Ken McLeod posted the following to rec.arts.sf.fandom
Forwarded with permission from China Mieville, fantasy writer and student of international relations:
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My supervisor, an expert in the Middle East, told me about a rumour circulating about the name of Bin Laden's network. The term 'Al-Qaeda' seems to have no political precedent in Arabic, and has therefore been something of a conundrum to the experts, until someone pointed out that a very popular book in the Arab world, Arabs apparently being big readers of translated SF, is Asimov's _Foundation_, the title of which is translated as 'Al-Qaeda'.
Unlikely as it sounds, this is the only theory anyone can come up with.
Ken [the other one - not me ] added:
This hypothesis raises some interesting possibilities. One is that bin Laden has a number of video appearances prepared in advance, which without being too specific give the impression that he knows what has just happened at the time they're shown. They could continue to appear at intervals long after his reported death.
Another is that there's a Second Al-Qaeda, somewhere else.
Ken Brown (thanks to John Dallman for showing me this on Cix)