@article {Fuchs_2013, title = {Do Excellent Surgeons Make Miserable Exegetes? Negotiating the Sunni Tradition in the ǧih{\={a}}di Camps}, journal = {Welt des Islams}, volume = {53}, number = {2}, year = {2013}, pages = {192{\textendash}237}, publisher = {Brill}, abstract = {This article is an attempt to explore how ǧih{\={a}}di authors make use of the Sunni tradition to bolster their case. Islamicists have rarely embarked on such a discussion, given the tendency to a priori chastise extremist authors for their untenable misrepresentation of Islam. Similarly, ǧih{\={a}}di arguments are frequently tossed aside as an already familiar rehashing of an insignificant, isolated stream of thought that stretches directly from Ibn Taimiya via Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahh{\={a}}b to Saiyid Quṭb. In revisiting this claim, I employ a close reading of the crucial ǧih{\={a}}di manual al-ʿUmda fi iʿd{\={a}}d al-ʿudda li-l-ǧih{\={a}}d fi sabil All{\={a}}h (The Essential Guide of Preparation for ǧih{\={a}}d on the Path of God), written in the mid-1980s in the context of Afghanistan by an influential ideologue who is widely known as Dr. Faḍl. After presenting and evaluating a selection of the religious sources and authorities on which the author draws, the article enters into a discussion of his political thought. I argue that Dr. Faḍl makes a convincing case for a political project in the camps that is deeply embedded within the Sunni tradition. Reading Ibn Taimiya faithfully, Dr. Fadl does not turn him in into a proponent of violence against the ruler. Rather, the author sticks to the profound quietism the Damascene scholar is known for, thereby questioning supposedly established, clear-cut paths of reception.
}, doi = {10.1163/15700607-0532p0002}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1163\%2F15700607-0532p0002}, author = {Simon Wolfgang Fuchs} }