Joe Beaty
October 30, 2006
Jr. Faith ‘06
Osama Bin Laden: Man of faith
Osama bin Laden was born March 10, 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia.1 He was born into a wealthy family
with connections to the Saudi royal family and a business of construction.
Osama started off a college boy, but supported the Muslim guerilla fighters in
1979 to rid Afghanistan of Soviet occupation.2 He used his money to
train recruits to fights invasion. Osama was born and raised a Sunni Muslim, in
high school he was taught by teachers who believed in the Muslim Brotherhood,
and in college he strengthened his Muslim faith and furthered his education
with the Muslim Brotherhood. The brotherhood focuses mainly on anti-Western
jihad. By 1984, Osama bin Laden had
established an organization named Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK, Office of Order
in English)3, which funneled money, arms,
and Muslim fighters of the world into the Afghan war. In 1988 Osama broke from
MAK because he wanted Arab fighters to have their own military section, not be
combined with the other Afghan militants. During the Gulf War, Osama tried to
support Saudi Arabia with his own troops, but was refused because the
government already had U.S. support. Osama denounced the Saudi government for
having U.S. troops and military bases that conflicted with sacred Muslim places
like Mecca and Medina4. In 1994 the Saudi Arabian government revoked
bin Laden’s citizenship because he fled the country to live in Sudan, and had
been blasphemous against his homeland. While in Sudan, Osama invested in
construction and agriculture, as well as broadcasting Islamic philosophy.
Egypt, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia all asked Sudan to get Osama out of the
country. He then moved back to Afghanistan and supported the Taliban
government. He is suspected of funding an Egyptian massacre.5
In 1998 bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa (religious edict) in the
name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,
declaring: “ [t]he ruling to kill the Americans and
their allies civilians and military - is an individual duty for every Muslim
who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to
liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque (in Makka) from their grip, and in order for their armies to
move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.
This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans
all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no
more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah'.”6
Essentially bin Laden told the Islamic community to fight their enemies to
restore religious sanctuaries because it is written in the Koran. Osama showed
his strong belief in the Koran by supposedly backing several attacks on the
United States, including 1998 United
States embassy bombings, the 2000 USS Cole bombing, the 2001 World Trade Center
Disaster, the 2002 Bali bombing, the 2003 Istanbul bombings, the 2004 Madrid
train bombings, and the 2005 London Bombings.7
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_laden
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/
