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Series: Cambridge Middle East Studies (No. 33)
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)
Saudi Arabia, homeland of Osama bin Laden and many 9/11 hijackers, is widely considered to be the heartland of radical Islamism. For decades, the conservative and oil-rich kingdom contributed recruits, ideologues and money to jihadi groups worldwide. Yet Islamism within Saudi Arabia itself remains poorly understood. Why has Saudi Arabia produced so many militants? Has the Saudi government supported violent groups? How strong is al-Qaida’s foothold in the kingdom and does it threaten the regime? Why did Bin Laden not launch a campaign there until 2003? This book presents the first ever history of Saudi jihadism based on extensive fieldwork in the kingdom and primary sources in Arabic. It offers a powerful explanation for the rise of Islamist militancy in Saudi Arabia and sheds crucial new light on the history of the global jihadist movement.
Contents
Introduction 1. The politics of pan-Islamism
2. The classical jihadists
3. Recruitment to the early jihad fronts
4. Opportunities for global jihad
5. Al-Qaida and Saudi Arabia
6. Recruitment to al-Qaida
7. Post-9/11 Saudi Arabia
8. The Mujahidin on the Arabian Peninsula
9. Recruitment to the QAP
10. The failure of the jihad in Arabia
Conclusion
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Praise for Jihad in Saudi Arabia:
"The definitive work on Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, this book makes an exceptional contribution to studies of Saudi Arabia, political Islam, and comparative political violence." — David Commins, Dickinson College "Thomas Hegghammer presents the first substantiated study of the jihadist movement in Saudi Arabia. He brilliantly analyses a wealth of hitherto unexamined material and adds both depth and subtlety to our understanding of Islamic politics in the Kingdom. In doing so, he perceptively highlights the importance of pan-Islamism as a mobilising and radicalising factor. This informed and conceptually suggestive study deserves a very wide reading." — James Piscatori, The Australian National University "A rare combination of sympathetic nuance and critical rigour...[A] useful corrective to common misreadings of the kingdom and deserve a wide audience" — The Economist "a path-breaking work, based on painstaking analysis of a mass of material, including jihadist literature, and some of his conclusions challenge the conventional wisdom about the character of both the Saudi state and global jihad." — Roger Hardy, BBC World Service "Here, Thomas Hegghammer unpacks the paradox of jihadi militancy in an Islamic state. The book ... draws on an impressive collection of biographies and written sources from al-Qaeda websites." — Madawi al-Rasheed, King's College London "an outstanding, engagingly written study of the rise of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the methods used by the Saudi state to defeat it." — Brian Downing, Asia Times "a significant contribution"
— Joseph Kechichian
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