The genealogy of terror : how to distinguish between Islam, Islamism, and Islamist extremism

Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Foreword
Preface
	The context of this book
	The aims of this book
	A note on the transliteration of Arabic terms
Acknowledgments
1	Why this book is needed
	A global crisis of misunderstanding: why this book is needed; who its author is; what this book will accomplish
	Why? How? What?
	Plate section between pages 5 and 6
		Plate 1 Categories of Islam-related Worldview
		Plate 2 Characteristics of the Worldviews of Mainstream Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism
		Plate 3 Typology of the ‘shifting’ Doctrine of Loyalty and Disavowal (Al-Wala’ wal Bara’)
		Plate 4 Typology of the ‘shifting’ Doctrine of the Unity of God (Tawhid)
	My story and credentials
	The structure and substance of this book
2	The roots of Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism: the historical fault lines of Islam
	Introduction: Islam is shaped by the presence and absence of Muhammad
	Political-theological hiatus and split: the Sunni-Shia divide
	Institutional hiatus and split: the division of powers between the Muslim Executive and the religious judiciary
	Intellectual hiatus and split: rationalist vs. literalist intellectual tension
3	The Worldviews of Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism
	Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism are all internally-coherent, self-contained Worldviews
	The idea of a Worldview
	Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism as Worldviews
	The Worldview of Mainstream Islam: unity-in-diversity
	The Worldview of Activist Islam: diversity-in-unity
	The Worldview of Islamism: contingent separation and exaggerated difference
	The Worldview of Non-Violent Islamist Extremism: absolute Manichean separation
	The Worldview of Violent Islamist Extremism (VIE): absolute, eternal difference and separation with lethal consequences for the non-Muslim and wrong-Muslim out-groups
4	Basic beliefs, practices and characteristic themes of Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism
	The sources of the Worldview of Mainstream Islam: the Qur’an and the Sunna
	The themes and ethical praxis of Mainstream Islam
	The themes and ethical praxis of Activist Islam
	The themes and ethical praxis of Ideological Islamism
	The themes and ethical praxis of Non-Violent Islamist Extremism
	The themes and ethical praxis of Violent Islamist Extremism
5	Mainstream Islam: the people, texts and contexts
	Hermeneutical health warning: people and their ideas are ‘shifters’
	Mainstream Islam: the people and the texts
	The Book of God – Al-Qur’an (the recitation)
	The Opening Chapter (Al-Fatiha)
	Other seminal chapters
	Commentaries on the Qur’an
	The canonical books of hadith
	The great works of Law ( Fiqh), Jurisprudence ( Usul al-Fiqh)
	The Wahhabi reformation: the Book of Divine Unity ( Kitab al-Tawhid)
	To philosophize or not to philosophize? Al-Ghazali vs. Ibn Rushd
	Mainstream Islam in the modern and contemporary period
6	Islamism: the people, texts and contexts
	Maududi, Al-Banna and Khomeini: the Ideological Islamist shift from agency to structure
	The second phase of Islamism: Sayyid Qutb and the birth of Non-Violent Islamist Extremism
	Milestones (1964) – the ‘ur-’ text of Islamist Extremism
	Ayatollah Khomeini: Shia Islamism succeeds where Sunni Islamism fails
7	The Genealogy of Terror: the people, texts and contexts of Violent Islamist Extremism
	Violent Islamist Extremism’s ‘pioneers’: Abdullah Azzam and Muhammad Abd as-Salam Faraj
	Defense of Muslim lands: the first obligation after faith (1979)
	The glamour of Jihad
	The ideologues of Al-Qaeda: bin Laden, Al-Awlaki, Al-Zawahiri and As-Suri
	The impact of the Bosnian War (1991–1995)
	Al-Zawahiri and As-Suri: Al-Qaeda’s backroom boys
	The ideologues of the Islamic State: Abu Musab Az-Zarqawi, Naji, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani
	The Arab Spring reaches Syria
	The state-building of Islamic State
8	A second Age of Extremes or a second Age of Enlightenment?
	Summary
	The political conditions of Extremism
	Why? The root causes of Islamist Extremism
Appendix 1: Basic Guides to Mainstream Islam
Appendix 2: Digital Islam
Glossary of key terms and names
References
Index