New Study Sheds Light on Islamist Thought
By Douglas Farah
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has just released a study of _jihadi_ literature, analyzing who the most influential thinkers in the movement are, based on a year of mining the most influential texts and web writings. The New York Times did a piece on it, but it deserves much broader attention.
The study is a valuable addition, because it includes a summary of many of the most influential _jihadi_ texts, biographies of many of the author, and thinking about the way forward in combatting the theological and theoretical basis for the struggle. It is available online here.
As I have said repeatedly, it is vitally important to read what the enemy says about itself, and what the rationale is for their actions. Far too often I have been in meetings where the architects of the _jihad_ struggle is dismissed as stupid, unsophisticated, and totally unknowable. This study helps make them knowable, and that is the only way to begin to develop a more comprehensive long-term strategy that might actually have some impact. My entire blog is here.