Islam and Violence in the Modern Era

249 Pages·2006·1.261 MB·English

by  Beverley Milton-Edwards (auth.)

Islam and Violence in the Modern Era
Also by the same author
ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM SINCE 1945 (2005)
ISLAM AND POLITICS IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD (2004)
CONTEMPORARY POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST (1999)
ISLAMIC POLITICS IN PALESTINE (1996)
Islam and Violence in
the Modern Era
Beverley Milton-Edwards
© Beverley Milton-Edwards 2006
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-1-4039-8618-4
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First published in 2006 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
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ISBN 978-1-349-54063-1 ISBN 978-0-230-62557-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230625570
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Milton-Edwards,Beverley.
Islam and violence in the modern era / Beverley Milton-Edwards.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-54063-1
1.Violence – Religious aspects – Islam.2.Political violence – Religious
aspects – Islam.3.Islamic fundamentalism.I.Title.
BP190.5.V56M55 2005
297.2(cid:1)7—dc22 2005051502
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06
For my beloved sisters Lynne and Trudy
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 Religion and Violence: A History of Entanglement 19
Faith and politics: the public–private tension 23
Muslim culprits 25
The realm of violence and power 27
The state-builders 30
The Medinan state 33
Caliphal authority 36
The jihadist debate 40
Monopoly of force 42
Antecedents of Bin Laden? 45
A modern-day Mahdi? 48
2 The West’s Terror of Islam 51
Introduction 51
Clash of academy 53
Perpetual threat 54
The new fear factor 54
Explain the pain 57
Israel is the West? 59
Fear and loathing: insecurity on the margins 63
Legislating to protect against the threat 64
Too much too late 71
The enemy within? 75
New wave terrorism 79
Whither Muslims and the West in the West? 80
3 Islam and Violence 85
Introduction 85
The thread of human history 85
Template for debate 87
Violence within, enemy within 92
More than one dimension 96
Power and authority 97
Violence and struggle 101
Seedbed of discontent 103
State force or violence? 105
vii
viii Contents
An eye for an eye? 107
Private violence/public violence 111
Muslim states against women? 114
The first clash of civilisations 117
4 Sacred Violence 120
Introduction 120
Sacred sword 123
A multitude of martyrs 124
Sacrifice and suicide 130
The Girardian perspective 135
Martyrdom 136
The Palestinian suiciders 141
Women and conflict 149
The 9/11 Bombers 152
5 Holy Terror: Representations of Violence
in a Modern Age 157
Introduction 157
Perception is everything 158
Cradle of Holy Terror 161
Power matrix 164
Warriors of the Prophet 166
New dimensions of terrorism studies? 168
Who’s Islam, which Islam? 173
Terrorism and trials in Egypt 176
Identikit monsters 178
It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it… 183
Badshah Guffar Khan: a Muslim Gandhi or
Martin Luther King 187
Conclusion 191
Notes 197
Glossary 212
Bibliography 214
Index 221
Preface
Although the genesis of this book lay in the research I had undertaken for
several years before the events of 11 September 2001, it would not be so
much hyperbole to assert that the shadow cast in the wake of the attack has
altered the shape and outcome of this project. The attack launched and
carried out by Muslim members of the al-Qaeda in assaults on the Pentagon,
the World Trade Centre of the United States of America and the US civil avi-
ation network left thousands dead. The attacks moreover demonstrated a
vulnerability that affected the majority of citizens of the United States of
America and many more elsewhere. The attack has been interpreted as the
ultimate evidence of Islam’s attachment to terror and blood. It reinforces a
stereotype of the faith system and its followers that built up in the West over
recent decades. The militant mantle of Islam is today utilised to explain and
understand the rise of new movements and parties and the general political
mobilisation of Muslim citizens across the globe. This movement includes
those who seek to resist the western-led movement towards globalisation
with capitalist culture at its centre.
The notion of a fanatic and violent Muslim mass stopping this process of
new Enlightenment has fascinated the Western audience and been actively
buoyed by a media animated by the portrayal of the armed and bearded fun-
damentalists betraying their own antipathy towards the West. Indeed, the
closing decades of the twentieth century have been dominated by the reali-
sation that although communism was eventually vanquished a new force
has risen in its place. It is true that the new force of radical Islam has engaged
a militant anti-western element that has perpetrated terrible acts of violence
against western tourists and civilians in their own home countries. Yet,
unfortunately such truths do not the whole picture make. This perspective
underscores the belief that Muslims today promote a counter-culture of vio-
lence in an age of global peace. Muslim immigrants in Europe, for example,
are seen as representing an outsider–insider threat to the values that lie deep
in the heart of contemporary European societies.
Muslims and Islamists are increasingly portrayed as implacable enemies
who eschew plurality, diversity, modernity, negotiation, dialogue and concili-
ation in favour of total victory and domination achieved through force of
arms. In respect of this portrayal of a particular Hobbesian state of nature, it is
no surprise then that the response to such a representation of Islam is also
now predicated on uncompromising force, more popularly understood as the
war on terrorism. Such contentions underscore the argument that an intimate
link exists between Islam and conflict and thus assert that the dimensions of
resolution are repudiated in favour of jihad and global Muslim domination.
ix