Highlighted regional efforts to combat terrorism intellectually

Ahmed Sami Abdel Fattah

The phenomenon of terrorism was exacerbated following the so-called Arab Spring, where extremist groups exploited the security chaos that hit some countries and began to attract young people to join it with various pretexts. They exploited the high levels of unemployment among the Arab youth, as well as the frustration of many of the popular categories as a result of the decline in the standard of living, which was negatively related to the state of chaos and economic deterioration.

We can say that the activity of the extremist organizations witnessed progress in the beginning of the Arab Spring in many countries, most notably Libya and Syria, before the June 30, 2013 revolution to constitute a blow to the terrorist organizations after the Brotherhood was overthrown. That constituted a psychological blow to terrorist organizations that were counting on the Brotherhood’s rule to provide military support in all areas of conflict in the Middle East.

Although some regular armies in the region launched systematic campaigns to eradicate extremism, the fight against terrorism can not be carried out by military means alone.

For example, the Libyan National Army led by Marshal Khalifa Hafer launched the Karama process in 2014 to fight the Islamist organizations that were extended in Libya. The operation aimed to liberate the country from the pro-Iranian terrorist Houthi organization in 2015.

Egypt also launched the comprehensive Sinai operation in 2018 in order to eliminate the seeds of extremism.

In other words, if the military tool defeats the extremist elements on the ground, the intellectual tool to confront extremism takes the defeat of intellectual extremism in the virtual world, thus impeding its ability to attract new elements. This makes the role of the military tool in the face of terrorism easier with drying up polarized tools of extremist organizations.

On the one hand, countering terrorism requires intellectual thought campaigns to eradicate extremist ideology. Hence comes the role of establishing national and international institutions specifically for this purpose. For example, the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta has established two observatories, one called the Observatory of Takfiri Fatwas and the other called the Islamophobia Observatory. Extremist thought is intellectually and gradually growing, paralyzing the ability of extremist organizations to move.

The work of the observatory is based on two aspects. The first one is concerned with the intellectual aspects of monitoring the same radical idea and its heritage – books or intellectuals – and how to manipulate the text itself or interpret it to the interests of extremist organizations, as well as a procedural part concerning the religious response of the institution in the form of a fatwa correcting the idea or presenting the correct vision that is contrary to the view of extremist organizations.

In the same context, Dar al-Ifta established Islam and Phobia Observatory, which specializes in monitoring the phenomena and acts of racism that attack the Islamic religion intellectually, and Muslim citizens in practice. Through this observatory, Dar al-Ifta tries to block the Islamic organizations that exploit Islamophobia as a way to attract more young people who suffer from racism in the West.

In other words, the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta knows that the incidents of Islamophobia and the mistreatment of Muslims in Western countries played a major role in pushing a number of Muslim youth in Europe towards extremist organizations. The organization recognized this paradox and amplified it, which enabled it to attract some five thousand Europeans, which means that confronting Islamophobia means drying up the human resources of extremist organizations.

Regionally, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has ruled that its religious role requires it to take a stand against extremism and terrorism. In a moderate position, it has adapted itself to the radical confrontation of intellect and the ideological rehabilitation of extremists before reintegrating them into society.

The World Center for the Fight against Extremist Thought was established in 2015. The Center identifies itself on its website as the world’s foremost authority in combating extremist ideology and promoting a culture of moderation.

The Center seeks to achieve this by monitoring and analyzing extremist thinking and anticipating it in order to confront it with prevention. This is done through the cooperation of the Center with international institutions or States that wish to combat extremist ideology.

In Abu Dhabi, the Council of Muslim Elders was established in 2014. The Council defines itself on the official website as an independent international body aimed at promoting peace in Muslim societies. The council is based in Abu Dhabi, setting the unity of the Islamic nation as its target, and extinguishing the fires that consume its body as a target.

Al-Azhar did not miss the crisis of countering extremist ideology. Al-Azhar has established a counter-terrorism unit, called the Cafe Front where Al-Azhar sends its scholars to coffee shops and places that are considered shelter for the unemployed in order to raise awareness of the dangers of terrorism and thought.

Al-Azhar’s attempt to counter extremist ideology has prevented non-Azharis from practicing sermons in mosques, except by obtaining a license. The fatwa was limited to satellite channels on certain numbers of Al-Azhar scholars, with the aim of blocking some organizations that use media platforms to promote their extremist ideology. Al-Azhar also established its own satellite channel called Al-Azhar, which is directly affiliated to Al-Azhar’s sheikh, in order to confront the behavior of private religious channels.

In the end, we can say that the ideological confrontation of extremist organizations should not be isolated from military confrontation, but that their correlation makes counter-terrorism policies more effective.