Militant Islam Reaches America

Long before September 11, 2001, Daniel Pipes publicly warned Americans that militant Islam had declared war on America--yet sadly, Americans failed to take heed. The publication of Militant Islam Reaches America finally brought Pipes the attention he deserves. Dividing his work into two parts, Pipes first defines militant Islam, stressing the large and crucial difference between Islam, the faith, and the ideology of militant Islam. He then discusses the relatively new subject of Islam in the United States, and how it has developed rapidly in the last decade. In Militant Islam Reaches America, the product of thirty years of extensive research, Pipes provides one of the most incisive examinations of the growing radical Islamic movement ever written.The paperback edition includes a new essay, "Jihad and the Professors."

"Marshall Frank's book is replete with shocking revelations that every American should know. A vital read for anyone who cares about America's future." --Don David Argo, author of "Canaveral Light"

Presents an overview of the activities, funding, and operations of radical Islamic terrorist groups within the United States and abroad.

The radicalization of Muslims and Islamic institutions in the United States, Europe, and across the Islamic world has fostered a new generation of Islamist activists, many of them willing to use violence to achieve their aims. In Radical Islam in America, Chris Heffelfinger describes the development of the Islamist movement, examines its efforts and influence in the West, and suggests strategies to reduce or eliminate the threat of Islamist terrorism. The book distinguishes Islamism (the fundamentalist political movement based on Islamic identity and values) from the Muslim faith and explores Islamists' substantial inroads with Muslims and Muslim educational institutions in the West since the 1960s, as well as the larger relationship between Islamist political activism and militancy. Heffelfinger argues that the West has often mischaracterized jihadists as a nihilistic, irrational force desiring nothing but death and destruction. Instead, we need to recognize that Islamists are part of a much broader struggle over the political, social, economic, and legal direction of Muslims around the world. Our failure to understand the motives behind terrorist tactics has resulted not only in ineffective counterterrorism strategies but also in the proliferation of Islamist militants and sympathizers. Among the hundreds of terrorism-related arrests since 9/11, a large number were young, socially alienated Muslims who were moved by the jihadist message but not directed by jihadist networks overseas. That phenomenon—and the ideology behind it—is what Western society and governments must fully understand in order to construct a viable policy to confront it. This book will appeal to scholars and general readers interested in global politics, current affairs, Middle East terrorism, and counterterrorism.

Militant Islam provides a sociological framework for understanding the rise and character of recent Islamic militancy. It takes a systematic approach to the phenomenon and includes analysis of cases from around the world, comparisons with militancy in other religions, and their causes and consequences. The sociological concepts and theories examined in the book include those associated with social closure, social movements, nationalism, risk, fear and ‘de-civilising’. These are applied within three main themes; characteristics of militant Islam, multi-layered causes and the consequences of militancy, in particular Western reactions within the ‘war on terror’. Interrelationships between religious and secular behaviour, ‘terrorism’ and ‘counter-terrorism’, popular support and opposition are explored. Through the examination of examples from across Muslim societies and communities, the analysis challenges the popular tendency to concentrate upon ‘al-Qa’ida’ and the Middle East. This book will be of interest to students of Sociology, Political Science and International Relations, in particular those taking courses on Islam, religion, terrorism, political violence and related regional studies.

From the Middle East to Africa, Asia, Europe and even the US, the challenge of militant Islam is hard to deny. But given its dispersed nature as a series of local groups and regional conflicts, the global scope of the jihadist campaign has proven difficult for Westerners to grasp. Militant Islam is not confined to the Middle East but is a truly international movement that has engaged in open warfare against peoples, states and cultures all over the world. Now for the first time, a single comprehensive resource collects all of the available information about forty-four of the most active militant Islamic groups world-wide in one easy-to-use volume. In order to counter this violent movement we must first understand how it operates, ho w it is funded, and who leads it. In stunning detail, The Encyclopedia of Militant Islam reveals the global contours of the Jihadist threat. The book is indispensable for anyone who hopes to understand the tangled web of alliances, ideological ties, financial flows, and strategic goals that unite dozens of seemingly disparate movements into a powerful and implacably destructive force. The Encyclopedia of Militant Islam belongs on the shelf of any reader who is seriously concerned about the fate of our civilization.

Leading the second wave of post 9/11 terrorist books, American Jihad reveals that America is rampant with Islamic terrorist networks and sleeper cells and Emerson, the expert on them, explains just how close they are to each of us.

This New York Times best seller remains the most informative and objective account of the Taliban available This modern classic brings the shadowy world of the Taliban and its impact on Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Central Asia into sharp focus. Ahmed Rashid offers an authoritative account of the Taliban’s rise to power, the effects of changing American attitudes toward it, and the new faces of Islamic fundamentalism, and explains why Afghanistan has become the world’s center for international terrorism. This edition, updated in view of the Taliban’s resurgence and sudden, renewed purchase on Afghanistan’s major cities, explores how the group regained its strength and broadened its geographical reach. It is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the events that unfolded in 2021 following America’s withdrawal from the country after twenty years of war.