Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A Reader (Princeton Series on the Middle East)
To Americans and Europeans, the word jihad conjures up fanatical Arab warriors overwhelming a Crusader citadel. Jihad ("struggle") denotes holy war for Islam, and in this sense is comparable to crusade, holy war for Christianity. But there is much more to jihad than this. One may struggle not only against an enemy outside Islam, but against heretics within, social evils like poverty and crime, and unbelief in oneself. Peters, a professor at the University of Amsterdam and the director of the Netherlands Institute in Cairo, has collected previously published information (six translations of Arabic texts, and two of his own articles) to help us understand the wider social and moral senses of jihad. While Peters terms this material "basic," it is both highly technical and complex, and presupposes some familiarity with Islam and its history. It will appeal to the scholar and specialist, not to the casual reader.?James F. DeRoche, Alexandria, Va.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.