Islam, Bin Laden and Afghanistan

Osama’s Early Life

Family background

- His father was a poor and functionally illiterate immigrant from Yemen who became a self-
made billionaire

- His father died in 1967 when Osama was 10 years old.

- Most of Osama’s (roughly 53) brothers and sisters embraced the Westernising process and
studied and married overseas including countries such as England.

- Son of fourth wife

- Rarely saw his father
- Not a lavish lifestyle
- His mother remarried after father’s death
- Did not go away to school
- Good student
- But at 14 experienced a religious and spiritual awakening
-

Born

- Osama was born in 1957 in the middle of the tensions between Islam and the Westernising
of the Saudi Elite

Father’s connections

- His father was an immigrant from Yemen who became a self-made billionaire, with ties to
the house of Saud. He founded the largest construction firm in Saudi Arabia, working on
many projects for the royal family to create a modern infrastructure for the country
- Very ambitious
- Illiterate, poor
- Arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1931
- Worked with his men, pious and open handed
- Became a billionaire building contractor
- Had 54 children by 22 wives
-

Beliefs stem from influences

- Osama however, stayed close to the family home in Jeddah and instead of going overseas to
study, he went to an elite local high school where he may have first been exposed to radical
Islamic study groups
- Then Osama attended King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah where the faculty was full of
ultraconservatives

- One of them was a Palestinian, Abdul Azzam who was one of Osama’s mentors

- Abdul Azzam told his students that Islam was under attack from Western influences and
needed to be defended and purified at all costs

- “Jihad and the rifle alone. No negotiations, no conferences, and no dialogues.” Abdul Azzam

- Sayyid Qutb – ‘modern Egyptian’

- Visited US for his university education
- Horrified by its decadence, immorality, spiritual wasteland
- Developed a radical Islamist philosophy
- The need to return to a pure Islam
- Called for a jihad against the ‘democratic’ yet authoritarian government
- Developed concept of takfir – the Muslims in his society were not ‘true’ Muslims so
therefore could be excommunicated / killed

- Ayman Al Zawahiri

- Saw the 1967 6 Day War between Egypt and Israel as a great humiliation for Egypt and
Muslims

- ‘Islamic fundamentalism was born in this shocking debacle’ [Wright, 38]

- God had turned against Muslims

- Therefore they had to return to pure religion

- And defeat the ‘near enemy’ Nasser in Egypt

- Then ‘far enemy’ – the USA

- Met mujahideen ‘holy warriors’

- Saw the ‘miracle’ of jihad against Russia

- With an ‘overwhelming desire for revenge’ – against West and ‘failed’ Muslims [Wright 58]

- In 1985 went to Saudi Arabia and met Osama bin Laden

- ‘They were bound to discover each other sooner or later in the intimate landscape of jihad’
[Wright 60]

• Joined Muslim Brotherhood, 1974. They believed an Islamic state should be established.
 • 1976 studying economics at University – but more interested in religion. Read Qutb’s
books. Lived very religiously.

• Joined father’s company – worked bulldozers, earth moving equipment.

• 1979 Afghanistan Invasion. Was a courier for funds raised in Saudi Arabia

• Osama followed Abdullah Azzam, the blind emir

• Azzam: ‘Jihad … the rifle alone; no negotiations, no conferences, no dialogues..’

• Also saw the mujahideen as ‘legendary holy warriors’ [Wright 95]

• Meets Zawahiri

Difference between ‘greater jihad’ and ‘lesser jihad’

How has Al Qaeda changed the concept of jihad?

How and why did Al Qaeda form?

How does al Qaeda justify killing fellow Muslims?