Customer comments on this selection.
 Convincing theory and case studies
This book makes the case that you can't understand Islamic violence without understanding the repressive environments of Muslims. It rejects several theories like economic impoverishment, ideology, or jihad as explanations of why Muslims turn to violence. When people are excluded from politics and repressed brutally, it makes sense that some will turn to violence. The book's limitation is that the author does not explain why Muslims turn against the West (especially the US) or why some repressive countries don't have violence like some of his case studies: Algeria, Egypt, Kashmir, Philippines, Tajikistan, and Chechnya. Having said that, it is still the best explanation I've read so far.
New Way of Looking at Islamic Violence
I read this book for a college research paper on religious terrorism. It argues that economic and psychological approaches are not enough to explain Islamic rebellions in places like Egypt, Algeria, Kashmir, Chechnya, etc. All these violent places suffer from political exclusion and indiscriminate repression, which are the main factors for violent dissent. The author uses lots of cases which cover many parts of the Islamic world, such as Pakistan, Tunisia, Jordan, Philippines, Tajikistan (in addition to the ones mentioned above). So, I felt I had a very good coverage and the argument was convincing because it applied to several countries. The book is very detailed and well footnoted using English, Arabic and French sources. The best part deals with anti-civilian violence (ch. 5) which most books I read do not address adequately. Overall, if you are thinking or writing about Islamic violence, this book makes an original argument and offers lots of illustrations.
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