Events Detail

 

 

Hudson Institute

 

recently held a book discussion of

 

 The Mind of Jihad By Laurent Murawiec

 

Wednesday, October 15

 

12:00 – 2:00 PM

 

 

The Mind of Jihad, published by Cambridge University Press, derives from studies originally commissioned by the Department of Defense and published earlier by the Hudson Institute. This recast and augmented volume examines contemporary jihad as a death cult: bloodlust is a shared characteristic of all jihadi groups, author Laurent Murawiec writes, whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or not.

 

Murawiec characterizes their belief structure as similar to that of Europe's medieval millenarians and apocalyptics, arguing that both jihadis and their European cousins shared a Gnostic ideology: a God-given mission endowed the elect with supernatural powers and placed them above the common law of mankind. Although the ideology of jihad is essentially Islamic, Murawiec traces the political technologies used by modern jihad to the Bolsheviks. Their doctrines of terror as a system of rule were appropriated by radical Islam through multiple lines of communication. The Mind of Jihad brings history, anthropology, and theology to bear to understand the mind of jihad that has declared war on the West and the world.

 

Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenent Colonel and essayist, and Robert Lieber, a Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University, provided commentary. Hudson Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World, Hillel Fradkin moderated the event

 

 

 

 

Betsy and Walter Stern Conference Center

Hudson Institute

1015 15th Street, NW, Sixth Floor

Washington, DC 20005