Western commentators tend to think of Islamic jihadists as enemies of our civilization. But what animates the cause of Radical Islamists are ideas borrowed from Marxist and post-colonial Western thought. Jaan Islam argues that until we recognise the familiarity of the jihadist worldview, we will fail to reach our political aims, including peace. 

When people talk about ‘jihadis’ or Muslims more generally, the desire to classify people as ‘the other’ makes us frame them in neatly-packaged stereotypes that tell us more about the observer than the subject of observation. The ‘jihadi’ in the mind of the western observer is ruthless, barbaric and lives on the fringes of civilization. Such categorizations make it very difficult to understand how they actually understand the world, and more importantly, how they understand their goals in relation to the rest of us.