Violence in the Name of God: The Militant Jihadist Response to Modernity (Violence, Desire, and the Sacred)

This book traces the trajectory of modern religious extremism, focusing on militant Islamism and jihadism, to show how violence is more intentionally embraced as the centre of worship, social order and ideology. Joel Hodge argues that the extreme violence of jihadist-Islamists is a response to modernity in two ways that have not been sufficiently explored or appreciated by the existing literature on religious extremism, terrorism and violence. Firstly, it is a manifestation of the unrestrained and escalating state of desire and rivalry in modernity. Militant Islamists embrace this state of escalating rivalry to justify their violence, and by achieving victory, seek to control and repress desire. Secondly, it is a response to the unveiling and discrediting of sacred violence, which militant Islamists seek to reverse by more purposefully engaging in and valorising sacred violence to the point of worship itself (in jihad). They justify this sacred violence in the name of being victims of a Westernized modernity. Hodge explores these arguments using the work of René Girard, a leading theorist of violence in the twentieth century. Relevant to anyone interested in Islam, philosophy of religion, theology and terrorism, this book imagines new ways of thinking about militancy in the name of Islam in the twenty-first century.

• | Author: Joel Hodge
• | Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• | Publication Date: January 23, 2020
• | Number of Pages: 296 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1350104973
• | ISBN-13: 9781350104976