Islam and Political Violence: Muslim Diaspora and Radicalism in the West

Shahram Akbarzadeh · Fethi Mansouri

juin 2010 · I.B.Tauris

À propos de cet e-book

Acts of violence by extremist groups and the resultant state responses (both national and international) have added fresh uncertainties to an already complex global order and heightened a widely felt sense of insecurity in the West and the Muslim world. Just as terrorism and counter-terrorism are locked in a mutually re-enforcing symbiosis, the sense of insecurity felt by Muslims (in both Muslim majority and minority states) and non-Muslims is mutually dependent and has the potential to escalate. The pervasive sense of being under attack by the United States and its Western allies, has contributed to a growing unease among Muslims and re-enforced deep-seated mistrust of the ‘West’. The subsequent policies that have emerged in this context of fear and mutual distrust have contributed to xenophobia and a vicious cycle of insecurity. ‘Islam and Political Violence’ seeks to redress the current debate on the uneasy and potentially mutually destructive relationship between the Muslim world and the West. It explores the modern concept of Islamism and the re-invention of Islam by political elites and counter-elites to advance temporal objectives. This book provides us with a new angle from which to examine the range of challenges to social cohesion and multiculturalism in Western societies and the future of Islam in the West.

À propos de l'auteur

Dr Shahram Akbarzadeh is a Senior Lecturer in Global Politics at the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Victoria, Australia. He has researched, and published on Central Asia affairs for a decade. Dr Akbarzadeh co-authored the Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan (Scarecrow Press, 2002) and co-edited Muslim Communities in Australia (Uni of New South Wales Press, 2001) and Islam and Political Legitimacy (Routledge/Curzon, 2003).