Landscapes of the Jihad

Devji focuses on the ethical content of the jihadist worldview, as opposed to its purported political intent. Al-Qaeda views their cause as a response to the oppressive conditions of modernity rather than an Islamist attempt to build states.

Faisal Devji is Assistant Professor of History at New School University.

One of the most intelligent analyses of the world-view of the militant Islamist.

Arjun Appadurai, author of Globalization:

No political theorist, anthropologist, or student of Islam will fail to be provoked and inspired by this brilliant analysis of Jihadi discourse. Faisal Devji moves effortlessly among theology, history, and cultural studies to give us the first major English-language interpretation of the moral world of contemporary Jihad.

Carole Hillenbrand, Times Literary Supplement, August 4, 2006:

Landscapes of the Jihad is very short, closely and narrowly focused, thought-provoking, and elegantly written.... One refreshing aspect of Devji's book is that it leans heavily on evidence from an area often neglected by scholars writing about Islam—the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan.

William Dalrymple, Sunday Herald (Glasgow):

I enjoyed Faisal Devji's extended essay, Landscapes Of The Jihad, in which Devji points out just how deeply unorthodox a Muslim Bin Laden is—not just in his espousal of indiscriminate violence but also his cult of martyrs and frequent talk of dream and visions, all of which derive from popular, mystical and Shia Islamic traditions, against which the orthodox has long struggled.

Olivier Roy, author of Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah:

Faisal Devji's very original book analyzes Al Qaeda and jihad in metaphysical terms, discarding geostrategic and cultural factors. The West is also presented as a metaphysical entity. Globalization is thus not linked to strategy, territory, or culture. There emerge different 'landscapes': of jihad, of mysticism, of media and of film, all of which combine with each other. Jihad may appear extreme, but there is, paradoxically, common ground between jihadists and their opponents. Devji's original analysis of the writings of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri is very illuminating and substantiates his iconoclastic approach.

The Economist, 10 November 2005:

Do not approach this challenging essay... expecting a familiar narrative of al-Qaeda and its founder, or of the eponymous 'war on terror.' Devji dispenses with conventional analysis and with much that is regarded as received wisdom.... Devji describes how jihad has subordinated the local to the global. He plays down its Middle Eastern origins and he stresses its diverse sources (Shia and Sufi as well as Sunni) as well as its heterodox innovations. Bin Laden's transformation of jihad, for example, from a collective to an individual duty, is a radical departure from the classical Islamic tradition. But how else could a global movement operate in a post-modern world where Muslims are moved to applause or to action by some spectacular act of violence, which they see on a television or computer screen? Conventional forms of top-down recruitment and mobilisation are, it seems, as passe as conventional politics....Landscapes of the Jihad is, in its unconventional thinking, an oasis in the wearisome desert of al-Qaeda studies. It is, in the best possible sense, subversive.

Reza Aslan, Slate.com:

An erudite analysis of the rise of jihadism as almost a new 'sect' within Islam—one that combines mystical and traditional elements of Islam with a sophisticated globalization effort based on an ethical, rather than political, worldview.

Max Rodenbeck, New York Review of Books, 11 August 2005:

A brilliant long essay on the ethical underpinnings of modern jihad.... Martyrdom, observes Devji rightly, 'only achieves meaning by being witnessed by the media.' It is, in short, a horrendous form of advertising.