3 - The Salafi-Jihadi Identity and Malaysia’s Battle with Islamist Extremism

Summary

Introduction

The puritan form of Islamic ideology, salafi-jihadism, sanctions the use of violence to accomplish its objective of erecting an Islamic state that enforces the ideals of Salafism, which calls for a return to the Prophet’s puritanical teachings as exemplified in his hadith (oral and practical traditions), sunna (trodden path), and the lives of his companions and al-salaf al-salih (pious predecessors), i.e. early generations of Muslims who survived Muhammad (peace be upon him) until three-hundred years of his death. Underlying the violence approved by terrorist network Al-Qaeda’s jihadist ideology was its indiscriminate call to kill both civilian and military enemies anywhere in the world, thus catapulting armed jihad to the global stage (Amin 2014, pp. 118–19). Salafi-jihadism became the driving doctrine behind the active recruitment of jihadist fighters into Al-Qaeda franchises all over the world and large-scale movements of transnational jihadist funds (Hegghammer 2009, pp. 251–57, Zulkarnain and Nordin 2013, pp. 22–25).

The rise since mid-2014 of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a terrorist group otherwise known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State (IS) or Daesh (after its Arabic acronym), at one point seemed to have eclipsed other manifestations of global Islamist violence. ISIS’s notoriety was attributable to, among other things, its spectacular brutality, territorial gains, and apocalyptic ideology. ISIS intentionally employed violence as a political weapon and showcased grisly online images to cow populations under its control and convince the large viewing public of its invincibility. What many did not realize was that ISIS tapped into sentiments that had been fostered by extremist policies of many Muslim governments and leaders themselves as an outgrowth of decades of authoritarian rule following post-colonial upheavals in many Muslim societies. The lack of a civic culture and human rights regime in Muslim polities is legitimized by the identification of such forms of governance with secular, liberal, and hence ungodly values, driven as it is by a bipolar view of the world pitting the umma against belligerent forces. In ISIS, Muslims were lulled into believing that a promised utopia was in the offing, underlined by its territorial control and imposition of a political order ostensibly based on Islam, and fuelled by eschatological convictions founded upon a misreading of Prophetic traditions dealing with events near the end of time.

ISIS’s violent ideology drew support from a handful of Muslims in Southeast Asia.