Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam - Softcover

Gilles Kepel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845112571 ISBN 13: 9781845112578

Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2009

Synopsis

In recent years, the world order has been rocked by an explosive, unexpected and extraordinary phenomenon: political Islam. Beginning in the early 1970s, militants revolted against the regimes in power across the Muslim world and exacerbated political conflicts internationally. Their jihad - or 'Holy Struggle' - aimed to establish a global Islamic state based solely on a strict interpretation of the Qur'an. "Jihad" is the first comprehensive attempt to follow the history and spread of this new political-religious phenomenon today, from the rise of Al Qaeda to the explosion of support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in the wake of the Second Palestinian Intifada. It is the definitive work on what the West has called 'Islamic Fundamentalism', and offers the boldest assessment of its past, its present, and where it might lead in the future. "Jihad" is vital reading for everyone concerned with the state of the world today.

About this title

Review

Gilles Kepel's Jihadis an intense, detailed examination of the militant Islamist movement over the last quarter-century. Kepel divides his book into two parts--"Expansion" and "Decline"--and posits that the September 11, 2001, attacks, rather than demonstrating "strength and irrepressible might," highlighted the "isolation" and "fragmentation" of a "faltering" and probably doomed extremist ideology. Kepel follows Islamism from its theoretical underpinnings in the late 1960s and its rapid expansion into Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, and Central, South, and Southeast Asia, through the Taliban's ascendancy in Afghanistan and beyond. He explains Islamism's attractions, and outlines its severe shortcomings. With consummate skill, he illuminates the bewilderingly intricate effects global events (oil prices, the fall of Communism) have had on internal politics of individual countries, and vice versa. Kepel, wisely, refuses to prognosticate. Instead, his achievement is in providing--for the determined reader--a deeply authoritative context for the seemingly inexplicable events of the recent past. --H. O'Billovich

About the Author

Gilles Kepel is Professor and Chair of Middle East Studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.

About this edition

• Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1845112571
• ISBN 13: 9781845112578
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 472