How Violence is Islamized

Abstract

Interpretation of the history, foundational scriptures of Islam and the cultural practices of Muslims has been a fundamental influence upon the modes of Western explanation of the reasons for the rise of violent extremism involving Muslims. In this regard, one source that factors deeply in the process of making the Western portrait of Islam and the Muslim world is the emphasis of the Salafi reform movement on adherence to a puritanical form of Islam and the appropriation and subsequent perversion of this discourse by transnational jihadi groups. Such an arrogation of epistemological space of Islam by extremist organizations in a bid to glorify their violent atrocities and terror methodologies has spawned distorted negative images of the religion of Islam. This has subsequently led to a widespread propaganda of the phenomenon of Islamophobia, and it is this very notion of Islamic evil demonology that undergirds the Western imagery of Islam and the Muslims. The present article aims at demystifying such clichéd imagery of Islam in general and Salafism in particular that has been engendered by Western critiques.