Presidential Rhetoric And Campaign

Presidential Rhetoric and Campaign

Osama bin Laden

12-9-04

Osama bin Laden is a political icon to the people of Afghanistan. He has created a modern day crusade against western civilization that people support because of his rhetorical ability to create, not only through speech, but also through his actions, an insightful philosophy that has moved thousands of people into action against the United States. He was able to achieve this because he chose a religious path that people supported; he took influential persons in his life and his familial background into his radical stance on Islamic government and created an historical movement that has affected thousands of people.

Osama bin Laden was born into a wealthy Saudi family that owned a very successful construction company, the Saudi bin Laden Group. This company was started by bin Laden's father, Muhammed. With this company, Muhammed bin Laden was able to build three of the most religious mosques located in Medina, Mecca, and Jerusalem. Osama bin Laden, in his later years would take this as one of the greatest honors bestowed upon his family. ("Through Our Enemies' Eyes" pg. 82) His father, besides building the religious mosques, left his fifty-two children, including Osama, with a very strong devotion to Islamic religion.

Because of this strict background with Islamic religion Osama bin Laden attended schools located in Medina and in Mecca. Both places provided Osama with alliances that supported him in his beliefs, in the past and in the present with his education at both secondary and university levels. Throughout his education, he came across three of the most influential people in his life, Taqi al-Din Ibn Tammiyah, Mohammed Qutb (a.k.a. Sayyid Qutb Ibrahim Husayn Shadhill) and Shaykh Abdullah Azzam.

Mohammed Qutb is referred to as the "brains behind Osama." (http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/~jdouglas/F02finalart9.pdf). During the late 1940's Qutb spent a few years as an educator. During his time there, he experienced things that completely turned him off to the ways of the west. He described the U.S. as "materialistic and occupied with topics of money, cars, and movie stars." He also described Americans as, "crass people who were generally disinterested in life's spiritual and aesthetic dimensions." (http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/~jdouglas/F02finalart9.pdf). This led to his involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood. He found that the bond held between the civilians of the U.S. was equivalent to fellowship found in the Islamic religion, but the bond between the Muslim Brotherhood was something that was more meaningful to him because of his devotion to his religion. The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic organization that's goal is to "build the Muslim individual." (http://www.ummah.org.uk/ikhwan/) In order to do this they reject any other religious affiliations that do not focus on the Quran or Sunna (http://www.ummah.org.uk/ikhwan/). Because of his connection with the Muslim Brotherhood, many went on to categorize him as an "Islamist." "An 'Islamist' is one who views Islam as the total way of life and desires to have Islamic law implemented in every aspect of life." (http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/~jdouglas/F02finalart9.pdf)

Qutb's radical affiliation with this group as well as his Islamist perspectives parallel another one of Osama bin Laden's major influences, Taqi al-Din Ibn Tammiyah.

Taqi al-Din Ibn Tammiyah is, in essence, the provoker of intolerance amongst Islamists against any differing displays of Islamic religion. He is also a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, "which support violence "under the guise of Islamic revivalism and fundamentalism." (http://ddc.aub.edu.lb/projects/pspa/al-ahbash.html). As Professor Iftikar H. Malik had argued, "Tammiyah established jihad as an ideology for self-defense," thus creating an alliance amongst devout Islamists, such as Osama bin Laden ("Through Our Enemies' Eyes," pg. 84).

The third most influential person, according to the anonymous author of "Through Our Enemies' Eyes", in bin Laden's life was Shaykh Abdullah Azzam. Azzam was a teacher at the King Abdul Aziz University when bin Laden attended school there. Some of the ideologies that he possessed were similar if not verbatim to Tammiyah and Qutb. Besides being involved with jihad and being a radical Islamist, he was actively involved with the formation of Al-Qaeda. Al Qaeda is an organization that Osama bin Laden is a part of. Al-Qaeda is a group of Islamists that have many of the same views as the Muslim Brotherhood and jihad.

Osama bin Laden's rhetorical vision has developed into an Islamic phenomenon. Although Osama was subjected at an early age to Islamic extremists, he became more involved and devoted to his religion after he had encountered the three pivotal figures in his religious movement, Tammiyah, Qutb, and Azzam. These three men were able to instill in bin Laden the beliefs that have carried him from young adulthood into a middle-aged man who has created one of the largest terrorist regimes in history. Without these men in his life he would not have been subject to the extreme hatred they had toward Americans and the ability to use rhetoric to his advantage. Much of the language that was used by these three Islamists is similar to that of Osama's in that they both speak of a western society that is corrupt and needs to be corrected. All of them create a rhetoric based off this and their religion.

In addition to the subjection to radical ideals and beliefs by these men, bin Laden, himself, witnessed much of what jihad, Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists were about before he even came to encounter Tammiyah, Qutb, and Azzam. As a child, bin Laden's father raised all of his children in a very strict Muslim background. He was quoted as saying, "It is my desire that my children grow up in the atmosphere of jihad and absorb Islam in its true spirit." ("Through Our Enemies' Eyes" pg. 82). By saying these things to his son, Muhammed bin Laden created a rhetorical vision for his sons and the paths in which they were to pursue once he was no longer there to oversee all of the events that occurred in their lives.

Even when his father was around bin Laden spent much of his childhood surrounded by the religious mosques that his father had built. The anonymous author of "Through Our Enemies' Eyes" has found that Osama

"Spent much of his childhood in Mecca and Medina and so was exposed early and for long periods of time to the atmosphere of Islam's