The Art of Jihad

<p><b>Identifies and traces the evolution of a forgotten realist tradition in medieval Islamic political thought and considers the prospects for its revival in the context of the contemporary Middle East.</b></p><p>Now all but forgotten there exists within medieval Islamic political thought a coherent realist tradition analogous to its Western counterpart. In <i>The Art of Jihad</i> Malik Mufti begins by analyzing contemporary debates on jihad designed to highlight the lacuna occupied by realism in other cultures. He explicates the features of medieval Islamic realism; those it shares with realism everywhere-a focus on power for example or the ubiquity of human conflict-but also those features that are distinctive: its insistence on the political centrality of religion its rejection of scientific certainty its valorization of hierarchy and its adherence to empire as the optimal ethico-political framework. These features are fleshed out through the writings of medieval political thinkers such as Ibn al-Muqaffa` al-Jahiz and the anonymous author of a seminal military manual as well as political philosophers such as Ibn Rushd and Ibn Khaldun. Finally Mufti explores the prospects for a revival of Islamic realism in the context of the political and intellectual upheavals currently besetting the Middle East.</p>