Incitement:

Publisher: Havard University Press, London, 2020, 340pp. ISBN: 9780674979505.

Jihad is one of the most abused terms. It is used in in the Qur’an to refer to variegated meanings. It has also been appropriated by violent groups to legitimize their armed struggles. The Qur’an particularly uses the term Qital to refer to the battles in which one may kill or get killed. Scholars and academics have engaged with the concept of jihad and its numerous meanings. However few detailed academic studies have been conducted to analyze and understand the meaning of jihad through the eyes of those ideologues who espouse as an armed violent resistance against their opponents. These opponents can be fully- edged states, armies, institutions, groups of people or a system that these violent groups intend to overthrow to be replaced by a new Islamic system. This new system is supposed to be a remedy for all the ills that had plagued the previous system, which legitimizes and justifies undertaking an armed jihad.

Among the contemporary ideologues of violent jihad, Anwar Awlaki remains a stalwart. This book engages with his multifaceted personality, his evolution from a ery preacher to a strong advocate of jihad, particularly in the West. Hitchens explains quite early the scope of this book by mentioning that it is not a biography of Awlaki, but rather an attempt to understand his role in the establishment and expansion of American-Salafi jihad by tracing its intellectual history (p. 16). Awlaki studied in world class universities and gained reputation as an Islamic scholar. He was a great orator and his lectures were considered to be among the most reliable and popular works on Islam in the English language. It was his oratory skills that attracted crowds of people and got him invited by various prestigious institutions and conference organizers.