A Hezbollah supporter displays a picture of Iran's late founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomenei on October 1, 2017.  (Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images)

In the West, news coverage of Islamist extremism is often limited to the acutely tragic, including the recent terrorist attacks in France, or to military engagements, such as the drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Left untold are the stories examining the jihadist movements around the world that are shaping the future of radical Islam and threatening the search for stability and better governance in many majority-Muslim countries.

Hudson's semi-annual journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, reaches beyond the headlines to illuminate the movements, people, and ideologies that are shaping Islamist thought around the globe. The journal is edited by Eric Brown, Hillel Fradkin, and Husain Haqqani, and published by Hudson’s Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Muslim World.

Essays in Current Trends Vol. 27

The Jihadist Fight for West Africa
Toulu Akerle, Contributor

The jihadist ambition to establish a global caliphate has suffered serious setbacks in the last two years. Despite an increasingly widespread network, there is no central battleground on which jihadists can concentrate their aspirations and efforts, as they did in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan over the last two decades.  But West Africa, and particularly Nigeria, is emerging as a frontline in the global Jihadist movement.

Contributor Toulu Akerle examines the current jihadi operations in West Africa while exploring the inter-faction politics that keep the region’s Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and Islamic State-affiliated groups competitive, rather than cooperative. The struggle between these groups and their affiliates will shape the future of terrorism on the African continent.

The “Central African” Jihad: Islamism and
Nation-Building in Mozambique and Uganda
James Barnett, Research Fellow

The recent seizure of a Mozambican port by Islamic State-linked jihadists is particularly significant development, writes Hudson Research Fellow James Barnett. This assault on a city of 30,000—the militant’s third and most successful this year—marked a notable progression by the Islamic State’s newest affiliate, Central Africa Province (known as ISCAP).

The ideological dimensions of ISCAP are defined less by the religious beliefs of the militants, and more by Mozambique’s postcolonial shift from a guerilla movement into a government struggling to reconcile lofty dreams of Pan-Africanism with the aspirations of its Muslim communities. The rise of ISCAP is reflective of a larger challenge facing many African states: that of creating a compelling notion of nationhood that could serve as the basis for effective state-building.

The West in African Violent Extremists’ Discourse
Bulama Bukarti, Contributor

The West is a prominent messaging tool for Islamist groups, which depict the West as antagonistic toward Muslims and themselves as fighting the West and its influence. Contributor Bulama Bukarti provides an in-depth look at how three prominent African jihadi groups, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, and Jama’tu Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Musulmin (JNIM), use representations of the West for recruitment purposes. The ways in which these jihadi groups use the West in propaganda depends on their differing local contexts, target audiences and strategies. An understanding of these methods is important to our overall knowledge of jihadis’ recruitment and mobilization strategy, and also vital to ensuring that any Western intervention in Africa is done in a way that avoids strengthening extremists’ narratives.

Iran in Lebanon: A Fatal Occupation
Hassan Mneimneh, Contributor

At a time when Lebanon should be celebrating its centenary, the country is close to collapse as a polity, an economy, and even as a society. Contributor Hassan Mneimneh examines the role of Iran’s occupation in Lebanon, and examines how Iran’s presence is largely due to Lebanon’s own tumultuous history rather than in Tehran’s designs.

Iran was able to gain influence in Arab political culture by nurturing its anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist discourse. In the process, however, Iran entrapped itself in a narrative that may conflict with its interests, and which certainly limits its ability to maneuver. Iran fostered the emergence of a martial totalitarian enclave in Lebanon, with no exit strategy from a military build-up or confrontation. Amid such contradictions, Mneimneh notes, it is hard to see an outcome that does not perpetuate Lebanon’s on-going devastation.

Iran’s Revolutionary Influence in South Asia
Amb. Husain Haqqani, Hudson Director for South and Central Asia

The role of Iran’s proxies and allies in the Middle East is well known, notes Hudson's Husain Haqqani, but Iran's ayatollahs have also expanded their influence across South, Central, and East Asia without attracting the same level of attention.

Iran is enacting a strategy to create pockets of influence across Asia by cultivating Shia populations, dealing pragmatically with local governments, and boosting soft power relations through networks of mosques, clerics, and seminaries. Using local Shia populations, Iran has been able to cultivate a support base in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India that can be used as leverage in negotiations with governments of these countries.

The Battle for the Soul of Islam
James M. Dorsey, Contributor

A battle for the soul of Islam is pitting rival middle Eastern and Asian powers against one another, writes Contributor James Dorsey. Among the major contenders, there is Turkey, seat of the Islamic world’s last true caliphate; Saudi Arabia, home to the faith’s holy cities; the United Arab Emirates, propagator of a militantly statist interpretation of Islam; Qatar with its less strict version of Wahhabism and penchant for political Islam; Indonesia, promoting a humanitarian, pluralistic notion of Islam that reaches out to other faiths; Morocco, which uses religion as a way to position itself as the face of moderate Islam; and Shia Iran with its derailed revolution.

As the battle for religious soft power between rival states has intensified, the lines dividing the state and religion have become ever more blurred, particularly in more autocratic countries. This struggle has and will affect the prospects for the emergence of a truly more tolerant and pluralistic interpretation of one of the three Abrahamic religions.

Go Deeper: Addressing Islamism