The Mind of Jihad

Murawiec examines contemporary jihad using history, anthropology, and theology to understand its political and ideological origins.

Laurent Murawiec (Author)

9780521730631, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 August 2008

376 pages
23.4 x 16.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

“Terrorists are produced by a totalitarian ideology justifying terrorism. That is its ‘root cause.’…This, then, is the book for those who wish to explore the ‘root cause’ in the ideas that give moral legitimacy to Islamist terrorism…Murawiec’s research into the working relationship between the Soviet Union and Islamism is original and startling…The Mind of Jihad takes the discussion precisely in the direction in which it needs to go if we are to understand and prevail in this new war of ideas.”
-Robert R. Reilly, American Foreign Policy Council, Claremont Review of Books

This book examines contemporary jihad as a cult of violence and power. All jihadi groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or not, are characterized by a similar bloodlust. Murawiec characterizes this belief structure as identical to that of Europe's medieval millenarians and apocalyptics, arguing that both jihadis and their European cousins shared in a Gnostic ideology: a God-given mission endowed the Elect with supernatural powers and placed them above the common law of mankind. Although the ideology of jihad is essentially Islamic, Murawiec traces the political technologies used by modern jihad to the Bolsheviks. Their doctrines of terror as a system of rule were appropriated by radical Islam through multiple lines of communication. This book brings history, anthropology, and theology to bear to understand the mind of jihad that has declared war on the West and the world.

1. 'We love death'
2. 'An elite of amoral supermen'
3. The Gnostic Mahdi
4. Manichean tribalism
5. The odd pedigree of modern jihad
6. The mutated virus: 'Islamic Revolution'
7. Jihad as terror.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Theology [HRLB], Religion & politics [HRAM2], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]