How Did Osama Bin Laden Use Islamic Fundamentalism?

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When the exceptional flood of wealth hit the Middle Eastern countries during the 1970s and 1980s the social and economic prosperity began to decline greatly. The idea of Islamic Fundamentalism began to rise blaming the Western side of the world for incompetent and corrupt authorization of pro-Western regimes (Fundamentalism). Once the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 during The Cold War, the United States was immediately directed by their Foreign Policy. The United States Foreign Policy focused on keeping communism from spreading further out by using a method of containment (Lippmann). After the invasion of Afghanistan, terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam flew to Peshawar, a Pakistani city on the border with Afghanistan…show more content…
Osama bin Laden uses Islamic symbols and preaching’s to defend his actions (Osama). He has used the Qur’an, Hadith, and the Sharia as religious allusions for his attacks. The Qur’an is the revelations to the Prophet Mohammed from God, conveyed by the angel Gabriel. It is said to be God’s message to humanity. The Hadith is Mohammed’s sayings and deeds while he was alive. The Sharia is the code of law derived from the Qur’an and the Hadith. Osama bin Laden is more commonly known to be an Islamic Extremist taking the literal meaning of the Qur’an and Hadith (Osama). Not only did Osama bin Laden follow Islamic Fundamentalism but he followed the ideology of Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb. Qutb had three main themes that he constantly wrote and talked about in his writings (Osama). The first one was that he claimed that humanity was under jahiliyya, a religious term for the time of ignorance before Mohammed. He argued that humanity only has two choices to live under Islam or chose jahiliyya. The second idea he wrote about was his hate for materialism. Qutb said that materialism could cause jahiliyya to trump over Islam. The third idea he stood firm for was the war between God and Satan. Qutb believed that there was no middle between God and Satan (Osama). Qutb wanted to have people take arm and fight against jahiliyya; he also wanted anyone who rejected his idea to be destroyed as…show more content…
He believed that America was to blame for any wrongdoings happening with the Muslim community. When bin Laden formed Al-Qaeda his ultimate plan was to eliminate the United States of America as a world power. He wanted to launch terrorist attacks to scare the United States out of power (Osama). Having the Islamic Fundamentalism views as his cover he launched two major attacks on United States soil. The other major attack was in the name of Islamic Fundamentalism but not associated with
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