The Book: From Manhattan to Baghdad

128 pages

• 11 and the Reconstitution of the Conflict
• 11 Calls for an International Reassessment
• September’s Events Revealed the Fragility of the International Order
• Historicizing Sacred Texts
• Bringing Islam and Modernity into a Mediterranean Critique
• Choosing the Strategic Sites of al-Qaeda
• The Continued Interweaving of Religion and Politics
• Religions Are Used as Political Justification
• The Crisis Is One of Culture and Knowledge
• Military Regimes Prevent Debate over Legitimacy
• Terrorism Is Linked to Policies and Authoritarianism
• Movement Islamism Blames Others
• Instrumentalized Islam Differs from True Islam
• Islam Needs Redefinition
• Islamism and the Reading of History
• Ismailism Is an Open Cultural Movement
• Reform from Within the Tradition
• Free Faith and Critical Vigilance
• Islamic Modernization Remained Incomplete
• Modernization Is Not True Modernity
• Shiism Followed a Different Political Trajectory
• Distinguishing Between Suicide Operations
• Tensions Are Understood through the Construction of the Enemy
• Jihad Becomes a Holy War
• The Need for a Third Enlightenment
• The Need for Multilevel Analysis
• 11 as a Legitimation Turning Point
• Modernity Produced a Break with Tradition
• The Event Represents a Multilevel Rupture
• Just War Requires Caution
• Holy War Transcends a Single Religion
• Preemptive War Restores American Isolation
• War Is Morally Unforgivable
• The Assassins as an Ideological Explanatory Model
• Religious Truth Is Historically Interpreted
• The Crusades Symbolically Shape the Conflict
• Fundamentalist Discourse Fills the Void Left by Critique
• Western Responses Reproduce the Logic of Power
• Historical Narrative Combines the Real and the Ideal
• Peace Imposed by One Side
• American Policy Linked Power with Morality
• A Global Politics of Reason and Justice
• Codified Legitimacy Is Not Democracy
• Legitimacy Is Divided between Recovery and Granting
• Conflict as a Calculus of Strikes
• Obedience Hinders Democracy
• The Arab-Islamic World and the Event’s Two Faces
• International Justice Needs Broader Reform
• The Relationship with Power Is One of Coercion and Submission
• The Social Sciences Content Themselves with Describing Gaps
• The Social Sciences Are Essential to Development
• Sacrificial Violence in al-Qaeda
• Violence Is Justified by Identity, Religion, and Absolute Values
• The Title Is Linked to Discussions of the Event and Iraq
• Globalization Conceals Inequality
• Critical Reading of the Religious Text Is Fraught with Risk
• The Internal and External Rupture
• Political Values Generate Violence
• 11
• The Anthropological Triangle as a General Framework
• The Imaginary Receives the Event with Divergent Meanings
• Meaning Is Not a Primary Given
• The Comparison between Christianity and Islam
• The Nahda Is a Rich History That Needs Researchers
• Global Civic Consciousness Is Fragile
• The United States Embodies the Historical Enemy
• The Shift from Narrative to Ideology
• Less Destructive Alternatives
• Bin Laden and the Revolutionary Guevara
• Bin Laden Rewrites the History of Hostility
• Discourse Analysis as a Strategic Choice
• The Intermingling of Violence and the Sacred
• Research Has Declined Since the 1960s
• All-Encompassing Labels Hide Diversity
• Islamic Consciousness Formed Historically
• A Different Interpretation of the September Event
• The Dismantling of the Caliphate Widens the Conflict
• Deconstructing Systems of Thought and Values
• Contact between Islam and the Christian West
• Expanding Democratic Negotiation
• Expanding the Legitimacy of the Decision for War
• Contemporary Uses Out of Context
• Major Universities for the Social Sciences
• The Afghanistan War Deepened Humiliation
• Al-Qaeda’s Angry Discourse
• A Metajihadist Discourse in al-Qaeda
• The Persistence of Violence in the Islamic Imaginary
• Linking Bin Laden to Mullah Omar
• 11
• Rejecting the Globalized World
• Rejecting a Fixed Islamic Essence
• Lewis’s Question Is a Legitimate Historical One
• Fields That Reveal Double Standards
• September Is a Multiread Event and Reveals the Persistence of Violence
• Sūrat al-Kahf as a Shared Mediterranean Memory
• Outward Legitimacies Entrench Rule
• 11 Legitimacies
• 11
• The Rise of Power after Bipolarity
• The Image of the Enemy Reshapes War
• The Need for Anthropological Analysis
• The Need to Disable the Network
• The Weakness of Democracy in Arab Rule
• A Reciprocal Relationship between Power and Religion
• The Absence of Expertise among Terrorists
• 11
• An Ideological Reading of Islam
• A Different Reading of the September Attacks
• There Is No Complete, Authentic Islam
• The “Axis of Evil” as a Mobilizing Construct
• Revisiting the History of the Arab Nahda
• Bin Laden’s Theological Reference Frame
• States Bear Responsibility for the Absence of Critical Knowledge
• Addressing Terrorism Is a Global Responsibility
• The Rarity of Critical Historical Consciousness
• Theological Debates Are Linked to Political Power
• A Regime of Truth Is Tied to Its Context
• A Cross-Cultural Value System
• Critique of Selective Linear History
• Critique of the All-Out Military Response
• The September Attacks Reveal a Global Crisis
• It Distinguishes Governance from Power
• The Crisis of the Arab-Islamic World Stems from the Breakdown of Legitimacy, Critique, and Institutions
• Discourses of the Enemy, Jihad, and al-Qaeda Produce Transnational Sacred Violence
• September Reshapes the Political Imagination and the Logic of Global Conflict
• Understanding Violence and Islamic Modernization Requires Comparative History and Contextual Distinction
• Arkoun’s Method Deconstructs Truth and Discourse and Grounds a Cognitive Religious Reform
• Critique of the War on Terror Rejects Total Force and Calls for Measured Global Justice