Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement

by Alexander Thurston

Overview

A comprehensive history of one of the world's deadliest jihadist groups

Boko Haram is one of the world's deadliest jihadist groups. It has killed more than twenty thousand people and displaced more than two million in a campaign of terror that began in Nigeria but has since spread to Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. This is the first book to tell the full story of this West African affiliate of the Islamic State, from its beginnings in the early 2000s to its most infamous violence, including the 2014 kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls. An in-depth account of a group that is menacing Africa's most populous and richest country, the book also illuminates the dynamics of civil war in Africa and jihadist movements in other parts of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691197081
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/27/2019
Series:	Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics , #65
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alexander Thurston is visiting assistant professor of political science and comparative religion at Miami University, and the author of Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics. Twitter @sahelblog

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

1 The Lifeworld of Muhammad Yusuf 34

2 Preaching Exclusivism, Playing Politics 83

3 “Chaos Is Worse Than Killing” 142

4 Total War in Northeastern Nigeria 197

5 Same War, New Actors 241

Conclusion 300

Selected Bibliography 307

Index 329

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A must for anybody interested in Nigeria’s recent past as well as the dynamics of political and religious development in the larger West African region."—Roman Loimeier, Africa Spectrum

"May well become the definitive work on the group . . . . Thurston convincingly debunks theories of Boko Haram that would deny its uniquely Nigerian nature."—James H. Barnett, Weekly Standard

"Offers an authoritative take on [Boko Haram's] murky origins and wisely situates its rise within the context of Nigerian political history."—Nicolas van de Walle, Foreign Affairs

"Thurston's account of Boko Haram's rise and how it 'interacted dynamically with the political dysfunction and economic malaise that surrounded it' is key to understanding its survival."—Siona Jenkins, Financial Times

"As balanced and comprehensive a treatment of Boko Haram as we are likely to see for many years."—Robert L. Tignor, Michigan War Studies Review

Editorial Reviews

One of Foreign Affairs' Picks for Best of Books 2018

From the Publisher

02/26/2018
Thurston (Salafism in Nigeria), visiting assistant professor of African history at Georgetown University, combines narrative and analysis to make a balanced and persuasive case that the causes of Boko Haram’s rise in Nigeria have been oversimplified. The group is best understood, he argues, not as a project of global jihadists or a response to economic inequality but as “the outcome of dynamic, locally grounded interactions between religion and politics.” Boko Haram’s policies and decisions are flexible and adapt to external events: religious impulse, economic malaise, political dysfunction. These interactions began in the 1970s with a religious question: what did it mean to be Muslim in a Nigeria shaken to its foundations by civil war? A popular answer was provided by Salafist preachers, whose vision of Islam as providing a comprehensive, official, legal framework for public life was shared to some degree by almost three-fourths of Nigeria’s Muslims. The resulting confrontation with a secular state was exacerbated by the Muslim North’s growing sense of exclusion from the country’s economic development. An abortive uprising in 2009 led to “clandestine regrouping, and then... terrorism and guerilla warfare”; by 2011 anti-Christian and antisecular rhetoric had sharpened into “hardline religious exclusivism,” and by 2013 northern Nigeria was in an enduring state of war. Thurston ends by considering “soft measures” best suited to resolve the crisis. This is a superb, comprehensively researched study of a complex and challenging movement. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

2017-09-14
A diagnostic study of the ultraconservative "mobile jihadist gang" from Nigeria that has taken a violent toll on government and civilians alike.In 2014, the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from the Nigerian town of Chibok brought worldwide attention to this terrorist group whose name derives in Hausa-Arabic from "Western-style education" (boko) and "forbidden" (haram). Thurston (Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics, 2016) systematically examines the movement's origins as a religious study group in 2002 in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, led by the charismatic preacher Muhammad Yusuf, through subsequent chronological phases: a decisive turn to violence by 2009, uprising (and death of Yusuf) followed by government suppression, and re-emergence in 2010 as a terrorist group linked to al-Qaida. In the first chapter, "The Lifeworld of Muhammad Yusuf," the author provides a solid overview of the fluctuating society in northeastern Nigeria from the 1970s, when Yusuf was born and the north of the country lagged in development compared to the south, through the 1990s, when disruptive urbanization and globalization pushed people into migration, poverty, and illiteracy. Western schools, a remnant of British colonialism—Nigeria became independent in 1960—were seen as highly suspect places. As Thurston writes, "Western-educated politicians and technocrats have presided over a system that has stolen much of Nigeria's wealth, leaving much of the population poor." With Christian-Muslim tensions rising, ultraconservative Salafi teachings became more popular. The author delves deeply into what Yusuf was actually teaching: a core doctrine of religious exclusivism that clearly demonized anyone thinking otherwise, with a focus on the Quranic slogan, "Chaos is worse than killing." Thurston also weighs the mostly ineffectual government responses and urges a "long-term, fine-grained approach to understanding the Boko Haram crisis." This book is a good starting point.Though the author sets aside "Boko Haram's treatment of women" due to "reasons of space," he offers a highly useful, timely, illuminating work about a little-understood terrorist group.

Kirkus Reviews