Confronting the Caliphate

Confronting the Caliphate PDF

Author: Isak Svensson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-07-12

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0197605621

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Jihadist rebel groups that take control over a territory, claim authority over its population, and implement radical religious laws have become a rising security issue over the last decade. Generally brutal and authoritarian, the best-known manifestation of this phenomenon is the Islamic State (IS). While the IS has been decimated in the last few years, most analysts agree that the problem of jihadist violence is far from over, and that the IS may very well re-configure itself in a not so distant future. Moreover, beyond Iraq and Syria, the security threat posed by violent jihadism remains an acute issue. Yet no one has hitherto systematically explored the potential for civil resistance against jihadist armed groups. In Confronting the Caliphate, Isak Svensson and co-authors Daniel Finnbogason, Dino Krause, Luís Martínez Lorenzo, and Nanar Hawach focus on a core set of questions: What can civilians, who oppose the jihadists' attempt to rule them, do to manifest their dissent? To what extent are civilians engaging in acts of resistance against jihadist rebel rule and what does such resistance look like? Does it matter, and can it in any way influence the trajectories of jihadist proto-states? New military and political realities in Iraq and Syria have opened up the possibility to generate new knowledge in areas where the IS has been pushed back. The authors draw from a novel survey on civil resistance against the IS in Mosul after the IS lost control of the city. This survey--the first of its kind--concentrates on the extent and character of resistance behavior against the IS. The authors also utilize contemporary Arab-language social media blogs and news websites in order to document protests against jihadists in Syria, and they also draw on interviews with activists and civilian in Syria and Lebanon who have lived under rule of jihadist groups. Importantly, they show that the international character of jihadist groups are often perceived as alien to local customs, thereby triggering resistance. Given the events of the recent past and the potential resurgence of such groups, this book is a valuable intervention that not only shows us how jihadists rule, but provides the best explanation yet of how ordinary people resist jihadist totalitarianism.

Confronting the Caliphate

Confronting the Caliphate PDF

Author: Isak Svensson

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780197605615

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In Confronting the Caliphate, Isak Svensson and co-authors focus on a core set of questions: What can civilians, who oppose the jihadists' attempt to rule them, do to manifest their dissent? To what extent are civilians engaging in acts of resistance against jihadist rebel rule and what does such resistance look like? Does it matter, and can it in any way influence the trajectories of jihadist proto-states? New military and political realities in Iraq and Syria have opened up the possibility to generate new knowledge in areas where the IS has been pushed back. The authors draw from a novel sur.

The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492

The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492 PDF

Author: Jonathan Shepard

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-06-30

Total Pages: 1228

ISBN-13: 9781107685871

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Byzantium lasted a thousand years, ruled to the end by self-styled 'emperors of the Romans'. It underwent kaleidoscopic territorial and structural changes, yet recovered repeatedly from disaster: even after the near-impregnable Constantinople fell in 1204, variant forms of the empire reconstituted themselves. The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492 tells the story, tracing political and military events, religious controversies and economic change. It offers clear, authoritative chapters on the main events and periods, with more detailed chapters on outlying regions and neighbouring societies and powers of Byzantium. With aids such as maps, a glossary, an alternative place-name table and references to English translations of sources, it will be valuable as an introduction. However, it also offers stimulating new approaches and important findings, making it essential reading for postgraduates and for specialists. The revised paperback edition contains a new preface by the editor and will offer an invaluable companion to survey courses in Byzantine history.

After the Caliphate

After the Caliphate PDF

Author: Colin P. Clarke

Publisher: Polity

Published: 2019-06-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781509533879

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In 2014, the declaration of the Islamic State caliphate was hailed as a major victory by the global jihadist movement. But it was short-lived. Three years on, the caliphate was destroyed, leaving its surviving fighters – many of whom were foreign recruits – to retreat and scatter across the globe. So what happens now? Is this the beginning of the end of IS? Or can it adapt and regroup after the physical fall of the caliphate? In this timely analysis, terrorism expert Colin P. Clarke takes stock of IS – its roots, its evolution, and its monumental setbacks – to assess the road ahead. The caliphate, he argues, was an anomaly. The future of the global jihadist movement will look very much like its past – with peripatetic and divided groups of militants dispersing to new battlefields, from North Africa to Southeast Asia, where they will join existing civil wars, establish safe havens and sanctuaries, and seek ways of conducting spectacular attacks in the West that inspire new followers. In this fragmented and atomized form, Clarke cautions, IS could become even more dangerous and challenging for counterterrorism forces, as its splinter groups threaten renewed and heightened violence across the globe.

Words are Weapons

Words are Weapons PDF

Author: Philippe-Joseph Salazar

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2017-01-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0300223226

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The first book to offer a rigorous, sophisticated analysis of ISIS's rhetoric and why it is so persuasive ISIS wages war not only on the battlefield but also online and in the media. Through a close examination of the words and images ISIS uses, with particular attention to the "digital caliphate" on the web, Philippe-Joseph Salazar theorizes an aesthetic of ISIS and its self-presentation. As a philosopher and historian of ideas, well versed in both the Western and the Islamic traditions, Salazar posits an interpretation of Islam that places speech--the profession of faith--at the center of devotion and argues that evocation of the simple yet profound utterance of faith is what gives power to the rhetoric that ISIS and others employ. At the same time, Salazar contends that Western discourse has undergone a "rhetorical disarmament." To win the fight against ISIS and Islamic extremism, Western democracies, their media, politicians, and counterterrorism agencies must consider radically changing their approach to Islamic extremism.

Far from the Caliph's Gaze

Far from the Caliph's Gaze PDF

Author: Nicholas H. A. Evans

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2020-05-15

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 1501715704

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How do you prove that you're Muslim? This is not a question that most believers ever have to ask themselves, and yet for members of India's Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, it poses an existential challenge. The Ahmadis are the minority of a minority—people for whom simply being Muslim is a challenge. They must constantly ask the question: What evidence could ever be sufficient to prove that I belong to the faith? In Far from the Caliph's Gaze Nicholas H. A. Evans explores how a need to respond to this question shapes the lives of Ahmadis in Qadian in northern India. Qadian was the birthplace of the Ahmadiyya community's founder, and it remains a location of huge spiritual importance for members of the community around the world. Nonetheless, it has been physically separated from the Ahmadis' spiritual leader—the caliph—since partition, and the believers who live there now and act as its guardians must confront daily the reality of this separation even while attempting to make their Muslimness verifiable. By exploring the centrality of this separation to the ethics of everyday life in Qadian, Far from the Caliph's Gaze presents a new model for the academic study of religious doubt, one that is not premised on a concept of belief but instead captures the richness with which people might experience problematic relationships to truth.

Confronting the Deception

Confronting the Deception PDF

Author: Tabitha Korol

Publisher:

Published: 2020-07-09

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13:

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Since 9/11, the United States, Israel, and cultures that still value our freedoms have been fighting a battle of survival on several fronts. The ideology born out of the Islamic attempt to claim Ground Zero as its caliphate is still being fueled by the Shadow Government. The seriously deceptive media hides the truths about Islam's invasion into other countries and our own, concealing the consequent tectonic changes in the intruded societies, with the result that America's needs for urgent analysis and discussion are suppressed.Academia, from kindergarten to university, is disinviting valuable speakers, and turning patriots into globalists. Curricula, textbooks and teaching methods are being changed, inspiration quenched, and competition discouraged by an equalizing grading system, engineering the children's psyche to produce a compliant, nonproductive generation."Confronting the Deception" challenges the insidious propaganda with arguments supported by irrefutable facts. Korol exposes the gravity of the threats we face with copious links to Koranic quotes, historic accounts, and trustworthy documentation not available in any other single source, and reveals the mentality that creates the jihadi terrorist, in order to help the reader to navigate the distortions that are peddled as truths.Deception is the modus operandi of Islam and the Left. We are being indoctrinated to disrespect and dislike America, to devalue our freedoms, and to cast aside the advancements we've made since our founding. The Deep State has brought us an increase in divisiveness, intolerance, street violence, rapes, honor killings and FGM, combined with a drip-feed of false narratives to direct the thinking of the gullible. This book is an attempt to redress our endangered world by Confronting the Deception.

Recalling the Caliphate

Recalling the Caliphate PDF

Author: S. Sayyid

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1849040036

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Sayyid focuses on how demands for Muslim autonomy are debated in terms of democracy, cultural relativism, secularism and liberalism. He goes on to analyse the evasions by which the decolonization of the Muslim world continues to be deferred, before exploring attempts to speed up the decolonization of the Muslim Ummah.

The ISIS Reader

The ISIS Reader PDF

Author: Haroro J. Ingram

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-01-01

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0197536026

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In the wake of its "Caliphate" declaration in 2014, the self-described Islamic State has been the focus of countless academic papers, government studies, media commentaries and documentaries. Despite all this attention, persistent myths continue to shape--and misdirect--public understanding and strategic policy decisions. A significant factor in this trend has been a strong disinclination to engage critically with Islamic State's speeches and writings--as if doing so reflects empathy with the movement's goals or, even more absurdly, may itself lead to radicalisation. Going beyond the descriptive and the sensationalist, this volume presents and analyses a series of milestone Islamic State primary source materials. Scholar-practitioners with field experience in confronting the movement explore and contextualise its approach to warfare, propaganda and governance, examining the factors behind its dramatic evolution from failed proto-state in 2010 to standard-bearer of global jihadism in 2014, to besieged insurgency in 2018. The ISIS Reader will help anyone--students and journalists, military personnel, civil servants and inquisitive observers--to better understand not only the evolution of Islamic State and the dynamics of asymmetric warfare, but the importance of primary sources in doing so.

The Caliphate of Man

The Caliphate of Man PDF

Author: Andrew F. March

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0674242742

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A political theorist teases out the century-old ideological transformation at the heart of contemporary discourse in Muslim nations undergoing political change. The Arab Spring precipitated a crisis in political Islam. In Egypt Islamists have been crushed. In Turkey they have descended into authoritarianism. In Tunisia they govern but without the label of “political Islam.” Andrew March explores how, before this crisis, Islamists developed a unique theory of popular sovereignty, one that promised to determine the future of democracy in the Middle East. This began with the claim of divine sovereignty, the demand to restore the sharīʿa in modern societies. But prominent theorists of political Islam also advanced another principle, the Quranic notion that God’s authority on earth rests not with sultans or with scholars’ interpretation of written law but with the entirety of the Muslim people, the umma. Drawing on this argument, utopian theorists such as Abū’l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quṭb released into the intellectual bloodstream the doctrine of the caliphate of man: while God is sovereign, He has appointed the multitude of believers as His vicegerent. The Caliphate of Man argues that the doctrine of the universal human caliphate underpins a specific democratic theory, a kind of Islamic republic of virtue in which the people have authority over the government and religious leaders. But is this an ideal regime destined to survive only as theory?