The Case Against Jihad

The Case Against Jihad is above all a powerful repudiation of terror.

Jihadi violence has become an international menace in recent decades. While law enforcement agencies have done the best they can to protect innocent people, jihadi ideology thrives among some segments of Islamist communities, waiting to be tapped whenever the political situation permits it.

The Case Against Jihad provides an ideological challenge to the doctrine of armed jihad. It makes a compelling case against jihadi violence and international terror. It is only by refuting the underlying ideology that the world can hope to eradicate terror in the name of radical Islam.

The first part of this book discusses the various meanings of jihad and the second presents a series of original arguments. It examines the historical roots of the ideology, the historical precedents of jihad, as well as the doctrine as it appears in the canonical literature of Islam.

The arguments against jihad include a comparison between Islam’s law of Qisas and lex talionis, the flawed reasoning behind the juristic doctrine of Naskh or abrogation, and jihad in the context of the Geneva Conventions, among others.

Farzana Hassan challenges the ideas that sprang from the sociopolitical forces in the formative years of Islam but which some Islamists would force upon citizens of the twenty-first century.