Well that’s encouraging.
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Prominent jihadists are twice as likely to have studied science at university than subjects related to Islam, according to a new survey, while British fighters appear to know the least about their religion.
The report, which analysed the histories of 100 of the most prominent jihadist leaders of the last three decades, said that despite claiming to be the sole interpreters of Islamic theology, they often had little or no training in the subject.
Osama bin Laden himself went to a secular school and studied economics and business at university, and had little formal Islamic training.
This was important because the report also found that personal networks were more important in recruiting and promoting jihadists than individual jihadist organisations.
Many jihadists had been recruited from non-violent Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, and radicalised in the wars they then went to fight.
The report, by the Centre on Religion and Geopolitics, is backed by a separate analysis conducted on thousands of files recently leaked of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) entrance and exit papers for individual jihadists. It also found that many had little or no knowledge of Islamic law when they arrived.
Nearly all of the 18 Britons whose files were released to the Telegraph put “basic” in answer to the question of how extensive their knowledge of Sharia law was.
Analysis of all 2,000 Isil fighters’ entrance forms, revealed that British fighters were among the least knowledgeable on their religion. Foreign jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Tunisia were most likely to answer “advanced” to the question.
Rising concern about “home-grown jihadists” has coincided with a military approach which focuses on “defeating” individual groups, such as al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, or Isil in Iraq and Syria.
However, the report found that jihadist groups’ ideologies and structures were flexible and that many senior jihadists moved from group to group.
The fact that half the 100 studies had begun their careers in non-violent Islamist movements - a quarter in the Muslim Brotherhood - is a blow to those who have argued that these groups should be encouraged as “alternatives” to radical Islamism.
The report also found that at senior levels at least the common idea that jihadists came from “marginalised” communities or were under-educated was also false. A quarter of the group had either worked for government agencies themselves, or had close relatives who did.
Around half had attended university, with 57 per cent of them studying science subjects, compared to only 28 per cent studying Islamic subjects.
However, the report confirms some other common assumptions. It refers to the practice of Islamic societies - including at major British universities - to invite radical speakers who are in fact not recognised scholars.
Universities should “place a responsibility on managerial and student bodies to ensure that extremist viewpoints face intellectual challenge, especially during events and debates hosting controversial speakers,” it said.
“Many serving faculty members are more qualified than external speakers to address such topics.”
University College, London, was widely criticised after it was revealed that the so-called “underpants bomber”, Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to detonate a bomb in a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, had run its Islamic Society, inviting radical speakers to address it.
His degree was in mechanical engineering.
The most notorious modern British jihadi, Mohammed Emwazi or “Jihadi John”, was one of several to have studied at Westminster University.
The report finds that most senior jihadists have spent time in jail either before or after being radicalised. It says that governments should separate jihadists from other prisoners, and give them compulsory lessons to counter radical arguments.
“This should include a critical study of the core texts of the Salafi-jihadi ideology, the revisionist literature produced by leading figures and groups that have renounced violence, and a study of the works of major Islamic scholars through history in order to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the role of Islam in modern society,” it says.
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