Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Podcast

history · EN

The word “jihad” is misunderstood and misrepresented. It is a human concept (rather than a heavenly mandate) and has a historic and political as well as religious context, and has been applied in different ways by different users over the centuries. Today its most important application is by the members of the Global Jihadist Movement, most specifically Al Qaeda and the Islamic State which grew out of Al Qaeda. For Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and the tens of thousands of young men who have joined his cause, “jihad” refers to the last Holy War against the Infidel, a war to be waged in the eschatologically highly significant territory of Syria and Iraq as well as on the soil of infidel lands, be it a nightclub in Orlando, a concert hall in Paris, or on the streets of Boston. Many clichés are founded on a modicum of truth, and the wisdom inherited from Sun Tsu that one must “know the enemy” to defeat them is just such a fact-based cliché. (For the record, the ancient