Islamist Militancy in Bangladesh: A Pyramid Root Cause Model

211 Pages·2021·4.235 MB·English

by  Shafi Md Mostofa

CRITICAL STUDIES OF
THE ASIA-PACIFIC
SERIES EDITOR: MARK BEESON
Islamist Militancy in
Bangladesh
A Pyramid Root Cause Model

Shafi Md Mostofa
Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific
Series Editor
Mark Beeson, Political Science & International Relations, University
of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
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Shafi Md Mostofa
Islamist Militancy
in Bangladesh
A Pyramid Root Cause Model
Shafi Md Mostofa
World Religions and Culture
University of Dhaka
Dhaka, Bangladesh
ISSN 2662-222X ISSN 2662-2238 (electronic)
Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific
ISBN 978-3-030-79170-4 ISBN 978-3-030-79171-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79171-1
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This book is dedicated to Professor (Emeritus) Howard Brasted, Professor
Helen Ware, Professor Habib Zafarullah and Dr. Natalie Doyle, who
helped shape my ideas.
Foreword
Islamist Militancy in Bangladesh: A Pyramid Root Cause Model promises
to be an important book. In the first place, it turns the spotlight on
Bangladesh as a significant hub of Islamist militancy. Although the third
largest Muslim majority country in the world, it has tended to be over-
shadowed in the scholarly literature on religious extremism and Islamist
terrorismbyboththeMiddleEastanditsformerconstituentSouthAsian
partner Pakistan, from whom it separated in 1971. Indeed, it has been
nuclear-armed Pakistan that has usually taken centre stage as the key
regional training centre and entrepot of terrorists.
Since 9/11 especially, Bangladesh has experienced several mass acts
of terrorist violence, notably the co-ordinated bomb attacks in August
2005 that occurred in all but one of the country’s 64 districts, and
the 12-hour siege of the Holey Artisan café in 2016 when a number
of international tourists were killed. Periodically, journalists, academics
and bloggers are assassinated for expressing opinions that are declared
by local militant groups to be anti-Islamic. That branches of Al Qaeda
and Daesh/Islamic State have also been set up in the last decade would
suggest that Bangladesh is increasingly being seen as a fertile ground for
terrorist activity and recruitment in its own right.
Yettherehavebeenveryfewscholarlystudiesofthegrowingincidence
of religious militancy in Bangladesh or attempts to locate its sources and
drivers. And bit by bit Islamist fundamentalism continues to chip away at
the secular identity Bangladesh constitutionally embraced when parting
vii
viii FOREWORD
company with Pakistan 50 years ago. While Islamist militancy is not new
and has posed a serious challenge to law and order in Bangladesh since
its traumatic birth, particularly following the return of battle-hardened
veteransfromtheSoviet-Afghanwarof1979–1989,itconstitutesaneven
more obvious and present danger now.
Inthesecondplace,IslamistMilitancyinBangladesh:A PyramidRoot
CauseModel notonlyattemptstoexplainthishistoryandthecontextout
ofwhichIslamistmilitancyhasemerged,butitalsoconstructsa‘pyramid
rootcausemodel’thattiesallthecausativevariablesintoaconnectedanal-
ysis of what is happening in the period 2009–2019, the book’s chrono-
logical focus. Based on an exhaustive review of the relevant literature and
twoextensivefieldtripsinwhichover70interviewswereconductedwith
avarietyofexperts,thisstudyinvestigatesboththelocalandglobalfactors
servingtoradicalizeMuslimyouthsandrecruitthemtothecauseoflocal,
regional and international terrorism.
One of the more interesting findings to emerge is that most of the
young militants are drawn from the upper-middle classes, are gener-
ally well educated, and more often than not are the products more of
seculareducationalratherthannecessarilytraditionalreligiousinstitutions.
What helps to radicalize them are a kaleidoscope of grievances stemming
from a lack of employment opportunity, disaffection with government at
all levels, populist perceptions of widespread corruption and nepotism,
personal crises and disillusionment with secular democratic responses to
the problems of widespread poverty and persistent disadvantage.
But the primary driving force the author of this volume, Dr. Shafi
Md Mostofa, singles out is Islamist ideology with its simple if seduc-
tive argument that Islam is the solution. What puts a premium on this
argument is the theologically based narrative that accompanies it, namely
that end-time cosmic war involving the ultimate sacred battle between
good and evil is just around the corner. Propagated by both Al Qaeda
and Islamic State through social media and cyber technology especially,
but also through professionally produced magazines like Resurgence and
Dabiq,themessageisclearthatfightinginthefinalwaronearthwiththe
forcesofunbelief—certainlyinBangladeshbutparticularlyinIndiainline
with an ancient Hadith prophecy attributed to prophet Muhammad—is
theultimateactofreligiousdutythatwillguaranteethetriumphofIslam
astheonlyreligionleftinthepost-apocalypseworld.Whetherornotsuch
messagescontinuetoresonatewithyoungBangladeshisafterCOVID-19
FOREWORD ix
or actually be reinforced by the pandemic, Dr. Shafi Mostofa does not
speculate.
Hebelieves,however,thatdespitethecrackdownbythecurrentAwami
League government on Islamist militant groups and the potential demise
ofISBangladesh,itisveryprobablethattheprocessofradicalizationwill
continue. For until the underlying causes of religiously inspired militancy
areconfrontedandaddressedanti-governmentandcertainlyanti-western
sentiment will remain strong and likely grow stronger.
I have no hesitation in commending this book to those actively
studying Islamist radicalization not only in Bangladesh, but elsewhere
as well. Dr. Mostofa’s investigation sets out to break new ground in
explaining both its causes and trajectory and in his ‘pyramid root cause
model’ arguably achieves this. Although clearly a purpose-built model,
the clues it provides are of a kind to suggest that it may have a wider
trans-national application. Overall, his treatment is sufficiently clear and
uncomplicated to appeal to the general reader looking to understand
the phenomenon of Islamist militancy. Having worked with Dr. Mostofa
at the University of New England, Australia, where he completed his
doctorate in 2019, I look forward to his being recognized as a leading
analyst in this field as he rises through the profession at Dhaka university.
Dr. Howard Brasted
Emeritus Professor of History and Islamic Studies
University of New England
Armidale, NSW, Australia
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Revisiting Islamist Radicalization Puzzle 3
1.1.1 Theories of Radicalization 16
1.1.2 Models of Radicalization 18
1.2 Methodology 24
1.3 Limitations 26
References 27
2 The Islamization of Bangladesh 37
2.1 Introduction 37
2.2 The Spread of Islam in Bengal 38
2.3 Islamization from Below 41
2.3.1 Sufism or Popular Islam 41
2.3.2 Neo-Fundamentalism (Wahhabism, Salafism
and Deobandism) 43
2.3.3 Islamism 47
2.3.4 Contemporary Islamic Movements
in Bangladesh 50
2.3.4.1 The Barelvi Movement 50
2.3.4.2 The Tablighi jama’at 51
2.3.4.3 The Hefazat-e-Islam 53
2.4 Islamization from Above 58
2.4.1 The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) 59
2.4.2 The Jatiya Party (JP) 61
xi