Could it be, as Mahmoud Mamdani (2005) suggests, that political violence is the “midwife of [human] history,” precisely because our modern sensibilities encourage us to rationalize violence as “necessary to human...

First, I wish to thank the anonymous readers who struggled to bring this project to fruition and my editors Courtney Morales and Emily Roderick for their guidance, patience, and perseverance. Many other professionals helped make this project possible, including Michael A. Gomez of New York University, John Padgett and Charles Lipson of the...

The late scholar, historian, and self-described neoconservative Bernard Lewis was widely regarded as the Dean of Islamic and Middle East studies in the United States. He was an advisor to President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, and a student of the orientalist, H. R. Gibb.“Bernard Lewis, Scholar of Islam Who Advised Bush After 9/11, Dies at 101,” New York...

Louis Brenner reminds us that Islam has become a major factor in world politics and many Africans are injecting themselves into the political...

This chapter explores (1) “Important Distinctions”; (2) “The Islamist Continuum”; (3) “Contemporary Episodes of Muslim Struggle (jihad)”; (4) “West African Resistance and Reform Movements”; (5) “The Special...

This chapter continues our discussion of Muslim struggle (jihad) and Africans by exploring the politics of Muslim struggle (jihad) hereafter referred to as Muslim struggle among Africans. No other group in human...

This chapter examines eight cases of Muslim struggle (jihad) and Africans. The cases were selected according to guidelines outlined in Robert K. Yin’s Case Study: Research and Applications: Design and Methods (2018) and include: (1) “Bilal ibn al-Rabah”; (2) “Muhammad Ahmad”; (3) “Samory Touré”; (4)...

The previous chapter explored cases of Muslim struggle and Africans by putting a human face on this essential Islamic institution. This chapter seeks to extend this task by putting a human face on the phenomenon of terrorism and Africans by examining (1) “Anatomy of the ‘World’s Deadliest Terrorist Group,’” followed by brief discussions of eight cases of terrorism and...

This chapter explores the essential Islamic institution of flight (hijra) to improve our knowledge and understanding of the Islamist challenge in historical perspective. It includes sections devoted to: (1) “Muslim flight”; (2) “The Elusive Atlantic”; (3) “In the Shadow of 1492”; (4) “Jihad and Hijra by Other Means”; (5)...

This chapter advances the idea that the Islamic institution of flight (hijra) facilitated the arrival of many African...

Policy makers in the Trump administration must abandon the practice of overreacting to the Islamist challenge by seeking cooperation with Russia in the fight against ISIS. Although it is true that the West and militant Islamists have been longstanding foes, it is also true that beyond the West and Islamic world rivalry mutually, productive outcomes have been reached in part because of this...

Afroz, Sultana, Invisible Yet Invincible: The Islamic Heritage of the Maroons and the Enslaved Africans of Jamaica (London: Austin-Macauley Pub. Ltd., 2012).

Al-Afghani, Jamal-a-Din:

Samory Rashid is a professor of political science at Indiana State University. He holds an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, where he was a student of Fazlur Rahman. He was born in Chicago and served as a visiting associate professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has traveled extensively and is the author of Black Muslims:...