Unholy War Terror in the Name of Islam pdf

Unholy War Terror in the Name of Islam John L. Esposito

Book Preface

The tragedy of September 11, 2001, brought Americans together as a nation, united in grief and in resolve. At the same time, Americans from every walk of life began asking some hard question s about Am erica, global terrorism, and the Muslim world.

UNHOLY WAR TERROR IN THE NAME OF ISLAM

More than a decade ago, in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein ’s call for a jihad against the West in the 1991 Gulf war, I wrote The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? responding to the growing propensity among senior government officials, political commentators, and the media to see a new “evil empire” replacing the communist threat.

Sadly, more than a decade later, the same question s about Islam and the Muslim world are still being asked: Why do they hate us? Why is Islam more militant than other religions?

What does the Quran have to say about jihad or holy war? Does the Quran condone this kind of violence and terrorism? Is there a clash of civilizations between the West and the Muslim world? Yet it is n ow more important than ever that we educate ourselves about Islam and the roots of terrorism.

Master terrorist Osama bin Laden, like other religious extremists, is the product of his upbringing and experiences in life, of the religious world he inherited and which he reinvents for his own purposes. As in the history of every world religion, violent struggles have been a part of Muslim history. Bin Laden and other terrorists