Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection

by Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy

Book Overview

Al Qaida, Taliban, Pakistani Deobandis - all of these groups are based in Pakistan, which continues to serve as regional hub for Islamist movements and their terrorist offshoots. This book investigates and explains gestation of interlinked radical Islamist networks of Pakistan, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, out of which Al Qaida emerged.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231133642
• ISBN13: 9780231133647
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A useful primer on informal networks in the region

If you want to understand contemporary Islamism, you have to grasp the role of informal networks. For some analysts, simple theology suffices, for others, international linkages dominate. Few academics have tackled the ways in which human relationships, as much as ideological sympathies, underpin Islamism in South Asia. Whether illustrated by familial lines of succession among selected madrasah (Islamic school) principals, the strong friendships fostered by joint participation in Tablighi Jamaat missions, or the increasingly networked sharing of fatwas (Islamic legal pronouncements) through the internet, social connections are critical. This short but important study remains one of the best examples of social scientists investigating the provenance and vitality of informal networks in the context of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia and Kashmir. Given this, Mariam Abou Zahab and Oliver Roy's book remains deeply relevant for academics and policymakers, despite being a 2004 translation of a 2002 French manuscript. (For more, see Contemporary South Asia - this review is an extract of a longer piece.)