Deol and Kazmi (2012) ‘Introduction: Jihadi Worlds.’
Citation: Deol, Jeevan and Kazmi, Zaheer (2012) ‘Introduction: Jihadi Worlds,’ in Jeevan Deol and Zaheer Kazmi (eds.) Contextualising Jihadi Thought, London: Hurst & Company, pp. 1-28.
Deol and Kazmi (2012:1): Following Brachman, notes that jihadism is a clumsy term, but use it because of common usage to mean “forms of Islamic militancy defined above all by a commitment to violence ostensibly in the name of Islam.”
Deol and Kazmi (2012:1): “global jihadism thus denotes both the ideology of al-Qaeda and the more differentiated landscape of violent Islamist thoughts and practice that asserts a presence in different parts of the globe.”
Deol and Kazmi (2012:1?): “As operational ties between Al-Qaeda and local actors have continued to surface, it has become tempting to subsume understandings of global jihadi ideology into a simple frame of reference that weaves a global community of violent entrepreneurs out of this otherwise fragmented universe of violent dissidents.”
Deol and Kazmi (2012:2): “It has become increasingly commonplace to view al-Qaeda as a franchise or coalition of interests linked to and operating through other violent Islamists whose more localised agendas intersect with parts of its global project to a significant degree. In this view, the ‘global jihad’ is not merely a decentralised militant operational reasons but is also a loose, diverse constellation of like-minded jihadis differentiated by their local agendas and preoccupations while simultaneously bound together by an idealised and distant strategic vision.”
Deol and Kazmi (2012:4): “Like Salafism, from which much of Al-Qaeda’s theological vocabulary emanates, al-Qaeda’s global jihadism claims a timeless, trans-historical authenticity free from the constraints of cultural imperatives at the same time as it belongs to and is shaped by its more immediate environment.”
Deol and Kazmi (2012:5): “In some ways, it is nonsensical to talk of a global jihadi ideology, since such a characterisation gives currency to the notion that al-Qaeda and related jihadi groups harbour a single coherent set of beliefs and a shared strategy for mobilisation.”
Deol and Kazmi (2012:11): Argues that Gerges’ distinction between local and global jihadi currents is a useful one, but notes: “the global jihadi landscape is not static and continues to evolve: key emergent trends are, arguably, shifting the terms of the debate from a bifurcated ‘local-versus-global’ jihadi frame centred on al-Qaeda operations to a more fluid, amorphous and de-localised threat.”