Violence and Militants

Acknowledgments i
VIOLENCE AND MILITANT S

human dimensions in foreign policy, military studies,
and security studies
Series editors: Stéphanie A.H. Bélanger, Pierre Jolicoeur, and Stéfanie

von Hlatky
Books published in the Human Dimensions in Foreign Policy, Military Studies,

and Security Studies series offer fresh perspectives on foreign affairs and global
governance. Titles in the series illuminate critical issues of global security in the
twenty-first century and emphasize the human dimensions of war such as the
health and well-being of soldiers, the factors that influence operational effective-
ness, the civil-military relations and decisions on the use of force, as well as the
ethical, moral, and legal ramifications of ongoing conflicts and wars. Foreign
policy is also analyzed both in terms of its impact on human rights and the role
the public plays in shaping policy directions.
With a strong focus on definitions of security, the series encourages discus-
sion of contemporary security challenges and welcomes works that focus on
issues including human security, violent conflict, terrorism, military coopera-
tion, and foreign and defence policy. This series is published in collaboration
with Queen’s University and the Royal Military College of Canada with the
Centre for International and Defence Policy, the Canadian Institute for Military
and Veteran Health Research, and the Centre for Security, Armed Forces,
and Society.
1 Going to War? 4 Disarmament under International

Trends in Military Interventions Law
Edited by Stéfanie von Hlatky and H. John Kierulf
Christian Breede
5 Contract Workers, Risk, and the War
2 Bombs, Bullets, and Politicians in Iraq
France’s Response to Terrorism Sierra Leonean Labor Migrants at US
Christophe Chowanietz Military Bases
Kevin J.A. Thomas
3 War Memories
Commemoration, Recollections, and 6 Violence and Militants
Writings on War From Ottoman Rebellions to Jihadist
Edited by Stéphanie A.H. Bélanger and Organizations
Renée Dickason Baris Cayli
preface iii
Violence and Militants
From Ottoman Rebellions

to Jihadist Organizations
BARIS C AYLI
McGill-Queen’s University Press

Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago
iv preface
© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2019
isbn 978-0-7735-5869-4 (cloth)

isbn 978-0-7735-5985-1 (epdf)
isbn 978-0-7735-5986-8 (epub)
Legal deposit third quarter 2019

Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free

(100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free
This book has been published with the help of a grant from Derby
University.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Violence and militants : from Ottoman rebellions to jihadist

organizations / Baris Cayli.
Names: Cayli, Baris, 1984– author.
Series: Human dimensions in foreign policy, military studies, and security
studies ; 6.
Description: Series statement: Human dimensions in foreign policy,
military studies, and security studies ; 6 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190118393 | Canadiana (ebook)
2019011844x | isbn 9780773558694 (hardcover) | isbn 9780773559851
(epdf) | isbn 9780773559868 (epub)
Subjects: lcsh: Violence—History. | lcsh: Religious militants—History.
| lcsh: Jihad—History.
Classification: lcc hm1116 .c39 2019 | ddc 303.609—dc23
This book was typeset by True to Type in 10.5/13 Sabon

Acknowledgments v
Çok kıymetli Annem ve Babam için

Para mi mama i mi papa
Per i miei genitori
For my parents
vi Acknowledgments
preface vii
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Notes on Pronunciation and Acronyms xiii
Introduction 3
1 The Historical Paradigm 23
2 Cultural Violence 43
3 The Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence 79
4 Structural Violence 93
5 The Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence 127
6 From a Violent Past to a Desperate Future 139
Notes 159
Index 199
viii Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface
Writing about violence is emotionally challenging. I am passionate

about understanding violent episodes; in this book I ask how they
occurred, why they occurred, and what determined them. These
important questions help me to contextualise the stories of militants,
their enemies, and their victims. My aim is not to discover remedies
for violence but rather to uncover the complicated dynamics and bit-
ter realities that pave the way for the rationalization of violence and
therefore, ultimately, to its application.
I also attempt to shed light on the universal codes underlying human
behaviour. For this reason, I select cases from the nineteenth century to
compare to those involving some of the militants of our age. History is
not an esoteric discipline; it is essential to know the past in order to
understand the present. Studying history helps us recognise similar occa-
sions, events, troubles, conflicts, and perplexing human behaviours in
our own times. As Richard Bernstein reminds us, while there may be
enormous confusion in terms of the value, instrumental role, and mean-
ing of violence for different actors, the roots of perceived injustice follow
unsurprisingly similar paths in rationalizations of its necessity.1
I hope readers of this book create their own bridges connecting the
great troubles of the past with the tragedies of present. These bridges
are critical to thinking again and again about the origins and conse-
quences of violence. Hannah Arendt said that “violence appears where
power is in jeopardy”2 The relationship between power and violence is
inextricable. If one seeks the ethos of justice, the roads paved by vio-
lence and power need to be walked through first.
This book relies on a wide variety of scholarship, including the
work of political theorists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists,
x Preface
and philosophers. A large number of historical cases come from doc-

uments I consulted in the Ottoman Archives, which used to be part
of the prime minister’s office in Istanbul.3 I particularly consulted
the fonds of Sadaret Mektubi Kalemi Belgeleri (Documents of Grand
Vizier’s Offıce), Girid İrâdeleri (Cretan Decrees), Sadâret Âmedî Kalemi
Defterleri (Registers of Amedi Office), Irade-Hariciye (Imperial Decrees
on Foreign Affairs), Hariciye Nezareti Belgeleri Siyasi (Ottoman For-
eign Ministry Political Section Documents), Amedi Kalemi Defterleri
(Amedi Office Registers), Taşra Bosna Müfettişliği Evrâkı (Documents
of Provincial Inspection of Bosnia), Sadaret Mektubi Kalemi Meclis-i
Vala Evrakı (Documents of Grand Vizier’s Offıce related to the Leg-
islative and Supreme Council), and finally Sadâret Mektubî Kalemi
Nezâret ve Devâir Evrakı (Documents of Grand Vizier’s Office about
Correspondence between Ministries and Offices).
The period of the Ottoman rebellions is limited to the Tanzimat era.
This era witnessed great changes in the Ottoman officialdom when
“justice” was at the center of political and legal debates. One may argue
that the post-Tanzimat period is more interesting for studying violence
because of the extensive nationalist militant activities at that time.
However, this book is concerned not only to understand militant activ-
ities but also to explore the emergence of militant violence, so the
Tanzimat era provides a better context for examining the source of mil-
itant rebellions before they became more endemic and ferocious.
To conduct a systematic comparison, case selection relies on the
analysis of documents published by the militant jihadists of Hezbol-
lah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis, as well as videos disseminated by these
groups and analysis of their attacks. I have focused on the concepts,
occasions, and discourses embraced by the militants to legitimize
their attacks, propagate their campaigns, recruit new members, and
give support to the ideologues within their movements. Even though
the following chapters provide a sequential analysis related to the four
jihadist organizations, this book provides neither a detailed organiza-
tional chart nor a detailed history of each jihadist organization. Read-
ers may find these elsewhere. My concern is to understand those
events which make violence an inevitable instrument for militants.
The rebellions were the critical events that put militants at the center
of the state-society nexus in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire.
On the other hand, jihad is an ideological force shaping the character
of current militants. The militant rebels of the Ottoman Empire and
the militant jihadists of today are presented in two different groups in
the following chapters because this classification provides clarity.
Acknowledgments xi
Acknowledgments
I started writing this book in 2013 and completed it in 2018. The

book embraces such a wide range of subjects that I need to acknowl-
edge many people who helped shaped my thoughts. Some of these
thoughts sent me to the inferno of solitude, and without my family,
colleagues, and friends, I could not have left that inferno. My deepest
appreciation is reserved for my parents, who have always encouraged
me and demonstrated their love for me. They even pointed out cer-
tain things that I overlooked during this project. Gioacchino Messina
was fascinated by the project and his emotional support was invalu-
able, as was that of my friends Emine Incesu, Bengu Demir, and Burcu
Ozdemir. My colleagues Alex Nunn, Francesco Belcastro, Michala
Meiselles, and Paul Elliott provided a stimulating and productive
environment for me and commented on some parts of the book. My
colleagues Gill McIvor, Niall Hamilton-Smith, Margaret Malloch, and
Sarah Wilson at the University of Stirling motivated me to write. I am
also grateful to the archivists of the Ottoman Empire Archives in
Istanbul, who were always helpful.
I wish to thank my acquisition editor Jacqueline Mason, who
believed in the project from the start and took it forward. The trans-
formation of a manuscript into a book is not an easy task and
requires the involvement of a number of dedicated professionals.
Other people at the McGill-Queen’s University Press played impor-
tant roles in the production of this book. I also wish to thank two
anonymous reviewers whose feedback and suggestions helped me to
strengthen the book. I am also grateful to the British Academy that
supported this research financially. Last but not least, I am grateful to
the impressive work of Susan Glickman who carefully and deftly
oversaw the editing process. The views expressed here, however, do
xii Acknowledgments
not necessarily represent the position of these institutions or of

the various people that I have mentioned. All mistakes are, of course,
my own.
Acknowledgments xiii
Notes on Pronunciation and Acronyms
This book avoids using Ottoman paleography except when an English

translation does not really provide the correct pronunciation of the
term. The contemporary names of towns and villages are used in the
text and their Ottoman names are mentioned in the notes. Modern
Turkish spelling has been used throughout this book; the letters are
pronounced similarly to their English equivalents. The following let-
ters are exceptions.
Letter English pronunciation
c j
ç ch
ğ the preceding vowel is lengthened; for example, ağız is
pronounced a-ız
ı similar to the pronunciation of serial
j zh
ö like the German ö
ş sh
ü like the German ü
v not as heavy a sound as it is in English
“Militia(s)” and “jihadi(s)” are two common versions of the words

“militants” and “jihadists” used in the book. The other two names
that have variants are Hezbollah and Isis. “Hizbullah,” “Hizballah,”
“H. izbu ‘llāh” all literally mean “the Party of God” in Arabic; these
are slight variations used in different places and contexts. This book
uses “Hezbollah,” as its pronunciation is closer to the original Arabic.
xiv Notes on Pronunciation and Acronyms
“Isis” has also had several alternative names; “Islamic State” (is), its
Arabic acronym Daesh (pronounced as dāʿish), and “The Islamic State
of Iraq and the Levant” (Isil) are the three most common. This book
uses Isis, which means the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This acronym
has been popular since the organization was established in 2013.
The Backstory 1
VIOLENCE AND MILITANT S

2 On the House
Introduction
“These violent delights have violent ends,

And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume.”
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Every great expectation invokes hope and fear at the same time. This
strange contradiction manifests itself ironically in human nature. The
story of Kadhem Sharif is one such manifestation. Shortly after the
invasion of Iraq in 2003, videos of Kadhem Sharif were disseminated
widely and he became a popular figure. In these videos, he can be seen
proudly breaking a statue of Saddam Hussein with a sledgehammer.
With each blow, Sharif probably thought about how his homeland
would become a better place to live in and how it would provide a
future where his hopes would come true. However, this expectation
resulted in mere disappointment. The outcome of the invasion intend-
ed to topple Saddam Hussein was catastrophic.
This catastrophe did not result from reasons unique to the people
of Iraq. Violence is a disruptive and subversive instrument. In many
social settings with frustrating impacts, disappointment and resent-
ment may be an unsurprising outcome, at least for a number of per-
sons. Kadhem Sharif was one of those persons. He was not a militant
but an ordinary and angry citizen of a dissident society. In fact, the
character of contentious societies lies in diverse but similar modes of
dissent. At the same time, both the use of violence and disappoint-
ment about its results also contain some ideals about the future.
Intervention into the dissenting realms of a contentious society may
cause an already fragile situation to deteriorate. The sinister outcomes
of intervention in such societies create an unbearable situation when
4 Violence and Militants
the dissents are not eliminated within a reasonable period of time. If

democratic channels are not available, or are perceived as disparaging
governing methods, violence may be a valuable and even indispens-
able instrument for marginalized dissident people. In the conundrum
of great concerns, individuals apply violence as a rationalized practice,
which gains persistency when it is employed on multiple occasions.
These violent practices eventually create militants out of angry and
concerned people whose dissent directs them toward the route of
revenge, and sometimes even towards proposing a new world order.
Millions of people have been the victims of violence employed by
militants and their antagonists since the state phenomena emerged.
Millions of people have become refugees because of the consequences
of violence. Destroyed cities and ruined villages paint the landscape of
cataclysm. We hear the bitter cry of orphans and abandoned children
in areas afflicted by civil war and conflict. Raped women and hope-
less men are the endemic victims of social and political disaster. In
regions characterized by such suffering, unsurprisingly, militants are
the partners of catastrophe whether they are affected by it or create it.
the aim of this book:

exploring the rationalization and application
of violence by militants
The role of violence in militant life is contingent upon the rational-

ization of violence as a necessary instrument for militant activities.
Moving from this vantage point, the following two queries guide this
book: (i) How do militants rationalize and then apply violence? (ii) Is
there a set of common conditions that lead to the rationalization of
violence by militants in different times and spaces? The present study
aims to respond to these two principal questions by exploring the vio-
lent responses of militants who rebelled against the Ottoman Empire
in the Balkans during the Tanzimat1 era (from 1839 to 1876) and
those of militants belonging to four different jihadist organizations –
Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis – which operate in a diverse
geography from Asia to the Levant.
Studying historical calamities alongside the troubles of the present
is the main methodology of this book. This comparison helps us
answer the vexed question of how violence shapes contentious indi-
viduals and societies by asking: Is the militants’ motivation for resort-
ing to violence independent of time and space? Responding to this
Introduction 5
question, we may clarify parallel elements determining the condi-

tions for the rationalization of violence by different militant groups.
More importantly, we may gain insights into violent human behav-
iour, whether it is oriented politically or not. In doing so, we may
attain sufficient perspective to understand the application of violence
by militants.
This study develops two central arguments. The first argument clar-
ifies the process of rationalization by claiming that both groups of
militants justify the need for violence similarly, although the particu-
lars of what kind of violence is ultimately employed depend on con-
text. The second argument delves into the two forms of violence – cul-
tural violence and structural violence – by investigating the reasons
for and methods used in the rationalization and then application
of violence. This leads us to conclude that politico-religious factors
primarily determine the rationalization and application of cultural
violence, whereas socio-structural factors are more influential in the
rationalization and application of structural violence. There are also
many incidents when the combination of cultural violence and struc-
tural violence leads to the escalation of aggression. We witness the
most calamitous events when this occurs.
why do the ottoman rebellions

and jihadist organizations matter?
The nineteenth century was once described as the “Transformation of

the World,”2 because its revolutions and rebellions determined the des-
tiny of humanity in the following century, a century marked by two
world wars. The Ottoman Empire did not remain isolated from these
transformations. In fact, the early nineteenth century was critically
important for Ottoman rule, providing the opportunity to bring about
changes and develop policies addressing the concerns both of the peo-
ple and of the governing cadre. Important changes in the political,
social, cultural, and legal areas in the nineteenth century showed that
Ottoman officialdom really strove for change, although they under-
stood, after the second half of that century, that such change would not
be easy to put into practice. This grim understanding became a bitter
reality for the Ottoman Empire with the surge in nationalist violence
and social and political tumult in the Balkans.
The Ottoman Empire had a cosmopolitan character, with people
from different religions and ethnicities living in the same small vil-
lages and towns. In Anatolia, the Middle East, and North Africa, there
were plural societies that were ethnically and culturally different as
well. However, the population of non-Muslims was greater than that
of Muslims in the Balkans. The Almanach de Gotha3 recorded the pop-
ulation in 1850–53, and noted that 3,800,000 Muslims, 11,370,000
Orthodox Christians, 260,000 Catholics and 70,000 Jews (mostly in
Salonika) resided in the European territories of the Ottoman Empire.4
Multiple identities in the religious sphere convulsed the region with
more than a dozen ethnic groups in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. Though in other times those plural communities
had peacefully co-existed, the region was transformed into a laby-
rinthine network of conflicts. This persistent struggle even produced
a new and orientalist concept – Balkanization – a term that was most-
ly used to suggest that the region’s multiple identities were hostile to
each other.5 The implications of this term were that different com-
munities in the region were alienated from each other, and their
future co-existence was uncertain.
The Napoleonic wars in Europe, the revolutions of 1848 attempted
mainly by peasants and the lower social classes across Europe, the
French revolution, the rise of nationalism, the colonialization of Africa
by European powers, and the advancement of technology shaped
the nineteenth century’s political and social landscape. These great
changes impelled the struggle between colonialist states to control the
means of production and to fulfill the goals set in their expansionist
agendas. Some states enlarged their territories, whereas others were dis-
solved. Invasion and the use of military force were common. Territori-
al control was central to the realization of these goals. Violence afflict-
ed the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century through attempts
at rebellion by militants who were mostly Christians and resisted
Ottoman rule.
Similarly, the employment of violence by militant jihadists today
has interrupted everyday life. The social and political dynamics of the
late twentieth and the early twenty-first century include many paral-
lels to those of the nineteenth century concerning the control of ter-
ritory. Nonetheless, advancements in technology and developments in
communication and also the manipulation of truth have character-
ized the last four decades. These developments also shaped the use of
violence and produced global reactions through the concerted actions
of the four jihadist organizations – Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and
Isis – examined in this book. These organizations all have military sec-
Introduction 7
tions, and each member may engage in militant activities if ordered

to do so.
The Ottoman Empire controlled some of the militant activities
through a set of reform packages and diminished the power of other
militant groups by encouraging local people to oppose them. The
harsh and fierce suppressive plans of the central government in Istan-
bul, the Sublime Porte6 (to be called the Porte hereafter), were also on
the table to reconsolidate its authority in the periphery. Social and
political problems in the Ottoman Empire lead to violent collective
dissent and public panic. Reading this transformation in the Balkans
through the role of militant activities helps us understand how the
social dynamics of everyday life and the political agendas of diverse
groups were influenced by violence among the multi-ethnic and
multi-religious communities.
“Jihad” is a vague term which signifies a general meaning of “striv-
ing” rather than “fighting” when we consider both hadith literature
and those verses of the Quran which deal with jihad and martyrdom.7
In fact, its early expression was not limited to physical struggle against
the enemy.8 The meaning of jihad can differ greatly depending on the
identity of those using the term, their political and social agenda, and
the local setting where it is practiced. Although today’s usage is most-
ly that which militants employ to further their ideological agendas,9
jihad is also a term indicating “internal reform, spiritual struggle and
self-defence.”10 The commonality of aggression within the Abrahamic
religions lies in the concept of a “just war” or “jihad” that legitimizes
the use of physical force to eliminate the evil-doers.11 From this per-
spective, “the individual, while striving for individual merit and salva-
tion, has also internalized the needs and goals of entire community.
This is jihad in its fullness, a force uniting the individual, community
and God.”12
Perhaps the most contentious verses in the Quran regarding the use
of violence to defend one’s faith are Chapter 2, verses 190–1: “Fight in
the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for
Allah loveth not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them,
and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult
and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the
Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you,
slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.”13 By saying
that tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter, these verses send
a message that only slaying the opponent who oppresses the believer
is acceptable. They also permit fighting in the Sacred Mosque if oppo-

nents attack Muslims while they are observing their religion.
These verses also state that oppression humiliates human beings, so
the defence of one’s life and faith is presented as a method of resis-
tance rather than offence. Even so, “oppression” remains a vague term.
Does this oppression aim to exterminate all believers, or is it simply a
form of psychological oppression? Considering the physical pressure
on Mohammad and his followers, the former might be more accurate.
Chapter 6, verse 151, reminds us that human life is sacred. As in other
Abrahamic religions, we are told, “Do not take life, which God has
made sacred, except by right: if anyone is killed wrongfully, We have
given authority to the defender of his rights, but he should not be
excessive in taking life, for he is already aided [by God].”14 In this
verse, justice and law are required before deciding to take life.
Understanding the range of interpretations of the word “jihad”
makes it clear that a jihadist organization need not be violent at all
times. Yet violence is fundamental to both the structure and the gov-
ernance of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis, the four groups this
book examines. There are other militant jihadist groups across the
world, such as Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, Jemaah Islamiah in
Indonesia, and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya and Tunisia. But the violent
activities of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda in the 1980s started a new
discussion about jihad more than a half century after the fall of the
Ottoman Empire, a period in which Muslims lacked a universal cali-
phate. Jihad returned to the centre of Islamic political discussion
globally with the rise of Isis in 2013. These four groups have more
extensive global networks than any of the others and, except for al-
Qaeda, they were founded in the territories that the Ottoman Empire
once ruled. Even al-Qaeda’s original strength in Afghanistan and its
strong links in Pakistan remained under the religious influence of the
Ottoman Empire, so that al-Qaeda’s second leader, Egyptian Ayman
Zawahiri, stated that the Ottomans “were the holy warriors against the
‘greedy’” and “for some five centuries were the defenders of Islam.15
Comparison of the Ottoman rebels with the jihadists is key to the
principal question explored by this book: the rationalization of vio-
lence. The book also examines how militants regard religions as a
means of legitimizing their actions. For this reason, militants in the
Ottoman Balkans in the nineteenth century, who were mostly Chris-
tians, are compared to militant jihadists from Afghanistan to the Lev-
ant. The most common and important feature of both militant types
Introduction 9
– militant rebellions and militant jihadists – is their endorsement of

violence as a principal instrument to attain their goals. Violence can
be traced in the identities of these militants, the occasions of their
conflicts, and the uneven distribution of power in the regions where
they live. Before going further, however, it is important to ask: Who
are these militants?
who are these militants?
A militant, like all other rebels, is prone to use violence. Yet the con-
cerns of a militant, like those of all other dissident people, are the out-
comes of a multifaceted relationship between the state and society.
The militant behaves in an implacable manner due to complex
dynamics in which victimization, emotional suffering, and revenge
are conflated in the habitus of dissent. Similar to the etymological
root of “violence,” the word “militant” has a Latin root, milit, meaning
soldier. Among different meanings of “militant,” the common charac-
teristic is the use of concerted action until dissent is eliminated. The
modern connotations of the word “militant” suggest armed insur-
gents and violent aggressors who use force to achieve a goal. From this
standpoint, a militant is a dissident who fights for his goals through
aggressive and persistent methods.
The reaction of militants against perceived injustice in the nine-
teenth-century Ottoman Empire was discernible through politico-
religious dissents that were fueled by ethnic and religious motives.
These militant activities diminished state authority and created thou-
sands of victims among the civilian population and the state forces.
Public safety was one of the main concerns of rural communities
because of the ferocity of the militants’ attacks. The Ottoman state
cadre identified those militants by a number of names. Şaki (eşkiya in
the plural) is the most common term. Etymologically, şaki signifies a
desperate or miserable person; however, it was mostly used to describe
outlaws and brigands who violated the rules of state authority and cre-
ated dissent in the governing centers. In addition to şaki, the term
klepht denoted brigandage in the rural and mountainous areas of
Ottoman Greece. The klephts were defined as “mainly fugitives, debt-
ors, bandits, misfits, adventurers, victims of oppression, men not
attached to the land by property or other obligations, who took to the
hills and became brigands.”16 Klephts continued to be a serious prob-
lem even after Greece gained independence from the Ottoman
Empire in 1829. Ironically, this was related to the dual character of the
klephts, who were known both as heroes of the national struggle
against the Ottoman Empire and as criminals violating the laws of the
newly established Greek state.17 Similar to the term klepths, hajuks
(haiduks) was another popular aspersion used to describe bandits
both in the Ottoman Empire and Eastern Europe.18 The multi-layered
identities of these bandits made them a multidimensional problem.
The heterogeneous character of militant rebels and even the use of
different names to identify them are common features also of refer-
ences to contemporary militant jihadists. The jihadists are merely “ter-
rorists” to many of their opponents, but “heroes” and “martyrs” to
their own supporters and sympathizers. The two common character-
istics of militant jihadists are their eagerness to devise a violent
response and the role of jihad in their activities. They target powerful
authorities, as also happened in the case of rebels in the Ottoman
Empire. However, as Gilles Kepel observes, these men and women are
reacting against modernity and the rise of a new order starting from
the early twentieth century, so this reaction makes them “the true chil-
dren of our time.”19
Oversimplification of the militants’ backgrounds and presenting
them as brutal characters who are hungry for bloodshed does not
help us to understand the conditions determining human behaviour
in grievous times. Using that simplified “orientalist” perspective, we
may remain unable to understand why militants use violence the
same way in different times and places. In regard to the educational
level of militants, an important number of militant jihadists received
advanced education in engineering, medicine, and science.20 Similar-
ly the prominent leaders of the militants, particularly the Bulgarian
and Greek rebels in the Ottoman Balkans, were educated and well
aware of the political and social theories of the time. Hence, it is mis-
leading to identify all these men as ignorant and irrational. In fact,
both the militant rebels of the past and militant jihadists today justi-
fy their use of violence by interpreting their suffering through the
books they read.
This is not to suggest that militants are merely freedom-fighters.
Jones and Smith successfully show in Sacred Violence how the transna-
tional networks of Al-Qaeda, particularly in Europe, provided ideo-
logical and logistic support to the organization in the use of religion
as a basis for political violence.21 Militants can be just as ruthless
Introduction 11
against the innocent as their opponents, as is demonstrated by many

incidents recounted in the following chapters. The understanding of
jihad today is quite different from that during the three previous
“caliphates”: the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates and the Ottoman
Empire. For example, in distinction to their predecessors, militant
jihadists violate the classical rules (ahkam) by killing non-combatants,
especially women and children, and they become suicide bombers
even though suicide is strictly prohibited in Islam.22 Olivier Roy
brings our attention to radicalized young Muslims of the second and
third generation in Europe, who feel that they are rootless and are
therefore prone to be tempted by the glorification of jihad presented
to them by leading ideologues.23
The militant rebels of a number of bands and committees and even
of the four different jihadist organizations embrace different goals
and react differently against their opponents. These goals and reac-
tions hinge on a perspective of victimization, narrated according to
their understanding of justice. The fluid character of militants is more
discernible in the relationship between state and society. These rela-
tionships produce multiple and sometimes conflicting narratives to
define what is legitimate and just. The negative discourse used to
describe militant rebels by the Ottoman authority is not surprising.
However, they were appreciated by a portion of their local communi-
ties, who shared similar ideals and goals. The same appreciation is also
evident in the recruitment process of militant jihadists, who gain the
sympathy not only of local populations but also of Muslim men and
women across Europe. The support of local people is particularly
determinative for the empowerment of Hezbollah and Hamas, whose
members are under the influence of national ideals and national
agendas. Still, even though the members of al-Qaeda and Isis are re-
cruited from around the world, local people in the territories con-
trolled by these two organizations influence their power.
It is true that the ordinary crimes committed by outlaws in the
Ottoman Empire were not always based on politico-religious or socio-
structural concerns, because banditry also brought material benefits.
Similarly, a number of jihadists affiliate with militant organizations,
particularly Isis, because of material benefits from that assignment
and the salaries paid to them for their activities. However, the cases in
this book focus on şaki, hajduk, or klepht who were formidable figures
of local community and rebelled because of politico-religious or
socio-structural concerns. Similarly, the following chapters examine

jihadists in the four organizations who participated in violent activi-
ties because of politico-religious or socio-structural motives.
why does violence matter?
Etymologically, the word “violence” derives from the Latin root vis,
meaning force or vigor. It started to be widely used in the thirteenth
century to describe “a quick tempered and brutal person.”24 What insti-
gates a vengeful behaviour or what leads to a brutal event at the com-
munity level arises in the dynamics of a violent relationship between
the individual and society. The heterogeneous character of society pro-
vides incentives to dissenters when the issue is uneven distribution of
power. The lack of a just social system in societies composed of diverse
identities and classes makes the culture of diversity “a source of frus-
tration” and “a constant source of grumbling cultural commentary.”25
Some ideologues, such as French philosopher Georges Sorel, pro-
moted the use of collective violence in the early twentieth century
because they believed that it was the key for the proletariat to mount
a revolution.26 Violence was also appealing to social engineers like
Mussolini, who argued that “creative violence” would hinder social-
ism and therefore lead to a better future for Italy.”27 What each of us
views as “violence” is determined subjectively because the positions
of conflicting people are shaped by contradictory perspectives. By
citing scripture, Western civilization legitimized violence to defend
“widows, orphans or declare ‘just war’ waged by Christian kings
against the ‘Infidel’, ‘troublemakers’, and ‘the enemies of the prince.’”28
Violence is “an act of physical hurt deemed legitimate by the per-
former and illegitimate by (some) witnesses.”29 Defining what is just
or unjust while devising a response to the source of dissent is the nat-
ural dynamic of subjectivity.
The polemical statement centralizes violence as “neither malady
nor enemy.”30 Taking violence as a part of human nature leads to the
next question: how violence is rationalized. Violence may, in fact, fol-
low a seemingly rational path whether it is justified by an earthly
desire or a divine requirement for heavenly reward. Violence is gener-
ally an easy, quick, and profitable method of response, which makes it
a “mechanical form of human energy: so mechanical that it can even
be quantified or classified as ‘heavy’ or ‘light.’”31 Violence is not sim-
ply an individual practice. Organizations may also employ violence,
Introduction 13
and are affected by it. Every organization has some political features,
and the state is organized “to mobilize the means of violence” so its
control of territory can be sustainable.32
Max Weber’s famous essay, “Politics as a Vocation” (Politik als Beruf),
explicates how a legal system created by the state itself acquires a
monopoly of violence to legitimize and protect its status quo. Weber
notes, “The state is seen as the sole guarantor of the ‘right’ to physical
force. Therefore, ‘politics’ in our case would mean the pursuit for a
portion of power or for influencing the division of power whether it
is between states, or between groups of people which the state encom-
passes.”33 Control over the division and distribution of power uses
physical force as a deterrent. Yet the use of force is not under the sole
control of state authorities; violence plays a disruptive role wherever
it is deployed. Such a disruptive role characterizes the degree of con-
flicts between the agencies vying for power.
Nonetheless violence, as a concept, may mystify when it comes time
to define it through actions. The act of violence and the violence of
act express different things.34 The former invokes physical force over
the targeted persons, institutions, or assets; however, the latter is the
result of violent behaviour. That is why the use of violence by mili-
tants may generate severe outcomes, especially by way of intervention
and in the responses of their opponents.
Violence is vital for controlling society through totalitarian meth-
ods. Hannah Arendt produced one of the most significant and yet
debated texts on the role of violence in the political realm. Arendt
sharpened her arguments through a critical reading of Sorel, Fanon,
Weber, Marx, and Sartre.35 Arendt’s concept of violence includes some
subversive dynamics, particularly about the outcome of violent
action, as she states that “the distinction between violent and non-
violent action is that the former is exclusively bent upon the destruc-
tion of the old and the latter chiefly concerned with the establish-
ment of something new.”36 Arendt’s approach to violence is novel in
terms of giving new meanings to old concepts. However, her perspec-
tive is state-centered, which limits violence to the orbit of revolutions,
state violence, and political legitimacy. Arendt noted that “in domes-
tic affairs, violence functions indeed as the last resort of power against
criminals or rebels – that is, against individuals who, as it were, refuse
to be overpowered by the consensus of the majority.”37 In this respect,
we may open new gates to understanding the relationship between
the state and society when we consider the use of violence by non-
state forces – criminals, rebels, and bandits – who deploy the instru-
ments of violence to achieve their particular goals. Militants provide
us the social ambiance with which to explore the central role of vio-
lence. That social ambiance is necessary to analyze power in diverse
times and places in which it prevails.
Studying violence helps us clarify the universality of human behav-
iour, people’s motives for its rationalization, and how it is applied. On
the other hand, efforts to justify the use of violence may distort the
truth, provide an excuse for provocation, and legitimize excessive phys-
ical force over the vulnerable. Judith Butler argues that “a frame for
understanding violence emerges in tandem with the experience, and
that frame works both to preclude certain kinds of questions, certain
kinds of historical inquiries, and to function as a moral justification for
retaliation.”38 Both victimized groups and the agents which oppress
them have used the same frame of violence throughout history to legit-
imize their acts, defeat their opponents, and realize their ideals.
When I refer to “violence,” do I mean a unified and single form of
action or many different forms? In modern peace and war studies,
Johan Galtung proposed two different forms of violence. These are
“cultural violence” and “structural violence.” Cultural violence, accord-
ing to Galtung, “refers to aspects of a culture that can be used to jus-
tify or legitimize direct or structural violence, and may be exemplified
by religion and ideology, language and art, empirical science and for-
mal science.”39 However, the term “cultural violence” as used in this
book is slightly different from Galtung’s, because human culture is an
inclusive arena where communities identify themselves through poli-
tics, ideology, social behaviors, customs, everyday practices, and pat-
terns. Therefore, I define cultural violence as the use of physical force
by a dissenter when that person perceives that his or her cultural iden-
tity is subject to injustice. The identification of cultural identity
through resistance against perceived injustice, in fact, transforms a dis-
senter into a militant when physical violence is used persistently. Eth-
nic, national, or religious identification are the principal factors shap-
ing the cultural identity of a militant. This is the reason that dissent
rules the identity of militants before the decision to engage in vio-
lence is taken. Yet culture is not equivalent to religion, so “cultural”
violence in this study is highly related to militant identity in which
politico-religious factors play a primary role. Religious and political
ideals become enmeshed when dissent resonates in the political spec-
trum. This resonance manifests the primitive motives of using cultur-
Introduction 15
al violence and it shapes the identity of a militant. Physical force

against opponents emerges with the instigation of politico-religious
dissent. This book argues that politico-religious motives provide the
basic rationale to instigate cultural violence by militants, both in the
past in the Ottoman Empire and in Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and
Isis today.
Structural violence, on the other hand, appears within social struc-
tures or institutions that degrade the lives of people by diverting them
from their fundamental needs. Institutionalized discrimination
against young people, ageism, classism, elitism, ethnocentrism, nation-
alism, racism, and sexism are examples of structural violence according
to Galtung.40 These forms of structural violence may be related to cul-
tural violence. However, according to Galtung, the main reason for
structural violence is the unjust organization of institutions and their
notorious power exercised over the lives of individuals and communi-
ties. From this perspective, structural violence may not be directly
related to physical force even though it may produce gender-based vio-
lence, hate crimes, racial violence, war, or police and state violence. The
principal characteristic of structural violence is social injustice. In fact,
social injustice fosters feelings of victimization among militants and
therefore becomes the fulcrum of structural violence, as we shall see in
the following chapters. In contrast with Galtung, however, I emphasize
that physical force is the unchanging outcome of structural violence
because militants perceive it as the most effective method, if not the
only one, to attain their ideals.
Socio-structural concerns provide the principal rationalizations of
structural violence by militants against their opponents. My defini-
tion of structural violence, therefore, is different from Galtung’s be-
cause when the issue is militants, structural violence denotes physical
violence related to injustice resulting from the uneven distribution of
power and poor living conditions in everyday life. Weak and fragile
states, large populations, and poverty are factors that favour the re-
cruitment of militants.41 Structural violence, therefore, is a form of
physical force driven by socio-structural concerns, and this physical
force aims to defy the power of the opponent while striving to make
the militants’ own organization solid and formidable. This is in con-
trast to cultural violence, which prioritizes those values and abstract
notions that form a person’s identity.
Even though injustice penetrates the realms of both cultural and
structural violence, the main motivations for and the expectations
involved in these two forms of violence differ. Of course, there are

occasions when cultural and structural violence intersect and lead to
a catastrophic outcome. The militants are not the only instigators of
such intersections; states too may use both cultural and structural vio-
lence at the same time. The Syrian civil war is the most recent exam-
ple of how a state applies both cultural and structural violence at the
same time and becomes a model of strategy for the very militants that
the state purports to be fighting against.42
Charles Tilly argues in his landmark study, The Politics of Collective
Violence, that collective violence “is not simply individual aggression
writ large. Social ties, structures, and processes significantly affect its
character.”43 Social interactions and conflicts reveal that the competi-
tion for power determines the degree of collective violence. Structur-
al kinship creates similar outcomes for people who feel subjugated in
different regions and time periods. James C. Scott similarly asserts
that this subjugation structures the domination so that we can grasp
its operation in analogous ways: “They will, all other things being
equal, elicit reactions and patterns of resistance that are broadly com-
parable.”44 Both “historically given (and often economically driven)
processes and forces conspire to constrain individual agency. Struc-
tural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them
access to the fruits of scientific and social progress.”45 This main dis-
sent, leading to structural violence, creates more shattering outcomes
when it is conflated with cultural violence. The commonality in both
forms is the role of violence in connecting individual and social con-
cerns. Violence emerges as an entropic element at both the cultural
and structural levels, and when it connects the individual and society,
it destroys both.46
Hannah Arendt states that we “have established ourselves as ‘uni-
versal’ beings, creatures who are terrestrial not by nature and essence
but only on the condition of being alive, and who therefore by virtue
of reasoning can overcome this condition not in mere speculation but
in actual fact.”47 Creating motivation to live in a safe future environ-
ment through non-violent instruments requires dedication, organiza-
tion, and application. Richard J. Bernstein says that we need to be
hopeful about the future, because even some of the communities that
have been subjected to violence have used non-violent instruments to
realize their ideals. For example, he cites “the non-violent power
employed by Gandhi in India, the civil rights movement in America,
the Solidarity movement in Poland, and the non-violent social move-
Introduction 17
ments in Eastern Europe that resulted with the collapse of Commu-

nism.”48 The distinction between people who strive against perceived
injustice by employing non-violent methods and others who use vio-
lent methods indicates that exploring the process in the rationaliza-
tion of violence is critically important.
Perhaps the most interesting outcome of cultural and structural
violence is their combined force when used to attain power. A leading
sociologist, Michael Mann, explores the sources of social power through
four power types: (i) ideological; (ii) economic; (iii) military; and (iv)
political.49 Ideological power unifies people around ideals. Economic
power is the capacity of social sections, segments, and classes to func-
tion better in life by fulfilling their material needs. Military power
refers to the army and the ability of ruling organizations to sustain
security. Political power is the state’s use of a central bureaucracy to
rule and govern. However, the concept of social power, according to
Mann, cannot be reduced only to state actors because other agencies,
such as militants, believe that they are victims of the state. As a result,
they too can influence social power in one way or another. Cultural
violence has a strong relationship with ideological and political
power in the rationalization of violence, whether militants are being
affected by it or they shape the social power types. And economic and
political power play greater roles in the rationalization of structural
violence. Finally, military power becomes key in the application of
both violent forms.
the methodological approach

and organization of this book
The two main questions raised at the start of this project designated
this book as an inductive investigation of violence and militants
employing a grounded theory and four stages of analysis. First, I iden-
tify two codes – “violence” and “militants” – and consider how they
relate to each other through numerous cases. Second, two concepts –
“rationalization of violence” and “application of violence” – emerge
from these cases as the main drivers for mapping the complex and
dynamic perceptions of militants and of their opponents. My original
point of departure was Charles Taylor’s statement that “We very often
can’t fully understand these ideas if we think them in isolation from
the practices.”50 For this reason, the book aims to test how ideas func-
tion in practice, so it first focuses on the rationalization and then on
the application of violence. Third, this sequence indicates that differ-

ent forms of violence are used for different motivations and goals.
Cultural violence and structural violence are the two main forms of
violence that I investigate in this study.
After pursuing these three stages of investigation, I discover the
determinants that characterize the rationalization and application of
violence by militants. The theoretical innovation of this study lies in
the argument that the rationalization of violence by militants is inde-
pendent of time and space; however, its application very much
depends on time, space, and the militant group in question. The com-
plexity of the issues analyzed in the book necessitated an interpreta-
tive method, so I endeavor to develop a meaning-making process and
generate historically contingent outcomes to clarify how militants
rationalize and apply violence.
The book positions violence at the center of the argument and
explores militants through narratives and discourses of victimization,
perceptions of injustice, political conflicts, and religious paradigms,
as well as cultural and social shifts. The book’s cross-disciplinary
approaches to violence within the disciplines of humanities and social
sciences aim to connect different political geographies with each
other to find out how micro and macro dynamics interact. This broad
perspective, of course, includes its own risks in approaching such a
complex subject. The following chapters endeavour to eliminate some
of those challenges by systemizing the presentation of the book and
organizing it around two forms of violence: (i) cultural violence and
(ii) structural violence. The reader will encounter the stories of mili-
tant rebels and militant jihadists in each violent form.
We need to provide some historical context before delving into vio-
lent and perplexing events and complex ideologies. The historical par-
adigm helps us to achieve a holistic perspective so that we may con-
ceive the ways in which both the rationalization and application of
violence in the present have a relationship with the past. For this rea-
son, Chapter 1 focuses on the historical paradigm and briefly presents
the evolution of nineteenth-century Ottoman-controlled Balkans and
the militant-jihad nexus starting from the emergence of Islam. This
chapter aims to inform the reader about the fundamental political
and social background of the Ottoman Empire so as to understand
the concerns of militant rebels, on the one hand, and the role of the
caliphate on the other. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on cultural violence,
while Chapters 4 and 5 examine structural violence. Chapter 2 scruti-
Introduction 19
nizes arguments about and provides evidence of the cultural violence

of the militant rebels and militant jihadists separately. Chapter 3 com-
pares the rebels with the jihadists to uncover how each group ratio-
nalizes and then applies cultural violence. Chapter 4 provides argu-
ments about and considers events of structural violence. Chapter 5
compares the militant rebels and the militant jihadists to examine
how they rationalize and then apply structural violence. Chapter 3
and Chapter 5 look at these militants from a comparative perspective
by deciphering the codes underlying the rationalization of cultural
and structural violence. Exploring the subject mainly under two cate-
gories – cultural and structural violence – aims to resolve the contra-
dictory conditions between the individual and society when different
forms of violence characterize a social context. Furthermore, Chapters
3 and 5 will sharpen our understanding by comparing the rational-
ization and application process of cultural and structural violence of
militant rebels with those of militant jihadists. Table I.1 and Table I.2,
about cultural violence and structural violence respectively, provide
the main analytical framework of the book that the reader may keep
in mind while reading the next chapters.
The militant rebels of the past and militant jihadists currently ratio-
nalize cultural and structural violence similarly, while committing
violent acts in different ways. To explain this, I use two concepts in the
following two tables: limited violence and extensive violence. Militant
rebels resort to limited violence, whereas militant jihadists use exten-
sive violence. The main reason for this difference is that militant
jihadists aim to address a broader audience and therefore the attain-
ment of a hegemonic rule is more essential to them – at least in prin-
ciple, and in a certain territorial area.
Chapter 6 offers an overall evaluation of the motives to apply vio-
lence by integrating the militants into the cultural and structural
dynamics of contentious life. Here we reach the borders between cul-
ture and human condition as well as between structure and social life.
These borders sometimes interact and intersect with each other and
unveil the desperate future of human beings. Violence does not arise
only from desperation; ironically, it offers hope at the same time. The
human being shapes the conditions of culture and the structure of
social life while paradoxically remaining under the influence of his
or her cultural and structural cosmos. This existential interaction
between human and cosmos informs the concerns and ideals of mili-
tants. Belief in the necessity of physical reaction is crucial for those
Table I.1
The rationalization and application of cultural violence
cultural violence
Rationalization of Application of
cultural violence cultural violence
Type of
militant Principal The expected
group motivation outcome Dimension Aim
Militant Politico- The attainment Limited Establishing a political

rebels religious of political and violence entity based on politico-
concerns religious ideals religious ideals through
identifying limited
targets and applying
limited violence
Militant Politico- The attainment Extensive Establishing a political

jihadists religious of political and violence entity based on politico-
concerns religious ideals religious ideals through
identifying extensive
targets and applying
extensive violence
whose struggle paints the landscape of violent geographies. In those

contested places the militant, who is either a Christian rebel or a de-
voted Jihadist, strives and dies, but their ideologies survive. Violence
becomes a formidable force of destiny for militants, their antagonists,
and their victims. The survival of ideologies encourages the next gen-
eration of militants to keep fighting for the idealized community. The
death of ideologies or the meaninglessness of violent reaction, on the
other hand, erases militant groups from the world except as figures in
lectures illustrating the history of violence. Such was the fate of many
militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire.
The book aims to clarify that the violent response of the militants
is attained through the rationalization of violence and then its appli-
cation. During these two processes, not only the generic conditions of
injustice encourage militants to use violence, but also relative depri-
vation and historical nostalgia empower their rationalization that vio-
lence is the only means available to them to change their situation.
Cultural violence brings their identity concerns to the fore while
structural violence prioritizes their powerlessness and poverty.
Introduction 21
Table I.2
The rationalization and application of structural violence
structural violence
Rationalization of Application of
structural violence structural violence
Type of
militant Principal The expected
group motivation outcome Dimension Aim
Militant Socio- Elimination of Limited Changing the ruling

rebels structural socio-structural violence authority and trans-
concerns concerns forming social and orga-
izational structures that
created socio-structural
concerns
Militant Socio- Elimination of Extensive Toppling the ruling

jihadists structural socio-structural violence authority and leading a
concerns concerns radical transformation
within social and organi-
zational structures
The commonality between the Ottoman rebellions and the jihadist

organizations has brought violence and militants to the forefront
through persistent struggle. The following chapters unveil the broad
spectrum of violent events that shaped the ideals of both Ottoman
rebellions and jihadist organizations. Both groups of militants sought
the power to demolish the bulwarks of their opponents. In each chap-
ter, the reader takes one step closer to the mystery encoded beyond
those bulwarks. By the end of this book, I hope that the reader under-
stands more clearly the desperate conditions many human beings face
as well as the trouble they create by employing violence as a solution
to these conditions.
22
Introduction
Figure I.1
“The Trial of the Bashi-Bazouks : The Court of the First Day.” Printed on border: “Ikiades (Greek), Sadoullah Effendi (president of
the court), Selim Effendi, Wassa Effendi (a Christian Turk), Mr. Baring’s dragoman, Mr. Walter Baring, Jovantcho (a Bulgarian),
Counsel for the prisoner, Pertev Effendi, The prisoner.” Written on border: “J. 6, 1877.” Source note: Graphic. Illustrated Newspapers,
Ltd., 1869.
Source: The New York Public Library, Digital Collections
1
The Historical Paradigm
“Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history
informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only
to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.”
David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding
History cannot be divorced from contemporary events in which mili-

tants use violence, because patterns that demystify violence as an indis-
pensable force against opponents and as a symbol of ressentiment go
back a long way in time.1 Studying tragedy, oppression, and injustice
in the past helps to clarify the behaviour of militants in the present.
The assignment of blame has always rationalized the use of violence,
and the causes motivating militants resonate in both the Ottoman
Balkans of the nineteenth century and contemporary jihadist organi-
zations. The rise of militant jihadists in the era of modernization and
weak ties of faith have been described by some as “spectacular and
unforeseen.”2 However, this chapter will show that the role of jihad
and its magnetic power for many observant Muslims have never been
inactivate. Perhaps it is better to state that it became silent for a while
but was transformed and invigorated even during this period of
silence.3 The next sections in this chapter focus on the principal mile-
stones in that historical process in order to understand the motiva-
tions of militants more clearly by comparing rebels in the nineteenth-
century Ottoman Empire to jihadists in our time. This historical
paradigm elucidates the rationale behind the legitimization of vio-
lence and the collective decision to use it. Both groups interpreted
past events to empower their positions. Nevertheless, the feeling of
being oppressed and bearing witness to the injustice against their
own communities constituted their main motivation for violence. By

the same token, they challenged the social and political structure of
the ruling regimes through re-identifying the concepts of power and
justice in line with their own ideals. “Power” and “justice” are two con-
cepts that promulgated different priorities and narratives for each
agency. This subjectivity plays a determinative role in the surge of con-
flict because the influence of suffering in the past creates traumatic
occasions for each actor in the present.
1 militant rebels and violence
The attacks and uprisings of militants composed a panorama of vio-

lence in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. A dramatic land-
scape of dissent manifested challenges to the social, political, and cul-
tural organization of the empire when Ottoman society was in the
midst of a prodigious reform movement. The surge of violence and
the prevalence of militants, however, did not appear all of a sudden in
the nineteenth century, and neither did the law-making efforts of
Ottoman officialdom. The grievous social and political conditions
that afflicted many communities in the Ottoman Empire cannot be
grasped completely if we do not revisit the milestones of the previous
three centuries, noting the empire’s ups and downs.
The Reasons for Rebellion
The reasons for the rebellions of the previous three centuries were
astonishingly diverse; however, most can be categorized under the
umbrella of political and religious motives on the one hand and
socioeconomic motives on the other. Many militant rebellions in the
Ottoman Empire emerged because of political or religious dissent.
Nevertheless, the ideals driving rebellion do not always derive their
power from political or cultural conundrums; socioeconomic prob-
lems have great influence as well. Every society has its own way of
defining its social organization and describing how it functions.
With regard to the rise and fall of Ottoman power and the factions
of Ottoman socioeconomic organization, the key concept is the
Daire-i Adalet – the circle of justice. This ruling principle under-
pinned the relatively strong prosperity and social integrity of the
Ottoman Empire until the decadence of its social system became dis-
The Historical Paradigm 25
cernible in the late sixteenth century. The four basic elements of the
circle of justice were (i) the sultan’s authority; (ii) the army; (iii) the
wealth of the state; and (iv) the peasantry. These elements provided
social equilibrium in the dominantly agricultural society of that time
and also strengthened social harmony in the vast lands of the
Ottoman House. The last three elements of the circle of justice were
directly related to the agricultural economy because of the integra-
tion of the rural and military economy.4 “Timar”5 temporarily grant-
ed the governance of fertile lands to members of the military class
and state elites during the rise of the Ottoman Empire.6 The reaya,7
tax-paying peasants, were the principal actors of the Timar system by
cultivating the land, supporting the military class, sustaining the
everyday economy, and paying the necessary taxes.8 Timar was the
major pillar supporting the Ottoman socioeconomic system by
bringing different social classes together.
The Timar system lost its importance when the Ottoman Empire
stopped enlarging its territories in the late sixteenth century. This
power stagnation revealed the weakness of the system, which
became more obvious because of popular discontent and the activi-
ties of militants. Tax collection became implicated in both the regu-
lation of social economy and the acceleration of conflict.9 Violence
in rural areas and uprisings against misrule and taxation revealed
the hidden weaknesses of the Ottoman Empire.10 The population in
the mid-sixteenth century almost doubled, there were economic
losses due to changing trade routes, and internal migration within
the empire triggered both an increase in taxation and a decrease
of economic efficiency.11 Social decline was first manifested by
the attacks of militant groups who wanted to establish their own
authority in local territories, and was followed by the rebellion of
provincial elites against the Ottoman rule. The revolts in the six-
teenth and early seventeenth century were called the Jelali revolts,
referring to the first revolt attempted by a rebel leader, Seyh Celâl
(Jelal), in Anatolia in 1519.12 Thus, disruptions in the social system
echoed violently in many villages of Anatolia, perpetuated the Jelali
revolts, and with the suppression of these revolts, centralized state
authority in the sixteenth century and the early seventeenth centu-
ry.13 The severe response of the Ottoman Empire against these
revolts became a poignant reminder about the ravages of state vio-
lence in the collective memory of people.14
Tax regulations followed a critical route starting with the Jelali revolts
across the impoverished territories of Anatolia.15 The great role of taxa-
tion was understandable, considering the financial dependence of the
Ottoman Empire on agricultural production. Governing on the basis of
social justice was the guarantee of sustainable order in Ottoman soci-
ety.16 However, the violent reaction to tax revolt by the authorities ren-
dered the social turmoil in the periphery even more vehement, and
eventually produced institutional dysphasia by strengthening the male-
volent position of many local elites, who abused their power by exploit-
ing the labour of peasants.
The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Balkans witnessed social
conflicts between the peasants and local elites from time to time. This
spurred another transformation in the Ottoman Empire by obliterat-
ing mediaeval and patrimonial norms for a limited but responsible
imperial authority.17 The number of soldiers rose more than two
times and reached around 100,000 in the second half of the seven-
teenth century; however, this increase was not the harbinger of a
strong army but created a “corrupt and demoralized Ottoman mili-
tary machine.”18
The strenuous efforts of the peasants and their complaints regard-
ing the corrupt chiflik system, in which local elites controlled most of
the land, echoed tragically in Istanbul. Heavy taxation by the provin-
cial governing class frustrated a number of sultans while the central
authority was weakening in the Balkan provinces during the seven-
teenth and the eighteenth century.19 Koçi Bey, a high-ranking Otto-
man bureaucrat who presented critical economic reports to Murat IV
(r. 1623–40), blamed local bureaucrats and the patrimonial elite
because they used their power for the acquisition of wealth but not
for the instrumentalization of justice.20 Nevertheless, rather than
looking for solutions to the problems of rural governance, Istanbul
appointed new governors and punished those who ruled iniquitous-
ly.21 The reform attempts transformed land governance and the taxa-
tion system into a symbolic arena in which the weak and strong parts
of the Ottoman state combined through belated, unsustainable, and
inconsistent reform packages for three centuries after the Jelali re-
volts.22 The inability of the Ottoman Empire to sustain peace, social
justice, and order in the provinces rendered administration and vio-
lence as two sides of the same coin.23
The very complex and yet dysfunctional Ottoman bureaucratic
system in the sixteenth century was neglected in the seventeenth
century and finally started decaying in the eighteenth century.24

Concerted actions determined the relationship between Ottoman
administration and violence. Socio-economic and political decline
after the Russo-Turkish wars in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies made manifest the urgent need for major agrarian reform.
What is more, each failed reform or promised but unrealized com-
mitment of the Porte prompted a flood of angry responses from the
poorer segments of communities. Some troubled peasants living in
deprived areas in the eighteenth century directed violence at local
Ottoman elites and rulers. These uprisings prompted repressive inter-
ventions by the state. This gradual but deepening degradation of
social life conflated with a rise in corruption, beginning in the early
nineteenth century.25
The Tanzimat Reforms
Decentralization attempts miscarried dramatically after the failed

Deed of Alliance (Sened-i Ittifak) of 1808, according to the terms of
which local nobles perceived themselves to be partners of the central
Ottoman central governance rather than its servants.26 The lack of
success is understandable when we consider that the nineteenth cen-
tury was a period of state centralization for the empire.27 Nonethe-
less, in comparison with attempts to centralize during the sixteenth
century, these were more organized, more explicit, and more ambi-
tious. State centralization involved more than changes in bureau-
cracy; it included both policies to overcome social and economic
difficulties and new legal processes to cope with concerns among
different ethnic and religious communities. Yet the dysfunctional
governing system was so pervasive that after the appointment of a
Pasha to head a province, he had to bribe numbers of Ottoman offi-
cials in the Porte merely to extend his stay for the next year.28 The tax-
collectors, local governors, and military authorities in rural towns
and villages vied for the monopolization of power, which eventually
diminished their capacity to uphold the rule of law and guarantee
public safety. A Weberian form of bureaucratic dysfunctionality –
that is, a lack of officials with expert training and the consequent vio-
lation of organizational rules – caused growing insecurity in the
periphery. The most striking impact of local misrule was clientelist
and patronage-oriented relationships. “Personal cleavages were
superimposed upon the organizational ones. Each new appointee at
each level of government tried to get his own protégés appointed to

critical posts to safeguard his position against future intrigues.”29 On
the other hand, local misrule was neither overlooked nor remained
unpunished by the imperial center. In fact, the 1849 regulations, and
later the 1864 regulations, clarify that together the local notables,
whether Muslim or non-Muslim, endeavoured to legitimize imperial
law-making in the periphery through democratic deliberation in
their own councils.30
The central authority seldom perceived militant revolts as attempts
at resistance by the sultan’s subjects against his “holy” authority.31 The
rebellions of militants came partially from their aspirations to correct
social injustice imposed on local people by local rulers.32 However, at
the peak of nationalist sentiment in the nineteenth century, political
and religious concerns became more insistently mixed in with social
and structural concerns.33
This social dissent shaped the volatile and violent character of the
empire in the nineteenth century. On the one hand, uprisings consis-
tently included the support of armed ethnic groups resisting Otto-
man rule and attempting to gain independence. On the other hand,
the authorities hired and used armed men, the so-called bashibozuk
(“crazy-heads”),34 as an irregular military force to repress dissent in
areas of conflict.35 Consequently, an important segment of the rebel-
lious population was labeled as looters and bandits, particularly by
the local governors and pashas – in other words, high-ranking politi-
cal/military officers.
Violence in political and social life created formidable challenges
for both the victimized subjects of the Ottoman Empire and for the
governing cadre. The use of violence in the public sphere and the
impotence of the Porte to prevent it effectively diminished the cen-
tral power. Ethnic militants in the Balkans employed violence
against state authorities, either to be fully independent or to be rec-
ognized as political entities at the principality level. The amalga-
mation of nationalist sentiments and the power of religious author-
ities over local communities aggravated political risks for the Porte
in controlling its diverse territories. The increasing number of files
and reports exchanged between Istanbul and its far-flung adminis-
trative regions illustrate the multifaceted relationship between the
center and the periphery.
The Ottoman Empire was first forced to recognize the weakness of
the state and the perilous power of rebels during the Jelali revolts in
the sixteenth century.36 The influence of militants reached a similar

peak in the nineteenth century when it was challenged by both inter-
nal conflicts in its own territories and external pressure in the arenas
of war; for example the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, the national
independence war of Greece from 1821 to 1829, the Crimean War in
1853–56, and a number of revolts in Balkan villages and towns. In
addition, intervention by foreign states in the name of protecting reli-
gious minorities in the empire created another challenge to social har-
mony. In the early nineteenth century, the British representative at the
Porte summarized the decadence of the Ottoman Empire thus: “Its
Pachas [sic], or Governors of provinces, are yet more independent of
the Porte, than were the great barons of the Crown, in the feudal
times of Christendom. These Pachas indeed, admit the sovereignty of
the Sultan, and even pay large sums of money to His principal Minis-
ters, but they rule despotically in their own provinces, and are re-
strained from open rebellion more from distrust of each other, than
from respect or love towards their Sovereign. It is the policy of the
Porte, a weak and desperate policy, to divide these pachas, who are
continually at war among themselves, and who lay waste the country
which is the scene of their depredations.”37
This reductive narrative ignores the heterogeneous social struc-
ture of Ottoman towns and the progressive transformations of and
challenges to the empire at that time. Effective rural governance was
primarily dependent on the capability and character of the Vali, or
governor, in any particular town. Nonetheless, the Porte was quite
aware of social and political problems across the country. This was
the reason that a set of extensive reform packages was drafted dur-
ing the reign of Sultan Mahmut II (r. 1808–39). These reforms
aimed to bring important changes in the administrative, fiscal, and
military areas.38 This striving for a societal transformation was the
harbinger of a more organized and centralized reform period. The
declaration of a binding document addressing the concerns of di-
verse communities in the Ottoman Empire, including the sultan
himself, was intended to ameliorate the situation. The Edict of Gül-
hane in 1839 was the first attempt at such a document. The Imper-
ial Rescript of 185639 and the first Ottoman constitution in 1876
followed, in addition to other less significant reform packages im-
plemented in this era.
Even though the intelligentsia dismissed these reforms as merely
“bureaucratic despotism,”40 there were not many alternatives available
for overcoming the challenges the empire faced. More importantly,

these changes in nineteenth-century Ottoman rule cannot be reduced
simply to bureaucratic reorganization. Nationalism, and the struggles
among different ethnic communities, inspired rebellious groups to
rise up and create independent political entities. These reforms con-
veyed the message that such uprisings could be averted by addressing
the non-political concerns of insurgents and recognizing equality
among the diverse elements of Ottoman society. Moreover, it assured
the population that the authority of the Porte would be strengthened
by reform because the Ottoman Empire would be perceived by all its
subjects as a homeland and a just ruling force.
The Edict of 1839 and the Edict of 1856 were indisputably avant-
garde and promising measures for both Ottoman subjects and the
state apparatus. This new political sagacity included rational proce-
dures for establishing the rule of law and consolidating justice by
making significant, if not radical, changes to social life, legal rights,
cultural institutions, public regulations, and economic governance.41
All these strenuous efforts to keep the empire united and to renew its
power were marked to some extent by the fundamental values of
equality and justice. This new phase was eventually called Tanzimat,
or “reorganization.”
These reform packages also determined new values aiming to
restore the broken relationship between the state and society, as well
as those between the center and the periphery. The desired changes in
the core principles resonated through the codes of the two edicts, and
finally in the constitution. Perhaps the most important change
embodied in the Edict of Gülhane was enforcement of the rule of law
for all subjects whether Muslim, Jewish, or Christian. The basis of the
modern and responsible state was embodied in the edicts, which
imposed the recognition of the right to life and the right to property
for all subjects. The Imperial Rescript of 1856 highlighted religious
freedom, promoting the rights of religious minorities by extending
the power of the patriarchates and recognizing the entitlement of
non-Muslims to be civil servants.
Though intended to improve the quality of life for its citizens,
these developments still disappointed some Muslims, who lost their
cultural superiority, and some male non-Muslims, who were now eli-
gible for military conscription. Ethnic communities, particularly
those in the Balkans, also realized that their dreams of autonomy
were not sustainable without full independence from the Ottoman
Empire. Of course, the Tanzimat reforms were not implemented sim-

ply to overcome the concerns of dissident communities or to prevent
vandalism and violence; the statesmen who drafted Tanzimat had
belatedly realized that the country needed complete modernization,
from education to agriculture. This was, at least, the intention of
Ottoman officialdom, but the realities of everyday life did not accord
with their good intentions. Though there were a number of success-
ful cases resulting from the reforms,42 the gap between the ethical
principles of Tanzimat and its application gave a strong foothold to
revolt, resistance, and finally the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
after World War I.43
The events described in the following sections of this book show
that the Tanzimat reforms were not solely “from the top down or
from the outside in.”44 Statesmen had already confirmed the bureau-
cratic decadence and decline in socioeconomic power of the Otto-
man empire. Their concerns reverberated dismally when desperate
letters from peasants, and even from the owners of large estates,
describing poor social conditions, the violence of militants, and local
misrule, arrived at the Porte. Ongoing disputes between local gover-
nance and local communities made it clear that the central govern-
ment was unable to coordinate the anticipated reforms harmonious-
ly. The revolts in Niš (1841) and Vidin (1850) provided alarming
confirmation of the gap between the center and the periphery.45 Per-
ceived injustice was the dominant reason for these two uprisings;
however in the second half of the nineteenth century, revolts took on
a more political and religious character. The Cretan revolts in the sec-
ond half of the 1860s and the April Uprising in 187646 brought inter-
national attention to the desire of different ethnic communities for
independence from the Ottoman Empire. Disorder led by militant
rebels and its violent suppression by the state characterized the
decades following the declaration of the first Ottoman constitution.
In fact, increasing public panic in the 1860s due to violence in the
Balkans transformed political agitation into chaos in the first half of
the 1870s.47
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić is one of the few novels that
narrates masterfully the everyday life of Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim,
and Jewish people in Visegrad, a town in the Ottoman Balkans. The
bridge constructed by the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha
becomes a symbol of the dreadful destiny of the local people, whose
conflicts and conciliations represent the perplexing social, political,
and cultural layers of Ottoman society. In the nineteenth century,

modernity and technology reached Visegrad and changed everyday
life. Nationalism also took central stage. The change in political
power in the town led to public panic. Andrić describes that panic
when the entrance of Austrian troops threw the local people into
confusion and disarray:
The formal and official entry of the Austrian troops took place
the following day. No one could remember such a silence as then
fell on the town. The shops did not even open. The doors and
windows of the houses remained shuttered though it was a warm
sunny day towards the end of August. The streets were empty, the
courtyards and gardens as if dead. In the Turkish houses depres-
sion and confusion reigned, in the Christian houses caution and
distrust. But everywhere and for everyone there was fear. The
entering Austrians feared an ambush. The Turks feared the Austri-
ans. The Serbs feared both Austrians and Turks. The Jews feared
everything and everyone since, especially in times of war, everyone
was stronger than them. The rumbling of the previous day’s guns
was in everyone’s ears. But even if men were now only listening to
their own fear, no one living that day would have dared to poke
his nose out of doors.48
This scene portrays the dramatic situation so persuasively it is hard to

believe it is fiction. Traditional Ottoman cosmopolitanism was dis-
rupted by the cultural sectarianism of the orientalists, as well as by
colonialist discourses imposed by the European powers. These new
influences impeded the struggle of the authorities to make progres-
sive reforms and keep the empire united, integrated, and prosperous.49
If we were to define the Tanzimat in the Ottoman Empire by one
word and one aim, that word would be “transformation” and that aim
would be empowering Ottoman society and the Porte against vio-
lence, sociopolitical fragility, and disintegration. Archival documents
in the next chapters will reveal that the Porte was flexible in negotiat-
ing with dissident communities regarding their social concerns,
except when they posed a serious threat. Violence was employed both
by the state authority and the militant rebels during these revolts and
uprisings. Vying for power and seeking justice were the main reasons
for confrontation. However, it is still necessary to explore how vio-
lence by militant rebels led not only to dissent among local commu-
nities but also within the Ottoman state forces themselves. For this
reason, we need to revisit the dynamics of violence and also how the
historical paradigm shaped the route to power and justice for the mil-
itant jihadists.
2 the historical paradigm:

violence and militant jihadists
If we sought a unified, centralized, and primarily peaceful period

among all Muslims, that would be the era of Prophet Mohammad.
His death in 632 created a huge and difficult question for the Mus-
lim community – who would succeed him as a messenger of God
and rule the entire territory that had been under his control? A rela-
tively democratic form of governance existing at that time in Muslim
communities was shura (consultation); it was usually used in regard
to public issues or the election of a caliph through the votes of com-
munity members.50 Nevertheless, disputes flourished about the first
successor to Mohammed. Abu Bakr received the majority of support,
but the Shia community was devastated by this decision because they
supported Ali Ibn Abi Talib, a cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed,
and believed that this was also the wish of Mohammed himself.51
Even though Ali eventually became the fourth caliph, he only rose
to this position after the assassination of the two previous caliphs,
Umar and Uthman. The tensions that prevailed during the period of
Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, which is usually known as the
Rashidun Caliphs period (632–61), sometimes led to subterfuge, and
even aggression.52
The First Muslim Civil War, better known as the First Fitna, erupt-
ed with the assassination of the last caliph, Ali, while he was praying
in the Great Mosque of Kufa in 661. Ali’s death fostered sectarianism
in Islam when his son Hasan Ibn Ali had to recognize Muawiyah of
the Ummayad dynasty as the caliph of Islam. However, the followers
of Ali designated his descendants as the true successors of Moham-
mad and Ali. The same approach led to the eventual naming of Ali as
the first imam and his son, Hasan, as the second imam.53
Tensions faded during the relatively stable time of the Umayyad
Caliphate, which lasted for less than a century from 661 to 744.
Nonetheless that caliphate, along with its factions, governed huge ter-
ritories spanning from eastern Turkey and Afghanistan to the inner
lands of Spain and Morocco. The fact that it ruled more than four mil-
lion square miles and sixty-two million people, equal to approximate-

ly one third of the world’s population at that time, shows the huge
power of the Umayyad Caliphate.54 Geographic, demographic, and
economic dominance marked the Umayyad Caliphate as one of the
most powerful empires in history. Those glorious times, however,
came to an end with a period of internal social and political unrest.
The second civil war (680–92), the Berber Revolt (740–43), and the
Third Muslim Civil War (744–47) all weakened the power of the
Umayyad Caliphate; it finally ended with the Abbasid revolution in
750.55 A part of the Umayyad dynasty managed to survive in the
Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba (756–929) and then the Caliphate of
Córdoba (929–1031). Yet another set of civil wars afflicted the
Caliphate of Córdoba in 1009, and a number of small kingdoms
declared themselves to be the representatives of the caliphate in Al-
Andalusia (Islamic Iberia) until the definitive abolition of the
caliphate of Córdoba in 1031. The last vestige of this dynasty in
Andalusia was abolished with the fall of the Emirate of Granada
in 1492.56
The Umayyad period signifies the heterogeneous character of
Islamic officialdom because several non-Muslims took important
bureaucratic posts in the state governance.57 The non-Muslims of
Abrahamic religions were under the protection of Islam as long as
they acknowledged the superiority of Islam through the payment of
additional taxes. Though the Islamic character of the Umayyad
Caliphate was evident in all activities from lawmaking to the con-
struction of great mosques, its secular dimensions were also clear, par-
ticularly in Al-Andalusia.58 Yet the role of the caliphate was weakened
when the consolidation of the dynastic status quo became the priori-
ty, rather than the preservation of the religious and communal unity
of Islam. What marked the Umayyad reign boldly in terms of power
dynamics was its preoccupation with political conditions. This
approach toward the role of the caliphate was sustained after the fall
of the Umayyads, and it was consolidated during the long and frac-
tious reign of the Abbasid Caliphate.59
The Abbasid Caliphate could not always govern the state from the
same center of polity, and different local forces defied its unity as
they vied for power. The change of the capital city five times, along
with fragile political developments, gave clear indications of the
political instability of the dynasty. Yet Bagdad protected its position
as the cultural and social hub of the Abbasid Caliphate and the
zenith of Islam.60 The House of Wisdom was founded by Caliph
Harun al-Rashid during his reign (786–809), and it became a symbol
of the Islamic Golden Age.61 Being inspired by the Quranic injunc-
tion, the exchanges and interactions among diverse cultures, advance-
ments in science, and the translation of great texts from Greek, Per-
sian, and Sanskrit into Arabic marked this era as a cultural triumph,
following the glorious contributions in science and art in Al-
Andalus.62 It was not surprising to find Arabic translations of Plato,
Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Euclid in the libraries of Bagdad. Rashid-
al-Din Hamadani, an Iranian-born Jewish convert to Islam and the
vizier of the Ilkhanate emperors Ghazan and Öljaitü, designated a
scholarly group close to Tabriz in the fourteenth century to draft
texts drawn from Jewish intellectuals, Kashmiri monks, Chinese
envoys, and Buddhist manuscripts.63
The invasion of Bagdad in 1258 by the Ilkhanate Mongol forces
abolished the Abbasid Caliphate. However, al-Mustansir from the
Abbasid dynasty found refuge in the Mameluke Sultanate of Cairo in
1261, and thanks to the opportunist attempts of Sultan Baibars, al-
Mustansir was declared caliph after the Islamic world had remained
without a caliphate for three years.64 Yet “caliph” mostly became a title
for religious ceremonies under the rule of Mamelukes. The Mame-
lukes held the caliphate title until Selim I, the Sultan of the Ottoman
Empire, captured Cairo and abolished the Mameluke Sultanate of
Cairo in 1517. The last Abbasid puppet caliph under the rule of the
Mamelukes, al-Mutawakkil III, remained in exile in Istanbul. The
Ottoman Empire, as one of the most powerful empires at that time,
sustained the caliphate under its own authority. Even though the
caliph title was rarely used by the Ottoman sultans until the nine-
teenth century, the Ottoman Empire was widely accepted as the lead-
ing political authority of Islam and a culturally superior power by
controlling three sacred cities, Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.
Ottoman rule was consolidated as a great authority, but its weaken-
ing power in the eighteenth century also fostered the emergence of
various religious sects. The Emirate of Diriyah, the first Saudi state,
was established in 1744 in the Arabian Peninsula. The Saudis ruled
Mecca and Medina until 1805 with bloodshed and repression, but
their rule was terminated by the victory of the Ottoman Empire in
1818 thanks to the support of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, who sent his
army to defeat the insurgents.65 The Wahhabi insurgents, in response,

proclaimed that their rule was the purest version of Islam and that the
Ottoman rulers were nothing but heretics.66
The Ottoman Empire was composed of multi-ethnic and multi-
religious communities similar to the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the
Mamelukes, and the Emirates in Andalusia. It controlled a large ex-
panse of territory as well. It was the last Islamic empire in the world,
and the use of the caliphate as a political instrument and a motive for
mobilization only came to the forefront in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries during the reign of Abdul Hamid II. The
empire had already lost its central power in the Balkans, and a series
of threats emerged from the European powers against Ottoman terri-
tories in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East in the early twen-
tieth century. Still, though the Ottomans fought aggressively and
strenuously to expand their territories, it is important to note that the
jihadist understanding had never been at the forefront of Ottoman
political dominance.
The superior sociocultural position of the Muslims had been
already crippled by the Tanzimat reforms beginning in the late
1830s.67 The first Ottoman constitution in 1876 brought equality in
almost all spheres of life to different religious communities. This
attempt to transform the Ottoman Empire into a modern state could
not prevent its dissolution once the empire entered World War I with
the Central Powers. The Ottoman Empire launched jihad under pres-
sure from the German government, and ironically the distribution of
jihad fetvas by German soldiers against the Allied Powers became the
symbols of a politico-religious struggle to unite Dar al-Islam (Territo-
ry of Islam) against Dar al-Gharb (Territory of the West) that received
some positive responses from Asia to North Africa.68 Considering the
Christian allies of the Ottoman Empire, it was crystal clear that jihad
predominantly played a political role to motivate Muslims support-
ing the caliph of Islam.
Even so, the caliphate and jihad were still very strong symbols for
Muslims in the early twentieth century throughout the diverse ter-
ritories of Islam, so that Russia reacted to the call for jihad by the
Ottoman Sultan (Caliph) by publishing a counter-fatwa written by
the mufti (a supreme legal authority in Islam) of the Urals, which
asked for the loyalty of Muslims to their fatherland.69 Great Britain
drafted a number of plans to dissolve the Ottoman Empire and
diminish the symbolic influence of the caliphate in order to de-
crease the possibility of Muslim revolts against its rule in the terri-
tories of the British Empire. British officials insisted that the war
against the Ottoman Empire was not a religious one and that the
holy sites of Islam would be protected.70 Lord Kitchener, the colo-
nial administrator in the British Army, followed a more violent route
by instigating Arabs to revolt against Ottoman rule in 1916; the suc-
cess of this plan, coupled with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in
the World War I, produced a number of Arab states in the Middle
East under British suzerainty.71
Devastating cultural trauma afflicted Muslims who supported the
Ottoman Caliphate when the last Islamic empire fell apart and Istan-
bul, the center of the caliphate, was captured by the Allied Powers
in 1918. This was the end of Ottoman rule, and the end of the
caliphate’s power – a power which had spanned three continents and
presided over more than 300 million Muslims. The Ottoman Empire
was abolished with the foundation of Turkey, and the caliphate was
eliminated in 1924 with the exile of the last caliph, Abdülmecid II, to
Paris.72 The European colonial powers not only besieged and carved
up the Ottoman Empire; they also ruled its former territories in
North Africa and the Middle East, oppressed the local population
when they revolted in those areas, drew borders to create new coun-
tries, and exploited the natural and human resources of regions
where Muslims were the majority.
The caliphate was abolished in 1924, but its symbolic power has
remained as an icon of unity and identity for Muslims and “its dis-
appearance under the double assault of foreign imperialists and
domestic modernists was felt throughout the Muslim world.”73 Islam-
ic rule as the prevalent political authority and the Ottomans as one
of the most powerful empires in the sixteenth century gave way to
catastrophe, at least among a number of jihadist groups in the early
twentieth century.
“Jihad” and “the caliphate” are two key concepts in the history of
Islam that have influenced many Muslims to use violence to express
individual or communal dissent. Jihad has been a powerful concept
ever since Islam was first established by Mohammed and he waged
the first important war, the Battle of Badr, in 624 against the Quraysh
tribe of Mecca. Yet the power of jihad also arises from the diverse con-
flicts, contradictions, and influence of this concept over Muslims. It is
conventional to claim that the meaning of jihad is “struggle,” but
there is disagreement over whether this struggle is a spiritual or a
physical commitment to internalize the principles of Islam and to

defend it if necessary.74
In its mature form, jihad has a strong attachment to the ummah (the
whole Muslim community) that supersedes the ties of tribe as well as
those of clientage.75 The broad encompassing impact of jihad across
different geographies has gained a more formidable character with its
engagement in the polity. The concept of jihad has shaped a wide
political spectrum, and political forces have also exploited jihad to
attain their own goals.76 This divergence in the interpretation of jihad
is discernible in the language used by two different religious leaders,
one from Egypt and one from Saudi Arabia. Shaykh Tantawi, the
Grand Mufti of Egypt, identifies suicide bombers as martyrs, whereas
the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Shaykh al-Sheihk, argues that suicide
bombers violate the conventional norms of Islam.77
Throughout history, attachment to the idea of the caliphate was not
always based on religion; often the term was simply political, and
referred to the power of the Muslim authority. Nonetheless the
caliphate has been enshrined within the minds and hearts of many
Muslims, whereas jihad is encoded as a violent struggle only by mili-
tants. In addition to a number of kingdoms and sultanates, the rulers
of the three greatest Islamic states that used “caliphate” as an insti-
tutional title exploited the cultural resonance of the idea of the
caliphate and seldom employed it to leverage the political capacity of
state authority.78
Shahab Ahmed’s seminal work, What is Islam?, perceives Islam as an
anthropological experience; a matter of human fact in history and in
the present, with all its commonalities and distinctions.79 Different
movements and ideologies in Islam throughout history have led to its
heterogeneous character. For instance, the Qadariyah movement in
the late seventh century brought the idea of free will to the fore by
arguing that the decisions made by human beings determine their
destiny and that people are responsible for their behaviours.80 From
this point of view, God’s intervention in the life of an individual is
diminished. This pragmatic approach was strengthened with the con-
flation of rationalism with reason in the Muʿtazila School, which was
established and developed between the eighth and tenth centuries in
Basra and Baghdad thanks to the support of the Abbasid Caliphate,
particularly al-Mansur and al-Mamun, and the Arabic translation of
Greek physicists and philosophers.81 The judgement of Abdul Hye
regarding the methods of rationalists from the Muʿtazila School and

contemporary reactions against them partially explains the relation-
ship between rationalization and behaviours. Hye states that “the
Muʿtazilite rationalists began to apply the Greek philosophical meth-
ods and ideas to the interpretation of the basic principles of Islam as
well … they made reason the sole basis of truth and reality and thus
identified the sphere of philosophy with that of religion … The ortho-
dox section of the people reacted strongly against the Muʿtazilite
rationalism and began to consider the Muʿtazilites to be heretics.”82
The ninth- and tenth-century Islamic world under the rule of the
Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates needs to be noted as an era of philo-
sophical developments and disputes regarding the influence of Islam
on other segments of life. The early philosopher Abu al-Hasan al-
Ash’ari followed a more moderate path than the Muʿtazila School, but
Ash’ari and his followers embraced a more progressive method than
the traditionalist Salafi movement.83 Saïd Amir Arjomand explains
the distinctive approach to rationality by Sunni and Shia branches of
Islam through the influence of Muʿtazilite theology on the two
branches differently, stating: “the historic formation of Shia Islam and
its development into a world religion involved the process of Weber
labeled rationalization … Muʿtazilite rational theology of the era, in
fact, had a far greater impact on Imam Shia than on the Sunni main-
stream.”84 The classical Twelver Shia theology brings the mutuality of
reason between God and man to the fore by emphasizing human
agency as a factor in which rational knowledge and the will remain
in harmony.85
All these discussions relating to Islam, and in particular to the dif-
ferent approaches of its Sunni and Shia branches, provide insight
into the concept of jihad. Al-Musannaf, a book penned by Abd al-
Razzaq in the ninth century, shows that after the end of the four
caliphates period, jihad was transformed into an “obligatory aggres-
sive war.” However, when it comes to the role of jihad in religious
life, counter-arguments were prevalent even in the early stages of
Islam. Ibn Jurayj, another Islamic jurist from the same period as Abd
al-Razzaq, refuted the idea that jihad was mandatory for all Muslims
and he further argued that jihad is not more important than other
religious observances.
The Salafi movement was part of the process of reconciling Islam
with modernity and enlightenment. However, the Salafi movement
changed when it began to interpret Islam in line with Wahhabism in

the last decades. Jihadists who observe the Wahhabi understanding of
Islam implement a radical version of ijtihad (deduction of sharia), and
use violence as a legitimate instrument to attain political goals.86 The
Salafi jihadism which originated from the Wahhabi interpretation of
Islam suggests that the attainment of utopia – the desired territory to
live in – always needs to be combined with action.87 The philosophi-
cal interpretation of Islam and its reconciliation with modernity and
enlightenment, particularly through striving against imperialist Euro-
pean powers, became popular in the last decades of the Ottoman
Empire and the first half of the twentieth century.88 Both the Sunni
and Shia branches were so allured by the motivating force and politi-
cal benefit of jihad that Muslim societies even used the concept of
jihad against each other. For example, the Sunni Iraqi regime and the
Shia Iran regime declared jihad in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88).
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, self-proclaimed Mahdi and Messiah in
nineteenth-century India, made some unorthodox claims about the
fundamental need for progressive reform in Islam. One of his most
striking claims was that one’s behaviour in times of conflict should be
based on peaceful mediation, and that one should avoid militant
activities in the name of jihad and Islam. Ghulam Ahmad attracted
worldwide attention at that time, though his popularity produced a
flood of anger in his home country.89 More than thirty years after
Ghulam Ahmad’s death in British India, the jihadists in his country
rejected his non-violent road and instead followed the direction indi-
cated by Abul A’la Maududi, whose ideals about Islam and sharia as a
ruling and regulatory force in everyday life flourished through his
movement, Jamaat-e-Islami, founded in 1941.90 Maududi’s approach
to Islam was holistic and interventionist. For instance, the members
of Jamaat-e-Islami engaged in boycotting the following behaviours,
ideas, and services:91
• Assemblies that legislate secular as opposed to Sharia laws

• An army that kills “in the path of non-God”
• A secular judiciary; also banks based on charging interest
• Teaching or studying in colleges or universities, including Muslim
ones, that serve the ideology of British rule
• Jahiliyat (Maududi called them “slaughterhouse[s]”) to signify the
resemblance of his period’s social and state affairs to that preva-
lent in Arabia before the advent of Islam.
• Services and jobs in the antigodly system (indicating the features

of secular social lifestyle)
The followers of Maududi found common ground on another con-

tinent when Sayyid Qutb in Egypt used a similar but more aggressive
tone regarding Islamic life in both the private and the public spheres.
Qutb built the governing philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood,
and his ideas have been so influential that Qutbism emerged as a
dominant ideology of aggressive jihadist methods and conquest, par-
ticularly after the 1950s.92 Sayyid Qutb was hanged in 1966 by the
Gamal Abdel Nasser regime; however his ideas have persisted in the
lives of his faithful followers. It is not surprising that militant jihadists
in Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and Isis appreciate many of the points
raised by these two scholars and praise their approaches to Islam,
jihad, and the legitimization of violence.
The fanatical Muslim warrior intending the destruction of Western
civilization has been presented by the media as arising from a
homogenous framework.93 This orientalist simplification of the con-
cept of jihad ignores the diverse and perplexing history of its mean-
ings. By doing so, it actually supports the recruitment of those mar-
ginalized who are irritated by this vision. The true roots of Islam
perhaps lie in its adaptive, innovative, and creative character, but this
character has not been well disseminated because citing verses of the
Quran with the aid of commentaries rather than studying it through
traditional methods perverts its essential message: the goal of univer-
sal justice and the necessity of struggle on its behalf.94
The selective use of the Quran is a common tactic used by militant
jihadists, who rely on a superficial understand of scripture among
those they approach. Rationalizing the use of violence by citing vers-
es from the Quran makes recruiters successful in enticing others to
become “true Muslims.” In fact, the requirements to be a true Muslim
are revealed in some hadiths – the traditions or sayings of Islam’s
prophet, Muhammad – as well as in some verses of the Quran, but not
those inciting militant behaviour. For instance, Chapter 2, verse 44
explicitly insists on the importance of questioning behaviour through
reason: “Do you order righteousness of the people and forget your-
selves while you recite the Scripture? Then will you not reason?”95 In
this verse, reason rather than retribution is invoked. Once the decision
to become a militant jihadist has been made, however, and reasoning
in favour of using violence has already been completed, reversing that
decision becomes challenging, if not impossible. The legacy of trau-

matic events in the past is an influential paradigm shaping the course
of actions in the present.96 In the following chapters, we will explore
the panorama of cultural violence and structural violence to further
understand how militant rebels and militant jihadists rationalize
their use of violence.
2
Cultural Violence
“Culture: The cry of men in [the] face of their destiny.”1

Albert Camus, Carnets. Mai 1935 – mars 1951
The destiny of humankind is not independent of those dreams, pur-

poses, and actions that make our identity and give meaning to our
existence on earth. Our identity, at the same time, codifies the values
that we live for. We employ actions to attain those values. Culture rep-
resents the sum of those values and actions. Culture, indeed, induces
and shapes action through providing legitimacy for our behaviors.2
However, action is not static. It takes different forms. These forms may
include violence when violence is perceived as the only means of pro-
tecting those values according to which we live. That is why militants
will resort to physical force if they perceive that their identity and val-
ues – their culture – are under existential threat.
The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and the militant jihad-
ists of the four organizations explored in the next sections rationalized
the need for violence when they perceived the risk posed to their cul-
ture. “Culture,” in fact, is an umbrella term including our reasons for
living, the values we appreciate, politics in a social space, religious
practices, symbols, and rituals. The motives that canalized both the
militant rebels and the militant jihadists shared common ground
within the political and religious spectrum. They were both margin-
alized, emotionally shattered, and dispirited by politico-religious con-
cerns. The need to eliminate those concerns and attain their ideals
prompted militants to internalize and then to apply cultural violence.
However, it is important to distinguish the different paths followed by
these militants in the application of cultural violence.
cultural violence of the militant rebels

in the ottoman empire
Both ethnic and religious motives aggravated the conflict in the

Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century and thereafter. Ethnic
and religious motives combined to encite the use of violence. The
confrontation was aimed at gaining cultural rights, but the Ottoman
authority perceived demands for some of these rights as radical because
they implied future aspirations to get independence from the Ottoman
authority and a potential decadence in the political character of the
empire. This cultural conflict shaped the militants’ identities and trans-
formed the political and religious sphere into a horizon of cultural vio-
lence. Cultural violence was a dominant feature in the political and reli-
gious struggle because it distinguished the militant rebels from the
ruling Ottoman authority. Cultural codes and the creation of emotional
solidarity among the militant rebels through religious practice, ethnic
identity, and even sometimes a common language, such as Albanian,
Macedonian, Greek, Serbian, or Bulgarian, widened the gulf between
the militant rebels and the Ottoman Empire.
In the archival documents presented in this study, Christian rebels
are the major actors whose rebellion made “constant trouble with
their sectarian squabbles … some Christians made trouble by shifting
from one millet (a confessional community)3 to another in search
of political advantage and foreign protection.”4 The Porte categorized
militant rebels as secret communities, violent groups, brigands, and
bandits. Political uprisings, resisting villages and disobedient towns,
agitating bishops, and Christian prayers were the targets of Ottoman
repression. The response of the Porte depended on the form and
breadth of the violence, but a harsh reaction was likely whenever the
rebels defied its authority. In other words, the militants deployed vio-
lence against Ottoman rule, but suppression by the Ottoman Empire
was equally violent.
The French Revolution (1787–99) provided an example for the mil-
itants as well as offering them intellectual support. The Greek War of
Independence (1821–29) made Greece the first Balkan nation to
achieve statehood. Greek independence became a model for other
Balkan nations such as the Serbs, Montenegrins, Bulgarians, and
Macedonians during the long nineteenth century.5 Religious con-
cerns among the local authorities (particularly about the support of
the Russian Empire for Orthodox Christianity) clashed with the con-
Cultural Violence 45
cerns of the ethnic communities for autonomy. This formidable

combination crystallized cultural conflict, leading to a reactionary
response from the Ottoman Empire when its authority was the direct
target of the rebels. However, rather than recognizing the cultural ori-
gin of these tensions, the Porte was prone to define political uprising
as mere rebellions.
Deep tensions in the political realm increased the use of violence by
both the rebellious communities and the state authority, and the
increasing use of violence rendered the political situation more frag-
ile. There were more and more volatile zones in the periphery where
clashes between militant rebels and the Ottoman authority occurred.
One of the first significant initiatives against the empire was that led
by the ruling members of the House of Petrović-Njegoš of Montene-
gro and their soldiers in 1852, when they seized the Žabljak castle. Ini-
tially portrayed by the Porte as simple banditry, ultimately this action
was considered a direct violation of political order and a threat to
public safety, and the Porte claimed that necessary steps had not been
taken to prevent the attack.6 Toward this end, it employed Ömer Lutfi
Pasha to break the siege of the Principality of Montenegro. The Porte
made this difficult decision after receiving a letter from the local gov-
ernor, Osman Mazhar Pasha, saying that “We turned a blind eye to the
banditry activities of Montenegrin rebels in the region heretofore.
However, the invasion of towns and villages of the Ottoman Empire
by Montenegro signifies a direct declaration of war against the Em-
pire. The current situation is unacceptable under any condition, and
that may defy dignity of the state while eventually resulting with the
international independence of Montenegro.”7
This letter expressed the concerns of Osman Mazhar Pasha, who was
Mutasarrif 8of Shkodër at that time. The political pressure surged while
rumors regarding the independence of Montenegro were spreading
from one village to another in the wake of these violent attacks.9 The
early 1850s witnessed increasing attempts at rebellion by the Mon-
tenegrin and Serbian ruling houses. The reaction of the Porte against
the collaboration of people to defy its authority was factionist, if not
fundamentalist. The Porte framed these rebellious regions with partic-
ular labels. For examples, the small towns of Zupa, Şuma, Benan,
Grahova, Piva, and Derbenak in Montenegro were notoriously called
Nevâhî-i Âsîyye, or “forbidden rebellions,” by the Porte.10 Bulgarians
and Serbians constituted a considerable number of the population in
these areas. Their religious and ethnic identity found common cause
with the Prince Danilo I of Montenegro, who encouraged violence as

part of his own fight against the Ottoman Empire for international
recognition of an independent Montenegro. The militant activities in
Nevâhî-i Âsîyye and in the border towns close to Montenegro became
infamous when militant rebels plundered the assets and properties of
the Muslim population in the region. In particular, the Muslim resi-
dents of Çerniçe lost their properties, and their concerns about public
safety increased after a series of violent events.11 These rebellious ef-
forts by militants spurred different ethnic subjects, especially non-
Muslims, to resist Ottoman rule.
Prince Miloš Obrenović of Serbia was restored to power in 1858,
and he wasted no time in defying the Ottomans. After a council meet-
ing with other prominent political powers in Europe, including the
Austrian Empire and Russia – in other words, the western and north-
ern neighbors of the Ottoman Empire – he made a clear and assertive
plan: a revolution needed to be organized in the region by uniting the
rebels of different non-Muslim nationalities from Bulgaria, Bosnia,
Albania, and Montenegro. The document issued on 6 October 1859
alarmed the Porte and highlighted how ill prepared it was to oppose
the rebellion.12
Following the resistance of “Nevâhî-i Âsîyye,” the Porte was informed
that Serbian militants had distributed numerous weapons to groups
resisting Ottoman rule. This logistic support was intended to prepare
a new rebellion. The Porte finally began taking the public reaction
seriously. A sensitive balance was needed to determine the wisest
method of social control. This was not an easy task, given corrupt local
officials and a legacy of suppressing rebels in the periphery. A docu-
ment dated 1 December 1861 ordered the confiscation of the rebels’
weapons; at the same time, it stressed the importance of preventing
attacks against Christian subjects because such provocation would pro-
vide further stimulus for them to rebel.13 The Porte was eager to avoid
marginalization of its Christian subjects because neglect of their sensi-
tivities could transform the already difficult situation into a radical
mobilization against the authority of the Ottoman Empire.
Meanwhile, the foreign intervention and logistical support encour-
aged priests and other religious authorities to support the indepen-
dence movement among Christian ethnic groups, which contributed
to their defiance of Ottoman rule. Muslims became open targets for
the militant rebels. Civil servants of the Porte questioned those priests
who were caught with weapons in Bosnia and whose aim was to
mobilize local Christians into a new resistance. This revealed that

there was implicit cooperation between the priests and the Austrian
elite. However, the Porte did not take serious measures against the
priests when they declared that they were preparing to return to the
Austrian Empire permanently. The Porte was reluctant to punish
every resistance attempt and uprising severely. By being selective in
their punitive measures, they could put greater effort into dealing
with more grievous cases in other parts of the country. For this reason,
the Porte sent serious notifications to both the Austrian authorities
and the priests prohibiting the priests from crossing the Ottoman bor-
der, and closed the inquiry concerning their activities.14
The document issued on 3 December 1860 ordered the arrest of a
priest named Pereto because of his cooperation with militant Serbian
rebels in encouraging Christian subjects to resist Ottoman authority.15
Priest Pereto was not alone in his mission; another priest named
Şenkiltorusye played an equally important role in cooperating with
the militant rebels. He was deported to Bursa in northwestern Anato-
lia, the former capital city of the Ottoman Empire, after it was discov-
ered that he supported resistance in his hometown of Bihać in north-
eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, his arrest did not stop
him from realizing his goals. He escaped from Bursa and commenced
exporting guns and gunpowder from Serbian towns to the areas of
resistance in the inner Ottoman counties. Upon his second arrest, the
Porte decided to exile him and his family to a remote place.16
The next year, a Metropolitan bishop and six other high-ranking
commanders in Maleş, a town in Skopje, were blamed by local gover-
nors for hiding Eplo, a notorious militant rebel from Niš.17 Other
activist priests brought cultural fragmentation to places populated by
the Christians. The Porte was informed that a priest named Joseph
from the village of Yanya in Prijepolje aimed at provoking peasants to
resist Ottoman rule. The Porte immediately declared Joseph a şaki
(rebel) who had organized attacks with the militants of Višegrad.
They intended to punish Joseph and his supporters as they strove to
expand the political unrest in the region.18
In the hands of militant rebels, violence was a valuable instrument
which brought rapid and devastating outcomes. Political and reli-
gious clashes produced increasing trouble after the mid-1850s, when
cultural division based on ethnic and religious identities was agitating
the Balkans. The tiny towns of Bosnia were part of this ferocious
division. The records and proceedings of the assembly of Nakşi, a
province of Mostar, are full of complaints about the grim realities of

life in a state of constant vulnerability to aggression by rebels from
Montenegro.19 Of course, Muslims were not the only victims of this
enduring politico-religious conflict. Some innocent Christians suf-
fered horrendously through asymmetric warfare and harsh suppres-
sion by Ottoman military forces. Cultural violence in the periphery
was not always under the control of the Porte; that became clear when
Muslim militants violated the order of the Porte and united with cer-
tain zaptiehs (the police force) in Volos, a port town in Thessaly, and
lit the fire of ferocity and oppression over Christian residents.20
The militants and their rebellions further polarized the religious
division between Muslim and Christian subjects in Bosnia. The Chris-
tian subjects asked for respect of and tolerance for their religious sym-
bols and rituals when they negotiated to terminate the riots. After
rebellious attempts in different parts of Bosnia – including Tuzla,
Kladina, and Bihać 21 – during the 1850s, the Porte recognized the
requests of the rebels. These comprised significant changes in terms
of religious freedom and public regulations. Thanks to these newly
recognized rights, the Christians of Bosnia were allowed to ring
church bells and organize their own ceremonies. What is more, they
were able to elect their own local leaders to practice administrative
duties such as tax collection. Their right to own land was recogniz-
ed as well.22 Thus, a set of rebellions in the Balkans and on various
islands eventually prompted the empire to declare the Edict of 1856,
which recognized the fundamental cultural rights of non-Muslims
and affirmed equality among all subjects before the law.
Elsewhere in the empire, religious support also motivated militants to
create conflicts between the governors of towns and Christian authori-
ties. One of the most prominent examples of this conflict occurred in
Chania, a strategically located town in the most important region of
Crete. The island had already become notorious for its uprisings against
the empire in the early 1820s. That resistance was repressed by bloody
attacks. The pashas of Crete were ordered to Chania to control the
island. Two priests, Gomno and Partino of the Chania Gayniye Monas-
tery close to Chania, drew the furious attention of Mustafa Naili Pasha,
who had been on the island for more than three decades and had sup-
pressed previous Greek uprisings violently. He blamed Gomno and
Partino for harbouring and encouraging several militant groups. The
official correspondence from Mustafa Nail Pasha to Istanbul reported
serious threats, posed by the priests, to the safety and authority of Otto-
man rule on the island. Hence, he recommended the arrest and punish-
ment of both priests when they visited Istanbul.23
The Porte decided to increase the number of soldiers in Crete when
revolt erupted again on the island in 1866. The militant rebels were
again the principal actors leading the tumult and agitating the Greek
community. Taking the support for the independence of Crete to the
international level was an important policy, so much so that the sup-
port of Russia was sought for this purpose.24 The Porte was well aware
of anti-Ottoman sentiment on the island; that is why it decided to
increase military preparations and logistical support for the remain-
ing Ottoman forces after the majority of the troops left Crete for
the Khedivate of Egypt in 1867.25
Though these rebellions challenged and disappointed the central
authority in Istanbul, it would be wrong to define the relationship
between Ottoman rule and the priests who defied them as one of con-
stant hostility during this period. There were numerous clerics who
cooperated harmoniously with the Porte in the prevention of militant
rebellions, nationalist movements, and cultural violence. This was the
era of creating a common identity which was truly cosmopolitan.
Some Christian priests supported this semi-Utopian Ottoman view –
or at least believed in the promising Edict of 1856. Ziso was one of
them, a cleric from Almyros,26 a town in the region of Thessaly. He
worked for the empire and was responsible for secretarial duties dur-
ing the struggle for the Greek state. The militant rebels uttered threats
against Ziso. The outcome of those threats was dramatic; they set fire
to Ziso’s house. The Porte, however, did not leave him alone and help-
less. They issued a decree on 1 October 1858 compensating him for
the damage by giving him two thousand kuruş.27
Cultural violence was sometimes a necessary strategy in the course
of political and religious conflict. Religious support for revolt against
Ottoman rule not only increased the motivation of the militants but
also created new conflicts between Christian authorities and their
Muslim governors. The revolt in Crete gained an international char-
acter when three hundred armed insurgents and six hundred civilians
tragically lost their lives after the Arkadi monastery was surrounded
by Ottoman forces.28 The Arkadi monastery remained under fire, and
news about the atrocity spread across Europe through various jour-
nals, magazines, and newspapers, helping delegitimize Ottoman rule
over the island.29 The Ottoman victory at the monastery was intend-
ed to convey the message that cultural violence would lead to the
restoration of state authority through aggressive intervention. Never-

theless, more militant rebels in Crete followed this route in the fol-
lowing decades. Cultural violence is a never-ending process; if one
person leaves it or dies for it, a new one joins until the required mis-
sion is completed.
If we needed to highlight only two rebellions that received the
greatest international reaction in the Tanzimat era, these would be the
fire at the Arkadi monastery and the April uprising in 1876, which
occurred mainly in central Bulgaria. Preparations for revolt among
the Bulgarians intensified in the autumn of 1875, Todor Kableshkov,
a young and ambitious nationalist educated in Istanbul’s Lycée
Impérial Ottoman de Galata-Sérai, as the leader of the military coun-
cil in Koprivshtitsa organized a rebellion in April 1876.30 Local Otto-
man governors surrounded the leaders of the rebellion and captured
Kableshkow in Troyan, in central Bulgaria in the same year. In the face
of increasing political pressure, the planned attacks of the Bulgarian
Revolutionary Central Committee were launched earlier than they
had been scheduled. The civilian population, the Ottoman bureau-
crats, and particularly the Muslim villages were the main targets of the
rebels. Even though the number of victims has always remained in
dispute, causalities among the Ottomans were severe in the first half
of the uprising, which started in the final days of April 1876. Within
a couple of days, anarchy and terror left their imprint on the land-
scape of the region.
The Porte had already been defied harshly in Bosnia in the first
half of the 1870s but the fragility of the Ottoman authority had
become clear much earlier, during the Bosnian Uprising (1831–32)
and the Herzegovina Uprising (1852–62). Revolt in Bosnia and
Herzegovina finally reached its peak from July 1875 to August 1877.
The Ottoman pashas’ and governors’ hopes were shattered by the
social disorder resulting from attacks against bridges, roads, tele-
graph lines, government buildings, and police stations. The loss of
their authority in different parts of the Balkans agitated the imperial
center, which directed a relentless campaign of repression against the
Bulgarian militants. The Porte did not control its response as well as
it had previously. Victimization of civilians only strengthened their
plans to eliminate the rebels. However, this time, the malgovernance
of the Porte came to the fore internationally when violence by bashi-
bozuks – irregular Ottoman militants – drew attention abroad. Many
bashibozuks had been settled in the region after their migration from
territories that were governed by the Russian Empire. The cultural

violence of the rebels prompted the bashibozuks to deal with them
mercilessly, and many innocent non-Muslim people were victimized,
particularly in Batak and neighboring villages. The bashibozuks also
gained material benefits from this aggression, whether directly from
the Porte or indirectly from local notables and pashas who approved
of their attacks.
This irregular military force was successful in suppressing the mili-
tant rebels and re-establishing Ottoman authority. Journalists and
diplomats who visited the areas reported the atrocities eloquently. The
foreign media, particularly the Times and the London Daily News, gave
blood-spattered accounts in their pages. The stories of surviving eye-
witnesses enforced the British public’s support of Bulgarian national-
ism. Such a shift was in contradiction to the British state’s official pol-
itics, because an independent Bulgarian state would better serve the
needs of the Russians rather than the British. Nonetheless, cultural
violence influenced people to take an emotional stance rather than a
pragmatic one. Even though the resistance was suppressed, and the
Ottoman governance was able to assume power in central Bulgaria in
mid-May of 1875, the resistance realized its goals in the long run
thanks to international reaction against Ottoman repression and the
atrocities of the bashibozuks. The treaty of Berlin, signed on 13 July
1878, recognized an autonomous Principality of Bulgaria.
The relationship between the particular local concerns of militant
groups and their hopes of realizing their ideals led them to resort to
violence at different times in different towns in the Balkans. In this
context, we need to ask whether the way cultural motives for violence
inspire militants is independent of time and space. To give a suffi-
cient response to this question, we need to ask another question: Was
the cultural violence employed by militant rebels in the Ottoman
Empire similar to the cultural violence employed by militant
jihadists of today?
cultural violence of militant jihadists
“To the militant, identity is everything.”

Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
Cultural violence by militant jihadists is driven by their politico-

religious concerns. They hope to not only satisfy those concerns but
ultimately arrive at an ideal community in which their political and

religious ideals will flourish. They see the use of violence as indis-
pensable to attain this imagined community. The marginalization of
the militants by their opponents plays a great role in this conflict.
Those who feel marginalized are motivated to insult their oppressors
and degrade the value of their culture. This confrontation and degra-
dation only add to their own marginalization through sowing the
seeds of hatred. This is another way that political and religious
motives lead to the application of cultural violence.
Like jihad, sharia is another fundamental instrument that the mili-
tant jihadists use to rationalize cultural violence and motivate other
people to join them. In fact, both sharia and jihad are debatable terms
in Muslim communities.31 Sharia and jihad do not signify the same
meaning for all the various sects of Islam and are not employed the
same way by all Muslims. The different priorities of Arabs, Turks,
Malaysians, Iranians, Pakistanis, and Indonesians have led to frag-
mentation rather than unity in the lands of Islam (dar el-Islam).32 Yet
the influence of sharia in everyday life goes beyond religious dom-
ains. Sharia is the principal law system and doctrine of Islamic rule. It
regulates the relationship between the individual and the communi-
ty. Such a holistic regulation also assigns responsibilities to everyone
who lives under the rule of sharia. The almighty social and legal sys-
tem of sharia offers the radicals and ideologues a fertile situation to
promote their own interpretation of Islam. Sharia’s divine dynamics
provide opportunities for militant jihadists to legitimize violence by
declaring jihad against infidel targets who were already culturally
marginalized by them.
Jihad is a part of the sharia law system. However, from the perspec-
tive of militant jihadists, it is also an instrument to help the central ide-
ology of sharia prevail in the world through conquest. Jihad has signi-
fied different things throughout history. In the era of the Umayyad and
Abbasid Caliphates and the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, jihad
meant a political mission to expand the power of states. The dramatic
fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the abolition of the
caliphate in 1924 shortly after the foundation of the Republic of
Turkey created a power vacuum in the Muslim world. A number of
Muslim groups have relied on the prestige of the idea of the caliphate
to identify their regimes. In particular, the leaders of various Sunni
Muslim groups and states have used the title of “Caliph,” starting with
the Khilafat movement in India in 1919 and the Sharifian Caliphate in
Hejaz in 1924.33 The idea has been revived in a violent context with the
rising power of al-Qaeda since the late 1980s. The governing principles
of sharia and jihad also gained dramatic momentum with the founda-
tion of Isis.
The widespread understanding of militant jihadists about what
jihad expects from them is that they are required to render Islam the
ruling system and defeat the nemeses of Islam. In doing so, jihad is
used to legitimize violence by addressing the requirements of divine
scripture on the one hand, and encouraging Muslims to undertake
responsibility against those requirements on the other. Indeed, the
militants who take spirituality seriously are more prone to be recruit-
ed by ideologues with the guarantee of salvation on Judgment Day.34
This rationalization of waging war was embedded in early scholarly
works on Islam. ‘Abdullah bin Al-Mubarak, who was one of the most
prominent scholars of Islamic theology in the eighth century, collect-
ed hadiths and penned a detailed book about jihad. He noted:
The slain [in jihad] are three [types of] men: a believer, who strug-
gles with himself and his possessions in the path of God, such that
when he meets the enemy [in battle] he fights them until he is
killed. This martyr (shahid) is tested, [and is] in the camp of God
under His throne; the prophets do not exceed him [in merit]
except by the level of prophecy. [Then] a believer, committing
offenses and sins against himself, who struggles with himself and
his possessions in the path of God, such that when he meets the
enemy [in battle] he fights until he is killed. This cleansing wipes
away his offenses and his sins – behold the sword wipes [away]
sins! – and he will be let into heaven from whatever gate he wish-
es ... [Then] a hypocrite, who struggles with himself and his pos-
sessions in the path of God, such that when he meets the enemy
[in battle] he fights until he is killed. This [man] is in hell since
the sword does not wipe away hypocrisy.35
Destructive physical force against their opponents is a religious

responsibility in this violent cultural confrontation imposed by the
militant jihadists. Their own scripture both obliges them to fight and
legitimizes the use of violence. One former jihadist describes the
appeal of this philosophy thus: “I liked [jihad]. It represented chival-
ry, honor, dignity, self-sacrifice, something bigger than yourself.”36 Rad-
ical religious groups, who believe in the recreation of the world
through violence, compare good and evil, portraying confrontation

with their enemies as a war between God and Satan.37 Militant
jihadists encode the enemy not only as non-Islamic and culturally
perverted, but as a force that needs to be eliminated because it poses
threats not only against their own existence but against Islam itself.
Such a violent form of jihad gives little or no opportunity for dia-
logue or conciliation. The following sections explore the interrela-
tionship of violence to the cultural imagination of a community in
the cases of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis.
Hezbollah
Hezbollah’s use of militant tactics such as suicide bombing, assassina-

tion, and small and large-scale attacks in the first half of the 1980s
made the organization the first jihadist group using violence strategi-
cally after World War II.38 The cultural reaction of Hezbollah derived
from both political and religious concerns. The Shia community had
become marginalized by the Christian and Sunni elites ever since
Lebanon became independent in 1943, even though it made up
almost one third of Lebanese society. In the 1960s, some of the mar-
ginalized Shia community joined the Palestine Liberation Organiza-
tion (plo), while others joined the faction of a populist cleric, Musa
Sadr, who established a group called the Movement of the Deprived,
later known as the Shiite Amal militia.39 The country became crip-
pled by a civil war between Christian groups and other religious
groups which began in 1975; the political and religious concerns of
the Shiites moved beyond the country’s borders after the invasion of
Lebanon by Israel in 1982.
A number of Shia jihadist organizations emerged in the early
1980s, their main motivation being to defeat Israel and liberate
Lebanon. These organizations united under Hezbollah, which literal-
ly means “The Party of Allah.” The underground activities of Hezbol-
lah terminated with the declaration of the Open Letter in 1985, pro-
claiming, “Every one of us is a fighting soldier when a call for jihad
arises and each one of us carries out his mission in battle based on his
legal obligations. For Allah is behind us supporting and protecting us
while instilling fear in the hearts of our enemies.”40 The role of jihad,
the legitimacy of their fight, and the use of physical force were the
first resolutions uttered in this manifesto. Hezbollah located the
tragedy of Shiite Muslims in history and legitimized their struggle by
evoking other concepts than jihad, including “persecution, torment,

suffering, powerlessness, and insecurity”41 under the umbrella of a
formidable nostalgia, which keeps old wounds open. In addition, to
understand the breadth of Hezbollah’s doctrine, one needs to exam-
ine Iran’s revolution and the support and ideology of Ayatollah
Ruhollah, who inspired the principles of Hezbollah.42
The religious concerns of Hezbollah were also identified with the
unity of land under the rule of Muslims. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon
made these religious concerns more fervent because of Israel’s
expanding power in the region after the foundation of the Jewish
state. The Israeli government legitimized invasion after the assassina-
tion attempt on Shlomo Argov, then Israel’s ambassador to the Unit-
ed Kingdom. The Abu Nidal Organization, which had a strong foot-
hold in southern Lebanon where the Shia population resided, was
targeted by Israel because of this assassination.43 Abu Nidal founded
his loyal group after a split from Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction of the
plo in 1974. The invasion of southern Lebanon and the conflicts in
its aftermath left between twelve and nineteen thousand dead, most
of whom were civilians.
The civil war in the country was not simply a national concern.
Rather, Lebanon became a small arena representing a power struggle
among foreign states and international actors. In the summer of 1982,
Iran’s revolutionary guards trained a 1,500-man force in the Bekaa Val-
ley to support the Shia jihadist militants. Iran ambitiously sought the
spread of Islamic revolution through the Middle East while simulta-
neously striving to cope with the threat posed by Iraq.44 The ideolog-
ical intervention of both the Syrian and Iranian regimes in support of
the Shia militants became even more complicated when Israel invad-
ed on 2 June 1982. Zeev Maoz explains the reasons for this invasion
according to the mind of then Minister of Defence, Ariel Sharon, in
the following manner:45
1 Destroy the plo infrastructure in Lebanon, including the plo

headquarters in Beirut. The physical destruction of the plo
human and material assets in Lebanon, including the killing of
plo leadership was top priority. But expulsion of the plo from
Lebanon would also be an acceptable achievement.
2 Drive Syrian forces out of Lebanon. Sharon knew that this could
not be achieved without full-scale confrontation with the Syrians.
It would have been preferable if the Syrian forces had started
shooting at the Israeli forces, because this would provide Israel

with the political pretext for attacking the Syrians. However, if the
Syrians did not play by the Israeli rules, Israel would have to initi-
ate a direct attack on the Syrians.
3 Install a Christian-dominated government in Lebanon, with
Bashir Gemayel as President. This would ensure that the military
accomplishments of the war would be preserved by a political ally
who could end the civil war and would ensure a strong state that
was capable of making and enforcing its policies on the popula-
tion, including termination of the Syrian presence in Lebanon.
4 Sign a peace treaty with the Lebanese government that would
solidify the informal Israeli-Christian alliance and convert it into
a binding agreement.
These four elements of Ariel Sharon’s foreign and security policy

illustrate an expansionist agenda rather than creating a sustainable and
lasting peace, and rely on using destructive force similar to Hezbol-
lah’s. It backfired, because this approach by Israel helped Hezbollah to
legitimize its cultural violence and motivate the organization’s sympa-
thizers to support its principles more fiercely. The civil war starting in
the mid-1970s, and the later foreign intervention in Lebanon, prompt-
ed people to cling to their political and religious ideologies more
intensely. The Lebanese civil war, as a result, “evolved to be a war over
the redefinitions of the Lebanese collective identities.”46
Foreign intervention and civil war in the country increased pressure
on Hezbollah and other militant groups to embrace non-violent ini-
tiatives, especially after the Taif agreement to terminate the civil war
was signed in 1989. Yet, the number of conflicts between Hezbollah
and Israel increased after Israel’s invasion of the Golan Heights in
1981. This invasion resulted in conflict regarding the situation of the
Shebaa farms. Israel claims that the area does not belong to Lebanon,
whereas there is an overwhelming consensus both in Lebanon and in
the international community that the area is either part of Lebanon
or Syria.47 The Shebaa farms remain an area of continuing conflict
between the opponents.
The integration of Hezbollah into the national political system has
increased since the late 1990s, after their participation in local and
national Lebanese elections. The last two decades have empowered its
status with the public as a legitimate organization supported by an
important segment of the people. Yet the Shia character of Hezbollah
still produces both enemies and friends at the same time. Not only
Israel but also Sunni Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar see
Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, having declared it to be such in
the Gulf Cooperation Council organized in March 2016.48 The deci-
sion to identify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization was also ap-
proved by the Arab League, with the reservation of the Shia-dominated
Iraqi and Syrian governments. Despite this, Lebanese Foreign Minis-
ter Gebran Bassil has said that “Hezbollah enjoys wide representation
and is an integral faction of the Lebanese community.”49 This sym-
bolic voice arising from a Christian Lebanese is a strong indication
of the legitimacy of Hezbollah inside the country. On the other hand,
it also illustrates the ongoing conflict with international establish-
ments and foreign countries over identifying Hezbollah as an illegiti-
mate organization.
Still, in a speech given in 2012 Hassan Nasrallah, one of the promi-
nent leaders of Hezbollah, only blames the Americans and Jews for
the organization’s bad reputation:
I say that the American administration and the American mentali-

ty lacks nothing from Satanism. But that kind of behavior and
that kind of mistreatment of holy books and prophets, and the
prophets’ sanctities, and others’ sanctities; this behavior is Israeli
and let us say it is Jewish, between quotation marks, – now they
will say that this is anti-Semitism – [but] the Holy Quran told us
about this people: how they attacked their prophets, and how they
killed their prophets, and how they affronted their prophets, and
how they affronted Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, and how
they affronted Mary, peace be upon her, and how they affronted
Allah’s great messenger Mohammad, May God exalt and bring
peace upon him and his family. This [behavior] pattern about
affronting holy books, and prophets, and messengers, and sancti-
ties; this is their mentality, and maybe they want to push things
more and more toward a religious war worldwide.50
Hassan Nasrallah’s speech demonstrates the cultural gap between

jihadists and their enemies. Derogatory generalizations concerning
Jews are common in the speeches of Nasrallah. Here he argues not
only that they destroy the holiest materials and cultural heritage of
Muslims but links that behaviour to the burning of a Quran by US
soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2012 to show how they have cor-
rupted the West.51 His aim is to simplify the religious reasons for con-
frontation and the sheer necessity of using violence. The demoniza-
tion of Hezbollah’s opponents by mentioning historical events is
intended to empower and validate Nasrallah’s arguments and help to
recruit more militants. Nonetheless, beyond the strategic implications
of his discourse, Nasrallah believes that these statements present the
truth. His perceptions, of course, display a dramatic opposition to
those of his opponents, and each group’s perception rationalizes the
use of violence.
In 2005, the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Sunni Prime Minister
of Lebanon, shattered hopes about the end of the political tumult. The
attacks by Israel forces in January 2015 and May 2016 resulted in the
death of important Hezbollah militants. The continuing cultural con-
flict in the nation springs from the polarization of political and reli-
gious ideologies. This kind of polarization can transform people into
violent militants determined to dominate others through the rational-
ization of cultural violence. As we have seen, the legitimization of such
violence and struggle doesn’t just arise spontaneously; it has a strong
link to the past.52 It is also projected into an idealized future.
The increase of enemies both in the nation and abroad propels mil-
itant jihadists to use violence against their targets, whether these con-
sist of bureaucrats, politicians, foreign states, or other symbolic figures
who are identified as their enemies. However, the rise of Hezbollah
negates the idea that militants are necessarily capable of leading their
society to its destiny. They may lead the struggle for change but the
emergence and evolution of the state they are working towards still
depends on international factors. The intervention of foreign states
and international agencies may combine with the ability of militant
leaders to legitimize a violent culture.
Hamas, the organization of Sunni-oriented ideological militants in
Palestine, has many similarities with Hezbollah. We need to explore
Hamas as well to understand the critical importance of cultural con-
flict in a different political geography with a similar mode of cultur-
al violence.
Hamas
Similarly to Hezbollah, Hamas was founded on grievous political and

religious concerns triggered by the Israeli truck incident that killed
four Palestinians on 7 December 1987. The argument of Palestinians
was that Israeli soldiers deliberately killed four Palestinians as a

response to the stabbing death of Israeli businessman Shlomo Takal in
the main shopping centre of Gaza. The anger of Palestinians was man-
ifested in riots after the funerals of the four men. On 9 December 1987,
Hatem Al Sisi, a 17-year-old youth, died as Israeli soldiers opened fire
against rioters.53 In a couple of days, tension rose significantly between
the opponents and the grievous situation worsened with the loss of
lives from both sides. Each conflicting group counted their own
deaths. The emotional defeat plunged each side into greater psycho-
logical and social instability. However, the overt damage was only the
tip of the iceberg; it revealed both deep dissent in Palestinian society
and political uncertainty in Israeli society. We need to revisit the two
decades before the death of Shlomo Takal and the truck incident to
understand these divisions.
The foundation of Israel in 1948 happened in the context of the
1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. The declaration of the
State of Israel created huge concerns for Israel’s Arab neighbours. A
hostile alliance of Arab states was intent on the destruction of Israel,
and this intention led to Israel taking a strong psychological position
to defend itself. The development of such a strong defence mecha-
nism is not surprising when we consider both the existential struggle
of Israel against the threats of its neighbours and the agony of the
Holocaust, which had destroyed millions of Jews only a couple
of years before the foundation of the Israeli state. The West Bank,
Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip came under the full
control of Israel after the Arab-Israeli War in 1967. The gradual annex-
ation of Palestinian territories was followed by growing concerns
among the Palestinian people, who worked primarily in unskilled
jobs and had to cope with unemployment and social deprivation in
the occupied territories. The territory was itself scarce and resources
were not allocated adequately for the Palestinian population. The
defeat of the Palestinians after the first Arab-Israeli War (1948–49) left
an angry community. The marginalization policies of Israel from 1967
to 1987 stoked feeling of rage among them.
Edward Said explains the situation of Palestinians after the Arab-
Israeli War thus: “The non-Jew lives a meager existence in villages with-
out libraries, youth centers, theaters, cultural centers; most Arab cen-
ters, according to Arab mayor of Nazareth, who speaks with the unique
authority of a non-Jew in Israel, lack electricity, telephone, communi-
cations, health centers; none has any sewage systems, except Nazareth
itself, which is only partly serviced by one; none has paved roads or
streets.”54 Since the occupation of the territories, Israel has pursued an
“iron fist” policy, employed deportations, press censorship, and such
forms of collective punishment such as school closings, curfews, and
the demolition of homes to suppress Palestinian nationalism.”55 The
degenerating social conditions, maltreatment of the Palestinians by
the Israeli government and army factions, defeatist psychology after
the wars with Israel in the 1960s and 1970s, and emotional solidarity
among the people committed to take back their homelands mobilized
many Palestinians to show their reaction against Israel. These grim
realities inspired the First Intifada, which literally means “shake off.”
The First Intifada consisted of civil disobedience, general strikes, boy-
cotts of Israeli Civil Administration institutions, refusal to work in
Israeli settlements on Israeli products, refusal to pay taxes, and the use
of graffiti.56 The other segment of the strategy was violent, and includ-
ed the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails at the idf (Israel
Defense Force) and stabbing of civilians.57 Cultural trauma both led to
expanding frustration among people and at the same time fostered the
hopes of Palestinians by providing methods of resistance. The First
Intifada lasted for five years and nine months, and terminated on 13
September 1993.
The First Intifada stimulated the establishment of Hamas in 1987;
its charter was declared on 18 August 1988. This charter included thirty-
six articles presenting the characteristics of the organization, its objec-
tives, and its ideals. Hamas defines itself as a representative force of the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and acknowledges its slogan in Article
8: “Allah is its goal, the Prophet is the model, the Qur’an its constitu-
tion, jihad its path, and death for the sake of Allah its most sublime
belief.”58 The following article expressed the aim of Hamas: “Fighting
against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could
prevail.”59 “The false” in this article includes both Israel and West; fur-
ther articles in the charter mention imperialist powers and historical
Crusader attempts to capture the holy city, Jerusalem. Even though
religious concerns are the dominant elements of the charter, the polit-
ical dimension is also very significant. From this vantage point,
nationalism is perceived as part of the religious creed to liberate Pales-
tine.60 More to the point, Article 13 rejects negotiation with the
enemy and insists that jihad is the only legitimate response. Jihad
appears again in Article 15 to mobilize each Muslim and impose it as
an individual duty.61
Though Hamas belongs to the Sunni faction of Islam in contrast to

the Shia origins of Hezbollah, the anti-Semitic generalizations typical
of the latter group are also common in its charter. Hamas, in fact,
emerged as a response to Israel’s military complex and its rule over
the non-Jewish and Muslim population. Hamas subscribed to the
Palestinian Forces Alliance (pfa) in January 1994 with nine other
organizations to protest the Oslo agreement that brought an end to
the First Intifada.62 The post-Oslo agreement signed in 1995 to con-
clude the First Intifada did not satisfy many people, whether from the
Palestinian or Israeli factions. Yet one point was clarified. After the
First Intifada, most Palestinians and Israelis concluded that there was
no military solution to their conflict.63
The number of victims in this clash illustrates the fierce situation.
From 1995 to 2000, 175 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.
This was fewer than during the First Intifada, in which 1,234 Pales-
tinians were killed.64 On the other hand, 99 Israeli civilians lost their
lives both in the occupied territories and within the Green Line –
the line created after the 1949 Armistice Agreements between
the armies of Israel and its neighbouring countries Egypt, Jordan,
Lebanon, and Syria – from 1995 to 2000 as compared to casualties
during the First Intifada, which numbered 172.65 The second Intifa-
da that started on 28 September 2000 increased violent conflict,
both in the occupied territories and Israel, exponentially. The
bloody scenes created by suicide bombers in restaurants and busses
frightened the Israeli public. More Palestinians lost their lives in the
Second Intifada than the First Intifada. The Second Intifada “was
associated with increasingly militarised, individualised, and mas-
culinised resistance.”66 The Second Intifada could not capture as
much sympathy as the First Intifada had generated. The loss of the
public’s collective belief in the success of the Second Intifada was
explained by Hamas’s most prominent woman politician, Jamila al-
Shanti: “The First intifada was the stone-throwing intifada. Now,
who now believed in stones?”67
These militant activities were employed by groups that were part of
the plo, particularly in the 1970s. Section 2 of the Ten Point Program
declared in June 1974 underscored the requisite of armed struggle:68
“The Liberation Organization will employ all means, and first and
foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to estab-
lish the independent combatant national authority for the people
over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated. This will
require further changes being effected in the balance of power in

favour of our people and their struggle.”
However, with the Oslo Accords in October 1993, the plo recog-
nized Israel’s right to exist in peace. This non-violent change in its
methods also provided international legitimacy that the plo needed,
and made the plo the sole representative of the Palestinian people.
Fatah and its heroic leader Yasser Arafat had previously been the dom-
inant group in the plo. Nevertheless, Fatah’s political ideology was
primarily based on international socialism, whereas the identity of
Hamas was shaped by its Islamic character. The corrosive structure of
the plo, the incapacity of its governing cadre to satisfy the local pop-
ulation, and its declining credibility among the Palestinians offered
Hamas new opportunities to compete for political power. The fierce
rivalry between Hamas and Fatah brought a significant defeat to the
Palestine national movement during the second intifada, which came
to an end after four years on 8 February 2005. Finally, Hamas defeat-
ed Fatah in the January 2006 elections.
The political legitimacy of Hamas, recognition of its victory in elec-
tions, and financial assistance to the Palestine Authority were all lost
when Hamas rejected a commitment to non-violence, recognition of
the state of Israel, and previous agreements. Israel also implemented
economic sanctions that lead to severe deterioration of the social con-
ditions of the Palestinian people. Political tension was evident in the
cadre of Hamas after the sanctions. More importantly, anger toward
international actors and Israel prevailed among the Palestinians, who
thought that they had been punished because of their democratic
election of Hamas.
Gad Yaacobi was the minister of Economics and Planning (1986–88)
and minister of Communications (1987–90) in the Israeli government,
and he defined the developments led by Israel during the First Intifa-
da as a “creeping process of de facto annexation,” which increased the
militant reaction among Palestinians.69 The 2008 and 2014 wars and
the use of excessive force have built a strong community in Gaza where
the distinction between Hamas militants and Gaza civilians is hard to
identify, even though the people suffer from the military tactics of
Hamas as well. The isolation of Gaza and the inhumane methods used
against its civilians encourage more militant activities and decrease the
probability of non-violent solutions. Ibrahim Goshah, spokesman for
Hamas, stated in an interview that “Arafat wants to confront Israel’s
settlement policies at Jebel Abu Ghneim without weapons. But, with-
out weapons, Hamas believes a genuine intifada cannot begin – I mean

an intifada of armed or military resistance. We believe only this form
of resistance will thwart Israel’s settlement policies at Jebel Abu
Ghneim and elsewhere.”70 Political and religious concerns are the two
main motives for Hamas, as they were for Fatah. With the loss of belief
in a peaceful dialogue for a better future, violent response appears as
the first and foremost effective response. The method of eliminating
the political and religious concerns is based on devising a quick and
final response, so the militants of Hamas are more prone to use vio-
lence. As a result, and similar to the case with Hezbollah, the rational-
ization of violence has strong validation.
The 2007 Battle of Gaza between Hamas and Fatah only worsened
the volatile atmosphere. 118 militants, 39 civilians and 2 un staff lost
their lives in the one-week battle, which ended on 15 June 2007.71
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip with its definitive victory over
Fatah. The result was that the already fragmented Palestinian territo-
ries are now being governed by the two entities. Hamas rules Gaza
and the Palestinian National Authority governs the West Bank. The
isolation of Hamas also led to the emergence of new militant groups
under the same faction. For example, the al-Qassam Brigades had
been a formidable military wing of Hamas but, many of its members
were detained or killed by Israel in the early 2000s. Even with the
weakened status of the al-Qassam Brigades,72 since the capture
of Gaza, hundreds of rockets have been fired at targets in Israeli ter-
ritory. Abu Ahmed, northern Gaza leader for the Al Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades stated, “We learned from Hezbollah’s victory that Israel can
be defeated if we know how to hit them and if we are well pre-
pared.”73 Violence endures and shapes the everyday life of Palestini-
ans dramatically. Yet the same cultural violence resonates more qui-
etly but with an expanding power among Israeli civilians. Many
Israelis have to cope with perilous daily threats. Each group suffers
the dissuasive impact of violence from its opponents. The response of
Israel against Palestinian rockets was excessive both in the 2008–09
and the 2014 Gaza wars. The casualties and destruction in Gaza speak
for themselves. 1,417 people were killed, including 926 civilians, 255
police officers, and 236 fighters in Gaza by idf; 3 Israeli civilians and
10 soldiers were killed by Hamas.74
Edward Said questioned the use of Palestinians as a labour force
without providing fundamental conditions to sustain them and allow
them to live peacefully. He called them “manpower without political
significance, without a territorial base, without cultural continuity; for

the non-Jew in Israel, if he dared to remain after 1948, there was only
the meager subsistence of being there, almost powerless except to
reproduce himself and his misery more or less endlessly.”75 The inter-
national reaction to Hamas is polarized by different actors who have
either disparaged the organization or recognized it as an elected polit-
ical force. The cultural violence of Hamas has evolved through the
traumatic psychology of national defeat and international isolation.
The more isolation and inhumane Israeli policies the Palestinians face,
the more militant organizations like Hamas are empowered because of
building strong emotional relationships among the Palestinians.
The casualties of the 2014 Gaza War were even more dramatic: the
death toll in Gaza was 2,551 and in Israel, 72.76 Despite the increase
cost of the war for Israel, the social consequences were unbearable for
the people of Gaza in the long term. Thousands of homes and dozens
of hospitals and health centers were destroyed. Family farms were
damaged. People were suffered an insufficient supply of electricity
and water. Many of these problems continue to create great challenges
for sustainable life in Gaza. Using aggressive military force against
Gaza neither provides Israelis a safe country nor eliminates the per-
sistent threats imposed by Hamas. The new generation in Gaza has
grown up with the ongoing trauma, and the cultural outcome of such
trauma eliminates the possibility of peaceful coexistence.
Palestinians continue to be humiliated and abused in the violent
atmosphere created by the reactionary military strikes by Israel and
the martyr agitation of an aggressive Hamas. Mark Juergensmeyer’s
interview with Abdul Aziz Rantisi, the leader of the political arm of
Hamas, clarifies how the militants mobilize people. The Hamas
leader states that “to die in this way [through suicide bombings] is
better than to die daily in frustration and humiliation.” He goes on to
say that, in his view, the very nature of Islam is to defend “dignity, land
and honor.” He then relates a story that the Prophet Muhammad had
told about a woman who fasted daily, yet was doomed to hell because
she humiliated her neighbors. The point of the story, Rantisi says, is
that “dishonoring someone is the worst act that one can do, and the
only thing that can counter it is dignity – the honor provided by reli-
gion and the courage of being a defender of the faith.”77
This particular way of citing Islam’s Prophet legitimizes the use of
violence from a cultural point of view, since religion remains unques-
tionable. However, it can also be argued that the main message of that
story is that a true believer cannot guarantee his or her status just by
observing every order of God or the holy book, because a true believ-
er also needs to understand the essence of religious messages by
demonstrating kindness towards and tolerance of other people. Mov-
ing from this point of view, Quran states in the first section of chap-
ter 5 that “if anyone kills a person – unless in retribution for murder
or spreading corruption in the land – it is as if he kills all mankind,
while if any saves a life it is as if he saves the lives of all mankind”78
Suicide bombings kill innocent people just as the soldiers of state
forces do. However, the verse from the Quran hardly finds a place in the
discourse of speeches given by ideologues when they endeavor to mobi-
lize more militants. Critical views of the use of violence are not able to
flourish when violence and injustice make the lives of people miser-
able. The power of violence and the feeling of injustice create an
ambiance in which our selective perceptions choose only certain parts
from the holy books, interpret them according our particular goals, and
finally promote more violence in the name of dignity and self-defence.
Yehiya Sinwar, who was a militant belonging to the Izz ad-Din al-
Qassam Brigades, was released from an Israeli prison in exchange for
Gilad Shalit, an idf soldier, in 2011. In February 2017, he took over
the role of prime minister of Gaza from Ismail Haniyeh. The shift of
power in the governance of Hamas led to the declaration of a “New
Charter” on 1 May 2017. In this document, the clear anti-Semitic dis-
course of the Charter of 1988 was transformed pragmatically by
replacing “Jews” with “Zionists.” Khalid Meshal, a well-known politi-
cal leader of the organization, declared the New Charter, stating:
“Hamas’ struggle is not with Jews or their faith, but is a struggle
against Zionism and its aggressions.”79 Rather than demanding the
complete destruction of the Jews and of the Israeli state as in in the
Charter of 1988, Hamas now recognized the 1967 borders, marking
the official acknowledgement of the Israeli state as a neighbor coun-
try of Palestine. In so doing, the old ideology of Hamas disguised itself
within more moderate codes. As a result, the declaration of the New
Charter before the international media in Qatar enlarged the possi-
bility of political maneuvers for Hamas. Hamas now aims to attain an
accomplishable national agenda rather than to continue to fight over
the religious dichotomy between Jews and Muslims.
Following these progressive steps, Hamas signed an agreement with
its longtime rival Fatah in Cairo on 12 October 2017. Administrative
and financial difficulties that Hamas has faced both from Israeli and
Fatah forces made this conciliation a reasonable step for the future of
Palestine, if not for the aspirations of Hamas itself. The agreement
proposes to share power in Gaza and Palestine between Hamas and
Fatah. The efforts at conciliation between the two organizations offers
new opportunities to empower the Palestinian people, increase diplo-
macy, and limit the militant activities of Hamas. Although the cultur-
al violence of the region, whether employed by the Israeli state or
Hamas militants, still leads to confrontation between opposing ideals,
the nationalist aspirations of Hamas, like those of Hezbollah, are dif-
ferent from those of al-Qaeda and Isis.
The cultural suffering of the Palestinians was highlighted in the
New Charter, which declared the Palestinian cause to be “a cause of an
occupied land and displaced people, and the right of return for all
Palestinians.”80 The cultural connection among militant jihadists was
evident when many plo members fought in Lebanon against Israel.
The same connection appeared in the speech of Osama bin Laden on
the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. He stated, “We witnessed the
oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our
people in Palestine and Lebanon.”81 In the next section we examine
how the similar modes of politico-religious concerns and ideals mobi-
lized them and linked different militant jihadists within the spectrum
of cultural violence.
Al-Qaeda
Two central dynamics for understanding the fundamental power of

al-Qaeda are related to a person and a place. Osama bin Laden found-
ed al-Qaeda in 1988 and shaped its ideology and organization. How-
ever, al-Qaeda could not have attained the power that it did without
certain developments in the political geography of Afghanistan and
Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s. Jihad had already gained a strong
foothold after the Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan in 1979, long
before bin Laden found a refuge there in 1996. Militant jihadists
became operational and extended al-Qaeda’s organizational structure
during the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–89). In 1988, the Soviets lost the
war against a determined Afghan Mujahedeen – guerrilla warrior –
insurgency and withdrew their last troops from Afghanistan on 15
May 1988.
After the Taliban was established with the support of Pakistani
security forces in 1994, it ascended to power and controlled Afghan-
istan in 1997. Bin Laden’s settlement in Afghanistan generated mixed

feelings. Bin Laden presented the Taliban regime as the role model of
a proper Islamic state for the Muslim world in the late 1990s.82 On
the other hand, the Taliban’s goal was restricted to regional domi-
nance and it designated limited targets, whereas al-Qaeda was more
eager to identify international targets and utter threats against the
Western world and any Muslim countries that collaborated with
the West. Tensions between these two organizations in the rule
of Afghanistan were revealed a letter between the Taliban and Bin
Laden.83 Al-Qaeda’s promotion of global jihad shaped its cultural
violence, which evolved through intersections and contradictions
with the Taliban forces.84
The core principles that made al-Qaeda notorious cannot be
grasped without some knowledge of its ideologues. The praxis of al-
Qaeda is derived from the ideas of radical Islamic scholars like Sayyid
Qutb, who fiercely defended sharia law as a flawless legal system.
Sayyid Qutb’s ideological radicalization is discernible in his well-
known work Ma’alim fi al-Tariq, a popular source of inspiration
among militant jihadists. Qutb insists that non-Islamic materials and
values are “evil and corrupt” while presenting sharia as the sum of
codes that characterize a faultless social order.85 Qutb went to the
USA to study educational administration and his militant jihadism
shifted from the defensive to the offensive upon his return to Egypt
from the US in 1951. His new values included cultural comparisons
portraying American women as purely sexual objects and perceiving
American taste in arts as so low as to be unworthy even of contempt.86
Qutb’s later understanding of Islam transformed it into a power-
absorbing system creating isolation and polarization in society when
resistance against his own interpretation of Islam rose and was direct-
ed against him even by fellow Muslims.
Sharia is generally perceived as an inclusive system determining the
social, political, and cultural order in the lands of Islamic faith. The
interpretation of sharia law under the Taliban regime – one of the
most reactionary militant jihadist groups in the 1990s – increased a
list of prohibited actions to include many which had previously been
lawful in Afghanistan. These included eating pork, consuming alco-
hol, using different types of consumer technology, females participat-
ing in sports, and cultural activities and arts such as painting and pho-
tography.87 But although even Muslim reporters were prohibited
from questioning the validity of Taliban policies, al-Qaeda went along
with them. Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, who married one of Osama

bin Laden’s daughters and provided financial support to radical
jihadist organizations, stated that “Islam is different from any other
religion; it’s a way of life. We [Khalifa and bin Laden] were trying to
understand what Islam has to say about how we eat, who we marry,
how we talk. We read Sayyid Qutb. He was the one who most affect-
ed our generation.”88
Bin Laden targeted the Saudi royal family in his interview in 1996
due to their collaboration with the US, and their invitation to the sol-
diers of an infidel regime to enter the lands of Islam.89 These threats
transformed into action through the catastrophic attacks that oc-
curred on 11 September 2001. The events of 9/11 deepened the exist-
ing cultural clash between the West and Islam with the declaration of
a war on terrorism by the US. In doing so, the US military gained
political legitimacy to invade Afghanistan, and later Iraq. Of course,
far from de-escalating terrorism, these invasions empowered the cul-
tural position of militant jihadism because of violations of funda-
mental human rights by the allies, the increase of civilian causalities
in the invaded lands, and the destruction of important Islamic reli-
gious symbols.90 And even though the invasion was promulgated as a
humanitarian plan to liberate oppressed women and children, the
prevalence of human rights violations by the invading forces created
serious concerns even in the Western media.91 Furthermore, state-
controlled violence disturbed the trust between citizens and the state.
The Iraqi case is a proof of this disruption through which the tran-
substantiory violence of Saddam’s regime shaped psychosocial change
and made possible both the collapse of and the construction of
power.92 A similar transubstantionary violence was manifested after
the fall of Saddam’s regime in Iraq; The Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
became a symbol of Western oppression when reports of physical and
sexual abuse, rape, sodomy, and murder by US troops against de-
tainees spread and were condemned across the world.93 Al-Qaeda
used the dispirited situation created by the outcomes in the Iraqi and
Afghanistan invasions for propaganda purposes. After these incidents
drew global attention, bin Laden stated that “the crimes at Abu
Ghraib and Guantanamo . . . shook the conscience of humanity.”94 In
this way, al-Qaeda legitimized their own use of violence and empow-
ered cultural conflict.
In No Good Men Among the Living, Anand Gopal argues that the war
in Afghanistan could have been prevented, as the Taliban would have
been ready to lay down their arms for conciliation. However the
missed opportunities, the offensive repression of US policies, the
crimes of US forces against innocent Afghan people, and the assassi-
nation of the wrong people motivated more Afghans to become mil-
itants in order to take revenge.95 The argument that the American
invasion was a war against their culture and religion was successfully
marketed by the Taliban forces and helped their recruitment of dissi-
dent and desperate people.
Cultural confrontation and polarization are the necessary requisites
for employing the ideological mission of jihadi Salafism, which is one
of the most powerful movements among militant jihadists. Jihadi
Salafism has motivated many to follow a radical path and use “physi-
cal jihad” to cause their own ideology to prevail.96 The increasing
number of groups embracing the five pillars of Jihadi Salafism since
the 1990s show its growing capacity, despite the fact that the move-
ment consists of numerous groups that interpret Islam and jihad dif-
ferently. The first two pillars are related to the unity and sovereignty
of Allah. The remaining three pillars are structural rather than spiri-
tual and relate to the defence, unity, and the resistance of their orga-
nizations. These three pillars are (i) the rejection of all innovations to
Islam, (ii) the permissibility and necessity of execution of a Muslim
who is defined as a kafir (non-Muslim) by his or her own creed, and
(iii) the centrality of jihad against infidel regimes.97
The rejection of reformation in Islam, and the punishment of other
Muslims who do not share the same principles with them, are used to
defend Jihadi Salafism and protect it as promoted by al-Qaeda. Final-
ly, there is the more mission to attack so-called infidel regimes. The
story of Nasruddin, a former Salafist, gives us some important hints
about how the radicalization process occurs through a culturally iso-
lated interpretation of Islam. Nasruddin grew up in a predominantly
Salafist environment in Houston, Texas. In 1997, when he was eigh-
teen, he became convinced that he was ready to be a martyr and fight
for Lashkar-e-Taba, a Pakistan-based militant group, so he went to
Kashmir, India, and received intensive training. The driving force
behind Nasruddin’s journey was the taped lectures of a Salafist cleric
aiming to indoctrinate him into their puritanical understanding of
Islam.98 In general, it is not mainstream Muslims but Salafists who are
the main protagonists of jihadist recruitment.99
Jihad-oriented Salafism was also influential among members of the
al-Qaeda branch in Sudan, which entrenched the motto: “Salafism in
doctrine, modernity in confrontation.”100 This short and influential

motto expresses the centrality of a radical perspective in their ideolo-
gy with modernity as their target. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second in
command of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden, signed a fatwa in 1998
called World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders. This
invoked a culture war against the US government and its citizens, as
well as the allies of the Western coalition. It also assigned a duty
to every Muslim to fight for jihad and liberate al-Aqsa Mosque (in
Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their opponents.101
One of the first global reactions against the attacks on cultural her-
itage by militant jihadists after 9/11 arose when the Taliban destroyed an
ancient Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan in 2001. The Taliban leader
Mullah Omar explained the reason for the destruction as a conflict over
values and priorities. He said, “I did not want to destroy the Bamiyan
Buddha. In fact, some foreigners came to me and said they would like to
conduct the repair work of the Bamiyan Buddha that had been slightly
damaged due to rains. This shocked me. I thought, these callous people
have no regard for thousands of living human beings – the Afghans who
are dying of hunger, but they are so concerned about non-living objects
like the Buddha. This was extremely deplorable. That is why I ordered its
destruction. Had they come for humanitarian work, I would have never
ordered the Buddha’s destruction.”102 The destruction of the Bamiyan
Buddha was also supported by the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Tal-
iban regime, which declared that “we are destroying the statues in accor-
dance with Islamic law and it is purely a religious issue.” Yet it is impor-
tant to note that the encouragement of Osama bin Laden had crucial
influence over Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban regime.103
One of the prominent leaders of al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri,
released a twenty-minute statement on 10 July 2007 entitled “Mali-
cious Britain and its Indian Slaves” after Salman Rushdie received a
knighthood. The critical perspectives of Salman Rushdie regarding
Islam in his novels, and his views about the necessity of reformation
in Islam, stimulated Al-Zawahiri to utter threats against both Rushdie
and Britain. He said, “The message of the queen of Britain and the
supreme governor of the Church of England and her prime minister
was very clear. She said to the Muslims, ‘If you think you will defeat
us and banish us from Iraq and Afghanistan, then we curse your
prophet and his family and consider whoever does so as one of our
heroes.’ Therefore, I say to Elizabeth and Blair that we got the message
and we are preparing for a strong response, with God’s help.”104
Ayman al-Zawahiri also urged young Muslim men to carry out

“lone-wolf attacks” against targets in Western nations that have inter-
vened in Iraq and Syria, saying, “I call on all Muslims who can harm
the countries of the crusader coalition not to hesitate. We must now
focus on moving the war to the heart of the homes and cities of the
crusader West and specifically America.”105 The phrases “the crusader
coalition” and “the crusader West” reference the military campaigns of
Christian European countries from the eleventh century to the thir-
teenth century against the Muslim states controlling the Holy Land in
the Middle East. Such references are used by militant jihadists to
imply that there has been continuous cultural war between Islam and
Europe for centuries.
The organic link between al-Qaeda and the initial leaders of mili-
tant jihadist insurgency in Iraq was evident. Al-Zawahiri wrote a let-
ter dated 9 July 2005 to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appreciating the lat-
ter’s achievement in Iraq. However, he also criticized al-Zarqawi’s
methods, which were publicized through online videos, drawing furi-
ous attention worldwide. Al-Zarqawi’s videos showed that he behead-
ed his victims with a knife while uttering prayers. He became infa-
mous in May 2004, primarily through a heinous video of the
beheading of Nick Berg, a US citizen. Al-Zawahiri believed that the
video might lead to delegitimizing the organization through the pro-
paganda of Western media. He further stated,
You shouldn’t be deceived by the praise of some of the zealous

young men and their description of you as the sheikh (religious
leader) of the slaughterers, etc. They do not express the general
view of the admirer and the supporter of the resistance in Iraq,
and of you in particular by the favor and blessing of God … And
your response, while true, might be: Why shouldn’t we sow terror
in the hearts of the Crusaders and their helpers? And isn’t the
destruction of the villages and the cities on the heads of their
inhabitants more cruel than slaughtering? And aren’t the cluster
bombs and the seven ton bombs and the depleted uranium
bombs crueler than slaughtering? And isn’t killing by torture cru-
eler than slaughtering? And isn’t violating the honor of men and
women more painful and more destructive than slaughtering? 106
Al-Zarqawi’s charisma resulted from his radical ideological mission

and insistence on cultural polarization. He asserted, “We have
declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to
enact it ... Democracy is also based on the right to choose your reli-
gion [and that is] against the rule of Allah.”107 Such misinterpretation
of the Quran for ideological purposes is common among both Mus-
lims and non-Muslims; in fact, the Quran has a number of verses
underlining respect and tolerance toward differences and recognition
and appreciation of non-Islamic beliefs.108
Al-Zarqawi’s cruel methods have not been abandoned even though
he was killed by the US Air Force on 7 June 2006; the succeeding lead-
ers Abu Ayyub al-Masri, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and finally Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi followed the cultural and ideological path of al-Zarqawi.
The ideology of militant jihadists revolves around the simultaneous
cultural marginalization and cultural supremacy of their own group
and increasing polarization between themselves and their targets.
This ideological radicalization led to them targeting the cultural her-
itage and symbols of their enemies.
Although militant jihadists from different groups have fundamental
commonalities in their hatred of against the “infidel regimes,” differ-
ences between them exist as well. The distinction between the Taliban
and al-Qaeda shows itself particularly in their attitudes to attacks against
fellow Muslims. For example, al-Qaeda condemned the Tehrik-i Taliban
Pakistan (ttp) for attacking a military high school in the city of
Peshawar on 16 December 2014; an attack that killed 149 people, most-
ly children.109 Al-Qaeda’s regional branch declared that the militants
should target only security forces. Osama Mahmood, spokesman for the
South Asia section of al-Qaeda, stated, “There is no doubt that the list of
crimes and atrocities of the Pakistani army has crossed the limit and it is
true that this army is ahead of everyone in America’s slavery and geno-
cide of Muslims ... but it does not mean that we should seek revenge
from oppressed Muslims.”110 Women were prohibited from receiving
education under the Taliban regime before the invasion of Afghanistan
by the US coalition. The Taliban militants also used poison gas against a
school for girls from nine to eighteen years old in Afghanistan. The gas
attack resulted in the loss of consciousness of more than 300 students
after the attack and sent the local community into shock.111
Al-Qaeda is less likely to attack its co-religionists than the Taliban
are. After the assassination of bin Ladin by US forces in 2011, al-Qaeda
continued to walk on the road of radicalization with its new leader,
Al-Zarqawi. However, al-Qaeda since then has embraced a more sen-
sitive approach, avoiding bloody attacks on other Muslims.
Militant jihadism has a strong foothold in history. Historical refer-

ences are used to emphasize how Western imperialism decimated
native Muslim populations and other non-Muslim nations.112 Indeed,
the cultural polarization of militant jihadism hinges on the injustice
produced by imperial powers during the colonialization process as
well as its ravages afterward.113 Al-Qaeda transformed “sons of the
soil” to “blood brothers” by addressing their politico-religious con-
cerns and successfully recruiting them for a “holy mission.”114 This is
how the culture of vulnerability and victimization is transformed into
a culture of militancy.
However, destroying the cultural heritage of non-Islamic countries
is just one dimension of this culture. The other dimension is target-
ing the symbols of the other sects of Islam, particularly Shia Islam,
which has a significant number of adherents in Iraq and Syria.
Schools have also been targeted to prevent girls from receiving an
education and to eliminate critiques of the ideological focus of mili-
tant jihadism that might arise from people trained in those schools.
All these attacks increase the cultural capital of militant jihadism
while rationalizing the violence they use. An even more radical ver-
sion of this phenomenon emerged in Isis. Many al-Qaeda militants
separated from the organization and joined Isis from 2013 onwards.
Isis
The roots of Isis are embedded in Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Orga-

nization of Monotheism and Jihad), which was established in 1999 in
Jordan and engaged in insurgency activities in 2004 with the invasion
of Iraq. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the organization, was
affiliated with al-Qaeda. The head of the sharia committee of the orga-
nization was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who became the leader of Isis and
was proclaimed by them to be the caliph of all Muslims when Isis
declared itself a state in 2014 in the territories of Syria and Iraq. Even
though there are ideological similarities between al-Qaeda and Isis,
the methods of Isis and its use of cultural violence make it an uncom-
mon jihadist organization.115
Salafi influence was palpable in the behaviors of Isis militants when
they destroyed ancient sites, cultural heritage, and artifacts. Shirk and
bid’a are the two keywords of Salafi thought that were used to legit-
imize this violence. Shirk mainly signifies worship of more than one
Allah, so it is actually a practice in conflict with one of the most
important principles of Islam, tawhid (the oneness of Allah). Bid’a is

the equivalent of “religious innovation,” assigning a pejorative mean-
ing to it.116 The existence of memorial tombs or mausoleums contra-
dicts the Salafi interpretation of Islam because its followers believe
that offering prayers at tombs and praising important figures in
Islamic history are heretical practices of kufr (infidelity) and shirk
(associating God with others). This is the reason that many Turks
react furiously when the Salafi-oriented Saudi King visits Turkey but
rejects visiting the mausoleum of Ataturk in Ankara.117 Isis members
transformed and centralized the prominent codes of Salafism into
its strategic agenda while destroying ancient towns and artifacts. On
the one hand, their destruction aimed at legitimizing their actions
through using the Salafi doctrine and presenting it as the only true
interpretation of Islam. On the other hand, they grabbed worldwide
attention through media coverage and reaped financial benefits
through trading these artifacts in the underground antique market.118
The same religious reasoning has also influenced the militants of
Isis. After the invasion of Mosul in early June 2014, Isis ordered the
demolition of all the churches in that ancient city.119 However, cul-
tural violence by Isis does not target only non-Islamic sites. They even
demolished a number of historically significant mosques and shrines
in Iraq and Syria.120 Isis militants also destroyed the ancient city of
Nimrud, once capital of the Assyrian Empire. The ruins were bull-
dozed, and Isis militants uploaded recordings of these barbarous
scenes to the internet.121 A fate similar to Nimrud’s also marked
another ancient city, Hatra, with horrendous destruction in early
March 2015.122 After the ruins of Hatra were dramatically demol-
ished, Isis released videos. The un classified all these attacks as being
equivalent to war crimes.123 This followed an attack on Palmyra,
which was another ancient city and one of the World Heritage Sites
of Syria.124 Isis organized numerous attacks from May 2015 to Sep-
tember 2015 and devastated almost the entire site because it had been
deemed polytheistic.125 In the early weeks of November 2016, Iraqi
troops marched toward Mosul to reclaim the city from Isis, and yet
again the satellite images showed that the two archeological sites were
purposefully destroyed by Isis.126
The cultural destruction did not include only towns and sites. The
protection of cultural heritage and transmission of cultural values to
the next generation depend on the availability of scholars. For that
reason, Khaled al-Ass’ad, the archaeologist who was responsible for
excavating Palmyra, was publicly beheaded by Isis.127 Other acade-

mics, intellectuals, and scholars have been the direct targets of Isis in
Syria and Iraq since the rise of militant jihadists in the region. An
important number of the targeted mosques and shrines were located
in Mosul, which was a trade center of the Middle East and had been
a pivotal urban hub during the Ottoman Empire.128 “We feel very sad
for the demolition of these shrines, which we inherited from our
fathers and grandfathers,” said Ahmed, a fifty-one-year-old resident
of Mosul.129
Isis centralizes only its own interpretation of Islam and perceives
other versions as a serious threat to its authority. The destruction of all
cultural symbols and heritages of different religions and non-Sunni
sects of Islam is a fundamental characteristic of Isis. But these militant
jihadists were not alone in their destruction of ancient heritage. The
US army set up a camp in the ancient town of Babylon which severe-
ly damaged the site even though Colonel John Coleman, command-
ing officer of the camp, argued that their presence would benefit the
site as it would protect it from looters. Zainab Bahrani, a scholar
of ancient Near Eastern archaeology, challenged the colonel’s claim,
arguing that “the damage done to Babylon by coalition forces is both
extensive and irreparable, and even if US forces had wanted to protect
this ancient city, placing guards around the site would have been far
more sensible than bulldozing it and setting up the largest coalition
military headquarters in the region.”130
Isis has more than a local agenda. In fact, it aims to attain a hegemonic
world order, a global vision more ambitious than al-Qaeda’s. Even
though establishing a single state in the world is not feasible, this aim
has captured the attention of large numbers of potential jihadists, who
now want to be part of Isis. Isis’s international networks and recruitment
are highly centralized ideologically in order to realize this goal. But this
centralization does not simply signify the control of the territory from a
single place. This is rather a centralization in ideology to open up new
branches across the world to have a sustainable future of their ideology.
For example, Isis increased its influence by extending its networks to
Nigeria through an ideological link with the Jamā’atu Ahli is-Sunnah lid-
Da’wati wal-Jihād (People Committed to the Prophet’s Teachings for
Propagation and Jihad). This group was also known as Boko Haram,
which signifies “forbidden or sinful Western education.”131 The group is
ideologically premised on resistance to Western forms of education and
lifestyle and even connects those things with the corrupt state institu-
tions and political system of Nigeria. The spiritual leader of Boko

Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, was influenced by the fourteenth-century
Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, and Yusuf’s death in 2009, along with
the suppressive policies of the government, radicalized the group.132
Boko Haram had gained infamy at the national level in the early 2000s;
the abduction of 276 schoolgirls in April 2014 from Chibok, located in
the north-eastern part of the country where Boko Haram has a strong
foothold, made them notorious at the international level. Boko Haram’s
rise to power revealed the fragile situation of Nigerian state institu-
tions.133 This sociopolitical fragility is the elixir for militant jihadists, as
was also the case when Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis emerged in
the volatile territories of Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan/Pakistan,
and Syria/Iraq, respectively.
The shockwaves created by Isis echoed dramatically in Nigeria. Isis
increased its attacks in 2015, targeting Muslims and non-Muslims
alike in the Middle East, Europe, and central Asia. It also claimed
responsibility, through its magazine Dabiq, for the deaths of 224 peo-
ple when it destroyed an airliner that departed from Sharm el-Sheikh
for St Petersburg.134 Isis has used the marginalization discourse on
Islam by the authorities in France to recruit more militants in that
country. Such discourse exploits the statements and actions of French
authorities to show how these authorities denigrate Islam. Cultural
marginalization fanned by the caricature crisis in the Danish newspa-
per led to a more violent response with the attacks against the French
magazine Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015.135 But those whose hostile
actions are blamed by Isis in order to legitimize their own cultural
violence do not merely include authorities in the West. The widening
scope of their targets may include any state or civilian actor outside of
their strict, narrow, and deluded interpretation of Islam.
Beirut woke up to an ugly morning on 12 November 2015 when
two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Bourj el-Barajneh, a south-
ern suburb. Forty-three people lost their lives. Isis claimed responsibil-
ity for this, the worst terrorist attack to which Beirut has been subject-
ed since the end of the Lebanese civil war. Isis released a statement after
the attack: “Let the Shiite apostates know that we will not rest until we
take revenge in the name of the Prophet.”136 Hatred for the Shia sect
was presented as the main motive by Isis in this case, but their hatred
extends to other sects that differ in their interpretation of Islam.
Of course, Isis perceives its greatest enemy not to be other Muslims
but European states and their cultural repertoire. The day after the
Beirut bombings, 13 November 2015, the French capital shook with a

series of attacks starting at 21:20 local time. Paris witnessed one of the
most horrendous and unexpected nights of terror since World War II.
The most striking commonality among the series of attacks in Paris
was that the attacks were not made against state or military buildings,
but against civilians who were enjoying their evening by having din-
ner outside or spending their time in cultural milieux like a stadium
or a theatre. Isis declared that the bombings were in response to the
French contribution to the allies’ military operations in Syria and
Iraq.137 The first attack was started by three suicide bombers near
Stade de France in Saint-Denis. This was followed by bombings and
restaurant shootings with Kalashnikov assault rifles in the 10th and
11th arrondissements. Another attack occurred in the Bataclan theatre
near the Place de la Nation while the American band Eagles of Death
Metal was performing. Indeed, the majority of the victims were those
at the Bataclan. A total of 130 people lost their lives that night, and
more than 350 were injured.138
France has the most secular character of any country in Europe. It
was even the role model for the Republic of Turkey because the
founding cadre of Turkey received their education in French schools
in the Ottoman Empire and remained under the influence of the
French Enlightenment.139 However, the French state has been hostile
to its own Muslim communities, which are perceived as challenging,
if not actively threatening, both the current secular character of the
French state and its Christian past.140 In the last two centuries, secu-
larism has evolved to become a main pillar of French officialdom in
balancing relationships between the state and society in the political
spectrum. This balance has sometimes been overseen by political
repression and at other times by a strict legal mechanism. Consider-
ing the country’s aggressive relationship within the religion-society
axis, terror has created division and disruption in the political land-
scape of France.141 This division and disruption is now shaping the
direction of discussions concerning the role of religion in society.
There is no limit for Isis in pursuit of legitimization of its cultural
violence. They do not confine their destruction to secular European
places or the artifacts of other religions. The holy sites of Islam itself
have been targeted even in the holy month of Ramadan, when Mus-
lims fast. Isis attacked the Medina mosque housing Muhammad’s
tomb and also implemented strikes outside the US consulate in Jed-
dah and in the Shia-majority city of Qatif in Saudi Arabia on the last
day of Ramadan, 5 July 2015.142 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stated that it

was the duty of every Muslim to destroy the Black Stone, al-H . ajar al-
Aswad, in the Kaaba, identifying the monument as a material of “idol-
atrous worship.”143 In fact, the Black Stone has always been one of the
most sacred objects of Islam. The strategy of Isis is to increase the gap
between their form of Islam and other forms, as well as between Islam
and other religions.
Two militants affiliated with Isis killed a priest in the town of Saint-
Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy on 26 July 2016.144 One of the nuns
who managed to escape from the church claimed that they shouted,
“You Christians, you kill us,” while forcing their elderly victim to kneel
before cutting his throat.145 After the police surrounded the church
and killed the attackers, Isis claimed responsibility and stated that it
was “soldiers of the Islamic State [isil] who carried out the attack in
response to calls to target countries of the crusader coalition.”146
Mark Lowen of the bbc asked a number of questions to the son and
mother of one of the attackers, who were living in Turkey in Novem-
ber 2014 when the interview was conducted. The statements of thirteen-
year-old Syrian refugee Ebu Hattab show how the power of cultural
violence by Isis makes militants of children. When Lowen asked Ebu
Hattab whether he would attack the United Kingdom if given the
opportunity, he responded, “I would attack the United Kingdom
because it is a member of nato and against Isis … I would also attack
Turkey if I am ordered to do so … The West will see the end soon.”147
His mother also offered dramatic backing; women like her may be
among the main forces transforming youths into militants. She stat-
ed, “I support some ideas of Isis and reject others. However, I believe
that they (Isis) came to help the Syrians … If my son kills the people
from the West, I will not be sad. I am embarrassed by my other sons
who participated in peaceful civil society organization. If my son, Ebu
Hattab, dies while fighting for Isis, this makes me very happy.”148
The cultural violence of Isis is premised on political and religious
accounts that demonize any Islamic or non-Islamic groups whose
interpretation of Islam conflicts with theirs. Global jihad is an essen-
tial concept for mobilizing the transformation of Muslims into muja-
hedeen (guerrilla warriors). The rationalization process for cultural
violence does not appear out of thin air, as is clear from the statement
of Ebu Hattab. Violence has its own concerns, ideals, and aims.
3
The Rationalization and Application

of Cultural Violence
“The more the concept of reason becomes emasculated, the more easily it
lends itself to ideological manipulation and to propagation of even the
most blatant lies … Subjective reason conforms to anything.”
Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason
motivation and the expected outcome
This statement by one of the most important critical theorists of the

twentieth century clearly explains how reason can be reduced and
manipulated once it is weakened. Horkheimer’s argument provides
an important perspective on how militants rationalize cultural vio-
lence by subjective reasoning. Such thinking may sometimes manip-
ulate events and information and can be strengthened as ideas origi-
nating from politico-religious concerns start shaping actions, rather
than the other way around. This is how the rationalization of cultur-
al violence by militant rebels and militant jihadists explored in the
previous chapter came about: it was based on subjective reasoning.
Similar motives and expected outcomes can be seen in the use of cul-
tural violence.
Militant rebels and militant jihadists express different priorities
and sometimes demonstrate contradictory characters. However, the
process by which they rationalize their use of violence has some
strong commonalities. Cultural preconditions such as ideological
isolation from the wider society stimulate the process of rationaliz-
ing violence by militants and encourage solidarity among them.1
Their use of rationalization to convince themselves to resort to vio-
lence is the first step in transforming their beliefs into actions. This
rationalization involves two common principles: (i) the motivation

to use cultural violence; and (ii) the expected outcome from the use
of cultural violence. Political and religious concerns motivate mili-
tant rebels and militant jihadists in similar ways. Even though these
two groups belong to different social geographies and may be mem-
bers of different religions, their rationalization of cultural violence
follows similar routes. Christian militants in their rebellions against
the Ottoman Empire were and militant jihadists in modern times are
inspired by both political and religious motives, and the expected
outcome of cultural violence is the attainment of their political and
religious ideals.
Religious concerns combined with cultural traits, language, and
ethnic identity in the struggles of militant rebels against Ottoman
rule. The divorce of politics from cultural formation is impossible in
the discourse of nationalism because the nationalist idea needs a
durable homogeneity binding the members of a community togeth-
er in a particular political space. A strong attachment to cultural for-
mations always characterizes nationhood. This is the reason that polit-
ical unity influences national unity formidably as both of the clusters
are “congruent” constituents of nationalism.2 When cultural violence
is used, political and religious concerns are manifested. The use of vio-
lence also signals the cultural goals of the militants.
When religious legitimacy runs deep in everyday life, dogma will
prevail in time. Weber explores the enigma of religious evolution by
asking how it is “that a power which is said to be at once omnipotent
and kind could have created such an irrational world of undeserved
suffering, unpunished injustice, and hopeless stupidity.”3 Irony reigns
when the peaceful world promoted by religion leads to the followers
of that religion interpreting sacred scriptures in order to justify
attaining that ideal by using physical force. The pillars of cultural vio-
lence are rational behaviours that open up the path of legitimacy for
militants, even though others in the same social setting may perceive
this violence as irrational. Violence ushers in a process of irrationali-
ty when the more powerful actor is merely interested in ruling.
Those in power often fail to notice other dynamics that may dimin-
ish their capacity to rule in the long term. The consolidation of
power by violence may even topple the rulers themselves, although
the same rulers perceive their behaviour to be fundamentally ratio-
nal, and thus legitimate.
Rationalization and Application of Cultural Violence 81
How did this rationalization process influence militant rebels

and militant jihadists? To give a sufficient response to this question,
we need to consider political and religious conditions at the com-
munity level, and psychological conditions at the individual level.
After the expansion of its territories in the Balkans in the late four-
teenth century and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman
Empire was gradually transformed into a multi-ethnic and multi-
religious society. The social and cultural organization of the
Ottoman Empire was based on religious and social rather than eth-
nic or political classifications. The millet system of the Ottoman
Empire created confessional communities to rule Muslims through
Sharia, Christians through Canon law, and Jews through Halakha.
The religious leader of each community was responsible for resolv-
ing social and legal problems within it. After the bloody and
volatile years of the first three quarters of the nineteenth century,
particularly in the Balkans, the confessional communities were
gradually replaced by ethno-religious communities. For example,
the recognition of Bulgarians as an independent community
occurred with the Ottoman imperial decree in 1870 that was read
in the Bulgarian church of St Stephen in Istanbul. The decree
allowed Bulgarians to pray in their own language and affirmed that
in addition to his religious duties, their priest would be responsible
to the Sultan. A direct connection between the community and the
Sultan was established by eliminating the dependency of Bulgari-
ans on the Greek Patriarch. This development in the Tanzimat ren-
dered ethnic background more influential than religion in the
state-society nexus.
The cases examined in the previous pages document the struggle of
militant rebels to establish independent political entities. An over-
whelming number of these rebels were Christians. Considering the
importance of religion in the governance of communities, it was not
surprising that many priests supported national uprisings against the
Ottoman Empire from the nineteenth century onward. These sup-
ports created great frustration at the Ottoman palace. For instance,
Patriarch Gregory V was hanged after the order of Sultan Mahmud II
on 22 April 1821, even though he had excommunicated the militant
rebels upon the Sultan’s request one week earlier.4 Rumours that he
had supported rebellion coupled with his inability to prevent upris-
ings in Greek communities made his death inevitable.
In 1829, Greece became the first ethnic community in the Balkans

to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire. Many militant
rebels from other ethnic communities embraced the same mission as
the Greeks. Resistance against Ottoman rule had both a political and
a religious character. Although the Edict of 1839 – and more particu-
larly the edict of 1856 – proposed significant reforms to mitigate the
unequal status of ethnic and religious minorities, the imperial ideol-
ogy of Ottomanism still aimed to keep the empire united and tri-
umphant through a common identity. Their continuing desire for
political and religious freedom was the principal motivation for mili-
tant rebels to revolt against Ottoman rule. Establishing an indepen-
dent state represented the epitome of their political ideals. At the
same time, the identity of each independent state was to be estab-
lished in accordance with the respective religion of each group of mil-
itant rebels.
In a similar way, political and religious concerns provide significant
momentum for the motivation of militant jihadists. These concerns
have been shaped by the historical legacy and socioeconomic and
political dominance of Western powers, which consolidated their
power more deliberately after the Industrial Revolution. The inva-
sions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the violation of funda-
mental human rights by the invading forces, and the death of hun-
dreds of thousands of people after these invasions increased the
political concerns of militant jihadists.5 The invasions were perceived
by militant jihadists as another exploitative attempt at colonization
camouflaged by the War on Terror story.
Yet politico-religious concerns are not only under the influence of
the colonialist legacy or the present socioeconomic and political agen-
da of the post-imperialist powers. The internal political concerns
among some of the militant jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and Isis
are equally important. For instance, these two groups have denounced
the political regimes of Shia rule and all other forms of Islam for con-
flicting with their own interpretation of Islam. In addition, the mili-
tant jihadists from Hezbollah and Hamas raise their religious concerns
through a rejection of secularism in everyday life in predominantly
Muslim societies. Turkish society was one such society in which secu-
larism was an important pillar of everyday life until the early 2000s.
These political and religious concerns give militant jihadists the impe-
tus to recruit more members and rationalize cultural violence both
against Dar-al-Kufr (the infidel regimes) and Muslim groups other than
their own. Jihad and sharia both structure the motivation to fight and
determine the outcome of this fight.
The call of militant jihadists to jihad invites every Muslim to join
their struggle for the idea of Islamic hegemony and makes their
community multi-ethnic and multicultural, formed by dozens of
nations across the world. The two nationalist jihadist organizations,
Hezbollah and Hamas, also seek opportunities in cyberspace to pro-
mote their causes and receive financial support. Although the het-
erogeneity of militant jihadists may mislead us into thinking that
such a community lacks the unity and solidarity of militants fight-
ing for national independence, they are still bound together by a
common ideal.
“The nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.
Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two
centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as will-
ingly to die for such limited imaginings”6 Politicized ethnicity paves
the way for the use of violence in ethnic wars.7 On the other hand, the
rationalization process for using cultural violence is based on an
imagined community, which needs to rebel only on the basis of polit-
ical and/or religious concerns. An individual belonging to this imag-
ined community transfers his or her psychological solidarity to this
cohesive ideal. At the same time, this imagined community is pre-
sented by the ideologues to prospective militants, assuring them
that they will be relieved from all further challenges if it is attained in
the future.
Both the national and jihadist struggles we have been studying
aimed to create the idealized fraternity of cultural community by
rationalizing violence to create a common value system for the imag-
ined community. These common values set the character of the imag-
ined community and motivate its members, who employ cultural vio-
lence to achieve an independent state (in the Ottoman rebellion
examples) or a jihad-oriented ruling system (in the Islamic ones). Cul-
tural violence plays a functional role in creating that imagined com-
munity through rationalizing the process in accordance with the
value system of militants.
Understanding the “sublimation” process gives insight into the
rationalization of cultural violence at the individual and community
levels. Sublimation is a term used by Freud to explain the way we con-
trol our instincts in order to gain the affirmation of the community
that we live in. Human beings are fragile, and one of the features of
neurosis is fear in an insecure situation.8 Yet sublimation may be dis-

tinguished from a neurosis. “The difference between a neurosis and
sublimation is evidently the social aspect of the phenomenon. A neu-
rosis isolates; a sublimation unites. In a sublimation, something new
is created – a house, a community, or a tool – and it is created in a
group for the use of group.”9 Evolution from “animal man” to “human
being” creates a safer environment with limited repression because
human beings follow desires and seek liberation.10
Ed Husain, a British citizen, became radicalized by believing the
interpretation of Quran presented to him by other militants and com-
bining it with Qutb’s Milestones and Wahhabi literalism. For him as
for the militant jihadists of Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and Isis,
socially acceptable values became the basis for violent behaviour. His
autobiographical book, The Islamist, reveals that Husain knows nei-
ther Arabic nor Persian, the two most prominent languages of Islam-
ic civilization. One needs to read religious sources in their original
language and also to think critically in order not to be manipulated.
Ed Husain’s memoir exposes how fanatics exploit the existence of
racial injustice and discrimination in Britain in exactly this manner.11
By emphasizing Islam as their identity rather than as a religion, they
create social cohesion. The existence of repression produces unsafe
conditions and fosters feelings of insecurity which may lead to resis-
tance. Political and religious concerns may be sublimated into violent
behaviours when the community approves the use of violence as a
rational response.
The sublimation process at the community level dictates responsi-
bilities to its members and renders the efforts of each member mean-
ingful and satisfying. This kind of sublimation is strong in political
and religious conflicts.12 Both a militant rebel and a militant jihadist
undergo a sublimation process by which they rationalize the use of
violence to overcome their political and religious concerns at the
individual level, while fighting for the political and religious ideals
at the community level. In fact, the martyr status many hope to
obtain represents the ultimate rationalization of violence through
violent sublimation.
Social psychologists argue that the rationalization of violence is
related to how we perceive our opponents and how these perceptions
legitimize our behaviours by creating a gulf of values between the one
who employs violence and the one who is subject to that violence.
Opponents in a militant conflict attack each other with insults
intended to dehumanize each other. The lack of moral concern for

and alienation from one’s opponent play important roles in the
process of dehumanization. Herbert C. Kelman has outlined the three
steps of dehumanization: (i) processes of authorization, which define
the situation and release the individual from personal moral choice
(ii) processes of routinization, in which raising moral questions and
making moral decisions are given no space; and (iii) processes of
dehumanization, which eliminate the attachment to identity both at
the individual and community level.13
In this regard, “post hoc rationalization occurs when, confronted
with evidence a person or his or her group has harmed others in the
past, he or she sees these victims as lesser humans.”14 The perception
of “lesser humans” derives from the assumption that harmed people
actually deserve that harm because they are representative of inhuman
values. Hannah Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism demonstrates that
the brutality of massacres in the past could be repeated with a new
form of governance, as happened with Nazi rule.15 Such regimes are
perilous for everyone who lives under them because the ruling cadre
have the power not only to destroy their enemies through omnipo-
tent propaganda but also to transform people into machines who stop
asking questions and cooperate with evil. The person who employs
violence categorizes their opponents as a savage peril, as something
less than fully human. This dehumanization allows them to mute
their moral concerns.16 This cultural shift in the cosmos of a militant
disconnects them from the ideal world that they fight for.
Richard J. Bernstein adapts Arendt’s argument to expose the rela-
tionship between violence and power.17 The difference he discusses
between violence as empowerment and violence as power helps us to
distinguish between public freedom and the extension of the rulers’
capacity for social control.18 When we look at the militants’ process of
rationalizing the use of violence, we recognize it involves concepts of
power. This creates a conundrum whether violence functions to
empower the militants or simply as power prima facie.
application of cultural violence:

dimension and target
The motivation and the expected outcome are the two key influences
on the rationalization process for both militant rebels and militant
jihadists. Yet there are also distinctions between the two groups which
are mainly the result of differences in their application of cultural vio-

lence. These are related to the dimension of their rebellion and the
targets of their violence. The principal goal of militant rebels was lim-
ited to establishing their own state or, at the very least, demanding
political and religious concessions from the Ottoman authority. They
struggled to guarantee their political and religious privileges rather
than continuing the same level of violence after establishing their
own authority. The extent of the violence they employ as well as the
broad range of opponents they identify make distinguish the militant
jihadists from the militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire. Moreover,
the militant jihadists discussed here have global goals; they wish to
rule the world in line with their own ideologies.
Hezbollah and Hamas do not work steadily towards global dom-
ination, whereas al-Qaeda and Isis expend more strenuous efforts to
transform this dream into reality. Al-Qaeda is more pragmatic than
Isis in this regard, since it aims to rule that part of the world where
Muslims already live as a majority of the population and then
extend its branches across the world. But like Isis, it intervenes in the
affairs of other countries, as evidenced through its involvement in
the Syrian civil war and its networks in Africa. Though they are
more attached to their national agendas than to a global caliphate,
Hezbollah and Hamas both collaborate internationally and target
multiple enemies. The main similarity between the four jihadist
organizations in the application of cultural violence is related to
their principal aim, which is establishing a political entity based on
politico-religious ideals through identifying extensive targets and
applying extensive violence. However, each group uses different
methods because of where they are located and the internal dynam-
ics of their organizations.
The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire didn’t have a socio-legal
framework as powerful as the one that jihad and sharia provide to the
militant jihadists. Since their principal aim was the acquisition of a
sovereign territory, many of the militant rebels sought conciliation
after getting independence. The Kingdom of Greece and the Princi-
palities of Serbia and Bulgaria all developed relationships with the
Ottoman Empire, even though that empire had been their nemesis
during their struggles for independence.
The militant jihadists have been striving to establish a community
based on their political and religious ideals. Since neither Hezbollah
nor Hamas has succeeded in fully achieving their nationalist political

agendas, it is hard to imagine what they would do if they ultimately
found themselves in control of an independent state of some kind.
Would they be able to negotiate and co-operate with their former ene-
mies the way the militant rebels did with the Ottoman Empire? This
seems unlikely, since their religious sentiments offer powerful moti-
vations for the jihadists to engage in cultural violence on a global
scale. The militants of Hamas and Hezbollah have not attached to the
global jihadist principle as much as al-Qaeda and Isis, but their inter-
national collaborations indicate that they are sympathetic to the glob-
al rule of Islam, even if not to the particular versions envisioned by al-
Qaeda and Isis.
The Ottoman state authority and their representative forces in the
periphery were the main targets of the militant rebels. The dimension
of cultural violence was relatively limited for the militant rebels when
compared with the militant jihadists. However, the political and reli-
gious goals of militant jihadists produce psychological pressure, and
this pressure motivates them to apply cultural violence not only
against the ruling authority but also against some members of Ummah
(the entire Muslim community) who perceive and practice Islam dif-
ferently from the jihadists. The hegemonic orientation of militant
jihadists has increased the number of their enemies. Their external
enemies are identified as infidel states and other Muslim societies
when they reject the dictates of the militant jihadists. Their internal
enemies include people who live in territories under their control and
resist them or refuse to cooperate with them. Many of these internal
enemies have been forced to migrate to neighbouring countries or
have lost their lives. The resistance of militant rebels or any other
group that revolts in order to determine their own destiny by found-
ing an independent state may garner more supporters from different
social and cultural backgrounds. However, the greater dimension of
cultural violence and the extensive nature of their targets increase the
enemies of militant jihadists and widen the opposition to them.
from the concerns of cultural identity

to the practices of cultural violence
Matthew Arnold promulgated idealist values to define culture and its

role in Culture and Anarchy, which he published in 1869. The
Arnoldian perspective offered a homogenous but also categorized

interpretation of culture, the values of which should aim to make the
world a better place through “sweetness and light.”19 According to
this perspective, sweetness and light represent beauty and intelli-
gence, respectively.20 Three years after the publication of Culture and
Anarchy, Edward Burnett Tylor, chiefly known as the founder of cul-
tural anthropology, proposed a more realistic definition of culture
in his landmark work, Primitive Culture, describing it as a “complex
whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, customs,
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member
of society.”21 This non-hierarchical definition of culture conveys the
message that every type of society has a culture because every society
possesses morals, laws, customs, knowledge, and a belief system. Con-
temporary discussions of culture still tend to either the idealist or
realist approach.
Ironically, militants consolidate their cultural ground by using both
of these approaches to define their struggle. The means of culture,
which the militants fight for, creates an idealist panorama based on
politico-religious concerns and ideals. This idealism is then remade by
violence, and by consultation with their beliefs, customs, law system,
morals, and the knowledge only available within the boundaries of
that idealist cultural definition.
Cultural violence erodes cosmopolitan values such as living togeth-
er peacefully. Living together despite our contradictory identities is
related to our approaches to thinking about the issues that make such
a utopic occasion possible. How we deal with this possibility depends
on our methods of listening to opposing views, or views which are
merely different from ours and which may pose deliberate risks of the
unknown. Norbert Elias states in his prominent work on civilization
and power that “the way in which individual members of a group
experience whatever affects their senses, the meaning it has for them,
depends on the standard forms of dealing with, and thinking about,
these phenomena gradually evolved in their society”22 The method
that we use to think about political and religious issues has a direct
impact both on our private lives and on the communities we live in.
How we negotiate or deal with these issues shapes the cultural form
and breadth of society.
Some of the militant jihadists rejected the glorious past of Islamic
civilization and its legacy in fields like science in order to not be in
conflict with their own propaganda and missions. When Caliph

Umar captured Jerusalem in 637, he and the patriarch Sophronius
signed a treaty, and Umar promised protection to all residents of
Jerusalem and to the cultures of religious minorities, including the
Christians.23 It read in part, “This is the assurance of safety which the
servant of God, Umar, the Commander of the Faithful, has given to
the people of Jerusalem. He has given them an assurance of safety for
themselves for their property, their churches, their crosses, the sick
and healthy of the city and for all the rituals which belong to their
religion. Their churches will not be inhabited by Muslims and will
not be destroyed. Neither they, nor the land on which they stand,
nor their cross, nor their property will be damaged. They will not be
forcibly converted. No Jew will live with them in Jerusalem.” This
treaty does not offer religious equality nor entire freedom to believ-
ers of all three local religions, as Jews were excluded. However, in a
marked difference from the oppressive Byzantine rule, later on dur-
ing the rule of Umar, Jews were allowed to enter Jerusalem and pray
in front of the Wailing Wall.24
Islamic history was not always peaceful; the violent division and
wars between the Sunni and Shia communities are another dimen-
sion of its formidable past. However, the same violent divisions do
exist in other religions and beliefs as well; consider the long rivalry
between the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant communities in
Christianity. The manipulation of scripture for ideological purposes
may be a powerful instrument in the hands of militants and disrupt
the hopes of those wishing to live together peacefully despite their
differences. If physical force is used as well, it eventually creates vic-
tims, and revenge then emerges as the driving force in the continuity
of violence.
Cultural violence has strong historical, sociological, and psycho-
logical leitmotivs. Feelings such as anger, revulsion, and revenge
lead to emotional solidarity among those who feel oppressed and
give them incontestable motivation to defy their enemies.25 The
ideal of individualism is eroded and replaced with the fulfilment
gained by helping the community, supposed to be under great
threats. These claims of victimization may be legitimate, but are at
other times illusions, yet fundamental cultural differences between
victims and their oppressors always accompany these claims. This
ideological polarization leads to a set of rationalized and emotion-
ally charged reasons to use violence to eliminate the risk – whether

real or imagined – toward the cultural integrity of the community.
Religious concerns play a great role in the decision to die for one’s
ideals.26 However, this does not mean that the decision is com-
pletely irrational. Still, it is hard to distinguish the political griev-
ances of a militant from the politico-religious motivation for which
he is willing to die.
Human beings engage in violence consciously, with a cruelty and
destructiveness that distinguish them from other mammals.27 Erich
Fromm argues that conformist aggressors obey authority rather than
enacting their personal desire and passion for violence.28 In this
respect, militant rebels and militant jihadists cannot be categorized
as simply conformist aggressors because their rationalization of cul-
tural violence is highly influential on their personal desire to destroy
the enemy. Meanwhile, they follow the commands of their leader,
and they want to put their leaders into authority over others. In rela-
tion to the militant rebels and militant jihadists, this aggression does
not derive entirely on their submission to any higher authority
beyond the authority that they fight for. That’s why psychological
and social motives are strongly interconnected in the case of an indi-
vidual’s decision both to be a militant and to select an authority to
submit to. Each militant is driven by his or her reasons for aggression
at an individual level, whether on the basis of political or religious
sentiments, or possibly both. More importantly, this desire is encod-
ed within powerfully rationalized motives. The strength of a political
or religious ideology lies in its persistence in working towards its
ideals over time. Any ideology needs time to transform both itself
and society, and depends on the evolution of ideas that “could be
completely realized only in some distant time, [and] in the course of
continuous development of the present becomes a norm, which
applied to details, effects gradual improvement.”29
The solidarity of a militant group blocks the possibility of empa-
thy for ideas and arguments conflicting with their own interpreta-
tion. Yet independence and self-critique may change one’s point of
view, as happened to Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, known as Dr Fadl
among his fellows in al-Qaeda. Dr Fadl was an important figure in
the global jihadist movement. After 9/11 he was arrested and
detained in Sudan and three years later, he was transferred to Egypt,
where he wrote Wathiqat Tarshid Al-’Aml Al-Jihadi fi Misr w’Al-’Alam
(translated and published under the title of Rationalizing Jihad in
Egypt and the World.) In this book, he rejects the violence he had
embraced when he had been affiliated with al-Qaeda, stating that
“There is nothing that invokes the anger of God and His wrath like
the unwarranted spilling of blood and wrecking of property.”30
Throughout Rationalizing Jihad, Fadl says that most forms of terror-
ism are “illegal under Islamic law and restrict the possibility of holy
war to extremely rare circumstances.”31
Fadl still remains one of the few militant jihadists who has criti-
cized the use of violence. The independence of the individual and the
value of cosmopolitan humanism lose their importance for militants
when violence interferes. Most jihadists lose “the readiness to listen to
the voice of one’s humanity … [which] … is independent of orders
given by anyone else.”32 The moral justification for violence is com-
mon to in-groups in many different social-psychological experi-
ments.33 After the cruelty of Nazi rule, violence studies in social psy-
chology became more popular in the US. Stanley Milgram’s famous
book, Obedience to Authority, is one of the best known studies in this
area. His experiments on obedience to authority at Yale University in
the 1960s demonstrated that people to resort to violence under
authoritarian rule.34 Violence is not restricted to politically or reli-
giously oriented groups such as the militants in our case studies. Judg-
ment in the rationalization process is subjective. The subjectivity of
meaning-creation does not permit critical perspectives when those
who want to use violence justify its use. Knowledge is not stable,
because bias leads people to incorporate errors into what they think
they know. Even though the correct facts may be stored in memory,
being exposed to propaganda and fabrication changes the perceptions
of people.35
As is demonstrated in the Introduction, the methods and goals of
the militant rebels and militant jihadists distinguish them from each
other. The rebels in the Ottoman Empire used limited violence when
compared to the jihadists. This difference is related to time and space,
and to the aims of each group. The nineteenth-century social and
political context, the resources available for using cultural violence,
and their relatively regional goals distinguish the militant rebels from
the militant jihadists. The militant jihadists have more advanced
methods because of the role of media and technology in our age.
What is more, the global tendencies and global networks of the mili-
tant jihadists broaden their lines of confrontation, so that their aspi-
rations are larger. Menacing threats about the permanent destruction
of opponents are frequent in the discourse of militant jihadists. One

must conclude, therefore, that although the motivation to use vio-
lence is independent of time and place, its application is culturally
bound. Because cultural violence is related to time and place, militant
groups will always have particular characters.
4
Structural Violence
“All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffer-
ing or death, to do what they do not want to do.”
Leo Tolstoy, The Law of Love and the Law of Violence
A turbulent social environment creates its own conflicting agencies.

Violence in a turbulent place becomes a coercive physical force. Suf-
fering or even death can be unsurprising outcomes in places of con-
flict. However, the most suffering occurs when violence targets the
everyday life of people. Bombed roads, demolished bridges, and
ruined houses are often the outcomes of violent confrontation. Not
only the conflicting groups but also the innocent become part of this
confrontation and suffer from despondency and hopelessness as a
consequence.
The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and the militant ji-
hadists of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis rationalized violence
due to perceived deficiencies the socio-structural system that afflicted
their lives. The violence they engaged in was intended to defy the
organizational capacity of their opponents. At the same time, this
defiance strengthened their own solidarity. This process transcends
different time periods and diverse places wherever perceived injustice
is used to legitimize violence.
structural violence of the militant rebels
The Tanzimat reforms were aimed at relieving the socio-structural

concerns of minority populations within the Ottoman Empire.
However, perceived social injustice, socioeconomic challenges, and
difficulties in the implementation of these reforms generally ren-

dered the efforts of the central authority futile. The dysfunctionali-
ty of local governance only exacerbated already notorious problems
in the governance of land. The expansion of social justice and con-
solidation of a culture of lawlfulness continued to be major con-
cerns for the public and for the Porte in the midst of the Tanzimat
reforms. The militant rebels used structural violence with the
expectation of eliminating these problems. Their ultimate goals
were diverse but included punishment of the local ruling classes,
attainment of equality in everyday life, and the establishment of
social justice and the rule of law. These goals influenced their
choice of targets, who were the local governors, pashas, and other
representatives of and collaborators with the state authority. Mis-
rule by these targets was believed to be responsible for the prob-
lems they were facing. This is the reason that, although the militant
rebels sometimes resorted to cultural violence against innocent cit-
izens, such attacks remained limited when structural violence was
used. If we remember the example of Nevâhî-i Âsîyye in Montene-
gro, narrated in Chapter II, the violent attacks against Muslim resi-
dents included both political and religious motives. Many Muslim
residents were victimized brutally. On the other hand, as we witness
in violent scenes in this chapter, attacks shifted towards Ottoman
state officials and this shift, in fact, distinguishes cultural violence
from structural violence.
Socio-structural concerns such as economic hardship, misgover-
nance, and injustice were the driving forces that persuaded dissident
militant groups to use violence. The tax revolts in Niš in 1841 and
Vidin in 1850 are good examples of these socio-structural concerns.
These two revolts became symbols that described the gap between
the expectations of the center and the realities of the periphery. The
Porte hoped to bring social justice through reforms, but militant
rebels identified the local authorities as incapable, corrupt, abusive,
and dysfunctional. The ensuing disputes between local governance
and the local community made it evident that the central govern-
ment was ineffective at coordinating the reforms harmoniously.
“The Sultan does not know what the pashas are doing, and the
pashas what the voevodes1 are doing, likewise the voevodes what the
subashis2 are doing, and so on down the line.”3 This pessimistic judg-
ment refers to the fact that local governors did not pay the salaries
Structural Violence 95
of public workers even though the Porte had sent those salaries
to them.
An iniquitous taxation system was one of the biggest problems for
tax-paying subjects, who were mostly peasants obliged to pay precise
charges on time. The reaya (the tax-paying lower class) intermittently
became victims of corruption by rapacious local rulers, the mültezim
(tax collectors), and later the mutasarrıf (local governors), who man-
aged the financial and social relationship between the people and the
Porte.4 The contentious tax-resistance movement in the periphery
forced the Porte to rearrange tax liabilities and payment times. For
example, the deferral of tax payments was tolerated from time to time
when the reaya were not able to pay.
In many towns and villages, the hopes of the reaya concerning their
future had been crippled by a lack of trust in local governance long
before the Edict of Gülhane was issued. The elites and bureaucrats
were infamous in remote territories far from the imperial center, and
it was hard to change the oppressive legacy of a mültezim in the
peripheries and provinces. In principle, the Edict of Gülhane includ-
ed ambitious codes drafted by aspiring reformers. For instance,
angarya, a forced labor contribution, and iltizam5 (a type of tax farm-
ing) were abolished. These taxes, collected outside of the rules set by
the Porte, became illegal. The Edict also acknowledged that bribery
was rife in the country and so declared that corrupt officials, includ-
ing the viziers, would be punished. Additionally, the central gover-
nance in Istanbul encoded small but symbolically significant regula-
tions. For instance, the Porte prohibited Ottoman officials from
asking for favours from subjects. These favours included requests for
free barley and straw6 by the zaptiehs7 and soldiers, from peasants, to
feed their horses. The bureaucrats in the Porte designed the reform
packages elaborately. The complaints and the problems of reaya had a
considerable weight in the preparation of the Edict. The drafting
process of the two major edicts did not happen all at once; there had
been a scattered struggle for reform in the Ottoman Empire ever since
the seventeenth century. The Edict of 1839 and the Edict of 1856,
however, were indisputably promising for both Ottoman subjects and
the state apparatus. The sagacious new codes included in the edicts
endeavoured to consolidate the rule of law by making significant, if
not radical, changes in social life, legal rights, cultural institutions,
public regulations, and economic governance.8
Decisions and policies of local rulers which violated these edicts

gave legitimate reasons for the local people to protect the militant
rebels and even to cooperate with them. The Porte was aware that
corrupt rulers were rampant in the periphery and a cause of social
dissent and, therefore, replaced them after many uprisings in which
militant rebels played an important role. Sometimes they were harsh-
ly punished; sometimes merely fired. Despite these attempts to con-
vey a message to the public, community life in the periphery contin-
ued to be chaotic because of social injustice and uprisings remained
mostly unresolved. The policies of the Porte to address the roots of
this problem were neither radical nor effective.
For example, changing the methods of tax collection was intend-
ed as an instrument to ameliorate the socio-economic challenges
that the Ottoman governance had to overcome. However, this led to
the inexorable rise of economic costs. The Porte’s perception of the
uprisings which followed was that they were controlled by malevo-
lent agitators and agents of social disorder. This perception was par-
ticularly influential when the militants asked for independence
rather than seeking negotiations with the Porte. As a result, the up-
risings were seen threats to state authority rather than as evidence
of discontent in the everyday lives of the Sultan’s subjects, who
were mostly poor and disadvantaged in a hierarchically-organized
agricultural economy. Dissent in the country created its own mili-
tant culture. The needs of local people, the incapacity of the state
to respond to the people’s needs, the dysfunctional governing sys-
tem, and the superior position of the governing class over the reaya,
all motivated many ordinary people to join the ranks of the mili-
tant rebels.
The incompetence and ineptitude of administrative bureaucrats in
the periphery were barriers facing progressive reformers during the
Tanzimat era. Arthur Evans9 summarizes these barriers by stating that
even a Vali – a governor – could be ineffective at achieving reforms in
the Vilayet (the town he presided over), despite his good intentions:
The Vali, in spite of the characteristic indifference of an Osmanli

to the suffering of reayahs, has not been without ambition of
improving the material condition of his Vilayet; but he has seen
himself thwarted from above by the corruption of Stamboul
(Istanbul), and below by the impenetrable ignorance of his own
officials. ‘What is the use?’ he would complain to consular sympa-
thizers when desirous of introducing this or that reform. ‘What is

the use of giving such orders to the Mutasarif or Kaimakam? They
cannot understand them, and if they did they could not carry
them out; the people would laugh at their reforms or throw
them off!10
Considering the political and social landscape of the changing

empire and the diversity of the cases it faced, it is difficult to agree
with Evans’ contention that every Ottoman governing cadre was
indifferent to the suffering of the local community. Indeed, some of
the archival documents referred to in this chapter show that many
of those in authority made sincere efforts to allay the concerns of
people in the periphery. On the other hand, as Evans claims, the
same cases also support the argument that corruption and misrule
were rife in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. The preva-
lence of corrupt administration in rural areas created great concern
among the members of the central government in Istanbul. This cul-
ture of corruption manifested itself in different guises. For example,
the father of Kostandi offered a bribe to Lieutenant Selim Ağa, with
the help of Anagonos, to release his son, who had been sent to
prison because of militant activities. When this news reached the
Porte, Lieutenant Selim Ağa, the father of Kostandi, and Anagonos
were all interrogated.11
Yet such bribery was only one small dimension of a decaying
social and administrative system. Taxation was a much greater prob-
lem, as were difficulties in economic governance and adaptation to
the new codes and decrees. One of the first and most remarkable
uprisings in the Tanzimat era occurred in 1841 in Niš, a strategical-
ly positioned border town which was a few miles away from the
Principality of Serbia. Thousands of peasants left their homes and
migrated to the Principality of Serbia because of tax concerns. Leav-
ing one’s homeland behind was a terrible experience and led to an
even greater resentment of the governing agency. Most important-
ly, their precipitous migration conveyed an alarming message to the
Porte: that these social upheavals could become continuous, de-
spite the egalitarian expectations fostered by the Edict of Gülhane
in 1839.
Indeed, social dissent in Niš was clearly discernible before the
revolt. The first signal of social unrest echoed in the streets of
town just a few months before the migration. On the one hand, the
grievous tax concerns of the peasants mobilized the uprising from

the bottom. On the other hand, some of the reactionary notables of
the town, whose powerful social status was at risk due to the codes
imposed by the Edict, gave an additional impetus to the uprising.12
This amalgam of dissent among lower and higher social factions gave
a powerfully hybrid character to the mobilization. More than two
thousand people gathered in a church located in the suburb of Niš
and asked that tax registers be confiscated from the local governors
in order to examine whether they were accurate. Even though they
received the tax registers and kept them for two days, they were not
convinced that the tax was calculated correctly.13 Their position was
clear and straightforward: Any claim for extra taxes was a violation of
the Edict. The militants and the peasants, who were overwhelmingly
Orthodox Christians, acted together in their fight against the local
Ottoman authorities to resolve their tax problems and diminish mal-
practice by the local elites. Resistance in each village and town would
have had a great probability of bringing about a domino effect and
convulsing the entire region if the number of militant rebels had
increased as well.
The reaya complained to the Porte that their annual gross income
was falsely listed at double its actual amount in the tax registers.
Besides, as opposed to the provisions of the Edict of Gülhane, extra
tax was put on both raki and wine.14 Historical malpractice in tax col-
lection had deepened the cultural gap between the state and the
reaya. The tax system was the most important contributor to the
social inequality that vitally affected the lives of the reaya. The ratio
of tax was kept at 3 kurush and 12 para15 for every 100 kurush of each
subject’s annual gross revenue in Niš. Despite this rule, the reaya
claimed that the tax was actually charged as 8 kurush and 12 para.16
What is more, the residents of Niš asserted that local elites and
bureaucrats demanded additional taxes in order to enhance their
salaries. These claims were debunked by Yakup Pasha, who was
appointed by the Porte to investigate the uprising.17 However, a Ser-
bian council member named Milte affirmed the claims of the sub-
jects. First, he blamed local bureaucrats for violation of the taxation
rules. Second, he blamed Sabri Pasha, the governing authority, for
insufferable violence as he had set fire to numerous villages in the
region and even displayed the heads of thirty militant rebels on the
bridge at Niš.18
The Porte strove to overcome the crisis by expending strenuous

efforts to bring back subjects who had migrated. Accomplishing this
was expected to be a potent symbol of its authority that would re-
establish the regular socioeconomic life of the region. But the reaya
still demanded the removal of disreputable state officials. This dis-
missal included, first and foremost, the aggressive Sabri Pasha, and
then the tax collectors of Albanian origin who had followed him.
Other demands included compensation for damages, because their
houses had been burned down and their household goods and per-
sonal materials had been seized. They also asked for the prevention
of brigandage in the region. The Porte accepted most of their
demands in order to convince the peasants to return to their homes
with their animals.
Nonetheless, the Porte rejected one of the crucial requests: the sub-
jects asked for the right to select tax collectors from among people in
their own communities. The Porte had reservations about the decen-
tralization of tax collection, because this request would open the door
to ethnic and religious independence and severely weaken its author-
ity. This was, in fact, the opposite of the Ottoman Empire’s aim in issu-
ing the Edict of Gülhane; almost every code of the Edict emphasized
the necessity of a central government either implicitly or explicitly. It
was believed that only such centralization could lead to the harmony
of state institutions and the cessation of vandalism and violence in the
country. Despite the Porte’s intransigence about who should collect
taxes, more than fifty thousand animals and hundreds of peasants
returned to their homes in the villages and towns of the province of
Niš in 1841.19 The conflicts had not been resolved completely, and
militant rebels engaged in more insurgency in the following decades.
However, the most aggravating social problems were postponed, at
least for a while.
The re-organization of the empire was not as easy in practice as it
appeared to be on paper. Hopes for saving the empire from dissolu-
tion withered with every uprising, and resistance persisted until the
collapse of the Ottoman empire with the end of World War I. Niš,
Çarşamba, and Vidin were the first towns to revolt and became infa-
mous in the eyes of the Sultan when attacks by militant rebels, upris-
ings among the reaya, and letters of complaint from state represen-
tatives were made known.20 Local officials imperiled public order
while suppressing rebellions that principally arose because of their
own actions. Petitions concerning the misconduct of local bureau-

crats did not fall on entirely deaf ears. One of these letters reached
Istanbul in 1856, and the Porte promptly sent an urgent notice to
İslimye province 21 ordering the immediate discontinuation of the
unjust policies and the unacceptable behaviours of the local author-
ities.22 The Porte strictly forbade violation of the rule of law by state
officials, and from time to time harshly punished them after hold-
ing an inquiry. Karlovo, a town in central Bulgaria, was also a hot-
bed of accusations against the local state government. Claims were
made that the deputy governor of the town refused to clear the
streets of the corpses of those who lost their lives to militant rebels.
What is more, it was argued that he asked for extra payment from
the reaya to do his job.23 The Porte usually insisted on a detailed
inspection when charges were made against its own administrators,
so there was an inquiry into the validity of these claims about the
deputy governor.
Nevertheless, the Ottoman Empire was faced with continuing
challenges because even replacing corrupt officials did not elimi-
nate dissent. In fact, forcing state representatives in the periphery to
embrace ethical codes of conduct was more arduous than drafting
the necessary laws in Istanbul. What rendered the situation even
more urgent were attacks by militant rebels. These rebels found a
new method to attack the state from the inside by planting one of
their own militants in the role of a zaptieh, or police official. The
local people and some of the bureaucrats reported such illegal col-
laborations to the Porte. However, the Porte was suspicious of each
instance of cooperation between state forces and the rebels. For
instance, a letter issued on 11 November 1850 asked for more in-
formation for the investigation of a zaptieh who was accused of
being the head of a militant group.24 In order to avoid such scan-
dals, the Porte warned the local governors to hire “honourable
and “trustworthy” people as zabtiehs.25
Officials sent the interior minister’s secretary, Mümtaz Efendi, to
the Balkan region the same year to investigate reports of troubles.26
Dissent in rural community life spurred and mobilized militants
from the bottom up. There was only a blurry distinction between the
militants and civilians and the state sometimes misidentified inno-
cent people as militants. The Porte received complaints about a num-
ber of incidents in Prizren.27 One letter stated that innocent people
were being detained and put behind bars as if they were members of
a militant rebel group. Tragically, those suspects lost their lives in the
jail due to the squalid prison conditions.
Debar, a sanjak (administrative) center of the Scutari province,
became disreputable because of an attack by militant rebels against
Mecnun Talib Bey, recently appointed as the new mültezim. In Debar,
as in many other towns in the region, mültezim were notoriously
unwelcome figures of Ottoman governance. Mecnun Talib Bey was
taken hostage in May of 1836.28 There is no trace in the archival doc-
uments about his situation after this incident, but kidnapping a civil
governor gives clear evidence about the kind of people who became
targets of structural violence. Mültezims were not the only Ottoman
officials subject to attacks. Heated accusations materialized when mil-
itants in Shkodra kidnapped the governor, Muhassil Hafiz Pasha.29
The spring of 1836 saw more public disorder as the Debar rebels
advanced from Ohrid to Monastir.30 The rebels of Shkodra and Debar
alarmed other mültezims in the neighbouring towns of Mat and
Tirana. They anxiously took up positions to repel the militants while
waiting for the asâkir-i muntazama, the newly organized regular army
of the empire, to arrive from Salonika under the command of
İskender Pasha.31 Dozens of troops were sent to Debar with the ap-
proval of Sultan Mahmud II.
The militants changed the reason for their uprising in the face of
the formidable Ottoman army. They declared, “We did not rebel to
make a war; our resistance is based on religious purposes.”32 Religion
offered a sensitive cover for them and the possibility of avoiding
severe punishment. Had they presented socio-structural concerns as
their motivation, it might have been delegitimized by the ruling
authorities. After the rebels’ implicit submission to Ottoman authori-
ty, the troops of İsmet Pasha and the governor Mahmud Hamdi Pasha
consolidated the security of Debar under the rule of the Porte for a
short period of time without any significant casualties.33 Neverthe-
less, militant rebels were not expected to vanish from the region. The
Sultan’s hatt-i sharif (imperial edict) gives ample proof of serious con-
cern about their activities. The hatt-i sharif expressed the urgent need
to consign soldiers to Monastir, which was one of the most significant
centers of the empire in the Balkans. Its aim was repression of the
recently ignited resistance, and in this case, it succeeded. The militants
of Shkodra were defeated severely in the autumn of 1835.34 A few
years after this event, the militant rebels of Debar and Shkodra
appeared one more time in the same region, and yet again the major-
ity were destroyed by intensive military operations in the winter of

1839. These consistent efforts by the Porte, which had been intimi-
dated severely by the militants’ attacks, once again brought victory, at
least on the battlefield.35
The risks these attacks posed to the territorial integrity of the state
produced scenarios with enormous social and political impact of
the kind that would usually only be seen during great wars. One let-
ter of the time argues that if the militants of Shkodra had been
brought under control, social order in the entire region of Albania
could have been maintained, and the submission of all subjects to
the Sultan’s decrees could have been guaranteed.36 The violent reac-
tion of the Porte against the rebels limited the scope of counter-
policies to military measures. However, the principal inspiration for
these revolts was the lawlessness, injustice, and the untrustworthi-
ness of the Ottoman bureaucracy itself. Instead of the implementa-
tion of radical land reforms to ameliorate the peasants’ concerns, the
usual solution offered by the Porte was to reassign the offending
governor to a “punishment” post, or to postpone tax collection for
some time. Frequently, violent and repressive responses of the em-
pire to attempts at rebellion were followed by the demand to
appoint a new governor or mültezim, as occurred in the case of the
Debar rebellion.37
We need to revisit the story of a Bulgarian national hero to con-
textualize better how militant rebels rationalized and then applied
structural violence. Vasil Ivanov Kunchev, popularly given the hero-
ic nickname “Levski,” or “lion-like,” came from Karlovo in central
Bulgaria. He was one of the most prominent examples of a militant
rebel using structural violence successfully. During the 1860s, Lev-
ski deftly mobilized people, established a secret network, and cre-
ated insurrections in numerous towns and villages in Bulgaria. The
Sultan recognized the Bulgarians as an independent millet like the
Greeks with the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870.38
Levski and other militant rebels contributed to the foundation of
the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in 1870 and thereby significantly
increased nationalist sentiments among Bulgarian subjects of the
Ottoman Empire, which gave them the confidence necessary to
avoid assimilation and domination by the Greek authorities. Lev-
ski’s insurgency convinced other non-militants to work for the estab-
lishment of a new social order. Even though he was a Bulgarian patri-
ot, his dream of an independent Ottoman Bulgaria did not include

culturally relativist discourses about the hierarchy of nations or mere-
ly nationalist discourses romanticizing independence. He did not
embrace the anti-Turkish sentiments, ethnic superiority, and religious
degradation that were popularly practiced at that time by the majori-
ty of the rebels with nationalistic agendas in Montenegro, Serbia,
Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Greece.
Levski clarified his position by targeting the Ottoman governance
but not the Turkish people in the uprisings he led. He believed in
equality among nations, free will, and the absence of tyrannical rule.
His inclusive understanding of equality was based on recognition that
neither religious nor ethnic orientation was a major determining fac-
tor in the oppression of people of the lowest social class, mostly peas-
ants, by the empire. This understanding informs his statement that
“we do not chase away the Turkish people, or their religion, but the
emperor and his laws, in a word, the Turkish government, which rules
barbarously not only over us, but over the Turks themselves.”39
Accordingly, Article 10 of the constitution of the Bulgarian Revolu-
tionary Central Committee, published in 1870, expressed their strug-
gle against the Ottoman government as follows: “We do not revolt
against the Turkish nation, but against the Turkish government and
against those Turks who support and defend it. We consider all
nations and nationalities who sympathize with our holy and honor-
able cause as friends, regardless of faith or nationality.”40 This proviso
found its place in Article 3, which called for unification of other
Balkan nations around the shared ideal of independence. The article
stated, “We, the Bulgarians, desire to live with all our neighbors in
peace, especially with the Serbs and the Montenegrins, who have the
same aspirations, and with the Rumanians, with whom our fate is
closely interwoven; and we wish to establish with them a federation
within our free countries.”41 The constitution also indicated a group
of enemies, the chorbadjis (Bulgarian bourgeoisie who were loyal to
the Sultan) and other local rulers who collaborated with the Ottoman
authority.42 The Porte aimed to sustain social control and eliminate
rebellions by trusting local elites. However, neither renting lands to
the peasants nor trying to connect to the peasants with the help
of local elites guaranteed social and political stability for the Porte.
Militant rebellions were one of the clearest examples of the socio-
structural dissent.
Levski’s insurrectionary committees struggled to consolidate their

networks throughout Bulgaria with the help of local patriots. How-
ever, the Porte had already labelled Levski and his supporters as noto-
rious rebels like other illicit, secret, and revolutionary organizations
resisting the dominant authority by physical force. Activists from Lev-
ski’s ideological orbit, including Bulgarians and other Christian eth-
nicities, attacked Ottoman postal services in Arabalıkonak in 1872
without Levski’s knowledge.43 Their arrest and interrogation revealed
Levski’s secret network, leading to his capture in February 1873. The
man who had brought faith and confidence in a renewed country to
his believers was hanged in the outskirts of Sofia.44 Even though Lev-
ski’s struggle was motivated by primarily socio-structural concerns,
his name was used in the construction of epic symbols of Bulgarian
nationalism after his death and his ideas about social justice were
mostly ignored in pursuit of Bulgarian nationalism.
The structural incapacity of the state led to the rising up of mili-
tant rebels in response to corruption, social injustice, misrule, and
tax concerns. State fragility appears as an enemy to itself in such
cases. For this reason, the militant rebels resisted and attacked state
officials and local nobles who were part of the higher strata of
Ottoman society. The rebels became a more formidable force
because of their ethnic and religious sentiments, which increased
both the intensity and the number of uprisings during the second
half of the nineteenth century. Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Greeks,
Macedonians, Albanians, and Bosnian rebels organized numerous
attacks against the Ottoman authority in order to gain independence
in the Balkans. The combined agitation of ethnic/religious motives
and the socio-structural concerns of everyday life ushered in a new
phase of radicalization.
The suppression of militant rebels, however, was primarily violent.
It was common for the Porte to use irregular soldiers when conflicts
were not resolved through negotiations between the government and
the rebels. Nevertheless, the Ottoman governance implemented gen-
erous policies to provide state support both for injured state officials
and for the civilian population affected by violence. One such
response was that to the assassination of Hüseyin, a zaptiye (police
officer) in Mitrovica, a town located in the northern part of Kosovo.
After his assassination by militant rebels, the government issued a let-
ter on 12 March 1859 giving his family a pension and ordering the
arrest of his killers.45 Hurşid, who was also a zaptiye, lost his life while
chasing militants from Montenegro and Austria. A pension was once

again assigned to his family by the Ottoman government immediate-
ly after his death.46 Similar support was provided to the family of
Ibrahim, who lost his life like Hurşid.47
The decision to compensate the families of loyalists depended on
a separate evaluation in each case. The case of Agrafa noted below
illustrates how the incidents were assessed case by case, considering
the circumstances. Agrafa, a mountainous region in central Greece,
hosted infamous rebels. The militants had an advantageous position
in such remote areas since the topography provided good shelter.
Militants in this inaccessible place managed to defeat various forces
from the Ottoman army in 1867, when a junior officer and five sol-
diers lost their lives. The Porte decided to give money to the sons of
the soldiers, but a regular salary was not assigned.48 By contrast, one
year after the Agrafa incident, the Porte put the family of Yahya Ağa
on a salary when he lost his life while chasing militants. Yahya Ağa
was a Tabur Ağası, a high-ranking army officer.49 The empire was
working under a budget deficit during the second half of the nine-
teenth century, and the cost of fighting the rebels and compensating
their victims and those victims’ families aggravated its already fragile
financial situation.
The cases of cultural violence in the previous chapter clarified the
role of political and cultural concerns among the militants. However,
the struggles of other nationalists show that structural violence was
also employed by militant rebels inspired by socio-structural con-
cerns such as inequality, local misrule, and injustice. Indeed, this struc-
tural violence had more importance in everyday life and was a more
concrete reason to convince people to rebel against the empire. Mili-
tants targeted the ruling authority by defying its influence in the pub-
lic sphere. And their use of structural violence determined the
response of state authority.
structural violence of militant jihadists
Both the reasons for and outcomes of structural violence are related
to the structure of society, whether at the local or the international
level. The cases presented in the following sections suggest that the
reasons for structural violence by militant jihadists are twofold. The
first is that the rationalization of structural violence is motivated by
concerns such as injustice, class oppression, bureaucratic corruption,
discrimination, or socioeconomic vulnerability. Those structural con-

cerns have an impact in the socioeconomic and institutional spheres.
The second reason for structural violence is that after rationalizing
such violence, militant jihadists aim to destroy those they identify as
enemies by attacks against state institutions or officials. Their incli-
nation to identify more targets and use greater force distinguishes
them from the militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire we have just
been studying.
The nemesis of militant jihadists consists of the dominant rulers of
the world order and those states and institutions which are influential
at the local level through social and political agencies. Apart from
these international targets, however, militant jihadists need a territory
in which to establish and practice their own social order. Hence, ter-
ritorial domination is the driving force shaping their application of
structural violence. Militant jihadists’ motivations for structural vio-
lence are different from the ones for cultural violence and in some
cases, social problems may even appear more important than those
politico-religious concerns which were the catalyst for their uprisings.
This is because of the ultimate goal of militant jihadists; unlike that
of the militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire, their goal is to capture
the maximum amount of territory and destroy the authority of those
institutions identified as belonging to the enemy by employing exten-
sive violence. Isis has gone beyond Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda
in this regard by declaring a worldwide caliphate and wishing to dom-
inate the world. They refuse to negotiate with those they see as infi-
dels to create sustainable peace and conciliation – or such negotiation
remains very limited.
Hezbollah
Hezbollah emerged in the mid-1980s in reaction to Israel’s invasion

of a strip of south Lebanon in 1982. The invasion not only legit-
imized Hezbollah in the cultural sphere but more importantly, it fos-
tered the mobilization of the local population to defend their home-
land. The defence of territory unified militants around the same
ideal. A number of planned attacks relied on the help of Muslim cler-
ics and the support of Iran. The identification of enemies and objec-
tives was declared by Hezbollah through a manifesto in 1985: “These
are Lebanon’s objectives; those are its enemies. As for our friends,
they are all the world’s oppressed peoples. Our friends are also those
who combat our enemies and who defend us from their evil. Towards
these friends, individuals as well as organizations, we turn and say:
Friends, wherever you are in Lebanon ... we are in agreement with
you on the great and necessary objectives: destroying American hege-
mony in our land; putting an end to the burdensome Israeli Occu-
pation; beating back all the Phalangists’ attempts to monopolize
power and administration.”50
Hezbollah’s open letter identified the invasion of the country
from outside with the unjust distribution of power within it, or at
least the perception of too much influence on the part of the Pha-
langists, who were pro-Christian and pro-secular. Hezbollah por-
trayed the invasion as the source of the social injustice that the local
people suffered in their everyday lives. More strategically, Hezbollah
targeted the invasion when they engaged with the Lebanese popula-
tion in order to create public policies for change. Impoverished
youth have been the main pool from which Hezbollah has been
able to mobilize supporters.
The protection of territory in Lebanon and the development of
unity and welfare for the country are the major socio-structural con-
cerns of Hezbollah. The ugly results of the civil war as well as the
invasion of Israel include unemployment, poverty, and insufficient
urban infrastructure. Yet eliminating these concerns has been a chal-
lenging task, because social concerns need political resolutions. To
overcome those socio-structural concerns requires political capacity.
An important segment of the Lebanese population raised the same
socio-structural concerns as Hezbollah. These shared concerns and
principles partially explain why Hezbollah still holds significant
power in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has not remained simply a military and political orga-
nization. Its welfare policies have brought a certain degree of pres-
tige to the organization in the eyes of local people. The advocacy of
social welfare policies before the elections convinced many people
that Hezbollah would be the right choice, which was confirmed
when the party won the elections, and it has been part of the gov-
ernment since 2005.51 Although others saw it only as terrorist group
because of its military activities, Hezbollah’s rise to political power
prompted a number of countries to recognize as a legitimate orga-
nization.52 Moreover, the social development programs of Hezbol-
lah increased the quality of social services from the health sector to
the education sector. For example, Hezbollah provided water to res-
idents of Beirut during the 2006 Lebanon War when Israel was
bombing the city.53
The activities of the Jihad al-Binaa (the “reconstruction cam-
paign”) is a remarkable example of how structural renewal can ren-
der an organization an influential force to mobilize people. The
exportation of the Jihad al-Binaa organization from Iran to Lebanon
in the early 1980s is a model of international influence by well-
trained human capital in community development projects. Judith
Swain Harik, an expert on Hezbollah, states that “this is an interest-
ing organization because it is chock full of professionals – contrac-
tors, engineers, architects, demographic experts – anything to do
with reconstruction … and because many of them were educated
abroad and came back to a depressed job market, Hezbollah had a
huge pool of professionals to choose from for this reconstruction
work.”54 Providing social services, making the everyday lives of peo-
ple easier, and bringing about progress have resulted in positive per-
ceptions about the organization.
Hezbollah has gained legitimacy at the local level and even been
recognized by some of the international actors. It may sound ironic
from this perspective that it has also been inclined to use structural
violence. But this orientation lies in its core mission, which is territo-
rial dominance. Controlling a certain piece of territory is a requisite
for practicing jihadist ideals and realizing the imagined community
in that social setting. More importantly, the territory implies more
than simply an area to live in; it is a homeland, and the focus of
national sentiments. The relationship between physical territory and
the imagined community connects the rationalization of cultural vio-
lence with the rationalization of structural violence for militant
jihadists. That is, it offers a place within which to attain political and
religious ideals while, at the same time, eliminating socio-structural
concerns. The capturing of territory or its defence against enemies
makes the use of structural violence crucial. This strategic interven-
tion increases the importance of a well-planned operation and orga-
nizational solidarity.
This is why Hezbollah’s mandate has always included the use of
violence to liberate the occupied territories. Another section in the
manifesto of 1985 is crystal clear in conveying this message: “No
one can imagine the importance of our military potential as our
military apparatus is not separate from our overall social fabric. Each
of us is a fighting soldier. And when it becomes necessary to carry
out the Holy War, each of us takes up his assignment in the fight in
accordance with the injunctions of the Law, and that in the frame-
work of the mission carried out under the tutelage of the Com-
manding Jurist.”55
Starting from 1982, suicide attacks made Hezbollah a prominent
power in the region. The organization’s Shi’a-dominated ideology also
helped it receive logistic and financial support from Iran and Syria.
The guerrilla war in south Lebanon was successful in driving Israel
out from the occupied territories on 24 May 2000. The foundational
ideology of Hezbollah also called for the destruction of the state of
Israel.56 But the legitimacy of Hezbollah in the nation derives as much
if not more from its political structure and social services. This diver-
sity makes the organization a difficult target for its enemies and a reli-
able ally for its sympathizers. All these various facets of its mandate
are aimed at accomplishing the ultimate goal of Hezbollah – ruling
Lebanon.57 This goal has gained a violent character with the employ-
ment of military force and suicide bombings.
Hezbollah’s international character has never been as strong as
that of Al-Qaeda or Isis. However, it remains an important political
actor in the Middle East. Its structural violence has mainly targeted
Israeli forces since 2006. Hezbollah was considered responsible by
Europol and Bulgarian authorities for the attacks against Israeli civil-
ians in Cyprus and Burgas, Bulgaria, in 2012.58 To take revenge for an
attack against a military convoy of Hezbollah and Iranian fighters,
the organization targeted an Israeli military convoy, which resulted
in the deaths of two Israeli troops and the wounding of seven on 28
January 2015.59
Today Hezbollah faces challenges to keep the balance between sus-
taining peace and social progress in Lebanon on the one hand, and
devotion to its foundational principles on the other.60 These founda-
tional principles do not only include a vision for the people of
Lebanon but also utter threats against the existence of Israel. Howev-
er, the political context in today’s world is different from that in place
when Hezbollah was founded in 1985. More than thirty years of expe-
rience in politics and international developments now force the mili-
tants of Hezbollah to rethink their position on the control of territo-
ry and response against their opponents more strategically.
Defiance of the enemy through weakening its power and achieving
territorial control are critical practices to guarantee social and political
power at home. The greater dimension of structural violence attempt-
ed against targets aims to increase the power of the organization. The

accumulation of power by Hezbollah depends on the weakening of
the enemy’s institutional and moral capacity both in the nation and
abroad. The sectarian political context of Lebanon and the country’s
fractious political atmosphere make structural violence an apt instru-
ment of Hezbollah. The use of structural violence by Hezbollah in
today’s Lebanon is not as frequent as it used to be in the past. Howev-
er, it continues to be an influential method when necessary. The
increasing involvement of Hezbollah in the Syrian civil war on the side
of the Syrian government shows that the organization seeks opportu-
nities to strengthen the structural capacity of its allies, weaken its ene-
mies, and extend its territorial influence.
Hamas
The invasions of Lebanon by Israel in 1978 and 1982 cannot be sepa-

rated from the struggle of Fatah61 against Israel, which targeted the
organization and its well-known leader, Yasser Arafat. The persistence
of Yasser Arafat led to the establishment of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (plo) in 1964 to propagate the liberation of Palestine
through armed struggle. The organization gained international legiti-
macy with its recognition as the sole representative of the Palestinian
people by over a hundred states. The rise of Fatah and the plo in the
defence of Palestine also made both groups fragile because of the fric-
tion between them, even though both fought under the umbrella of
resistance.62 The role of religion and politics in this struggle made
Palestine not only a place struggling for freedom, but also a territory
of ideological division.
If there was a shared practice among these antagonistic groups, it
was the rationalization of violence against their common enemy in
the cultural and social spheres. Social injustice dramatically worsened
the lives of Palestinians during the political conflicts in the 1970s and
the 1980s. These difficulties in everyday life found an important place
in Article 20 and 21 of the Hamas Covenant declared in 1988. The
article stated the social mission of their movement: “The enemy has
opened detention camps where thousands of people are thrown and
kept under sub-human conditions. Added to this, are the demolition
of houses, rendering children orphans, meting cruel sentences against
thousands of young people, and causing them to spend the best years
of their lives in the dungeons of prisons … Mutual social responsibil-
ity means extending assistance, financial or moral, to all those who are
in need and joining in the execution of some of the work. Members
of the Islamic Resistance Movement should consider the interests of
the masses as their own personal interests. They must spare no effort
in achieving and preserving them.”63
When a resisting organization is delegitimized because of its
inability to eliminate social concerns, a rival organization may take
its place. There is no room for stalemate in a politically driven situ-
ation. Fatah lost its moral authority with the rise of concerns over
mismanagement and corruption.64 The landmark 2006 election
brought victory to Hamas as the ruling authority of the Gaza Strip,
and pre-election policies have legitimized its situation not only as a
militant organization but also as a prominent voice of the Palestini-
ans. The self-identification of Hamas as a resistance movement has
not changed since its establishment. Nonetheless, Hamas has also
developed more inclusive policies aiming to improve social condi-
tions for Palestinians. In the pre-election campaign, the convention
declared by Hamas included an “Electoral Platform for Change and
Reform” section through which numerous policy promises, from
educational and administrative reforms to social welfare and anti-
corruption policies, resonated.65 These socio-structural concerns were
the outcome of legal and security measures implemented after the
invasion of Palestinian territories by Israel and its discrimination
against the Palestinian people.66 Fatah’s failure to resolve social
problems and its abuse of power increased emotional support for
Hamas and eventually consolidated its legitimization after the 2006
elections. The need to solve socio-structural concerns and ease the
plight of their people clarifies the rationalization of structural vio-
lence by Hezbollah and Hamas.
Bernard Rougier shows clearly that the fundamentalist jihadist net-
work finds common ground in Hezbollah and Hamas because both
organizations recruit Palestinians and motivate them through the out-
comes of unemployment, poverty, and despair in everyday life.67 As
with Hezbollah, Hamas perceives structural violence as indispensable
both to achieve territorial control and for retaliation. Hamas has less
recognition at the international level than Hezbollah does.68 Yet the
people of Gaza have received global support and empathy from many
who have described the Gaza Strip as “the world’s largest prison
camp” because of the Israeli military forces’ maintenance of a buffer
zone in the region.69 These extreme restrictions marginalize militant
jihadists and encourage their structural violence against Israelis. Rock-

et attacks, which have killed Israeli civilians from time to time, are one
response to this marginalization. They show that Hamas is still strong
enough to defy their enemies, and encourage the people of the Gaza
Strip to hold onto their belief and trust in Hamas. The immorality of
Israel keeping the people locked in and leaving them impoverished
by limiting fundamental resources is also ‘strategically unwise.’70
Noam Chomsky criticized the lack of recognition of the election
results in Gaza and the punishment of Gazans with excessive military
force as follows:
Punishment of Gazans became still more severe in January 2006,

when they committed a major crime: They voted the “wrong way”
in the first free election in the Arab world, electing Hamas …
Gazans committed a still greater crime a year later by blocking
the coup attempt, leading to a sharp escalation of the siege and
attacks. These culminated in winter 2008–09, with Operation Cast
Lead, one of the most cowardly and vicious exercises of military
force in recent memory: A defenseless civilian population,
trapped, was subjected to relentless attack by one of the world’s
most advanced military systems, reliant on US arms and protected
by US diplomacy.71
The military operations legitimized both Hezbollah and Hamas in

the eyes of the people of Gaza. The increase in civilian deaths and the
deteriorating social conditions also prompted the two organization to
plan and practice large-scale structural violence to preserve their local
power and control the territory. What rationalized structural violence
for Hezbollah and Hamas created a similar foundation for the com-
mitment to use structural violence employed by al-Qaeda and Isis. On
the other hand, the application of this violence has grimmer realities
for the people who live in territories controlled by al-Qaeda and Isis.
Al-Qaeda
The eradication of suffering is only possible if one identifies the rea-

son for suffering. Sometimes what is identified is an enemy, and those
who are suffering perceive themselves as being victims of oppression
or discrimination. This was the case for Hezbollah and Hamas and
also for al-Qaeda. Their perspective is that the US and its allies are the
main cause for the injustice experienced by local people when they
move into Islamic countries, whether by military invasion or by other
means. The dynamic involved may be very complicated. Consider the
invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets in 1979 and the lucrative finan-
cial and logistical support the US gave to al-Qaeda in order to defeat
the Soviets at that time. The Taliban emerged as the de-facto authori-
ty after the US coalition removed the Soviets from Afghanistan in
1989 and empowered the human capital and operational capacity of
al-Qaeda.72 The victory against the Soviets brought confidence and
structural durability to al-Qaeda. In fact, the cia, Saudi Arabia, and
Pakistan created a brutal enemy by supporting al-Qaeda73; as a result,
jihadist recruitment gained an international character by recruiting
more members from different countries.74 The deployment in Soma-
lia of the US-led United Nations-sanctioned multinational force, the
Unified Task Force (unitaf) from December 1992 to May 1993 great-
ly angered al-Qaeda. This anger grew after the US reluctantly inter-
vened in the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the war in Kosovo from
1998 to 1999.75
Three years before the 9/11 attacks, John Miller interviewed Usama
bin Laden, who said something enigmatic that foretold the terrorism
to come. Bin Laden said at the end of the interview that “my advice to
American journalists is: do not ask why we did what we did, but ask
what their government had done that forced us to defend ourselves.”76
The territorial expansionism of the US and its allies was perceived by
bin Laden as the “West’s monstrous plots to dominate Muslims and
plunder their wealth.”77 He told Americans in a video broadcast on
the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that “It has now become clear
to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system
and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by
sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the
major corporations.”78
The reliance of the US on the oil resources of Saudi Arabia and the
arms trade between these two countries makes the US vulnerable to
the Saudi regime’s support of militant jihadist organizations.79 A for-
mer cia operative, Robert Baer, defined the relationship of the US
with the Saudi regime as “sleeping with the devil.”80 The invasion of
Iraq by the US-led coalition and the power vacuum after the Syrian
civil war created the necessary social conditions for the emergence of
extreme jihadist organizations like Isis. Isis is different from the al-
Qaeda organization in terms of its hierarchical structure, its tactical
position on the use of violence, and its interpretation of Islam.81 The

invasion of Iraq illustrated that the excessive use of military force
rather than restoring order led to yet more violence from militant
jihadists who perceived the invasion as a cause celebre.82 The invasion
disrupted the lives of local people severely and opened a gate for the
advancement of Isis.83
Not all problems leading to the recruitment of militant jihadists
come from outside, however. The consolidation of jihadist power in
a country is directly related to its occupants having been exposed
to corruption, maladministration, and social injustice for a long
time.84 Demands to change the social structure need to be in accord
with the principles of the majority. The values of those who control
a particular territory also make an important contribution to its
social structure. To illustrate this point, consider the Syrian-born
Abu Musab al-Suri’s career in al-Qaeda. Abu Musab rose to power
gradually in the 1980s and became a leading strategist and a mem-
ber of the inner council, helping shape the policies of the organiza-
tion. He asserted that “the greatest loss was not the destruction of
the terrorist organization but the downfall of the Taliban, which
meant that al-Qaeda no longer had a place to train, organize, and
recruit.”85 The loss of its territorial base made the attainment of its
imagined community even more uncertain. This is the reason that
structural violence has continued to be used by al-Qaeda and Isis in
order to gain control of new territory.
After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, six
tapes were discovered that gave important hints for understanding the
management of violence. Abu Musab states in one of these tapes that
the operational side is crucial for the strength of al-Qaeda, such as
“how to keep jihadist cells secure and how to create contingency
plans if an original plan fails.”86 Jabhat-al-Nusra, who was a top Sharia
official in the Syrian jihadist group, acknowledged that Abu Musab
inspired their strategic methods. “The strategies derived from Abu
Musab’s guidelines to win hearts and minds are largely four-fold: pro-
vide services to people, avoid being seen as extremists, maintain
strong relationships with communities and other fighting groups,
and put the focus on fighting the regime.”87 Unification and solidari-
ty among the militant jihadist groups constitute the essentials of the
strategic plan.
A well-known book among the militant jihadists of al-Qaeda, The
Management of Savagery by Abu Bakr Naji, was published in 2004 on
the internet. The Al Arabiya Institute for Studies claimed that Abu
Bakr Naji was a pseudonym for the actual author of this book,
Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim, the head of media and propa-
ganda for al-Qaeda.88 Al-Hakim himself was killed in a US airstrike on
Pakistan in 2008.89 The book lists the goals and methods of al-Qaeda
in propagating the use of violence. The following passage explains the
goals of violence and determines the dimension and target in the
application of violence:
Large steps will be taken towards the stage of the management

of savagery and forcing the weak, neglected troops of apostasy
who are abandoned in the peripheries (of the country) and the
crowded regions – since the elite and the well-equipped forces
are scattered between guarding the governments and the Cru-
saders and guarding the economic regions and the regions of
amusement and tourism – to choose between killing or joining
us, or fleeing and abandoning their weapons. They leave the
management of the regions to us, which will have begun to suf-
fer from the weakness of the authorities in it and from the
growth of gangs and insecurity within them. We must deal with
it and manage this savagery.90
The book focuses on methods for making the salafi jihadist fight
sustainable in the long term while maximizing the territories ruled
by the organization through a deft management of savagery. The
sophisticated methods in the book explain the way that the ratio-
nalization of structural violence is connected to its application. The
people can make their dreams come true according to the follow-
ing criteria:
Simplifying the preceding plan on specific points:

This plan requires:
– A military strategy working to disperse the efforts and forces of
the enemy and to exhaust and drain its monetary and military
capabilities.
– A media strategy targeting and focusing on two classes. (The
first) class is the masses, in order to push a large number of
them to join the jihad, offer positive support, and adopt a nega-
tive attitude toward those who do not join the ranks. The sec-
ond class is the troops of the enemy who have lower salaries, in
order to push them to join the ranks of the mujahids or at least

to flee from the service of the enemy.91
This shows how the defensive culture of al-Qaeda has become trans-
formed into an offensive culture. This strategy is coherent because it
increases the strength of resistance when the enemy suffers attacks.
This emphasis on offence both motivates militants to dehumanize the
enemy and becomes the means to belittle the enemy by emphasizing
how weak they are. This is a gradual change in the direction of route
from the silent empowerment of an organization to the extensive
destruction of its enemy.
We can see this in the video bin Laden released shortly after the
9/11 attack. “Here is the United States. It was filled with terror from
its north to its south and from its east to its west … What the United
States tastes today is a very small thing compared to what we have tast-
ed for tens of years. Our nation has been tasting this humiliation and
contempt for more than 80 years.”92This statement gives evidence of
the interrelationship between a defensive and an offensive culture
within a historical framework.
The example of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American preacher,
shows how the propagandists of al-Qaeda pose threats against their
targets. In 2011, Al-Awlaki was the first US citizen killed by a US
drone strike. He had already become infamous in 2009, when he
encouraged Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to dedicate himself for a
“martyrdom mission” by blowing up himself with explosives hid-
den in his underwear while he was travelling by plane to Detroit.93
The contraption did not explode but it burned Abdulmuttalab
severely. He was attacked by passengers and the cabin crew and the
bomb was defused. His interviews with fbi agents paint a picture
of a young man who had left a promising career for an unknown
future. Abdulmuttalab was born into an affluent Nigerian family;
he attended University College London to study engineering and
lived in a luxury residence there with his brother. Most of us do not
expect a well-educated person coming from a high social class to
explode himself out of the blue. Even if such a person is religious,
we do not assume that such a person will be a threat. But the radi-
calization of Abdulmuttalab was, in fact, similar to that of many
other militant jihadists. When his interest in religion increased, an
Islamic bookstore in London directed him towards the writings of
al-Awlaki. The ideas of al-Awlaki influenced him so much that he
decided to go to Yemen to meet with him. First Abdulmuttalab

moved to Dubai and then, in 2009, left Dubai for Yemen where al-
Awlaki resided. This meeting sealed his fate when he was only
twenty-three years old. Had he not submitted to the authority of al-
Awlaki in Yemen, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would not have
attempted to blow himself up. After the failure of his suicide attack,
he was sent to prison with four life terms plus an additional fifty
years’ incarceration.94
The success of organized violence depends on conditions such as
human resources, material needs, and aggressive methods of attack.
Local territories are transformed into an auxiliary force determining
the strength of all these conditions. The main organization diversifies
structural violence for operational reasons. This diversification even-
tually leads to the emergence of new actors that belong to the same
ideological orbit. The al-Nusra Front95 is one such organization,
founded in 2012 by al-Qaeda to establish an Islamic state in the Lev-
ant, particularly in Syria and Lebanon. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-
Zawahiri instructed al-Nusra Front leader Jolani to pursue the fol-
lowing five goals:
• Better integrate his movement within the Syrian revolution and its
people
• Coordinate more closely with all Islamic groups on the ground
• Contribute towards the establishment of a Syria-wide sharia judi-
cial court system
• Use strategic areas of the country to build a sustainable al-Qaeda
power base
• Cease any activity linked to attacking the West96
Attachment to the local territory and capturing the sympathy of its

people are essential in order to get the most benefit from the applica-
tion of structural violence. In line with these strategic outcomes, the
al-Nusra Front declared its divorce from al-Qaeda on 26 July 2016.97
This was not an ideological division but a structural reorganization
approved by al-Qaeda in order to be more efficient in their struggle
in Syria.98 The group also changed its name, announcing, “We declare
the complete cancellation of all operations under the name of Jabhat
al-Nusra, and the formation of a new group operating under the name
‘Jabhat Fath al-Sham’ noting that this new organization has no affili-
ation to any external entity.”99 But although the al-Nusra Front
changed its name to increase its structural capacity in Syria, it still

fights for the same objectives as al-Qaeda.
The fall of the Ottoman Empire and the removal of the caliphate in
modern Turkey in 1924 created a moral shock for many devoted Mus-
lims. The more radicalized ones never gave up the struggle to re-
establish the caliphate, and cultural violence continues to motivate
many to participate in attacks against enemies identified by the mili-
tant jihadists. Structural violence, however, is entrenched in the meth-
ods used to defy the enemy at the operational level. Acquiring a local
territory plays a strategic role in strengthening organizational capaci-
ty through recruitment, training militants, and organizing attacks
against the territories of the enemy. Control of territory is still an
essential element in the structural violence of al-Qaeda.100 The reason
that different factions are created by al-Qaeda is to gain as much terri-
tory as possible, gradually, and sometimes secretively. Efforts to spread
its power to other territories in Africa and the Middle East force al-
Qaeda to face national challenges to its ideology of global rule.101 The
local branches of al-Qaeda propagate its cultural influence but make
the organization weaker at the structural level. Thus, success at spread-
ing cultural violence does not always indicate success in organizing
structural violence.
In the events, discourses, materials, and plans of al-Qaeda, reasons
for using structural violence differ from the reasons for using cultur-
al violence. In the previous chapters, we saw the way cultural violence
was used to create conflict, legitimize violence through their per-
ceived morality, and mobilize more militants through the formidable
force of ideology. However, structural violence is used to increase the
capacity for aggression, to make the enemy dysfunctional while
increasing the operational capacity of militants and, more important-
ly, to gain territory. Thus, these differences are not only based on the
reasons behind cultural and structural violence but also on their
expected outcomes. This is most clear in the use of structural violence
by Isis.
Isis
The central factor in establishing the authority of a state, according

to Weber, is the monopolization of violence in the territory it
rules.102 State legitimacy in the use of violence offers relative security
rather than chaos, though this relative security is the guarantor nei-
ther of justice nor of peace. But this monopolization of violence does

provide the state with public recognition of its right to rule. Nobert
Elias also focused on the centralization of violence in his theory of
civilization, and pointed out that the control of violence contributes
to the development of civilization.103 The use of violence by states
throughout history has led to the use of terms such as a “just “ or an
“unjust” war, and led to much discussion about when and how vio-
lence needs to be limited in order for civilization to progress. Isis,
being self-identified as a state, uses unconventional methods and
strategies – including exploitation of the media – which violate both
the fundamental principles of war between states and the traditional
practices of Islam.104 The methods used by Isis make it the most rad-
ical, systematic, and violent movement of its kind.105 Although there
are many commonalities between al-Qaeda and Isis, including the
movement of militants from one organization to the other, Isis dis-
tinguishes itself from its cousin through its dimension of structural
violence, its hasty approach to attaining its ultimate goal, and its
capacity for online mobilization.106 On the other hand, as with
Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda, territorial control is essential to the
strength of the organization. Conversely, the capacity of Isis for vio-
lence depends on the structural weakness of its enemies. Using its
media outputs to record beheadings disseminates the message that
there is no limit or ethical standard to be observed by Isis when they
target their enemies.
When it invaded Iraq and Syria, Isis was able to take control of a
huge amount of territory because its untraditional methods in the use
of violence astonished its opponents and discouraged them from
believing they could oppose it. Greater violence always brings greater
attention. This fact lies behind the growth strategy of Isis. Such a
methodological shift in the application of violence has forced the
West to rethink its own methods when it fights Isis. What makes the
violence of Isis more effective than that of other jihadist organizations
is its prodigious ability to use global publicity about violence to lure
disaffected Muslims to join them in “an exalted campaign of purifica-
tion through sacrificial killing and self-immolation.”107
The extensive violence of Isis is premised on its principal goal,
which is to establish a worldwide caliphate. This goal was clearly
expressed in the fifth edition of Dabiq magazine, which was published
by Isis for its ideological propaganda. It stated that the “blessed flag ...
covers all eastern and western extents of the Earth, filling the world
with the truth and justice of Islam and putting an end to the false-
hood and tyranny of jahiliyyah [state of ignorance], even if America
and its coalition despise such.”108 This propaganda aims to recruit
more members to establish a jihadist world order. Accordingly, Isis
members released a video in 2014 declaring their intention to invade
Rome, Al-Andalus in Spain, and Jerusalem.109 Similarly, in 2015 a
Turkish magazine published by Isis, Konstatiniyye, boasted of their
future conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul).110
Two Isis-affiliated suicide bombers exploded themselves on 10
October 2015 in front of the Ankara central railway station and killed
103 civilians. This was the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of
modern Turkey.111 Isis also targeted a peace rally protesting the Turk-
ish government’s attacks against Kurdish militants in the southeastern
part of the country because Kurdish militants in southern Syria and
Iraq posed serious challenges to Isis.112 Their resistance irritated its
leaders, who ordered members to target peacefully marching people.
In addition, measures against Isis by the Turkish government had
increased shortly before the attack. The alliance with the US-led coali-
tion and airstrikes fortified the Turkish government’s position against
Isis, which weakened and frustrated the organization.
On the evening of 28 June 2016, three Isis suicide-bombers from
Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan, and Dagestan targeted Istanbul’s Ataturk
Airport. They killed forty-three people and wounded more than
two hundred.113 Turkish police had already searched local Isis cells
after the Ankara attack and had found plans for a number of poten-
tial targets, including Ataturk airport and four other major airports
in the country. In one of these documents, the encoded dialogue
between the leader of the Gaziantep114 branch of Isis and the
alleged leader of Isis in Turkey, Ilhami Bali, declared: “Yet Turkey
declared war on us. They captured our brothers and sisters and sent
them back to their own countries. They declared an explicit war on
us so we declare too. He says attack against Pkk, touristic areas or
the Turkish military forces indifferently. My brother will send you
the men that you need. Relieve your Muslim brothers and sisters,
target Pkk, Turkish people and touristic destination so we shall cel-
ebrate this.”115
What is more alarming is the unlimited threat from Isis that may
bring physical and psychological ruin to countless people if they
acquire weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the capture of Ersan
Çelik, who was the technology commander for Isis, clarified its plans
in this regard. The plea of Çelik to the Gaziantep prosecutor indicat-

ed that Isis is not far from creating large-scale destruction by means of
chemical bombs. Çelik states,
Long-range missiles obtained from the Assad regime are based in

Membiç village. There is an empty factory in the center of Raqqa
where chemical weapons are prepared under the supervision of
‘Chechen Umar. There is also chlorine in a factory near another
operational zone to produce chemical weapons. Three fighter jets
ready to be used in an attack are located in al-Tabqa airport
among 71 aircraft seized from the Assad regime. There are efforts
to make powerful hydrogen bombs in the Aleppo power station.
Engineers in the organization said that they will destroy every-
thing within a forty-mile blast zone. In close proximity to the
Turkish border, there are liquid explosive materials prepared by
Azerbaijani militants. I know that the militants managed to smug-
gle tnt and glucan explosives into Turkey through Elbeyli. I pur-
chased a model and remote-controlled helicopter costing thirty
thousand dollars given to me by Abu Yahya Şamiye from Istanbul.
Two helicopters were also purchased to organize a chemical
attack. One helicopter is able to carry seventeen kilos and the
other fifty kilos of chemical weapons.116
The strategies of Isis reveal that it has a sophisticated system for cre-
ating mass destruction. Sleeper cells also have particular importance
for its use of structural violence. Gaziantep, a town in southern Turkey
that borders on Syria, is the locus of many Isis cells. The Office of the
Public Prosecutor in Ankara revealed in its indictment how Isis mem-
bers infiltrated Turkey and planned their attacks. The indictment’s
main source is a confiscated computer belonging to Yunus Durmaz,
the leader of Isis in Gaziantep. Data in the computer reveal how the
salaries of Isis militants are assigned and distributed.
The costs recorded in that computer also indicate accountability in
terms of spending money. Between 40 and 75 Isis militants received
combined monthly payments amounting to a total of $25,000. If this
amount was distributed evenly, each militant would have received
between $330 and $625. Considering that the minimum salary in
Turkey at the time was approximately $400 a month, the compensa-
tion for militants was sufficient to survive while being trained to be
suicide bombers. Perhaps the most striking revelation in the docu-
ment is that the planned invasion of Gaziantep was to employ four

hundred Isis militants. Durmaz’s notes indicate the strategies for
structural violence to be used in the invasion:
• The Turkish militants who arrive in Turkey from Syria must not
get in contact with their own families here.
• Our brothers have to learn how to camouflage themselves in
public.
• The persons who supply and accommodate ordnance must be
very careful.
• The number of militants must be increased and the sustainability
of the mission must be guaranteed if the militant assigned to that
duty fails.
• Information must be gathered from our brothers in Turkey who
completed their compulsory military service in the last five years.
• The people of the Republic of Turkey are fond of worldly desires
so it is important to target law enforcement to assimilate the
entire population. I swear to God the devils of this nation will be
utterly destroyed.117
Similarly, conversations between Isis militants in Jordan ask for the

recruitment of Jordanian citizens to organize attacks against their
own country.118 By relying on local sympathizers, Isis lessens the risks
of being caught importing militants to the country where an attack is
planned. The attacks in France committed by French jihadists also
reveal the importance of employing a local cadre who can easily tar-
get people and institutions and lead to public panic. Using militants
against the country where the militants grew up is the most effective
method because the militants know the geographical conditions,
speak the language, and can adjust their behaviour to fit the cultural
codes of that society. Similar structural violence has occurred in
Turkey, Jordan, and France.
Targeting the happiness of innocent people is part of this strategy.
This is the reason that attacks similar to those in Nice and Paris hap-
pened in Berlin and Istanbul. A truck was deliberately driven into the
Christmas market beside Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Bre-
itscheidplatz in Berlin on 19 December 2016. The driver, who killed
twelve people and left fifty-six people with non-fatal injuries, was an
Isis operative of Tunisian origin.119 The next target of Isis was Reina,
a popular night club in Istanbul. Abdulkadir Masharipov,120 an
Uzbek national trained in Afghanistan, killed thirty-nine people with

a series of random shootings during a few minutes on New Year’s Eve,
2017. Isis had previously been reluctant to claim responsibility for
attacks in countries like Turkey where the majority of the population
observes Sunni Islam. They didn’t want to alienate potential followers
and harm their recruitment policy because of the horror of and pub-
lic reaction to the deaths of so many innocent people. But the strate-
gy of Isis has changed since 2016. In fact, the Nashir Media Founda-
tion, controlled by Isis, had already published threats before the New
Year celebrations, inciting its followers to “replace their fireworks
with explosive belts and devices, and turn their singing and clapping
into weeping and wailing.”121 A video disseminated by Isis also por-
trayed the people in Reina as infidels, even though many of them
were Muslims.
The victorious attacks of Turkey against Isis in Syria in the last quar-
ter of 2016 frustrated militant leaders. “Protector of the Cross” is the
new name Isis has given Turkey.122 This demonization of Turkey
reveals a strategic shift in the design of attacks. They aim to weaken
the country on the one hand and prevent the estrangement of fanatic
Muslims on the other. The attacks against the joy of people are the
most deliberate illustration of the way that cultural violence is com-
bined with structural violence to bring a moral defeat to the public
and make the enemy incapable of governing its territory.
The spread of Isis in Afghanistan aims to take control of more ter-
ritory. The first time Isis allowed a meeting with a journalist was when
Najibullah Quraishi, an Afghan journalist with Al-Jazeera, visited one
of the Isis camps in the Khorasan region of Afghanistan in 2015. He
both interviewed militants and filmed them.123 The film shows that
the power of the organization kept increasing even while they were
engaging in conflict with al-Qaeda militants in the region. The con-
flict between Isis and al-Qaeda resulted from the Isis declaration that
al-Qaeda militants must join with their forces. In front of journalist,
Isis militants blew up ten older men because they had accommodat-
ed al-Qaeda militants. Despite the clashes, some of the militants of al-
Qaeda joined Isis. One Isis militant, who introduces himself as Abu
Rashid, says,“We were fighting jihad under the leadership of [the] Tal-
iban … At the time, fighting with them was the right thing to do
because there was no caliphate ... But God says that once there is a
caliphate, to leave any other group and to follow the caliphate, the
Quran and the Islamic system.”124
A small, crumbling building in the film appears to be used as a

classroom to indoctrinate children as young as five years old. The mil-
itants train these Afghan children how to use guns and bombs in the
name of jihad. Hatred and polarization constitute the theoretical basis
of this training, which later transforms into deadly peril. There are no
moral limits to Isis, so they open “jihad schools” in the territories
under their control to train children, even those under ten years old,
how to use methods of torture considered by the un Human Rights
Council to be war crimes.125 In the same way, Isis captured Yazidi chil-
dren in northern Iraq and indoctrinated them, first by identifying
their own families as deviants. These children were also used either as
sex slaves or suicide bombers.126 The methods of indoctrinating chil-
dren change in each country. For example, the chief state prosecutor
in Ankara prepared an indictment for the prosecution of Ahmed
Doğan, whose code name in the organization is Ebu Eslem. The
indictment accused Doğan and twenty more militants of opening
branches in various districts of Ankara, including Sincan, Altındağ,
and Etimesgut ve Çubuk, to brainwash children who attended those
mesjids (small mosques) where the training occurred. The police
found dozens of prohibited books praising Isis. One of the most pop-
ular was Şehadet Yolunda Cihad Erleri, which means “Men of Jihad on
the Path of Martyrdom.”127
Territorial control is the key dimension for the militants. The reasons
militant jihadists need to increase their membership are also partly
related to the social realities of occupying a territory. The decision to
join a militant group brings structural benefits. For example, when a
group of people register with Isis, they immediately gain hierarchical
superiority in their villages or towns. One of the peasants living in a vil-
lage under the control of the Iraqi government and Kurdish regional
officials near Mosul claimed that “when Isis invades a village, they cut
off the telephone network and allow only Isis militants to use mobile
phones in a special location. Using the phone in that location equals
signing one’s death certificate. This is only one small benefit. When
they – our neighbors – spend more time with Isis, they start oppressing
others.”128 Territorial control and the social prestige that comes with
authority lure some residents to join the ranks of Isis to reap the bene-
fits of power.129 Structural violence, therefore, expands the territory of
Isis while increasing the capacity of its human resources. The territori-
al expansion of Isis also implies more than acquiring an area to estab-
lish its authority: capturing more territories, particularly lucrative ones,
helps Isis make payments to militants and provides authority over local
people. All these efforts to satisfy the financial needs of its people aim
to give a message to the local people that the jihadist militants can gov-
ern them better than the former regime could.
Isis received criticism and reaction from al-Qaeda because of its
ruthless methods and hunger for power, which alienated many Mus-
lims and drew fierce attention from the West. The methods of Isis are
perceived to be detrimental to the ultimate long-term goal of al-
Qaeda, which is the establishment of sharia law, and eventually the
caliphate. Isis was even disparaged by Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a
prominent global jihad theorist, a respected authority for al-Qaeda
supporters, an opponent of any form of democracy, and an ideologue
of the Salafi movement. Al-Maqdisi objected to Isis because “a state
ruled under sharia was meant to unite Muslims, but the group was
divisive and a deviant organization.”130
Isis lost a significant amount of its territory in 2015, and this trend
continued with the loss of 12 per cent of its territory in the first half
of 2016.131 Dominating the social structure and the rule of economy
are the fulcrums of its social power. Nevertheless, Isis’s revenues come
primarily from oil fields and refineries.132 In addition to the loss of
territory and related human resources, the group’s media activities
diminished by 70 per cent after the death of its chief of media opera-
tions, Abu Muhammed al-Furqan, in September 2016.133
The loss of territory since 2015 has led to frustration among Isis
members. It was also the reason for widening the scope of jihad to the
global level through lone wolf attacks: such attacks were felt to
increase the moral and structural capacity of Isis outside the territo-
ries it controls. A spokesman for Isis, Abu Mohammad al-Adnan,
encouraged lone wolf attacks, stating, “If the tyrants close the door of
migration in your faces, then open the door of jihad in theirs and turn
their actions against them.”134 This command has been sufficient to
inspire a number of Isis sympathizers, including a seventeen-year-old
Afghan refugee who attacked German train passengers with an axe
and knife but was shot dead by the police afterwards.135 After the
operation by coalition forces to liberate Mosul, Al-Baghdadi uttered a
similar threat on his video, stating his intention to “Turn the nights of
the unbelievers into days, to wreak havoc in their land and make their
blood flow as rivers.”136
The rationalization of structural violence is premised on socio-
structural concerns, which function very similarly for Hamas, Hezbol-
lah, al-Qaeda, and Isis. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire,
who were motivated to use structural violence, were also under the
influence of socio-structural concerns. Yet the application of structur-
al violence varies from one militant group to another, among both the
militant rebels and the militant jihadists. In fact, these differences illu-
minate the character of space, time, and the organizational structure
of militants. The next chapter explores similarities and differences in
the rationalization and application of structural violence.
5
The Rationalization and Application

of Structural Violence
“The force of circumstances ... is stronger than even the strongest

government.”
Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome
motivation and the expected outcome
The strongest governments may be defeated by the force of circum-

stances, which write the fate of governments and their opponents in
times of conflicts. The conflict between Soviet Russia and the US cre-
ated the opportunity for a number of power-hungry jihadists such as
bin Laden to take over. These same circumstances weakened them by
challenging their status quo thereafter. The political ambitions of Sad-
dam Hussein set in motion the circumstances that led to the Iraq-Iran
war, and we witnessed the fall of his regime with the invasion of the
US-led coalition forces after 9/11. Militants flourished after the chaos
created by this invasion, which nurtured appropriate circumstances
for them to govern the territory.
Circumstances are the hidden forces of our destiny. They are
unleashed by the intervention of actors who aim to change society.
As Mommsen points out, the strongest government can fall because
of the force of circumstances beyond that government’s control. The
circumstances that define and shape an event, an occasion, or an
issue also determine the capacity of force in a social setting. The cir-
cumstances themselves may transform into the most important force
if people are unable to control them. In a turbulent social environ-
ment, the force of circumstances determines the destinies of both
society in general and of the governing authorities. The governing

cadre might be omnipotent; however, when that same cadre is not
able to control circumstances, its very existence is at risk. A tiny crack
in the hierarchical structure of the most totalitarian organizations
may be the beginning of the end for such establishments, which are
supposed to be solid and all powerful. From that point forward, the
collapse of the entire system can become inevitable. A similar path
may be followed when dissent rules society and takes control of cir-
cumstances. It may take some time after cracks appear in a social
structure before the system collapses, but the use of violence makes
that path shorter. However, the activation of violence as a physical
force does not happen rapidly. The conditions that motivate dissi-
dent agencies to follow a violent path also play a part in rationaliz-
ing this decision.
The rationalization process for using structural violence had similar
implications for the militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and mili-
tant jihadists across the world in our time. Both groups rationalized
structural violence in two principle ways: (1) the motivation to use
structural violence and (2) the outcome that is expected to emerge
with its employment. As with the rationalization of cultural violence,
the rationalization of structural violence is also independent of time
and space. What characterizes motivation in the process of rationaliz-
ing structural violence are socio-structural concerns and the expected
outcome when structural violence is used to cope with those concerns.
Each region has different social issues and the dissident people in every
region have different priorities, but there is common ground in their
perceptions about macro determinants such as injustice and the orga-
nization of state and society. Macro dynamics also shape micro dynam-
ics through increasing dissatisfaction with the burdens of everyday life.
The lack of social infrastructure, poverty, and individual troubles con-
stitute the micro dynamics of structural violence through reactions
such as frustration, grievance, and reprisal. Not only general conditions
of injustice but also relative deprivation and social precarity determine
the fate of militants and their opponents.
Each place, whether the Balkans, the Middle East, or Central Asia,
has its own social structure of institutions and networks, but they
share parallel dissents that stimulate the rationalization of structural
violence. The rationalization of structural violence is a process, and,
like all processes, it can be terminated: in this case, when those socio-
structural concerns that provoked it are eliminated.
Rationalization and Application of Structural Violence 129
Injustice, exploitation by the powerful, the uneven distribution of

social resources, and abuses of political and legal authority in every-
day life make it difficult to attain harmony and social integrity; mili-
tants use these factious conditions to mobilize people in line with
their own agendas. Disillusion and mystification combine with truth
and suffering in such volatile environments. This perplexing confla-
tion makes it difficult to distinguish facts from perceptions in the
approach used by militants. What is clear in hindsight is that injustice
is the principal commonality. Scapegoating allows militants to blame
their opponents for the challenges that they have to bear with.1
Although some of these challenges really are the fault of their oppo-
nents, others may be fabricated for effective propaganda.
Petra Kelly was one of the first activists to elaborate the strong rela-
tionship between social injustice and structural violence by exposing
problems of the developing world such as starvation, malnutrition,
and disease among children.2 Kelly blames the rise in violence in
such places on the hypocritical claims of political institutions that
fail to guarantee the security of their citizens. She states, “We are told
that we have a ministry responsible for our security. It is called the
Ministry of Defence. However, there can be no defence for our coun-
try in the event of war. There can only be destruction. So, why not
call it by its proper name, ‘Ministry of Destruction’! … Security pol-
icy has led us into the direst insecurity the world has ever faced.”3 The
repression of militants by state authorities, without addressing the
problems that motivated the militants to use violence, brings short-
term relief. Unsurprisingly, these unresolved problems may lead to
the emergence of new militant groups after the earlier militants have
faded away.
Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I created new
states, so the socio-structural problems in the region were sustained in
new forms even after the number of militant groups diminished and
dissidence lost its focal power. Militant jihadists remained relatively
silent after World War I, but this silence only indicated that the
jihadists had lost their influence – not that they were gone. They sim-
ply remained operational at a slower pace after the fall of the Ottoman
Caliphate in 1924. The power of jihad as a formidable motivation has
never declined within Muslim social geography because of the ravages
of colonialism and the degraded quality of life for those living there.
Both in the rebellions of militants in the Ottoman Empire and in the
attacks of militant jihadists, social inequality, general conditions of
injustice, and dissatisfaction with everyday life played a prominent role

in the employment of structural violence.
In his landmark work, The Sense of Injustice, Edmond Cahn remarks
that justice is “not a state but a process; not a condition but an action.
‘Justice,’ as we shall use the term, means the active process of remedy-
ing or preventing that which would arouse the sense of injustice.”4
The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and the militant jihadists
of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis resorted to structural violence
because they believed that they were being oppressed and treated
unjustly. The experience of injustice fosters the sense of victimization,
especially when the victim lacks the necessary power to resist the
authority perceived to be responsible for the injustice. A crescendo of
frustration prevails with the increase of powerlessness. This power-
lessness leads to a new form of reaction, which exposes the power of
discontent because “the victimized groups generally lack control over
the resources, such as money, guns and official position, that are
immediately related to economic, military and political power. Their
primary sources are discontented people and having justice on their
side.”5 The road of rebellion is paved by their antagonists who, either
implicitly or explicitly, frustrate or subjugate them.
Revenge-seeking militants are mobilized by several motives rather
than a single one: motives such as nationalist struggle, the call to jihad,
or the desire for revenge.6 The attacks in Westminster, Manchester, and
London that occurred in March, May, and June of 2017 respectively
were the products of jihadist-inspired Isis militants to take revenge for
attacks by the Western allies. Emotional solidarity emerges with the
sense of injustice and unifies the militants. Such a unification under
the umbrella of perceived injustice fosters the rationalization process
of physical violence. However, what shapes this physical violence is
social marginalization in the application of structural violence. The
perception of victimization inspires militants, who are convinced that
the eradication of injustice depends on taking revenge on those
responsible for it. This is how they rationalize the use of structural vio-
lence against their opponents. Militant rebels and militant jihadists are
also motivated by the emotional force of revenge, which is disruptive
and subversive. Civilians lose their innocence for the militants, because
people under the rule of antagonist states are seen as instrumental
objects who must be eliminated so as to make the state weak and vul-
nerable in the eyes of its citizens.
The role of territory is central to conceiving structural violence,

whether through its mode of governance or because of claims of
ownership by conflicting groups. Grievance and territory were pow-
erfully related from the perspectives of both the militant rebels in
the Ottoman Empire and the militant jihadists. The relative depriva-
tion and lack of distributive justice in those territories also lead to a
similar feeling of grievance.7 The dysfunctıonal land governance by
the Ottoman authority mobilized many militants; territory also plays
a pivotal role in the continuing rationalization of structural violence
by militant jihadists. The occupation of a land, whatever the reason,
disrupts everyday life and creates dissent among the local people. The
hostile relationship between Israel and Hezbollah has led to social
tensions. A similar relationship is also evident between Israel and
Hamas, particularly since Gaza was isolated by Israel. The conflict
over territory as well as the struggles of people living there make the
land itself part of the grievance. Al-Qaeda’s goal to govern Afghan-
istan has been followed by Isis as the first step toward establishing a
worldwide Caliphate – an impossible objective, but sufficient to lure
many jihadists to join their ranks. For instance, in the video by Isis
released in early July 2016, there was a significant reference to the fall
of the Ottoman Empire and the decay of Muslim power in the world.
The video argues that this decline in the structural power of Muslims
is caused by the Muslims allowing their territories to be “usurped” by
the West.8
Structural violence is rationalized through everyday challenges,
unavailability of resources, and institutional barriers to seeking jus-
tice. Militant jihadists exploit these challenges more ambitiously than
the militant rebels by providing an illusory discourse in which truth
and deception are combined in the same appeal to recruit more mil-
itants. From this point of view, structural violence has concrete foun-
dations in the macro dynamics of the social structure but directly tar-
gets the everyday life of people through its micro dynamics. On the
other hand, when the issue is the rationalization process, the elimina-
tion of problems may be disguised as a holy cause so that militants
may be eager to die to attain emancipation at both the individual and
collective level. Martyrdom is a highly strategic concept that symbol-
izes their devotion to this multidimensional emancipation.
application of structural violence:

dimension and the target
The target and the dimension of structural violence are the main dis-
tinctions between militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and today’s
militant jihadists. The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire used a
limited form of structural violence compared to the jihadists. Ratio-
nalization of structural violence is independent of time and space,
whereas time and space determine the application of structural vio-
lence. This is the reason that the application of structural violence is
different for the two groups. Indeed, the methods used by jihadist
groups may be particular feature to each militant organization.
Militant jihadist organizations use cultural violence in addition to
structural violence at all times. However, some militant rebels in the
Ottoman Empire used only cultural violence, whereas others used only
structural violence. Some of the nationalist militant rebels employed
both cultural and structural violence at the same time to mobilize peo-
ple. Yet this combination was not refined when we compare it with
that of the militant jihadists. For example, the utility of people, as a
source of power, is premised on their number, their personal qualities,
and the social cohesion of their group.9 These are the essential quali-
ties for applying structural violence by means of many zealous mili-
tants trained and eager to perform their assigned duty. Principles based
on their own interpretation of Islam form the foundational doctrine
of a sociopolitical order that the militant jihadists aim to establish and
consolidate. This grandiose plan needs jihadists who are eager to sacri-
fice their lives by being suicide bombers or engaging in deadly clash-
es. In fact, the submissiveness of the people under their control is as
important as the social cohesion of the militants in order to effective-
ly rule the territory and defend it against their opponents.
There may not be limits, even for Isis, to changing the fundamental
rules of Islam. Structural violence establishes a bulwark against the
attacks of opponents through making legal changes and designing
new orders to be obeyed by the local population. The strength of the
social structure governed by the militants also depends on regulations
that are adaptive. For example, Isis declared that prayers in Mosul
should take place at three set times of day, violating the Islamic oblig-
ation to pray five times daily. It made this change compulsory because
going to the mosques and using public spaces less often during the
day would protect the civilian population and help to mobilize more
people for the defence of the city. Violation of this order led to offend-
ers being beaten by a whip.10
Hezbollah and Hamas have certain divergences in terms of their
dependence on a universal caliphate. Hezbollah, as members of Shia
community, do not praise the caliph as much as Hamas does, as evi-
denced in Article 21 of the Charter of Hamas (which mentions their
anger with the fall of the Ottoman caliph, who was Sunni).11 Even
though Sunni and Shia interpretations of Islam and approaches to the
use of violence are different, as explained in the first chapter, religion
has been an indispensable part of forming their identities and deter-
mining their ideals within a nationalist discourse. The brotherhood
of Islam has connected different communities around the world and
rendered the causes of both Hezbollah and Hamas more popular
globally. Similarly, although al-Qaeda and Isis have embraced differ-
ent methodological nuances in order to attain their goals, the achieve-
ment of a universal social order plays a significant role in their appli-
cation of structural violence. Al-Qaeda is more pragmatic about the
possible destruction of the global social order than Isis, which is more
idealistic. Such nuances between these jihadist militants, small but
divisive, lead to sectarianism within each organization and then, even-
tually, to new organizations. One of the most remarkable examples of
this division occurred in al-Qaeda in 2005. “Zarqawi’s foot soldiers
bombed three hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing more than 60 Jorda-
nians. Al Qaeda’s leadership was furious. ‘Policy must be dominant
over militarism,’ wrote Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, an al Qaeda [sic] com-
mander in Iran, to Zarqawi three days after the Amman bombing.”12
Isis rose rapidly to power in its first two years of operation, when it
captured large territories in Iraq and Syria. But later, it lost both struc-
tural power and territory. In fact, after losing the highly strategic city
of Deir-ez Zor to the Syrian government in November 2017, Isis con-
trolled only a small area of Iraq. However, the loss of territory and ero-
sion of structural capacity do not indicate the death of ideology. Isis
militants simply started migrating to different countries and still
remain a threat at the time of this writing. The structural capacity of
Isis has certain limitations when we consider its worldwide goals, but
this could not prevent Isis from attacking al-Qaeda members in
Afghanistan in order to become a principal authority among jihadists
and lure even more militants into its organization.
The application of structural violence is identical among Hezbol-
lah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis. As compared with the militant rebels
in the nineteenth century, the jihadists use extensive violence as a

method and their aim is more fundamental, addressing their global
social network. Time and space, as a result, play the most important
role in the differences between the militant rebels and the militant
jihadists when the issue is the application of violence. A further dis-
tinction between the four jihadist groups is the methods they use in
the application of structural violence. Hamas and Hezbollah apply
violence in a more strategic manner on a small scale, whereas al-
Qaeda and Isis aim to provoke a furious reaction from their enemies
by using extremely violent methods. These differences are related to
how the groups are organized, their short-term and long-term goals,
and their ideological approaches. The militant rebels in the Ottoman
Empire targeted the institutional and structural capacity of the state;
their targets were more local and less inclusive than those of the mil-
itant jihadists. Although cultural violence and structural violence
were employed simultaneously when the issue was gaining indepen-
dence, structural violence did not always accompany cultural violence
as in the suicide attacks of Hezbollah in the 1980s, the intifadas orga-
nized by Hamas, the fighting tactics described in al-Qaeda’s playbook,
Management of Savagery, and the mass destruction of ancient cities by
Isis. In this context, the most significant difference in the application
of structural violence by militant jihadists lies in their use of struc-
tural violence to attain territory from the enemy and destroy the
enemy’s power at both the national and international levels. The ter-
ritorial focus and the international dimension of structural violence
are essential to their vision of establishing a new social order and rul-
ing the territories under their dominance.
The Ottoman Empire established its own social order with great
difficulty. In some cases, the Porte engaged in negotiations with the
leaders of militant rebels to control their attacks, while in other
cases the Porte suppressed the militant rebels violently. Attacks by
rebels against state institutions were rarely met without a punitive
reaction when those rebellions had a political character. Similarly,
both the national and international opponents of militant jihadists
can be challenged on the battlefield when structural violence is
employed. Responding to this violence with advanced military tech-
nology creates devastation in the territories and civilian populations
suffer tragically. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan by the coali-
tion forces, the surrounding of Gaza, and the inclusion of interna-
tional actors in the civil war in Lebanon dramatically worsened the
situation of civilians in these geographies. These are clear examples

of the way the use of structural violence disrupts the everyday life of
civilian population.
from the concerns of social organization

to the practices of structural violence
All perceptions of rationality are subjective. Alan Sica puts it aptly in

his reading of Max Weber, stating that “rationality is a subjectively dis-
closed and apprehended quality of action and thought, and any
behavior, if assessed by the actor involved, is considered rational. Only
the external observer’s inability to analyze thoroughly enough anoth-
er’s actions leads to the appellation irrational.”13 What rationalizes the
behaviour of a militant when structural violence is employed depends
on the perception that defines the injustice perpetrated by the oppo-
nent’s organization. The militant, as an extralegal physical force, iden-
tifies the legal or superior authority of the state as the producer of vio-
lence. Social injustice and dysfunctional and discriminatory public
policies are perceived as forms of violence, drastically shaping the lives
of people and transforming them into future militants.
The rise of social conflict galvanizes resentment of the state’s inabil-
ity to eliminate socio-structural problems. The people who identify
themselves as victims of these concerns show their anger against social
organizations controlled by the state. The connection between vic-
timization and the socio-structural concerns manifests the state as
“the key influence in the production, control, and sanctioning of vio-
lence.”14 Social conflict exceeds physical reaction in zones of violence,
and the same social conflict is exploited deftly by militant ideologues,
sometimes concretely and other times delusively.
If we sought a common concept to identify both the struggle of
militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire and militant jihadists today
from Afghanistan to the cities of Europe, that concept would be “suf-
fering.” The emotional power of suffering highlights both social injus-
tice and its outcome for an individual militant and the community to
which that militant belongs. From this point of view, the rationaliza-
tion process for militants has an anthropological locus. The rational-
ization and legitimization processes help us to understand human
nature. Not only general conditions of injustice but also their relative
poverty put the militant rebels and militant jihadists on the same
path of violent reaction.
The story of an Ottoman rebel reveals the sense of injustice from the
perspective of that militant. The kernel of that story is similar to the
discourse of a militant jihadist seeking vengeance for his or her suffer-
ing. The sense of injustice appears as the main motive leading both
kinds of militants to commit themselves to resistance against the dom-
inant social order. It is no surprise that even if we are portrayed by “dif-
ferent histories, sustained by different social dynamics, we assume,
nonetheless, that the outcome in trauma and suffering is the same.”15
The dominant – and sometimes oppressive – power of the state or the
leading political authority leads militants to perceive themselves as vic-
tims. Leaders and ideologues exploit the perceived injustice and vic-
timhood for propaganda purposes to increase recruitment.
Military victory or loss and the resistance of paramilitaries and
social movements produce macro-violence, and generally this physi-
cal destruction is the result of social and emotional destruction
designed to break down the opponents’ organization.16 Such violence
aims to partially or completely destroy the social organization that is
at the root of socio-structural concerns. With the help of organiza-
tional structure, the rationalization of violence in the perception of
each militant is transformed from micro-level violence into macro-
level destruction. As Siniša Malešević says, “it is social organization
that transforms chaotic and incoherent micro-level violence into an
organized machine of macro-level destruction.”17 The huge territorial
losses of Isis in 2016 and 2017 may indicate the erosion of its struc-
tural power; in this case, the decline of its prestige in the eyes of its
sympathizers is inevitable. However, it is likely that many of the Isis
militants who left Iraq and Syria will remain silent for a period of
time but later come together under a different name, organization,
flag and leader, while uttering the same motto and furthering the
same mission they did as devotees of Isis.
The letter of Al-Zawahiri recounted in the previous chapter shows
that he legitimizes the violence of al-Qaeda and other militant jihad-
ists by invoking the violence inflicted by the US. He asks: “isn’t the
destruction of the villages and the cities on the heads of their inhabi-
tants more cruel than slaughtering? And aren’t the cluster bombs and
the seven ton bombs and the depleted uranium bombs crueler than
slaughtering? And isn’t killing by torture crueler than slaughtering?”
Of course, the aim here is also to convince other militants that the
extreme violence they use is not wrong at a moral level. Torture is a
kind of moral injury that degrades its victim, and humiliation dis-
connects the individual from society.18 The words of Al-Zawahiri

transform into weapons when he gives the example of torture in Iraq
and state violence in other Muslim countries. Individuals who were
tortured or witnessed the torture and humiliation of their loved ones
become ready to listen to calls for vengeance and to submit to the
direction of a preacher who perceives violence as the only moral
response to their opponents.
Differences between the militant rebels and the militant jihadists
in the application of structural violence, particularly in terms of its
dimension and target, also hinge on social organization. Territorial
control by militant jihadists depends on social control of the popula-
tion who live under the dominance of the jihadists. Isis imposes a
large monetary fine or the confiscation of land upon peasants when
their rules are violated.19 The use of violence as an instrument of pub-
lic order makes Isis an unpopular authority, but one that is hard to
resist. Their punishment of local populations by severe methods
includes pushing gay men from tall buildings and raping Yazidi
women. The use of children as suicide bombers is also another strate-
gy to increase the application of structural violence. One of these chil-
dren, caught shortly before exploding himself, stated: “They taught us
how to use a Kalashnikov and a PKC machine gun and then trans-
ferred us to Hawija. There were four older men who would teach us
about heaven and stuff like that. Twenty-four hours a day they’d teach
us about this stuff. There were 60 of us born from 2002 onwards.”20
structural violence as a source of dissent

and instrument of power
Structural violence becomes a source of dissent when militants

explain their victimization by blaming their enemies who use struc-
tural violence against them. On the other hand, the militants, as is
clear from the Ottoman rebellions and jihadist attacks, use structural
violence to attain their goals and change the dynamics of authority
to extend their power. As a result, structural violence appears both as
a source of dissent and an instrument of power, whether to weaken
the enemy or to strengthen the organizational structure of the mili-
tant groups.
Structural violence is used not only against states but also against
local populations to discipline them and guarantee their obedience to
the militants’ authority. The use of violence by the militant rebels in
the Ottoman Empire against the civilian population was based on the
same dynamic, to subdue more people and realize the ultimate goal.
However, social control and structural violence against the local pop-
ulation is less common for nationally-oriented jihadists such as
Hezbollah and Hamas than it is with Isis and al-Qaeda. The territories
controlled by Hezbollah and Hamas and their relatively more en-
gaged status within the international system limit the use of structur-
al violence against local populations. Yet these two organizations are
very prone to deploy structural violence against their opponents.
The militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire consisted of many dif-
ferent ethnic communities; they challenged the Porte and paralyzed
its ability to eliminate the source of dissent. Considering the cos-
mopolitan character of the Ottoman Empire, this was to be expected.
On the other hand, militant jihadists embrace a supranational char-
acter rather than sticking to a single ethnic or national character. Even
in the case of Hezbollah and Hamas, their international networks and
the global discourse of jihad are as important as their national agen-
das. Jihadist organizations are therefore able to recruit militants from
diverse ethnic and national backgrounds. Nationalism, as a result, dis-
guises itself both as a unifying ideology for state institutions and a dis-
cordant factor for the militant jihadists who are under the influence
of a global ideology such as Isis has put forth.
Nationalism also transformed the territories into zones of con-
flict.21 But when it comes to the operation of this kind of conflict, we
need to understand its diverse meanings for different actors. The
influx of identities, in the case of both militant rebels and militant
jihadists, renders structural violence an effective instrument to change
the social order. It is structural rather than cultural violence that leads
to systematic disruption in the public order and everyday life at the
same time. The relationship between structural violence and militants
derives from daily struggle as well as strategic planning to attain their
long-term goals. Nonetheless, structural violence has different charac-
teristics when employed, respectively, by the militant rebels and the
militant jihadists. The dimension and aim of the militant jihadists
force many members of these organizations to use extensive violence
along with advocating for radical change in the social system. The
militant rebels in the Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, used lim-
ited violence and embraced more moderate targets.
6
From a Violent Past

to a Desperate Future
“. . . men are not gentle creatures, who want to be loved, who at the most
can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, crea-
tures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful
share of aggressiveness.”
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents
Freud’s comments above remind us that human beings embrace

aggressive behaviours while simultaneously clinging to an idealistic
view of themselves as superior creatures. The bloody conflicts and
great loss of human life in our history make us question the pres-
ence of the gentleness and love that are supposed to exist within
human beings. Violence is revealed by many dark and cruel chapters
in the story of humankind. The history of violence has a special
importance for militants. The historical paradigm – in other words,
the forces of tragedy and struggle in the past – shapes their cosmos.
History keeps wounds open and inspires those who don’t question
truth in pursuit of their ideals. Reality, hyper reality, fantasy, and pro-
paganda inspire them to create an imagined community. The jour-
ney toward the imagined community connects ideals with actions
and shortens the path from the rationalization of violence to its
application. This journey is neither easy nor comfortable. Culture
and the human condition determine the main roads militants fol-
low, whereas structure and social organization create new pathways
to address the concerns of everyday life and help the militants real-
ize their goals.
culture and the human condition
“Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and

value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.”
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism
Value-creation commences within our thoughts, and the existence

of thoughts depends on how we value these thoughts. This is the rea-
son that there is a strong interconnectedness between value-creation
and thoughts. The battle between different values offers us the nec-
essary perspective to imagine the changing human condition in a
troubled cultural geography. The values of different militant groups
are shaped by their thoughts and the protection of those values
require dedication. However, violence might disconnect this dedica-
tion from those same values. When we remain in a battle between
the values that make our existence meaningful and circumstances
working to reverse those values, a struggle starts to protect the val-
ues that give meaning to our existence. This duality works rather dif-
ferently for a militant, who may be eager to undermine his oppo-
nents at any cost, even if this may also undermine the values he
ostensibly is inspired by. That is to say that the existential struggle of
militants may violate the ideals they claim to hold. Confrontation
and compromise, sometimes with enemy and sometimes with their
values, make the militants fierce and determined rather than concil-
iatory and pacified.
Clifford Geertz’s well-known definition of culture limits it to con-
texts where power is elaborated and articulated through what he calls
“thick description.” He asserts that “Culture is not a power, something
to which social events, behaviours, institutions, or processes can be
causally attributed; it is a context, something within which they can
be intelligibly – that is, thickly – described.”1 We understand different
cultures by defining, describing, and raising questions about them.
Our analysis can be based on anything from a single narrative or sub-
ject to multiple accounts.
For example, the exploitation of human and natural capital in
nineteenth-century colonialism was dependent upon categorizing
imperatives deriving from the interaction between different commu-
nities and cultures. Relating with the unknown in different geogra-
phies brought new perspectives to enquiries into culture and led to
the recognition that every type of society has a cultural form because
Violent Past to Desperate Future 141
each society possesses morals, a legal system, customs, knowledge,

and beliefs. The European Enlightenment embraced idealist ap-
proaches related to humanity in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
tury. Even though the European Enlightenment promoted liberty,
reason, and progress for humanity, it could not create equal condi-
tions for the unknown and became disenchanted and alienated in
the process of modernity.2 The contemporary understanding of cul-
ture is subject to idealistic approaches. These idealistic approaches
structure the universal meaning of culture and its importance for the
progress of humanity. Its realistic approach, whatever its constituent
forms, plays a central role in conceptualizing culture and determin-
ing our perceptions. Yet this judgment is not independent of the
time and place we live in. The argument for an idealistic view of civ-
ilization, sometimes, takes its departure from orientalism and mar-
ginalizes the “other,” either implicitly or explicitly. Its implicit char-
acter is hidden, which obscures the roots of this marginalization. On
the other hand, its explicit character imposes a hierarchical vision,
which normalizes the categorization of different civilizations. Terror
of different agencies, whether state or non-state forces, creates viol-
ent disasters similar to each other. Violence creates desensitization
among communities who have been subject to violence too long.
Desensitization against terror can be acquired by psychological
blocking (the inability to practice a skill previously performed with-
out difficulty), undermining the empathy of militants when they use
violence against people.3 Horror is an inevitable outcome when
public panic is created; it leads to the acquisition of yet more power
by its orchestrators. In this way, each civilization is responsible
for crimes against humanity. As Walter Benjamin says: “There is no
document of civilization, which is not at the same time a document
of barbarism.”4
What marginalizes a militant also gives moral strength to his strug-
gle. Militants paint an idealized landscape of the society that they
would like to live in. Politico-religious concerns and motivations to use
cultural violence form their main reasoning, and a depraved story of
struggle heralds this new world. Their idealistic quest is under the con-
trol of beliefs, customs, law systems, morals, and knowledge only avail-
able within the boundaries of their own cultural and social network.
Human beings are adaptive creatures, like other mammals. Their
adaptation is grounded in psychological tension and shaped by social
environments. The struggle to attain one’s ideal combines with a fea-
sible method to realize that ideal and designate the future of com-
munity. The rationalization of an action, violent or otherwise, is sim-
ilar in diverse places and different periods of time. The rationalization
of violence determined the fate of the Ottoman rebellions and now it
is shaping the destiny of jihadist organizations.
The presentation of religion to the public includes many paradox-
es and contradictions. However, attacks against religion’s inconsisten-
cies seldom diminish any believer’s trust. Sigmund Freud explores
these contradictions in his early work, Civilisation and Its Discontents,
arguing that religion helps diminish personal suffering even though
it includes errors and delusions which hamper human development.5
Freud’s critical approach to religion elucidates both religion’s func-
tion to protect the individual from anguish, and religion’s manifesta-
tion of threats against human beings. This manifestation also makes
humankind more conscious and prepared to fight individual and col-
lective trauma. Freud highlights these threats and our fragility when
we interact with ourselves, the external world, and other people, stat-
ing,“We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our
own body; which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which can-
not even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the
external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and
merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other
men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more
painful to us than any other. We tend to regard it as a kind of gratu-
itous addition, although it cannot be any less fatefully inevitable than
the suffering which comes from elsewhere.”6
Trauma is like a snowball, growing larger with each threat and
each occasion of suffering. An individual’s experience of collective
trauma is publicized and shared sympathetically by other members
of community. A militant’s death becomes the mourning of every-
one who suffers similarly and believes in the same ideals. The peo-
ple who share the individual trauma sit at the table of desperation
and share in a common tragedy. More than a century ago, Georg
Simmel concluded that what defines the term “tragic” is actually
twofold: (i) the tragedy of culture and (ii) sociological tragedy.7 The
tragedy of culture connects the self with societal desperation and
paves the way for sociological tragedy. Yet desperation is neither sta-
tic nor merely an emotive experience for militants. It clarifies the
reasons for their concern, identifies their opponents, and sets future
plans to eliminate desperation. All these steps also indicate an imag-
ined and idealized community to be realized. This imagination of

community in the mind of a militant takes on a rapid rhythm when
thoughts transform into violent actions. A contentious form of cul-
ture generates politico-religious dissent and makes the use of physi-
cal force a necessity.
There has been an increasing power of religion in the politics
of our age with the development of political theologies by religious
communities whose approaches and methods may sometime be in
opposition to those of the state. Some have argued that the shift of
power towards these non-state actors within the religion-politics nexus
brands the twenty-first century as “God’s century.”8 However, neither
the community’s vision of God nor the same community’s devotion to
religious obligations is independent of the cultural breadth of that
community. The spread of culture – whether religious/national or sec-
ular/cosmopolitan – connects an individual with a community. Both
religious and national communities extend their cultural breadth by
forming a connection with God/spirituality or with nationalist/state-
oriented values.
Raymond Williams defines culture under three general clusters.
The first cluster is an idealized culture, implying a process of human
perfection based on absolute and universal values. The second cluster
is documentary culture, which records human thought, experience,
and intellectual work and produces critiques about this record. The
third cluster is social culture, which is described as a particular way of
life and is interested in clarification of meanings, symbols, produc-
tion, organization of society, and institutions.9 These three cultural
clusters explicate the required obligations, functions, and objectives
for militants. The idealized culture is exalted by the community that
they are striving to create in the future. The documentary culture
records their past experiences, including suffering, oppression, and
injustice. Finally, social culture expresses the values as well as the
organizational and institutional regulations to control everyday life
and to respond to the daily needs of the community. All these differ-
ent cultural forms are interconnected to attain the idealized com-
munity in the future.
This connection between the ultimate goals of the three cultural
clusters is clearly discernible in the activities of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-
Qaeda, and Isis, though it remains opaque when we look at the
Ottoman rebellions. That is, the Ottoman rebellions cannot always
be characterized by the goal of creating an idealized community. On
the one hand, if we remember the story of Vasil Levski and the con-
stitution declared by the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Commit-
tee, an idealized community, its structure, political regime, and objec-
tives were clearly identified by each article. On the other hand, the
militants of Tuzla, Kladina, and Bihać engaged in dialogue with the
Ottoman Empire in the 1850s and were satisfied when their social
and religious requests were met. Nonetheless, reference to perceived
injustice in the past is evident in both the story of Vasil Levski and
that of the militant rebels of Bosnia, as well as in the declarations of
the militant jihadists of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Isis. There-
fore, we can draw the conclusion that documentary culture, record-
ing the dissent and tragedy of the past, contributes to the rational-
ization of cultural violence in both time periods whereas its
application differs.
It is the human condition to perceive dissent as an existential
threat. The use of violence, however, is not the same as the mere
thought of it. Violence is real; tangible in its inescapable outcomes. It
is intrusive; seeping into the lives of those afflicted by it, touching
their loved ones, relatives, the community around them, and other
stakeholders with its ravages. It is also temporal in nature, damaging
not only the community in its present form but echoing across time
and inflicting its malice on future generations. This is the reason that
the control of cultural violence is sometimes an impossible task for
militants. Its legacy carries the heavy burden of pain, paralyzing the
members of the community. Militants are both the reasons for and
the outcomes of their own desperation. The desperate path of vio-
lence is idiosyncratic in its methods but universal in its motives. How-
ever, “Even those who assert culture’s dominant role in shaping the
experience of violence have trouble describing precisely how vio-
lence’s ‘social meaning’ is formed.”10 Therefore, we need to consider
the role of structure and social life in affecting the social meaning of
violence and its broader impact in everyday life.
structure and social life
“There were always the words of love, morality, and beauty. But there
must have been evil somewhere. Afterwards, why are all these things
in conflict? (Is it because of the number of stairs that take them to
God?)”
Oğuz Atay, Korkuyu Beklerken (While Waiting for Fear)11
Oğuz Atay is a reputable writer in his native Turkey, though less

known internationally, but his well-crafted sentences carry universal
significance. He deftly expresses that a conflict can be both structural
and superficial. “The number of stairs” is used sarcastically to draw
attention to the concerns emerging from the structural and yet super-
ficial relationship between the conflicting agencies. The same sar-
casm also implies a more important issue mystified by confrontation
in which we understand that the evil is legitimized to attain good for
some. The result is the degeneration of the values that are perceived to
be highly important such as beauty, love, and morality. Yet an ideal
world is not comprised simply of a value system. It must also include
a strategy for how to materialize that ideal. For example, imagine a
world where mandatory work is four hours a day for a four-day week
but you would still receive the same salary if you worked for eight
hours a day for a five-day week. Or alternatively, imagine a world
where your moral values are accepted by everyone; a society whose
members do not know the meaning of conflict. To materialize these
idealized imaginations, to make them real, you would need to change
the social system, or the way people think. Otherwise, it would be
impossible to live in such a world.
Absolutism leads to conflicts when we aim to concretize ideals
through our practices in everyday life. These practices shape the struc-
ture of social life. We organize social classes, determine ways of com-
munication, set rules and regulations, and assign duties and responsi-
bilities to people and institutions to functionalize the system we
desire to attain. Social life can be governed by totalitarian, democrat-
ic, oligarchic, or anarchic methods. Problems emerge when the system
is not functionally operative. And dysfunctionality in the social sys-
tem leads to dissidence from people who suffer and eventually rebel
against the methods and outcomes of governance. What distinguish-
es structural violence is its rationalization because of the social injus-
tice, unequal conditions, and administrative barriers that render

everyday life a never-ending struggle. Even in ancient Greek mythol-
ogy, feelings of victimization and injustice led to prodigious sympathy
for Atlas, who was condemned by Zeus to support the earth on his
shoulders. Circumstances may make an individual’s life not only
challenging, but also desperate. And the loss of hope for nonviolent
change leads to desperation.
Militants identify the reasons for their dissent, but they also need
additional reasons to legitimize their struggle. The common sense of
wider society has little importance as long as they may fortify their
assertions. Structural violence encompasses the whole process, includ-
ing efforts to increase the capacity of militants and destroy the safe
havens of the enemy. To this end, militants blame their opponents for
the challenges that they have to bear.12 Some of these challenges are
real and others are fabricated. In the fabrication process, as in Plato’s
Allegory of the Cave, a militant is trapped in the cage, but this is a cage
of dissent. On the other hand, the militants wear their chains eagerly
and welcome the fantasies presented to them by their ideologues.
What shaped the past is now structuring the present. John Steinbeck
notes the difference between our accumulation of experience and our
unwillingness to learn from it. He says that “our species has learned
nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing – that the experience of ten thou-
sand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years
that preceded.”13 The structural organization of militants and the strug-
gle of their communities cannot always cross the borders of imagina-
tion, fabrication, and provocation. On the one hand, this structural
limitation makes them more solid and consistent. On the other hand,
they remain in conflict with the essence of their struggle and some-
times violate the very values that they fight for.
Structural violence is also an outcome of structural problems in
society. State policies and psychological isolation may produce a mil-
itant from a marginalized individual. John Georgelas, known as Yahya
Abu Hassan in Isis, is an example of this process. Graeme Wood inves-
tigated the story of John Georgelas. When Wood spoke to John
Georgelas’s father, what Wood found was a striking transformation
from an isolated and easily-manipulated young man to a prominent
Isis leader. John met people from a jihadist network in his native
town, College Station, Texas. After spending some time in the jihadist
group, he decided to learn to speak Arabic fluently and develop other
qualities characteristic of a charismatic person such as telling inspir-
ing stories, being a good public speaker, informing the community

with his expertise, and appearing as a self-confident leader in order to
be respected by fellow militants. John’s father said, “Kids are away
from home for the first time, vulnerable and subject to influence.
They hear the message and they’re hooked, and that’s what happened
to John. John took the name Yahya, and sold his pickup truck to buy
a plane ticket. In December 2001, the family received an email from
Yahya announcing that he was in Damascus learning Arabic.”14
Graeme Wood found the remarks of John’s father puzzling. “The
Yahya I had encountered online, and the one Musa Cerantonio – a
preacher for Isis and the contact of Graeme Wood – described, was
nothing like a sheep, and no pathetic follower. He was not the boy his
father described. At some point, Yahya had shape-shifted into a wolf,
into a leader of men.”15 John, a lonely and marginalized person in his
previous life, found respect in and admiration from militant jihadists.
The story of John Georgelas clarifies the relationship between the psy-
chology of degradation and the sociology of the unexpected. Degra-
dation canalizes an individual to discover a context where new roles
can be assigned to him. A militant always rebels for a reason, and the
solidarity of community in supporting the rebel is astonishing. The
ego of a militant is empowered not simply through individual glori-
fication but also through the collective mission.
The community’s support is a mythical and practical elixir that
makes the rebel’s life less complicated and more powerful. Albert
Camus argues that “an act of rebellion is not, essentially, an egoistic
act. Of course, it can have egoistic motive. The rebel demands respect
for himself, of course, but only in so far as he identifies himself with
a natural community … When he rebels, a man identifies himself
with other men and so surpasses himself, and from this point of view
human solidarity is metaphysical.”16 The story of John Georgelas is
not only the story of an individual; it is also the story of a communi-
ty. The participation of Georgelas in the jihadist network in his home-
town was not solely a loss to his family and a gain to his jihadist net-
work. Such a structural change clarifies the weakness of society and
threatens its values.
Yahya Abu Hasan represents the strong bond between an individ-
ual militant and the community that assigns him prestige and credi-
bility. In the outcome of structural violence, we can identify both the
visible and the invisible forms of structural violence. Structural vio-
lence has more specific goals than making the enemy fearful, but they
are not always apparent. The visible violence of September 11th was
the response of militant jihadists to the less visible violence they
believed that the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Palestine, and Chechnya were subjected to by the hegemonic
powers.17 The combination of cultural and structural violence threat-
ens to engulf the entire world in the declaration of Isis. Isis published
a propaganda video in early July 2016 revealing critical information
regarding their cultural mission and structural strategy. Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi is presented as the Caliph of Isis in the video, and his six
principal duties are listed as: (i) Upholding and spreading the reli-
gion, (ii) defending the homeland, (iii) fortifying the fronts, (iv)
preparing the army, (v) implementing the hudud (borders), and (vi)
enforcing the people’s adherence to sharia rulings.18 Two forms of vio-
lence find common ground in this declaration. The first order main-
tains cultural violence, and the others show how to attain it through
the codes of structural violence.
The rationalization of violence identifies dissent and the reasons
that produce it. Rethinking the origins of dissent is the starting point
for the process of rationalization. After the completion of this process,
a militant perceives that violence is the most effective answer to the
threats he/she perceives. Violence, whether cultural or structural, is
not applied without such rationalization. The changes in the organi-
zation of attacks, the dimension and target of attacks, strategies, and
the capacity of the conflicting parts reveal the importance of structure
and social organization. Violence expels the militants into a tunnel of
darkness where the future always remains uncertain. They seek differ-
ent ways to get out of this tunnel, but they all follow the same route
of rationalization before ending up there.
the desperate future ahead of us
“Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain,
in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to
fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus,”
in The Myth of Sisyphus, and Other Essays
Sisyphus’s notorious crime against the gods is narrated in Homer’s

Odyssey, Book XI. Later, he is condemned to an eternity of punish-
ment pushing an enormous stone to the top of a hill and then watch-
ing the stone roll back down. This divine punishment, according to
Albert Camus, ironically portrays Sisyphus as happy while he fulfills
his assignment. This persistence of hope in a desperate situation part-
ly explains the militant’s willingness to die for an ideal. If the two
forms of violence could be endowed with the cognitive and physical
faculties of a human being, cultural violence would constitute our
psychology and emotions, whereas structural violence would make up
our brains and spinal columns. The combination of cultural and
structural violence undoubtedly helps the struggle of militants to real-
ize their ideals, if not guarantees this realization.
In Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina, Pavle makes a dramatic
statement after losing his assets and shop: “everyone teaches you to
work and to save … then, all of a sudden, the whole thing turns
upside down … when those who have made their money honestly …
with the sweat of their brows lose both their time and their money,
and the violent win the game.”19 The disappointment of Pavle in
nineteenth-century Ottoman Bosnia is echoed by the story of Kad-
hem Sharif after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “If I were a criminal, I
would rebuild the stone statue of Saddam Hussein.”20 His hopes were
crippled when the dictatorial and depraved Iraqi regime was replaced
by social disorder and uncertainty thirteen years after he had smash-
ed the statue. Indeed, some parts of his country are still in chaos at
the time of this writing. Kadhem Sharif is not himself a militant, but
the process that he has been subject to may transform other dissi-
dents into militants.
Social and cultural catastrophe shape the destiny of tormented
communities. Vying for power is the most obvious way to survive
when those communities demand a change. Violence represents the
degeneration of universal values throughout the history of humanity.
Wisdom, peace, social harmony, and justice are positive attributes and
shared values of humankind independent of time and space. The val-
ues of militants are not shared universally, but their reasoning takes its
origin from the same values and shapes it according to their own per-
spectives, experiences, and objectives. The militants are convinced that
those values can only be attained by physical force, but a violent
response may actually hinder the possibility of a sustainable and pros-
perous future embodying their ideals.21
The same virulent cycle repeats itself in different places and devas-
tates the lives of people who are innocent and powerless and may not
even be part of the conflict between militants and their opponents.
We keep hearing the appalling stories of such victims from Syria to

Afghanistan today. When rationalization makes violence itself victo-
rious, whether employed by militants or their opponents, our com-
mon sense, which envisions a peaceful society, is erased. Each violent
conflict is the harbinger of succeeding violent confrontations. The
hope that we need to survive such cycles of violence depends on com-
munal dialogue.22
Steven Pinker documents in The Better Angels of Our Nature that vio-
lence is not as prevalent as it was in the previous centuries thanks to
the state monopoly on the use of violence, technological advance-
ment, and human progress. He declares that we are now in the “paci-
fication process.”23 Even though this is partially true in terms of the
number of homicides in the North, the time spent in battle, and aver-
age life expectancy, our age has its own peculiar dangers and threats.
Michael Mann disagrees with Steven Pinker, stating that all these de-
velopments “render war less visible and less central to Northern cul-
ture, which has the deceptive appearance of being rather pacific.
Viewed from the South the view has been bleaker both in the colonial
period and today, partly due to interventions from outside. Globally
war and violence are not declining, but they are being transformed.”24
Neoliberal governments across the world are marketing and promot-
ing violence through the entertainment sector and thereby normaliz-
ing different forms of violence from mass incarceration to surveil-
lance. This makes it more challenging to be intolerant of violence.
Thus, the desperate situation of injustice that we endure overshadows
our hope to build the future with non-violent instruments.25
Norbert Elias argues that the control of violence plays a critical role
in the process of civilization, because the state has a monopoly on the
use of violence. The fear of state authority may transform the behav-
iour of people – whether victims or offenders – to prevent anarchy,
terror, and the ravages of violence.26 According to this interpretation,
the organization of social life, the creation of bureaucracy, and the
control of society through “law and order” limit violence and restrain
those who might otherwise use physical force and coercion. Macro
changes echo at the micro level by shaping the behaviour of people.
This also signifies that organized violence might be a more effective
instrument for states than disorganized violence. In this context, the
question arises: what if a dissident person disapproves of state vio-
lence and rebels against it? The expected outcome will be conflict and
the elimination of the dissident person by a more powerful agency,
whether the state, its organizations, or other people, because the vio-
lence of militants against the state may be seen as a reaction against
civilization itself.
Ironically, as Zygmunt Bauman clarifies very well, civilization func-
tions thanks to the instruments of modernization, communication,
and social control; the very instruments which allowed the Nazi gov-
ernment to oversee the Holocaust by means of rational bureaucratic
culture, moral indifference, and moral invisibility.27 Civilization,
therefore, is neither prima facie evidence of the progress of humanity
nor of the decline of injustice. The advancement of civilization also
leads to new forms of violence. The desperate consequences of the
advancement of civilization accompanied by moral indifference can-
not be explained better than in Primo Levi’s book If This Is A Man. In
the “Journey” chapter, he narrates how Italian Jews found themselves
in the inferno of different violent forms:
Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new

sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction. The
different emotions that overcame us, of resignation, of futile rebel-
lion, of religious abandon, of fear, of despair, now joined together
after a sleepless night in a collective, uncontrolled panic. The time
for meditation, the time for decision was over, and all reason dis-
solved into a tumult, across which flashed the happy memories of
our homes, still so near in time and space, as painful as the thrusts
of a sword. Many things were then said and done among us; but
of these it is better that there remain no memory.28
Moving from the dramatic and factual narrative of Primo Levi, I may
suggest that violence reveals the predilection of humankind to oppress
each other as machines of cruelty. Not only militant jihadists but also
their opponents become violent when culturally relativist politicians
blame an innocent Muslim community. Jihadist militants deftly exploit
the rhetoric of demagogues and hate-mongering politicians in the West
who seek dividends within their own societies. The militant organiza-
tions need reasons to mobilize more people. These reasons must include
genres of legitimization that sound rational. The propaganda of militant
organizations functions effectively by addressing emotional fragility
among the people they aim to recruit. Indeed, Nicolas Hénin, who was
held captive by Isis for ten months, expressed the idea that Isis fears the
unity of its victims more than the air strikes targeting it.29
Provocation for recruitment, legitimization of violence, and appli-

cation of violence for the realization of ideals increase the physical
and emotional capacity of militants. The amalgamation of all these
factors creates an attractive and powerful reasoning sometimes con-
sisting of truths that are distorted to tarnish their opponents. This
intentional distortion by militant ideologues takes advantage of the
emotional power of vengeance, on the one hand, and malfunctioning
social systems on the other. The mobilizing forces behind militants
embrace totalitarian methods because totalitarianism consolidates its
power through the collective support of people “for whom the dis-
tinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and
the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought)
no longer exist.”30 The imagination works powerfully to transform
beliefs into behaviours; nowhere more powerfully than in the cosmos
of a militant. By the same token, the captivating discourse of militant
leaders agitates people to persuade them to be militants. The behead-
ing videos disseminated by jihadists militants show sadistic satisfac-
tion in the horrors they create. In these bloodstained scenes, all dig-
nified values of humanity are at their lowest ebb; meanwhile, public
panic reaches a peak.
Max Weber’s well-known saying, “the fate of our times is character-
ized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the
disenchantment of the world,” helps us to understand the dissent of
militants today, the rationalization process, and its influence on their
fates. Of course, this does not mean that historical factors have no
influence on the rationalization of violence. But as Henri Bergson
states, “consciousness indeed informs us that the majority of our
actions can be explained by motives.” And similar motives inspired the
rationalization of violence by Balkan rebels in the nineteenth-century
Ottoman Empire and jihadist militants from Central Asia to the Mid-
dle East today. On the other hand, those similar motives did not lead
to similar outcomes because the role of time and space becomes more
crucial when the motives lead to actions. Hence, the level of violence,
the instruments to use violence, the ideals and structural capacity of
the militant group in question, technology, and communication chan-
nels shape the level of violence differently in the militant rebels and
militant jihadists we have been considering.
Seyla Benhabib explains the conditions which contribute to these
violent situations thus: “Under conditions of extreme terror, isolation,
domination, and violence, the public realm as a common world may be
deeply damaged.”31 The rulers of violence, whether militants or their

opponents, can be both omnipotent and brutal at the same time
through each destructive attack against innocent people intended to
erode the public realm. The outcome of violence, the motivations
behind it, and how we deal with its perpetrators underscore the
collective defeat of humankind. Militants are both the reasons for,
and the outcomes of, desperation, and we can imagine a desperate
future ahead when we conceive of the trauma of militants in the past
and understand their aspirations for the future. Yet this understand-
ing may only prepare us to wait in fear unless the reasons that lead
to cultural and structural violence are addressed. After millennia
of violence and bloodshed, we human beings are trapped somewhere
between a violent past and a desperate future. And the place where
we are standing now, unfortunately, is neither a venue in which to
overcome the burden of our past nor one where we may imagine a
bright future.
When violence is crowned in the place of despondency, the words nar-
rating the suffering of militants transform into the lyrics of a mournful
song marking the place with their own tragedy and revenge. This is the
place that ironically manifests at once the moral weakness and the phys-
ical strength of humankind. Collective violence becomes an expected
outcome when using it against innocent people is normalized.32 Sor-
rowful milestones in the course of humanity’s history mark the power
of violent scenes in which victims cry out but remain unredeemed and
vulnerable. Violence creates fragility and shapes the character of place,
the organization of society, and the behaviours of people. Militants were
at the center of grievous concerns in the past and are now defining new
places of cultural and social gravity. They will inaugurate new centers of
violence in the future.
We must learn from times of conflict to anticipate violent behav-
iours from a dissident individual, a militant, or an offender when they
rationalize their behaviours. The future is influenced by our experi-
ences and the lessons we take from past events. In the past, the mili-
tant rebels of the Ottoman Empire followed the path of violence.
Now the militant jihadists are walking on the same path while observ-
ing a different method in the application of violence. It is not proph-
etic to expect new militant groups to follow similar paths across the
world. We cannot dismiss either militants or violence when we are try-
ing to comprehend the bigger picture. The militants represent a frac-
tion of the social order; a social order whose concepts of power and
justice signify oppression and injustice to them. A common destiny

unifies militants and makes them the precursors of a dramatic expec-
tation of change. Independent of the triumph or failure of this com-
mon destiny, what is left to us is desperation, which is the new normal
in our rapidly transforming world. This violent transformation is full
of grief, like the larger history of humankind. The ideals and actions
of militants echo in the fear they generate within the public. The
future of our planet depends on humanity’s capacity to defend itself
against such threats.
The rationalization of violence shapes the next route of dissent, the
expectations governing militant behaviours, and the outcomes of vio-
lent actions. Cultural violence encodes these actions through an ideal-
istic perspective while structural violence reveals its realistic paradigm.
Thus, the rationalization of violence by militants is the most enormous
dimension of defence mechanisms for them, and leads to a culture of
revenge. Perhaps the cosmos of a militant is not mysterious for many
of us, but it remains mostly incomprehensible. These two forms of vio-
lence offer new avenues to reveal the reason for dissent and the har-
monious system that is imagined and fought for by the militants.
Violence changes the character of power today as it did in the past.
Violence is transforming the world today and it will continue doing
so in the future. The tragedy of human beings is exposed by victims
crushed under the rubble of their own fear. Militants are the harbin-
gers of the fear that they already experience themselves; they then
make their opponents feel it by engaging in acts of violence. This
dreadful expansion of fear represents the sum of everything that a mil-
itant believes in and fights for. It eventually produces a reaction from
and strategies of suppression by their opponents. That is to say that
every ideology instigates a counter ideology. This opposition leads to
confrontation, and the initial form of dissent is the core factor that
influences whether such confrontation is violent or non-violent.
We live in an era of constant change. We question the macro
dynamics of our world, from the deepening cracks in the capitalist
system to shifts in the political centers. Something new and unknown
is approaching through circumstances we are not able to control. Vio-
lence has been the expected outcome in all periods of chaos, whether
in early civilizations in Africa or during European civil wars. Violence
makes us forsake our mission to mend the ruptures in universal jus-
tice. Despite triumphs in science and progress in human develop-
ment, public panic might become standard in our future. Ironically,
what makes our future more perilous is twenty-first century technol-

ogy, which offers enormous powers of destruction. Humanity experi-
enced the most devastating tragedy in Hiroshima, a manmade cata-
clysm created by state authorities. Militants are not even limited by
the kinds of legal responsibility states are usually subject to, so can we
imagine the perils they pose when they are angry, full of vengeance,
and without limits?
In January 2017, Iraqi state forces found laboratories at Mosul Uni-
versity that had been used by Isis to produce chemical weapons. Luck-
ily the weapons lacked the sophisticated delivery systems required to
create mass destruction.33 In addition, five years after its emergence, in
early 2018, Isis lost significant territorial power. Yet, this does not
mean that either Isis or the issues that led to its empowerment have
been eliminated. Many militants who joined Isis after its foundation
in Syria and Iraq are now returning to their native countries. Hun-
dreds of these angry and defeated militants are going back to their
homes in Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia,
Turkic countries, Russia, Turkey, and other North African and Euro-
pean countries.34 In some Turkish cities such as Gaziantep and Adiya-
man, members of Isis still propagate their ideology for a small but
strong group without any clear plan for action, but their reemergence
will not be surprising if appropriate conditions arise in the future.35
How safe are we if militants like these acquire nuclear arms, or other
weapons of mass destruction?
There is no other creature on earth who can wage war and make
peace in such sophisticated ways. Human beings have certain distinc-
tive qualities such as abstract thought, the accumulation of wisdom,
and the supreme ability to think and to reason. Nevertheless, when-
ever violence reigns, as it does today, we rapidly lose these qualities.
Without dignity and respect for human life, we become each other’s
enemies. Despots, tyrants, and dictators have a close relationship with
oppression. Every oppressor use power to produce victims, and these
oppressors are deaf, unable to hear the voices of their victims. Vio-
lence makes noise, sometimes to paralyze the powerful and other
times to make the voices of victims heard. A militant is created from
a dissident individual when the application of violence leads to des-
peration. We are all vulnerable in the face of manmade problems. This
vulnerability diminishes our capacity to remain hopeful in the future,
despite all the advancements we have made for thousands of years to
live a better life.
Slavoj Žižek draws our attention to systemic violence, the subtler

forms of violence that enable the interaction of the two main subjects
– the dominant and the exploited.36 Militants perceive that the origins
of violence lie in the ability of their opponents to use power in a sys-
tematic way to oppress them. These perceptions provide a paradigm
to motivate the militants for vital reasons. Such reasons might be dif-
ferent for each militant. For some of them, it might be comradeship
and for others glorification of their identity. The diversity of subjec-
tive judgements and perceptions in the use of violence by militants
complicate this issue. That is why Richard English asks two other
important questions in his book Does Terrorism Work?: for whom does
it work, and at what level.37
A militant is not an irrational being walking rashly towards death.
The old roadblocks to non-violent struggle have never disappeared
completely. A militant has bitter justifications for rationalizing and
using violence. These justifications indicate a violent past, the victims
of which are still suffering in the present. When violence is an indis-
pensable instrument for furious militants and a method of social con-
trol for state institutions, we reach the last point of cultural and social
trauma. Militants make ambitious efforts to defeat their enemies.
These efforts give them a feeling of reassurance and make sense of
their own cosmos. Stopping such militants requires a persistent battle
because when one militant dies, another arises. Yet each death also
invokes defeated hopes. The future of militants remains opaque with
the recurrence of failed violent activities.
Positive change is possible and needs to be sought, but we have
prodigious tendencies to wear the mask of fear in the carnival of
strangers. John A. Hall describes in his landmark book, The Importance
of Being Civil, how the erosion of civility is highly related to the rise of
violence, conflict, and war. Our fears limit opportunities to recognize
the challenges ahead and illuminate the darkness that hides them.
Desperation obfuscates hope and makes it less visible. Creating a bet-
ter place depends on the force of our hopes, which become more dis-
cernible when we take action. Human brutality has a long past and it
is more apparent when social dynamics shape the human condition.38
The contradiction between the capacity of human beings to create
positive changes and our proneness to isolate, categorize, marginalize,
and then antagonize each other is a sad truth.
The ironies of humankind are self-destructive; they write our death
certificate. This book has illustrated violence by both militant groups
and state forces, the conditions rationalizing the use of violence and
then normalization of violence. All these narratives illustrate the
fragility of the human project to create positive change. Violence
springs from desperation and functions as a wrecking ball, tearing
down human dignity. The impossible art of our time is the elimina-
tion of public violence. We will be subject to unpredictable transfor-
mations in this century. Yet some elements of these transformations
are crystal clear when the issue is the use of violence by militants. We
will bear witness to vendettas between militants and their opponents.
A new age of anarchy is coming with a different change of phase, the
reason for dissent on the one hand and the ravages of violence on the
other – a catastrophe for every great expectation.
Notes
PREFACE
1 Richard Bernstein, “Violence,” Political Concepts 3 (2015), 1.

2 Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovitch,
1970), 56.
3 The Ottoman Archives has been part of the president’s office since
2018. All documents from the Ottoman Archives in this study are
abbreviated as “O.A” hereafter.
INTRODUCTION
1 There are discussions among scholars regarding the beginning and the
end of the Tanzimat era in the Ottoman Empire. I use the period between
1839 and 1876 in this book. There are two reasons for this choice. First,
two important documents were signed in 1839 and 1876: The Imperial
Edict of Reorganization (The Gülhane Hatt-ı Şerif) on 3 November 1839
and the first Ottoman constitution (Kânûn-ı Esâsî) on 23 December 1876.
Second, an overwhelming majority of the archival sources consulted in
this book relate to events that happened in this period.
2 Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History
of the Nineteenth Century, trans. Patrick Camiller (Princeton, nj: Prince-
ton University Press, 2009).
3 The Almanach de Gotha was a directory of Europe’s royalty and higher
nobility, providing statistical data by country. It has been a genealogical
and diplomatic reference since 1763.
4 Zafer Gölen, “Almanach de Gotha yıllıklarına göre Tanzimat döne-
minde Osmanlı Devleti’nin Balkan Toprakları,” Sosyal ve Libarel Bilim-
lerde Yeni Yönelimler 2 (2016): 625.
160 Notes to pages 6–10
5 Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2009), chapters 2 and 3.
6 The Sublime Porte (Bâb-ı Âli) is a metonym which was used by the
Ottoman state and European governments to signify the Ottoman cen-
tral government in Istanbul.
7 David Cook claims that extremists embrace a single narrative and an
exclusive approach – as the militant jihadists practice – in radical Islam.
See Understanding Jihad (Los Angeles, ca: University of California Press,
2005), 32, and also his essay “The Recovery of Radical Islam after the
Fall of the Taliban,” Terrorism and Political Violence 15 (2003): 31–56.
8 Asma Afsaruddin, Striving in the Path of God. Jihad and Martyrdom in
Islamic Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
9 Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, trans. Anthony F. Roberts
(Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2002), x.
10 See the important essay by Elisabeth Kendall and Ewan Stein on jihad
in different places and spaces, “Contextualising Twenty-First Century
Jihad,” in Twenty-first Century Jihad: Law, Society and Military Action, ed.
Elisabeth Kendall and Ewan Stein (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015).
11 J. Harold Ellens, The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam (Westport, ct: Greenwood Publishing Group,
2007), 34.
12 Michael Bonner, Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies in the Jihad
and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier (New Haven, ct: American Oriental
Society, 1996), 124.
13 Al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir: The Exegesis of the Grand Holy
Qur’an, trans. Muhammad Mahdi Al-Sharif (Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob Al-
Ilmiyah, 2006), 301.
14 The Qur’an, a new translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, Oxford World
Classics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 177.
15 Bruce Riedel, “Al Qaeda’s Ayman Zawahiri Criticizes Turkey, Seeks
Ottoman Restoration,” Daily Beast, 30 July 2010, accessed 20 August
2018. https://www.thedailybeast.com/al-qaedas-ayman-zawahiri-criti-
cizes-turkey-seeks-ottoman-restoration.
16 John S. Koliopoulos, “Brigandage and Irredentism in Nineteenth-centu-
ry Greece,” European History Quarterly 19 (1989), 195.
17 John S. Koliopoulos, Brigands with a Cause (Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, 1987).
18 Aleksander Petrović, “The Role of Banditry in the Creation of Nation
States in the Central Balkans during the 19th Century.” (ma thesis,
Simon Fraser University, 2003), 24–34.
Notes to pages 10–13 161
19 Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and
Judaism in the Modern World (University Park, pa: Penn State University
Press, 1994).
20 Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, “Engineers of Jihad,” Sociology
Working Papers, number 2007–10 (Department of Sociology, University
of Oxford, 2007).
21 David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith, Sacred Violence: Political Religion
in a Secular Age (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
22 Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice (Prince-
ton, nj: Princeton University Press), 171. Modern suicide attacks started
with the 1983 Beirut bombings during the Lebanese civil war targeting
US and French military forces.
23 Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2004). For a similar argument, see Olivier
Roy, Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State, trans. Cynthia
Schoch (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 27.
24 Robert Muchembled, A History of Violence: From the End of the Middle
Ages to the Present, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), 7.
25 David Garland, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contem-
porary Society (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001),
101.
26 Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence (1915), trans. T.E. Hulme (New
York: Peter Smith, 1941), 177.
27 Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder, and Maia Ashéri, The Birth of Fascist Ide-
ology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution (Princeton, nj:
Princeton University Press, 1994), 93.
28 Muchembled, A History of Violence, 7.
29 David Riches, The Anthropology of Violence (Oxford: Blackwell), 8.
30 Myrdene Anderson and Cara Richards, “Introduction: The Careless
Feeding of Violence in Culture,” in Cultural Shaping of Violence: Victim-
ization, Escalation, Response, ed. Myrdene Anderson (West Lafayette, in:
Purdue University Press, 2004), 2.
31 Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on Modern Culture, ed. Jan Gorak (Toronto,
Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 158.
32 Anthony Giddens, The Nation State and Violence (Berkeley, ca: University
of California Press, 1985), 20.
33 Tony Waters and Dagmar Waters, Weber’s Rationalism and Modern Soci-
ety: New Translations on Politics, Bureaucracy, and Social Stratification
(London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 115.
34 Vittorio Bufacchi presents these two concepts within a distinctive clus-
ter in Violence and Social Justice (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); see
chapter 1.
35 Hannah Arendt, “A Special Supplement: Reflections on Violence,” The New
York Review of Books, 27 February 1969, accessed 7 March 2014, http://www
.nybooks.com/articles/1969/02/27/a-special-supplement-reflections-on-
violence/. After this article in the New York Times, Arendt published a book
deepening her theoretical intervention on violence. See On Violence (Orlan-
do, Austin, New York, San Diego, London: Harvest Books, 1970).
36 Arendt, “Reflections on Violence.”
37 Ibid.
38 Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London:
Verso, 2004), 4–5.
39 Johan Galtung, “Cultural Violence,” Journal of Peace Research 7 (1990), 291.
40 Johan Galtung, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace
Research 6 (1969): 167–91.
41 James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,”
American Political Science Review 97 (2003): 75–90. A similar important argu-
ment explaining the relationship between a failed state and the rise of
insurgency was raised by Natasha M. Ezrow and Erica Frantz in Failed States
and Institutional Decay: Understanding Instability and Poverty in the Developing
World (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
42 David Lesch, The Fall of the House of Assad (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 2013).
43 Charles Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2003), 4.
44 James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New
Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 1990), ix.
45 Paul Farmer, Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues (Berkeley, ca:
University of California Press, 1999), 79. See also Paul Farmer, “On Suffering
and Structural Violence: A View from Below,” Daedalus 125 (1996): 261–83.
46 Anderson and Richards, “Introduction,” 3.
47 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition. 2nd edition (Chicago, il: University
of Chicago Press: [1958], 1998), 263.
48 Richard J. Bernstein, Violence: Thinking without Banisters (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2013), 182.
49 Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power (Cambridge: Cambridge Universi-
ty Press, 1986).
50 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 206.
CHAPTER ONE
1 “Ressentiment” refers to a psychological state that influences behaviour

because of feelings of hatred, the perception of injustice, and suffering.
See Panu Minkkinen, “Ressentiment as Suffering: On Transitional Jus-
tice and the Impossibility of Forgiveness,” Law and Literature 19 (2007):
513–31.
2 Geertz cites the work of Gilles Kepel regarding the “spectacular” and
“unforeseen” rise of Islam. See Clifford Geertz, “Which Way to Mecca?
Part 2,” New York Times, 3 July 2003, accessed 8 January 2016.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/07/03/which-way-to-mecca-
part-ii/. For the work of Kepel, see Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam,
trans. Anthony F. Roberts (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press,
2002).
3 Perhaps the most interesting evidence related to my argument here is
that gathered by Ahmed Rashid to demonstrate that the emergence of
the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is not independent of historical para-
digms in Central Asia and the Middle East. See Taliban: Militant Islam,
Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, ct: Yale University
Press, 2000).
4 Linda T. Darling, Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the
Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660 (Leiden; New York; Koln: Brill, 1996). See
also Heather Lynn Ferguson, “The Circle of Justice as Genre, Practice,
and Objectification: A Discursive Re-mapping of the Early Modern
Ottoman Empire” (PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 2009).
5 A socioeconomic system in the Ottoman Empire that was in practice
from the fourteenth century throughout the sixteenth century, the
Timar hinged on granting land to Ottoman nobles, local rulers and
sipahis, and to members of the cavalry and the army in return for their
services. The system was not sustainable when, after the Ottoman
Empire reached its peak in the sixteenth century, there came a decline
in the size of the territories it governed.
6 Darling, Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire,
chapters 2 and 3.
7 Reaya traditionally means the tax-paying subjects, but in the nineteenth
century there was a common tendency to use the term for non-Muslim
subjects. Tebaa, an inclusive term for all Ottoman subjects, also
remained in practice at the time.
8 Şevket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 128. See also another important

study in this area, Oktay Ozel, “Limits of the Almighty: Mehmed II’s
‘Land Reform’ Revised,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the
Orient 42 (1999): 226–46.
9 Halil Inalcik, “Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 1300–1600,” in An
Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire 1300–1914, ed. Halil
Inalcik and Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), 88–9.
10 Halil Inalcik, “Tanzimâtın Uygulanması ve Sosyal Tepkileri,” Belleten 28
(1964): 623–90.
11 Sina Aksin, Turkey from Empire to Revolutionary Republic: The Emergence
of the Turkish Nation from 1789 to the Present (New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 2007), 15–16.
12 Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont, “Études turco-safavides, III, notes et doc-
uments sur la révolte de Sãh Veli b. Seyh Celal,” Archivum Ottomanicum
7 (1982): 5–69.
13 Karen Barkey’s seminal work on bandits explains how their power in
the periphery instigated state centralization. See Bandits and Bureaucrats:
The Ottoman Route to State Centralization (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University
Press, 1994).
14 Karen Barkey, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspec-
tive (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), chapter 5.
15 Ibid., chapter 1.
16 Reşad Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nine-
teenth Century (Albany, ny: State University of New York Press, 1988).
17 Baki Tezcan identifies the era from 1580 to the removal of janissaries in
1826 as “the Second Ottoman Empire.” See The Second Ottoman Empire:
Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2010), 232.
18 Ilkay Sunar, “State and Economy in the Ottoman Empire,” in The
Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, ed. Huri Islamoglu-Inan (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 71.
19 Charles Jelavich and Barbara Jelavich, The Balkans in Transition: Essays on
the Development of Balkan Life and Politics Since the Eighteenth Century.
Center for Slavic and East European Studies University of California
(Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 1963).
20 Sunar, “State and Economy in the Ottoman Empire,” 71.
21 Bruce McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade and
the Struggle for Land, 1600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1981).
22 Tax revenues from agricultural products accounted for 46 per cent of

the entire tax collected in 1862. The unjust methods of tax collection by
middlemen were examined by Mehmet E. Palamut in “Aşar ve
Düşündürdükleri,” in Prof. Dr. Sabri Ülgener’e Armağan, (Istanbul: Istan-
bul Üniversitesi Iktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası, 1987), 72. See also Metin
Cosgel, “Taxes, Efficiency, and Redistribution: Discriminatory Taxation
of Villages in Ottoman Palestine, Southern Syria, and Transjordan in the
Sixteenth Century,” Explorations in Economic History 43 (2006): 332–56.
23 Ali Yaycioglu, Partners of the Ottoman Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman
Order in the Age of Revolutions (Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press,
2016), 100.
24 Bernard Lewis, “Some Reflection on the Decline of the Ottoman
Empire,” Studia Islamica 9 (1958): 113.
25 Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy, 88.
26 Yaycioglu, Partners of the Ottoman Empire.
27 Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2000), 54.
28 Virginia Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 1700–1870: An Empire Besieged (Harlow,
London, New York: Pearson Longman, 2007), 479. See also Barbara
Jelavich’s introduction to The Balkans in Transition and the chapter by
Nicolas Spulber in the same book, “Changes in the Economic Struc-
tures of the Balkans, 1860–1960,” 356.
29 Ziya Karamursal, Osmanlı Mali Tarihi Hakkında Tetkikler (ttk: Ankara:
1940), 202. See also Metin Heper, “Center and Periphery in the Ottoman
Empire: With Special Reference to the Nineteenth Century,” Internation-
al Political Science Review/Revue internationale de science politique 1
(1980): 86.
30 M. Safa Saraçoğlu, “Economic Interventionism, Islamic Law and Provin-
cial Government in the Ottoman Empire,” in Law and Legality in the
Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey, ed. Kent F. Schull, M. Safa
Saracoglu, and Robert Zens (Bloomington, in: Indiana University Press,
2016), 88.
31 Michael Ursinus, Grievance Administration (Şikayet) in an Ottoman
Province: The Kaymakam of Rumelia’s ‘Record Book of Complaints’ of
1781–1783 (London: Routledge Curzon, 2005).
32 E. Atilla Aytekin studies the role of social injustice and local misrule by
analysing three rebellions (Vidin, Canik, and Kisrawan) that occurred in
the Balkans, the Black Sea region, and the Levant in “Peasant Protest in
the Late Ottoman Empire: Moral Economy, Revolt, and the Tanzimat
Reforms,” International Journal of Social History 57 (2012): 191–227.
33 The combination of politico-religious and socio-structural concerns is

evident in the participation of klepths and armatoloi in the Greek rebel-
lions against the Ottoman rule. The foundation of a new regime would
provide the klepths and armatoloi new opportunities in order to consoli-
date their power in rural Greece. For more information, see Panagiotis
Stathis, “From Klephts and Armatoloi to Revolutionaries,” in Ottoman
Rule and the Balkans, 1760–1850. Conflict, Transformation, Adaptation
(Rethymno: Proceedings of an International Conference, 2003), 169.
34 “Bashibozuk” was used in the late 1820s and afterwards to denote an
irregular soldier who was employed because the cost of regular soldiers
was high for the Porte. It mainly implied that irregular soldiers lacked
discipline and obedience.
35 Abdulkadir Özcan, “Başı Bozuk,” in İslam Ansiklopedisi V (Istanbul: dia,
1986), 130.
36 Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats, chapter 1.
37 pro, fo 78/40, Drummond to Hawkesbury, 7 June I802, cited by Dennis
N. Skiotis, “From Bandit to Pasha: First Steps in the Rise to Power of Ali
of Tepelen,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (1971): 219.
38 Carter Vaughn Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The
Sublime Porte, 1789–1922 (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press,
1980), 140. See also Avigdor Levy, “The Ottoman Ulema and the Mili-
tary Reforms of Sultan Mahmud II,” Asian and African Studies 7 (1971):
13–39, and Stanford J. Shaw, “The Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Tax
Reforms and Revenue System,” International Journal of Middle East Stud-
ies 6 (1975): 421–59.
39 The Edict of 1856 in the era of Abdulmecid I was a progressive docu-
ment based on the principle of equality. It used the term vatandaş, fel-
low-citizen, for the first-time when referrıng to Ottoman subjects, there-
by recognizing the fundamental rights of non-Muslims. It also enforced
conscription of non-Muslims into the army. In other words, it mini-
mized, at least in principle, the social and legal differences among dif-
ferent religious communities in order to strengthen the cultural fabric
of Ottomanism. For a more systematic evaluation of the Tanzimat era,
see Kemal Karpat, “The Transformation of the Ottoman State,
1789–1908,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (1972): 237–74.
40 Betty S. Anderson, A History of the Modern Middle East: Rulers, Rebels,
and Rogues (Stanford, ca: Stanford Univeristy Press, 2016), 170.
41 Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922, 66.
42 The governance of Midhad Pasha and the implementation of Tanzimat
reforms in Danube brought social relief to the town by consolidating
the principles of justice and equality among the subjects. Yet the politi-
cal uprising in Danube erased that relatively peaceful era in the 1860s.
For more information, see Milan V. Petrov, “Everyday Forms of Compli-
ance: Subaltern Commentaries on Ottoman Reform, 1864–1868,” Com-
parative Studies in Society and History, 46 (2004): 730–59.
43 Köksal’s work shows that weak local networks at the community level
failed to implement Tanzimat reforms in accord with the rhythm of state
centralization. On the other hand, dense communal networks among eth-
nic and religious communities created new barriers to state centralization
and to the promotion of Ottomanism. See Yonca Köksal, “Rethinking
Nationalism: State Projects and Community Networks in 19th-Century
Ottoman Empire,” American Behavioral Scientist 51 (2008): 1498–1515. See
also Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy, 67.
44 Roderic H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876 (Prince-
ton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1963), 406.
45 Inalcık, “Tanzimâtın Uygulanması ve Sosyal Tepkileri.” See also Mark
Pinson, “Ottoman Bulgaria in the First Tanzimat Period – The Revolts
in Niš (1841) and Vidin (1850),” Middle Eastern Studies 11 (1975):
103–46, and Ahmet Uzun, Tanzimat ve Sosyal Direnişler. Niş Üzerine
Ayrıntılı Bir İnceleme (1841) (Istanbul: Eren, 2002).
46 Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists
(San Francisco, ca: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 222. See also Maria
Nikolaeva Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1977), chapter 4.
47 Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, chapters 6 and 8.
48 Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina, trans. Lovett F. Edwards (Chicago,
il: Phoenix Fiction, University of Chicago Press, 1977), 123.
49 Ussama Makdisi explores cultural sectarianism in Lebanon and the role
of orientalist and colonialist pressure against Ottoman patriotism in the
nineteenth century. The examples cited demonstrate that the same
mindset contributed to the rise of cultural violence. Ussama Makdisi,
The Culture of Sectarianism. Community, History, and Violence in Nine-
teenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley, ca: University of California
Press, 2000).
50 Antony Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to
the Present (New York: Routledge, 2001), 15, 29, 157.
51 Lesley Hazleton, After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split
in Islam (New York: Doubleday, Random House, 2009), parts 1 and 2.
See also Wilferd Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the
Early Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), part 4.
52 Tayeb El-Hibri, Parable and Politics in Early Islamic History: The Rashidun
Caliphs (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), chapters 1 and 5.
53 William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Mid-
dle East (Boulder, co: Westview Press, [1994], 2016), 14.
54 Gerald R. Hawting, The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate
AD 661–750 (London and New York: Routledge, 1986), chapter 1.
55 Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), chapter 8.
56 Peter C. Scales, The Fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba: Berbers and Andalusis
in Conflict (Leiden, New York, Koln: Brill, 1994). See the introduction,
and chapter 4.
57 Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, chapter 18.
58 Janina M. Safran, The Second Umayyad Caliphate: The Articulation of
Caliphal Legitimacy in Al-Andalus (Cambridge, ma: Center for Middle
Eastern Studies, 2000), chapter 5.
59 Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Religion and Politics under the Early
‘Abbāsids: The Emergence of the Proto-Sunnī Elite (Leiden: Brill, 1997),
chapter 3.
60 Amira K. Bennison, The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the ‘Abbasid
Empire (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009),
chapter 5.
61 Jonathan Lyons, The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western
Civilization (London: Bloomsbury, 2009).
62 Jim Al-Khalili, The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient
Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance (New York: Penguin Books,
2012).
63 Chase F. Robinson, Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives: The First 1,000
Years (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 2016), part I.
64 Linda Northrup, From Slave to Sultan: The Career of Al-Mans. ūr Qalāwūn
and the Consolidation of Mameluke Rule in Egypt and Syria (678–689
A.H./1279–1290 A.D.) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998).
65 Wayne H. Bowen, The History of Saudi Arabia (Westport, cn: Greenwood
Press, 2008), chapter 5.
66 Michael Crawford, “Religion and Religious Movements in the Gulf,
1700–1971,” in The Emergence of the Gulf States: Studies in Modern History,
ed. J.E. Peterson (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 63. See also the important
work of David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (Lon-
don and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 40.
67 Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire.
68 Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle
East, 1914–1920 (New York and London: Basic Books and Penguin,
2015), chapter 5. See also Sean McMeekin, The Berlin-Baghdad Express:
The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898–1918 (Lon-
don: Allen Lane, Penguin Books, 2010), chapter 6.
69 Kees van Dijk, “Religion and the Undermining of British Rule in South
and Southeast Asia during the Great War,” in Islamic Connections: Muslim
Societies in South and Southeast Asia, ed. R. Michael Feener and Terenjit
Sevea (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009), 111–12.
70 van Dijk, “Religion and the Undermining of British Rule in South and
Southeast Asia during the Great War,” 113.
71 Joel Dawson Rayburn, The Greatest Disaster: The Failure of Great Britain’s
Ottoman Empire Policy, 1914 (West Point, ny: Military Academy, 2002),
118.
72 Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State,
Faith, and the Community in the Late Ottoman State (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
73 Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New
York: Random House, 2004), XVII.
74 Diane Morgan, Essential Islam: A Comprehensive Guide to Belief and Prac-
tice (abc-clio, 2010), 87. Abou El Fadl, Khaled expresses that Quran has
not a concept of Holy War, but the fight to defend Islam is always legit-
imized through qital. From this point of view, jihad is presented as a
broader term. See The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists
(New York: HarperOne, 2007), 222.
75 Michael David Bonner, Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies in the
Jihad and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier (New Haven, cn: American Orien-
tal Society, 1996), xiv.
76 John L. Esposito, Unholy Wars: Terror in the Name of Islam (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2002), chapter 2.
77 Ibid, 100.
78 Kennedy’s important book shows us that the idea of the caliphate has
been subject to transformations since the death of Prophet Mohammed,
so that it has included both a tolerant policy and one leading to trau-
matic conflicts in different time periods. See Hugh Kennedy, Caliphate:
The History of an Idea (New York: Basic Books, 2016).
79 Shahab Ahmed, What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic (Prince-
ton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2016), 5, 6.
80 Eric Linn Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute Over Al-
Ghazali’s Best of All Possible Worlds (Princeton, nj: Princeton University
Press, 1984), 20.
81 Wilferd Modelung, “Universality in Mu’tazili Thought,” in Universality

in Islamic Thought: Rationalism, Science and Religious Belief, ed. Michael
Morony (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 11, 17, 23.
82 M. Abdul Hye, “Ash’arism,” in A History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. M.M.
Sharif. (Lahore: Pakistan Philosophical Congress, 1966), chapter 11.
83 Emraahim Moosa, What Is a Madrasa? (Chapel Hill, nc: University of
North Carolina Press, 2015), 106, and see chapters 4 and 5 for other
schools in Islam.
84 Saïd Amir Arjomand, Sociology of Shiʿite Islam: Collected Essays (Leiden
and Boston: Brill, 2016), 17.
85 Hossein Kamaly, God and Man in Tehran: Contending Visions of the Divine
from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2018).
86 Quintan Wiktorowicz, “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement,” Studies in
Conflict and Terrorism 29 (2006): 207–39.
87 Shiraz Maher, Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea (London: C. Hurst
and Co., 2016).
88 Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī, Muhammad Abduh and Khudai Khid-
matgar, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan can be noted as the progressive
Islamic thinkers in that period.
89 Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous – Aspects of Ahmadi Religious
Thought and Its Medieval Background (Berkeley, ca: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1989). See also Simon Rose-Valentine, Islam and the Ahmadiyya
Jama’at (London/New York: Hurst and Co., 2008), introduction. The fol-
lowers of Ahmadiyya community are mostly identified as non-Muslims
and the state authorities in Pakistan implement aggressive policies
against the followers of Ghulam Ahmad.
90 Charles J. Adams, “Maududi and the Islamic State,” in Voices of Resurgent
Islam, ed. John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983),
99–103. See also Vali Reza Nasr, Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic
Revivalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
91 Irfan Ahmad, “Islam and Politics in South Asia,” in The Oxford Handbook
of Islam and Politics, ed. John L. Esposito and Emad El-Din Shahin (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 327.
92 John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2011), introduction. See also Ahmad S.
Moussalli, Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Ideological and Political
Discourse of Sayyid Qutb (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1992).
93 Esposito, Unholy Wars: Terror in the Name of Islam, 17, 18.
94 Fazlur Rahman is interested in the ethical approach of the Quran; he
argues that Islam is a religion open to transformation, but that this is

mostly undermined by its conventional commentaries. See Revival and
Reform in Islam: A Study of Islamic Fundamentalism (Oxford: Oneworld
Publications, 1999). He recounts his own experience of reading Quran
from a different perspective, which refutes its current interpretation as
dominated by the commentaries, in “My Belief in Action,” in The
Courage of Conviction, ed. Philip L. Berman (New York: Dodd, 1985), 55.
95 Kur’an Yolu Tefsiri Cilt: 1 (Istanbul: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 2014),
116–17.
96 Ariel I. Ahram, Proxy Warriors: The Rise and Fall of State-Sponsored Militias
(Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 2011), chapter 1.
CHAPTER TWO
1 Author’s translation of “Culture: le cri des hommes devant leur

destin.”
2 Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Soci-
ological Review 51 (1986): 273.
3 Millet literally means “nation.” However, the religious division between
different peoples in the Ottoman Empire effectively made this term sig-
nify a confessional community whose members had the permission of
Sultan to rule themselves according to their own religious jurisdiction.
Jews were subject to Halakha, Orthodox or Catholic Christians were
subject to Canon Law, and Muslims were subject to Sharia Law. The
religious leaders of these communities were responsible for the peace
and organization of their own people. Starting from the era of Mahmud
II (r. 1808–39) and with the Tanzimat reforms, millet signified legally-
protected religious minority groups in the country.
4 Roderic H. Davison, Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774–1923:
The Impact of the West (Austin, tx: University of Texas Press, 1990), 121.
5 Paschalis M. Kitromilides, “‘Imagined Communities’ and the Origins of
National Question in the Balkans,” European History Quarterly 19
(1989): 149–94.
6 oa. a.mkt.um. 121/1, 1 R.Evvel 1269 – 13 December 1852. See also
a.mkt.um. 120/9, 24 R.Ahir 1269 – 4 February 1853.
7 oa. a.amd., 41/44, 9 Rebiülevvel 1269 – 21 December 1852.
8 A Mutasarrıf was an administrative authority who was appointed by the
central government, taking the approval of Sultan to deal with the gov-
erning issues of the commune where the Mutasarrıf was on duty. A
Mutasarrıf in sanjaks was responsible for sustaining civil order and gov-
erning issues. The term was institutionalized and consolidated during

Tanzimat reforms of the 1860s.
9 oa. i.hr., 89/4370, 5 Ramadan 1268 – 23 June 1852.
10 Zafer Gölen, “1852–53 Karadağ Askerî Harekâtı ve Sonuçları,” History
Studies 1 (2009): 220.
11 Ibid.
12 oa. a.mkt.um. 376/15, 9 R.Evvel 1276 – 6 October 1859.
13 oa. a.mkt.um. 528/62, 28 C.Evvel 1278 – 1 December 1861.
14 oa. hr.mkt. 320/51, 7 C.Evvel 1276 – 2 December 1859.
15 oa. a.mkt.mvl. 123/79, 19 C.Evvel 1277 – 3 December 1860.
16 oa. a.mkt.mvl. 146/88, 25 Zilkade 1278 – 24 May 1862.
17 oa. oa. a.mkt.um. 505/67, 6 R.Evvel 1278 – 11 September 1861.
18 oa. TŞRBNM. 16/20, 10 Şevval 1280 – 19 March 1864; see also TŞRBNM.
16/33, 12 Şevval 1280 – 21 March 1864.
19 oa. a.mkt.um. 327/90, 25 Safer 1275 – 4 October 1858.
20 oa. mvl. 991/93, 4 Muharrem 1281 – 9 June 1864.
21 “Bihke” was the official name of this city during the Ottoman Empire.
22 Gölen, “1852–53 Karadağ Askerî Harekâtı ve Sonuçları,” 127.
23 oa. a.mkt.um. 130/11, 19 C.Evvel 1266 – 2 April 1850.
24 Pinar Senisik, The Transformation of Ottoman Crete: Revolts, Politics and
Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century (London and New York: I.B. Tau-
ris, 2011), 10.
25 oa. i.mtz.gr. 34/1409, 17 C.Evvel 1284 – 16 September 1867.
26 “Ermiye” in Ottoman Turkish.
27 oa. a.mkt.mvl. 111/17, 4 R.Evvel 1276 – 1 October 1859.
28 Senisik, The Transformation of Ottoman Crete, 76.
29 William J Stillman, The Cretan Insurrection of 1866–67–68 (New York:
Henry Holt and Company, 1874), 87.
30 Duncan M. Perry, Stefan Stambolov and the Emergence of Modern Bulgaria
(Durham, nc: Duke University Press, 1993), 31, 245.
31 Reuven Firestone, Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 16–19.
32 Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, trans. Anthony F. Roberts
(Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2002), 24.
33 John L. Esposito, Islam and Politics (Syracuse, ny: Syracuse University
Press, 1998), 92–3. See also Gail Minault, The Khilafat Movement. Reli-
gious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India (New York: Columbia
34 Quintan Wiktorowicz and Karl Kaltenthaler, “The Rationality of Radi-
cal Islam,” Political Science Quarterly 121 (2006): 295.
35 ‘Abd Allah bin Al-Mubarak, Kitab al-jihad (Beirut: Dar al-Tali’a, 1971),
30.
36 Fariba Nawa, “American Sufi from Texas to the Taliban, and Back,”
Foreign Affairs, 12 October 2016, accessed 5 November 2016.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016–10–12
/american-sufi.
37 Catherine Wessinger, How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jon-
estown to Heaven’s Gate (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000), 39.
38 Adam Shatz, “In Search of Hezbollah,” The New York Review of Books, 29
April 2004, accessed 10 March 2016. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/
2004/04/29/in-search-of-hezbollah/.
39 Jeffrey Goldberg, “A Reporter at Large: In the Party of God (Part I),”
The New Yorker, 14 October 2002, accessed 5 November 2015.
http://www.jeffreygoldberg.net/articles/tny/a_reporter_at_large_in_the
_par.php
40 “An Open Letter: The Hizballah Program,” Council on Foreign Relations,
1 January 1988, accessed 4 December 2015. http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-
organizations-and-networks/open-letter-hizballah-program/p30967.
41 Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh reveals the historical paradigm intriguingly in
his important book In the Path of Hezbollah (Syracuse, ny: Syracuse Uni-
42 Ibid, 27. See also Augustus R. Norton, Hezbollah: A Short History
(Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2007), 35–6.
43 Kai Bird, The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames (New York:
Random House, 2014), 288.
44 Shatz, “In Search of Hezbollah.”
45 Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security
and Foreign Policy (Ann Arbor, mi: University of Michigan Press, 2006),
181.
46 Asher Kaufman, Reviving Phoenicia: The Search for Identity in Lebanon
(London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 238.
47 For a meticulously detailed account of the role of Shebaa farms in the
escalation process of violent conflicts, see Asher Kaufman, Contested
Frontiers in the Syria-Lebanon-Israel Region: Cartography, Sovereignty, and
Conflict (Washington, dc: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), chapters 12 and 13.
48 “Arab League Declares Hezbollah ‘Terrorist Organization,’” Annahar, 11
March 2016, accessed 5 April 2016.
49 Ibid.
50 The transcript of Hasan Nasrallah’s speech in Nabi Sheet on 24 Febru-
ary 2012. Lebanon’s (Official) National News Agency, accessed on 7 Janu-

ary, 2016. http://www.webcitation.org/65hMOL3hg.
51 “Obama Apologizes for Quran Burning in Afghanistan,” San Francisco
Chronicle, 23 February 2012, accessed 14 March 2015. http://www.web
citation.org/65hOKsVaf.
52 Baashir Saade, Hizbullah and the Politics of Remembrance: Writing the
Lebanese Nation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), Chap-
ters 2 and 5.
53 Jean-Pierre Filiu, Gaza: A History, trans. John King (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2016), 194.
54 Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage Books, 1979,
1992), 105, 106.
55 Mark A. Tessler, A History of the Israeli and Palestininan Conflict (Bloom-
ington and Indianapolis, in: Indiana University Press, 1994), 677.
56 Amal Jamal, The Palestinian National Movement: Politics of Contention
(Bloomington and Indianapolis, in: Indiana University Press, 2005), see
chapters 1 and 2. Ruth Margolies Beitler, The Path to Mass Rebellion: An
Analysis of Two Intifadas (London: Lexington Books, 2004), chapter 5.
57 Beitler, The Path to Mass Rebellion, 129.
58 “Hamas Covenant 1988,” The Avalon Project. Yale Law School. 18 August
1988, accessed 4 May 2015. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/
hamas.asp.
59 See Article 9 in the Covenant.
60 See Article 12 in the Covenant.
61 See Articles 13 and 15 in the Covenant.
62 Graham Usher, Dispatches from Palestine: The Rise and Fall of the Oslo
Peace Process (London: Pluto Press, 1999), 24.
63 Alan Dowty, Israel/Palestine, third edition (Cambridge: Polity Press,
2012), 220.
64 “Fatalities in the First Intifada,” B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Cen-
ter for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, accessed 7 May 2016.
http://www.btselem.org/statistics/first_intifada_tables.
65 Ibid.
66 Laura Junka-Aikio, Late Modern Palestine: The Subject and Representation
of the Second Intifada (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 32.
67 Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrell, Hamas: The Islamic Resis-
tance Movement (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), 85.
68 The Ten Point Program. Approved by the Palestine National Council at
the 12th Session, 8 June 1974. Israel and Judaism Studies, accessed 5 June
2015. http://www.ijs.org.au/The-Ten-Point-Program-/default.aspx.
69 Penny Johnson, Lee O’Brien and Joost Hiltermann, “The West Bank
Rises Up,” Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising against Israeli Occupation, ed.
Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin (Cambridge, ma: South End Press,
1989), 32.
70 Usher, Dispatches from Palestine, 141.
71 Gaza and West Bank – ICRC Bulletin No. 22/2007, accessed 5 June
2015. https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/news-release/2009-
and-earlier/israel-palestine-news-150607.htm.
72 The original name of the organization is Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades.
73 “Report: Hamas Weighing Large-Scale Conflict with Israel,” Ynetnews, 3
October 2006, accessed 7 July 2015. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/
0,7340,L-3310425,00.html.
74 “Confirmed Figures Reveal the True Extent of the Destruction Inflicted
upon the Gaza Strip,” Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. If Ameri-
cans Knew. 19 March 2009, accessed 7 July 2016.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/figures.html.
75 Said, The Question of Palestine, 106.
76 Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza
Conflict - A/HRC/29/52, accessed 5 August 2016. http://www.ohchr
.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIGazaConflict/Pages/ReportCoIGaza.aspx.
See also the casualties of Israel: “50 Days of Israel’s Gaza Operation, Pro-
tective Edge – by the Numbers,” Jerusalem Post, 28 August 2004 accessed
8 August 2016. http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/50-
days-of-Israels-Gaza-operation-Protective-Edge-by-the-numbers-
372574.
77 Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of
Religious Violence (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 2003),
190.
78 The Qur’an. A New Translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2004), 71.
79 “Hamas Presents New Charter Supporting Palestinian State along 1967
Borders,” Hareetz, 1 May 2017, accessed 8 May 2017.
http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/1.786754.
80 “Read the Full Translated Text of the Leaked Hamas Charter,” Mon-
doweiss, 5 April 2017, accessed 7 May 2017. http://mondoweiss.net/2017
/04/translated-leaked-charter/#sthash.GzG8qh6x.dpuf.
81 “Full Transcript of Bin Ladin’s Speech,” Al Jazeera, 1 November 2004,
accessed 5 September 2016. http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/
200849163336457223.html.
82 Christopher Blanchard, “Al-Qaeda: Statements and Evolving Ideology,”

Congressional Research Report for Congress, Order Code, RL 32759,
updated 9 July 2007, 14–15.
83 Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, An Enemy We Created: The
Myth of the Taliban / Al-Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970–2010 (New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
84 Gary D. Solis, The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian
Law in War (Cambridge, ma: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 594.
85 Qutb, Milestones, 90.
86 Adnan Musallam, From Secularism to Jihad. Sayyid Qutb and the Founda-
tions of Radical Islamism (Westport, ct: Greenwood Publishing, 2005),
51, 151.
87 Afghanistan, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2001, US
Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
4 March 2002. See also Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and
Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2000), 107.
88 Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
(New York: Knopf, 2006), 76.
89 Robert Fisk, “Interview with Saudi Dissident bin Laden,” Independent, 10
July 1996, accessed 9 November 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/
voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-a-close-encounter-with-the-man-
who-shook-the-world-2278035.html.
90 Michael Welch, “Trampling Human Rights in the War on Terror: Impli-
cations to the Sociology of Denial,” Critical Criminology 12 (2003): 1–20.
91 Carol A. Stabile and Deepa Kumar, “Unveiling Imperialism: Media,
Gender and the War on Afghanistan,” Media, Culture and Society 2005
(27): 765–82. See also Jean Bricmont, Humanitarian Imperialism: Using
Human Rights to Sell War (New York: New York University Press, 2006).
92 For the innovative “transubstantiory violence” concept, see Monica Ing-
ber, The Politics of Conflict: Transubstantiatory Violence in Iraq (Montreal
and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015).
93 Seymour M. Hersh, “Chain of Command. How the Department of
Defence Mishandled the Disaster at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, 17
May 2004, 38–43. See also Susan Sontag, “Regarding the Torture of
Others,” The New York Times Magazine, 23 May 2004, accessed 7 April
2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-the-
torture-of-others.html?_r=0.
94 Usamah Bin Laden, “The Way to Save the Earth,” Inspire (2010), 9.
95 Anand Gopal, No Good Men among the Living: America, the Taliban, and
the War through Afghan Eyes (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014).
96 Kepel, Jihad, 24.
97 Mohammed M. Hafez, Suicide Bombers in Iraq. The Strategy and Ideology
of Martyrdom (Washington, dc: USIP Press, 2007), 66.
98 Nasruddin later abandoned his Salafist ideas and returned to the US
where he embraced a tolerant and mystical Sufi version of Islam. For
more information about Nasruddin, see Fariba Nawa, “American Sufi
from Texas to the Taliban, and Back,” Foreign Affairs, 12 October 2006,
accessed 23 November 2016. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles
/united-states/2016–10–12/american-sufi.
99 Peter Neumann, Radicalized: New Jihadists and the Threat to the West
(London and New York. I.B. Tauris, 2016)
100 Jamal Al-Sharif, “Salafis in Sudan: Non-Interference or Confrontation,”
Al Jazeera, 3 July 2012, accessed 7 March 2015. http://studies.aljazeera
.net/en/reports/2012/07/20127395530326675.html.
101 “World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders: Initial
‘Fatwa’ Statement,” Al-Quds al-Arabi, London. 23 February 1998,
accessed 5 May 2016. https://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev
/mideast/fatw2.htm.
102 Mohammad Shehzad, “The Rediff/Interview Mullah Omar,” Rediff, 12
April 2004, accessed 7 September 2015. http://www.rediff.com/news
/2004/apr/12inter.htm.
103 Lewelyn Morgan, The Buddhas of Bamiyan (Cambridge, ma: Harvard
University Press), 20–1.
104 “Al-Qaeda Threatens Britain over Rushdie Knighthood,” npr, 10 July
2007, accessed 19 June 2015, http://www.npr.org/templates/story
/story.php?storyId=11852174.
105 Alice Harrold, “Al-Qaeda Leader Ayman Al-Zawahri Urges Young Mus-
lim Men to Launch Lone-Wolf Attacks on American Homes,” Indepen-
dent, 13 September 2015, accessed 7 November 2016, http://www
.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/al-qaeda-leader-ayman-al-
zawahri-urges-young-muslim-men-to-launch-lone-wolf-attacks-on-
american-10498615.html.
106 Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi,” 9 June
2005, accessed 8 June 2016, http://hdl.handle.net/10066/4798.
107 “Purported al-Zarqawi Tape: Democracy a Lie,” cnn International, 23
January 2005, accessed 3 June 2016, http://edition.cnn.com/2005

/WORLD/meast/01/23/iraq.main/.
108 Ali S. Asani,‘“So That You May Know One Another’: A Muslim Ameri-
can Reflects on Pluralism and Islam,” Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science 588 (2003): 40–51.
109 “More than 100 Children Killed in Taliban Attack on Pakistan School,”
The Guardian, 16 December 2014, accessed 2 July 2016,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/16/taliban-attack-army-
public-school-pakistan-peshawar.
110 “Al-Qaeda ‘Bursting with Pain’ over Pakistan School Attack,” Times of
India, 21 December 2014, accessed 4 August 2016, http://timesofindia
.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Al-Qaida-bursting-with-pain-over-
Pakistan-school-attack/articleshow/45594154.cms.
111 “Afghanistan: 300 Schoolgirls Hit by Suspected Taliban Poison Gas
Attacks in Herat, International Business Times, 4 September 2015,
accessed 3 October 2016, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/afghanistan-300-
schoolgirls-hit-by-suspected-taliban-poison-gas-attacks-herat-
1518418.
112 James Toth, Sayyid Qutb: The Life and Legacy of a Radical Islamic Intellec-
tual (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). See also
Nikkie R. Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism (Berkeley, ca: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1968) and Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism:
A History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007).
113 Farhad Khosrokhavar, Inside Jihadism: Understanding Jihadi Movements
Worldwide (Boulder, co: Paradigm Publishers, 2009).
114 Syed Saleem Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond bin
Laden and 9/11 (London: Pluto Press, 2011), part 3.
115 William McCants, isis: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Macmillan,
2015), chapter 1. See also Fawaz A. Gerges, isis: A History (Princeton,
nj: Princeton University Press, 2016), chapter 2.
116 ‘Abdul ‘Azeez Bin Yahyaa, one of the most important Salafi scholars
and the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, emphasizes the importance of
shirk, tawhid, and bid’a for converts to Islam. Shaikh ‘Abdul ‘Azeez Bin
Yahyaa Al Bur’ee, A Concise Manual for the New Muslim (USA: Salafi
Ink Publications, 2012). For more information about the role of shirk
and traditional discussions about it, see An Explanation of Muhammed
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s “Kashf al-shubuhat”: A Critical Analysis of Shirk,
trans. Yasir Qadhi (Birmingham, uk: Al-Hidaayah, 2003).
117 “MHP ve CHP’den Gul’e Suudi Kral Tepkisi,” cnn Turk, 12 November
2007, accessed 10 September 2016, http://www.cnnturk.com
/2007/turkiye/11/12/mhp.ve.chpden.gule.suudi.kral.tepkisi
/404242.0/
118 “How an Arrest in Iraq Revealed Isis’s $2 Bn Jihadist Network,” The
Guardian, 15 June 2014, accessed 7 June 2015, https://www.theguardian
.com/world/2014/jun/15/iraq-isis-arrest-jihadists-wealth-power. See also
Michelle Nichols, “un Security Council Ups Pressure on Islamic State
Financing,” Reuters, 12 February 2015, accessed 8 June 2015, http://www
.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-un-idUSKBN0LG1YN20150212.
119 Hawar Berwani, “isil Orders Destruction of All Churches in Mosul,”
Iraqi News, 16 June 2014, accessed 19 July 2016, http://www.iraqinews
.com/iraq-war/isil-instructs-to-destroy-churches-in-mosul/.
120 “Isis Destroys Historic Christian and Muslim Shrines in Northern
Iraq,” The Guardian, 20 March 2015, accessed 18 July 2015,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/20/isis-destroys-historic-
christian-muslim-shrines-iraq.
121 “Shock New Video Shows Isis Thugs Smashing Historic Iraqi City
Nimrud,” Azerbaijani News Network, 13 April 2015, accessed 3 May,
2015, http://ann.az/en/shock-new-video-shows-isis-thugs-smashing-his-
toric-iraqi-city-of-nimrud/#.WGyu0vIl_Ho.
122 “Islamic State: 2,000-Year-Old Ruins in Ancient Hatra City Destroyed
by Militants,” ABC News, 7 March 2015, accessed 6 May 2015,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015–03–08/islamic-state-militants-raze-
iraq-ancient-hatra-city/6288618.
123 “Hatra Destruction ‘War Crime’, Says un Chief in Wake of isil
Destruction of Heritage Site.” un News Centre, 7 March 2015, accessed
4 May 2015, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50273.
124 Though Isis lost control of Palmyra later, they managed to retake it in
December 2016. See “Islamic State Retakes Historic City of Palmyra,”
The Guardian, 10 December 2016, accessed 12 December 2016,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/11/islamic-state-retakes-
palmyra-syria.
125 “Isis Blows up Arch of Triumph in 2,000-year-old City of Palmyra,” The
Guardian, 5 October 2015, accessed 7 October 2015, https://www.the
guardian.com/world/2015/oct/05/isis-blows-up-another-monument-in-
2000-year-old-city-of-palmyra.
126 “isis Has Reportedly Bulldozed Two of the World’s Most Important
Ancient Cities,” Science Alert, 11 November 2016, accessed 13 Novem-
ber 2016, http://www.sciencealert.com/two-iconic-ancient-cities-have-
reportedly-been-destroyed-by-isis-in-iraq.
127 “It’s Time to End the Boycott of Iraqi and Syrian Academics,”
Worldpost, 7 January 2016, accessed 5 February 2016,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-the-boycott-of-
iraqi-and-syrian-academics_us_57768eb7e4b04164640fb5ff?cfrib
fohftmi8jjor.
128 The important book by Dina Rizk Khoury explains the relationship
between the state and the province in Mosul successfully. See State and
Provincial Society in the Ottoman Empire: Mosul 1540–1834 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997).
129 “In Iraq, Islamic State Jihadists Destroy Ancient Mosques, Shrines,”
India Times, 5 July 2014, accessed 27 July 2014, http://timesofindia
.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/In-Iraq-Islamic-State-jihadists-
destroy-ancient-mosques-shrines/articleshow/37852766.cms.
130 “The Battle for Babylon,” The Guardian, 16 April 2006, accessed 15
April 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006
/apr/16/thebattleforbabylon.
131 Paul Newman, “The Etymology of Hausa Boko,” Mega-Chad
Research Network, 2013. http://lah.soas.ac.uk/projects/megachad/misc
.html.
132 Mohammed Aly Sergie and Toni Johnson, “Boko Haram. CFR Back-
grounders,” Council on Foreign Relations, 5 March 2015, accessed 6 April
2015, http://www.cfr.org/nigeria/boko-haram/p25739.
133 “Nigeria: Government Knew of Planned Boko Haram Kidnapping but
Failed to Act,” Amnesty International uk, 9 May 2014, accessed 19 May
2015, https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/nigeria-government-
knew-planned-boko-haram-kidnapping-failed-act.
134 “Isis Claims ‘Schweppes Can Bomb’ Blew up Russian Metrojet Flight
9268 in Egypt’s Sinai – Dabiq,” International Business Times, 18 Novem-
ber 2015, accessed 14 December 2015, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-
claim-schweppes-can-bomb-blew-russian-metrojet-flight-9268-egypts-
sinai-dabiq-1529374.
135 Cook, Understanding Jihad, X.
136 “43 Killed, 239 Wounded in Beirut Twin Blasts; Islamic State Claims
Responsibility,” Firstpost, 13 November 2015, accessed 15 November
2015, http://www.firstpost.com/world/41-killed-200-wounded-in-beirut-
twin-blasts-is-claims-responsibility-2504508.html.
137 “Paris Attacks: Day after Atrocity – As It Happened,” The Guardian, 14
November 2015, accessed 4 December 2015, https://www.theguardian
.com/world/live/2015/nov/14/paris-terror-attacks-attackers-dead-mass-
killing-live-updates.
138 “Paris Attacks Death Toll Rises to 130,” RTE News, 20 November 2015,
accessed 1 December 2015, http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/1120/747897-
paris/.
139 George W. Gawrych, The Young Ataturk: From Ottoman Soldier to Statesman
of Turkey (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013), 6. See also Erik-jan
Zurcher, The Young Turk Legacy and Nation Building: From the Ottoman
Empire to Ataturk’s Turkey (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010).
140 John R. Bowen, Can Islam Be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Sec-
ular State (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2010). See also
“After Paris Attacks, a Darker Mood toward Islam Emerges in France,”
New York Times, 16 November 2015, accessed 3 December 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/europe/after-paris-attacks-a-
darker-mood-toward-islam-emerges-in-france.html.
141 For the impact of terror on the political landscape of France, see the
important work of Christophe Chowanietz, Bombs, Bullets, and Politi-
cians: France’s Response to Terrorism (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-
Queen’s University Press, 2016).
142 “Suicide Bombers Attack Sites in Saudi Arabia Including Mosque in
Medina,” The Guardian, 5 July 2016, accessed 4 August 2016,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/04/saudi-arabia-bomb-
ings-jeddah-medina-prophets-mosque-qatif.
143 “isis Leader Al-Baghdadi Calls for Destruction of Kaaba Stone,” World
News Daily Report, 28 June 2016, accessed 4 July 2016, http://worldnews
dailyreport.com/isis-leader-calls-for-destruction-of-kaaba-stone/.
144 “isil Claims Deadly Attacks in France and Germany,” Hurriyet Daily
News, 26 July 2016, accessed 27 July 2016, http://www.hurriyetdaily
news.com/isil-claims-deadly-attacks-in-france-and-germany.aspx?page
ID=238&nID=102123&NewsCatID=351.
145 “You Christians, You Kill Us,” Daily Mail Online, 26 July 2016, accessed
27 July 2016, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3708394/Two-
men-armed-knives-people-hostage-French-church.html.
146 “isil Releases Video of Church Attackers Pledging Allegiance,” Politico,
27 July 2016, accessed 28 July 2016, http://www.politico.eu/article
/video-church-attackers-terrorists-allegeance-is-released/.
147 “Türkiye’de yaşayan 13 yaşındaki cihatçı: IŞİD isterse Türkiye’ye
saldırırım,” Cumhuriyet, 6 November 2014, accessed 17 June 2016,
http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turkiye/137881/Turkiye_de_yasay
an_13_yasindaki_cihatci__ISiD_isterse_Turkiye_ye_saldiririm.html.
148 Ibid.
CHAPTER THREE
1 Fathali M. Moghaddam, “Cultural Preconditions for Potential Terrorist

Groups: Terrorism and Societal Change,” in Understanding Terrorism: Psy-
chosocial Roots, Consequences, and Interventions, ed. Anthony J. Marsella
(Washington, dc: American Psychological Association, 2004), 103–17.
2 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University
Press, 1983), 1.
3 Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. H.H. Gerth and
C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946). See also
Bryan S. Miller’s preface to a later edition (London and New York:
Routledge, 2009), 122.
4 Charles A. Frazee, The Orthodox Church and Independent Greece,
1821–1852 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 56.
5 It is estimated that over a half million people lost their lives after the
invasion. See Amy Hagopian, et. al., “Mortality in Iraq Associated with
the 2003–2011 War and Occupation: Findings from a National Cluster
Sample Survey by the University Collaborative Iraq Mortality Study,”
PLoS Medicine 10 (2013): 2.
6 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), 6–7.
7 James D. Fearon and David D. Latin, “Review: Violence and the Social
Construction of Ethnic Identity,” International Organization 2000 (54): 851.
8 Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle toward Self-Real-
ization (New York: W.W. Norton, 1950).
9 Géza Róheim, The Origin and Function of Culture (New York: Nervous
and Mental Disease Monographs, 1943), 74.
10 Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into
Freud, second edition (Boston, ma: Beacon Press, 1966), 12.
11 Ed Husain, The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw
Inside and Why I Left (New York: Penguin Books, 2007).
12 See Oskar Verkaaik’s article regarding the situation in Karachi, “Notes
on the Sublime: Aspects of Political Violence in Urban Pakistan,” Terror
and Media 11 (2013): 109–19.
13 Herbert C. Kelman, “Violence without Moral Restraint: Reflections on
the Dehumanization of Victims and Victimizers,” American Psychologist
27 (1973): 25.
14 Nick Haslam and Steve Loughnan, “How Dehumanization Promotes
Harm,” in The Social Psychology of Good and Evil, second edition, ed.
Arthur G. Miller (New York: Guildford Press), 150.
15 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt,

Brace and Company, 1951).
16 Haslam and Loughnan, “How Dehumanization Promotes Harm,” 152.
17 Richard J. Bernstein, Why Read Hannah Arendt Now? (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2018).
18 Ibid.
19 Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social
Criticism (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1869), 38–9.
20 Ibid, 69.
21 Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development
of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom (London:
John Murray, 1871), 1.
22 Norbert Elias, Norbert Elias on Civilization, Power, and Knowledge: Selected
Writings, ed. Stephen Mennel and Johan Goudsblom (Chicago and Lon-
don: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 218.
23 Ehsan Yar-Shater, The History of al-Tabari. Volume XII, trans. Yohannan
Friedmann, ed. Ehsan Yar-Shater (Albany, ny: State University of New
York Press, 1992), 191.
24 Karen Amstrong, “Jerusalem: The Problems and Responsibilities of
Sacred Space,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 13 (2002): 189–96.
25 Riaz Hassan, Suicide Bombings (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011), 79.
26 The strategic importance of jihadist suicide bombers is underlined by
Robert A. Pape in Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
(New York: Random House, 2005) and Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The
Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005).
27 Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1973), 4.
28 Ibid, 207.
29 Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of
Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1936), 202.
30 Manus I. Midlarsky, Origins of Political Extremism: Mass Violence in the
Twentieth Century and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2011), 362.
31 Lawrence Wright, “The Rebellion within: An Al Qaeda Mastermind
Questions Terrorism,” The New Yorker, 2 June 2008, accessed 6 July 2016,
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/02/the-rebellion-within.
32 Erich Fromm, The Revolution of Hope: Towards a Humanized Technology
(New York: Harper and Row, 1968), 90.
33 Stephen Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Rakshi Rath, “Making a
Virtue of Evil: A Five-Step Social Identity Model of the Development of
Collective Hate,” Social Personality and Psychology Compass 2 (2008):

1313–44. See also S. Alexander Haslam and Stephen Reicher, “Beyond
the Banality of Evil: Three Dynamics of an Interactionist Social Psychol-
ogy of Tyranny,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 33 (2007):
615–22.
34 Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (London:
Tavistock Publications, 1974).
35 Lisa K. Fazio, Sarah J. Barber, Suparna Rajaram, Peter A. Ornstein, and
Elizabeth J. Marsh, “Creating Illusions of Knowledge: Learning Errors
that Contradict Prior Knowledge,” Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General 142 (2013): 1–5.
CHAPTER FOUR
1 Voivode is a Slavic term meaning “military commander,” but it was most-

ly used by the Ottoman Empire as the title of the governor of a town in
the Balkans.
2 Subashi (Subaşı) is an official Ottoman title which signifies the com-
mander or governor of a town or a castle.
3 Mark Pinson, “Ottoman Bulgaria in the First Tanzimat Period – The
Revolts in Niš (1841) and Vidin (1850),” Middle Eastern Studies 11
(1975): 142. This phrase used by Pinson was derived from D. Kosev,
‘V’stanieto na Selianite v Sverozapadna B’lgariia prez 1850 g. i Negovite
Prichini,’ Istoricheski Pregled (hereafter ‘I. P.‘), VI, kn. 4–5, (1949–50), 482.
4 Immanuel Wallerstein, Hale Decdeli, and Reşat Kasaba, “The Incorpora-
tion of the Ottoman Empire into the World-Economy,” in The Ottoman
Empire and the World-Economy, ed. Huri Islamoğlu-Inan (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 90. A mültezim was a risk-
taker and entrepreneur who mainly collected tax but sometimes gov-
erned the town. Tax collection was awarded to the highest bidder in the
Ottoman Empire, so if a mültezim collected more than he needed to
send to the Porte, he made a profit. If the mültezim failed to send the
contractual amount, however, his assets might be confiscated, or he
might go to prison. This system led to mültezims victimizing local peo-
ple. See Murat Çizakça, A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships:
The Islamic World and Europe with Specific References to Ottoman Archives
(Leiden: Brill, 1996), 141.
5 İltizam was a form that empowered local elites by granting them the
right to collect the farm tax on behalf of the state.
6 Halil İnalcık, “Tanzimatın Uygulanması ve Sosyal Tepkileri,” in Osmanli
Imparatorluğu Toplum ve Ekonomi Üzerinde Arşiv Çalışmaları ve

İncelemeleri, ed. Halil İnalcık (Istanbul: Eren Yayıncılık, 1993), 369.
7 Law-enforcement agencies which performed the duties of the police.
8 Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cam-
9 Arthur Evans was an archaeologist, a sympathizer with the insurgents,
and an English traveler in Bosnia at that time.
10 Arthur J. Evans, Through Bosnia and the Herzegovina on Foot during the
Insurrection, August and September 1875: With an Historical Review of
Bosnia, and a Glimpse at the Croats, Slavonians, and the Ancient Republic of
Ragusa (London: Longmans, Green, 1877), 346.
11 bao. mvl. 911/32, 19 Receb 1274 – 5 March 1858.
12 Ahmet Uzun, Tanzimat ve Sosyal Direnişler. Niş Üzerine Ayrıntılı Bir
İnceleme (1841) (Istanbul: Eren, 2002), 37.
13 Uzun, Tanzimat ve Sosyal Direnişler, 47.
14 Halil İnalcık, “Tanzimatın Uygulanması ve Sosyal Tepkiler,” in Tanzimat.
Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, ed. Halil Inalcik and Mehmet
Seyithanoğlu (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Yayınları, 2006), 188.
15 1 kurush (kuruş) equals 40 para.
16 İnalcık, “Tanzimat’in Uygulanmasi ve Sosyal Tepkiler,” 188.
17 Uzun, Tanzimat ve Sosyal Direnişler, 47–9.
18 Ibid., 51–2.
19 Ibid., 77–8.
20 Ibid., 13–15.
21 The present name of this province is Sliven
22 oa. a.mkt.um. 238/99, 5 Şevval 1272 – 9 June 1856.
23 oa. a.mkt.um. 413/46, 19 Z.hicce 1276 – 8 July 1860.
24 oa. a.mkt.um. 38/95, 8 Muharrem 1267 – 13 November 1850.
25 oa. a.mkt.um. 296/68, 19 R.ahir 1274 – 7 December 1857.
26 oa. hat 408/21251 F, 13 Z.hicce 1254 – 27 February 1839.
27 oa. hr.mkt. 138/52, 1 Receb 1272 – 8 March 1856.
28 oa. hat 405/21176 B, 25 Ramadan 1251- 14 January 1836 and hat 405-
21176 A, 27 Ramadan 1251 – 16 January 1836.
29 oa. hat 414/2146, 29 Z.hicce 1251 – 16 April 1836.
30 The present name of this is Bitola.
31 oa. hat 408/21246 O, 19 R.ahir 1251 – 14 August 1835.
32 oa. hat 408/21246 H, 17 R.ahir 1251 – 12 August 1835.
33 oa. hat 408/21246 A, 21 Receb 1251 – 12 November 1835 and hat 408
21246 B, 21 R.ahir 1251 – 16 August 1835.
34 oa. hat 422/21739 C, 25 C.ahir 1251 – 18 October 1835.
35 oa. hat 413/21454 B, 29 Z.hicce 1254 – 15 March 1839.

36 oa. hat 413/21455 N, 26 Safer 1251 – 23 June 1835.
37 oa. hat 408/21251 F, 13 Z.hicce 1254 – 27 February 1839.
38 Rumen Daskalov, The Making of a Nation in the Balkans: Historiography
of the Bulgarian Revival (Budapest and New York: Central European
39 Maria N. Todorova, Bones of Contention: The Living Archive of Vasil Levski
and the Making of Bulgaria’s National Hero (Budapest and New York:
ceu Press, 2009), 181–2.
40 Vangel K. Sugareff, “The Constitution of the Bulgarian Revolutionary
Central Committee,” The Journal of Modern History 4 (1932), 74.
41 Ibid., 573.
42 Ibid.
43 Richard. J. Crampton, Bulgaria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),
89.
44 Crampton, Bulgaria, 90.
45 oa. a.mkt.mvl. 105–78, 7 Sha’aban 1275–12 March 1859.
46 oa. a.mkt.mvl. 117–24, 6 Muharrem 1277 – 25 July 1860.
47 oa. a.mkt.nzd. 183–65, 22 Sha’aban 1272 – 28 April 1856.
48 oa. i.dh. 562/39130, 26 Z.hicce 1283 – 1 May 1867.
49 oa. i.dh. 579/40345, 24 R.evvel 1285 – 15 July 1868.
50 Hizbollah, Open Letter, 16 February 1985. The manifesto was published
under the title of “Nass al-Risala al-Maftuha allati wajahaha Hizballah
ila-l-Mustad’afin fi Lubnan wa-l-Alam,” in al-Safir (Beirut). The transla-
tion of the text can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20060821
215729/http://www.ict.org.il/Articles/Hiz_letter.htm. See also Itamar
Robinovich and Jehuda Reinharz, Israel in the Middle East: Documents
and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations pre-1948 to the Pre-
sent (Waltham, ma: Brandeis University Press, 2008), 425.
51 Melani Cammett, Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism
in Lebanon (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 2014), 71–2. Hezbollah
has participated in the elections since 1992 and gained two seats in the
cabinet in the 2009 elections under the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc.
52 Judith Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism (London:
I.B. Tauris, 2004), see chapter 7.
53 “Hezbollah’s Secret Weapon,” cnn, 26 July 2006, accessed 22 January
2018, http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/24/schuster
.hezbollah/index.html.
54 Jackson Allers, “Hezbollah ahead of Lebanese Govt in Reconstruction,”
13 September 2016. http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=9694.
55 Ibid.
56 See the ideological playbook of Hezbollah, Yom Eddin, which means
“The Day of Faith.” Amir Tahari, Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic
Terrorism (Bethesda, md: Adler and Adler, 1987), 276.
57 Filippo Dionigi, Hezbollah, Islamist Politics and International Society (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), chapter 4. Matthew Levitt, Hezbollah:
The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (London: Hurst and Co.,
2013), 11.
58 Barak Ravid, “Man Detained in Cyprus Was Planning Attack on Israeli
Targets for Hamas,” Haaretz, 14 July 2012, accessed 17 July 2016,
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/man-detained-in-cyprus-was-plan-
ning-attack-on-israeli-targets-for-hezbollah-1.451000. See also “Bulgaria
Blames Hezbollah in Bomb Attack against Israelis,” Reuters, 5 February
2013, accessed 10 March 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bulgaria-
bombing-idUSBRE9140TZ20130205.
59 “Tel Aviv Diary. Netanyahu Loses His Security Edge,” Newsweek, 12 Janu-
ary 2015, accessed 13 June 2016, accessed 3 August 2016,
http://europe.newsweek.com/tel-aviv-diary-netanyahu-loses-his-security-
edge-302676?rm=eu.
60 Dominique Avon and Anaïs-Trissa Khatchadourian, Hezbollah: A History
of the “Party of God” (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2012).
61 The original name of Fatah was Harakat al-tah. rīr al-wat. anī al-Filast. īnī,
which means “The Palestinian National Liberation Movement.” The
organization gained an institutional character in 1965 after its recogni-
tion as a political party.
62 Jonathan Schanzer, Hamas vs. Fatah. The Struggle for Palestine (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 2.
63 “Hamas Covenant 1988, the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Move-
ment,” 18 August 1988. The Avalon Project Document. Yale Law School,
accessed 5 June 2016, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp.
64 Greham Usher, “The Democratic Resistance: Hamas, Fatah, and the Pales-
tinian Elections,” Journal of Palestine Studies 35 (2006): 20–36. See also
Khaled Hroub, Hamas: A Beginner’s Guide (London: Pluto Press, 2006).
65 Khaled Hroub, “A ‘New Hamas’ through Its New Documents,” Journal of
Palestine Studies 35 (2006): 6–28.
66 Ilan Pappé, The Bureaucracy of Evil: The History of the Israeli Occupation
(Oxford: One World Publications, 2012).
67 Bernard Rougier, Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam among Pales-
tinians in Lebanon, trans. Pascale Ghazaleh (Cambridge, ma.: Harvard
68 Turkey and Qatar are the countries that most explicitly defend Hamas
and recognize it as a legitimate political party.
69 Alistair Dawber, “Tales from Gaza: What’s Life Really Like in ‘The
World’s Largest Outdoor Prison,” The Independent, 12 April 2013,
accessed 5 May 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world
/middle-east/tales-from-gaza-what-is-life-really-like-in-the-worlds-largest-
outdoor-prison-8567611.html.
70 “Open Gaza’s Crossings,” editorial in Haaretz, 7 June 2015, accessed 9
June 2015, http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.659942.
71 Noam Chomsky, “My Visit to Gaza. The World’s Largest Open-air
Prison,” interview with Alistair Dawber, Truthout, 9 November 2012,
accessed 6 December 2015, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/12635-
noam-chomsky-my-visit-to-gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison.
72 Rodric Braithwaite, Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2006), see part 3.
73 Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, An Enemy We Created: The
Myth of the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2012), chapters 4 and 5.
74 Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the cia, Afghanistan, and Bin
Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin
Press, 2004).
75 Stephen Holmes, “Al-Qaeda, September 11, 2001,” in Making Sense of Sui-
cide Missions, ed. Diego Gambetta (New York: Oxford University Press),
165.
76 John Miller, “Usama Bin Laden: ‘American Soldiers Are Paper Tigers,’”
The Middle East Quarterly 1998 (5): 73–9.
77 Holmes, “Al-Qaeda, September 11, 2001,” 169.
78 “Bin Laden Takes on Capitalism,” Los Angeles Times, 8 September 2007,
accessed 4 October 2016,
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/08/world/fg-binladen8.
79 Robert Mason, Foreign Policy in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Economics and
Diplomacy in the Middle East (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2015),
chapter 3; Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in
Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina (Lanham, md: Rowman and Little-
field, 2003), chapter 2; Kylie Baxter and Kumuda Simpson, “The United
States and Saudi Arabia through Arab Uprisings,” Global Change, Peace
and Security 27 (2015): 139–51.
80 Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for
Saudi Crude (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004). See chapters 4 and 5.
81 Patrick Cockburn, The Rise of Islamic State: Isis and the New Sunni Revo-
lution (London: Verso, 2015).
82 David Cortright and George A. Lopez, “Strategic Counter Terrorism,” in
Uniting Against Terror: Cooperative Nonmilitary Responses to the Global Ter-
rorist Threat, ed. David Cortright and George A. Lopez (Cambridge, ma:
mit Press, 2007), 5.
83 Benjamin Isakhan, “Introduction: The Iraq Legacies: Intervention, Occu-
pation, Withdrawal and Beyond,” in The Legacy of Iraq: From the 2003
War to the ‘Islamic State,’ ed. Benjamin Isakhan (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2015), 1–18. Along with this important article, other
essays in this book shed light upon the legacy of invasion in Iraq and
how it led the surge of violence in the region.
84 Abdel Bari Atwan, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate (London: Saqi
Books, 2015), chapter 6.
85 Lawrence Wright, “The Master Plan: Annals of Terrorism,” The New York-
er, 11 September 2006, accessed 5 October 2015, http://www.newyorker
.com/magazine/2006/09/11/the-master-plan.
86 Peter L. Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al
Qaeda’s Leader (New York: Free Press, 2006), 244.
87 Hassan Hassan, “A Jihadist Blueprint for Hearts and Minds Is Gaining
Traction in Syria,” The National, 4 March 2014, accessed 5 March 2014,
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/a-jihadist-
blueprint-for-hearts-and-minds-is-gaining-traction-in-syria.
88 “From Agassi to Al Nusra. Assad experience in jihadi investment!” Al
Arabiya Institute for Studies, 6 July 2013, https://web.archive.org/web
/20141016223117/http://estudies.alarabiya.net/content/agassi-al-nusra
assad-experience-jihadi-investment.
89 “Al-Qaeda Propaganda Chief Killed in Pakistan Strike,” Irish Times, 1
November 2008, accessed 4 December 2015, http://www.irishtimes.com
/news/al-qaeda-propaganda-chief-killed-in-pakistan-strike-1.830986.
90 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage through
Which the Umma Will Pass, trans. William McCants and John M. Elin
(Boston, ma: Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, 2006),
44.
91 Ibid., 21.
92 “Full Text: Bin Laden’s Warning,” bbc News, 7 October 2001, accessed 5
June 2015, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2455845.stm.
93 “Inside Al Qaeda’s Plot to Blow Up an American Airliner,” The New York
Times, 22 February 2017, accessed 25 February 2017, https://mobile.ny
times.com/2017/02/22/us/politics/anwar-awlaki-underwear-bomber-
abdulmutallab.html?referer.
94 Ibid.
95 The official name of Al-Nusra is Jabhat an-Nus. rah li-Ahli ash-Shām,
which literally means “The Support Front for the People of Al-Sham.”
96 “An Internal Struggle: Al-Qaeda’s Syrian Affiliate Is Grappling with Its
Identity,” Huffington Post, 31 May 2015, accessed 4 June 2015,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-lister/an-internal-struggle-al-
q_b_7479730.html.
97 “Syrian Nusra Front Announces Split from al-Qaeda,” bbc News, 28
July 2016, accessed 2 August 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
middle-east-36916606.
98 “Nusra Confirms Split with al-Qaeda ‘To Protect the Syrian Revolu-
tion,’” Middle East Eye, 28 July 2016, accessed 2 August 2016
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/nusra-front-announces-official-
split-al-qaeda-520293064.
99 “Al-Nusra Leader Jolani Announces Split from al-Qaeda,” Al Jazeera, 28
July 2016, accessed 3 August 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/news
/2016/07/al-nusra-leader-jolani-announces-split-al-qaeda-1607281637
25624.html.
100 It is also important to note that in the early 2000s, even though the US
believed that al-Qaeda was severely weakened, the organization could
still activate its regional and global networks. For more information on
this matter, see Daniel Byman, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Glob-
al Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford
101 Barak Mendelsohn, The al-Qaeda Franchise: The Expansion of al-Qaeda
and Its Consequences (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). In
another important study, Mendelsohn argues that the organization’s
extreme ideology defies its structural capacity on the designation of
global order. See “Al Qaeda and Global Governance: The Constraining
Impact of Rigid Ideology,” Terrorism and Political Violence 26:3 (2014),
470–87.
102 Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociol-
ogy, trans. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, [1919] 1946), 77–128.
103 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1994).
104 Jihad and violence were not monopolized nor used exploited excessive-
ly in early Islam, but these concepts were debated and instrumental-
ized when Islam was used as leveraging power and politicized accord-
ingly during the Abbasid period and thereafter. For more information,
see Asma Afsaruddin, “Views of Jihad throughout History,” Religion
Compass 1 (2007), 165–9.
105 Jason Burke, The New Threat from Islamic Militancy (London: The Bod-
ley Head, 2016), chapter 8.
106 Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, Isis: The State of Terror (London: Harper-
Collins, 2015), chapters 1, 2, and 7.
107 Scott Atran and Nafees Hamid, “Paris: The War Isis Wants,” The New
York Review of Books, 16 November 2015 accessed 18 November 2016,
http://www.nybooks. com/daily/2015/11/16/paris-attacks-isis-strategy-
chaos/.
108 Thomas Joscelyn, “US Counterterrorism Efforts in Syria: A Winning
Strategy?” FDD’s Long War Journal, 29 September 2015, accessed 3 Octo-
ber 2015, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/09/us-countert-
errorism-efforts-in-syria-a-winning-strategy.php.
109 Imogen Calderwood, “Isis Spells Out Historic Plan to Take Andalucia,”
The Olive Press, 10 August 2014, accessed 4 March 2015, http://www.the
olivepress.es/spain-news/2014/08/10/isis-spells-out-historic-plan-to-
retake-andalucia/.
110 Isis published a magazine in Turkish called Konstantiniyye (Istanbul’s
historic name) in 2015 in which it expressed its goal of conquering
Istanbul. https://ia601509.us.archive.org/4/items/Konstantiniyye01
/Konstantiniyye%2001.pdf. The same issue of the magazine labeled
Turks as apostates, arguing that they violate the rules of Islam.
111 “Iki canlı bomba ve TNT,” Anadolu Ajansi, 10 October 2015 accessed 4
November 2015, http://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/anadolu-ajansi-iki-
canli-bomba-ve-tnt. See also “Ankara Explosions Leave almost 100 Dead
– Officials,” bbc News, 10 October 2015, accessed 5 December 2015,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34495161.
112 Elizabeth Ferris and Kemal Kirişci, The Consequences of Chaos: Syria’s
Humanitarian Crisis and the Failure to Protect (Washington dc: The
Brooking Institute Press, 2016), chapters 1 and 4.
113 “Atatürk Havalimanı’nda saldırı: 42 ölü,” bbc Türkçe, 29 June 2016,
accessed 2 July 2016, http://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler/2016/06
/160628_istanbul_havalimani_saldiri.
114 Gaziantep is a city in southern Turkey which shares a border with
Syria. The city has become notorious for its increasing number of Isis
members.
115 “IŞİD Türkiye’ye savaş ilan etti,” Hurriyet, 1 July 2016, accessed 6 July
2016, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/isid-turkiyeye-savas-ilan-etti-
40124111.
116 “IŞİD’in teknoloji emiri’nden korkunç ifadeler,” Hurriyet, 30 June 2016,
accessed 3 July 2016, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/isidin-teknoloji-
emirinden-korkunc-ifadeler-40124186.
117 “150 canlı bomba,” Hurriyet, 5 July 2016, accessed 2 August 2016,
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/150-canli-bomba-40130838.
118 “Islamic State Extends Reach as It Suffers from Defeats,” The Wall Street
Journal, 5 July 2016, accessed 4 August 2016, http://www.wsj.com
/articles/islamic-state-extends-reach-as-it-suffers-defeats-1467681163.
119 “Berlin Attack Suspect ‘Pledged Allegiance to Isil’, as Questions Raised
over How He Travelled 1,000 Miles across Europe before He Was Shot
Dead by Police in Milan,” The Telegraph, 23 December 2016, accessed 24
December 2016. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/23/berlin-
christmas-market-attack-suspect-anis-amri-reportedly/.
120 Abdülkadir Masharipov studied physics and computer science at uni-
versity. He first joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and later moved to the
ranks of Isis. “Reina saldırısının zanlısı Abdulkadir Masharipov hakkın-
da neler biliniyor?” T24, 17 January 2017, accessed 17 January 2017.
http://t24.com.tr/haber/reina-saldirisinin-zanlisi-abdulkadir-masharipov-
hakkinda-neler-biliniyor,383684.
121 “Islamic State Supporters Call for More Holiday Attacks in Europe,”
Reuters, 28 December 2016, accessed 29 December 2016, http://www
.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-message-idUSKBN14H1TN.
122 “Istanbul: isil Claims Responsibility for Reina Attack,” Al Jazeera, 2
January 2017, accessed 3 January 2017, http://www.aljazeera.com/news
/2017/01/isil-claims-responsibility-turkey-nightclub-attack-17010208
2008171.html.
123 “Isil and the Taliban,” Al Jazeera English, 1 November 2015, accessed 4
December 2015 http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries
/2015/11/islamic-state-isil-taliban-afghanistan-151101074041755.html.
124 Ibid.
125 Nathan Francis, “Isis ‘School of Jihad’ Teaching Young Children to Tor-
ture and Behead Enemies,” Inquisitr, 24 October 2016, accessed 2
November 2016, http://www.inquisitr.com/1560290/isis-school-of-
jihad-teaching-young-children-to-torture-and-behead-enemies/.
126 “Yazidi Children Turned into Suicide Bombers by Isis,” Chanel 4, 27
February 2017, accessed 1 March 2017, https://www.channel4.com
/news/yazidi-children-turned-into-suicide-bombers-by-isis.
127 “IŞİD, Ankara’da ‘eğitim’ amaçlı okul açıp çocuklara karne dağıtmış,”
Diken, 3 March 2017, accessed 3 March 2017, http://www.diken.com.tr

/isid-ankarada-egitim-amacli-okul-acip-cocuklara-karne-dagitmis/.
128 “4’lü Mahmur Dansı,” Hurriyet, 6 July 2016, accessed 3 August 2016,
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/4lu-mahmur-dansi-40133587.
129 Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, Isis: Inside the Army of Terror (New
York: Reagan Arts, 2015), chapter 9.
130 Thomas Joscelyn, “Influential Jordanian Ideologue Argues against
Islamic State’s Caliphate,” FDD’s Long War Journal, 2 July 2014, accessed
4 August 2016, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/07
/_moral_pressures_had.php.
131 “Isis State Has Lost Grip on 12% of Territory in Six Months – Study,”
The Guardian, 11 July 2016, accessed 3 August 2016, https://www.the
guardian.com/world/2016/jul/11/islamic-state-has-lost-grip-on-12-of-
territory-in-six-months-study.
132 Sami Moubayed, Under the Black Flag: At the Frontier of the New Jihad
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2015).
133 “isis’s Media Capabilities Have Decreased by 70%,” Al Shahid, 5
December 2016, accessed 7 December 2016. https://alshahidwitness
.com/isis-media-capabilities-decreased-70/?utm_source=twitter&utm
_campaign=161107_WeeklyTW&utm_medium=cpc.
134 “As ‘Caliphate’ Shrinks, Islamic State Looks to Global Attacks,” Reuters,
31 July 2016, accessed 7 August 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article
/us-europe-attacks-is-propagandaidUSKCN10B0IP?utm_campaign=true
Anthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=579e4bde04d30139cd3fd1
8e&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter.
135 “isil Flag Found in Room of German Train Attacker,” Al Jazeera
English, 19 July 2016, accessed 9 August 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com
/news/2016/07/germany-man-stabs-train-passengers-slashing-attack-
160718210931703.html.
136 “isis Leader Baghdadi Unbowed by Mosul Battle in Purported Record-
ing,” cbc News, 3 November 2016, accessed 4 December 2016,
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/baghdadi-recording-isis-mosul-turkey-
1.3834123.
CHAPTER FIVE
1 Michael P. Arena and Bruce A. Arrigo, The Terrorist Identity: Explaining

the Terrorist Threat (New York and London: nyu Press, 2006), 72.
2 Petra Kelly, Fighting for Hope (Boston, ma: South End Press, 1984).
3 Ibid., 12.
4 Edmond Cahn, The Sense of Injustice: An Anthropocentric View of Law

(New York: nyu Press, 1949), 13.
5 Morton Deutsch, “Awakening the Sense of Injustice,” in Conflict, Interde-
pendence, and Justice: The Intellectual Legacy of Morton Deutsch, ed. Peter
T. Coleman (New York: Springer, 2011), 155.
6 E. Souleimanov and H. Aliyev, The Individual Disengagement of Avengers,
Nationalists, and Jihadists: Why Ex-Militants Choose to Abandon Violence in
the North Caucasus (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2014), 26.
7 Faye Crosby and A. Miren Gonzales-Intal, “Relative Deprivation and
Equity Theories: Felt Injustice and the Undeserved Benefits of Others,”
in The Sense of Injustice: Social Psychological Perspectives, ed. Robert Folger
(New York and London: Plenum Press, 1984), 142.
8 “isis Releases New Video Explaining ‘the Structure of the Caliphate,’”
Heavy.com, 6 July 2016, accessed 9 July 2016, http://heavy.com/news
/2016/07/new-isis-islamic-state-daesh-al-furqan-media-amaq-news-
pictures-videos-the-structure-of-the-khilafah-full-uncensored-youtube-
video-mp4-download/.
9 Deutsch, Awakening the Sense of Injustice, 156.
10 “IŞİD 5 Vakit Namazı 3 Vakte İndirdi! Uymayanlara Kırbaç Cezası Var,”
Haberler, 10 October 2016, accessed 13 October 2016, http://www
.haberler.com/isid-5-vakit-namazi-3-vakte-indirdi-uymayanlara-8845158-
haberi/.
11 “Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) of Palestine,”
trans. Muhammad Maqdsi. Journal of Palestinian Studies 22 (1993):
122–34.
12 Brian Fishman, “The Man Who Could Have Stopped the Islamic State,”
Foreign Policy, 23 November 2016, accessed 3 December 2016.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/23/the-man-who-could-have-stopped-
the-islamicstate/?utm_content=bufferccb2f&utm_medium=social
&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer.
13 Alan Sica particularly refers to Robert E. Goodin’s “The Politics of
Rational Man” and John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice regarding the rela-
tionship between rationality and its perception by the outsiders. See
Sica, Weber, Irrationality, and Social Order (Berkeley and Los Angeles, ca:
University of California Press, 1988), 35.
14 Philip Smith, “Civil Society and Violence: Narrative Forms and the Reg-
ulation of Social Conflict,” in The Web of Violence: From Interpersonal to
Global, ed. Jennifer E. Turpin and Lester R. Kurtz (Urbana and Chicago,
il: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 93.
15 Arthur Kleinman, “The Violences of Everyday Life: The Multiple Forms

and Dynamics of Social Violence,” in Violence and Subjectivity, ed. Veena
Das, et al. (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 2000), 235.
16 Randall Collins, “Micro and Macro Causes of Violence,” International
Journal of Conflict and Violence 3 (2015): 9–22.
17 Siniša Malešević, The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge: Cam-
18 J.M. Bernstein, Torture and Dignity: An Essay on Moral Injury (Chicago,
il: University of Chicago Press, 2015).
19 “Erosion of Daesh Control: Life under Daesh,” Global Coalition, 12
December 2016, accessed 15 December 2016, http://theglobal
coalition.org/erosion-daesh-control-life-daesh/
20 “Islamic State Training Child Suicide Bombers in Special Camp,” Sky
News, 18 December 2016, accessed 19 December 2016,
http://news.sky.com/story/islamic-state-training-child-suicide-bombers-
in-special-camp-10700852.
21 John Hutchinson, Nations as Zones of Conflict (New York: Sage Publica-
tion, 2005).
CHAPTER SIX
1 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York:

Basic Books, 1973), 14.
2 Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans. Freder-
ick Lawrence (Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1987).
3 Jeffrey Ian Ross, Political Terrorism: An Interdisciplinary Approach. (New
York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006), 108.
4 Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” trans. Harry
Zohn, in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, (New York: Schocken
Books, 1969), 256.
5 Sigmund Freud, Civilisation and its Discontents (London: Hogarth, 1930).
6 Ibid., 77.
7 Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms: Selected Writings, ed.
Donald L. Levine (Chicago, il: University of Chicago Press, 1971), xi.
8 Monica Duffy Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy Samuel Shah, God’s
Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (New York and London:
W.W. Norton, 2011), chapter 1.
9 Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (London: Chatto and Windus,
1961), 57–8.
10 J. Carter Wood, “The Process of Civilization (and Its Discontents): Vio-
lence, Narrative and History,” in Discourse of Violence – Violence of Dis-

courses: Critical Interventions, Transgressive Readings, and Post-National
Negotiations, ed. Dirk Wiemann et. al. (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang,
2005), 117.
11 The translation of this quotation to English belongs to the author.
12 Michael P. Arena and Bruce A. Arrigo, The Terrorist Identity: Explaining
the Terrorist Threat (New York and London: nyu Press, 2006), 72.
13 Jackson J. Benson, The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biogra-
phy (New York: Penguin, 1990), 456.
14 Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State
(New York: Penguin, 2016). Part of this book was published online as
“The American Leader in the Islamic State,” The Atlantic, accessed 28
December 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017
/03/the-american-leader-in-the-islamic-state/510872/?utm_source=twb.
15 Wood, “The American Leader in the Islamic State.”
16 Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, trans. Anthony
Bower (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1956), 16–17.
17 Tariq Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity
(London: Verso, 2003).
18 isis Releases New Video Explaining ‘the Structure of the Caliphate,’”
Heavy.com, 6 July 2016.
19 Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina, trans. Lovett F. Edwards (Chicago,
il: Phoenix Fiction, University of Chicago Press, 1977), 307.
20 “Saddam Huseyin Heykelini deviren Irakli: Yeniden dikmek isterdim,”
T24, 6 July 2016, accessed 24 December 2016, http://t24.com.tr/haber
/saddam-huseyin-heykelini-deviren-irakli-yeniden-dikmek-isterdim,
348701.
21 Richard J. Bernstein explores the ideas of Hannah Arendt on revolution
and public freedom concludes that spontaneous violence cannot bring
about the most effective outcome for an oppressed community. See Why
Read Hannah Arendt Now? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018).
22 Richard J. Bernstein, Violence: Thinking without Banisters (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2013), 179–82.
23 Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
(New York: Viking Books, 2011).
24 Michael Mann, “Have Wars and Violence Declined?” Department of
Sociology, ucla, 2018, 1.
25 Brad Evans and Henry Giroux, Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Vio-
lence in the Age of Spectacle (New York: City Lights Books, 2015).
26 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, Vol. 2, State Formation and Civiliza-
tion (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982).
27 Zygmunt Baumann, “Sociology after the Holocaust,” The British Journal
of Sociology 39 (1988): 469–97.
28 Primo Levi, If This Is a Man, trans. Stuart Woolf (New York: The Orion
Press, 1959), 7.
29 Nicolas Hénin, “J’ai été otage de l’État islamique. Daesh craint plus
notre unité que nos frappes aériennes,” The Guardian, 19 November
2015, accessed 14 December 2016, https://www.theguardian.com
/commentisfree/2015/nov/19/etat-islamique-daesh-syrie.
30 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Cleveland and New York:
Meridian Books, 1958), 474.
31 Seyla Benhabib, The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (Lanham,
Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 128.
32 See the important work of Daniel Rothbart and Karina V. Korostelina,
Why They Die: Civilian Devastation in Violent Conflict (Ann Arbor, mi:
University of Michigan Press, 2011). They argue convincingly, with refer-
ence to numerous cases, that identity politics erase the notion of inno-
cence, and that this leads to civilian devastation.
33 “Chemical Weapons Found in Mosul in Isis Lab, Say Iraqi Forces,” The
Guardian, 29 January 2017, accessed 29 January 2017, https://www.the
guardian.com/world/2017/jan/29/chemical-weapons-found-in-mosul-in-
isis-lab-say-iraqi-forces.
34 Richard Barrett, Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of
Returnees. The Soufan Center, October 2017.
35 Doğu Eroğlu, IŞİD Ağları. Türkiye’de Radikalleşme, Örgütleme, Lojistik
(Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari, 2018).
36 Slavoj Žižek, Violence. Six Sideways Reflections (London: Profile Books), 8.
37 Richard English, Does Terrorism Work? A History (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2016).
38 Siniša Malešević, The Rise of Organised Brutality (Cambridge: University
of Cambridge Press, 2017), 40 and chapter 2.
Index
Abbasid, 11, 34–9, 52 Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, 63

Abd al Razzaq, 39 al-Hajar al Aswad, 78
Abdul Hamid II, 36 Ali, 33
Abdullah bin Al-Mubarak, 53 Ali Ibn Abi Talib, 33
Abdülmecid II, 37 al-Mamun, 38
Abdulmutallab, Umar Farouk, Almanach de Gotha, 6
116–17 al-Mansur, 38
Abu al-Hasan alAsh’ari, 39 al-Maqdisi, 125
Abu Bakr, 33 al-Mustansir, 35
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, 72–3, 78, 148 al-Mutawakkil III, 35
Abu Bakr Naji, 114–15 al-Nusra Front, 117
Abu Mohammad al-Adnan, 125 Al-Qassam Brigades, 63
Abu Muhammed al-Furqan, 125 al-Shanti, Jamila, 61
Abu Musab, 114 Al Sisi, Hatem, 59
Abu Nidal Organization, 55 Anatolia, 6, 25–6, 47
Abu Rashid, 123 Andalusia, 34, 36
Afghanistan, 8, 33, 70, 76, 148, 155; Andrić, Ivo, 31–2, 149
in 2001, 82; in 2012, 57; to gov- angarya, 95
ern, 131; invasion by US coali- Ankara, 74, 120–1, 124
tion, 68, 72; Soviets, 66, 113; Ansar al-Sharia, 8
structural violence, 133–5; from Anwar, al Awlaki, 115–17
Syria to, 150; Uzbek national, 123 April uprising, the, 31, 50
Agrafa, 105 Arabalıkonak, 104
ahkam, 11 Arab League, 57
Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam, 40 Arabs, 37, 52
Ahmed, Shahab, 38 Arafat, Yasser, 55, 62, 110
Al Arabiya, 115 Arendt, Hannah, 13, 16, 85
200 Index
Argov, Shlomo, 55 Bridge on the Drina, 31, 147

Aristotle, 35 Britain, 36, 70, 84
Arjomand, Saïd Amir, 39 British Empire, the, 37
Arnold, Matthew, 87 Bulgaria, 10, 22, 44–5, 50–1, 81,
asâkir-i muntazama, 101 102–4, 109, 144
Atay, Oğuz, 145 Bulgarian Revolutionary Central
Atlas, 146 Committee, 50, 103, 144
Austrian Empire, 46–7 Bursa, 47
Austrians, 32
Cairo, 35, 65
Bagdad, 34–5 caliphate, 8, 11, 33–9, 56, 125; glob-
Bali, Ilhami, 120 al, 86; in modern Turkey, 118;
Balkans, the, 4–8, 28, 30–1, 36, 47–8, Ottoman, 129; the role of the, 18;
51, 81–2, 101; agitated the imperi- Sharifan, 52; Ummayad, 33; uni-
al center, 50; in the late four- versal, 133; worldwide, 106, 125,
teenth century, 81; independence, 131
104; the Middle East or Central Camus, Albert, 43, 147–9
Asia, 128; of the nineteenth cen- Çarşamba, 99
tury, 23; Ottoman, 9; Ottoman Catholic(s), 6; communities, 89;
controlled, 18; the seventeenth people, 31
and eighteenth centuries, 26 Celâl, Seyh, 25
bashibozuk, 28, 50, 51 Çelik, Ersan, 120
Basra, 38 Chan, Edmond, 130
Bassil, Gebran, 57 Chania, 48
Bataclan, 77 Charter, 60; of 1988, 65; of Hamas,
Batak, 51 133
Battle of Badr, 37 Chechnya, 148
Bauman, Zygmunt, 151 chiflik, 26
Beirut, 55, 76–7, 108 Christian, 8, 47, 48; allies, 36;
Benhabib, Seyla, 152 authorities, 48; of Bosnia, 46; eth-
Benjamin, Walter, 141 nic groups, 46; houses, 32; kings,
Berber Revolt, 34 12; prayer, 44; rebel, 20, 44; sub-
Berlin, 122; the treaty of, 51 jects, 46; Turk, 22
Bernstein, J., Richard, 9, 16, 85 Christianity, 44, 89
Bihać, 48, 144 Chomsky, Noam, 112
Bin Laden, Osama, 66–8, 70, 113, chorbadjis, 103
116, 127 church(es), 48, 78, 89, 98; in 1870,
bishop, 44, 47 102; Breitscheidplatz in Berlin,
Bosnia, 46–8, 50, 103, 144, 149 122; of England, 70; in Mosul,
Bosnian Uprising, 50 74; of St Stephen in Istanbul, 81
Index 201
cia (Central Intelligence Agency), Edict of 1856, 30, 48–9, 82, 95

113 Edict of Gülhane, 29–30, 95, 97–9
civilization, 12, 119, 141, 150–1; in Egypt, 35, 38, 41, 49, 60–1, 90–1, 148
Africa, 154; development of, 119; Elias, Norbert, 88, 119, 150
and its discontents, 139; Freud, Emirate of Diriyah, 35
139; Islamic, 84, 88; and power, English, Richard, 156
88; western, 41 eşkiya, 9
civil war, 4, 16, 33–4, 54–6, 59, 76, Euclid, 35
86, 107, 110, 113, 134, 154
communism, 17 Fadl, Dr, 90–1
Constantinople, 81, 120 Fatah, 55, 62–3, 65–6, 110–11
Córdoba, 34 fbi (Federal Bureau of Investiga-
Crete, 48–50 tion), 116
Crimean War, 29 fetva, 36
cultural conflict, 44–5, 58 First Fitna, the, 33
First Intifada, 60–62
Dabiq, 76, 119 Fitna, 33
Daire-i Adalet, 24 Freud, Sigmund, 83, 139, 142
Dar al-Gharb, 36
Dar al-Islam, 36 Galtung, Johan, 14–15
Dar-al-Kufr, 82 Gayniye Monastery, 48
Debar, 101–2 Gaza, 59, 62–4, 111–12, 131, 134
Deir-ez Zor, 133 Gaziantep, 120–2, 155
deprivation, 20, 59, 128, 131 Geertz, Clifford, 140
dissent, 3–4, 9, 14–16, 28, 96–8, 128, Gemayel, Bashir, 56
143–4; among local communi- Georgelas, John, 146–7
ties, 32, 131; a cage of, 146; col- Ghazan, 35
lective, 7; communal, 37; mani- Ghneim, Jebel Abu, 62–3
fested challenges, 24; the origins Golan Heights, 56
of, 148, 152, 154, 157; in Palestin- Great Mosque of Kufa, 31
ian society, 59; in rural commu- Greece, 9, 29, 44, 82, 86, 103, 105
nity, 100; socio-structural, 103; Gulf Cooperation Council, 57
source of, 12, 137
Drina, 31, 149 hadith, 7, 41, 54
Dubai, 117 haiduks, 10
Durmaz, Yunus, 121–2 Hall, A. John, 156
Hamas Covenant, 110
Eagles of Death Metal, 77 Haniyeh, Ismail, 65
Eastern Europe, 10, 17 Harik, Judith Swain, 108
Edict of 1839, 30, 82, 95 Hariri, Rafik, 58
202 Index
Harun al-Rashid, 35 82; interpretation of, 132; and

Hasan Ibn Ali, 33 jihad, 69; Salafi interpretation, 74
Hattab, Ebu, 78 Islamic Golden Age, 35
Hawija, 137 Istanbul, 7, 26, 28, 35, 37, 48, 50, 81,
Hejaz, 53 95–7, 100, 120–2
Hénin, Nicolos, 151
Herzegovina, 47, 50, 103 Jabhat-al-Nusra, 114
Hiroshima, 155 Jahiliyat, 40
Horkheimer, Max, 79 jahiliyyah, 120
House of Wisdom, the, 35 Jamaat-e-Islami, 40
hudud, 148 Jelali, 25–6, 28
Hume, David, 23 Jemaah Islamiah, 8
Husain, Ed, 84 Jerusalem, 35, 60, 70, 89, 120
Hussein, Saddam, 3, 68, 127, 149 Jew(s), 6, 32, 57, 59, 65; and cru-
Hye, Abdul, 38–9 saders, 70; were excluded, 89;
through Halakha, 81; Italian, 151
idf (Israel Defense Force), 60, 63, Jihad al-Binaa, 108
65 Joseph, 47
ijtihad, 40 Juergensmeyer, Mark, 64
Ilkhanate, 35 “just war”, 7, 12
iltizam, 95
imam, 33, 39, 90 Kaaba, 78
Imperial Rescript, 29–30 Kableshkow, 50
India, 16, 40, 52 Kabul, 57
Indonesia, 8, 155 Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church,
Indonesians, 52 122
insurgents, 9, 30, 36, 49 Karlovo, 100, 102
Iran, 40, 55, 106, 108–9, 127, 133 Kelly, Metra, 129
Iranians, 52 Kelman, Herbert C., 85
Iran-Iraq War, 40 Kepel, Gilles, 10
Iraq, 3, 57, 70–1, 73–7, 82, 113–14, Khedivate of Egypt, 49
119–20, 148–9, 155; Isis, 133, 136; Khilafat movement, 52
Saddam, 68; state violence, 137; Kladina, 48, 144
Sunni, 40; threat posed by, 55; klepht, 9–11
Yazidi, 124 Koçi Bey, 26
Islam, 33–41, 52–4, 67–9, 74, 78, 82, Konstatiniyye, 120
120, 133; by the authorities in kufr, 74
France, 76; differently from the
jihadists, 87; and Europe 70; the Lebanon, 54–6, 58, 61, 66, 76,
holy sites of, 76; as an identity, 106–10, 117, 134
Index 203
Levi, Primo, 151 Muhammad Ali of Egypt, 35

Levski, 102–4, 144 Mujahedeen, 66, 78
Libya, 8 mültezim, 95, 101–2
London Daily News, 51 Musab, Abu, 114
Lord Kitchener, 37 Muslim Brotherhood, 41, 60
Lycée Impérial Ottoman de Galata- Muslim Civil War, 33–4
Sérai, 50 Mussolini, 12
Mustafa Nail Pasha, 48
Macedonia, 44, 103–4 mutasarrif, 45, 95, 97
Mahdi, 40 Muʿtazilite, 38–9
Malaysians, 52
Maleş, 47 Nakşi, 47
Malešević, Siniša, 136 Nashir Media Foundation, 123
Mamelukes, 35–6 Nasrallah, Hassan, 57–8
Management of Savagery, The, Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 41
114–15, 134 Nazareth, 59
Mann, Michael, 17, 150 Nazi, 85, 91, 151
Masharipov, Abdulkadir, 122 Nevâhî-i Âsîyye, 45–6, 94
Maududi, Abul A’la, 40 Niš, 31, 94, 97–8
Mecca, 35, 37, 70 non-Jew, 59, 64
Medina, 35, 77 North Africa, 6, 36–7, 155
Meshal, Khalid, 65
Middle East, 6, 55, 71, 75–6, 109, Odyssey, 148
118, 128; in the early twentieth Olivier, Roy, 11
century, 36; today, 152; under Öljaitü, 35
British suzerainty, 37 oppression, 7–9, 68, 105, 155; over
millet, 44, 81, 102 Christian residents, 48; or dis-
Mitrovica, 104 crimination, 112; and injustice,
Mohammad Hasan Khalil al- 23, 143, 155; of people, 103; and
Hakim, 115 tyranny, 66
Mohammad, Prophet, 8, 33, 57 orientalism, 141
Mommsen, Theodor, 127 Oslo, 61; Accords, 62
monastery, 48–9, 50 Ottoman constitution, 31, 36
monks, 35
Montenegro, 45–6, 48, 94, 103, Pakistan, 8, 52, 66, 69, 72, 76, 113,
105 115, 148
Mostar, 48 Pakistanis, 52
Mosul, 74–5, 124–5, 132, 155 Palestine, 54, 58–60, 62, 65–6, 76,
Muawiyah, 33 110, 148
mufti, 36, 38 Paris, 37, 77, 122
204 Index
pasha, 27–8, 31, 45, 48, 50–1, 94, Russia, 34, 44, 46, 49, 51, 127, 155
98–9, 101
Patriarch, 81, 89 Sabri Pasha, 98–9
Pereto, 47 Sacred Mosque, 7–8
pfa (Palestinian Forces Alliance), Said, Edward, 59, 63
61 şaki, 9, 11, 47
Phalangists, 107 Salafi, 39, 40, 69, 73–4, 115, 125
Philippines, 8 sanjak, 101
Pkk, 120 Sanskrit, 35
Plato, 35, 146 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 13, 140
plo (Palestine Liberation Organiza- Saudi, 35, 38, 57, 68, 74, 77, 113,
tion), 54–5, 62, 66, 100; headquar- 148, 155
ters in Beirut, 55; recognized Sayyaf, Abu, 8
Israel’s right to exist, 62 Scott, James, 16
poverty, 15, 20, 107, 111, 128, 135 Second Intifada, 61–2
priest, 46–9, 78, 81 Selim Ağa, 97
Prijepolje, 47 Sened-i Ittifak, 27
Primitive Culture, 88 Serbia, 44–7, 86, 98
Prince Miloš Obrenović, 46 Serbs, 32, 44, 103–4
Pythagoras, 35 shahid, 52
Sharif, Kadhem, 3, 149
Qadariyah, 36; movement, 38 Sharifian Caliphat, 52
Qatar, 57, 65 Sharon, Ariel, 55
Qatif, 77 Shaykh al-Sheihk, 38
Quraishi, Najibullah, 123 Shaykh Tantawi, 38
Quran, 7, 35, 41, 57, 65, 72, 84, Shebaa farms, 56
123–4 Shia, 33, 39, 40, 54–7, 61, 73, 76–7,
Qutb, Sayyid, 41, 67–8 82, 89, 133
Shiite Amal militia, 54
Rantisi, Abdul Aziz, 64 shirk, 74
Rashidal-Din Hamadani, 35 shura, 33
reaya, 25, 95, 96, 98–100 Simmel, Georg, 142
revolt, 25–9, 31–2, 37, 87, 94, 102; Sinwar, Yehiya, 65
Crete, 49; Niš, Çarşamba, and Sisyphus, 148–9
Vidin, 97, 99; against Ottoman Skopje, 47
rule, 82; against the Turkish Sofia, 104
nation, 103 Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, 31
Rougier, 111 Sontag, Susan, 51
Ruhollah, Ayatollah, 55 Sorel, Georges, 12–13
Rushdie, Salman, 70 Sublime Porte, 6
Index 205
sultan, 25–6, 28–9, 35–6, 81, 94, 96, uprising, 24–5, 27–8, 30–2, 44–5,
99, 101–2 47–8, 96–8, 103–4; Bosnian, 50;
Sunni, 39–40, 52, 54, 57–8, 61, 75, catalyst, 106; in the face of the
89, 123, 133 formidable Ottoman army, 101;
Syria, 16, 55–7, 61, 71, 73–8, 109, against the Ottoman Empire, 81;
117–20, 122–3, 133, 136, 150, 155 among the reaya, 99
Urals, 36
Tabriz, 35 Uthman, 33
Taif agreement, 56
Takal, Shlomo, 59 Vali, 29, 96
Taliban, 66–70, 72, 113–14, 123 Vidin, 31, 99
Tanzimat, 4, 27, 30–2, 36, 50, 81, Vilayet, 96
93–7 Visegrad, 31–2, 47
Taylor, Charles, 17 Volos, 48
Ten Point Program, 61
Thessaly, 48–9 wahhabi, 36, 40, 84
Tilly, Charles, 16 Wahhabism, 39
Timar, 25 Wailing Wall, 89
Times, 51 Weber, Max, 13, 39, 80, 118, 135,
Tolstoy, Leo, 93 152
Troyan, 50 West Bank, the, 59, 63
Tunisia, 8; Tunisian origin, 122 Williams, Raymond, 143
Turkey, 33, 37, 52, 74, 77–8, 118, Wood, Graeme, 147
120–3, 145, 155 world war, 31, 36–7, 52, 54, 77, 99,
Turks, 32, 52, 74, 103 129
Tuzla, 48, 144
Twelver Shia, 39 Yaacobi, Gad, 62
Tylor, Edward Burnett, 88 Yanya, 47
zaptieh, 48, 95, 100

Umar, 33, 89, 117, 121 Zawahiri, Ayman, 8, 70–1, 117
ummah, 38, 87 Zeus, 146
Ummayad, 33 Ziso, 49
unitaf (Unified Task Force), 113 Žižek, Slovaj, 156
206 Index

Violence and Militants

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Violence and Militants

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Acknowledgments i

VIOLENCE AND MILITANT S

Series editors: Stéphanie A.H. Bélanger, Pierre Jolicoeur, and Stéfanie

Books published in the Human Dimensions in Foreign Policy, Military Studies,

1 Going to War? 4 Disarmament under International

Violence and Militants

From Ottoman Rebellions

McGill-Queen’s University Press

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2019

isbn 978-0-7735-5869-4 (cloth)

Legal deposit third quarter 2019

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Violence and militants : from Ottoman rebellions to jihadist

Classification: lcc hm1116 .c39 2019 | ddc 303.609—dc23

This book was typeset by True to Type in 10.5/13 Sabon

Çok kıymetli Annem ve Babam için

Writing about violence is emotionally challenging. I am passionate

and philosophers. A large number of historical cases come from doc-

I started writing this book in 2013 and completed it in 2018. The

not necessarily represent the position of these institutions or of

Notes on Pronunciation and Acronyms

This book avoids using Ottoman paleography except when an English

Letter English pronunciation

“Militia(s)” and “jihadi(s)” are two common versions of the words

VIOLENCE AND MILITANT S

“These violent delights have violent ends,

the dissents are not eliminated within a reasonable period of time. If

the aim of this book:

The role of violence in militant life is contingent upon the rational-

question, we may clarify parallel elements determining the condi-

why do the ottoman rebellions

The nineteenth century was once described as the “Transformation of

tions, and each member may engage in militant activities if ordered

is acceptable. They also permit fighting in the Sacred Mosque if oppo-

– militant rebellions and militant jihadists – is their endorsement of

who are these militants?

against the innocent as their opponents, as is demonstrated by many

socio-structural concerns. Similarly, the following chapters examine

why does violence matter?

al violence and it shapes the identity of a militant. Physical force

involved in these two forms of violence differ. Of course, there are

ments in Eastern Europe that resulted with the collapse of Commu-

the methodological approach

the application of violence. Third, this sequence indicates that differ-

nizes arguments about and provides evidence of the cultural violence

Militant Politico- The attainment Limited Establishing a political

Militant Politico- The attainment Extensive Establishing a political

whose struggle paints the landscape of violent geographies. In those

Militant Socio- Elimination of Limited Changing the ruling

Militant Socio- Elimination of Extensive Toppling the ruling

The commonality between the Ottoman rebellions and the jihadist

The Historical Paradigm

History cannot be divorced from contemporary events in which mili-

own communities constituted their main motivation for violence. By

1 militant rebels and violence

The attacks and uprisings of militants composed a panorama of vio-

The Reasons for Rebellion

century and finally started decaying in the eighteenth century.24

The Tanzimat Reforms

Decentralization attempts miscarried dramatically after the failed

each level of government tried to get his own protégés appointed to