On Democracy, Violence, and the Promise of Islam

Abstract

John Kelsay's Arguing the Just War in Islam enriches the field of comparative religious ethics through its nuanced historical treatment of war in Islamic jurisprudence. Kelsay's work has long been an important resource for scholarly insights into the field of Islamic ethics and this addition to the corpus should be lauded especially for its lucid eloquence, a rare quality that is all too important when writing about a topic that is relevant to a broad audience. Substantively, Arguing the Just War provides a detailed intellectual history of “Sharia reasoning” and demonstrates how this strand of Islamic history has evolved—or perhaps more accurately, devolved—to legitimate the crisis of Islamic extremism. One leaves the book not only well informed about the history of Islam, Sharia, and warfare, but with a model for how one—as a scholar, teacher, and citizen—ought responsibly, thoughtfully, and respectfully to engage with a religious tradition that is not one's own.1 With this volume, Kelsay offers a valuable contribution to the fields of Islam, just war theory, and comparative ethics. His account of Muslim jurisprudence on war serves as an accessible reference for scholars and students, and his final thoughts on Islamic religious governance and violence will be sure to fuel many debates on this timely topic.