We often think of jihadism as being a monolithic movement. In reality, however, its forms and roots vary depending on the geographical region. Farhad Khosrokhavar*, a renowned expert on jihadism and Islamic extremism, draws a distinction between jihadism in Europe and in the Muslim world based on his extensive empirical work. “We face two different [jihadi] movements, one in the Muslim world and one in Europe,” he said during his talk at The Fletcher School, organized by The Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, adding that a major motivating factor for people driven to participate in these movements is a feeling of a sense of humiliation.
Jihadism, according to Khosrokhavar, is a form of radicalism that pushes Islamic fundamentalist ideas to the extreme. Islamic fundamentalism itself has legitimacy in Islam whereas jihadism is an ideological minority. However, more recently jihadism has extended its reach. New literature has its roots in history but is situated within a new framework of jihadi communication. For jihadists in the Arab world, the war is against a fake religion, democracy, and the secular world is viewed as an offshoot of this fake religion. This notion dates back to the ideas of Sayyid Qutb, a leading intellectual of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his ideas of Hakamiyaa (God’s sovereignty) and Jahiliyyah (ignorance of divine guidance).
According to Khosrokhavar, in European society there are three groups of people who appear to get involved in jihadi movements. The first group includes Muslim populations living in Europe who feel humiliated. These European Muslims experience economic marginalization and a sense of victimization. The second group includes those Muslims who are disconnected from their roots and return to Islam, while the third group includes European citizens who have had no prior connection to the Islamic world and who convert to Islam.
In the Muslim world, different groups are attracted to the jihadi movement. Oppressed Muslims become involved in the jihadi movement as a result of their disbanded traditional communities that have been uprooted through modern processes. Khosrokhavar feels that by themselves these groups cannot become radicalized because they do not have a culture of organization, and thus lack the ability to mobilize as a group. They may, however, join other groups. The second group includes engineers, scientists and other educated people who feel that authoritative structures do not allow them freedom. They want their aspirations fulfilled, but feel that they don’t have the opportunities to do so as their societies have been captured by corrupt elites.
Khosrokhavar stresses that the process of radicalization in both Europe and the Muslim world is a complex phenomenon with economic, social and cultural dimensions. Solutions that seek to address any one of these dimensions, he believes, will not get to the root of the problem. As a social scientist, Khosrokhavar did not venture to offer political solutions on how to address the challenge of jihadism, but he certainly provided a detailed socio-political analysis of the subtle distinctions behind what motivates jihadists, thus serving to better inform policy debates on this issue.
* Farhad Khosrokhavar is Professor of Sociology and Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). He is also a Researcher in the Centre d'Analyse et d'Intervention Sociologiques at EHESS and a Visiting Professor at Yale University. Previously, he taught at Bou Ali University in Hamadan, Iran, and at the Center for Science Policy at the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education in Iran. He has published fourteen books on topics including the Iranian Revolution and the radicalization of Muslim minorities in Europe.
Clifford Polycarp MALD ‘09