This essay compares and contrasts modernist,
traditionalist and transformative responses to the experience of
“cognitive dissonance” in the Muslim community as Islam faces
disappointment at its failure to fulfill its religious duty to expand and
create a universal Islamic civilization. The paper discusses the theology
and ideology of a growing and increasingly mainstream militant Islam that
refuses to accommodate to modernity and religious pluralism and has
developed innovative theological justifications for the expansion of
violent jihad as the means to achieve Islamic hegemony.
The paper considers the work of Sayyid Qutb and Abt
al-Salem Farji, the authors of AL-Faridah al-Gha’ibah, (“The
Neglected Duty”), two scholarly but widely popular militants who have
provided new potency to the classical Islamic view of jihad and
violent confrontation as the way to realize the Islamic vision of an
expanded Dar al-Islam with everyone living according to sharia
law. The new militancy permits no compromise with modern norms of
democracy and political pluralism and has championed violent jihad,
including murder and assassination, as “sacred terror” and as the singular
means to realize Islamic religious goals.
