State sponsorship of terrorism is a complex and important topic in today's international affairs - and especially pertinent in the regional politics of the Middle East and South Asia, where Pakistan has long been a flashpoint of Islamist politics and terrorism. In Islamism and Intelligence in South Asia, Prem Mahadevan demonstrates how over several decades, radical Islamists, sometimes with the tacit support of parts of the military establishment, have weakened democratic governance in Pakistan and acquired progressively larger influence over policy-making. Mahadevan traces this history back to the anti-colonial Deobandi movement, which was born out of the post-partition political atmosphere and a rediscovery of the thinking of Ibn Taymiyyah, and partially ennobled the idea of `jihad' in South Asia as a righteous war against foreign oppression. Using Pakistani media and academic sources for the bulk of its raw data, and reinforcing this with scholarly analysis from Western commentators, the book tracks Pakistan's trajectory towards a `soft' Islamic revolution. Envisioned by the country's intelligence community as a solution to chronic governance failures, these narratives called for a re-orientation away from South Asia and towards the Middle East. In the process, Pakistan has become a sanctuary for Arab jihadist groups, such as Al-Qaeda, who had no previous ethnic or linguistic connection with South Asia. Most alarmingly, official discourse on terrorism has been partly silenced by the military-intelligence complex. The result is a slow drift towards extremism and possible legitimation of internationally proscribed terrorist organizations in Pakistan's electoral politics.

For Christians living as a persecuted minority in the Middle East, the question of whether their allegiance should lie with their faith or with the national communities they live in is a difficult one. This collection of essays aims to reconcile this conflict of allegiance by looking at the biblical vision of citizenship and showing that Christians can live and work as citizens of the state without compromising their beliefs and make a constructive contribution to the life of the countries they live in. The contributors come from a range of prestigious academic and religious posts and provide analysis on a range of issues such as dual nationalism, patriotism and the increase of Islamic fundamentalism. An insightful look into the challenges religious minorities face in countries where they are a minority, these essays provide a peace-building and reconciliatory conclusion for readers to consider.

Anti-Semitism has featured in the history of Western civilization since the Greeks. What the twentieth century has seen through the lens of the holocaust has been happening for over 3000 years. Dan Cohn-Sherbok traces the origins of anti-Semitism and its manifestations, from political opposition to racial persecution and religious and philosophical justification for some of history's most outrageous acts. Against this background of intolerance and persecution, Cohn-Sherbok describes Jewish emancipation from the late eighteenth century and its gradual transformation into the parallel political and nationalistic ideal of Zionism. This book offers a clear and readable account of why anti-Semitism has featured so strongly in world history and provides extensive discussion of the issues. Unlike most studies of the subject, it does not focus exclusively on Christian anti-Semitism, but explores the origins of Arab and organized communist anti-Semitism and Nazi racism. It is essential reading not only for history students and theologians, but anyone interested in finding out why the Jews have been hated and murdered.

In order to better understand the political conditions of the Arabic language in Israel, a comparison with the political conditions of Arabic in the Levant as well as the Diaspora is necessary. Comparison consists of macro factors, such as nation-state building, and at the micro level, the daily public usage of Arabic. While the relationship between language and nationhood is well documented, study of the unique socio-political situation of the use of Arabic in the Jewish state, and in particular language usage in East Jerusalem, has hitherto not been addressed. The removal of Arabic as an official language in Israel in 2018 has major implications for IsraeliPalestinian accommodation. Research for the book relied on ethnographic fieldwork as well as sociolinguistic literature. Investigation is wide-ranging: distinguishing the different public presences of language; the state of literacy (publishing, education); and (formal and informal) interviews with students, teachers and journalists. Linguists often consider the Levant to belong to one dialect group but post-1918 people in the Levant have had to deal with separate political realities, and language differences reflect their unique political and social circumstances. The history of European colonialism is but one influencing factor. Diaspora comparison engages with the US city of Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Arab American community in one locality. How does this community find meaning in both being American and a threat to national security? This dilemma is mirrored in the life of Palestinians in Israel. Security and securitisation are relational concepts (Rampton and Charalambous 2019), and language plays a large part in personal sense of belonging. Analytical tools such as the concept of seamline (Eyal 2006), and indexicality (Silverstein 1979), assist in coming to terms with the metapragmatic meanings of language. This important book reaches far beyond linguistic difference; it goes to the heart of political, social and economic despair faced by multiple communities.

Persecution of Christians in the Middle East has been a recurring theme since the middle of the nineteenth century. The topic has experienced a resurgence in the last few years, especially during the Trump era. Middle Eastern Christians are often portrayed as a homogeneous, helpless group ever at the mercy of their Muslim enemies, a situation that only Western powers can remedy. The Politics of Persecution revisits this narrative with a critical eye. Mitri Raheb charts the plight of Christians in the Middle East from the invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799 to the so-called Arab Spring. The book analyzes the diverse socioeconomic and political factors that led to the diminishing role and numbers of Christians in Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan during the eras of Ottoman, French, and British Empires, through the eras of independence, Pan-Arabism, and Pan-Islamism, and into the current era of American empire. With an incisive expose of the politics that lie behind alleged concerns for these persecuted Christians-and how the concept of persecution has been a tool of public diplomacy and international politics-Raheb reveals that Middle Eastern Christians have been repeatedly sacrificed on the altar of Western national interests. The West has been part of the problem for Middle Eastern Christianity and not part of the solution, from the massacre on Mount Lebanon to the rise of ISIS. The Politics of Persecution, written by a well-known Palestinian Christian theologian, provides an insider perspective on this contested region. Middle Eastern Christians survived successive empires by developing great elasticity in adjusting to changing contexts; they learned how to survive atrocities and how to resist creatively while maintaining a dynamic identity. In this light, Raheb casts the history of Middle Eastern Christians not so much as one of persecution but as one of resilience.

Mass Insanity explores the subjects of insane communities, the clash of identities, and how societies indoctrinate their members and shape their way of thinking. It uses theories of social, clinical and forensic psychology to analyse Islam. It explores Islamic invasions, piracy, slavery, terrorism, female genital mutilation, rape, suppression of human rights and critical thinking. It also discusses the decay of Western civilisation and the arising psychological difficulties. Why do millions of supposedly sane people endorse the assassination of writers, cartoonist, and journalists, the suppression of women, the killing of children, the destruction of art, culture and heritage? Can a society that includes millions of people lose its mind and how? In contrast, why would any country allow a group of people to immigrate, legally and illegally, to its territories to kill its children, rape its daughters, take its wealth, and destroy its identity? Why would a community lose the will to defend itself against an enemy seeking its demise? How could a society stand idly by and watch its own offspring being slain and raped? Again, are these healthy societies?

The Idea of Semitic Monotheism examines some major aspects of the scholarly study of religion in the long nineteenth century-from the Enlightenment to the First World War. It aims to understand the new status of Judaism and Islam in the formative period of the new discipline. Guy G. Stroumsa focuses on the concept of Semitic monotheism, a concept developed by Ernest Renan around the mid-nineteenth century on the basis of the postulated and highly problematic contradistinction between Aryan and Semitic families of peoples, cultures, and religions. This contradistinction grew from the Western discovery of Sanskrit and its relationship with European languages, at the time of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Together with the rise of scholarly Orientalism, this discovery offered new perspectives on the East, as a consequence of which the Near East was demoted from its traditional status as the locus of the Biblical revelations. This innovative work studies a central issue in the modern study of religion. Doing so, however, it emphasizes the new dualistic taxonomy of religions had major consequences and sheds new light on the roots of European attitudes to Jews and Muslims in the twentieth century, up to the present day.

The Thirty Years' War (1618-48) was Europe's most destructive conflict prior to the two world wars. Two of European history's greatest generals faced each other at Lutzen in November 1632, mid-way through this terrible war. Neither achieved his objective. Albrecht von Wallenstein withdrew his battered imperial army at nightfall, unaware that his opponent, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, had died a few hours earlier. The indecisive military outcome found an immediate echo in image and print, and became the object of political and historical disputes. Swedish propaganda swiftly fostered the lasting image of the king's sacrifice for the Protestant cause against the spectre of Catholic Habsburg 'universal monarchy'. The standard assumption that the king had 'met his death in the hour of victory' became integral to how Gustavus Adolphus's contribution to modern warfare has been remembered, even celebrated, while the study of Lutzen's wider legacy shows how such events are constantly rewritten as elements of propaganda, religious and national identity, and professional military culture. The battle's religious and political associations also led to its adoption as a symbol by those advocating German unification under Prussian leadership. The battlefield remains a place of pilgrimage to this day and a site for the celebration of Protestant German and Nordic culture. This book is the first to combine analysis of the battle itself with an assessment of its cultural, political and military legacy, and the first to incorporate recent archaeological research within a reappraisal of the events and their significance. It challenges the accepted view that Lutzen is a milestone in military development, arguing instead that its impact was more significant on the cultural and political level.

In the twenty-first century, humanity faces both unprecedented existential threats and remarkable possibilities for development. While no one knows how things will unfold by century's end, it is increasingly clear that religion will play a major role in shaping the outcomes, for better or worse. In Better Religion, philosopher and religion scholar John Barton explores how grassroots interreligious peacebuilding can help ensure the "better." More specifically, the book argues that for religion's "better" to be realized, interreligious peacebuilding must honor and directly engage religious differences. This challenges a common assumption that religious differences inevitably lead to hostilities, and must therefore be minimized or functionally neutralized for collaborative peacebuilding to be possible. Better Religion explains why such assumptions are misguided, and charts a more realistic and hopeful way forward. Using a blend of data analysis, theoretical models, and real-life anecdotes, the book makes sense of global religious diversity and projects the possibilities of peacebuilding across even the most irreconcilable of differences. Written for academic and professional audiences, this "conceptual primer" will equip readers to understand religion in the twenty-first century and pursue constructive collaborations for human flourishing, all for the sake of the world we currently share and the world we want our grandchildren to inherit.

'For anyone who enjoyed Hillbilly Elegy or Educated, Unfollow is an essential text' - Louis Theroux 'Such a moving, redemptive, clear-eyed account of religious indoctrination' - Pandora Sykes 'A nuanced portrait of the lure and pain of zealotry' New York Times 'Unfolds like a suspense novel . . . A brave, unsettling, and fascinating memoir about the damage done by religious fundamentalism' NPR A Radio Four Book of the Week Pick for June 2021 As featured on the BBC documentaries, 'The Most Hated Family in America' and 'Surviving America's Most Hated Family' It was an upbringing in many ways normal. A loving home, shared with squabbling siblings, overseen by devoted parents. Yet in other ways it was the precise opposite: a revolving door of TV camera crews and documentary makers, a world of extreme discipline, of siblings vanishing in the night. Megan Phelps-Roper was raised in the Westboro Baptist Church - the fire-and-brimstone religious sect at once aggressively homophobic and anti-Semitic, rejoiceful for AIDS and natural disasters, and notorious for its picketing the funerals of American soldiers. From her first public protest, aged five, to her instrumental role in spreading the church's invective via social media, her formative years brought their difficulties. But being reviled was not one of them. She was preaching God's truth. She was, in her words, 'all in'. In November 2012, at the age of twenty-six, she left the church, her family, and her life behind. Unfollow is a story about the rarest thing of all: a person changing their mind. It is a fascinating insight into a closed world of extreme belief, a biography of a complex family, and a hope-inspiring memoir of a young woman finding the courage to find compassion for others, as well as herself. --- More praise for Unfollow 'A beautiful, gripping book about a singular soul, and an unexpected redemption' - Nick Hornby 'A modern-day parable for how we should speak and listen to each other' - Dolly Alderton 'Her journey - from Westboro to becoming one of the most empathetic, thoughtful, humanistic writers around - is exceptional and inspiring' - Jon Ronson 'A gripping story, beautifully told . . . It takes real talent to produce a book like this. Its message could not be more urgent' Sunday Times