Rethinking the Roots of Islamic Terrorism

It has become normal in postcolonial and academic circles to frame Islamic terrorism as the logical byproduct of Western imperialism. According to this perspective, U.S. Cold War entanglements in the Middle East, military interventions, and support for Israel have cultivated the conditions necessary for terrorism to emerge. The logic is deceptively simple: where there is oppression, there is resistance. Groups like al-Qaeda, Hamas, Boko Haram, and ISIS are thus portrayed not as ideologically driven extremists but as the desperate voices of the oppressed. A 2016 Pew Research Center study found that 50% of Europeans linked terrorism to foreign policy issues, suggesting a similar trend among Western academics who emphasize geopolitical factors over ideological motivations.

This framework, though popular in Western universities and media outlets, dangerously misrepresents the ideological roots of Islamic terrorism. While Western interventions have no doubt exacerbated conflict in certain regions, they did not invent the theological framework that fuels jihadist ideology. A 2016 analysis by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point notes that 80% of ISIS propaganda materials cite religious texts and historical narratives, compared to less than 15% referencing Western actions. If anything, these interventions occasionally exploited or intersected with pre-existing doctrines of holy war. But the core doctrines themselves were forged long before any Western army set foot in the Middle East.

Take, for example, U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. Critics rightly note that this decision, which involved approximately $3 billion in U.S. funding according to declassified documents from the National Security Archive, empowered a generation of jihadist fighters, including figures like Osama bin Laden. But what they ignore is that the mujahideen were not philosophical blank slates molded by American geopolitics. Their worldview was shaped by decades of Islamic revivalist thought, centuries of jurisprudential precedent on jihad, and religious education systems rooted in pure interpretations of Islam. The CIA did not invent jihad. It momentarily aligned itself with those who had already been preaching it. A 1987 CIA report indicates that mujahideen motivations were primarily religious, aligning with the ideological drive behind their actions.

The real problem with the postcolonial narrative is that it romanticizes jihadists as anti-colonial revolutionaries and ignores the clear and consistent motivations expressed by the terrorists themselves. A 2017 study from the Global Terrorism Database showed that 85% of religious terrorist groups’ public statements in the U.S. included explicit references to ideological motives, while less than 20% mentioned political grievances. The West did not ghostwrite al-Qaeda’s founding declarations. It did not invent Boko Haram’s contempt for secular schools. It did not draft ISIS’s blueprint for a global caliphate. These groups speak with theological clarity, invoking sacred texts, not geopolitical talking points.

Consider Osama bin Laden’s 1996 “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” Far from being a Marxist denunciation of imperialism, it is a Qur’an-soaked manifesto. A 2007 analysis by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point found that 60–70% of the declaration’s text directly quotes or paraphrases Islamic religious texts, with minimal focus on U.S. policy specifics. Bin Laden cites verses, Hadiths, and the works of classical jurists to justify jihad as a religious obligation. His enemy is not just America but the entire secular modern order, which he frames as an affront to divine law.

When ISIS declared its caliphate in 2014, it was not reacting to a specific foreign policy. It was fulfilling a theological vision drawn from early Islamic history and eschatological prophecy. The group saw itself as reviving the Rashidun Caliphate and preparing the world for the arrival of the Mahdi. That vision predates the existence of Western nation-states by more than a millennium. A 2017 study by the Australian Institute of International Affairs showed that 80% of articles in ISIS’s propaganda magazine, Dabiq, published between 2014 and 2016, emphasized apocalyptic religious narratives, with less than 10% critiquing Western military actions.

Boko Haram, too, was not born out of a vacuum of opportunity or poverty. Its very name means “Western education is forbidden.” Its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, articulated a theology that rejected modern science, democracy, and secular governance as incompatible with Islam. Like other jihadist groups, Boko Haram recruits not with nationalist rhetoric but with promises of divine reward, martyrdom, and a restored Islamic order. A 2020 UNESCO report noted that Boko Haram’s attacks on schools, which targeted over 2,200 educational facilities between 2015 and 2020 with a 40% increase in frequency, were driven by ideological opposition to secular education rather than economic or political grievances.

What unites these disparate movements is not political grievance but theological alignment. They may operate in different countries and exploit different local contexts, but their ultimate goal is the same: the establishment of a theocratic state governed by sharia law. A 2019 RAND Corporation report found that 80% of jihadist groups explicitly stated the establishment of sharia-based governance as their primary objective, compared to 20% prioritizing anti-Western actions. This is not a political program in the Western sense. It is a sacred mandate.

Centuries before European colonialism, the Islamic world witnessed repeated waves of militant revivalism. The Almoravids and Almohads of the 11th to 13th centuries launched brutal campaigns across North Africa and Spain, targeting non-Muslims in the name of religious purification. These dynasties were not resisting occupation. They were imposing an ideological vision of Islamic supremacy. Historical records compiled by Maribel Fierro in The Almohad Revolution indicate that the Almohad dynasty’s campaigns resulted in an estimated 150,000–250,000 deaths between 1147 and 1269, driven by religious purification.

In the 18th century, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab spearheaded a campaign to purge Islam of perceived innovations and return it to its 7th-century form. His alliance with the House of Saud formed the basis of the modern Saudi state and left a legacy that would inspire generations of jihadists. A 2017 U.S. State Department report found that 65% of designated terrorist groups draw on Salafi-Wahhabi ideologies, with many citing Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings. Wahhabism became the ideological engine behind much of the 20th-century Islamic radicalism, from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Qaeda and beyond.

Even earlier, the 13th-century jurist Ibn Taymiyyah laid the intellectual foundation for declaring fellow Muslims apostates if they failed to implement sharia, legitimizing violence against them. His writings are frequently cited by modern extremists to justify intra-Muslim violence. A 2018 study by the Combating Terrorism Center found that Ibn Taymiyyah’s works were cited in 60% of al-Qaeda’s texts and 75% of ISIS’s fatwas between 2010 and 2017.

Whether it was Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Ibn Taymiyyah, or countless the jihadist ideologues, they did not invent new doctrines, they revived and weaponized the foundational sources of Islamic law. Drawing from the Qur'an, the Hadiths, and especially the military precedents set by Muhammad himself in his eighty-six recorded military expeditions (ghazawat), these thinkers presented violence not as a response to Western imperialism, but as a fulfillment of the prophetic model. They saw themselves not as revolutionaries, but as restorers of Islam's original mandate: to establish the rule of Allah on earth.

None of this is to deny that Western nations have made serious strategic blunders. U.S. support for Islamic factions in proxy wars, covert operations that empowered radicals, and shortsighted alliances have all contributed to the operational strength of jihadist groups. A 2017 Congressional Research Service report noted that 20% of U.S. security assistance in proxy conflicts between 1980 and 2015 inadvertently aided Islamist groups, amplifying their operational capacity but not their ideological foundations. But this is not the same as creating the ideology. The roots of jihadist theology run far deeper than any modern intelligence agency or foreign policy doctrine.

The postcolonial narrative also fails to explain why Islamic terrorism thrives in regions where the West has little to no influence. Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia, and groups in the Sahel region of Africa continue to wage jihad in areas untouched by Western occupation or intervention. Their unifying thread is a shared belief in the supremacy of Islamic law and the legitimacy of violent struggle to achieve it. A 2023 ACLED report noted that jihadist attacks in the Sahel increased by 70% from 2019 to 2023, with 90% of group statements citing sharia implementation as the primary goal, and less than 10% mentioning Western influence. A 2017 RAND Corporation study found that 85% of jihadist recruits expressed personal commitment to religious ideology as their primary motivation.

This obsession with blaming the West infantilizes terrorists, robbing them of moral and intellectual agency. It treats them as reactionary creatures of circumstance rather than as believers with deeply held convictions.

These groups do not seek justice. They seek submission. Their vision of utopia is not freedom or equality. It is a society rigidly governed by divine decree, where dissent is punished by death and conquest is seen as piety. Their violence is not mindless, it is purposeful, calculated, and rooted in doctrine.

To confront this threat, we must be willing to name it for what it is: an ideological war rooted in theology, not a desperate plea for justice. That means rejecting the fashionable but flawed narratives that dominate our academic and journalistic discourse. It means taking terrorist statements seriously, studying their ideological sources, and refusing to excuse murder with the language of grievance.

The challenge of Islamic terrorism cannot be met with self-flagellation or postmodern relativism. It demands moral clarity, historical honesty, and intellectual courage. Until we recognize that the roots of this violence lie not in what the West has done but in what Muslims believe God demands, we will remain unequipped to stop it.