The purpose of this lecture today is to examine how Osama bin Laden built on the ideas of Sayyid Qutb from the 1950s and 60s. Ultimately, he modernized them and built an ideology that continues to drive Al-Qaeda and like-minded groups to this very day. Osama Bin Laden was born in 1957 in Saudi Arabia. He was the 17th out of 54 children sired by Mohammed Bin Laden who was reported to have had up to 22 different wives. Now Mohammed Bin Laden immigrated from Yemen with nothing. But built ultimately what became one of the largest construction companies in the world. He built strong ties with the Saudi royal family, and, ultimately, received a contract exceeding a billion dollars to modernize the Grand Mosque in Mecca. This contract and his ties led to widespread contracts throughout Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. At the time that Mohammad bin Laden died in 1968, it's estimated that he bequeathed a fortune of about $11 billion to his extensive family. And despite what happened with 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, the Saudi Bin Laden Company continues to this very day. And it has revenues in excess of billions of dollars per year. Now Bin Laden had an unexceptional childhood, ultimately, he went to University in Jeddah. The school of Management and Economics, obviously, to prepare him to participate in the family business. But while he was there he also had a course in Islamic studies that was run by two important figures in his life. The first was Mohammed Qutb, who was actually the brother of Sayyid Qutb. And the second Abdul Azzam, who was a cleric from Palestine, trained in Egypt. And ultimately, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. These would be influential figures, especially Azzam, as Bin Laden matured. Now let's pause here to take a look at the world in the 1970s in this region as Bin Laden was coming of age. And was developing his political ideas and ideology. First, in Qutb's Egypt in 1970, the reign of Gamal Abdel Nasser ended with his death. However, he was succeeded by a fellow Egyptian strong man, Anwar Sadat. Sadat was part of the Free Soldiers movement that brought Nasser to power in 1956, toppling the monarchy and beginning to end British rule there. Sadat very much broke from Nasser's economic policies. But very much continued in his policy of suppressing the Muslim brotherhoods. And other radical elements in Egyptian society that continued to be the principal political opposition to this military dictatorship that Sadat ran. Also during this decade, the Arab-Israeli conflict, continue to its course. In 1967, in response to armies massing on Israel's borders, Israel launched a preemptive strike, which was ultimately a smashing success of the Six-Day War. It pushed back and gained territory on all fronts. Taking the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, unifying Jerusalem, and pushing other Arab armies to the West Bank of the Jordan River. And taking the Golan Heights from Syria. The conflict continued in 1973, these same Arab armies engaged in a surprise attack in 1973 called the Yom Kippur War. This was probably one of the greatest points in Israel's history, maybe up until the current day, because it was a surprise. And the Arab armies did encroach and have the Israeli Army back on its heels. And when the war, the results of the war, were still in doubt about 10 days in of fierce fighting, the United States decided to essentially restock all of Israel's armaments. And engage in a huge airlift of weaponry, material, sophisticated aircraft. Now by the time much of that material made it's way to Israel, the war had probably turned its tide and Israel was beginning to push the Arab Armies back. America's coming to the defense of Israel when the Arab Armies had its first success against the Jewish state, was definitely something that impressed upon Osama Bin Laden. And in some ways, this event was preceded to see as his coming of age. Also, five years later, Anwar Sadat, who had led Egypt into this disastrous war, ultimately changed heart and became a peacemaker. He traveled to Jerusalem in 1978, he came to Camp David to engage in peace negotiations run by the United States with his long time adversary in some regards, Menachem Begin. 1979 they signed a historic peace treaty. Sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in exchange for peace between the two nations. This, of course, was seen as an apostasy by some, especially the radical factions within Egypt and elsewhere in the region. And in 1980, during a military parade, Sadat was assassinated by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an organization, ultimately, that was run by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became a partner with Bin Laden in Al-Qaeda. A third noteworthy development was in Iran. Of course, in 1979 the Shah of Iran, the longstanding Shah, was toppled in a revolution led by Ayatollah Khamenei. Here, he is seen in 1979 returning from exile to lead the revolution that ultimately created the Islamic Republic that exists to this day. Now Iran was the biggest Shia Islam population in the world. And Ayatollah Khamenei was a Shia cleric and, of course, the Bin Laden and Qutb were Sunni. Qutb called for the restoration for all Muslims to the practices that took place during the generation of the prophet. And this was before Shia Islam even existed. So Shia Islam is not something Qutb would have recognized as true pure Islam. Despite that, the fact that Muslim people were able to topple a secular dictator, a dictator aligned with the West. And take control of a population and run a theocratic religious state was certainly seen as inspiration. And possibly an example that Bin Laden gained inspiration from and his followers. So, in 1980, Bin Laden drops out from college. He never finishes his degree, and he goes to Peshawar, a city on the border of the tribal region of Pakistan. And not very far from the border of Afghanistan. Essentially, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Bin Laden's responsibilities were to, in some ways, move much of the Saudi money that was coming to fund the Mujahideen that was coming to fight in Afghanistan. He went to Peshawar with Abdullah Azzam, his teacher at the University. And they formed a base house, which they called Sijill Al-Qaeda, which means register of the base. Of course, Al-Qaeda ultimately became the moniker for Bin Laden's movement. Again, with the meaning of the base. The function of the guest house was to provide a safe haven. And a waypoint for fighters coming from the Arab regions of the world to go take up arms against the Soviet and join the Mujahideen. So besides this organizing function, Bin Laden also organized a group of actual Arab fighters that entered into Afghanistan to join in the fight. Now Bin Laden takes a lot more credit for the toppling of the Soviet army then he deserves. But he also did engage in battles with his group of Arab fighters, and apparently fought bravely. But again, probably in small numbers in skirmishes that were not really decisive in this battle, which was fought by a very large group of insurgents. And opposition fighters coming from Afghanistan and other parts of the world. After the defeat of the Soviet Army in 1989, Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. But in August 1990, Saddam Hussein's army invaded Kuwait and took over the country. In response to this, the United States said this aggression will not stand. And it developed an alliance that included a number of Arab countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. And they were given permission to bring troops, massive amounts of troops into Saudi Arabia, which was the launching point for the war against Saddam Hussein to oust his army from Kuwait. Now the clerical establishment in Saudi Arabia give its blessing to the infusion of US troops for this purpose despite that Osama Bin Laden was outraged. He pleaded with the Saudi Royal Family to let his fighters that had come back from Afghanistan, allow them to be the vanguard to protect the holy sites of Mecca and Medina and the Saudi Royal Family from the possible encroachments by the Iraqi army. The Saudi royal family had nothing to do with that. They rejected his idea, and allowed their powerful American allies to come. But Bin Laden was outspoken in his opposition, and was thrown in jail for this. And in 1991 he was actually exiled from the country. Bin Laden takes refuge in 1991 in the Sudan, where he landed there with the permission of the Sudanese government. And begins to organize radicals from all across the region including many of the veterans of the campaign in Afghanistan. And other radical groups such as the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Ayman al-Zawahiri. During this period, Bin Laden takes credit for opposing US intervention in Somalia. As you'll recall the first president Bush, sent troops to Somalia towards the end of his term in 1992 to break the famine. And to try and bring some stability to that war torn region. In 1993, in an effort to capture warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, there was a battle at Mogadishu that ended in tragedy for U.S. troops and many, many Somalis. A helicopter was downed, rescue efforts failed, and 19 U.S. service members were killed. President Clinton quickly withdrew troops from Somalia, which Osama Bin Laden ultimately interpreted as a sign of weakness. Due to this and a number of political occurrences, the government of Sudan was greatly pressured by Saudi Arabia and the United States to expel Bin Laden, which they did in 1996. Bin Laden decided to return to Tora Bora, where he had built in the Afghan, on the Hindu Kush, on the Afghan Pakistan border this complex series of caves high in the mountains and in great seclusion. A number of months after Bin Laden settled there, this is when the Taliban took full control of the Afghan government. And began to impose its strict regime, dictating strict Islamic practices throughout Kabul. And much of the southern part of the country, as well as implementing a strong Islamic form of justice. So this is the historic backdrop. On the one hand, Egypt is continuing to have a secular, oppressive rule. Israel is dominating its neighbors militarily. The United States has intervened in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and many other places, and built it's presence up in the region. On the other hand, from Bin Laden's perspective, there have been theocratic Islamic rule in two different countries. First in Iran, and then in Afghanistan. So, it's against this backdrop, that Bin Laden starts his effort to build the Al-Qaeda into a global movement, a movement to fulfill these objectives that he set out.
