Understanding Jihad
by David Cook
List Price:
Our Price: $18.39
You Save: $7.56 (29%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $7.99 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: David CookEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-05-23
ISBN: 0520244486
Number of pages: 269
Publisher: University of California Press
Book Reviews of Understanding Jihad
Book Review: A rare piece of intellectually honest scholarship on a crucial concept and reality for the 21st Century
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent book on the subject of jihad and the books it cites include all the key canonical texts of Islam, including the Qur'an, which is rife with incitements against non-Muslims, and the ahadith (the 'traditions' of Muhammad's words and deeds, compiled by pious Muslims). It will certainly get some people's backs up since it reveals the doctrinal and historical basis of militant, offensive (as opposed to merely defensive) jihad. Cook maps the origins of jihad from the time of Muhammad, who conducted numerous raids and unprovoked attacks upon local tribes (attested by his authoritative Muslim biographer Ibn Ishaq), through to its crystallization within Islamic law. He utterly refutes the Islamic apologist nonsense of John Esposito et al in showing that jihad as a struggle within one's 'soul' - called the 'greater' jihad - never appeared in any authentic hadith, and never superseded the prevailing notion of jihad as 'warfare to spread Islam'. The fact that offensive jihad to spread Islam is an obligation for the Muslim community in all four schools of Sunni jurisprudence is never tackled by such Islamic apologists. The meaningless charge of Cook being 'right' wing may be expected but is a typical and empty accusation made by people who don't like the truth be told. It does nothing to address the facts and arguments presented by Cook, who is an Arabic scholar with direct access to all of the primary source materials. Considering that most Islamic studies departments in Western universities are dominated by 'scholars' of the Edward Said school - i.e. 'intellectual terrorists' as Ibn Warraq would call them - or are funded by Saudi money with a vested interest in sanitising Islamic studies, it comes as no surprise that many academics would shun this work. However, this is lucid, dispassionate, insightful and brilliantly articulated. If I could recommend one book on jihad, in addition to Andrew Bostom's Legacy of Jihad, Bat Ye'or's Islam and Dhimmitude or Walid Phares's Future Jihad - OK, that's four in total - then I would strongly recommend this. Militant jihad for the sake of rendering Islam dominant did not start with Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, nor with the Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sayyed Qutb, as some "moderate" Muslims claim (take Ed Husain's autobiographical The Islamist as an example of a work that pretends to be authoritative on this but fails miserably to be so). Cook's book puts the entire lineage of jihad theory and practice into historical context, and despite its permutations he concludes that it has always been pushing at the horizon.
Theology Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Theology Books
Praying the Names of Jesus: A Daily Guideby Ann Spangler
Zondervan; Published: 2006-09-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.89
Price in other shops:
Case for Christ, Theby Lee Strobel
Zondervan; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $18.31
Price in other shops:
What's So Amazing About Grace?by Philip Yancey
Zondervan; Published: 2002-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.96
Price in other shops:
The Jesus I Never Knewby Philip Yancey
Zondervan; Published: 2002-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.25
Price in other shops:
Who's Afraid of the Old Testament God?by Alden Thompson
Zondervan; Published: 1989-09; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
Upanisads (Oxford World's Classics)Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1998-11-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.84
Price in other shops:
St. Augustine Confessions (Oxford World's Classics)by Saint Augustine
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1998-06-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops:
Christ the Lord: A Crisis in the Life of Godby Miles Jack
Arrow/Children S (a Division of Random House; Published: 2003-03; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
The Mind of the Makerby Dorothy L. Sayers
HarperOne; Published: 1987-09-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.39
Price in other shops:
Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospelby Luke Timothy Johnson
HarperOne; Published: 2000-01-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, Revised Editionby Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal, Miriam Rajkumar
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Published: 2005-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.95
Price in other shops:
Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Future of International Nonproliferation Policy (Studies in Security and International Affairs)University of Georgia Press; Published: 2009-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.31
Price in other shops:
Nuclear Energy: What Everyone Needs to Knowby Charles D. Ferguson
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2011-05-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.41
Price in other shops:
Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection (The CERI Series in Comparative Politics and International Studies)by Mariam Abou Zahab, Olivier Roy
Columbia University Press; Published: 2006-11-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.00
Price in other shops:
Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literatureby Alex P. Schmid, A.J. Jongman
Transaction Publishers; Published: 2005-03-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $36.27
Price in other shops:
Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, 3rd Edition (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society, Vol. 13)by Mark Juergensmeyer
University of California Press; Published: 2003-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.55
Price in other shops:
Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mindby Walter Reich
Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Published: 1998-09-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.00
Price in other shops:
Inside Jihadism: Understanding Jihadi Movements Worldwide (The Yale Cultural Sociology Series)by Farhad Khosrokhavar
Paradigm Publishers; Published: 2009-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.98
Price in other shops:
The Al Qaeda Reader: The Essential Texts of Osama Bin Laden's Terrorist OrganizationBroadway; Published: 2007-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Centuryby Marc Sageman
University of Pennsylvania Press; Published: 2008-01-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.87
Price in other shops: