As I had posted earlier in another thread, the credit for the extreme radicalization goes back to Baqibillah (16th century), then to Sirhindi (17th century), followed by Sheikh Waliullah (18th century), Sayid Ahmed (19th century). Abu-ala-al-Mawdudi (20th century). Thus, every century has seen extreme fundamentalist preachers who held sway and ensured that the "hatf" was held aloft.
We need to understand history to appreciate the growth of this terrorism. It goes back to the 13th century in India when the Sufis (of the Qadriyah, Naqshbandi & Chishti) sects began to win over Hindus through their espousal of Islam which had close resemblance to Hindu belief systems at a theological level. The sufis thrived for three centuries in India. However, the Mughal rulers during this period continued to discriminate the Hindus. Later, Emperor Akbar, in the 16th century, made startling changes to this thesis and even attempted to create his own religion, Deen Ilahi. Even before that, he had begun to treat the Hindus as equals and announced himself as a
mujtahid (a practitioner of
ijtihad or creative interpretation of Koran). This incensed the ulema no ends, even of the sufi Naqshbandi variety.
The first to revolt against this was Sheikh Baqibillah, a Naqshbandi
alim in Akbar's court. However, it was his disciple, Sheikh Sirhindi in Jehangir's court, who really took it a higher plane. He was referred to as
Mujaddid-Alf-e-Thani (Reformer of the Second Islamic Millennium). In fact, he set about to reform the Naqshbandi sufi order itself. By all reckoning, his extreme thoughts were the first openly advocated reasons by 'High Church' for the eventual creation of Pakistan. Then came Shah Waliullah, again from the Naqshbandi sufi order, from the 18th century Delhi courts of a rapidly declining Mughal empire after Aurangzeb's barbarity. Educated in Makkah and Madinah, his recipe for arresting the decline was, as usual, a more rigorous dose of Islam. He was for more intensification of Aurangazeb's intolerance. Unfortunately for him, the decline of the Mughal empire continued, aided by the growing attack by the unholy alliance of the Hindus, Sikhs and the British. Into this picture came Sayid Ahmed (aka Berelvi) from Rai Bareilly. He was a disciple of Shah Waliullah's disciple. He was the one to actually declare 'jihad' in modern Islam to fight these evil forces. He was killed in Balakot in NWFP. That place is a place of pilgrimage and terror training camps by all Ahl-e-Hadith terror organizations in Pakistan such as LeT, JeM etc.
Radical Islam is usually credited to Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) of Egypt. But he in turn was inspired, among others, by Maulana Maududi (1903-1979), the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan
As posted above, Maulana Mawdudi came much later. Of course, Sayyid Qutb influnced whole generation of people. Again, as in the case of Indian muslims, the foundation was laid long before that. That belongs to Jamaluddin Afghani, who as the name implies, came from Afghan. He was influenced by the anti-British feeling among the Muslims after the 1857 War of Independence. This was translated by him into organizing resistance against the British/French in Egypt later on. Afghani travelled all over the region and organized resistance against the British and other Europeans. One of his Egyptian disciples was Abdu whose disciple was Mohammed Rida. Rida followed militant salfism. Hassan Al-Banna was influenced by Rida and founded Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928. Sayyid Qutb joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the 50s.
But, beyond all these, the religion of Islam has material within its Holy textbook that allows people to follow such extremist and abhorrent thoughts. That's what we should recognize.
