God's Terrorists

God's Terrorists - Allen Charles

In today's post-9/11 world, the everyday news shows usimagesoffanatic fighters and suicide bombers willing to die inholywar,martyrs for jihad. But what are the roots ofthismilitantfundamentalism in the Muslim world? In thisinsightfulandwide-ranging history, Charles Allen finds an answerintheeighteenth-century reform movement of Muhammed ibnAbdal-Wahhaband his followers--the Wahhabi--who sought therestorationofIslamic purity and declared violent jihad on all whoopposedthem,Moslems and pagans alike. As the Wahhabi teachingspread inthenineteenth century, first, to the Arabian peninsula,and then,tothe region around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,theirfollowersbrought with them a vicious brand of politicalideologyandmilitant conflict. The Wahhabi deeply influenced therulersofmodern Saudi Arabia and their establishment of astrictIslamiccode. A more militant expression of Wahhabism tookroot inthemountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where fiercetribeshavewaged holy war for almost two hundred years. The ranksoftheTaliban and al-Qaeda today are filled with young menwhoweretaught the Wahhabi theology of Islamic purity whilerifleswerepressed into their hands for the sake of jihad. God's Terrorists sheds shocking light on thehistoricalrootsof modern terrorism and shows how this dangeroustheologylives ontoday.