Islamic Political Radicalism

Abstract

As jihadi ideology shifts from articulating a perpetual conflict against the“far enemy” (read: the United States and its allies) and the “near enemy”(read: the United States’ clients) within the Middle East and the wider Muslimworld to taking the conflict to the heart of the far enemy in NorthAmericaand Western Europe, it is time for academics to take stock of what hashappened, how it has happened, and why. The “radicalization” debate, as itis called, tries to ask the pertinent question of why some Muslim male citizensof these “western” states feel so disenchanted, dis-integrated, and alienatedfrom their immediate communities that they can perpetrate such grossacts of violence as the bombings in Madrid in March 2004 and 7/7 in London.The challenge of such violent radicalism (and it is important to qualifyit as such, since radicalism traditionally has been a political virtue of the Leftdemanding change) affects security policy as well as the integrity and dignityof Muslim communities. Tahir Abbas, a reader in sociology at the University of Birmingham anda leading expert on the sociology of Britain’s Muslim communities, hasassembled a vibrant interdisciplinary circle of specialists, comprisingMuslimand non-Muslim academics and activists, to tackle this question. The collectionbrings together studies in political science, political sociology (the primaryfocus for the debate on radicalism), anthropology, psychology, criminology,and related disciplines.The contributors concentrate on Britain, albeitwithin a European context, and thus this book might be of value for thosestudying Islamismin otherMuslim-minority contexts (particularly the UnitedStates) and even in Muslim-majority contexts as a base of comparison ...