Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- A note on conventions
- Introduction
- 1 The politics of pan-Islamism
- 2 The classical jihadists
- 3 Recruitment to the early jihad fronts
- 4 Opportunities for global jihad
- 5 Al-Qaida and Saudi Arabia
- 6 Recruitment to al-Qaida
- 7 Post-9/11 Saudi Arabia
- 8 The mujahidin on the Arabian Peninsula
- 9 Recruitment to the QAP
- 10 The failure of the jihad in Arabia
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 – Socio-economic data on Saudi militants
- Appendix 2 – Chronology of Islamist violence in Saudi Arabia, 1979–2009
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE MIDDLE EAST STUDIES 33
2 - The classical jihadists
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- A note on conventions
- Introduction
- 1 The politics of pan-Islamism
- 2 The classical jihadists
- 3 Recruitment to the early jihad fronts
- 4 Opportunities for global jihad
- 5 Al-Qaida and Saudi Arabia
- 6 Recruitment to al-Qaida
- 7 Post-9/11 Saudi Arabia
- 8 The mujahidin on the Arabian Peninsula
- 9 Recruitment to the QAP
- 10 The failure of the jihad in Arabia
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 – Socio-economic data on Saudi militants
- Appendix 2 – Chronology of Islamist violence in Saudi Arabia, 1979–2009
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE MIDDLE EAST STUDIES 33
Summary
When I wrote this text, it did not cross my mind that it might bring about such a great revolution, so that our numbers would increase close to tenfold.
Abdallah Azzam, preface to the 2nd edition of Join the Caravan, 1988One of the most remarkable aspects about the Saudi jihadist movement was the speed at which it formed. In the early 1980s, there was no sizeable community of militant Sunni Islamists in the kingdom. Juhayman and his rebels had represented a small and exceptional phenomenon in the Saudi political landscape. By the mid-1990s, there were thousands of Saudi veterans of the Afghan, Bosnian and Chechen battlefronts. How did this mobilisation come about?
Afghanistan, cradle of the jihadist movement
The Saudi jihadist movement was born in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It was here that the personal connections, organisational structures and internal culture that would later shape its evolution were created. But why and how exactly did Arabs get involved? Clearly it was not an automatic response to the Soviet invasion, because Arabs had not volunteered for other conflict zones in the past and did not go to Afghanistan in significant numbers until the mid- to late 1980s.
Interestingly, many Islamists and officials today contend that the Arab mobilisation for Afghanistan was massive and immediate; that thousands of volunteer fighters travelled for Afghanistan within months of the invasion.
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- Jihad in Saudi ArabiaViolence and Pan-Islamism since 1979, pp. 38 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010