Module 18: Extremism in the Name of Islam

Islamic extremism is not one single phenomenon. The Muslim Brotherhood helped lay ideological foundations for modern Islamism. Hamas (Gaza) and Hezbollah (Lebanon) show how Islamist movements can combine religion, politics, social services, and armed struggle.

ISIS emerged in its modern form in 2013, but its roots go back to the Iraq War (2003-2011) and the earlier group Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi built a brutal Sunni militant network that later aligned with Al-Qaeda. After Zarqawi’s death in 2006, the group evolved into the Islamic State of Iraq, and by 2013 it had expanded into Syria and became known as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS.

The Taliban emerged in 1994 in southern Afghanistan during the chaos that followed the Soviet withdrawal from the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-1989), the collapse of Afghanistan’s communist government, and the civil war among rival mujahideen factions.

Al-Shabaab means “the Youth.” Al-Shabaab is a Somali Islamist militant group that emerged around 2006, during Somalia’s long period of civil war, weak governance, and state collapse.

Boko Haram was founded in 2002 in northeastern Nigeria by Mohammed Yusuf. It began as an Islamist sectarian movement centered in and around Maiduguri, in Borno State, and it initially attracted followers through preaching, religious instruction, and criticism of corruption, injustice, and the failures of the Nigerian state. The movement later turned to assassinations and large-scale violence.

Al-Qaeda was founded in 1988 near the end of the Soviet–Afghan War. It grew out of the network of Arab foreign fighters, recruiters, financiers, and ideologues who had mobilized to support the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union.

The name Hezbollah means “Party of God.” Hezbollah was founded in 1982 in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War and in response to Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Hamas was founded in 1987 at the beginning of the First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. It emerged from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and presented itself as an Islamist alternative to the more secular Palestinian nationalist movements that had long dominated Palestinian politics.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 in Ismailia, Egypt, by Hassan al-Banna. It became one of the most influential Islamist movements in the modern Muslim world by promoting the idea that Islam should govern not only personal faith, but also society, law, politics, and the state.

The Iraq War (2003-2011) is especially important because it helped create the direct pathway to ISIS.