The
Legacy of Jihad:
Islamic Holy War and the
Fate of Non-Muslims,
edited by Andrew G. Bostom
(Prometheus, 759 pp., $28)
J. Peter Pham
Historian Robert Conquest recently pondered why so many of
his fellow scholars had been for so long incapable of grasping the true nature
of the Soviet regime. He concluded by blaming “clerisy that has hardly heard
of opinions other than those appearing to be . . . the acceptable expression of
concern for humanity” and that has demonstrated “strong tendency to silence
those who disagree with one or another of the accepted beliefs.”
As the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks came and
went, it was difficult not to experience a sense of dé·jà vu. The failure of
Western elites to acknowledge the totalitarian terror of the 20th century is
eerily similar to their current failure to confront the Islamic totalitarian
movements of the 21st. The same historical forces (and, in some cases, the very
same individuals) are at work, not only trivializing accounts of the existential
threat, but also legitimizing the enemy as political actors with rational
grievances with whom one can treat on the basis of some ever-elusive common
ground while condemning skeptics to political and academic obloquy.
Against this depressing backdrop, two welcome developments
have recently taken place. The first was the acknowledgement by President Bush,
in an October speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, that
America
is engaged in a struggle not only against terrorism the tactic, but also
against the specific ideology that has inspired the most virulent manifestations
of terrorism. (Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism;
still others Islamofascism,) Bush said (and noted that this ideology is “very
different from” Islam and, in fact, exploits it.
The second development is the publication of the new book
The Legacy of Jihad, an impressive compendium that meticulously documents the
terror that is jihad; using historical and contemporary Muslim theological and
juridical texts, as well as the accounts of some of the most eminent Muslim and
non-Muslim scholars of Islam in the days before political correctness squelched
academic freedom.
The 750-page tome is by no means an easy read. It is a maze
of primary texts and secondary studies, barely held together by the editor’s
lengthy but useful introduction. Perseverance, however, is rewarded: The
wide-ranging anthology (including commentaries by representatives of Shiite as
well as all four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, historical accounts of regional
jihad campaigns, and analyses of current conflicts) takes the reader from the
religious roots of the jihad ideology to the havoc that it has wrought across
the continents of Asia, Africa, Europe, and, now, America.
Scholars of Islam will undoubtedly have criticisms, some of
which may be justified. After all, the book’s editor, Andrew G. Bostom, is not
an academic specialist in Islam: He is a clinical epidemiologist on the faculty
of
Brown
Medical
School
. But not being a card-carrying member of the contemporary academic fraternity
of
Middle East
scholars gives Bostom the distinct advantage of being exempt from the shackles
with which the field’s regnant orthodoxies hobble many of his would-be
competitors. Unburdened by the constraints of political correctness, Bostom
provides an unparalleled documentary history of nearly 14 centuries of jihad,
and of the non-Muslims who have been subjugated as a result of that relentless
campaign. His account is a somber warning of the mortal challenge posed to free
societies by the ongoing jihad of the militants.
Scholars as well as general readers owe a debt of gratitude
to Bostom for making available a number of very important texts (including, for
the first time in English, the commentaries on the Koran’s ninth sura (the
text on jihad) by al-Baydawi, al-Suyuti, al-Zamakhshari, al-Tabari, and al-Ghazali.
But he won’t be receiving many congratulatory messages from academia, which
will feel the sting of the evidence he adduces against some of its cherished
shibboleths (including what Bernard Lewis has called “the myth” of a
“Golden Age of equal rights” in Islamic-ruled
Spain
.
Muslim scholars like UCLA law professor Khaled Abou El Fadl,
author of a widely quoted post-9/11 text on moderate Islam, may be right that
“Islamic tradition does not have a notion of holy war” and that jihad
“simply means to strive hard or struggle in the pursuit of a just cause”
(although Bostom unearths a 1999 article in which the same El Fadl asserted the
contrary). And Koranic passages like the ninth sura may be misinterpreted by
radicals. In time, perhaps, voices of reason within the Muslim community may
prevail. For now, however, the widespread support that the terrorists have
enjoyed throughout the Muslim world suggests that their jihad ideology
represents a current that is not that far out of the historical mainstream. In
any event, the logic of terrorism requires only a fanatical few to unleash
destruction on the many.
If it is the destiny of the contemporary West to be tested
in the forge of unrelenting jihadist warfare, then its defenders would do well
to be armed with an understanding of the ideology that motivates its foes. The
Legacy of Jihad is a very good place to start.
Mr. Pham is director of the Nelson Institute for
International and Public Affairs at
James
Madison
University
and an academic fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy
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