Jihad – The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (Yale Nota Bene) - Softcover

Rashid, Ahmed

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300099509 ISBN 13: 9780300099508

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2003

Synopsis

Ahmed Rashid, who explained Afghanistan's Taliban regime in his previous work, "Taliban", here turns his skills as an investigative journalist to the five Central Asian republics adjacent to Afghanistan. In tracing the history of Central Asia and explaining the political climate, Rashid demonstrates that it is a region we ignore at our peril.

About this title

Review:

Every dog may have its day, but after over 20 years reporting from countries people barely knew, and cared about even less, correspondent Ahmed Rashid must have thought his had passed him by. Jihad, however, is the deeply impressive and instructive follow-up to his international bestseller Taliban, and in time could well prove equally influential, as in turning his sights to the desolate steppes of Central Asia, Rashid describes a region that harbours the potential to explode just as disastrously as its southern neighbour. Boundaried by rivers, mountains and desert, with a tolerant and liberal Islamic tradition, Rashid traces the region's history over the past two millennia, which included conquest by Alexander, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, and most recently tsarist and Soviet Russia. It was Stalin who divided up the former Turkestan into the five new countries--Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Takjikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan--indifferent to geographic or ethnic lines. After perestroika and the break-up of the Soviet Union, however, as with post-colonial Africa, the countries' new leaders merely exploited the structures of authoritarian oppression, leading to pan-Islamic underground movements such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, led by Juma Namangani, and the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami.

Obviously, the events of September 11 have changed the gameplan significantly, and Rashid assesses their impact on the five countries, and the looming presence of Russia, China and the USA, all jostling for military and economic advantage behind a strategic alliance intent on defending the "territorial integrity" of administrations that were actually most to blame for the rise of militant Islam. A pivotal time, with further extremist guerrilla militancy inevitable, the oil on which Central Asia uncomfortably sits remains the future hope, potentially providing pipes of peace for troubled lands, enabling regional cooperation and economic restructuring. A work of clear and persuasive vision, rather than rehashing old pieces Ahmed Rashid's superbly balanced analysis brings in from the Cold War a deeply unfashionable yet critical region that more than ever remains central to world peace. --David Vincent

Review:

"Jihad is a warning to the West ... a book of enormous authority" -- Michael Binyon, The Times

"No journalist or academic knows Central Asia better than Ahmed Rashid ... The book deserves to be widely read, this time before catastrophe strikes rather than afterwards." -- Stabler Stans, The Economist

"Rashid has written another masterful commentary ... combines the research of a skilled investigative journalist with an academic’s clear-headed and weighty analysis." -- Justin Marozzi, Financial Times

"the most influential journalist in the world" -- Alex Spillius, The Daily Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0300099509
• ISBN 13: 9780300099508
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 372