Commentary on Olivier Roy's Who are the new jihadis?

Olivier Roy gives an Orientalist interpretation of jihadism – “biographies of ‘home-grown’ European terrorists show they are violent nihilists who adopt Islam, rather than religious fundamentalists who turn to violence.”  This is similar to attributions of madness to lone-wolf jihadis.  But in almost every case a link can be shown to conservative or extremist Islam, which will manipulate the jihadi’s world view.  Islam offers something no other religion does – moral vindication of extreme violence for political and religious ends.  This is the ‘die for one’s cause’ motivation that Western ethics no longer permits.  Furthermore, Islam provides spiritual reward in the form of Allah’s approval, and eternity in an explicitly carnal paradise for actions against the kuffar.  The violence associated with Islam is part of its unchangeable 7^th century morality, less a product of religious radicalisation and wholly a product of its doctrines.

By describing the caliphate as a ‘fantasy’, Roy contradicts an essential and eternal attribute of Islam, that of the ummah ruled by a "rightly-guided Caliph.”  This is part of Islam’s narrative myth, it exists, even if only in its narrative form.  Its reification is inseparable from Islam’s purpose.

Roy’s principal error is in regarding home-grown jihadis as a group created out of nihilism.  This is either a poor choice of word or an outright category error, since an essential component of nihilism is its rejection of any belief.  A more coherent understanding can be achieved by regarding them as an elemental part of Islam’s conquest of the non-Muslim world.  Along with conservative activist Muslims who protest or issue death threats, these jihadis are a vanguard demonstrating the impunity with which Islam can affect society; they show ordinary people that Islam is capable of unlimited modes of violence in order to achieve its ends; and the extreme commitment that Islam expects, and gets, of its devotees.  As individuals, their motivations and beliefs are diverse and secondary to the cause they espouse.  It is Islam that brings meaning to their life and actions.  They are like automatons, designed for action by prior circumstance, and programmed by Islam for its own purpose.  They are Islam’s useful idiots, employees of an ideology.

Roy denies Islam its history of conquest.  By saying that the prospect of civil war does not take into account of “the masses of well-integrated and socially ascendant Muslims,” he assumes that the long term interest of such Muslims and their jihadist confrères is different.  But when push comes to shove, what guarantee is there that ‘integrated’ Muslims will favour Western values over Islamic, when their religion obliges them to support it with the certainty of damnation if they fail?  To be a Muslim means to submit to the will of Allah.  He seems to think that ISIS and its caliphate is the only game in town, and is being shut down by Globocop.  The fact is that there are other more subtle and influential games being run by the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Arabia’s Salafists and Pakistan’s Deobandis who care little about ISIS’ fortunes since they are no more than a useful distraction from Islam’s real purpose. 

All Muslims, from the well-integrated civic leader through to the most demented jihadist, are obliged to fulfil Islam’s ultimate goal of bringing the infidel world into submission to the will of Allah.  They do this through jihad, migration and demographic growth, and proselytising.  For all Roy’s impressive credentials on the subject, by accentuating then diminishing the role jihadis play he draws attention away from what is happening before our eyes, that is, Islam’s hegemonic conquest of the West.


Who are the new jihadis? By Olivier Roy
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/apr/13/who-are-the-new-jihadis?