Customer Reviews

Jihad: From Qu'ran to Bin Laden

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R. Spencer, from [...], said that Bonney acknowledges that "the traditional reading of the Qur'an outlines four `stages'" in the development of the concept of jihad within Islam. These "arose from the historical development in which the Prophet found himself. ... The final stage came with the Divine command of Allah enjoining the Prophet and his followers to wage war against the unbelievers unconditionally." He then provides a generally useful survey of the historical and juridical development of this concept in Islamic history, including an examination of the idea of jihad in the hadith (accounts of Muhammad's words and deeds) and the classical jurists; the development of jihad as a state system by the Ottomans, Safavid Persians, and Mughals; Muhammad ibn `Abd al-Wahhab and Wahhabism; and the much-overlooked area of jihad in the period of the colonial powers. Bonney concludes his survey with an evaluation of the jihad theories of Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abu A`la Mawdudi, Osama bin Laden, and other pivotal figures of the modern era.

The author amasses an impressive array of material but seems at a loss as to what to do with it. He is at his best when reporting the facts and at his worst when evaluating their significance. His analysis is superficial as when he dismisses the idea that Islam is a "religion of the sword" because it "contravenes the clear Qur'anic precept that `there is no coercion in religion' (Q.2:256)," but he does not even mention Qutb's argument contending that this verse in no way contradicts his overall schema of jihadist imperialism and Shari`a supremacism. In a volume such as Bonney's, ostensibly dedicated to bringing to light how modern-day mujahideen such as bin Laden situate their Islamic appeals within traditional Islamic thought, this is a gaping omission--and it is by no means the only one. Bonney's book, while useful as a guide to various sources, ultimately fails and even misleads as it consistently underestimates the power of the jihadist appeal among modern Muslims even while demonstrating the strong traditional roots of that appeal.

Reading Bonney's book on the history of Jihad for the past few weeks has made me come to the conclusion that his objective to cover the whole history of the idea and practice of Jihad was too ambitious given the means that are available to him. Some of these limitations include but are not limited to his inability to go to primary sources because of language restrictions and his limited understanding of the subject (Islamic studies) because it is not his area of specialty. Given these limitations, what he ends doing in his book is streamlining the political history of Islam through secondary sources for the most part and provides an overly generalized and non-coherent reading on Jihad that ends up reinforcing the polemical and simplistic narrative of Jihad that already exists in the West without adding nuance to the discussion.
Often, he has summarized discussion of Muslim political history, case in point is his discussion of Colonial Africa Jihad movements (Somali and Ethiopian Muslim takeover of Christian Ethiopia, Shaikh Uthman's movement, Shaikh Umar's Movement, Shaikh Abdul Ghadir's struggle, etc), without providing historical contexts for the conflicts or maps of places mentioned which leaves one rather bewildered and then follow this up with a discussion on doctrines of Jihad that were proposed by certain Muslim thinkers assuming that the juxtaposed assortment of information somehow makes a coherent narrative about Jihad. Instead, the uninitiated reader feels a sense of confusion of how this political history and history of ideas about Jihad all fits together.
On a whole, the work seems unoriginal and not well thought out. His cut and paste approach to creating a continuous narrative on Jihad (this can be easily assessed by looking at his footnotes and seeing how he used singular secondary sources to create this history) only seems to add more blur to the topic. Reading this book is certainly a Jihad.

As a muslim convert who served in the US army fighting in the war on terrorism in iraq and who has been trying to devote his life to understanding traditional islamic scholarship, I must say this is truely one of the most remakable unbaised books i read on the topic. It is very balanced and objective. It writes about how muslims usualy viewed the word jihad and how the terrorist ideology that sprawns from ignorant religous reformers view it. It is as I agree with the MYsterious reviewer, will take critisicm for its objective aproach of writing from the view points of the MAJORITY of the muslims not the minority who is trying to appear as the majority. And it is not used as a proprganda tool for Daniel Pipes overly biased prozionist approaches or the reviewer below who trys to make a overly pro zionist approach to the book by making the book just a game of politics. It shows the approach from a sincere outsider on the history of the normative muslims view of the word jihad not the from the fanatics approach. It is a must read for muslims and non muslims. Because not only non muslim dont know what is going on in the intellectual arena of muslims scholars but as a muslim observer i think muslims are just as confused as the non muslims are cause of all the propraganda of hertics of supporters of MAldudi and Qutb. Only some portions i dont agree with like his friendly protrayal of muhammad abdul wahab but i do like the fact he shows that not all wahabis view him as a genocidal killer so therfore they dont see such killin as a favorable thing. Another must read is Islam, Fundamentalism and the Betrayal of Tradition' edited by J. Lumbard.

Richard Bonney has plenty to say about jihad. But when it comes to Islamic violence against non-Muslim neighbors, I think his work is way off base. He says that the Arab-Israeli conflict is "the crucible of the conflicts affecting the Muslim ummah."

While many Muslims do think about this particular conflict, I think Bonney is entirely wrong here. Suppose Israel and the Jews were all to disappear overnight. Would that ease the conflict? No. The problem is not with Israel, it is with the jihadists. Removing Israel will not solve the conflict any more than removing Czechoslovakia would have solved the 1938 problem of National Socialist Germany.

The author does present unusual perspectives on some historical events. He points out that in October, 1939, von Ribbentrop called the failure of the British to establish an Arab state in what is now Israel "an example of British perfidy." Given the promise of the British to the League of Nations to establish a Jewish national home in the Mandate, and therefore to encourage Jewish immigration into the Mandate territory, and given the huge number of Jews who died as a result of the British breaking that promise with the 1939 White Paper, I have to disagree with von Ribbentrop. I think there was British perfidy in pretty much precluding Jewish immigration. Bonney ought to have said so.

Bonney thinks that Jewish claims to Israel are based on ancient ties to the land and on religious grounds. Again, he is totally wrong. These ties did give Jews a big incentive to purchase land and live on it. But Jewish rights to that land are no different from the property rights of all other human beings. They bought that land. It is theirs. Denying it to them means denying property rights to all humans. Bonney seems to be unconcerned about the idea of making special international rules that apply to Jews only, or maybe to non-Muslims only.

Bonney is willing to defend jihad as the right of defence of the community. He overlooks the fact that when this defence includes murdering innocent non-Muslims in order to bully them and steal their land, this defence is in and of itself a crime. And crime does not always pay.