This book examines contemporary jihad as a cult of violence and power. All jihadi groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or not, are characterized by a similar bloodlust. Murawiec characterizes this belief structure as identical to that of Europe's medieval millenarians and apocalyptics, arguing that both jihadis and their European cousins shared in a Gnostic ideology: a God-given mission endowed the Elect with supernatural powers and placed them above the common law of mankind. Although the ideology of jihad is essentially Islamic, Murawiec traces the political technologies used by modern jihad to the Bolsheviks. Their doctrines of terror as a system of rule were appropriated by radical Islam through multiple lines of communication. This book brings history, anthropology, and theology to bear to understand the mind of jihad that has declared war on the West and the world.

Revolutionary Gnosticism is a movement common to several revolutionary phenomena, such as Nazism and Bolshevism. Arrigo is the first scholar to study Salafi- Jihadism in gnostic terms to reveal the movement's will of redeeming humankind from Evil and building the perfect society, leaving God without a possibility of intervening in human affairs.

This book examines contemporary jihad as a cult of violence and power. All jihadi groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or not, are characterized by a similar bloodlust. Murawiec characterizes this belief structure as identical to that of Europe's medieval millenarians and apocalyptics, arguing that both jihadis and their European cousins shared in a Gnostic ideology: a God-given mission endowed the Elect with supernatural powers and placed them above the common law of mankind. Although the ideology of jihad is essentially Islamic, Murawiec traces the political technologies used by modern jihad to the Bolsheviks. Their doctrines of terror as a system of rule were appropriated by radical Islam through multiple lines of communication. This book brings history, anthropology, and theology to bear to understand the mind of jihad that has declared war on the West and the world.

Peter D. Beaulieu examines the challenges to secular modernity and Islam as they encounter one another. By restoring a place at the table for Trinitarian Christianity alongside the monotheism of Islam and the skeptical indifference of Western rationalism, Beaulieu broadens the pallet of inter-religious and intercultural contact points.

Jihad is the most organized force against Western capitalism since the Soviet era. Yet jihadism is multifaceted and complex, much broader than Al Qaeda alone. In the first wide-ranging introduction to today's rapidly growing jihadism, Khosrokhavar explains how two key movements variously influence jihadi activists. One, based in the Middle East, is more heavily influenced by Islamic religion and political thought. The other, composed of individuals growing up or living mostly in Europe and Western democracies including the United States, is motivated by secular as well as religious influences. Khosrokhavar interprets religious and lesser-known Arabic texts and the real-world economic and political dynamics that make jihadism a growing threat to Western democracies. Interviews with imprisoned jihadists on what motivated their plots and actions help the readers understand reality as seen by jihadists. The author concludes with recommendations to safeguard democracies from future jihadism.

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, [This book] opens a critically important perspective on the role of Islam in the contemporary world. [The author] also 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.-Back cover.

The articles collected in this volume represent the independent and considered thinking of internationally known scholars from a variety of disciplines concerning the relationship between religion and violence, with special reference to the theories of "just war" and "jihad," technical terms that arise in connection with the theology of early medieval Christianity and early Islam, respectively. The contributors include Hector Avalos, Charles K. Bellinger, Bahar Davary, Carol Delaney, J. Harold Ellens, Reuven Firestone, R. Joseph Hoffmann, Judith Lichtenberg, Pauletta Otis, Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez, Laura Purdy, Joyce E. Salisbury, Regina M. Schwartz, and Robert B. Tapp. In the present global and political climate, the significant conversation about why religions provoke conflict and whether any religion is truly "harmless" cannot be ignored.

Based on extensive scrutiny of primary sources from Nazi and Jihadist ideologues, David Patterson argues that Jihadist anti-Semitism stems from Nazi ideology. This book challenges the idea that Jihadist anti-Semitism has medieval roots, identifying its distinctively modern characteristics and tracing interconnections that link the Nazis to the Muslim Brotherhood to the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, the Sudan, the Iranian Islamic Republic, and other groups with an anti-Semitic worldview. Based on his close reading of numerous Jihadist texts, Patterson critiques their antisemitic teachings and affirms the importance of Jewish teaching, concluding that humanity needs the very Jewish teaching and testimony that the Jihadists advocate destroying.

Now all but forgotten, there exists within medieval Islamic political thought a coherent "realist" tradition analogous to its Western counterpart. In The Art of Jihad, Malik Mufti begins by analyzing contemporary debates on jihad designed to highlight the lacuna occupied by realism in other cultures. He explicates the features of medieval Islamic realism; those it shares with realism everywhere—a focus on power, for example, or the ubiquity of human conflict—but also those features that are distinctive: its insistence on the political centrality of religion, its rejection of scientific certainty, its valorization of hierarchy, and its adherence to empire as the optimal ethico-political framework. These features are fleshed out through the writings of medieval political thinkers such as Ibn al-Muqaffa`, al-Jahiz, and the anonymous author of a seminal military manual, as well as political philosophers such as Ibn Rushd and Ibn Khaldun. Finally, Mufti explores the prospects for a revival of Islamic realism in the context of the political and intellectual upheavals currently besetting the Middle East.