ABSTRACT
Introduction In late 1951, Hassan al-Hudaybi, the new General Guide of Jam’iyyat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Society of the Muslim Brothers – MB) in Egypt decided to dismantle the main armed wing of the Society that was known at the time as alNizam al-Khass (Special Apparatus – SA). The leadership of al-Hudaybi was already being challenged, and the decision was extremely controversial. It thus led to further factionalization and even internal violence within the Society. Ultimately, it took approximately two decades for the leadership to dismantle the SA completely. Since the early 1970s, the MB has abandoned violence against national regimes, and has de-legitimized and prohibited that type of violence by ideological and theological arguments. Additionally, the leadership of the MB in Egypt has also dismantled all of its armed units. These conditions indicate a successful, comprehensive de-radicalization process that took place on the behavioral, ideological and organizational levels. In a very similar but shorter process, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group – IG) – the largest armed Islamist movement in Egypt during the 1980s and 1990s – declared a unilateral ceasefire in July 1997 that surprised observers, officials and even many IG members and commanders. The ceasefire declaration contradicted the militant literature of the group, the previous vows of its leaders to continue the armed struggle until it had toppled the Mubarak regime and the increasingly violent tactics used by the IG affiliates since the late 1970s. In 2002, the leadership of the IG not only dismantled its armed wings, but also renounced its radical literature, published new books and replaced its curricula with those of the relatively moderate Muslim Brothers (Zinah 2003, 16). Members of the shura (consultative) council of the IG issued several books explaining its new non-violent ideology. As with the Muslim Brothers, this seemed to indicate a deradicalization process that had taken place not only on the behavioral (strategic/
tactical) level but also on the ideological level. By 2007, the IG’s deradicalization process looked to have been consolidated: no armed operations since 1999, no significant splits within the movement and around 25 volumes authored by the IG leaders to support their new ideology with both theological and rational arguments. Two of the volumes were critiques of al-Qa‘ida’s behavior (Zuhdi et al. 2002; 2003) and a third was a critique of the “clash of civilizations” hypothesis, arguing instead for cultural dialogue (Ibrahim et al. 2005, 225-247). The drafting of these volumes by the same movement that coassassinated President Anwar al-Sadat for signing the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty was a significant development. This process of de-radicalization removed more than 15,000 IG militants from the Salafi-Jihadi1 camp currently led by al-Qa‘ida. In 2007, al-Jihad Organization, the second largest armed organization in Egypt, with strong ties to al-Qa‘ida, also initiated a de-radicalization process. The process is being led by the former emir (commander) of al-Jihad (19871993) and al-Qa‘ida’s ideologue, Dr. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (alias ‘Abd al-Qadir Ibn ‘Abd al-’Aziz as well as Dr. Fadl). To recant his old views, al-Sharif authored a new book entitled Document for Guiding Jihad in Egypt and the World. In addition, al-Sharif and other al-Jihad commanders toured Egyptian prisons between February and April 2007 to meet with their followers and discuss the de-radicalization process. That process has been only partially successful however, as three factions within al-Jihad still refuse to uphold it. These factions also refuse to leave the Organization and one of them is in alliance with alQa‘ida. The process is thus still ongoing at the present time.2 In Algeria, similar de-radicalizing transformations occurred in 1997. Like the IG of Egypt, the self-declared armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS),3 known as the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), declared a unilateral ceasefire. The ceasefire led to disarmament and demilitarization processes that aimed for the reintegration of the AIS members as well as other armed Islamist factions into Algeria’s civil ranks. The demilitarization process included subgroups from the notorious Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).4 These groups and factions issued several communiqués to explain and legitimize their decisions to dismantle their armed wings. Unlike the Egyptian groups, however, the Algerian groups did not produce any ideological literature to reconstruct a new ideology. The phenomenon of “de-radicalization” is not only confined to the previously mentioned countries. In the 2000s, it took place in several other Muslim-majority countries, albeit on a smaller scale than in Egypt and Algeria. These deradicalization cases include Libyan, Saudi, Yemeni, Jordanian, Tajik, Malaysian and Indonesian armed Islamist groups, factions and individuals. Additionally, the Egyptian de-radicalization processes had international repercussions. For example, the transformations of the IG have influenced several leaders from the British Islamic Liberation Party and caused them to abandon the Party’s radical ideology (Nawaz 2007, 6). In Libya, factions from the Fighting Islamic Group (FIG) modeled their de-radicalization process after that of the Egyptian IG and
recently published several books in which they ideologically and theologically de-legitimized violence against national regimes (al-Tawil 2006, 7; Libya alYoum 2008, 4). In Saudi Arabia, government-sponsored al-Munasaha (Advising) Programs, as well as interventions from independent Islamic scholars, succeed in de-radicalizing mainly individuals and small groups who allegedly supported or were loosely linked to al-Qa‘ida Network (Howaidy 2007, 6). In Tajikistan, the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) that led the United Tajikistani Opposition (UTO) in the civil war of 1992-1997, again led the UTO into a fragile peace agreement with the Tajik regime. Similar to the IG in Egypt and the AIS and other armed groups in Algeria, the IRP called for “Jihad” in 1992 and then for a ceasefire, a compromise and a peaceful resolution of the conflict in 1997. Despite the fact that the aforementioned armed Islamist movements, which used to engage in terrorist acts, have shown remarkable behavioral and ideological transformations towards non-violence and despite that the “deradicalization” processes of these movements had removed tens of thousands of former militants from the ranks of al-Qa‘ida’s supporters and acted as disincentives for would-be militants, there is not one single detailed book on the causes of de-radicalization processes. Nor there is a comprehensive study about the conditions under which de-radicalization can be successful. This is the case in spite of the great interest in explaining Islamism and the huge volume of literature produced after the 9/11 attacks. Generally, the literature on Islamist movements attempts to explain two issues: their support of violence (radicalization) and their changing attitudes towards democracy and democratization (moderation). The literature addressed and debated the causes of radicalization since the late 1970s. As for moderation, a smaller number of works have addressed the causes of that process as it is a relatively recent development.5 More importantly, the reasons behind renouncing (behavioral de-radicalization) and de-legitimizing (ideological de-radicalization) violence were not analyzed before in the literature. None have developed a theoretical account of the causes of the de-radicalization process within armed Islamist movements. As such, this book will address crucial lacunae in the literature on Islamism, security and counterterrorism studies as the first detailed study of the causes of de-radicalization of specific armed Islamist movements, based on frontline research that includes personal, media and archival interviews with Islamist leaders, mid-ranking commanders, grassroots, young sympathizers, Islamist movements’ specialists, former security and intelligence officers and state officials. Additionally, it will also be the first detailed study that analyzes the particular conditions under which successful de-radicalization can take place. To explain these changes within movements that have long glorified violent struggle and upheld continuity, the main question that this book attempts to answer is: why do radical Islamist militants revise their ideologies, strategies and objectives and initiate a de-radicalization process?6 In other words, can militant Islamist radicals turn into relatively peaceful groups that accept the “other” and, if yes, under what conditions?
