Ayman Al-Zawahiri's Citations of the Qur'an

A Descriptive Study of Selected Works

by Jai Singh and John David Perry

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Merriam-Webster defines the term ideology, from the secondary perspective, as "a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture," "a manner or the content of thinking characteristics of an individual, group, or culture" and "the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program." All three definitions, delimiting the broad precept of the concept of ideology, are of relevance and import in the critical, analytical and objective study of globally oriented social, religious and political sub-national and clandestine movements that agitate for a reordering of the extant order through the use, on a mechanistic basis, of premeditated violence that targets both combatant and non-combatant actors. In this context, temporally delimited within the recent historical perspective, groups espousing an ideology predicated upon the global promulgation of a strict or fundamental interpretation of Sunni Islam are of particular interest. Stated in perhaps simpler parlance, "why do they fight" represents a general area of inquiry that underpins the subject study. Care, of course, must be made in order to avoid, during the course and scope of moving from the general to the specific, the equating of unrelated ideologies and movements. The crystallization of distinctive ideological platforms must be evaluated in their own specificity rather than via allusion to 20th Century Western ideologies such as fascism and communism.

In this regard, ideology (along with strategy and tactics) represents a portion of the confluence of broad categorical factors that must be understood with sufficient clarity for both short term counterterrorism (CT) and counterinsurgency (CI) goals and longer term mitigation goals. It is through the study of both the propounded ideology and the enaction of the same, oft-times in a manner showing substantive dissimilitude, that one may ascertain the rationale behind the existence of such organizations, the framework under which they operate and their short and long term goals and strategies. Brachman, in defining the groups in question as global jihadists and their ideologies as global jihadism, introduced the latter from the perspective of a set of shared characteristics. This view was based upon the concept of underlying social, political and/or religious grievances giving rise to ideological movements that reduce such complex problems into a dualistic Manichaean model. This is turn is followed by the presentation of a method or set of methods, alternative to those provided by societal norms, for addressing such grievances and finally by articulating a call to action. This framework is particularly useful and apt in evaluating the ideology of global jihadist movements such as Qaida al Jihad.

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Jai Singh is currently a graduate student at the American Public University working towards a Master of Arts degree in Intelligence Studies with a focus on Terrorism Studies. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California. He has also taken graduate level courses in statistics through the Colorado State University. He is currently employed as a consultant with areas of expertise in the fields of motor vehicle accident reconstruction and trauma biomechanics.

John-David Perry received his BA in government from Harvard University, and his MS from Carnegie Mellon in Public Policy and Management. He has served as a Harvard University Fellow for Public affairs, and is currently working for Booz Allen Hamilton. The majority of John-David's current work highlights his interest in designing military capability assessments and studying irregular warfare theory and practice.