Islam and the West/The Search for a New Ummah/From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad/Middle East/North Africa Report 37

Kepel is at his strongest, however, when he delves into the strategic thinking of al Qaeda and its reactions to these geostrategic developments. At the centre of this narrative is not Osama bin Laden but Ayman alZawahiri, the Egyptian trained doctor, founder of the Egyptian Jihad Organization in the 1980s, and someone with connections to some of Egypt's most powerful elite families. Having met in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet Union in the 19805, Kepel describes al-Zawahiri as having quickly established "unchallenged" spiritual influence over bin Laden. It is, therefore, al-Zawahiri who is the driving ideological force behind al Qaeda. After his failed attempts at "lesser jihad" in Egypt, alZawahiri turned his sights to the "greater jihad" against the United States and the west. This was to be brought about through campaigns of recruitment and mobilization of the Islamic ummah. Al Qaeda was to be the platform for mobilization spearheaded by "a new contingent of Islamists that the ummah had awaited for so long" (96). The "rallying cry" for such mobilization was to be 9/11, an event that he hoped would convince undecided Muslims that the United States-"the arrogant protector of the apostate regimes in the Middle East and North Africa"-was "abhorrently weak" (2). Particular hope was placed in the mobilization of the increasing numbers of Muslims living in the west. Indeed, according to Kepel, al Qaeda considered this to be "the most important battle in the war for Muslim minds" (8). It is at this point that Roy's analysis steps in, delving into the more underlying sociological processes that have produced the religious terrain on which groups like al Qaeda are now operating. Central to Roy's argument is his notion of deterritorialization. In reaction to the waves of repression against Islamic actors, moderate and extremist alike, by the governments in the Middle East, radical Islamists have begun a process of ideologically distancing themselves from association with the territories and nation-states in which they live; no longer, writes Roy, would the Middle East be looked upon by radical Islamists as "the promised land" (274). Facilitating this ideological deterritorialization have been various socioeconomic processes that have altered the ground upon which many Muslims stand. Millions now live in Europe and North America, large numbers from South Asian countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh work as migrant labourers in the Gulf region, and