Don’t untie the tethered elephant.                                                                           —Arabic proverb  The […]

Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia by Ayesha Jalal. Harvard University Press, 2008, US$29.95.

Before killing thirteen Indian soldiers in his quest for eternal life, a young Islamic militant wrote:

We drink the wine of martyrdom, swaying in ecstasy;
This living is not living—we live by getting our heads cut off.
We love to receive the gifts of our religion;
When we bequeath gifts, it is of our lives.

ON AUGUST 5, 2007, an advertisement appeared in an Istanbul […]