JHU SAIS Professor Mary Habeck Publishes New Book on Jihadist Ideology and War on Terror

Mary Habeck, associate professor of Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), has recently published Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror. Yale University Press released the book in January.

In Knowing the Enemy, Habeck is the first to present the inner logic of al Qaeda and like-minded extremist groups by which they justify 9/11 and other terrorist attacks. She explains that these extremist groups belong to a new movement, known as jihadism, and also suggests how the United States might defeat the jihadis, using their own ideology against them.

Habeck warns that much Western analysis has been dismissive of the explanations offered by the terrorists themselves. To understand their motivations, she urges that we must hear and understand the reasons terrorists give for their violent actions. These reasons are largely religious ones, yet our secular scholars have consistently sought explanations beyond religion for the attacks. They have largely discounted the plain meaning of religious statements made by jihadis themselves.

Knowing the Enemy digs deep into the elaborate ideology embraced by the radical jihadist faction of Islamists who are behind recent terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Europe. Habeck explains in detail the specific religious ideas that motivate violent jihadists, how those ideas arose, and what they mean in terms of U.S. security.