Tariq Rahman's welcome study cuts across a variety of disciplines, including South Asian studies, religious studies, and history. Rahman describes Interpretations of Jihad in South Asia as stemming from a desire to understand how Islamic militants and radicals—specifically those in South Asia—justify their stances through scripture. Finding no scholarly study on the subject, he penned this work.
In chapter 1, Rahman expertly presents the layout of literature on jihad as well as scholarship in the specific subfield in which he wants to intervene. He writes, “This book is a history of the idea of jihad for the last three hundred years with focus on the Quranic exegeses though not to the exclusion of other interpretations of the concept of jihad in South Asia” (p. 12). While his work examines the stances of many well-known Muslim intellectuals who have been studied in detail by other scholars, Rahman rightly identifies his focus...
