Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Conceptual framework
- PART II The historical transformation of international orders
- PART III Contemporary challenges and future trajectories of world order
- 10 The jihadist terrorist challenge to the global state system
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in International Relations
10 - The jihadist terrorist challenge to the global state system
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Conceptual framework
- PART II The historical transformation of international orders
- PART III Contemporary challenges and future trajectories of world order
- 10 The jihadist terrorist challenge to the global state system
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in International Relations
Summary
The situation cannot be rectified, as the shadow cannot be straightened when its source, the rod, is not straight either, unless the root of the problem is tackled. Hence it is essential to hit the main enemy who divided the umma into small and little countries and pushed it for decades into a state of confusion.
Osama bin Laden, ‘A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places’In 1979, a new century was dawning on the Islamic calendar. Throughout the umma, the century's approach was greeted with excitement and apprehension, with a wave of events seeming to foretell an imminent Islamic resurgence. In February, the Ayatollah Khomeini had triumphantly returned from exile to Iran, while on 1 April, the Islamic Republic of Iran was officially proclaimed. November yielded further signs of political Islam's ascendancy. On 4 November, Iranian radicals stormed the American embassy in Tehran, precipitating a 444-day long stand-off that would cement a decades-long estrangement between the ayatollahs and Washington. On 20 November, in a provocation timed to coincide with the advent of the new Islamic century, approximately 200 militants briefly seized and held Islam's holiest place, the Grand Mosque of Mecca, using the occasion to denounce the Saudi monarchy for its perceived profligacy and Westernising tendencies. Finally, as the year drew to a close, the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan further inflamed Islamist sentiments.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- War, Religion and EmpireThe Transformation of International Orders, pp. 261 - 299Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010