Jihad The Origin of Holy War in Islam [Hardcover]

While there exists no evidence to date that the indigenous inhabitants of Arabia knew of holy war prior to Islam, holy war ideas and behaviors appear already among Muslims during the first generation. This book focuses on why and how such a seemingly radical development took place. Basing his hypothesis on evidence from the Qur'an and early Islamic literary sources, Firestone locates the origin of Islamic holy war and traces its evolution as a response to the changes affecting the new community of Muslims in its transition from ancient Arabian culture to the religious civilization of Islam.

Reuven Firestone has produced a book that should have been produced a long ago --Journal of Near Eastern Studies

In this book, Firestone had presented an attractive thsis which very much deserves to be read and debated by all who are interested in the subject. --The Muslim World

Firestone has done an admirable thing: he has written a brief, readable, carefully delineated, and scholarly study of a concept that is often bandied about in discussions of Islamic thought without reference to historical development or context. --Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Reuven Firestoneis Professor of Judaism and Islam and Director of the Graduate School of Judaic Studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.