Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics مقالة

The goal of the book, Armajani asserts, is to demonstrate “that the worldviews of the members of al-Qaida follow specific patterns which are rooted in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Islamist ideas and institutions as well as some intellectual currents that date to the early modern period” (p. In his chapter on Saudi Arabia, the author deals with the origins and rise of the Wahhabi movement leading up to the establishment of modern Saudi Arabia and the appearance of Islamist opposition to the Saudi state. Most pertinent in this section is the development of “an anti-Saudi Wahhabi Islam,” which Armajani asserts arose in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. The fact that Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last two countries covered should not be surprising, given the book’s al-Qaida orientation. Armajani’s chapter on Afghanistan highlights the influence of Pakistani Islamists upon the mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan war and upon the establishment and rise of the Taliban.