How do we engage with the pressing challenges of xenophobia, radicalism and security in the age of the 'war on terror'? The widely felt sense of insecurity in the West is shared by Muslims both within and outside Western societies. Growing Islamic militancy and resulting increased security measures by Western powers have contributed to a pervasive sense among Muslims of being under attack (both physically and culturally). "Islam and Political Violence" brings together the current debate on the uneasy and potentially mutually destructive relationship between the Muslim world and the West and argues we are on a dangerous trajectory, strengthening dichotomous notions of the divide between the West and the Muslim world.

Dr Shahram Akbarzadeh is a Senior Lecturer in Global Politics at the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Victoria, Australia. He has researched, and published on Central Asia affairs for a decade. Dr Akbarzadeh co-authored the Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan (Scarecrow Press, 2002) and co-edited Muslim Communities in Australia (Uni of New South Wales Press, 2001) and Islam and Political Legitimacy (Routledge/Curzon, 2003).

Chapter 1: Contextualising Neo-Islam
PART I: THE GLOBAL CONTEXT
Chapter 2: Radical Islam and the 'War on Terror'
Chapter 3: Imagining Pan-Islam
Chapter 4: Jihadism and Intercivilisational Conflict: Conflicting Images of the Self and the Other
PART II: THE ENEMY WITHIN
Chapter 5: New and Old Xenophobia: The Crisis of Liberal Multiculturalism
Chapter 6: Risk Society and the Islamic Other
Chapter 7: From Diaspora Islam to Globalised Islam
PART III: JIHADISM AND ITS ALTERNATIVES
Chapter 8: Conceptions of Jihad and Conflict Resolution in Muslim Societies
Chapter 9: Hizbut Tahrir in Indonesia: Seeking a 'Total' Islamic Identity
Chapter 10: Between 'Jihad' and 'McWorld': Engaged Sufism in Indonesia
Chapter 11: No Respect: Forging Democracy in Bosnia and Kosovo