Customer Reviews

God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Interesting historical look at the spread of radical Islam throughout colonial India and its ties back to the rise of radical Islamic theology in the declining Ottoman Empire. It exposes roots to terrorist movements like al Qaeda and ties the roots of this radical movement to the House of Saud like few other accounts have.

There are clearly lessons to be learned here and insights about what the West is up against - particular in this region of the world where Bin Laden is believed to be given safe-harbored but I was completely let down by the author's brief and poorly argued conclusion. It seemed thrown-in as an after thought.

Otherwise it was a fascinating historical read that I would highly recommend.

The subject appealed but I found this book to be more a History of the the British and their problems with the various Muslum sects in India up until the mid 1900' rather than what I expected from the title.

It does however give the historical background as to how the Wahabi's commenced and their link, from the early past to the present day, of their strong links, and control to some extent, with the house of Saud.

Don't be confused by a previous review. Terrorism and Wahhabism are indeed synonymous. That terrorism is currently being played out by the spawn: Taliban and al-Qaeda. This is a well-researched book albeit it a difficult read for the novice of Islam. If you are curious about how our civilization got into this mess, read this accounting of Muslim history. The reading has left me frustrated about how global terrorism will ever be conquered because of this fundamentalism rooted in Wahhabi teachings. Take young men, send them to Wahabbi madrassahs, teach them to administer sharia law to include beheading and mutilation of the apostate and infidel populations with a goal of martyrdom and you come up with the challenge of the 21st century!

The book has value but the author does not understand fundamentalism, and theology in general. If the author has good theological knowledge, the analysis could be vastly improved. His comments on fundamentalism are completely wrong. First rate scholars, such as Bernard Lewis or Robert Spencer, point out clearly that Islamic fundamentalism is a misnomer.

On the other hand, this book does provide useful background on Islamic terrorism, from 13th century until recent. As some reviewers already mentioned, unfortunately its quality is not good enough to be a history textbook.

At first I thought that this history book would not read in the "fatty" way that many history books read (owing to the sheer volume of the mass of information). The chapter and introduction were that way, but the book really fell apart after that. (It did not fall apart in the sense of being logical, but did fall apart in the sense of being readable.) It read just like a textbook.

What might have been good in this book would have been a "Summary and Implications" section (a la Thomas Sowell) to help synopsize some of massive amounts of information that was contained in each chapter. I would also have liked a synopsis of the structure of the "ulema"/ "umma," etc.

Another way that this book could have been improved (and made more readable) would have been around the arrangement of some number of themes. For example, a recurring theme was on "What happens when the religious leaders and political leaders are the same people?" It was not asked so much as a question but rather came up again and again in this long recital of names and dates. Then, he could have done some analysis of Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan within that context.

Yes, it was clear that the direction of causality and violence are reversed-- and that was probably the best single message that I took from the book. It seems that Islam did well in tribal areas that had macho cultures and lots of experience killing each other over small slights. So, the people who are blowing up others today are people who were used to living like animals to begin with.

In summary: This book is worth about $4 second hand. It's not likely one of those books that I will be rereading again several years later. And it could have had about 50 pages taken off with no serious diminishment.

GOD'S TERRORISTS: THE WAHHABI CULT NAD THE HIDDEN ROOTS OF MODERN JIHAD provides a history of the reform movement of al-Wahhab and his followers, who in the 18th century sought to restore Islamic purity. So what does this early history of the Wahhabi sect hold in meaning for modern readers? Plenty: it follows a sect that spread throughout the region and whose concepts today form the foundation for modern extremists. His history isn't filled with solutions, but it is filled with understanding of past events, key to understanding modern jihad.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

For anyone who wants to learn more about the religious beliefs of Islamic Terrorists, this is a great book. I used it as my primary reference for a paper I wrote on terrorism. I knew little about Islam and this book was a huge help. It is well written and clear. I learned that today's terrorists interpret the Koran in an extreme fashion, one that is rejected by ore mainstream Islam

Since 9/11 we have been forced to look into the dark and mysterious world of the Islamic militants. It almost seemed that they emerged from the deserts of Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan fully grown, already angry, and holding a Kalashnikov.

Of course, as this book points out, they have a history. They began as one of many groups wanting to reform Islam to restore the purity and ideals which they believe existed when the religion was formed. He concentrates his investigations into the Wahabi sect and explains how they became more and more extreme as the grew in size.

He draws some interesting parallels between the Puritan reform in Europe and the Wahhabi's. I'm not so sure, however, that he shouldn't have looked further back, say to the time of the Inquisition. It seems like something happens to religions when they are about a thousand years old.

He leaves a lot of open questions. For instance there seem to be several splits between the branches of the Wahhabi. Osama bin Laden seems to split his hatred between the government of Saudi Arabia and the US. How might this affect us. And why is he so angry with us anyway?

Allen's title is misleading at 2 levels. First, "God's Terrorists" and Wahhabi-ism are not synonymous. Every leading faith has had (or still does have) its lunatic fringe. That being the case, the title of "God's Terrorists" does not belong to the Wahhabis exclusively. It could as easily belong to several other sects and organisations from several other religions. Second, 'Modern Jihad' is not a terrorist activity. 'Jihad' neither means 'holy war' nor 'terrorism'; it means 'effort'.

Somewhere within that misleading title is my central criticism of the essay. Allen deploys little conceptual or philosophical depth in the treatment of his subject. He is a specialist in 18th and 19th century history; with all the theoretical limitations of a classic historian.

I was disappointed with this effort because I expected something deeper, broader and more insightful. What Allen provided was an overview of the history of Gulf Wahhabi-ism from the 18th century until the early 19th century and then the history of South Asian Wahhabi-ism from the early 19th century to the late 19th century. Given the title, there was so much ground missing from this essay.