Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam

Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam PDF Author: Rudolph Peters
Publisher: Markus Wiener Pub
ISBN: 9781558763814
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
This editions includes a new chapter on the"Notion of Jihad at the Turn of the 21st Century, n upadated bibliography and a new introduction.Review of the 1996 Edition:" It helps us understand the wider social and moral senses of Jihad"-_Library JournalThis book demonstrates that the notion of jihad (?Holy War?) is very much alive in the Islamic world, and plays a prominent political role. Western observers usually associate jihad with fanaticism, while Islamists emphasize its mission as a crusade against drugs and other societal scourges. ?Six Islamic texts are presented which compiler Peters has translated. These texts include, first of all, a number of hadiths which present the ?raw material? for Islamic law. The texts that follow include portions from Malik?s Al-Muwatta, the chapter on Jihad from Averrroes? legal handbook al-Bidaya, teachings of Ibn Taymiyya on Jihad, the Ottoman Jihad Fatwa of 1914, and Mahmud Shaltut?s treatise Koran and Fighting (which is a modernist interpretation of jihad). These texts are followed by two well-written articles by Peters. This is a very valuable work for all who wish to understand the meaning, importance, and practice of Jihad for Muslims today as well as in the past. Highly recommended.? ?ChoiceRudolph F. Peters, University of Amsterdam and director of the Netherlands Institute in Cairo, is the author of Islam and Colonialism and numerous other books.

Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam

Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam PDF Author: Rudolph Peters
Publisher: Markus Wiener Pub
ISBN: 9781558763814
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Get Book Here

Book Description
This editions includes a new chapter on the"Notion of Jihad at the Turn of the 21st Century, n upadated bibliography and a new introduction.Review of the 1996 Edition:" It helps us understand the wider social and moral senses of Jihad"-_Library JournalThis book demonstrates that the notion of jihad (?Holy War?) is very much alive in the Islamic world, and plays a prominent political role. Western observers usually associate jihad with fanaticism, while Islamists emphasize its mission as a crusade against drugs and other societal scourges. ?Six Islamic texts are presented which compiler Peters has translated. These texts include, first of all, a number of hadiths which present the ?raw material? for Islamic law. The texts that follow include portions from Malik?s Al-Muwatta, the chapter on Jihad from Averrroes? legal handbook al-Bidaya, teachings of Ibn Taymiyya on Jihad, the Ottoman Jihad Fatwa of 1914, and Mahmud Shaltut?s treatise Koran and Fighting (which is a modernist interpretation of jihad). These texts are followed by two well-written articles by Peters. This is a very valuable work for all who wish to understand the meaning, importance, and practice of Jihad for Muslims today as well as in the past. Highly recommended.? ?ChoiceRudolph F. Peters, University of Amsterdam and director of the Netherlands Institute in Cairo, is the author of Islam and Colonialism and numerous other books.

Jihad in Islamic History

Jihad in Islamic History PDF Author: Michael Bonner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400827388
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
What is jihad? Does it mean violence, as many non-Muslims assume? Or does it mean peace, as some Muslims insist? Because jihad is closely associated with the early spread of Islam, today's debate about the origin and meaning of jihad is nothing less than a struggle over Islam itself. In Jihad in Islamic History, Michael Bonner provides the first study in English that focuses on the early history of jihad, shedding much-needed light on the most recent controversies over jihad. To some, jihad is the essence of radical Islamist ideology, a synonym for terrorism, and even proof of Islam's innate violence. To others, jihad means a peaceful, individual, and internal spiritual striving. Bonner, however, shows that those who argue that jihad means only violence or only peace are both wrong. Jihad is a complex set of doctrines and practices that have changed over time and continue to evolve today. The Quran's messages about fighting and jihad are inseparable from its requirements of generosity and care for the poor. Jihad has often been a constructive and creative force, the key to building new Islamic societies and states. Jihad has regulated relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, in peace as well as in war. And while today's "jihadists" are in some ways following the "classical" jihad tradition, they have in other ways completely broken with it. Written for general readers who want to understand jihad and its controversies, Jihad in Islamic History will also interest specialists because of its original arguments.

Landscapes of the Jihad

Landscapes of the Jihad PDF Author: Faisal Devji
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801459788
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
What are the motives behind Osama bin Laden's and Al-Qaeda's jihad against America and the West? Innumerable attempts have been made in recent years to explain that mysterious worldview. In Landscapes of the Jihad, Faisal Devji focuses on the ethical content of this jihad as opposed to its purported political intent. Al-Qaeda differs radically from such groups as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiyah, which aim to establish fundamentalist Islamic states. In fact, Devji contends, Al-Qaeda, with its decentralized structure and emphasis on moral rather than political action, actually has more in common with multinational corporations, antiglobalization activists, and environmentalist and social justice organizations. Bin Laden and his lieutenants view their cause as a response to the oppressive conditions faced by the Muslim world rather than an Islamist attempt to build states.Al-Qaeda culls diverse symbols and fragments from Islam's past in order to legitimize its global war against the "metaphysical evil" emanating from the West. The most salient example of this assemblage, Devji argues, is the concept of jihad itself, which Al-Qaeda defines as an "individual duty" incumbent on all Muslims, like prayer. Although medieval Islamic thought provides precedent for this interpretation, Al-Qaeda has deftly separated the stipulation from its institutional moorings and turned jihad into a weapon of spiritual conflict. Al-Qaeda and its jihad, Devji suggests, are only the most visible manifestations of wider changes in the Muslim world. Such changes include the fragmentation of traditional as well as fundamentalist forms of authority. In the author's view, Al-Qaeda represents a new way of organizing Muslim belief and practice within a global landscape and does not require ideological or institutional unity.Offering a compelling explanation for the central purpose of Al-Qaeda's jihad against the West, the meaning of its strategies and tactics, and its moral and aesthetic dimensions, Landscapes of the Jihad is at once a sophisticated work of historical and cultural analysis and an invaluable guide to the world's most prominent terrorist movement.

Understanding Jihad

Understanding Jihad PDF Author: David Cook
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520931874
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Jihad is one of the most loaded and misunderstood terms in the news today. Contrary to popular understanding, the term does not mean "holy war." Nor does it simply refer to the inner spiritual struggle. This book, judiciously balanced, accessibly written, and highly relevant to today's events, unravels the tangled historical, intellectual, and political meanings of jihad. Looking closely at a range of sources from sacred Islamic texts to modern interpretations, Understanding Jihad opens a critically important perspective on the role of Islam in the contemporary world. As David Cook traces the practical and theoretical meanings of jihad, he cites from scriptural, legal, and newly translated texts to give readers a taste of the often ambiguous information that is used to construct Islamic doctrine. He looks closely at the life and teaching of the Prophet Muhammad and at the ramifications of the great Islamic conquests in 634 to 732 A.D. He sheds light on legal developments relevant to fighting and warfare, and places the internal, spiritual jihad within the larger context of Islamic religion. He describes some of the conflicts that occur in radical groups and shows how the more mainstream supporters of these groups have come to understand and justify violence. He has also included a special appendix of relevant documents including materials related to the September 11 attacks and published manifestoes issued by Osama bin Laden and Palestinian suicide-martyrs.

Crusade and Jihad

Crusade and Jihad PDF Author: William Roe Polk
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300222904
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 651

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Book Description
Encompasses the entire history of the catastrophic encounter between the Global North--China, Russia, Europe, Britain, and America--and Muslim societies from Central Asia to West Africa, explaining the deep hostilities between them and how they grew over the centuries. --Adapted from publisher description.

Jihad

Jihad PDF Author: Gilles Kepel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674010901
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
Kepel has traveled throughout the Muslim world gathering documents, interviews, and archival materials, in order to give readers a comprehensive understanding of the scope of Islamist movements, their past, and their present. 7 maps.

Striving in the Path of God

Striving in the Path of God PDF Author: Asma Afsaruddin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199730938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
In popular and academic literature, jihad is predominantly assumed to refer exclusively to armed combat, and martyrdom in the Islamic context is understood to be invariably of the military kind. This perspective, derived mainly from legal texts, has led to discussions of jihad and martyrdom as concepts with fixed, universal meanings divorced from the socio-political circumstances in which they have been deployed through the centuries. Asma Afsaruddin studies in a more holistic manner the range of significations that can be ascribed to the term jihad from the earliest period to the present and historically contextualizes the competing discourses that developed over time. Many assumptions about the military jihad and martyrdom in Islam are thereby challenged and deconstructed. A comprehensive interrogation of varied sources reveals early and multiple competing definitions of a word that in combination with the phrase fi sabil Allah translates literally to "striving in the path of God." Contemporary radical Islamists have appropriated this language to exhort their cadres to armed political opposition, which they legitimize under the rubric of jihad. Afsaruddin shows that the multivalent connotations of jihad and shahid recovered from the formative period lead us to question the assertions of those who maintain that belligerent and militant interpretations preserve the earliest and only authentic understanding of these two key terms. Retrieval of these multiple perspectives has important implications for our world today in which the concepts of jihad and martyrdom are still being fiercely debated.

The Apocalypse and the End of History

The Apocalypse and the End of History PDF Author: Suzanne Schneider
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1839762411
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
How the political violence of modern jihad echoes the crises of western liberalism In this authoritative, accessible study, historian Suzanne Schneider examines the politics and ideology of the Islamic State (better known as ISIS). Schneider argues that today’s jihad is not the residue from a less enlightened time, nor does it have much in common with its classical or medieval form, but it does bear a striking resemblance to the reactionary political formations and acts of spectacular violence that are upending life in Western democracies. From authoritarian populism to mass shootings, xenophobic nationalism, and the allure of conspiratorial thinking, Schneider argues that modern jihad is not the antithesis to western neoliberalism, but rather a dark reflection of its inner logic. Written with the sensibility of a political theorist and based on extensive research into a wide range of sources, from Islamic jurisprudence to popular recruitment videos, contemporary apocalyptic literature and the Islamic State's Arabic-language publications, the book explores modern jihad as an image of a potential dark future already heralded by neoliberal modes of life. Surveying ideas of the state, violence, identity, and political community, Schneider argues that modern jihad and neoliberalism are two versions of a politics of failure: the inability to imagine a better life here on earth.

Unholy War

Unholy War PDF Author: John L. Esposito
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195168860
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Of the intellectual underpinnings of the more radical elements of contemporary Islam.

Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia

Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia PDF Author: Rashid
Publisher: Orient Blackswan
ISBN: 9788125022282
Category : Asia, Central
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Ahmed Rashid, Who Masterfully Explained Afghanistan S Taliban Regime In His Previous Book, Here Turns His Skills As An Investigative Journalist To The Five Central Asian Republics Adjacent To Afghanistan That Were Part Of The Soviet Union Until Its Collapse In 1991. Religious Repression, Political Corruption, And The Region S Extreme Poverty Have Created A Fertile Climate For Militant Islamic Fundamentalism. Funded And Trained By Organisations Such As Osama Bin Laden S Al Qaeda And The Taliban, Guerrilla Movements Like The Imu (Islamic Movement Of Uzbekistan) Have Recruited A Staggering Number Of Members And Launched Insurgencies That Threaten The Stability Of All Five Nations. Based On Groundbreaking Research And Numerous Interviews, Jihad Explains The Roots Of Fundamentalist Rage In Central Asia, Describes The Goals And Activities Of These Militant Organisations, And Suggests Ways By Which This Threat Can Be Neutralised In The Future Through Diplomatic And Economic Intervention.