Your Sons Are at Your Service

Your Sons Are at Your Service
Author: Aaron Y. Zelin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231550499

Tunisia became one of the largest sources of foreign fighters for the Islamic State—even though the country stands out as a democratic bright spot of the Arab uprisings and despite the fact that it had very little history of terrorist violence within its borders prior to 2011. In Your Sons Are at Your Service, Aaron Y. Zelin uncovers the longer history of Tunisian involvement in the jihadi movement and offers an in-depth examination of the reasons why so many Tunisians became drawn to jihadism following the 2011 revolution. Zelin highlights the longer-term causes that affected jihadi recruitment in Tunisia, including the prior history of Tunisians joining jihadi organizations and playing key roles in far-flung parts of the world over the past four decades. He contends that the jihadi group Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia was able to take advantage of the universal prisoner amnesty, increased openness, and the lack of governmental policy toward it after the revolution. In turn, this provided space for greater recruitment and subsequent mobilization to fight abroad once the Tunisian government cracked down on the group in 2013. Zelin marshals cutting-edge empirical findings, extensive primary source research, and on-the-ground fieldwork, including a variety of documents in Arabic going as far back as the 1980s and interviews with Ansar al-Sharia members and Tunisian fighters returning from Syria. The first book on the history of the Tunisian jihadi movement, Your Sons Are at Your Service is a meticulously researched account that challenges simplified views of jihadism’s appeal and success.

The Rule is for None but Allah

The Rule is for None but Allah
Author: Joana Cook
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2023-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0197766730

The last four decades have been shaped by the rise of Islamist politics across significant swathes of the globe. Whether by gun or by ballot box, various Islamist movements-from as far and wide as the Malian desert and Indonesia's archipelagos-have sought to obtain power and govern territories, in a bid to revive an Islamic ancient regime. With the regional privations produced by the 'War on Terror' and the political unrest following 2011's Arab uprisings, the global march of Islamism has only accelerated in the twenty-first century. Building on an established literature on rebel governance, The Rule is for None but Allah examines fifteen cases from around the world to consider the different ways Islamists have approached and implemented governance; the challenges they have faced; and how they have responded to obstacles. It brings new detail and insights on a wide range of themes, including legitimacy, constitutionality and social-welfare activism. From the rise and fall of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, to Islamic State's attempts to create its own currency, to the dramatic return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, this edited volume from two leading scholars of contemporary terrorism assembles an enviable array of international experts to explore these pressing issues.

The Socio-intellectual Foundations of Malek Bennabi's Approach to Civilization

The Socio-intellectual Foundations of Malek Bennabi's Approach to Civilization
Author: Badrane Benlahcene
Publisher: International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2011
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1565643674

Since the publication of Samuel Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations” concern about civilization has been reintroduced into the debate on the world order. Malek Bennabi (1905–1973), prominent Algerian thinker and great Muslim intellectual, intently focused on unravelling the causes of Muslim decline and the success of Western civilization and culture. The key problem he theorized lay not in the Qur’an or Islamic faith but in Muslims themselves. The author investigates Bennabi’s approach to civilization and the fundamental principles drawn, using metatheorizing methodology. In doing so he sheds further light on perhaps one of the more intriguing elements of Bennabi’s theory, that civilization is governed by internal-external and social-intellectual factors and that an equation can be generated for civilization itself. This equation of Man+Soil+Time = Civilization and of which religion, according to Bennabi, forms the all-important catalyst, is explained and its significance in terms of the reversal of Muslim decline evaluated. What is clearly apparent is that for Bennabi, Man is the central force in any civilizing process and without him the other two elements are of no value. With regard to outcomes, Bennabi’s unerring conviction that unless Muslims changed their spiritual condition they could not effect any far-reaching, meaningful change in society is echoed in the Qur’anic verse: “Verily, never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves” (13:11).

The Political Thought of Sayyid Qutb

The Political Thought of Sayyid Qutb
Author: Sayed Khatab
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2006-04-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1134185197

This new book takes a literary approach in its study of Sayyid Qutb, one of the most significant political thinkers for contemporary Islamists and who has greatly influenced the likes of Osama Bin Laden. Executed by the Egyptian state in 1966, his books continue to be read and his theory of jahiliyya ‘ignorance’ is still of prime importance for radical Islamic groups. Through an examination of his thoughts and theories, the book explores the main concepts that are used by today’s radical fundamentalist movements, tracing the intellectual origins, as well as the conceptual and methodological thinking of radical Islamist movements in the modern world. The book sheds light on Islamic radicalism and its origins by presenting new analysis on the intellectual legacy of one of the most important thinkers of the modern Islamic revival. This is an invaluable new book for our time.

Accessions List

Accessions List
Author: United States. Department of State. Library Division
Publisher:
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1958
Genre:
ISBN:

The Egyptian Army and the Muslim Brotherhood

The Egyptian Army and the Muslim Brotherhood
Author: Sara Tonsy
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2021-11-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000509257

This book provides an analysis of the relationship between the Egyptian army and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). This is at times of cooperation, collaboration, rivalry, and enmity, offering a vivid perspective as to how the similarities of both political actors bring them together after decades of invisible presence in the Egyptian political field. Using ethnographic material that includes interviews, observations, and other forms of expression, both political actors’ common trajectories are analyzed in terms of power dynamics. The study allows an insight on the understanding of the differences between madani (civil), ‘askari (military), and dini (religious), how they are used and projected on the Egyptian political field. Finally, the book provides a dialogue simulation of the discourse of the MB and army, starting 2011, while analyzing the meaning of this exchange in terms of symbols, power, and mobilization. In highlighting similar elements to their respective governmentalities, this book outlines a new analysis of the rivalry, making it an important contribution for scholars and students interested in collective violence, civil–military relations, and political Islam in the Middle East.

Other Renaissances

Other Renaissances
Author: B. Schildgen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2006-12-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230601898

Other Renaissances is a collection of twelve essays discussing renaissances outside the Italian and Italian prompted European Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The collection proposes an approach to reframing the Renaissance in which the European Renaissance becomes an imaginative idea, rather than a particular moment in time

Islamic Jurisprudence - 3rd Edition

Islamic Jurisprudence - 3rd Edition
Author: Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2019-08-29
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0359883117

Islamic jurisprudence or usul al-fiqh provides the foundation for any meaningful study of Islamic law. The present book has been in the field for more than a decade and has received a positive response from many quarters. It is used as a textbook in a number of university courses. Over the years, however, students have shown an eagerness to know more. They have raised many questions whose answers the book did not provide. A catalogue of the questions asked, and those not asked, gave rise to the need to revise the book. The present, third, edition of the book has, therefore, been revised and three chapters at the end have been completely rewritten.

Feminists, Islam, and Nation

Feminists, Islam, and Nation
Author: Margot Badran
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 1996-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400821436

The emergence and evolution of Egyptian feminism is an integral, but previously untold, part of the history of modern Egypt. Drawing upon a wide range of women's sources--memoirs, letters, essays, journalistic articles, fiction, treatises, and extensive oral histories--Margot Badran shows how Egyptian women assumed agency and in so doing subverted and refigured the conventional patriarchal order. Unsettling a common claim that "feminism is Western" and dismantling the alleged opposition between feminism and Islam, the book demonstrates how the Egyptian feminist movement in the first half of this century both advanced the nationalist cause and worked within the parameters of Islam.

Arab Spring and Arab Women

Arab Spring and Arab Women
Author: Muhamad Olimat
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2013-11-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317937384

This volume examines the role of Arab women in Arab Spring and their contribution to the ongoing process of change sweeping the region. The book begins with an examination of the process of democratization and its impediments in the Arab World since the Second World War. It then looks at the conditions that led to the upsurge of the so-called Arab Spring. Finally, it underscores women’s role as participants, organizers, leaders, but also as victims. The main thesis of the book is that while Arab women were an integral part of the revolutionary efforts within the Arab Spring paradigm, they did not benefit from their sacrifices. Although they continue to be part of the process of change, their gains, rights and scope for participation are still limited. If the expansion of women’s participation and the scope of their rights do not seem to be a priority for revolutionary forces, women have made remarkable achievements, especially in some Arab Spring countries such as Yemen and Libya. The book includes case studies of some Arab Spring countries and other countries influenced by developments: Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Yemen, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. It calls on revolutionary and reformist forces to give special attention to issues related to Arab women, as they are an indispensable pillar in the process of reform, development, peace and stability in the Middle East.