From Publishers Weekly
With this book, Kepel and Milelli, professors at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris, have produced a seminal study of al-Qaeda, introducing the key texts and figures inspiring this still shadowy movement. Al-Qaeda's roots can be traced to Palestinian scholar/activist Abdallah Azzam, the Imam of Jihad, whose writings imbued messianic and militant elements into the struggle in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were profoundly influenced by Azzam's work and eventually established martyrdom operations as the vehicle to secure religious legitimacy for their political aims. Al-Qaeda's writings, mostly disseminated electronically, emphasize Islam's unending struggle to establish its domination over its eternal enemies: the unbelievers, the infidels, the apostates. Kepel and Milelli compellingly present the online texts that serve as al-Qaeda's doctrine, dissecting the discourse and identifying the images and rhetoric al-Qaeda depends upon. This view of al-Qaeda from within presents sobering evidence of the threat al-Qaeda poses and is an indispensable read.
(Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Most Americans may think they already know everything they need to know about Al Qaeda's founding figures, short of the survivors' physical location. Sooner or later, from natural or unnatural causes, Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri will die. Their positions, arguments, and references, however, will not. This book--and especially the information supplied in the notes--offers its readers a guided tour of Al Qaeda's intellectual and discursive world. It is a tour we all need to take, and the sooner the better.
--Anne Sa'adah, Dartmouth College
With this book, Kepel and Milelli, professors at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris, have produced a seminal study of al-Qaeda, introducing the key texts and figures inspiring this still shadowy movement...Kepel and Milelli compellingly present the online texts that serve as al-Qaeda's "doctrine," dissecting the discourse and identifying the images and rhetoric al-Qaeda depends upon. This view of al-Qaeda from within presents sobering evidence of the threat al-Qaeda poses and is an indispensable read. (
Publishers Weekly 20080211)
Despite all the political and popular attention that it has received in the last six years, Al Qaeda's essential worldview still remains largely unexplained. Written statements and television appearances by its leaders provide an occasional glimpse. This book is an incisive insight into the intellectual and discursive world of Al Qaeda that might just survive the lifetime of its present leadership. To reveal its inner workings, Gilles Kepel and his collaborators have collected and annotated key texts of the major figures from whom the movement has drawn its beliefs--Azzabdallah Azzam, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (
Businessworld 20071228)
Impeccably researched and richly detailed...[
Al Qaeda in Its Own Words] provides readers with some insight into and understanding of the theology and doctrine that forged al-Qa'ida and the rationale that has driven its global terror campaign for almost two decades...[The] collection of jihadist excerpts and extant commentary offers fascinating views of the personal motivations and historical influences that shaped bin Laden...A volume indispensable to a better understanding of the group's world view. Kepel's precise and brilliantly written introduction to the writings and statements, of bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abdallah Azzam and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, immediately articulates the difference between the tactic of terrorism (so much the focus of Western democracies' war on terror) and al-Qa'ida's overarching doctrine as an organization that seeks to reshape the world in its own image.
--Peter Khalil (
The Australian 20080903)
