Last year I tried to focus the session on CTS around a discussion of social movement theory, and what it means for studying terrorism in a more critical manner – but that didn’t go too well with your predecessors, who thought the theory was perhaps a bit too abstract. That is partly why this time around I did not focus too much on it.

However, I wanted to take the opportunity here in the blog to raise the issue once again, in a lighter manner. Basically speaking, social movement theory is very relevant to the study of terrorism because almost without exception (as we already hinted at during our session of definitions), terrorism is a form of collective action, i.e. terrorist acts are the product of terrorist organizations. Therefore, it stands to reason that any theory that gives us a better insight into how groups of people can be mobilized for collective action in the political field is a good thing, and we should learn it. As a result, some authors have for years been proposing that we look at terrorist groups – and their ways of mobilizing individuals for collective political action, in this case through violent means – through the lens of social movement theory.

The approach itself is very well established in the social sciences for a few decades now, and has produced some very interesting research insights, helping us to understand various other forms of collective social and political action. Last year, I tried my best to summarize the central features of SMT in a blog post, as well as suggest some readings on both SMT in general, and SMT approaches to political violence. You can read that post here. If you find the approach interesting, feel free to raise it up in class – there will be plenty of opportunities, especially when we discuss the organizational aspects of terrorist groups.

Hope you enjoyed our class this week. Just wanted to fire a quick blog post to give you some more pointers about thinking critically on matters related to terrorism and political violence – that is, after all, the whole purpose of our seminar this semester.

First of all, for those of you who are interested in learning more about the approach we dicussed in class, “Critical Terrorism Studies” – and who want to go beyond the texts I have suggested and provided in the LearnWeb so far, you can have a look at the recently published book of the same name (see image below). The book is available for online preview at Google Books, and for purchase at Amazon. The editors of the book are some of the key people associated with creating this approach to the study of terrorism, and they are all members of the recently created Centre for the Study of Radicalisation & Contemporary Political Violence (follow the link and explore their website, it’s full of interesting materials). In addition to this, you may also wish to visit the website of the journal “Critical Studies on Terrorism”, edited by Taylor and Francis, and which aims to promote and present research done along the critical lines we have discussed in class.

The journal (especially the early numbers) is quite useful for you to get to know some of the other       scholars that have taken up this approach, and also to foreground some of the criticism that CTS has had to deal with.

Thank you for your patience today in class – and for the excellent points you all raised. It was interesting to see that some of you did in fact try to bring arguments or points made in the readings, while others tried to reason through the definitional issues from their own standpoint. Interesting also that in a matter of 20-30 mns, you managed to raise or highlight pretty much every single major issue that plagues the definition of terrorism. This suggests that the “problems” with the concept of terrorism are evident. The fascinating thing about the whole discussion is that although you all found the definitions problematic (and indeed they are), almost nobody wanted to do away with the word “terrorism” itself. Don´t worry, you are not alone in this dillemma: most experts would agree that although terrorism is an extremely problematic concept – filled with contradictions, overused, sometimes stretched out beyond all recognition – they would still like to keep it in our political vocabulary.

(For an interesting, thought-provoking discussion in favour of keeping terrorism in our political and analytical vocabulary, see this piece by Dr. Richard Jackson, one of the key scholars in the Critical Terrorism Studies movement.)

That alone is indicative of the power of words. Speaking of words and definitions, if you have 10 mns, take a look at the Wikipedia entry for “definitions of terrorism”. While not excellent, nor very sophisticated  (it is, after, Wikipedia), it offers a very substantial listing of definitions used by various experts, states, institutions, etc., which complements the list I brought to class. For philosophical depth and clarity, I would advise you to consult the appropriate entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – which, among other merits, tackles the difficult issue of thinking about the moral aspects of terrorism (cf. section 2).

Regarding the latter, I would like to finish my final argument from our last class: that the way we think and feel about terrorism is inextricably linked to our conceptions of permissible and forbidden targets of political violence. The problem is that we tend to think of these two categories as in binary opposition: you are either a combatant OR a non-combatant. If you target the former, you are morally justified, if you target the latter you are commiting a terrorist act. However, as we saw during our class discussion, the matter is not as simple as that, and terrorism often eludes the neat definitional lines we wish to trace around it.

To help us think about the issue, I would propose the following exercise to you. First of all, when thinking about permissible and forbidden targets for political violence (or threat of violence), try to think in terms of a continuum, or a line. On one end of that line, as I said in class, is a newly born baby in just the most oppressive, dictatorial political regime you can imagine. Surely, (s)he has very little choice about the society (s)he lives in, or the political system (s)he is a part of. As such (s)he is a very good case for an almost perfect forbidden target – even the harshest terrorist would have to do some pretty sophisticated moral acrobatics to justify explicitly and purposefully targeting her/him.  On the other end of the spectrum you find an adult individual, living in a democratic, free society, who has volunteered to serve in the military, then volunteered to go into battle. This individual has voted for a militaristic government. (S)he is engaged in a legal war against a well-defined enemy, in accordance with her/his country’s national security policy. Such a person would fit very well the definition of a combatant, and is therefore seen in legal and philosophical terms as a legitimate target. (Notice I am not saying it is OK to kill soldiers, simply that our legal framework is based upon the assumption that in war, the killing of such combatants is a likely occurence, and, what’s more, morally and legally justified under the circumstances). The problem, as you may have already understood, is that the vast majority of the world’s population does not fit into either category. They fall somewhere in between, and often their position in that spectrum often changes over time, and according to circumstance.

Now, to throw a curve ball at you and complicate matters further, I’ll introduce the “principle of double-effect”. Basically, that means that one must make an important distinction between those individuals who are the intended targets of violence, and those who are its unintended (even if foreseeable) victims. So, if  I target a military installation in the middle of a crowded city, I can be pretty sure that on top of hitting my intended target (let’s say the headquarters of a particulalry nasty military unit involed in political repression, torture and various other war crimes), I will also cause civilian casualties. I can predict that these innocent people will die, but they are not the ones I want to hit. They are what has become known as “collateral damage”.

Now, to return to terrorism, many terrorist groups are very aware of the deep ressonance of these principles in most societies around the world. This is why, when such groups make public announcements about attacks, often they will go to great lengths to (i) explain why (they feel that) the targets are permissible, and (ii) make the distrinction between their intended targets and their unfortunate or unlucky victims. They are trying to engage in a public discursive context about the legitimacy and/or morality of their actions. In other words, given the negative connotations associated with the word “terrorism”, individuals and groups who commit such acts try to present or justify them on moral grounds. If they had no purpose, or if their violence was senseless or purely nihilistic, why would they go to such trouble? Examples abound of this. For instance, in Spain, ETA is known for setting bombs and then phone in warnings, so as to reduce the number of collateral damage, but nonetheless carry an attack against symnols of the Spanish state. Osama Bin Laden himself has sought to employ both strategies in his communiques. One the one hand, he has at times appealed to the American public to convert to Islam, or else to rise up and protest/stop the policies of the Bush administration, saying that this is the only way to be safe (i.e. not to be considered as legitimate targets for terrorist attacks by virtue of what he/AlQaida perceives as complicity with “aggressive” policies). On the other hand, he has launched into lengthy discussions of why Al-Qaida feels justified in targeting American civilians, arguing that they cannot be separated from the policies of the Bush administration – either passively (American civilians fail to act in ways that contest or stop those policies) or actively (by voting for the Bush team to be re-elected, paying taxes which are used for the war effort, or suppling “sons and daughters” to the U.S. military). Bin Laden often tries to cast the actions of al-Qaida as defensive against American and Israeli encroachment in the greater Middle East, or else to justify the targeting of civilians by arguing that the U.S. also targets civilians (when using such an argument, Bin Laden does not seem to care about the principle of double-effect and the issue of unintended victims).

None of this is to suggest that terrorists are in fact morally justified in their actions. But it does suggest that they care about moral justification. Once again, we go back to the issue of legitimacy. Terrorist groups take the issue very seriously, and want to resist the idea that both their targets and their resort to violence are illegitimate. This, in turn, brings us back to how contested the concept of terrorism really is.

I initially thought of showing you this documentary during our class, but each part/espisode is far too large to allow for any discussion afterwards. Adam Curtis wrote and produced this large documentary for the BBC in 2004. It has since generated a fair ammount of controversy, and it was not made available in the US because of it. Basically, it is all about the politics of fear that we have discussed. Curtis uses interviews and a lot of archive material to great effect, essentially trying to do 3 things: (i) presenting a history of the radical/conservative political movement within islam since the 1960′s (what we could call Salafism), and at the same time a history of another radical/conservative political movement in the US, since roughly the same time (Neo-conservatism). He then tries to (ii) establish parallels between both movements, and advance the proposition that both were using fear (especially fear of each other’s ideology) for gaining political ground and achieving a degree of legitimacy before their constituencies. Finally (iii) he tries to show how both decisively influenced American foreign and security policy (and indeed, American domestic politics) and actually helped “create” an al-Qaida that had previously not really existed as such (as Mr. Krieger & Mr. Roesler already explained in their presentation on the subject).

Watch it here (several ways to watch/download it, but just click Play this Video on the initial screen and wait for the vid applet to load)

You can also watch it on You Tube (although in more parts and lower quality, just search for “BBC power of nightmares”), and learn more about the program here, at the BBC website, or alternatively read about it (and its reception and critiques) on Wikipedia.

Once again, as with all materials, I urge you to be careful and use your critical skills. Like all narratives about complex political issues, this documentary tends to tell one particular story. Watch it, but keep asking the tough questions about it. In some things the movie is quite good, in others sloppy. In other words, this movie is not “the real truth about al-Qaeda” (or neo-conservatism, or Osama bin Laden), it is Adma Curtis’ informed comment on those topics. Having said that, hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you thought of it.

P.S. -Given that this is a documentary (and a 3-part one at that) it is NOT up for review as part of your evaluation, OK?

Sorry it took me a while to finally get around to this, just been working hard on a couple of other, more urgent things. But I didn’t want to let it hanging, because it seemed to me that a lot of you were very specifically interested in something Mr. Krieger & Mr. Roesler mentioned in their presentation, and that was the issue of how radical Islamist movements justify terrorist attacks on fellow Muslims, especially those in power. As I mentioned then, the key concept that is deployed in justifying this is the doctrine of takfir – which literally means the action of declaring something or someone to be an unbeliever (kafir). You can have an initial look on the Wikipedia entry for takfir, but I am not sure if the explanation is all that clear. As you can see, takfir is often connected with the idea of apostasy (that is, abandoning/rejecting one’s own faith faith). In Islam, apostasy is regarded as a major issue, and the punishment can be death.

The two things that seem clear, though, are (i) that takfir – like any other religious or political idea we have discussed in our class – is open for debate and interpretation, with some people/groups taking a moderate view, and other taking a much more extreme view, and (ii) that those that take an extreme view of it believe that (ii.a) they have the right/authority/legitimacy to declare something/someone takfir themselves and (ii.b) that someone  then becomes an acceptable target for violence. This has given rise to a takfiri movement within radical Islamists, which is of great importance in understanding contemporary Islamists terrorism.

This current within political Islam is relatively recent, and most authors seem to pinpoint its doctrinary origin to Egypt’s political turmoils in the late 1960′s and 1970′s. As Abdel Aziz Ramadan summarizes,

After 1967, the ideas of hakimiyya and takfir became more powerfully attractive to extremist youth groups emerging from the Muslim Brotherhood and to other more radical and violent religious groups. Some of them formed secret organizations aimed at overthrowing the state and establishing an Islamic government. The idea of takfir varied from one Islamic organization to another; interpretation ranged from branding the ruler alone with atheism, to so branding the whole society with him. (Ramadan 1991: 157)

From left to right: Sayyid Qutb in an Egyptian jail; Shukri Mustapha (deceased leader of the Takfir al-Hijra movement); and Salih Siriyya.

Some of the earliest organizations espousing this doctrine, and at times using it to legitimize the use of political violence against other Muslims, were the Military Technical College Organization, (under the leadership of Salih Abd Allah Siriyya) the Takfir w’al-Hijra organization (under Shukri Mustapha), and the Jamaat al-Jihad (under Muhammad Faraj). There is fair bit of literature out there dealing with this development, and it all seems to agree on some of the central points: (i) the origins in radical islamist politics in Egypt following Israel’s victory in the 1967 war, (ii) the direct connection between those early movements/leader and some of the top people in the loose al-Qaida network today, (iii) and their common links – ideologically but also personally – to Sayid Qutb, one of the most important ideologues in radical political Islam.

Below I offer some annotated sources that you may want to consult on both contemporary (post-1967) takfirism, and on Sayid Qutb.

1. Takfirism

Syed Saleem Shahazad, a great reporter with the Asia Times Online who specializes in Islamist and jihadi movements in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has this short piece in Le Monde Diplomatique summarizing some of the key aspects of takfirism. It’s probably the best place to get started – basic but very informative.

Elie Podeh has a chapter on ‘Egypt’s struggle against militant Islamic groups’ which discusses some of the similarities and differences between salafist, jihadi and takfiri currents within Islamist groups in that country. You can find it in in this book, on pp. 45-47. You can think of these three borad currents as concentric circles: the largest, most inclusive circle if that of Salafism; within that there is a smaller circle of Jihadists who believe in the use of violent means to advance their salafist ideals; and finally within that circle there is a smaller circle of takfiris, who justify the use of violence even against fellow Muslims (often against the large majority of the population around them, not only governments).

For a short take on this, see this piece by Bruce Livesey for the American PBS TV station, based on research done by Gilles Kepel.

Steve Brooke has a piece which traces the genealogy of takfir doctrine somewhat differently, from 13th century philospher and theologian Ibn Taymiyya down to Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the Palestinian-Jordanian (former) mentor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – the (now very dead) legendary commander of “al-Qaida in Iraq”.

2. On Qutb

In the years since the 9/11 attacks, there has been an enormous ressurgence of interest in the life and writings of Sayyid Qutb – to the point that it has become almost a cottage industry in certain academic and journalistic circles. While I am always suspicious of such fads and what they bring along (for instance, putting too much emphasis on Qutb as the key ideologue of 20th century salafism/jihadism, and forgetting equally crucial figures such as Shukri Mustapha or Muhammad Faraj), I certainly think that you should make yourselves familiar with Mr. Qutb’s life. As we have discussed in class, understanding the ideas/frames of mind which influence individuals and groups in their terrorist activities is an important part of studying terrorism.

You can have a look at Wikipedia’s entry on Qutb, but bear in mind that he was/is an immensely controversial figure – so apply the critical thought I have sought to encourage in you to all sources you consult. Also, remember the dangers of knowing an author only through secondary sources while ignoring his own words – if you were a writer, do you think people would know you better by reading your own words, or books written after you 50 years after your death? The right answer is, of course BOTH, and ignoring either is not good critical thinking. Of his books, by far the most widely read and influential is Milestones (also sometimes translated as “signposts [along the road]“), but there are many others such as In the Shadow of the Quran, or Islam and Social Justice. If you wish to have a broad overview of his thought, then the best place to start is The Sayyid Qutb Reader, edited by Albert Bergesen. (Also, the introductory chapter by Bergesen to the life and thought of Sayyid is definitely worth a look!) The Uni Bibliothek does not have a copy, but you can search it with Inter-Library Lending, I think there is a copy at either Goettingen or Hannover, certainly one in Hamburg.

Of the mass of books, articles, conference papers and journalism pieces that have come out on Qutb, his thought and influence in recent years, I would recommed the following, if you have the time:

Lawrence Wight’s best-selling The Looming Tower starts with a very accessible, and well-researched, political biography of Sayyid Qutb. The book may have been translated into German.

Another very good political biography of Qutb is by Adnan Musallam, in his 2005 book From Secularim to Jihad: Sayyid Qutb and the foundations of radical Islamism. The book is well researched, and not only does it link Sayyid Qutb’s evolution as a political thinker to the events in his personal life, but also to the wider social and political developments in Egypt. Well worth a look!

A short overview of utb’s thought which links it well with the contemporary Islamist revival is Charles Tripp’s ‘Sayyid Qutb: the political vision’ in Ali Rahnema’s  (2005, 2nd ed.) edited volume Pioneers of Islamic revival. The whole book is an interesting read, situating Qutb among a number of other important intellectual figures that have contributed to Islamist views on politics.

Finally, Sayed Khatab – yes, I know, very similar name! – has two good books out on Qutb and his political thoght, although they may be a bit more difficult/dense. They are The Political thought of Sayyid Qutb – the theory of jahiliyyah (2006) and The Power of Sovereignty – the political and ideological philosophy of Sayyid Qutb (2006). Unfortunately, neither is available for closer inspection on Google Books… I have both books, however, as well as most of the books mentioned in this post, so if you are intrested just shoot me an email.

Happy readings, and I hope you are now much clearer on takfir, and how it has been used to justify Islamist political violence.

Posted in Uncategorized ]]> http://dfrp351.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/88/feed/ 0 dfrp351 qutb-in-egyptian-prison shukri salih http://dfrp351.wordpress.com/2009/02/01/learning-about-islam-3/ http://dfrp351.wordpress.com/2009/02/01/learning-about-islam-3/#comments Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:52:53 +0000 dfrp351 http://dfrp351.wordpress.com/?p=84 ]]> Cannot belive I actually forgot this one!!!!

If you want an excellent account of Islam beyond the basic aspects of the faith and its history, and delving much more into how Islam and (global) politics connect, by far the best introductory text out there is the very recent – so recent, in fact, I forgot it was out there – Global Political Islam, by Dr. Peter Mandaville. One of the leading experts on the evolution of Islamic communities under the impact of our globalized world, he writes this book as an introductory text – which means that while it is written in a very accessible manner, it is still comprehensive enough to leave (almost) no stone unturned. Below I provide you with the table of contents, taken from the publisher’s website:

1. Introduction: Thinking about Islam and Politics in Global Perspective

2. Islam and Politics: History and Key Concepts

3. State Formation and the Making of Islamism

4. Islam in the System: The Evolution of Islamism as Political Strategy

5. Islam as the System: Islamic States and “Islamization” from Above

6. Islam for Lack of a System: Islamism in Weak and Failed States

7. Radical Islamism and Jihad Beyond the Nation-State

8. Muslim Transnationalism: Brotherhoods, Networks Diasporas

9. Who Speaks for Islam? Religious Authority in the Global Umma

10. Beyond Islamism: Globalization and Muslim Politics.

Appendix: Key Economic and Political Indicators for Muslim Countries

Probably the two best books – in the sense of being among the most recent, but also among the most balanced, better referenced and most accessible in writing style – out there on the topic are Michael Bonner’s Jihad in Islamic history – doctrines and practice (2006, from which I have already provided you with a suggestive quotation), and David Cook’s 2005 Understanding Jihad (which, at barely 170 pages, is a very time-saving bet). I have copies of both books, so if any of you are interested, just let me know and I can give you the relevant materials. Reuven Firestone’s curtly title Jihad is also pretty good, but perhaps too focused on the interpretation of historical/religious texts, and therefore too technical for a begginer. (For the champion in that style, check out one of the earliest classics on the doctrine of Jihad in English, Rudolph Peter’s reader entitled Jihad in classical and modern Islam – a reader, which consists of a dense introduction, followed by some of the key texts in the development of the doctrine of Jihad across history) Today’s most complete reader in this same style is Andrew Bostom’s The Legacy of Jihad.

If you want to know more about how contemporary notions of jihad impacted the rise and evolution of Islamist movements, one of the most popular – and still one of the most informative and accessible – accounts is Gille Kepel’s Jihad – the trail of political Islam. An excellent alternative account is Jarrett Brachman’s (just-out) Global Jihadism – theory & practice. Both sources will give you a good sense of how the historical/legal doctrines of jihad (both lesser and greater) have been used as a conceptual framework by Islamist militants in legitimizing/strategizing their use of terrorism – in other words, the jump from jihad (as a concept) to jihadism (as a political movement which often resorts to violence in the name of jihad). Again, I have both these books, so if any of you are intrested in reading them, just shoot me an email.

Jarret Brachman’s website, although a little too “here-I-am-look-at-what-a-big-expert-I-am”-ish, is an interesting source of information of contemporary jihadism, including some very suggestive videos.

Happy learning!

Happy re

Another concept which keeps popping up in the literature on terrorism – and in media accounts more generally – is jihad. As correctly noted by both Mr. Krieger & Mr. Roesler during their presentation, the meaning of the concept is not always clear on such accounts, on the contrary, it seems to get muddled up. Sometimes it is translated as Holy War (which is not at all accurate, given that the earliest use of that frase is actually connected with the Western Crusades in the Middle Ages), and more often than not it seems to be used interchangeably with Islamist terrorism. How can we better understand the term, so that we can use it accurately in the study of the very specific cases of Islamist use of terrorist tactics?

I will proceed in two parts. The first step will concern itself with the meaning of jihad as a political concept, in a way complementing what your colleagues already said in their presenation. The second step is to offer you some resources, so that you can read relevant materials and make up your own minds.

As we have already seen, the definitions of concepts, the meaning we attach to them, matter tremendously. In the case of terorism, defining it to include state actions or not makes a huge difference. And these definitional matters end up having very real effects on people’s lives. Exactly the same could be said of Jihad. So, in trying to offer you clarity about the meaning of Jihad, the most important lessons are: (1) there is no “correct” definition of Jihad, only a multiplicity of meanings and definitions which change according to author and context, (2) different people, at different time, and for different purposes chose to emphasize one meaning over others. Therefore, twentieth century conservative authors in the West (for instance, Daniel Pipes) as well as conservative authors within Islam (think Al-Zawahiri) have an interest in presenting jihad in a certain way – as an offensive concept, a kind of “holy war” between civilizations, a zero-sum-game. Others may chose to emphasize the defensive or non-violent nature of jihad, understood as a philosophical concept. Most authors nowadays would find it difficult not to acknowledge this divide between the so-called “greater” or “inner” jihad (of an individual struggling with himself, his doubts and the ostacles of the world around him, in order to stay in the path of God), and the “smaller jihad“, or the violent struggle in the name of Islam.

Author Michael Bonner puts it nicely into perspective:

Thus Islam, through jihad, equals violence and war; or else, through jihad, it equals peace. Now surely it is not desirable, or even possible, to reduce so many complex societies and polities, covering such broad extents of time and space, to any single governing principle. And in fact, not all contemporary writers view the matter in such stark terms. Many do share, however, an assumption of nearly total continuity, in Islam, between practice and norm and between history and doctrine. And it is still not uncommon to see Islam described as an unchanging essence or a historical cause. The jihad then conveniently provides a key to understanding that essence or cause, and so we are told that Islam is fundamentally “about” war, that it “accounts for” the otherwise inexplicable suicidal activity of certain individuals, that it “explains” the occurrence of wars in history, and so on.

None of this so far has told us what jihad actually is, beyond its tremendous resonance in present and past. Is it an ideology that favors violence? A political means of mass mobilization? A spiritual principle of motivation for individuals?

While we do not wish for this to be an argument over words alone, we cannot understand the doctrines or the historical phenomena without understanding the words as precisely as possible . The Arabic word jihad does not mean “holy war” or “just war.” It literally means “striving.” When followed by the modifying phrase fi sabil Allah, “in the path of God,” or when—as often—this phrase is absent but assumed to be in force, jihad has the specific sense of fighting for the sake of God (whatever we understand that to mean). In addition, several other Arabic words are closely related to jihad in meaning and usage. These include ribat, which denotes pious activity, often related to warfare, and in many contexts seems to constitute a defensive counterpart to a more activist, offensive jihad. Ribat also refers to a type of building where this sort of defensive warfare can take place: a fortified place where garrisons of volunteers reside for extended periods of time while holding Islamic territory against the enemy. Ghazw, ghazwa, and ghaza’ have to do with raiding (from which comes the French word razzia). Qital, or “fighting,” at times conveys something similar to jihad/ ribat, at times not. Harb means “war” or “fighting,” usually in a more neutral sense, carrying less ideological weight than the other terms. All these words, however, have wide semantic ranges and frequently overlap with one other. They also change with distance and time.

Jihad, for the historian, is thus not only about clashes between religions, civilizations, and states but also about clashes among groups within Islamic societies. Equally important, jihad has never ceased changing, right down to our own day. If it ever had an original core, this has been experienced anew many times over. (Bonner 2006: 2-3, 4; emphasis added)

Thus, jihad can mean several things, to several people, at different times, under varying circumstances. As I hope you have learned so far – it depends. But just saying that is an easy way out. What you must think about is – depends on what?

A good starting point is to start learning a bit more about the different historical meanings of the word, which is also related to my previous suggestion to make yourselves more familiar with the principles and history of Islam. Of course it would take you years to become something even approximating an expert on Islamic history of Islamic jurisprudence, but it would take a surprisingly little ammount of reading for you to at least get a basic knowledge of the key themes. Then you can start thinking, and answering yourself some of the tough questions – going beyond the ultra-simplified narrative most media offers you. Questions like: if a violent strain of jiahd has always manifested itself, has it always, or necessarily, been linked to terrorist tactics? In historical doctrines of jihad, has there been a legal/moral concern to distinguish between acceptable and non-acceptable targets of political violece? If one of the key issues for jihad to be accepted as legitimate is for it to be declared by a legitimate authority (such as a caliph leading the entire umma), and since such supreme authority no longer exists politically in today’s Islamic community, does this mean current Islamist groups have no legtimate authority to declare jihad? How do you think they try to work around that difficulty?

Last class’ presentation on Islamist terrorism (especially salafist groups) introduced a large number of concepts/distinctions which you may not be very familiar with – as was evident from a lot of the questions coming from you in the Q&A session. Mr. Krieger and Mr. Roessler made a good effort in introducing some of these matters to you, but obviously that is a difficult task in just 10 mns, so I figured I could supplement their presentation with a few materials, which I will posting in the next few days.

First of all, you should make yourselves familiar with the basic aspects of Islam – not just as a necessary basis for understanding Islamist political violence, but also (perhaps more importantly) as a way of becoming a better informed and more tolerant citizen of this world. Islam is one of the great religions of this world, and is the fastest growing religion. It has between 1.2 -1.8 billion believers, of which about 3.5 million live in Germany. And just as you know something about Catholicism and Protestantism as a matter of general culture (understanding concepts such as salvation, ressurrection, communion, confession, etc.), you should know something about Islam. Ignorance is usually the first step to intolerance, and by making yourself familiar with some of these issues, you will be better prepared to deal with some of the ignorance, misrepresentation and intolerance that is often displayed against Islam, especially after 9/11. Knowing more is a good way of avoiding the politics of fear we have discussed in previous sessions.

The most accessible and probably also the best short book on Islam is by Malise Ruthven, and is approperiately entitled Islam – a very short introduction (originally published in 1997, but with multiple editions since). You can see more of it here or here. Alternatively, an equally accessible introductory book to islam is Reza Aslan’s 2006 No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (see here and especially here, in conversation with Jon Stewart of Daily Show fame), written essentially as an educational introduction to Islam for an American audience in the post-9/11 world (apparently, it has since been translated into German). Another good starting point is Wikipedia’s article on Islam – while Wikipedia suffers from some problems, and several articles are very bad, this one seems very reasonable. It is well referenced, contains links to several pages where you can learn more, and has been identified as one of the best articles in Wikipedia, as well as externally reviewed. If you wish to learn more about the social and political history of Islam, I heartily recommend you have a look at Islam: Empire of faith, an educational documentary produced by PBS (watch part 1, part 2, and part 3).

As a starting point, it is worth understanding Sunni-Shi’ia distinction. In the same way as Christiany is divided into strands or confessions (like Catholics and Protestants), so is Islam divided. Although not the only two strands of Islam (as is often asserted, forgetting other smaller denominations or sub-tendencies such as Sufism, the Alevites and the Kharijites), they are the most important ones. And, as Mr. Krieger correctly pointed out, their differences stem from political struggle, more than religious difference in ritual – the latter aspect having developed since the original split. The Wikipedia article has a short but useful discussion of their main differences, and so does Ruthven’s book. Predictably, the split originates with the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632. Struggle broke out between two factions over who would succeed the Prophet in leading the ‘umma (the religious community of all Muslims) – if the prophet’s closest friend and advisor (Abu Bakr), or his cousin (Ali). Abu Bakr became the first caliph (supreme secular leader of all Muslims), and Ali had to wait 22 years until (after the deaths of Caliph Bakr in 634, Caliph Omar in 644 and Caliph Othman in 656) he became Caliph himself. Soon, however, he was assassinated, and fighting broke off once more for who had the right of succession. It was from these events that the majority (following the succession line of the other 3 Caliphs) became knows as Sunni’s, and the minority that favoured Ali’s line of succession became known as the Shi’ia. An excellent book to understand the history, politics and contemporary relevance of Shi’ia Islam is Vali Nasr’s book The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future.