In November 2007 about 100 alleged terrorists were awaiting trial but according to the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, there were another 2,000 terrorist suspects in the UK, up 400 in twelve months. Neverthless he thought that the number of individuals posing a threat could be double that figure and said that extremists were 'methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in the UK.' Children as young as 15 and 16 had been implicated in terrorist-related activity. Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5 at the time, had warned in November 2006 that MI5 knew of 30 terror plots and was keeping 1,600 suspects in 200 groupings under surveillance. She said that since July 2005, five major conspiracies had been thwarted.

In July 2005 52 people were killed on the London Underground. In Spain the death toll had been higher in March 2004 when the train bombs killed 191 people and wounded 1,755. In 2001 the hijackings and destruction of the twin towers in New York cost 2,973 lives. These were not the first attacks. Islamists have been carrying out terrorist acts against Western targets since the early 1990s, including bombing the underground car park of the World Trade Centre in 1993 and bombing embassies in East Africa in 1998.

We urgently need to be clear about the causes of terrorism. Several theories have been put forward. Some say that Islamist terrorism is not a reflection of mainstream Islam, but rather a pathological strain of that religion? Others argue that Islamism is partly an outgrowth of Western thought as well as a reflection of Islamic ideas?

Until July 2005 some commentators were reluctant to link Islam with terrorism. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick who was initially the spokesman for the Metropolitan Police on the day of the suicide murders, replied to a question about the terrorists by claiming that: 'The words Islam and terrorist do not go together.' Presumably he was anxious not to give the impression that all Muslims were potential terrorists, and for this reason we use the term 'Islamist' to describe Muslims who advocate extreme, politicised or violent interpretations of their faith. We use the term 'Islam' to describe the religion as a whole.

Among the explanations we will explore as the project unfolds are these: that Islamist terrorism is a reflection of Western cultural weakness; that Islamist terrorism is a modern variety of totalitarianism; and that it is a justified reaction to Western foreign policy, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. We invite serious thinkers everywhere to draw our attention to other explanations that merit study. At this early stage of the project we have more questions than answers.

Western weakness

Have Western countries created favourable conditions for the emergence of Islamism? Some say that multiculturalism has encouraged division and the cult of the victim has multiplied the exaggeration of grievances by ethnic and other groups.

Others argue that a naive faith in innate human goodness has contributed. The underlying assumption is that the world is a predictable place because people are guided by reason. This belief, however, can lead to the conclusion that there must have been a good reason for events like 9/11. America must have done something terrible for people to do such a bad thing because there are no murderous, unpredictable, bad people with evil motives. For some observers this idea is a kind of escapism, a refuge from insecurity and fear. It ends with naive people, because they are frightened to admit that some people are just plain bad, inventing excuses for slaughter - if only we had changed our foreign policy, the 7/7 suicide murders in London would not have happened. Is there any validity in such claims?

Justified disapproval of foreign policy

Many have argued that the suicide murders of July 2005 are best understood as a reaction to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Some say the terrorist actions were a justified response; others that aggression is understandable but that innocent blood should not have been spilt. Islamist terrorists have also seized on controversial issues about which Western opinion is divided, such as the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, and implied that if only the problem could be resolved Islamists would have no cause for aggression. The scale of terrorist activity in every major continent suggests that solving any one problem, or sacrificing any one ally, would not satisfy Islamist terrorists. They hate, not only Western foreign policy but the vital core of Western life, its liberal-democracy. Indeed, some say they hate modernity itself.

A new totalitarianism

The historian Andrew Roberts has argued in his mammoth A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, that Islamist terrorism is best understood as another variety of totalitarianism, following the lead of Kaiser's Germany, the Axis powers, and Soviet Communism. Once more, he says, the English-speaking peoples find that they must fight for their heritage of liberal-democracy, a system that aims to create the conditions in which everyone can add their bit to the improvement of society and, where talent permits, to the advance of human civilisation. Islamism, by contrast, is another version of the creed that seeks concentrated, exclusive and limitless power to control any aspect of human life. It has no respect for the separation of church and state, no tolerance for personal freedom, and holds democracy in contempt as a system that merely puts the wishes of man above what it sees as the laws of God.

A strong case has been made by Paul Berman in Terror and Liberalism that the leading advocates of Islamism have been Westernised Muslims who took much of their inspiration from the varieties of Western totalitarianism that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s. Modern Islamism originated at the same time, sparked by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during World War One. The Muslim Brotherhood is the chief source of modern Islamism. It was founded in Egypt in 1928, originally as a strictly religious society devoted to charitable work and religious piety, but its founders sympathised with the Nazis and they copied the organisational methods of Spain's early fascists, who also aspired to revive a flagging religion (Catholicism). One of the aims of the Muslim Brotherhood was to reverse the decision of the government of Turkey to abolish the office of Caliph, the religious leader of all Muslims.

Among the most influential Islamists has been Sayyid Qutb, who was brought up in Egypt and went on to study at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley, where he received a master's degree. In his book Milestones, he spoke of the inner struggle he faced after living in America. He fought against 'the cultural influences which had penetrated my mind in spite of my Islamic attitudes and inclination'. There was perhaps an element of self-disgust that Western ideas had influenced him.

Qutb argued that 'totality' distinguished Islam from other religions. There was no God but Allah, whose laws defined everything of importance. He hated the separation of church and state. An Islamic system meant the 'abolition of man-made laws'. Democracy was an abomination that put the wants of man above God's laws. And he hated Muslim secularists such as the rulers of Turkey and despised Muslim socialists like Nasser. Such people had betrayed Islam. They were hypocrites and false Muslims.

Osama bin Laden is also Westernised and puts the restoration of the Caliphate at the centre of his programme. His broadcast after 9/11 said that America was 'filled with horror' but, he continued, 'Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more [than] eighty years, of humiliation, of disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated.' He referred to 'eighty years' because in 1920 Turkey had become a secular state. The government of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire had been replaced by a Grand National Assembly with Ataturk as president. The Sultan was not only the secular ruler but also the religious leader or Caliph of all Muslims throughout the world. (The office of Caliph was formally abolished in 1924.)

Many modern Islamists want to see the restoration of the Caliphate and reject the ideas central to liberal-democracy, especially the separation of church and state. They also reject the Judeo-Christian idea that all belief should be the genuine result of reflection by a questioning and open mind. They call for simple obedience.

Notes

1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6134516.stm
2 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article297652.ece