Product Description

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. (20020304)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111974 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-31
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Amazon.com
Gilles Kepel's Jihad is 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

From Publishers Weekly
In this history of fundamentalist Islam, Kepel stands conventional wisdom on its head, asserting that the spate of Islamist violence during the last few years is a result not of the movement's success, but of its failure. A professor at Paris's Institute for Political Studies, Kepel clearly traces the rise of the contemporary Islamist movement from its origins in the mid-20th century through its later appearance in countries such as Malaysia, Algeria and Turkey, as well as in Western Europe. Its apogee, he argues cogently, was the 1979 revolution in Iran that brought about the defeat of the Shah and the rise of a fundamentalist Islamic regime. But while ideologies that fused Islam with political power gained adherents throughout the world in the ensuing 20 years, says Kepel, in no other country were Islamists able to seize and hold power for more than a few years, a factor that he attributes to the ideology's inability to attract both the middle class and the poor. "Muslims no longer view Islamism as the source of utopia, and this more pragmatic vision augurs well for the future," he writes. Despite some outpourings of support, he believes, Osama bin Laden and his followers squandered much of the movement's political capital with its attacks on American institutions, most notably the World Trade Center. Kepel's approach is not without weaknesses in many places around the globe, fundamentalist political Islam has transformed society and politics, even if Islamists have not been able to attain political rule. But amid the plethora of books on Islam released since September 11, this work stands out, both for its erudition and its provocative thesis.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The rise since the 1970s of political Islam and its revolutionary message has received ample coverage in popular and scholarly writings in the West. Aside from journalistic reporting, much of it by nonspecialists, there are few comprehensive and analytically sound books in the Euro-American world that explain the recent ascendance of militant Islam to the Western audience. This book by Kepel, a professor at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris and a leading European specialist on contemporary Islamic movements, is a welcome addition to the growing literature on this topic. Meticulously researched and written in a jargon-free narrative style, the book covers the trials and tribulations of political Islam throughout the world. The author explains how and why the promises of political Islam have not materialized and describes why contemporary Islamic movements have failed. A standout in the field of current books, this is a sophisticated and timely work that places the events of September 11 in historical and sociopolitical context and sheds greater light on the influence of Osama bin Laden and his movement. Highly recommended for large public and academic libraries. Nader Entessar, Spring Hill Coll., Mobile, AL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Jihad: Murderers, Not Martyrs!
Kepel's book is a brilliant analysis of events in the Islamic World from the second half of the twentieth century, covering all of the momentous disturbances throughout Islamic society and registering Western reactions and involvement. Below is the contents page that shows at a glance just how comprehensive a study this is:

Part 1 Expansion

1. A Cultural Revolution
2. Islam in the Late 1960's
3. Building Petro-Islam on the Ruins of Arab Nationalism
4. Islamism in Egypt, Malaysia, and Pakistan
5. Kohmeini's Revolution and Its Legacy
6. Jihad in Afghanistan and Intifada in Palestine
7. Islamisation in Algeria and Sudan
8. The Fatwa and the Veil in Europe

Part 2 Decline

9. From the Gulf War to the Taliban Jihad
10. The Failure to Graft Jihad onto 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 Secularisation of Turkish Islamists

In short, Kepel leaves no stone unturned but makes all of this comprehensible by explaining the historical, political and social environments out of which came the ideological blue print for indiscriminate murder.

Kepel's contentious conclusion is that Political Islam reached its high water mark with the Iranian revolution in 1979 and has since been in decline; a decline paralleled by desperate acts of murder or terrorist activity.

In his introduction, Kepel outlines the strategy of "Provocation" and claims September 11 was an act of "provocation on a grand scale" that was calculated to bring the wrath of America down upon a civilian population. The original aggressor, in this case Al Qaeda, then turns passive and incredulous over any retaliatory measures brought against it, hoping to reap resentment against those who were first attacked and claim moral indignation for itself. This has been a recurring pattern we have seen with morbid, monotonous regularity.

It seems like an axiom of Political Islam to constantly foster the fear of an external foe as a means of deflecting attention away from its own political failure. Kepel claims Ayatollah Kohmeini understood this which is why, after the Iran-Iraq war; he issued a fatwah against Salmon Rushdie to deflect attention away from Iran's depressed state. He makes a good point when mentioning the frustration and anger of Iranian youth who experienced nothing of the Shah's rule but have only experienced oppression by the Mullah's. This seems to me a strong argument for leaving Iran to itself as internal dissatisfaction will mount against the regime without external interference. Fundamentalist regimes like Iran, Hamas, and the Taliban need an enemy on the horizon to justify their own impotency, if not; the strategy of "provocation" becomes an integral part of foreign policy.

Aside from the loss of life from all the different cultures of the World, the real victim of this bare faced cynicism is Islam.

Kepel's book is an antidote to over reaction which is exactly what murderous networks like Al Qaeda feed upon. For those of us who admire the unique vision Islamic culture has given to the world, these are sad days indeed. We can only hope Kepel's optimism will bear positive fruit with regard to those Muslims who have experienced open societies and are willing to leaven the traditional bread; exert pressure and openly criticise rule by the Mullah's as unacceptable.

This is no excuse but let's not forget it took Europe hundreds of years before religion was forced to concede and bowed out of its bloody contest with politics.

Even then, democracy still needs to be established to prevent exploitation from secular tyrants like Saddam Hussein.

Kepel's book is astonishing and indispensable, mandatory reading for any politician in the White House!

Important for understanding 9/11/2001
To understand the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, people need to read Gilles Kepel's account of Islamist jihadism. Kepel suggests that the Islamist jihadist movement worldwide was running out of steam prior to the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

Thus we can see that the attacks of 9/11/2001 on the United States were carried out by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda as a spectacular recruitment device, to recruit more Muslims to the Islamist jihadist cause, the cause that Kepel says was on the wane because of the relative shortage of new recruits to the cause that had amassed only a somewhat unimpressive record in several Muslim countries.

In light of Kepel's analysis, we can see that President George W. Bush played into the hands of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda when he brashly declared war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Saddam Hussein's Iraq had not attacked the United States on 9/11/2001. So the war that the United States led against Saddam Hussein's Iraq is an unjust war of aggression on Iraq. Not surprisingly, the war in Iraq has attracted many Muslims from around the world to fight against the U.S.-led coalition troops.

It also appears that the war in Iraq has attraced new recruits to the Islamist jihadist cause elsewhere as well.

(...)

Political Islam: Doomed to Failure?
Kepel knows his subject. You can't ask for a more comprehensive sweep of Islamist history. That said, the author's fundamental thesis (that Salafism is on the wane, and will die out under its own weight) seems to read as slightly optimistic. Particularly violent brands of Islam, such as Wahhabi Islam, will come and go, but the intrinsic moral and emotional flaws (they are not solely socio-economic) that give ground to such movements will always exist. We will see sea changes, waxing and waning trends, as well as the rise and fall of more positive groups, but groups that advocate a political jihad will always find a voice and an audience. (Just as those who advocate Judeo-Christian, Maoist, and/or Secular crusades will always find a voice and an audience.)

That said, anyone wishing to better understand the figures and ideas behind Salafist political movements will enjoy this work immensely. The translation is dry, but the information is robust.