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Introduction
xxvii J
from the control of non-Muslim governments
and influence. In justifying their violent actions,
they often make use of the traditional Islamic
concept of jihad, which is based on an Arabic
word meaning “to struggle or make an effort”
on behalf of one’s religion and community. Many
Muslims criticize the way they interpret this con-
cept, which was elaborated in the Islamic legal
tradition before the modern era. Some jihadist
organizations, despite their violent tactics, win
popular support by providing needed social ser-
vices that legitimate governmental agencies fail
to provide. This is the case, for example, with the
Palestinian Hamas organization and Hizbullah
in Lebanon. Most of these groups act indepen-
dently, with logistical and economic assistance
from foreign sources. Al-Qaida, the organiza-
tion founded by Usama bin Ladin (b. 1957) and
Ayman al-Zawahiri (b. 1951), began in 1984 as a
service office for Arabs fighting against the Soviet
army in Afghanistan. After the Soviet withdrawal
in 1989 and the fall of the Communist-led gov-
ernment, al-Qaida turned its attention to fight-
ing the United States and its allies, especially
Israel. To accomplish its objectives, it created a
loosely organized global network of cells, which
were involved in planning and executing attacks
against U.S. embassies in Africa, the USS Cole,
and the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. mainland. Years
later, however, al-Qaida has still not been able
to win widespread support among Muslims, and
it remains at odds with other Islamist groups in
terms of both ideology and tactics.
The estimated number of Muslims in the
world today is second only to the number of
Christians (about 2.2 million) and larger than
other religiously defined communities, including
Hindus and Buddhists. Muslims represent more
than 20 percent of the world’s population (one
out of every five people on Earth). Like members
of these other religious communities, they also
think of themselves in terms of ethnicity and
nationality. Indeed, many may put their ethnic
and national identity ahead of their religious one,
especially those who are more secular in outlook.
Muslims belong to more than 60 different ethnic
groups consisting of a million or more members.
In addition, there are also 55 nation-states that
have Muslim-majority populations. As minorities
in countries like the United States, Britain, India,
and Australia, many think of themselves in terms
of the nationality of the country in which they
hold citizenship, or the one from which they have
emigrated.
The first generations of Muslims were pre-
dominantly Arab, and today Arabs still constitute
the single largest Muslim ethnic group. (It should
be noted, however, that not all Arabs are Muslims.
There are also Arab Christians and Jews.) By the
11th century, large numbers of Berbers, Persians,
and Turks had converted to Islam; together with
Arabs, they composed much of classical Islamic
civilization in the Middle East and North Africa.
Today only about one in four Muslims is an Arab,
and when all the Middle Eastern ethnic groups to
which Muslims belong are added, they amount to
less than half of the total of the world’s Muslims.
Other major ethnic groups include the Javanese of
Indonesia, the Bengalis of India and Bangladesh,
and the Punjabis of Pakistan and India. More-
over, the nation-states with the largest Muslim
populations are located east of the Middle East, in
Indonesia (207 million), Pakistan (160 million),
India (between 138 million and 160 million),
and Bangladesh (132.5 million).
1
Large Muslim
populations also live in the countries of sub-Saha-
ran Africa (Nigeria, for example has about 67.5
million Muslims) and Central Asia (Afghanistan
has about 31.5 million Muslims; Uzbekistan 24.5
million).
Muslims can therefore present themselves as
members of a united community of the faithful,
as members of particular Islamic subgroups (Sun-
nis, Shiis, Sufis, etc.), or as members of different
1
These figures are based on 2007–08 estimates in the CIA
World Fact Book.
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