Jihad Beyond Islam

193 Pages·2006·1.61 MB·English

by  The Author of this book is Gabriele Marranci

00aJihad 30/3/06 4:27 pm Page i
Jihad Beyond Islam
This page intentionally left blank
00aJihad 30/3/06 4:27 pm Page iii
Jihad Beyond Islam
Gabriele Marranci
Oxford • New York
00aJihad 30/3/06 4:27 pm Page iv
First published in 2006 by
Berg
Editorial offices:
1st Floor, Angel Court, 81 St Clements Street, Oxford, OX4 1AW, UK
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
© Gabriele Marranci 2006
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means without the written permission of Berg.
Berg is the imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Marranci, Gabriele.
Jihad beyond Islam / Gabriele Marranci.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84520-158-6 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-84520-158-2 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84520-157-9 (hardback)
ISBN-10: 1-84520-157-4 (hardback)
1. Jihad. I. Title.
BP182.M37 2006
297.7'2—dc22 2006001701
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13 978 1 84520 157 9 (Cloth)
ISBN-10 1 84520 157 4 (Cloth)
ISBN-13 978 1 84520 158 6 (Paper)
ISBN-10 1 84520 158 2 (Paper)
Typeset by Avocet Typeset, Chilton, Aylesbury, Bucks
Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn
www.bergpublishers.com
00aJihad 30/3/06 4:27 pm Page v
In memory of the victims of terrorist attacks as well as the
innocent victims of the ‘war on terror’.
00aJihad 30/3/06 4:27 pm Page vi
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
1. Introduction 1
2. Jihad: From the Qur’an to the Islamic State 17
3. I am What I Feel to Be 31
4. Discussing Jihad with Muslim Migrant Men 53
5. Sofas, Families, Tellies and Jihad 73
6. Baraka, Coca-Cola and Salah al-Din 97
7. Modern Nasibahs? 117
8. Anti-Semitism, Westernophobia and Jihad 139
9. Conclusion: The Sword of Damocles 157
Glossary 161
References 163
Index 176
00aJihad 30/3/06 4:27 pm Page vii
Acknowledgements
This book would have never been written without the help and contribution
of many people. I would like to thank all my respondents and Muslim
friends for the time they spent in answering my questions and for their great
hospitality. I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Kay Milton
without whom my theory of identity would have never been developed. My
colleagues in Divinity and Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen
have been a constant source of inspiration and provided me with a fantastic
environment for my teaching and research. In particular, my special thanks
go to Dr Martin Mills, Professor John Swinton and Professor John Webster.
Not only did they support me, but they also appreciated my strong Indian
coffee while discussing the difficult topics. Some of my undergraduate and
postgraduate students have discussed my theory, argument and ideas that
form this book. Others have read some chapters or the entire book, pro-
viding new insights and interesting comments; among them Mr Juan
Caraballo-Resto, Mr Mark Paul Highfield and Mr Dominic Peluso deserve
my special thanks. I am very grateful to Mr Mike Harris for proofreading my
English and improving the text. Three anonymous readers have contributed
to this book with their constructive suggestions, for which I am very
grateful. I also thank Berg for believing in this project and transforming my
manuscript into a book. In particular I express my gratitude to Kathryn
Earle, Tristan Palmer and in particular Hannah Shakespeare, who took
care, with great professionalism, of all my concerns during the different
stages of production. However, there is one person to whom I owe my
deepest debt of gratitude, Olivia. Her emotional and intellectual support
and her patience during the different phases of my endless fieldwork and
writing-up process were fundamental and essential to the pages that follow.
This page intentionally left blank
01Jihad 30/3/06 4:31 pm Page 1
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
21 July 2005: I am walking back to my hotel in a post-7/7 London, when I
see an unusual deployment of police and firefighters. I start to think that
London could be under attack again. The closed gates of the Underground
and the patrolling armed officers confirm the worst-case scenario.
Approaching an Italian restaurant, I can see the waiters, customers and
occasional passers-by gathering around a TV. I join them to watch a
worried Mr Blair speaking to the nation. The message is clear: we are
under attack, and although everything is under control, we have to stay
where we are. Walking along the street, I see tourists still unaware of the
attack, children playing, old ladies waiting for improbable buses. This time
no life has been shattered, no other blood added to the 7/7 carnage. ‘Life
has to go on,’ said the Prime Minister; ‘life has to go on,’ say the people I
meet, yet the sirens of the emergency services remind me that life will not
be the same. Many questions cross my mind, the most persistent of which
is ‘Why?’ Why are these people taking their lives and killing innocent
people in the name of Islam? Why are they conducting their jihad? What
does jihad mean today?
To answer these questions, the mass media, politicians and often aca-
demics (see for instance Hoffman 1995; Hunter 1988; Huntington 1996;
Kramer 1996; Lewis 2003; Pipes 1983; Roy 1994) have focused, among
other things, on the political issues, on the alleged ‘Clash of Civilizations’,1
on the failure of multiculturalism, the invasion of Iraq, the alienation of
Muslims, the social ghettoization of young South Asians, and the radical
preachers and imams. All these factors might be the tiles of a complex
mosaic, but still do not explain why the mosaic itself exists; why certain indi-
viduals, who profess themselves to be Muslim, have decided to kill them-
selves and innocent people in the name of jihad. In this book, I am not
interested in discussing the ‘tiles’, although I shall consider them, but ‘the
mosaic’. This means shifting our analysis from interpreting the ‘aims’ of ter-
rorists’ actions to the dynamics of radicalization. Why do some Muslims
understand jihad as murder while the majority reject such a view?
1