Sublime

In Saudi Arabia, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (1941–89), professor of Islamic philosophy at King Abdulaziz University, used his influence among the country’s disaffected youth to promote an uncompromisingly belligerent interpretation of jihad that, he argued, was incumbent on all Muslims. “Jihad and the rifle alone,” Dr. Azzam proclaimed to his students. “

jihad is neither a universally recognized nor a unanimously defined concept in the Muslim world.