San Antonio College Library

The notion of Jihad ("Holy War") is very much alive in the Islamic world, and plays a prominent political role. In the West, Jihad is often associated with violence and fanaticism. Muslims, however, emphasize that the real meaning is "effort toward a religiously commendable aim" and that it can be applied to both defensive warfare and peaceful activities for the sake of religion. The aim of the present book is to elucidate the concept of Jihad. It...

A whole new life of cyber Imams and a new culture is emerging through Internet programmes and will have a profound effect on Arab consciousness. This book documents all this and examines various sites and offers the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Internet on Islamic culture.

"The Shade of Swords traces the origins of jihad in the struggle against oppression that was part of the earliest consciousness of Muslims. Travelling across centuries and continents, from the triumphant rise of Islam under the Prophet Muhammad to the depression of defeat in the First Crusade, through the renewal of Saladin to the rise and fall of the Ottoman and Mughal empires to the raw passions of Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent, M.J. Akbar's...

The terrorist attacks of September 11 have turned the world's attention to areas of the globe about which we know very little. The author turns his skills as an investigative journalist to the five Central Asian republics adjacent to Afghanistan.

Instructs readers about the religious contexts that nurtured ideas regarding statecraft, international law, and the aims and limits of peace and warfare--Introduction.

"The late twentieth century has witnessed the emergence of an unexpected and extraordinary phenomenon: Islamist political movements. Beginning in the early 1970s, militants revolted against the regimes in power throughout the Muslim world and exacerbated political conflicts everywhere. Their jihad, or "Holy Struggle," aimed to establish a global Islamic state based solely on a strict interpretation of the Koran. Religious ideology proved a cohesive...