Unholy war: terror in the name of Islam

Excerpt

John L. Esposito has written Unholy War for the aftermath of 9/11. The author gives an easy direction to inform why a terrorist attack happened to the World Trade Center buildings. He explores motivations behind the attack by focusing on Osama bin Laden and surrounding circumstances within the jihad doctrine. Although the subject, jihad, has legal and theological aspects, he mainly focuses on historical developments and conditions, which he considers to be key causes for this attack. The book provides an excellent overview of the tragedy by putting it into a broader historical and contemporary political context. The author tries to understand the causes of the attack, but not to put a label on it. He successfully makes a distinction between mainstream Muslims and the extreme groups by placing the responsibility of the terrorist attack on the shoulders of extreme fanatics, but not on Islam or Muslims as a whole. …