The Rise and Decline of Ansar al-Sharia in Libya

Although the Arab Spring and the uprising of the Arab nations against their authoritarian governments which are puppets of the West initially promised a massive change across the Muslim nation, its consequences in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Jordan was different from what was expected by the Muslim nation. For some people, such as people of Tunisia, the uprising suffered deviation from the main goals. For some, such as people of Egypt the uprising was only relatively successful and finally lead to a military coup. For the Libyans, the result was lack of strong central government. All these endings are in fact intrigues of the West, the colonial power and their allies in the region. The present article discusses the advent and the rise and decline of the so-called Ansar al-Sharia which was one of the Salafi- Jihadi groups of the region. Taking advantage from absence of a central government in Libya, they stabilized their position in the country for a short while. What you are going to read is a translation of an article published in the journal The Contemporary Trends in the Islamic Ideology affiliated with Hudson Institute, which studies the issue. The contents of this article are only a translation of the original article and indicate the opinions of the author. The current translation doesn’t necessarily mean the translator’s agreement with the author’s views.