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This volume introduces the concept of Islamist extremist 'master narratives' and offers a method for identifying and analyzing them. Drawing on rhetorical and narrative theories, the chapters examine thirteen master narratives and explain how extremists use them to solidify their base, recruit new members, and motivate actions.
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This rich, interdisciplinary collection of articles offers fascinating new insights into the history and culture of Sephardic Jewry both in pre-Expulsion Iberia and throughout the far-flung diaspora.
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.
The authoritative account of Islam's schism that for centuries has shaped events in the Middle East and the Islamic world. In 632, soon after the Prophet Muhammad died, a struggle broke out among his followers as to who would succeed him. Most Muslims argued that the leader of Islam should be elected by the community's elite and rule as Caliph. They would later become the Sunnis. Otherswho would become known as the Shiabelieved that Muhammad had designated his cousin and son-in-law Ali as his successor, and that henceforth Ali's offspring should lead as Imams. This dispute over who should guide Muslims, the Caliph or the Imam, marks the origin of the Sunni-Shii split in Islam. Toby Matthiese...
Discusses messianism in nineteenth-century Yemen as a social and cultural phenomenon and traces the early roots of both Jewish and Muslim messianism in Yemen from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries with attention to messianic movements in the nineteenth century.
Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions tells the story of the Nurbakhshiya, an Islamic messianic movement that originated in fifteenth-century central Asia and Iran and survives to the present in Pakistan and India. In the first full-length study of the sect, Shahzad Bashir illumines the significance of messianism as an Islamic religious paradigm and illustrates its centrality to any discussion of Islamic sectarianism. By tracing Nurbakhshi activity in the Middle East and central and southern Asia through more than five centuries, Bashir brings to view the continuities and disruptions within Islamic civilization across regions and over time. Bashir effectively captures the way Nurbakhshis have understood and debated the meaning of their tradition in various geographical and temporal contexts. Bashir provides a detailed biography of the movement's founder, Muhammad Nurbakhsh (d. 1464). Born to a Twelver Shi'i family, Nurbakhsh declared himself the mahdi, or the Muslim messiah, as an adept of the Kubravi Sufi order under the influence of the teachings of the great Sufi master Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1240). Nurbakhsh's religious worldview, which Bashir treats in depth in this volume, offers a
New Arabian Studies is an international journal covering a wide spectrum of topics including geography, archaeology, history, architecture, agriculture, language, dialect, sociology, documents, literature and religion. It provides authoritative information intended to appeal to both the specialist and general reader. Both the traditional and the modern aspects of Arabia are covered, excluding contemporary controversial politics.
This book is about Iranian Islamism on grass-roots level. It provides a vivid, near-life portrait of young activist men who uphold this movement through their zealous support of revolutionary ideals and the present regime. It is based on interviews with a group of volunteers in the Iranian home guard movement known as basij during a period of four years. By focusing on beliefs and rituals of individual persons, it gives a unique picture of the shifting motifs behind Islamist engagement in today’s Iran. The book contextualises the interviewed individuals within the wider framework of Iranian society and relates their stories to a discussion on ritual, emotion, embodiment and authority. It is of interest to anyone who seeks to understand the multifaceted driving forces behind Shi’ite Islamism today.