enforce compliance. The art hanging on Jeddah’s office walls, the books on living room shelves, the buildings on every other street corner, the calendar of public life, the speeches of public figures, the rituals of birth, seasons, and death—all of these drew heavily, if not exclusively, upon the idioms of Islam. Religion in Saudi Arabia was like gravity; it explained the order of objects and the trajectory of lives. The Koran was the kingdom’s constitution and the basis of all its laws. The kingdom had evolved into the most devout society on earth, not only in its constitutional and legal systems but also in the rhythms of its households, schools, and circles of friendship. The influx of European and American businessmen and advisers during the 1970s, and the widespread introduction of consumer technologies, did not alter Islam’s central place in the daily lives of the great majority of the kingdom’s subjects. Nasir Al-Bahri, a Yemeni who grew up in Jeddah and later served as Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard, recalled that particularly for those teenagers, like Osama, who were attracted to religious teaching
[t]he Islamic climate was everywhere in Saudi Arabia, and the Islamic spirit was in everything: in the councils of scholars and in religious gatherings…The entire society there was one fabric. It was impossible to find a house without the fragrance of Islamic trends, in any form. Thus if a household did not have a young man who observed the faith, it had a young woman who observed the faith. If it did not have a young woman who observed the faith, the household perhaps had an Islamic tape or an Islamic book.6
Osama offered one such touchstone of religious devotion to the extended Bin Laden family. His family saw him—some with skeptical tolerance, others with unequivocal admiration—as their clan’s remarkably committed young preacher and prayer leader. Just as European aristocratic families of past eras considered it a matter of course for one or two sons to join the priesthood, while others became officers in the military or advisers at court, so did the Bin Ladens regard it as unremarkable for some of their sons and daughters to answer Islam’s call. This choice did not in itself make Osama a particularly prestigious Bin Laden son—certainly not under Salem’s leadership. Business, aviation, engineering, interior design, and Salem’s desire for someone in the family to become a medical doctor all competed with Koranic education in the family’s informal honors lists during the 1970s. And yet, of course, the Bin Ladens regarded themselves as an Islamic family, and so Osama’s idealism and commitment were respected, even when he grated.
Carmen Bin Laden saw Osama, with his gangly height and insistent religiosity, as a “minor figure” hovering censoriously on the family’s periphery. He was “more literal, more fundamentalist” than even some of his colleagues in the Muslim Brotherhood, said his friend and fellow adherent Jamal Khashoggi. He seemed particularly drawn to teachings that a righteous Muslim should imitate the dress and customs that prevailed during the Prophet’s lifetime. Osama scolded his friend Khaled Batarfi for wearing shorts to soccer games, which violated an obscure tenet of theological rule making. He seemed bent on finding a personal state of purity, and to achieve this, he insisted upon introducing Islamic precepts into even the most casual everyday encounters. As his Syrian brother-in-law Najim put it: “He often used to tell us what he had learned about religion.”7
Osama’s early involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood meant that from the very beginning, his understanding of Islam was inflected by messages of political dissent. The Brotherhood’s Islam was not passive; its members advocated a journey toward a righteous Islamic government. Lectures by its members were informed, too, by the Brotherhood’s recent history of anti-colonial violence in Egypt and the exile to Saudi Arabia of many of its activists. Scholars and writers influenced by the Brotherhood offered varying ideas about how a righteous Islamic government should be pursued, and when, for instance, violence or open political organizing might be justified. They were unified, however, in the view that preaching and teaching should be a bulwark of their campaign. A good Muslim should not only seek out his own state of grace; he should teach others. Brotherhood political precepts might make the Saudi royal family nervous, but this proselytizing vein fitted with the Salafi school of thought that dominated the kingdom. The term “Salafi” refers to the Prophet’s earliest companions, whom Salafi believers are taught to imitate. Mohamed Abdul Wahhab, an influential source of this doctrine in Arabia, emphasized that a man should literally model his life on that of the Prophet and his companions. In this school of thought, the purpose of studying the Koran and the hadiths involved a search for literal truths—facts and laws—which had been made available during the seventh century with the Prophet’s revelations; these pieces of a righteous life could then be adopted and assembled by any Muslim who wished to please God on Judgment Day.
Years later, after he had declared war against the United States, Osama said that even as a young man, he had been fired by anger over America and its conspiracies with Jews and Christians to destroy Islam. “Every Muslim,” he said, “from the moment they realize the distinction in their hearts, hates Americans, hates Jews, and hates Christians. This is a part of our belief and our religion. For as long as I can remember, I have felt tormented and at war, and have felt hatred and animosity for Americans.” In fact, prior to 1979, there is not much evidence that Osama was especially political. He seems to have concentrated in these years mainly on learning how to define and live an Islamic life, as outlined by the mentors and scholars he followed in Jeddah and Mecca. He certainly listened to speeches and read books containing anti-colonial and revolutionary political views, particularly the influential works of the hanged Egyptian Islamist Sayid Qutb, whose exiled brother, Mohamed, lectured at Osama’s university in Jeddah. According to his friend and university classmate Jamal Khalifa, Osama read Qutb’s
He talked with his friends during this time about the problem of Palestine, according to Batarfi, but his views were unexceptional. In the aftermath of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, in which American military support for Israel figured prominently, Osama would have heard many anti-American and anti-Semitic harangues in Jeddah’s mosques, classrooms, and salons. These themes would also have been an aspect of his formal religious study. The Koranic narrative of Islam’s birth and spread is one of territory and warfare, a story in which the supposed treachery of Arabian Jews figures significantly. In later years, Osama would connect his anti-Semitism, which he attributed to Koranic teaching, with his outrage over American support for Israel:
It appears to us, from the writing of the Prophet, that we will have to fight the Jews under his name and on this land [Palestine]…And the United States has involved itself and its people again and again…and dispatched a general air supply line in 1973 during the days of Nixon, from America to Tel Aviv, with weapons, aid, and men, which affected the outcome of the battle, so how could we not fight it?…Any nation that joins the Jewish trenches has only itself to blame.9
It would be a mistake to attribute statements Osama made in his late forties to his state of mind three decades before, yet there is continuity in his opinions. His repeated references to 1973 as a turning point in his own life and as a touchstone of his anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic viewpoints suggest that year’s resonance in his life. Still, in Saudi Arabia during the mid-1970s, for an eighteen-year-old to describe Americans and Jews as enemies of Islam was little more than an expression of conventional wisdom. The testimony about him from contemporaries emphasizes other aspects of his religiosity—his insistent piety and his search for a life that was well rounded and pure.
A biography later published by his media office, drawn from the observations of an aide who knew him at a time when Osama was still interacting with the Bin Laden family, tried to inventory the sources of influence in his outlook and character. It read like the comment section in a schoolteacher’s report card:
Raised by his father, Bin Laden became used to responsibility, confidence, generosity, and modesty…It is known that he is also shy and taciturn, usually appearing serious, though trying to appear friendly, and avoiding raising his voice, generally, or laughing excessively…Osama is quite intelligent, confident, and observant, but also somewhat hesitant in making decisions and taking control, which has sometimes hurt him…One of the
