Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam

The late 20th century saw the emergence of an unexpected and extraordinary phenomenon, culminating in a devastating onslaught on the West in 2001: Islamist political movements. 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. Kepel has travelled throughout the Muslim world gathering documents, interviews and archival material inaccessible to most scholars.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 Part I Expansion 1. A Cultural Revolution 23 2. Islam in the Late 1960s 43 3. Building Petro-Islam on the Ruins of Arab Nationalism 61 4. Islamism in Egypt, Malaysia, and Pakistan 81 5. Khomeini's Revolution and Its Legacy 106 6. Jihad in Afghanistan and Intifada in Palestine 136 7. Islamization in Algeria and the Sudan 159 8. The Fatwa and the Veil in Europe 185 Part II Decline 9. From the Gulf War to the Taliban Jihad 205 10. The Failure to Graft Jihad on Bosnia's Civil War 237 11. The Logic of Massacre in the Second Algerian War 254 12. The Threat of Terrorism in Egypt 276 13. Osama bin Laden and the War against the West 299 14. Hamas, Israel, Arafat, and Jordan 323 15. The Forced Secularization of Turkish Islamists 342 Conclusion 361 Notes 379 Glossary 431 Maps 434 Abbreviations 441 Index 443

About the Author :
Gilles Kepel is one of the world's foremost experts on the current Middle East and is director of research at the CNRS in Paris, and Professor at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris.

Review :
'This is a landmark book, a work of breadth and scope and scholarship... It should be the standard work on political Islam.' - Fouad Ajami, author of Dream Palace of the Arabs 'Kepel's book is a wonderfully panoramic account of political Islam that weaves the story of demographic, class and political change in different Muslim countries together with the story of the international struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for the future of Islam.' -The Guardian 'This work is deeply researched, deeply measured and deeply instructive-- the best such survey available and likely to remain so for a while.' -Justin Wintle, Sunday Times '...Halliday's contribution to the debate on September 11th is thoughtful, readable and informative, a combination which elevates it above Tariq Ali and most of the competition in this field.'-Irish Times 'The virtue of this excellent book is the broadness of its coverage of the Islamist movements.' -Malise Ruthven, Prospect 'Kepel has the knack of explaining how events in one part of the Islamic world have affected developments elsewhere, bringing coherence to the world that Westerners call "Islamic Fundamentalism."' -Daily Telegraph"No-one else has attempted so bold an overview of the Islamist phenomenon. Of all the books on this subject, this is the most challenging and the most illuminating." The Economist "deeply researched, deeply measured and deeply instructive - the best survey available and likely to remain so" Justin Wintle, Sunday Times "Kepel's work... spans the world of political Islam, from the assassination of Egypt's President Anwar Sadat, to the establishment of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network in Afghanistan. He has the knack of explaining how events in one part of the Islamic world have affected developments elsewhere." Anton La Guardia, The Daily Telegraph