Islamic terrorism

Islamic terrorism, also called Islamic political violence, is a form of religious terrorism or religion-based political violence or militancy. It is carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists who want to reach political or religious goals, such as jihad and caliphate.

Since at least the 1990s, Islamist terrorist attacks have happened around the world. They have targeted both Muslims and non-Muslims. Most attacks have happened in Muslim-majority countries, and studies found that 80–90% of terrorist victims were Muslim.

The yearly number of deaths from terrorist attacks grew sharply from 2011 to 2014, when it reached a peak of 33,438. It then fell to 13,826 in 2019. From 1979 to April 2024, five extremist groups were responsible for more than 80% of all victims of Islamist terrorist attacks. These groups were the Taliban, Islamic State, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, and al-Qaeda. In some of the worst-affected Muslim-majority regions, armed, independent resistance groups have opposed these terrorists. Prominent Islamic figures and groups have also strongly condemned Islamist terrorism.

Extremist groups justify attacks on civilians by pointing to their own readings of the Quran, the hadith, and Sharia. Their reasons include revenge through armed jihad for perceived wrongs done by unbelievers against Muslims. They also believe that many self-declared Muslims have broken Islamic law and are disbelievers (takfir). Others feel that Islam must be restored by making Sharia the source of law, including by re-establishing the Caliphate as a pan-Islamic state, as ISIS has tried to do. Some believe in the glory and heavenly rewards of martyrdom (istishhad), and others in the supremacy of Islam over all other religions. Violence without the permitted declarations of takfir (excommunication) has been criticized.

The phrase "Islamic terrorism" is disputed. In Western political speech, some people who disapprove of the word "Islamic" have called it "counter-productive", "highly politicized, intellectually contestable" and "damaging to community relations". Some argue that "Islamic terrorism" is a misnomer for what should be called "Islamist terrorism". The tactics used include kidnappings, public executions, bombings, and other harmful treatment of captives. Followers have been urged to use "guns, bombs, vehicles, knives or a combination of methods to increase casualties."

Terminology

George W. Bush and Tony Blair, who were US president and UK Prime Minister at the time of the September 11 attacks, often said that the war against terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. Others who disagree with linking Islam and terrorism include Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, and academic Bruce Lawrence. In a 2016 town hall meeting, former US president Barack Obama explained why he used the word "terrorism" rather than "Islamic terrorism." He said that groups like Al-Qaeda or ISIL had twisted Islam to excuse cruelty and death, and that he was careful not to lump these murderers together with the billion Muslims around the world.

Some people argue that "Islamic terrorism" is a misnomer and should be called "Islamist terrorism" instead. In January 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a report called Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims. It said that words matter and that good terms should not give terrorists more religious importance or glamour than they deserve. The experts the office consulted agreed that the government should not describe terrorists as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers, or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims. They advised caution with terms such as "jihadist," "Islamic terrorist," "Islamist," and "holy warrior."

History

A 2024 study by the Fondation pour l’innovation politique recorded 66,872 Islamist terrorist attacks worldwide between 1979 and April 2024, causing at least 249,941 deaths. Attacks rose sharply after 2013, and 96.7% of them happened in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Experts disagree on whether Islamic terrorism is a recent phenomenon. Ibn Warraq claims that violent movements have existed since the beginning of Islam, including the Kharijites of the 7th century. In the late 1960s, Palestinian secular movements such as Al Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine began to target civilians. The year 1979 is widely considered a turning point, when events such as the Soviet–Afghan War and the Iranian Revolution helped spread Islamist terrorism in the following decade.

Between 1980 and 1995, according to Bruce Hoffman of the RAND Corporation, the share of terrorist groups with religious motivation grew from 2 out of 64 to 26 out of 56. Between 11 September 2001 and 21 April 2019, a German newspaper, Welt am Sonntag, counted 31,221 Islamist terrorism attacks, in which at least 146,811 people were killed. According to the Global Terrorism Index, deaths from terrorism peaked in 2014 and then fell each year until 2019, a decline of 59%. Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and Somalia remained the five countries hardest hit by terrorism, and all of them are Muslim countries.

Attacker profiles and motivations

Main article: Istishhad

Refutations, criticisms and explanations for decline

Many observers have pointed out the inconsistencies and flaws in the arguments of Islamic terrorists. Princeton University Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis argues that although Osama bin Laden and other radical Islamists say they want to restore shariah law, their attacks on civilians break the rules of classical Islamic jurisprudence. Lewis notes that classical scholars never considered jihad to mean the unprovoked killing of ordinary people, and that for the September 11 attacks there is "no precedent and no authority in Islam." Timothy Winter says the statements of bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri "ignore 14 centuries of Muslim scholarship." Researcher Donald Holbrook says jihadists quote the start of a famous sword ayah but leave out the limits that follow it. The scholarly training of extremist thinkers is also questioned. Apart from Abul Ala Maududi and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, few trained at recognized centers of learning. Hassan al-Banna was a teacher and community activist, Sayyid Qutb was a literary critic, and Mohammed Abdul-Salam Farag was an electrician. Michael Sells and Jane I. Smith write that most Muslims today do not read Qur'anic verses as calls for warfare, apart from groups like al-Qaeda. Reza Aslan, an Iranian-American academic, writes in No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam that Islam is in an internal struggle between individualistic reform ideas and the traditional authority of Muslim clerics, similar to the reformation in Christianity in the 1500s.

Many Salafi-Jihadi groups practice takfir, which means they declare that some self-proclaimed Muslims, especially government officials and security personnel, are apostates who deserve death. Even so, most victims of Islamic terrorist attacks are Muslims. The more learned the thinkers, the less likely they were to embrace takfir. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a scholar who avoided takfir, preached unity in the ummah. By contrast, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Djamel Zitouni, leader of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA), had even broader definitions of apostasy and less religious knowledge. Their attacks killed thousands of Algerian civilians. Some efforts to bring extremists back from violence have worked. Main article: Deradicalization Egypt's largest radical group, al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya, renounced bloodshed in 2003 in a deal with the Egyptian government. Another group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, made a similar agreement in 2007.

Muslim attitudes toward terrorism

Main article: Muslim attitudes towards terrorism

Muslims hold different views about attacks on civilians by Islamist groups. Fred Halliday, an Irish academic who studies the Middle East, argues that most Muslims see these acts as serious violations of Islam's laws. Muslims living in the West condemn the 11 September attacks against the United States. Hezbollah says its rocket attacks on Israeli targets are defensive jihad carried out by a legitimate resistance movement, not terrorism. Hannah Stuart notes that modern religious leaders strongly debate when suicide attacks might be allowed. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a theologian based in Qatar, criticized the 9/11 attacks but had earlier supported some suicide bombings. Stuart counts 61 modern Islamic leaders who have issued rulings permitting suicide attacks, and she points out that all of these rulings go against Islamic jurisprudence as it was traditionally taught.

Many Muslim leaders have spoken out against terrorism. Charles Kurzman and other authors have collected statements from well-known Muslims and groups condemning it. In 2014, over 120 prominent Muslim scholars wrote an open letter to ISIS, criticizing the group for "numerous religious transgressions and abominable crimes." Huston Smith, an author who studies world religions, argued that extremists have hijacked Islam, just as has happened to Hinduism and other religions in history. Ali Gomaa, a former Grand Mufti of Egypt, said that "Terrorism cannot be born of religion." A 600-page legal opinion by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri called suicide bombings and other terrorism kufr, meaning unbelief. In 2013, 50 scholars in Lahore issued a religious ruling against suicide bombings and the killing of innocent people. Iranian Ayatollah Ozma Seyyed Yousef Sanei has also spoken against suicide attacks, and clerics from Jamaat Ahl-e-Sunnah, part of the Barelvi movement in Pakistan, have denounced them as un-Islamic.

Tactics

Main article: Tactics of terrorism

Islamic terrorist groups use several tactics. Hezbollah was the first group to use suicide bombers in the Middle East, and this has become an increasingly popular tactic. It is used against civilians, soldiers, and government officials of the regimes the terrorists oppose. A recent clerical ruling declares terrorism and suicide bombing forbidden by Islam. Some groups have also hijacked passenger vehicles. The most infamous were the "9/11" attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people on a single day in 2001 and effectively ended the era of aircraft hijacking. Terrorists have also made extensive use of highly publicised kidnappings and executions, often sharing videos of these acts as propaganda. A frequent form of execution is decapitation, and another is shooting. In the 1980s, a series of abductions of American citizens by Hezbollah during the Lebanese Civil War led to the 1986 Iran–Contra affair. During the chaos of the Iraq War, more than 200 kidnappings of foreign hostages took place, although the great majority of victims, thousands of them, were Iraqis. In 2007, the kidnapping of Alan Johnston by the Army of Islam led the British government to meet a Hamas member for the first time.

Islamist militants, including Boko Haram, Hamas, al-Qaeda and ISIS, have used kidnapping to raise money, to bargain for political concessions, and to intimidate opponents. In September 2014, in the Philippines, the militant group Abu Sayyaf kidnapped two German nationals and threatened to kill them unless the German government withdrew its support for the war against ISIS and paid a large ransom. A 2014 investigation by journalist Rukmini Maria Callimachi, published in The New York Times, found that between 2008 and 2014, al-Qaeda and its affiliates took in over US$125 million from kidnapping. Hamas also used kidnapping to gain leverage when it captured the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006, and Israel released 1027 prisoners in exchange for his release. At the start of the 21st century, a worldwide network of hundreds of websites emerged that aimed to recruit young Muslims through the Terrorism and social media route, encouraging them to join jihad against the United States and other Western countries.

Examples of organizations

Main article: List of Islamist terrorist attacks

Further information: List of designated terrorist groups

Islamist terrorist groups have been active across Africa. In East Africa, Al-Shabaab has been a central figure in conflicts, especially in Somalia and Kenya. North and West Africa have seen major incidents tied to Boko Haram, which has caused severe disruptions in Nigeria and neighboring countries. Nations such as Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco have also faced deadly attacks linked to wider extremist networks. These activities have led to extensive casualties and displacement across the region. Civilians have been the main targets of these attacks. In Asia, Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin forces have attacked civilians in Afghanistan. Kyrgyz-American brothers were behind the Boston Marathon bombing. Uzbekistan saw multiple attacks, including the 1999 Tashkent bombings targeting President Karimov. In India, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed are responsible for numerous attacks, while Pakistan and Sri Lanka have also faced Islamist attacks. The Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines continued a long-running insurgency until 2024. In the Middle East, militant Islamism in Turkey has mainly Kurdish roots, with groups like Turkish Hizbullah and İBDA-C opposing Turkish secularism. Iraq has experienced terrorist activity, especially during the US-led Iraq War. In Palestine and Israeli territories, groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement have launched numerous attacks against Israel. Fatah al-Islam operates in Lebanon with goals of establishing Islamic law in Palestinian refugee camps.

Europe has seen significant Islamist terrorist attacks, including the 2004 Madrid bombings, the 2005 London bombings, and the 2015 Paris attacks, all of which caused numerous casualties. A report found that jihadist terrorism was responsible for most deaths from terrorism in Europe from 2001 to 2014. Countries like Belgium, Netherlands, France, and Germany have faced multiple attacks, and Belgium was a significant base for planning attacks like the 2015 Paris attacks. In Norway, two men were sentenced in 2012 under anti-terror laws for plotting against cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. Russia has faced politically and religiously motivated attacks, particularly in Chechnya, including the 2002 Moscow theater and 2004 Beslan school hostage crises, linked to groups like the Caucasus Emirate. In the Americas, the United States faced the 9/11 attacks, which resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths and started the war on terror. Australia and New Zealand have also experienced notable attacks, such as the Lindt Café siege and the Auckland supermarket stabbing.

Main article: Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda's stated aim is to use jihad to defend and protect Islam against Zionism, Christianity, the secular West, and Muslim governments such as Saudi Arabia, which it sees as insufficiently Islamic and too closely tied to the United States.