TEACHING ABOUT JIHADISM AND THE WAR ON TERROR

Vol. 15, No. 7
November 2010

Barak Mendelsohn is assistant professor of Political Science
at Haverford College. He is the author of Combating
Jihadism: American Hegemony and International Cooperation in
the War on Terrorism (University of Chicago Press), as well
as a senior fellow at FPRI. He presented this essay as part
of “America and the Middle East in Historical Perspective,”
a History Institute for Teachers in New Jersey, cosponsored
by the American Institute for History Education and FPRI’s
Wachman Center, in September.

TEACHING ABOUT JIHADISM AND THE WAR ON TERROR

by Barak Mendelsohn

This essay is focused on my experience in teaching courses
on jihadism and terrorism at Haverford College. Despite the
difference between the college and high-school settings, I
believe that some parallels can be identified and hope that
my experience will provide some useful insights for teachers
in this underdeveloped and landmine-strewn field.

I teach three courses that relate to the question of
terrorism, particularly jihadi terrorism. At the
intermediate level, I offer “The Evolution of the Jihadi
Movement” and “Introduction to Terrorism Studies.” At the
advanced level, I teach a seminar titled “War on Terrorism.”
The courses are analytically linked but distinct, as
reflected in the minimal overlap in the readings. Each
course focuses on a different element: the terrorist actors,
states combating terrorism, and the jihadi movement. In this
way, students can take individual courses or all three, as a
more comprehensive course of study in terrorism.

OBJECTIVES
Although these courses focus on the question of terrorism
and counterterrorism, they are designed for a larger value
and application. Therefore, the objectives I set combine
goals unique to the class subject and goals we should seek
in all academic courses. First, I seek to capture the
issue’s complexity: While the words terrorism and jihadism
are very salient and courses with these words in the title
are immediately perceived as attractive, both are complex
phenomena. Students arrive at the term’s first class with
disparate and often distorted pieces of knowledge-and a
great many misconceptions. The courses’ main objective is to
open up these concepts and create link between their
multiple facets.

At the same time, students must accept that they will not be
handed simple answers to their most burning questions. The
courses offer no magic solution to the problem of terrorism
in general and jihadi terrorism in particular. There is no
secret course of action that is unknown to policymakers but
basic knowledge for professors of international relations.
To calibrate students’ expectations, it is important to be
straightforward and tell them that, in fact, by the end of
the course they are likely to be less confident in any one
clear view of the problem or its solution. They will,
though, gain a more comprehensive understanding of the
topics’ intricacies and complexities, a recognition and
understanding of different viewpoints, and an ability to
analyze them from diverse perspectives.

A second objective is to enhance students’ analytical skills
and improve their argumentation abilities. Students need to
identify arguments. To achieve this goal, I use scholarly
journal articles. Such articles often locate a question in a
broader topic, divide the positions about the question among
diverse schools of thought, and offer critiques of the
literature and new ways to think about and even answer the
puzzle. For example, rather than the common assertion that
ties terrorism to failed states, one needs to explain how
the two are connected.

Students are expected to think about arguments in a critical
manner. I often dedicate class discussion to critiquing
assigned articles. One example: is the war on terrorism a
clash of civilizations? This involves choosing articles for
the syllabus based not on how well written they are, or on
whether I agree with the arguments they present, but on how
suitable they are for students’ critique. At the same time,
this requires avoiding more polemical articles that would
lead to a political debate rather than an analytical one.

I try to teach students about the various ways in which one
can criticize arguments, such as empirical accuracy,
internal logic, external validity, conceptual clarity,
circularity, inability to refute, among others. Given time
constraints and the focus of the course on terrorism, I
cannot deal with such issues in a systematic manner; they
are more appropriate for classes on research methods. But I
make occasional references, and indeed I have found that
over time, students internalize my references and
explanations of the various ways to offer critiques.

A major obstacle I face is students’ need of constant
affirmation, fear of being wrong, and tendency to see
everything as personal. Indeed, I must clarify repeatedly
that every argument has holes (yes, even mine), and
consequently almost every argument is open to some level of
critique. I also fight against a culture that fears telling
students when a claim is weak or invalid. Students must
understand that it is “OK” to be wrong sometimes. It is a
real challenge to get students to understand that I
appreciate a genuine effort and do not judge them negatively
because they failed to offer a devastating critique. Usually
after a few weeks, most students understand me well enough
to argue freely.

Analytical skills are also demonstrated by constructing and
articulating arguments. The ability to construct arguments
is inextricable from the ability to critique. However,
students often find when starting their independent
research, it is more difficult to construct than to destroy.
The challenge is to make students understand the importance
of causality and start thinking in such terms-to understand
how a certain condition leads to a particular outcome.
Instead of correlation between certain psychological traits
and an individual’s acts of terrorism, students should think
about causality: How do such traits lead to terrorist acts?
This also requires thinking about non-events. For example,
if there are numerous people with similar psychological
profiles who do not turn to terrorism, what does that
suggest for the validity of the argument? Another
insufficiently recognized tool is counterfactuals: What
would happen if we change one variable? For example, to
understand the importance of the role of Osama bin Laden,
one must first ask whether conflict between the jihadis and
the United States could still have happened. Moreover, as
the significance of variables may change over time, we need
to hypothesize what would happen if bin Laden were to die
tomorrow.

A third objective is to improve students’ writing skills.
Teaching terrorism offers a great opportunity to fulfill
this greater educational goal because the “sexiness” of the
topic renders students much less resistant to independent
research. Thus, in all three courses I require a research
paper ranging from twenty to thirty pages long. My request
that all papers include a research question that is a “why”
question imposes a certain structure and is particularly
useful for inexperienced researchers. A “why” question also
serves the goal of getting students to write explanatory
rather than descriptive work. Students must locate their
question in the broader literature by thinking about answers
to research questions as categories or schools of thought. I
then require that the students use case studies. To assist
the students in meeting these requirements, my undergraduate
research assistants developed, under my supervision, a
couple of research tools. The Global Terrorism Resources
(located at people.haverford.edu/bmendels ) is a master list
of terrorism-related sources (which includes numerous
resources that can be used for many other kinds of studies
in political science as well). The al Qaeda Statement Index
(AQSI, located at

people.haverford.edu/bmendels/qaeda_index.html ) is an
elaborated index for statements made by al Qaeda leaders. We
are currently working on a new version of the index which
will create search options. The new and improved version
will go live by the end of 2010 and will be hosted on the
Haverford domain at www.haverford.edu/AQSI. I also require
students to present their work in progress to the class.
This way, students are forced to start their research early
and can benefit from their classmates’ feedback. These
presentations also expose the class to new topics and to
contribute to their ability to offer critique.

The fourth objective is to provide foundations for students
who would like to write a thesis on a related topic.
Haverford College requires all seniors to write a thesis.
Thus, the work that students undertake in earlier stages of
their academic career provides them tools for this final
project, the culmination of their studies. Last year, five
of my students wrote theses on terrorism-related topics:
foreign fighters, alliances between terrorist organizations,
state sponsorship of terrorism, the targeting of journalists
by terrorist groups, and how to use the AQSI to study al
Qaeda.

CHALLENGES
Teaching about jihadism, terrorism, and counterterrorism
involves some intrinsic challenges. First, the subjects’
broad scope requires selectiveness, which means some topics
will be excluded. The main consideration guiding me is how
to maintain cohesiveness. This led me to exclude a
discussion of state terrorism from “Introduction to
Terrorism Studies.” In “Evolution of the Jihadi Movement,” I
largely avoid discussing Shiite groups, except for when they
play a role in the divide between Sunnis and Shiites. While
these Shiite groups (particularly Hezbollah) may be
committed to jihad, they do not belong to the al Qaeda-led
jihadi movement. While never the focus of any particular
class, Shiite terrorism is addressed in various ways in
“Introduction”-for example, in the discussion of suicide
bombing or of religious terrorism. Another major group of
actors I left out of “Jihadi Movement” are Sunni groups with
ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, including violent ones such
as Hamas. Again, when I refer to such groups, it is usually
through the lenses of jihadis’ attitudes toward them. Note
that the paper assignment is a good way to compensate for
topics that cannot be addressed because of time constraints.
I encourage students to write about topics or cases that are
not discussed in the course, thus increasing their
knowledge.

A second challenge is how to make each class period a
discussion about politics rather than a political
discussion, as international relations courses tend to. Mine
is probably a minority opinion, but I normally view
political debates as distractions-they often deteriorate
into shouting matches and rarely encourage students to
consider others’ positions. Moreover, given that on many
subjects students hold passionate positions but have little
actual knowledge, it is rare that these arguments end up
beneficial to overall understanding. I prefer to focus on
the quality of arguments on all sides. When students feel no
pressure to defend their own particular political positions,
they actually find it attractive to play devil’s advocates,
sometimes even critiquing an argument they just articulated
themselves.

The third challenge concerns the role of values and morality
in courses on terrorism. It is hard to separate the study of
violence, especially in the current environment, from
questions of morality. Professors at a Quaker school, such
as Haverford College, that emphasizes certain values
(especially social justice) face this challenge regularly. I
choose to focus on the intellectual enterprise, and while I
do not dismiss the importance of moral values, I do not let
them taint arguments. In fact, I try to make my classroom a
place where students feel comfortable to express every
logically defensible position, including positions they fear
may not be in line with their (often misidentified)
perception of what constitutes a legitimate discourse at
Haverford. It is a challenge to create an atmosphere in
which students overcome their apprehension of saying
something that is not politically correct.

As a first step, I clarify that I do not presuppose that
jihadis represent a distortion of Islam. My approach is
guided by my understanding of religion as being interpreted
and mutually constituted with the people and groups who
claim to adhere to it. With an extensive debate raging
within Islamic circles on what “true Islam” really is, it
would be pretentious for me to announce who truly represents
the religion and who does not. I prefer to avoid questions
of right and wrong and instead locate the jihadi movement in
the broader battle for the shape of Islam and the leadership
of the Islamic umma, while making sure that students are
aware that comparatively few Muslims support jihadis. While
I make clear my role in preventing students from abusing
freedom by making abusive, racist, and hateful comments, I
have found that demanding causal inference and requiring
students to explain and justify their positions serves as a
good tool for preventing such undesirable outbursts.

A fourth challenge concerns the availability of primary
sources. Such sources, mainly statements by al Qaeda
leaders, have been extremely useful in getting students
excited about studying terrorism and the jihadi movement and
more aware of the discourse used by jihadis as well as the
particular arguments they employ. Rather than relying on the
arguments of scholars, students are able to get their hands
dirty and form ideas on the personalities involved, al Qaeda
leaders’ mindset, the organization’s aspirations, the media
strategies it uses, as so on. Since few students know
Arabic, we rely on translations. For a long time, I was able
to find translations of statements provided by Open Source
Center (OPC) and bring the newest bin Laden or al Zawahiri
statements, which we then read and analyzed as a group.
However, depending on such governmental sources is
problematic. In June 2010, OPC decided-an indefensible and
arbitrary decision, in my opinion-to classify all statements
taken from jihadi websites and forums. Classifying these
statements serves no real counterterrorism purpose and
creates difficulties for teachers and researchers. We found
partial solutions in subscribing to commercial services that
provide translations (for example, the SITE Intelligence
Group), and we are dedicating greater effort to finding
material translated by jihadis and intended to reach non-
Arabic speakers, but this is not a sufficient substitute for
the services of OPC.

Fifth, there is the challenge of students’ absence of prior
knowledge. This is not a complaint but simply a statement of
fact: When students come to college they have very little
knowledge of the subjects I teach. Students’ knowledge of
history is deficient, and their familiarity with Islam and
its history is basically nonexistent. But one needs to play
with the hand that is dealt. In “Jihadi Movement,” I try to
overcome this problem by giving an extremely abbreviated
introduction to Islam and Islamic concepts, and I assign a
book about the history of Islam in the beginning of the
semester. This is far from ideal, but as the semester
progresses, events, names, and concepts link together. In
“Terrorism Studies,” I use a textbook by Bruce Hoffman,
Inside Terrorism, mostly because it includes a useful survey
of the development of terrorism throughout time.

A final challenge I would like to address is how to get
students involved in class. Discussing recently released
statements by al Qaeda leaders is one way, but I also
designed an assignment called “This Week in Jihad.” Every
week, two students are required to present the main events
in the jihadi scene-delivering, in essence, a news report
based on newspapers (including translations of foreign
newspapers), websites, and blogs. It lasts about ten minutes
and, given the issues in the news, may even serve for
further discussion. This exercise helps students to get
acquainted with events around the world and links the course
to current events, thus making it appear more relevant and
useful. Indeed, when I taught “Jihadi Movement” in the
spring of 2009, news reports directed class attention to the
deterioration of security in Pakistan. The threat of the
country’s fall into chaos became a central question that
accompanied us throughout the course. The “This Week in
Jihad” assignment also strengthens students’ ability to
research by forcing them to contextualize the news. In a
way, this exercise facilitates establishing students’
knowledge using two timelines simultaneously: While the
syllabus is based on historical trajectory, “This Week in
Jihad” supplements it by emphasizing current events.

Despite the challenges, teaching about jihadism and the war
on terrorism is important-and very satisfying. Students
become more aware of a phenomenon that since the attacks of
September 11, 2001, has become an integral part of our daily
lives. By teaching these subjects, we contribute to making
our students better citizens. At the same time, these
subjects provide us with new ways to achieve more general
educational goals. In international relations, few
situations are genuinely win-win, but this one is.

ITEMS OF RELATED INTEREST
“Teaching the Long War and Jihadism,” by Mary Habeck, FPRI
Footnotes, October 2009
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1425.200910.habeck.longwarjihadism.html

Resource Guide for Educators on 9/11, Jihadism, and
Terrorism
http://www.fpri.org/education/resources/understanding911.html

Audio File of Marc Sageman’s Oct. 4, 2010 lecture on The
Turn Toward Terrorism
http://www.fpri.org/multimedia/20101004.sageman.terrorism.html

Radical Islam, by Alan Luxenberg (Mason Crest Publishers, 2009)
(part of a series of volumes on “The World of Islam,”
designed for middle school and high school students,
published by Mason Crest in cooperation with FPRI)

———————————————————-
Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute
(http://www.fpri.org/ ). You may forward this essay as you
like provided that it is sent in its entirety and attributed
to FPRI., provided that you send it in its entirety.
Contact FPRI for permission to repost it at another website.

If you receive this as a forward and would like to be added
to our mailing list, send an email to FPRI@fpri.org,
including your name, address, and any affiliation.

For further information or to inquire about membership in
FPRI, please contact Alan Luxenberg, lux@fpri.org or (215)
732-3774 x105.

———————————————————-

FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite
610, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102-3684
For information, contact Alan Luxenberg, (215) 732-3774,
ext. 105.