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Index
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Foreword
Preface
The context of this book
The aims of this book
A note on the transliteration of Arabic terms
Acknowledgments
1 Why this book is needed
A global crisis of misunderstanding: why this book is needed; who its author is; what this book will accomplish
Why? How? What?
Plate section between pages 5 and 6
Plate 1 Worldviews of Mainstream Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism
Plate 2 Characteristics of the Worldviews of Mainstream Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism
Plate 3 Doctrine of Loyalty & Disavowal (Al-Wala’ wal Bara’) in the Worldviews of Mainstream Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism
Plate 4 Doctrine of the Unity of God (Tawhid) in the Worldviews of Mainstream Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism
My story and credentials
The structure and substance of this book
2 The roots of Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism: the historical fault lines of Islam
Introduction: Islam is shaped by the presence and absence of Muhammad
Political-theological hiatus and split: the Sunni-Shia divide
Institutional hiatus and split: the division of powers between the Muslim Executive and the religious judiciary
Intellectual hiatus and split: rationalist vs. literalist intellectual tension
3 The Worldviews of Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism
Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism are all internally-coherent, self-contained Worldviews
The idea of a Worldview
Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism as Worldviews
The Worldview of Mainstream Islam: unity-in-diversity
The Worldview of Activist Islam: diversity-in-unity
The Worldview of Islamism: contingent separation and exaggerated difference
The Worldview of Non-Violent Islamist Extremism: absolute Manichean separation
The Worldview of Violent Islamist Extremism (VIE): absolute, eternal difference and separation with lethal consequences for the non-Muslim and wrong-Muslim out-groups
4 Basic beliefs, practices and characteristic themes of Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism
The sources of the Worldview of Mainstream Islam: the Qur’an and the Sunna
The themes and ethical praxis of Mainstream Islam
The themes and ethical praxis of Activist Islam
The themes and ethical praxis of Ideological Islamism
The themes and ethical praxis of Non-Violent Islamist Extremism
The themes and ethical praxis of Violent Islamist Extremism
5 Mainstream Islam: the people, texts and contexts
Hermeneutical health warning: people and their ideas are ‘shifters’
Mainstream Islam: the people and the texts
The Book of God – Al-Qur’an (the recitation)
The Opening Chapter (Al-Fatiha)
Other seminal chapters
Commentaries on the Qur’an
The canonical books of hadith
The great works of Law (Fiqh), Jurisprudence (Usul al-Fiqh)
The Wahhabi reformation: the Book of Divine Unity (Kitab al-Tawhid)
To philosophize or not to philosophize? Al-Ghazali vs. Ibn Rushd
Mainstream Islam in the modern and contemporary period
6 Islamism: the people, texts and contexts
Maududi, Al-Banna and Khomeini: the Ideological Islamist shift from agency to structure
The second phase of Islamism: Sayyid Qutb and the birth of Non-Violent Islamist Extremism
Milestones (1964)–the ‘ur-’ text of Islamist Extremism
Ayatollah Khomeini: Shia Islamism succeeds where Sunni Islamism fails
7 The Genealogy of Terror: the people, texts and contexts of Violent Islamist Extremism
Violent Islamist Extremism’s ‘pioneers’: Abdullah Azzam and Muhammad Abd as-Salam Faraj
Defense of Muslim lands: the first obligation after faith (1979)
The glamour of Jihad
The ideologues of Al-Qaeda: bin Laden, Al-Awlaki, Al-Zawahiri and As-Suri
The impact of the Bosnian War (1991–1995)
Al-Zawahiri and As-Suri: Al-Qaeda’s backroom boys
The ideologues of the Islamic State: Abu Musab Az-Zarqawi, Naji, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani
The Arab Spring reaches Syria
The state-building of Islamic State
8 A second Age of Extremes or a second Age of Enlightenment?
Summary
The political conditions of Extremism
Why? The root causes of Islamist Extremism
Appendix 1: Basic Guides to Mainstream Islam
Appendix 2: Digital Islam
Glossary of key terms and names
References
Index
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