took part in the first Chechen war on the
separatists side. (No accurate data on the subject are available.)
In 1995, one of the authors of this chapter had a chance to talk in
Kazan with a radically-minded member of the All-Tatar Public Centre, who
literally said the following: We, the Tatars, are weaker in character than
the Chechens and we have no mountains or we would have also shown to
Moscow [sic]. It should be noted that shortly before the meeting, the
authors collocutor had spent 15 days in custody on a charge of organising
an unauthorised rally. We repeat once again, however, that even in that
period, which was quite tense for Moscow, calls for violence voiced by
Tatar and Bashkir radicals were not supported by practical actions.
It is quite clear that today calls for violence are even less likely to find
any substantial support among the Tatars or among Muslim migrants from
Central Asia who come to Russia to earn money and not at all to participate
in jihad. Quite the contrary, Muslim migrants themselves are under
constant pressure not only by the Russian militia but also by Russian
nationalists. (It is known that in the last two years attacks on and even
killings of immigrants from Central Asia have become a kind of routine,
and their number has grown so much that the federal authorities have been
compelled to pay attention to this.)
7.
Response of the state and society to Islamic radicalism
The response of the state to the activities of Islamic radicals is by far not
always adequate and quite often may provoke conflicts between the
authorities and the Muslim community at large.
At both the federal and local levels, the state takes a very rigid
position in respect of Islamic dissidents. In the Northern Caucasus, they
are outlawed and an unceasing warfare is carried on against them. The
authorities, however, are ignoring the fact that nearly the entire Muslim
community in the region is, in varied form and degree, drawn into this
warfare. A substantial share of it sides or at least sympathises with radicals
and is embittered by extremely rigorous and not always justified measures
against them and especially against their relatives on the part of the militia
and other power structures.
In particular, an exceptionally repressive policy has led to
radicalisation of the Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat. From the middle of 2004,
militarised extremist cells began to step up their activities in the Northern
Caucasus, including in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. The acme of the
destructive activity of the local Wahhabite Yarmuk Jamaat was the
previously mentioned attack on the Department of the Federal Drug
Control Service in Nalchik in December 2004. The federal and republican
power bodies scored a success when they liquidated the leading nucleus of
the jamaat with its amir, Muslim Atayev, in the course of a special operation
in Nalchik at the end of January 2005. This move, however, turned out to be
a Pyrrhic victory. It was quite clear that the jamaat itself was not eliminated.
As a result, the situation became even more exacerbated: KabardinoBalkaria turned into still another explosive territory and its Islamic youth
structures began de facto actively to cooperate with the Chechen radicals.
The Muslim religious boards have turned into bureaucratic structures

having no control over the religious situation at the local level and enjoying
no authority among believers. Moreover, they may stir conflicts within
Muslim communities with their incompetent actions. It is not to be ruled
out that the authorities will be compelled to switch from unqualified
support of the Muslim religious boards, which are failing to cope with their
tasks to engage in dialogue with and even to draw to their side informal
Islamic structures, having legitimised them. These latter structures are
communities of new Muslims, which, while not being Wahhabites, refuse
to recognise the authority of the religious boards. In addition, such
communities have levers of influence for radicalising young persons whom
the authorities could use in their own interests. Naturally, the state will not
undertake a compromise with extremist groups, yet at the same time it
should clearly determine whom it regards as extremists and who, their
radicalism notwithstanding, have not yet overstepped this boundary. What
presents an additional complexity for the state is the non-uniformity of
youth communities in the Northern Caucasus which, because of lack of
registration, find themselves outside the legal framework, thus fostering
the preservation and growth of radicals and extremists influence on them.
Although the state policy in respect of Islamic radicalism remains
mainly repressive, some of the public officials speak up from time to time
for the need for a more balanced approach to the opponents and sometimes
even admit errors (although very rarely) committed by the authorities. In
this connection one may note the views of Yevgeny Primakov, former
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister of Russia, who does not
consider Islamic fundamentalism an indubitable evil, and also ex-premier
Sergei Stepashin, who said during his visit to the Dagestani territory
controlled by radicals in August 1998 that the inhabitants of that enclave
were quite nice people and by no means Wahhabites.19
Arsen Kanokov, who became president of Kabardino-Balkaria in
2005, publicly admitted that ill-considered actions by the local Ministry of
Internal Affairs, which systematically refused dialogue with young
Muslims, had been one of the causes of the Nalchik tragedy.
It is true, however, that certain experts believe that Stepashin, who was the
minister of internal affairs of Russia at the time, made a grave mistake when he
assessed local radicals in this way.
19
It is also known that in the Astrakhan region (Southern Federal

District) the local administration took a relatively reserved attitude towards
local radicals and their head, Ayub Astrakhansky, which was instrumental
in avoiding an exacerbation of the situation. Still, such examples remain
exceptions.
The relatively brief history of the existence in the Northern Caucasus
of Islamic radicalism has shown that its emergence was brought about by a
profound crisis that had swept the region and its society. To neutralise
protest sentiments, the federal authorities are attempting partially to
replace the elites in the republics and show resolve to combat total
corruption and the inefficiency of the local economies. The replacement of
the republics leaders in Dagestan, Adygeya and Kabardino-Balkaria,
demonstrative actions against corrupt officials, and the implementation of
economic projects, including those for the development of tourism, are well
received by the local population. Given the scale of the problems the region
is facing, however, cosmetic measures alone (such as those taken in the past
years) are clearly insufficient. The Northern Caucasus needs systemic
reform, which the Kremlin is having a hard time deciding to conduct. No
less important is the shaping of a common national identity: this is
impeded by the growth in Russia of anti-Caucasus sentiments, which is
understandably very painfully perceived by Muslim youth. The integration
of the Muslims of the Northern Caucasus into civil society is moving
forward with insufficient decisiveness and speed, and is thus fraught with
serious consequences.
In the Muslim Volga area, the Urals and Siberia, the situation is more
tranquil. Terrorist acts that took place in the second half of the 1990s and
early 2000s were linked to events in the Northern Caucasus. The authorities
systematically carry out preventive measures, keeping a close watch on
radicals activities and detaining Muslims who, from their point of view,
pose the most danger. Every year, court trials of members of radical groups
are held in Russia. The main conclusions drawn after the trials are that
religious radicals activities are directed from abroad.
In addition, one cannot fail to notice that struggle against extremism
serves the Russian authorities as a pretext for tightening the screws, for
imposing even more harsh control on the mass media and for persecution
of the opposition. Quite often, measures taken by the authorities are
absolutely unrelated to the struggle against extremism. Thus, for example,
after the terrorist act in Beslan the direct elections of governors were
abolished allegedly to promote security. Sometimes the authorities

deliberately exaggerate the factor of extremism and the struggle against it.
Certain cities and even regions of Russia are nearly declared hotbeds of
Wahhabism.20 Yet even in 1999, when the aggravation of the situation in the
Northern Caucasus reached its height, it was quite clear that Wahhabism
was by no means the main problem for Tatarstan or for the Muslim Volga
area in general.21
8.
Influence of the international situation and current world events
Radicalisation of the Muslim community in Russia has mainly internal

causes, and therefore it may be positively stated that world events have a
secondary, even though marked, influence on this process. Nevertheless,
radically-minded Islamic ideologists are making wide use of the world
situation in their reasoning and propaganda.
Of much significance is the playing on anti-Western feelings. The
Wahhabite Students Summary Notes read, If one takes a look at the
history of the Wests relations with the Muslim peoples, one may find that
the Europeans souls were so much filled with spite and animosity that
these things have driven them to the brink of insanity. Spite, animosity and
fear is what they feel towards Islam.22 The Summary Notes also describe
in detail problems that are painful for Muslims and which they tie in with
the politics of the West. Zionism and Israels politics are one of the most
irritating factors. The Summary Notes mention Eritrea, Bangladesh,
Pakistan and Lebanon, whose difficulties are regarded as consequences of
the Western forces inimical activities. The Summary Notes end with an
eloquent appeal: We Muslims are slaves of All-Mighty and Great Allah.
We must break our fetters and restore our strength and our power! And
deliver the world from the tyranny of the Western kafirs!23
See V.M. Viktorin, Islam v Astrakhanskom regione [Islam in the Astrakhan Region],
Moscow: Logos, 2008, p. 61.
20
See R. Mukhametshin, Islam v obshchestvennoi i politicheskoi zhizni tatar I Tatarstana

v XX veke [Islam in the Public and Political life of the Tatars and Tatarstan in the
20th Century], Kazan: United Humanitarian Publishing House, 2005, p. 150.
21
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.
The above example reflects broader sentiments widespread among

Russias Muslim community. Muslims overall and in a sense, formal
loyalty does not imply their total solidarity with Moscows stand on Islam
and the Islamic world. On the one hand, Russias Muslims support
Moscows official policy on the Middle East and its stand on Iran and
Afghanistan. From 2004, a parliamentary association named Russia and
the Islamic World: Strategic Dialogue has been functioning at Russias
State Duma (parliament). According to State Duma Deputy Shamil
Sultanov, its aims are as follows:
Providing legislative support for the development of Russias
relations with Muslim countries and international Islamic
organisations, above all the Organisation of the Islamic Conference
(OIC)putting forward initiatives for participation in integration
processes in the Islamic world; creating conditions for
constructive dialogue between the political and economic elites of
Russia and the Islamic world, [etc.]24
Veniamin Popov, former special envoy of the Russian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, has repeated more than once that Russia can and must
come out in favour of maintaining Christian-Muslim dialogue. Islam,
according to Popov, is the only religion that has established its own interstate structure the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.25
Conducive to the establishment of special relations with Islamic
countries is the admission of Russia as an observer a country with a
Muslim minority in the OIC. (The OIC, established in 1969, has today 57
countries as members, including two European and two Latin American
countries, and also six member countries of the Commonwealth of
Independent States.) There were sporadic contacts with the OIC back in the
Soviet times. In particular, the OIC was instrumental in liberating prisoners
of war from Afghanistan. In 1994 and 1997, the organisations secretaries
general visited Russia.
Islamic radicals are publicly or unofficially in agreement with the
intensity of Russias policy in the Muslim area. Visits by Hamas delegations
Derived from Rossia i Islam [Russia and Islam], an interview with Russias
State Duma Deputy Sh. Sultanov, Literaturnaya Gazeta, 13-19 October 2004.
24
See Islamskii mir i vneshnyaya politika Rossii [The Islamic World and Russias
Foreign Policy], Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, No. 5, 2005, pp. 77-79.
25
to Moscow, which began in March 2006, and active support of Iranian

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are regarded by the radicals (and by the
rest of Muslims) as evidence that Moscow seeks to play an intermediary
role in relations between the Muslim world and the West, which are
anything but simple. Sometimes Moscows position de facto comes out on
the side of the anti-Western segment of the Muslim community, thus
encouraging Islamic radicals and convincing them of their rightfulness.
It should be noted that Moscows contacts with Hamas are regarded
with approval by the moderate part of Russias Muslim community as well.
For example, in 2006 Jafar Bikmayev, Mufti of the Rostov region, said
during his meeting with Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the
Russian Federation that if there is hope for alleviation of that
organisations position, meetings should be held with it.26
At the same time, there is awareness in the Russian establishment
that external Islamic radicalism is an ally of internal radicalism, which has
developed as a response to the complexities that have arisen in Russias
public and political life. The barrier between domestic and foreign
radicalism is, in a sense, conventional and the ties among Russias Muslims
whether in the Northern Caucasus or to a lesser degree, in the Volga area
and the southern Urals are regular and versatile. On the territory of the
Russian Federation, a whole variety of charity organisations with an
ideological and political bias, such as the International Islamic Relief
Organisation, Jamiat Ihia Al-Turath Al-Islamiya [Revival of Islamic
Heritage Society], Al-Harameyn [The Two Holy Places], El-Hairiya
[Charity], the Benevolence International Foundation, Qatar and also such
groups as Hizb ut-Tahrir, al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brothers, have been
and are active even though today on a reduced scale.
What could Islamists practical tangible, so to say goals be in
Russia?
Certainly, today only through a flight of fancy can one imagine the
creation of a caliphate in the territories of the eastern Caucasus. It is also
hard to imagine the formation under radical slogans of an all-Russia
Muslim separatist movement. Yet, the spreading of Islamist sentiments
among believers, principally among young believers, and the infiltration of
See the Regnum News Agency website (http://www.regnum.ru/news/
598661.html).
26
Islamist preachers into mosques have turned out to be quite practicable.

The lack of centralised structures at the Islamic radicals disposal and the
passivity of the followers of Islamism do not signify its disappearance.
Rather, it is biding its time. Islamist ideology easily gets through state
borders. A symbiosis is taking place between internal and external Islamic
radicalism.
9.
A new trend
In the last few years, a new, previously unknown trend has been noted in
Russia namely, the radicalisation of traditional Islam, whose major
figures have always been conformist-minded towards the state and have
sharply criticised their opponents, the Salafists. This trend may be
conventionally described as neo-traditionalist. It is present in Russia on a
nationwide scale; however, it is in the Northern Caucasus that this trend is
seen most clearly.
In Dagestan, the radicalisation of traditional Islam is directly related
to the activity of the Sufi Nakshbandiya, Kadiriya and Shaziliya tarikats.
The spiritual guides of the Nakshbandiya tarikat, who have open support
from the authorities, enjoy the greatest influence, just as they always have.
Today, it is from sheikhs and their loyal murids [disciples] many of whom
hold responsible posts in local administration that the impetus towards
shariatisation of society originates. Dagestani sheikhs, under slogans of
struggle against Wahhabism, have created, not without assistance from the
authorities, their own system of education operating under their patronage.
Formally, the Sufis, just as before, come out flatly against Wahhabites;
at the same time, they are ready to side with them concerning certain
general Muslim issues such as support of the Palestinians and criticism of
the US policy in the Middle East, in Iran and in Afghanistan. Moreover, in
2000 there were cases in which followers of traditional Islam became
members of Wahhabite jamaats, while preserving the specific features of
their understanding of Islam.
Traditionalists and Wahhabites are united by a call for shariatisation
of society, which both regard as quite a feasible goal. Furthermore, presentday Sufi communities in Dagestan, led by sheikhs, are establishing a sharia
governance framework in their midst without the preliminary consent of
the authorities. Practically all litigations in their midst are decided by a
sheikh and persons assigned by him naturally, on the basis of sharia law
and not on Russian secular laws. The expansion of sharia law to cover the
criminal and state administrative spheres is just a matter of time, for the
creeping spread of influence through a network of murids is a time-tested
and reliable tactic known since the Middle Ages.
The position taken by the clergy in areas of compact residence of
Muslims, for example, in Tatarstan, combines loyalty to the state with a
call to adhere to the idea of the expediency of gradual Islamisation of
Tatar society and allows for combining [s]haria law with secular laws.27
One gets the impression that some of the spiritual leaders see the present
stage as transitional to a situation in which the influence of Islam on society
will increase immeasurably. Under this logic, concessions to the state
appear temporary and forced, for, as Valiulla Yakubov, Deputy Mufti of
Tatarstan, believes, so far, you cannot come to power on the basis of a
religious idea.28 This statement coincides with the opinion of popular
Dagestani politician Surakat Asiyatilov, former chairman of the Islamic
Party of Dagestan, who, while admitting that today one should not harp
on the issue of establishing an Islamic republic in Dagestan, dreams of the
day when Islamic order will be established in his country and he will be
tried by a sharia court and not by the double-headed eagle.29 The idea of a
gradual yet inevitable Islamisation is evolving into a final concept. It
certainly cannot be regarded as a guide to action, yet it is gradually sticking
in the minds of Muslims, prompting them to more vigorous action on the
religious path, intensifying their conviction and asserting the primacy of
their religious identity.
It should be noted that today neo-traditionalism looks increasingly
impressive in the religious domain proper. The niche of Islamic
modernisation in Russia is amorphous and unpersuasive. As Dagestani
Islam scholar and sociologist Enver Kisriyev believes, the number of
Muslims of modernist and traditional type may be approximately
See R.M. Mukhametshin, Bogoslovsko-pravovoi aspekt islamskogo

vozrozhdeniya v postsovetskom Tatarstane [The Theological and Legal Aspect of
Islamic Revival in Post-Soviet Tatarstan], Islam i Pravo v Rossii, No. 2, Moscow,
2004, p. 93.
27
28
See Iman, No. 5, March 1998.
See S.Kh. Asiyatilov, Islam spasyot budushcheye Dagestana [Islam Will Save the
Future of Dagestan], Makhachkala, 1999, pp. 77, 27.
29
estimated as being in equilibrium,30 with modernists prevailing in towns

and conservators in the countryside. One should think that there is no
contradiction in this, since modernism is determined by the urban way of
life and by the character of labour activity, in the course of which direct
religious consciousness is little demanded. It should be noted, however,
that when things concern the topic of Islam, the very same modernists quite
often take a protective stand. In other words, people try to make up for
their urbanite manner of conduct with affective adherence to Islam.
It is worthy of note that, for example, in Tatarstan (and not only
there) neo-traditionalist positions are strong especially among the welleducated segment of the urban population.
Conclusions
Islamic radicalism in Russia will not disappear; it will remain a factor of the
political and religious life of its Muslim community and of relations
between Muslims and the rest of the countrys citizens.
It may grow stronger under the influence of the internal situation,
acting as a form of protest ideology. The radicals activity also depends,
among other things, on the international situation especially on relations
between the Muslim world and the West.
Considering the fragility of stability in the Northern Caucasus, this
region in particular is most likely to become a field of activity for Islamic
radicals.
Competition between Islamic radicals (Salafists and Wahhabites) and
traditionalists both Muslim orders and followers of Hanafism and
Shafiism (in the Caucasus) will continue. This process is a particular case of
general competition between universalist and regional, ethnic Islam.
On the other hand, in the Northern Caucasus there have appeared
indications of a truce and even rapprochement on a number of issues
between universalist radicals and traditionalists. This concerns, in the first
place, the need for a shariatisation of Islamic society and a unity of views
on relations between Islam and the West.
See E.F. Kisriyev, Islam i vlast v Dagestane [Islam and Power in Dagestan],
Moscow: United Humanitarian Publishing House, 2004, p. 77.
30
The state and society are faced with the need to work out a more
flexible and selective approach towards Islamic radicalism, singling out in
it a relatively moderate and an extremist wing and combining contacts with
the former with suppression of the latter.
Today, a repetition of terrorist acts similar to those that took place in
the late 1990s and the first half of the 2000s is hardly possible in Russia.
Even if terrorist acts were to be committed, they would most probably be
limited to the Northern Caucasus and would be a response to the
antiterrorist struggle being waged by the power structures.
The question of links between Russias Muslim radicals with their
kindred spirits in Europe remains open. Most likely, however, these links
will be gradually developing, the more so as a number of instances of
mutual contacts between Russian and European Islamist network
structures have already been taking place.
Appendix A. Major terrorist acts in Russia from 1994 to 2006

Date
Event
28.07.1994
Capture of the PyatigorskStavropolKrasnogvardeisk coach

5 killed
29.07.1994
Mineralnye Vody, hijacking of a helicopter at the airport

4 killed, 15 wounded
14.06.1995
Budennovsk, Stavropol region, hostage-taking in a hospital

(more than 1,600 persons, including children and pregnant
women) 166 killed, more than 400 wounded; a terrorist gang
was headed by Shamil Basaev
09.01.1996
Kizlyar, Dagestan, assault and capture of 3,000 hostages, kept

in a hospital 78 killed, hundreds wounded; Salman Raduev
headed about 500 terrorists
28.06.1996
Nalchik, explosion of a bus at a bus terminal 8 killed, 23

wounded
04.09.1998
Makhachkala, explosion on Parkhomenko street 18 killed, 160

wounded
19.03.1999
Vladikavkaz, explosion in the central market 62 killed, 118

wounded
04.09.1999
Buinaksk, Dagestan, explosion in an apartment building

61 killed, 130 wounded
Date
Event
08.09.1999
Moscow, explosion in an apartment building on Guryanova

street 94 killed, 164 wounded
13.09.1999
Moscow, explosion in an apartment building on Kashirskoe

street 124 killed, 9 wounded
16.09.1999
Volgodonsk, Rostov region, explosion near an apartment

building 18 killed, 130 wounded; this series of September
explosions is considered one case by intelligence services,
masterminded by Arab mercenaries Khattab and Abu Umar;
most of the executors were later killed in Chechnya
24.03.2001
Explosions of cars in Mineralnye Vody, Essentuki and

Cherkessk 21 killed, 140 wounded
09.05.2002
Kaspiisk, Dagestan, a terrorist act on the Victory Day

celebrations 42 killed, over 100 wounded
23.10.2002
Moscow, hostage-taking at the theatre on Dubrovka street

129 killed; 41 militants, headed by Movsar Baraev, nephew of
terrorist Arbi Baraev, killed by federal forces in Chechnya
05.07.2003
Moscow, explosion at a rock festival in Tushino 16 killed, 69

wounded; carried out by two female suicide-bombers,
Zalikhan Elikhadgieva, a 20-year old from a Chechen village,
and Zarema Mugikhoeva, who was arrested five days later in
Moscow. They had been trained by Khamzat Tazabeav, who
was close to Shamil Basaev and who was killed during the
special operation in Ingushetia.
03.09.2003
Stavropol region, explosion on a Kislovodsk-Mineralnye Vody

train 5 killed, about 40 wounded
05.12.2003

train 47 killed, 180 wounded; blamed on members of the
Nogai battalion
05.12.2003

train 47 killed, 180 wounded; blamed on members of the
Nogai battalion
06.02.2004
Moscow, explosion on the metro between the Avtozavodskaya

and Paveletskaya stations 40 killed, 134 wounded; attributed
to an Arab from Chechnya, Abu al-Valid, the successor of the
eliminated Khattab
09.05.2004
Grozny, the explosion at Dinamo stadium 6 killed, over 40

wounded; Shamil Basaev claimed responsibility
Date
Event
22.06.2004
Several terrorist attacks on buildings of the Ingush interior

ministry and the 137th frontier detachment in Nazran,
Karabulak and Sleptsovskaya 100 killed
24.08.2004
Bomb attacks on two airline flights, MoscowVolgograd and

MoscowSochi 89 killed; carried out by female suicidebombers
31.08.2004
Moscow, explosion outside the Rizhskaya metro station 11

killed, 41 wounded; Shamil Basaev claimed responsibility, the
Karachai battalion were accused
01.09.2004
Beslan, North Ossetia, the school hostage siege (over 1,200

children and adults) 330 killed, several hundreds wounded;
Shamil Basaev claimed responsibility, declaring that the attack
was carried out by 12 Chechen men and 2 Chechen women, 9
Ingush men, 3 Russian men, 2 Arab men and 2 Ossetian men, 1
Tatar, 1 Kabardinian and 1 from the Zabaikal region
1st half of 2005
Dagestan, over 60 terrorist attacks; responsibility was

attributed to the Jenet and Sharia Dagestan jamaats
13.10.2005
Attack on Nalchik 33 law enforcement officers and 12 civil

servants were killed; a large majority of the over 100 wounded
were secret service officers; 80 militants were killed and 27
captured; responsibility claimed by the Kabardino-Balkaria
Jamaat
09.02.2006
Battle in the village of Tukui-Mekteb (Stavropol region) 4 law

enforcement officers were killed; 12 militants of the Nogai
battalion (which is part of the Chechnya Shelkov jamaat) were
killed
Source: Authors compilation.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Samir Amghar is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and a consultant for the Swiss Ministry
of the Defence.
Edwin Bakker is head of the Clingendael Security and Conflict
Programme of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations
Clingendael, The Hague.
Patricia Bezunartea is the Director of Research, Development and
Communications at the Fundacin Pluralismo y Convivencia [Pluralism
and Co-existence Foundation], Madrid.
Jonathan Birdwell is a Researcher at Demos, a London-based thinktank focused on power and politics, specialising in radicalisation and Islam
in Britain and Canada.
Rachel Briggs is Senior Research Fellow in the National Security and
Resilience Department at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI); Senior
Associate at the Institute for Community Cohesion and a Senior Honorary
Research Associate at University College London (UCL). She is also parttime Director of Hostage UK, a charity chaired by Terry Waite which
provides support to the families of hostages.
Michael Emerson is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the EU
Foreign, Security and Neighbourhood Policies research programme at the
Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels.
Theodoros Koutroubas is an invited lecturer at the Catholic
University of Louvain (UCL) in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. His interests
include the relations between the State and organised religion, cultural and
religious minority politics in Europe and the Middle East and participative
democracy.
Jos Manuel Lpez is a Director of the Fundacin Pluralismo y
Convivencia [Pluralism and Co-existence Foundation], Madrid.
| 193
194 | ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Aleksei Malashenko is a Scholar-in-Residence at the Carnegie

Moscow Center, where he co-chairs the Religion, Society and Security
Programme, and a Professor at the State University Higher School of
Economics, Moscow.
Olivier Roy is Research Director at the French National Center for
Scientific Research (CNRS) and a lecturer at both the School for Advanced
Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques
de Paris (IEP).
Laura Tedesco is an Associate Researcher at the Fundacin para las
Relaciones Internacionales y el Dilogo Exterior (FRIDE), Madrid and a
Visiting Professor at the Universidad Autnoma de Madrid [Autonomous
University of Madrid].
Tinka Veldhuis is researcher at the Department of Sociology of the
University of Groningen and the Interuniversity Center for Social Science
Theory and Methodology (ICS).
Ward Vloeberghs has a background in Arabic and Islamic Studies
and is currently working as a teaching assistant and PhD candidate
(Political Science) at the University of Louvain (UCL, Belgium).
Akhmet Yarlykapov is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of
Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.
Zeynep Yanasmayan is PhD candidate at the Social Science faculty of
Leuven University, researching the Turkish minorities in Europe.

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ETHNO-RELIGIOUS CONFLICT

CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN POLICY STUDIES

The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) is an independent policy

Introduction and Summary

Al-Qaeda in the West as a Youth Movement: The Power of a

Ideological and Theological Foundations of Muslim Radicalism

Political, Religious and Ethnic Radicalisation among Muslims

Muslims in the Netherlands: Tensions and Violent Conflict

Radicalisation among Muslims in the UK

Muslims in Spain and Islamic Religious Radicalism

Radicalisation of Russias Muslim Community

About the Authors............................................................................................ 193

his book comes from a large research endeavour of the European

The book also forms part of a wider set of studies on Islam-related

1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

his book addresses what is perhaps the greatest source of societal

All these communities have been affected in some degree by the

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY | 3

Three broad categories of tension and violence are distinguished. The

A very different sub-category are customary or pseudo-religious

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY | 5

Six case studies

The ideological and theological foundations of the major Islamic groups in

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY | 7

comparison with the Netherlands is particularly striking. One hypothesis is

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY | 9

2. AL-QAEDA IN THE WEST AS A YOUTH

hy do we bother, in Europe, about Islamic radicalisation? The

also counter-productive, by inducing some of the phenomena it claims to

The debate on the roots of terrorism

The vertical approach

Al-Qaeda is a revolutionary organisation in the continuation of the Middle

AL-QAEDA IN THE WEST AS A YOUTH MOVEMENT | 13

the Muslim wrath; Muslims living in Europe do identify with their

The horizontal approach

This approach is based on the analysis of the individual biographies and

There is a break between al-Qaeda and the traditional Islamists

Al Qaeda does not play a vanguard or a leading role in the conflicts

Ideology plays little role in the radicalisation of the jihadist

The process of radicalisation is to be understood by putting it into

Any process of de-radicalisation should address youth populations,

This perspective is undoubtedly a minority view. But it is finding

AL-QAEDA IN THE WEST AS A YOUTH MOVEMENT | 15

Is there a general concept of terrorism?

The general category of terrorists or suicide bombers is not very helpful.

The terrorist action is not part of a broader spectrum of political and

There is no concrete political agenda (although there might be, as we

Terrorists are not rooted in a given society (even if they are

Al-Qaeda as a global de-territorialised movement

The first and probably more common explanation of radicalisation, as we

AL-QAEDA IN THE WEST AS A YOUTH MOVEMENT | 17

in 2008 in Brussels. Many converts are of Caribbean origin (French and

AL-QAEDA IN THE WEST AS A YOUTH MOVEMENT | 19

Ellen Nakashima, Post-9/11 Dragnet Turns Up Surprises: Biometrics Link

on how to make bombs or videos about atrocities perpetrated against