Written evidence from the Centre on Religion & Geopolitics (CRG) (ISL0046)

• Violent extremism does not operate in a vacuum. Understanding the relationship between political Islam and violent extremism is essential to countering the threat posed to the UK by militancy and radicalisation.
• This understanding is also necessary to distinguish between aspiring democratic movements with a religious identity such as Turkey’s AKP and Tunisia’s Ennahda, and those using democratic means to impose an Islamist vision.

• Our research has identified a notable connection between the aims of Islamism and violent militancy. The goals of many rebel groups in Syria are shared, both by Salafi-jihadi groups such as ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra and non-violent Islamist movements elsewhere in the region.[1]
• This relationship goes beyond the objectives of groups to the individual’s route to violence. Our research has found that 51 per cent of a sample of prominent jihadis from the Middle East and Africa had clear links to non-violent Islamist organisations, before joining militant groups.[2] Half of these had links to the Muslim Brotherhood. 
• Many Islamist groups explicitly denounce violence and have played important roles in state building. Tunisia’s Ennahda party is an instructive example. However, our view is that contesting the religio-political ideology that is shared by violent extremists[3] ­ that a strict interpretation of Sharia should constitute state law ­ is an essential step in eradicating the extremist threat to global security.

1. The Centre on Religion & Geopolitics provides informed analysis on the interaction of religion and conflict globally, offering policy responses to meet the scale of the challenge. The Centre is an initiative of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The Foundation’s mission is to provide practical support to counter religious prejudice, conflict and extremism, in order to promote open-minded and stable societies.

2. Across the world, the interaction of religion and conflict is making its effect felt. Political ideologies and events are exposed to the pressures of religion. Policy makers can no longer ignore the threat posed by violent religious ideologies, but if they are to be defeated, they must be understood. Through reports, media commentary, events and policy briefings, the Foundation’s Centre on Religion & Geopolitics (CRG)[4] provides that understanding.

3.  A December 2015 CRG report ‘If the Castle Falls’ surveyed the ideology and objectives of 48 of the leading rebel factions in Syria. This study provided significant  insight into the overlap between Islamist and jihadi ideologies in a major conflict zone.

4. The second most dominant objective of the groups in our sample was the establishment of some form of Islamic law, supported by 68 per cent of factions. A wide range of the groups we studied shared this goal, including Salafi-jihadi, Islamist and ideologically ambiguous factions. (The most dominant objective was defeating Assad.)

5. There was not a single vision for what ‘Islamic law’ should look like. Salafi-jihadi groups seek to implement a single interpretation of Islamic law on the state, according to a literalist reading of scripture. Islamists want a dominant role for their interpretation of Islamic law in the state. Other groups simply wish to follow the lead of many Muslim majority legal systems, in which the spirit of the ‘sharia’ is a guiding principle of legislation (maqasid al-Sharia).

6. Understanding this spectrum is essential for effective policy making, as groups outline their competing visions for the future of Syria. This also has broader implication for UK foreign policy, as such a spectrum of ideologies exists in several other vulnerable conflict zones as well as in major global non-violent Islamist movements.

7. Once such ideology was explored in CRG’s October 2015 report Inside the Jihadi Mind: Understanding Ideology and Propaganda,[5] which analysed the propaganda of three Salafi-jihadi groups. The report establishes an evidence base for the assertion that the ideology of Salafi-jihadism is a vital motivating force for extremist violence.

8. The report found that there is a distinct difference between the ideology of Salafi-jihadism and the Islam practiced by the majority of the world’s Muslims. The Salafi-jihadi ideology is built upon a reading of Islamic religious principles, which it then distorts to produce a single-minded focus on violent jihad.

9. Nevertheless, a broader political culture overlaps significantly with some of the assumptions of the jihadi ideology, without necessarily being extreme or agreeing with its violence.

10. 2007 polling from the University of Maryland found that 74 per cent of Pakistani Muslims agreed with the need for a caliphate.[6] The same survey found that 90 per cent of Egyptian Muslims agreed that there was a need to ‘stand up to America and affirm the dignity of the Islamic people’.[7]

11. 2012 Pew Research Center polling found that at least 40 per cent of Sunnis in five Middle Eastern and North African countries did not recognise Shia as Muslims.[8] The same polling found that over half of Muslims surveyed in nine Muslim-majority countries around the world believed that they would live to see the start of the apocalypse.[9]

12. In order to confront Daesh’s ideology, we must be aware of its overlap with more widely held cultural and religious beliefs. Our response to extremism must not just be religion-friendly, but must hinge on the actions of authoritative religious leaders, providing a framework for religious practice which removes the powerful religious legitimacy that extremists seek to claim.

13. It is not only Salafi-jihadi groups that exploit ideology to universalise local and foreign policy grievances. Islamist groups also draw on popular sentiment and grievances to garner support for the idea of a strict application of Sharia law as the only solution to society’s ills and contentious historical injustices.

14. Evidence of the way that violent extremist groups draw on the ideological groundwork of political Islam is found in the April 2016 report ‘Milestones to Militancy.’ One key finding was that 51 per cent of our sample of prominent figures in the jihadi movement from the Middle East and Africa previously had clear links to non-violent Islamist organisations, before joining militant groups.[10] Half of these had links to the Muslim Brotherhood. 

15. This is not to suggest that there is an inevitable ‘conveyor belt’ from non-violent political Islam to militancy. Indeed, many Islamists travel ‘the other way’ to become democrats. However, it is important to understand the significance of shared ideological features between violent and non-violent extremism, and how jihadis particularly target these non-violent Islamist movements to recruit and radicalise.

16. Policy makers need to better understand the conditions that breed vulnerability to extremist voices, through increased engagement with civil society actors. Simplistic theories that poverty, foreign policy, or lack of education alone are the root causes of radicalisation are not conducive to effective counter-extremism policy-making.

17. As such, extremist ideology, not just terrorism, its violent manifestation, must be effectively challenged. The lessons of previous ideological conflicts should not be lost. During the Cold War, as well as building military readiness, Western countries tackled the foundations of Communist ideology, including through news outlets such as Radio Free Europe.

18. The UK Government’s Prevent Strategy already specifically rules out working with extremist groups in tackling violent extremism. Policy makers should help cultivate a civil society culture that applies organisational social pressure by refusing to work with groups that oppose fundamental values of openness and pluralism. Example of this are support for the implementation of literalist sharia as state law, the destruction of Israel, and the subjugation of women and minorities.

19. The Centre on Religion & Geopolitics (CRG) holds that in addition to a military campaign against jihadi militant organisations, it is necessary for governments to encourage civil society responses waging a campaign against the worldview cultivated by groups sharing this ideology. This requires a deeper understanding of the connection between the violent objectives of jihadism and the non-violent objectives of political Islam.

May 2016