Violence, the Political and the Religious: Rethinking Jihad in Western Societies

Contemporary terrorist violence associated with jihadi movements in Western Europe and North America has been largely explored within existing theories, either of cultural crisis and confrontation (clash of civilization), or as a manifestation of a new kind of cosmic, religious violence. Meanwhile s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: McDonald, Kevin (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Equinox Publ. 2011
In: Journal for the academic study of religion
Year: 2011, Volume: 24, Issue: 1, Pages: 80-97
Further subjects:B Islam
B Violence
B western Jihad
B Religious Change
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Parallel Edition:Electronic
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Summary:Contemporary terrorist violence associated with jihadi movements in Western Europe and North America has been largely explored within existing theories, either of cultural crisis and confrontation (clash of civilization), or as a manifestation of a new kind of cosmic, religious violence. Meanwhile some analysts, and the actors of this violence, frame it as a response to oppression and imbalance of power. This article explores martyrdom as a key dimension of contemporary jihadi violence, and proposes that rather than religious or political, such violence is better understood as an expression of the sublime, evident in the importance of structures of the hidden and the revealed and in its culture of excess and the extreme. This mode of experience helps understand key characteristics of jihadi actors in the West: the culture of conspiracy, practices of repetition, the personalisation of responsibility and the lack of capacity to engage with politics or the state.
ISSN:2047-7058
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal for the academic study of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1558/arsr.v24i1.80