Peace Watch

Causes of Islamic Extremism

June 2002

Supporters of the militant Islamic group Hezbollah march through the streets of Beirut.

hat are the factors that give rise to political violence in Pakistan, Egypt, and the occupied Palestinian territories? How do jihadi (holy war) groups in Indonesia and Pakistan use Islam to mobilize support? What strategies have the militant groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad employed to attract, retain, and deploy recruits in the West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, and Lebanon, and what motivates their behavior?

These questions were addressed at a U.S. Institute of Peace Current Issues Briefing on April 17 that featured three current grantees of the Institute: Mustapha Kamal Pasha (American University), Jessica Stern (Harvard University), and Muhammad Muslih (Long Island Universiy). The event, titled "Islamic Extremists: How Do They Mobilize Support?" presented findings from the panelists' grant-funded research and was moderated by Grant Program director Judy Barsalou.

There is no single cause of the rise of religious extremism in the Muslim world. It reflects, first of all, the failure of secular governments to promote good governance and economic advancement in most Muslim countries.

All the speakers agreed that the struggle against extremism will not be won until the countries in which extremists thrive become truly democratic and offer hope of economic improvement. "Law and order approaches" to the problem of extremism generally are ineffectual because they offer no positive alternatives to the disaffected young who swell the ranks of extremist groups.

The Garb of Islam: One Size Fits All

Top to bottom: Muhammad Muslih, Judy Barsalou, Mustapha Kamal Pasha, and Jessica Stern.

While many religious extremist groups in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East share common organizational features, the circumstances that give rise to them and that motivate their actions vary widely from one setting to another. Among Palestinian groups, for example, the struggle against Israeli occupation is paramount. Although this opposition is "clothed in the garb of Islam," the motivation is more nationalistic than religious, Muslih said.

Egyptian groups, by contrast, are focused primarily on questions related to the internal governance of the country. Pakistani groups are motivated by a variety of goals, including the desire to control Kashmir. Achievement of these goals is likely to result in the further splintering and fracturing of the groups, and increased tension and competition among them.

Extremism and Challenges of Development

Another prime factor in the rise of extremism, Pasha suggested, is the failure of many governments in the Muslim world to address the overwhelming challenges of development arising from rapid social, demographic, and economic changes over the last century.

Many of the extremist groups in Pakistan, for example, are centered in middle-sized towns, whose populations have grown exponentially because of rapid rural-to-urban migration in recent decades. Of the 140 million people living in Pakistan today, most are poor and susceptible at some level to the appeals of extremist groups, which claim to have answers to questions that their own government has unsuccessfully addressed or simply ignored. "The state increasingly has abandoned a large section of the populace," Pasha said. Throughout the Muslim world, extremist religious groups tend to be most influential in locations where local governments are least effective in addressing developmental challenges.

Influence of External Forces

External forces have also played a significant role in creating extremist groups in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Stern pointed to the role of funding from the United States and Saudi Arabia (especially in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), as well as logistical support from Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency, in the rise of extremist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It is no accident, according to Muslih, that the "literate class" in the Arab world largely blames the United States for supporting oppressive Arab states. And external forces still play a large role. A member of one Pakistani group told Stern that 60 percent of the group's funds come from outside Pakistan, mostly from wealthy contributors on the Arabian peninsula and from travelers to Mecca who hear the group's representatives speak during the annual Islamic pilgrimage.

A Crisis Within Islam

A fourth factor in the rise of extremist groups relates to a crisis within Islam. The decline of the established tradition of ijtihad—interpretation of the Koran by Muslim clerics to apply Koranic law to changing circumstances—has led to rigid and narrow interpretations of religious precepts. To deal with this crisis, Muslim societies must grapple with complicated questions of why they have failed to build stable religious and other institutions capable of helping their own people.

All the speakers agreed that religious extremist groups in the Islamic world are deeply divided along ideological and sectarian lines. Stereotyped images of Islam as a monolithic religion predisposed to violence fail to recognize the complex, multi-faceted phenomenon of religious extremism in Islam. The panelists also noted that extremist groups in the Middle East and South Asia display a diversity of motives and methods of operation, reflecting the widely varying circumstances in which they have arisen and operate.

A Palestinian boy rides past graffiti depicting rockets made by members of Hamas.

Individuals join extremist groups for a number of reasons, including the desire to achieve specific political goals, as well as a variety of financial, spiritual, and emotional incentives and rewards. A mid-level member of one group told Stern that he earns seven times as much as he would if he left the group and that financial incentives for top leaders are substantially greater. Families of jihadis often receive financial and material rewards such as better housing. The groups also attract individuals who, regardless of their social class or economic background, feel they have been humiliated and treated as "second class" by the authorities.

Successful extremist groups have clear missions, rely on a division of labor between relatively young, uneducated "foot soldiers" and better-educated elite operatives, and have developed a variety of fundraising techniques. Many of the groups rely heavily on the Internet to raise funds, as well as on funds from foreign governments.

The ability of extremist groups to meet their goals depends on four additional factors: access to weapons; mastery of the art of public relations, including the use of the media to promote their causes; access to intelligence sources and the development of counter-intelligence techniques; and the establishment of a "corporate" headquarters, either in a physical area or virtually, via the Internet.

While religious schools (madaris) have played a role in training jihadi militants in Pakistan, there do not seem to be similar institutions operating in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, or Egypt. And not all madaris in Pakistan are "factories of terrorism," as commonly depicted in the Western press.