Jihad: From Qu'ran to bin Laden

Palgrave Macmillan | 626 pages | ISBN 9781403933720

Jihad, ranging in concept from personal inner struggle to outright holy war, dates to the earliest manifestations of Islam. This book locates the origin of jihad, traces its evolution as an idea, and provides an intellectual history of the concept of jihad in Islam as well as how it has been misapplied by modern Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers. The book provides unique and balanced coverage of the historical evolution of the concept of jihad, and mainstream moderate Islamic views of the concept from the Qu'ran to the twenty-first century.

Bonney covers topics such as interpretations of the Qu'ran, historical reactionaries, Sufi alternatives to political Islam, colonialism, twentieth century Jihadists, the Shia depiction of jihad and martyrdom, the jihadi ideology of the 1980s and 1990s, the Palestine Intifada, Osama Bin Laden, and more.