It is ironic that Jihadism is so often viewed as antimodern. Jihadism does not reject modernity; it is a product of modernity. It does, however, reject Westernism, and because “modernity” and “the West” have become inextricably linked (mostly in the West), anyone who rejects one is automatically assumed to reject the other. Jihadism may present itself as an alternative to the modern world, but the ideas upon which it draws are quintessentially modern. To paraphrase the British political philosopher John Gray, Jihadism is “a symptom of the disease of which it pretends to be the cure.”
