Does al-Qaeda think it’s engaged in a clash of civilizations?
Yes. Bin Laden openly seeks a clash between Islam and the West. “This battle is not between al-Qaeda and the U.S.,” the al-Qaeda leader said in October 2001. “This is a battle of Muslims against the global crusaders.” From bin Laden’s perspective, it is a clash that has been under way for centuries, with the Americans as the latest incarnation of the Christian Crusaders—arrogant Western interlopers out to oppress Muslims. In an October 2001 interview on al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite news channel, bin Laden talked about the “clash of civilizations” thesis.

Muslims, bin Laden argues, must reverse a series of humiliations that they’ve endured since the Ottoman Empire, the last Muslim great power, was dismantled after World War I. Al-Qaeda’s 1998 declaration of a jihad, or holy war, against “Jews and Crusaders” urges Muslims to attack “the Americans and their allies, civilian and military,” supposedly as a response to U.S. policies that al-Qaeda feels oppress Muslims: the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia; the backing of U.N. sanctions against Iraq; support for repressive Arab regimes; support for Israel; alleged complicity in Russian attacks on Muslims in Chechnya; and interventions in Bosnia, Somalia, and other Muslim regions that bin Laden sees as attempts to spread America’s empire. These Western policies, according to al-Qaeda, add up to a “clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims.”

Do all Muslims see things al-Qaeda’s way?
No. Most Islamic scholars interpret jihad as a nonviolent quest for justice—a holy struggle rather than a holy war. (Bin Laden is not a credentialed Muslim scholar, and most Muslims do not recognize him as a religious authority.) Moreover, mainstream Islamic teachings prohibit the killing of civilians. Islam has a tradition of religious tolerance and moderate leadership, exemplified by the Muslim caliphate’s ninth- and tenth-century rule of Spain and by the pluralism and diversity of the Ottoman Empire. Still, many scholars today worry about the growth of fundamentalism and anti-Americanism in Muslim countries.

Why is anti-Americanism prevalent in many Muslim countries?
For a complicated series of reasons. One key factor, experts say, is that many Muslims live under authoritarian governments lacking democratic institutions that would let citizens openly express grievances and solve problems themselves. Moreover, American support for such repressive regimes as Egypt and Saudi Arabia has sowed widespread bitterness. Many Islamic movements “are anti-Western because the governments they oppose are pro-Western,” writes Shibley Telhami, a University of Maryland specialist in Muslim public opinion. Within the Arab world, U.S. support for Israel is also frequently cited as a source of anti-Americanism. On a deeper level, some experts argue, resentment of the United States is a reaction to America’s overwhelming wealth and power, particularly when compared to the economic stagnation and political insignificance of many Muslim states. This disparity leads Islamist movements, which are usually antimodern as well as anti-Western, to blame America for the loss of Islam’s past glory.

Is the West waging a war against Islam?
Western leaders insist they are not, and their choice of partners and policies backs this up. Although President Bush did once refer to the U.S. campaign against al-Qaeda as a “crusade”—a comment he hastily retracted—Bush and other Western leaders have repeatedly said that the U.S.-led coalition is waging war against al-Qaeda’s brand of global terrorism, not against Islam. “The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends,” Bush said shortly after September 11. “Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.”

Moreover, several Western military interventions in the 1990s came to the defense of Muslims—from the 1991 Gulf War, which ended the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, to the ill-fated U.N. peacekeeping mission in Somalia, to NATO’s 1999 war to stop the “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims by Christian Serbs in Kosovo. Likewise, the U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban has improved the lives of most Afghans.

Copyright ©2004 Council on Foreign Relations.
All Rights Reserved.