Today’s Sinai mosque attack represents a new front in the campaign of sectarian strife pursued by ISIS affiliates in Egypt. At least 235 people were killed during a combined bomb and rifle attack at the Al Rawdah mosque in the northern Sinai town of Bir Al Abed, about 75 miles west of the Israeli border. As worshippers were leaving Friday prayers, a bomb exploded within the mosque. Immediately after the explosion, four off-road vehicles arrived, filled with attackers who began firing on people leaving the mosque and on ambulances and others coming to help.
Although no group has claimed responsibility yet, the most likely perpetrator is “Wilayat Sinai,”– “The Sinai State” – the ISIS group that is most active in the Sinai Peninsula. This is the latest example of the increasing sectarian violence against Sufis by Wilayat Sinai over the past year. In December 2016, they threatened Sufis with violence if they did not renounce their beliefs. In March of this year, they released a 25-minute video showing the beheading of two Sufi clerics. Today’s massacre is a dramatic escalation.
The motivations in the Sinai mosque attack are similar to those in the attacks on Christians.
For the past several years, ISIS affiliates in Egypt have been attacking Coptic Christians. Copts are the ancient Christian community that has survived in Egypt since the days of the Apostles in the early Christian Church. This is the first time, however, that an ISIS group has attacked a mosque frequented by Sufi Muslims.
Motivation for Sinai Mosque Attack
The motivations in the Sinai mosque attack are similar to those in the attacks on Christians. Hard core violent Islamists want to wipe out competing religious ideologies, to ensure that only their interpretation of religion is available. They want to reduce human freedom to a binary choice: either follow their orders, or disobey God. Any belief system that offers an alternative path to eternal salvation is a direct threat to their ability to dominate other human beings. Killing or expelling adherents of other religious beliefs helps them eliminate those alternatives. They call it “purifying the land.”
They also want to divide the population, and weaken the support for the government by certain demographic groups. Egyptian minorities such as Coptic Christians and Sufis depend on the government for protection. They have given strong support to the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi precisely because he has cracked down on Islamist militants. ISIS wants to show these populations that the government is weak, and cannot protect them from ISIS.
The Strong Horse
This helps ISIS cultivate an aura of invincibility and inevitability, which they expect will cow other Sunni Muslims into submission. As Osama bin Laden famously remarked, when the people see a strong horse and a weak one, they will naturally follow the strong horse. Attacking minority populations with impunity not only “purifies the land,” but it allows the tiny minority of violent Islamists to exert control over the vast majority of Muslims.
Hardline Wahhabi Sunni Muslims regard Sufis as apostates.
So why attack this mosque? Hardline Wahhabi Sunni Muslims regard Sufis as apostates. Whereas traditional Sunni and Shi’a preaching emphasizes following God’s law in order to get to Heaven and avoid Hell, Sufi Islam emphasizes an absolute love of God as the motivation for following God’s law. They study the Quran and the ahadith (traditional sayings of Mohammed and his inner circle) in order to understand God’s love for humanity, and to know God’s law.
However, over the centuries of the development of Sufism, several scholars who articulated aspects of Sufi doctrine became venerated by Sufi Muslims as saints. They celebrate the birthdays of these saints, visit their tombs, and dedicate shrines to them. Wahhabi Muslims view this as heresy akin to idol worship, which is the practice most strictly forbidden in Islamic teachings. The more strict Wahhabis, in fact, don’t even celebrate their own birthdays, but only the birthday of Mohammed. They bury their dead in unmarked graves in the empty desert, lest by venerating the dead, Muslims risk diluting their attention to God. Wahhabis consider Sufis apostates, and ISIS considers them legitimate targets for destruction.
ISIS hopes to turn majority Sunni Muslims away from Sufis, Shi’a, Ahmadis, and countless other Islamic sects, as well as from Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion, by making other belief systems look weak and ineffective. They hope that by eliminating competing religious beliefs from their regions, they will end up in complete control of vast numbers of people whom they can use to dominate the world. This attack is another step in their twisted strategy to accomplish that agenda.
