Bin Laden believed that only the restoration of Sharia
law would “set things right” in the Muslim world, and that alternatives such as
“Pan-Arabism, socialism communism, democracy” must be opposed. This belief, in
conjunction with violent jihand, has sometimes been called Qutbism after being
promoted by Sayyid Qutb Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of
Mullah Omar’s Taliban, was “the only
Islamic country” in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right
what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United
States and sometimes by other non-Mulim states, the need to eliminate the state
of Israel, and the necessity of forcing the United States to withdraw from the
Middle East.
He also called on Americans to “ reject the immoral acts of
fornication, homosexuality, gambling, and usury, “in an October 2002 letter. Bin
Laden’s ideology included the idea that civilians, including women and
children, are legitimate targets of jihads. Bin Laden was anti-Semitic, and
delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: “These Jews are masters
of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this
world or the next.” Shia Muslims have been listed along with “heretics, and
Israel” as the four principal “enernies of Islam” at ideology classes of bin
Laden’s al-Qaeda organization.
Bin Laden opposed music on religious grounds, and his
attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in “earth-moving
machinery and genetic engineering of plants” on the one hand, but rejected
“chilled water” on the other. His view points and methods of achieving them had
led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from The
New York Times, the BBC Qatari news station Al-jazeera, analysis such as Peter
Bergen, Michael Scheeur, Marc Sageman, and Bruse Hoffman and the was indicated
on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.
Bin Laden overall strategy much larger enemies such as
the Soviet Union and United States was to lure a long a War of Attrition in
Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never
surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enermy
nation. Al-Qaeda manuals clearly outline this strategy. The Soviet Union
collapsed following years of fighting in Afghanistan, and several prominent
authors have stated that the United States was on the verge of suffering the
same fate, losing countless trillions of dollars to the ongoing conflict. In
this sense, some have credited bin laden as the one person who was successful
in his fight
both of the world superpowers.