The Quest to Understand Global Jihad: The Terrorism Industry and its Discontents

Abstract

Since the 1970s, Islamic fundamentalism, later termed political Islam or Islamism, was constructed in the high towers of academia as a field of enquiry if not the field par excellence. Tens of monographs, surveys, in-depth studies and histories of the main Islamist movements appeared in all European languages. From the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to Pakistan’s Jammati Islami, the diversity and similarities of these movements were captured. The local contexts were analysed and their ideological pamphlets were collected and interpreted. Scholars constructed the biographies of their leaders and activists. Knowledge of local languages in the Muslim world, together with vigorous in-depth fieldwork enhanced the analysis and dissemination of knowledge about one of the strongest political, religious and social trends in the world of Islam in the last three decades of the twentieth century. By the 1980s, the inability of most of these movements to reach power and take the state, with the exception of the Islamic republic of Iran, prompted scholars to announce the ‘failure of political Islam’. Others argued that Islamism has had an important long-lasting impact on Muslim societies, regardless of its ability to seize power. This impact will continue to shape the moral, political and social contexts of many countries from North Africa to Asia.