Product Description

Holy war ideas appear among Muslims during the earliest manifestations of the religion. This book locates the origin of Jihad and traces its evolution as an idea with the intellectual history of the concept of Jihad in Islam as well as how it has been misapplied by modern Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers. The book provides a unique and balanced coverage of the historical evolution of the concept of Jihad, and mainstream moderate Islamic views of the concept from the Qu'ran to the Twenty-first century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #167228 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

From the Foreword by Zaki M. Badawi, Muslim College London
'Mandatory reading...This reappraisal of the evolution of the concept of Jihad in Islamic history...is particularly timely and welcome.'

About the Author
RICHARD BONNEY was the Founding Editor of the Oxford Journal, French History, between 1987-2001. He has instigated and directed the European State Finance Database. He is currently Head of Department of History at the University of Leicester and Director of the Centre for the History of Religious and Political Pluralism and of INPAREL, the Institute for the Study of Indo-Pakistan Relations.

Customer Reviews

A Bonney Book


Those who should have known better saw and used the tragic events of 11 September 2001 as a stick with which to beat Muslims, their faith and their religious practices. Yet 11 September was primarily a political act against America which was dressed in quasi-religious language. It was a specific political tactic used by Osama bin Laden, based on his own interpretation of Islam, which brought a loss of support for al-Qaeda and widespread condemnation from the Muslim world itself.

The West's war on terror was seen in the Muslim world as a furtherance of American interests against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan and an attempt to impose on both countries an alien form of government. However, many within the Muslim world condemned bin Laden's concept of global jihad as being a perversion of the Islamic concept of the just war. To them it was as if the murderous policy of the IRA in Northern Ireland represented the religious views of the Roman Catholic Church and, however mistaken, they interpreted the war on terror as a war on Islam.

Richard Bonney's primary purpose is to explain to non Muslims what the concept of Jihad means in Muslim thought and how it has developed over the centuries in two distinct forms. Firstly as a Muslim's individual struggle against his own lower nature and as the political concept of a just war. Bonney suggests that once an Islamic world had been stabilised it accepted that Islam should live in harmony with the outside world. He argues "that to use concepts of jihad from the early centuries of Islam's development to define the modern Islamic understanding of just war is clearly anachronistic as well as damaging to Islam itself." Many Muslims agree and claim that they too have a duty "to isolate and defeat radical elements who seek to subvert the rules of ethics and justice to pursue their own wild and unworkable political ambitions."

Bonney accepts at the outset that there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism. There is terrorism perpetrated by violent Islamists, in much the same way as Catholic and Protestant violence in Northern Ireland has precious little to do with the creeds they confess. Radical Islamists too comprise several groups. Political Islamists in Algeria and Tunisia have been outlawed by the ruling governments in those states. There has been an longstanding conflict between secularising forces in Arab countries and those politicians who wish to impose more authoritarian fundamentalist regimes. What Bonney does successfully is to encapsulate Islamic history in readable form. Sadly it is a history unfamiliar to many in the West but which needs to be understood if the unfurled fist referred to by Barrack Obama is to be grasped in open handed friendship.

Most Islamic scholars regard their religion as one of peace and tolerance. They recognise that in common with other world religions they have "difficult texts", the existence of which has led to schisms, divergence of opinions and a reading of history in different ways. For example, while Muslim scholars believe the Koran shows special respect and brotherhood to all those who believe in one God, including Jews, this ideal has often been undermined by virulent antisemitism amongst some sections of Arab world. For the West the Holocaust was a crime against humanity, for many Arabs it was a minor incident compared with what they consider to be the excesses of Zionism. Underlying both is not a concept of religious faith but political belief.

In one sense it's impossible to understand another's viewpoint without understanding what (s)he believes. That can only be done by coming to grips with the history and development of the thought which inspires them. As a nation the teaching of history has tended to be centred on Britain (more specifically on England) and its expansion and conquest of the world. Until recently the notion of studying other societies and their history was almost an after-thought. Consequently we know little of the Arab world, as was attested to when it was revealed Tony Blair, at the time of the invasion of Iraq, had no knowledge of its creation, development or constituent parts of what is now called Iraq.

This fault in the teaching of history is not confined to Britain. In other countries too the emphasis has been on existing society outwards rather than the world as a whole inwards. However, as the world has shrunk to a global village, we owe it to ourselves to understand the history and thought of other people. Bonney does this admirably exploring the history of State and Faith from the time of Mohammad through to modern times. He explores the Islamic experience not to justify it but to understand it. The key to understanding that experience is politics not religion. The changing concept of jihad is an example of politics in action not the re-stating of faith.

The main political focus in the Muslim world is twofold. Firstly the existence of Israel which Arabs regard as a foreign state on Arab territory and American foreign policy which they see as the main reason why Israel is able to conduct what they perceive to be an aggressive State expansion at the expense of the Palestinian people. None of this can be understood without a reading of the development of both Islamic and Zionist thought and, in the case of Islam, an understanding of their perception of the West as perpetuating the desire of the Crusades to conquer Arab lands and undermine Muslim ideals. In common with many previously subservient states political thought has been a mixture of revolutionary nationalism, anti-imperialism, gradualism, socialism, Marxism, authoritarianism, democratic ideals and many more shades of the political spectrum.

Unfortunately we seem to live in a throw away world in which all that matters is the here and now. Respect for tradition has brought with it a distaste for history which regards anything older than yesterday as being irrelevant to the well being of humankind. We are so wrapped up in the here and now we no longer spend time reading about, reflecting on, or understanding how, the past has shaped the present. Richard Bonney's book is a superbly written account of how the present can only be understood by understanding the past. By dispelling ignorance on the subject of jihad and its meaning Bonney has made a valuable contribution to a clear understanding of where we are now. By reading it we may get a better idea of what tomorrow will be like.

It deserves five stars but I've given it four partly because many people will find Bonney covers too much ground and tries to be too inclusive. For example, all dates appear in accordance with the Muslim and Christian calendars (with the notable exception of 9/11). In my view he should have used one or the other and, as the book is written primarily for readers in the English speaking world, the Christian calendar would have been sufficient. In addition, while some academics will reject it for not using Arabic sources some readers will lack the stamina to read it as an introduction to the subject. Personally I shall buy it and refer to it regularly as the need arises and that appears to me to be the mark of a good book.