Jihad : the trail of political Islam

The late twentieth century has witnessed the emergence of an unexpected and extraordinary phenomenon: Islamist political movements. Beginning in the early 1970s, militants revolted against the regimes in power throughout the Muslim world and exacerbated political conflicts everywhere. Their jihad, or "Holy Struggle," aimed to establish a global Islamic state based solely on a strict interpretation of the Koran. Religious ideology proved a cohesive force, gathering followers ranging from students and the young urban poor to middle-class professionals.After an initial triumph with the Islamic revolution in Iran, the movement waged jihad against the USSR in Afghanistan, proclaiming for the first time a doctrine of extreme violence. By the end of the 1990s, the failure to seize political power elsewhere led to a split: movement moderates developed new concepts of "Muslim democracy" while extremists resorted to large-scale terrorist attacks around the world. "Jihad" is the first extensive, in-depth attempt to follow the history and geography of this disturbing political-religious phenomenon. Fluent in Arabic, Kepel has traveled throughout the Muslim world gathering documents, interviews, and archival materials inaccessible to most scholars, in order to give us a comprehensive understanding of the scope of Islamist movements, their past, and their present. As we confront the threat of terrorism to our lives and liberties, Gilles Kepel helps us make sense of the ominous reality of jihad today. Acknowledgments Contents Introduction 1 A Cultural Revolution 2 Islam in the Late 1960s 3 Building Petro-Islam on the Ruins of Arab Nationalism 4 Islamism in Egypt, Malaysia, and Pakistan 5 Khomeini’s Revolution and Its Legacy 6 Jihad in Afghanistan and Intifada in Palestine 7 Islamization in Algeria and the Sudan 8 The Fatwa and the Veil in Europe 9 From the Gulf War to the Taliban Jihad 10 The Failure to Graft Jihad on Bosnia’s Civil War 11 The Logic of Massacre in the Second Algerian War 12 The Threat of Terrorism in Egypt 13 Osama bin Laden and the War against the West 14 Hamas, Israel, Arafat, and Jordan 15 The Forced Secularization of Turkish Islamists Conclusion Notes Introduction 3. Building Petro-Islam on the Ruins of Arab Nationalism 7. Islamization in Algeria and the Sudan 13, Osama bin Laden and the War against the West 14. Hamas, Israel, Arafat, and Jordan 15. The Forced Secularization of Turkish Islamists Conclusion Glossary Abbreviations Index In the 1970s politicized groups of Islamic extremists emerged, bringing with them icreased use of violence. By the late 1990's political Islam as a movement had died, argues Kepel, leaving space for a political system that will fuse aspects of Muslim government with a more Western model. A compelling account of the rise of modern political Islam traces the emergence of a new, militant brand of Islamic thought that appeared in the early 1970s and has been rocking the world ever since.