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A sweeping history of the often-violent conflict between Islam and the West, shedding a revealing light on current hostilities The West and Islam--the sword and the scimitar--have clashed since the mid-seventh century, when, according to Muslim tradition, the Byzantine emperor rejected Prophet Muhammad's order to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam, unleashing a centuries-long jihad on Christendom. Sword and Scimitar chronicles the significant battles that arose from this ages-old Islamic jihad, beginning with the first major Islamic attack on Christian land in 636, through the occupation of the Middle East that prompted the Crusades and the far-flung conquests of the Ottoman Turks, to the European colonization of the Muslim world in the 1800s, when Islam largely went on the retreat--until its reemergence in recent times. Using original sources in Arabic, Greek, Latin, and Turkish, preeminent historian Raymond Ibrahim describes each battle in vivid detail and explains the effect the outcome had on larger historical currents of the age and how the military lessons of the battle reflect the cultural faultlines between Islam and the West. The majority of these landmark battles are now forgotten or considered inconsequential. Yet today, as the West faces a resurgence of this enduring Islamic jihad, Sword and Scimitar provides the needed historical context to understand the current relationship between the West and the Islamic world, and why the Islamic State is merely the latest chapter of an old history

In the 1994 Rwanda genocide, around 1 million people were brutally murdered in just thirteen weeks. This book offers an in-depth study of posttraumatic growth in the testimonies of the men and women who survived, highlighting the ways in which they were able to build a new, and often enhanced, way of life. In so doing, Caroline Williamson Sinalo advocates a new reading of trauma: one that recognises not just the negative, but also the positive responses to traumatic experiences. Through an analysis of testimonies recorded in Kinyarwanda by the Genocide Archive of Rwanda, the book focuses particularly on the relationship between posttraumatic growth and gender and examines it within the wider frames of colonialism and traditional cultural practices. Offering a striking alternative to dominant paradigms on trauma, the book reveals that, notwithstanding the countless tales of horror, pain, and loss in Rwanda, there are also stories of strength, recovery, and growth.

Lange vor "IS" und "Boko Haram" galt die messianisch-christliche "Lord's Resistance Army" (LRA) in Uganda als die vielleicht brutalste Rebellengruppe Afrikas oder der Welt – und als eine, die sich sehr klar auf die Entführung, "Rekrutierung" und den Einsatz Minderjähriger als KämpferInnen spezialisiert hat. Dieses Buch zeigt die Erkenntnisse eines Forschungsprojekts über ehemalige KindersoldatInnen in Norduganda und ihre "Reintegration" in den gesellschaftlichen und familialen Alltag nach ihrer Rückkehr ins zivile Leben. Biographische Verläufe von Ex-KindersoldatInnen vor, während und nach der Zeit ihrer Entführung werden vorgestellt. Die AutorInnen untersuchen, wie sie ins zivile Leben zurückfanden, welche Beziehungsstrukturen oder sozialen Figurationen sich danach zwischen ihnen und den ZivilistInnen sowie insbesondere ihren Herkunftsfamilien beobachten lassen und welche alltagsweltlichen Bedingungen einen Übergang ins zivile Leben erleichtern oder erschweren.

The investigative response to civilian casualties : more questions than answers -- 'The trigger question': when do civilian casualties require an investigation? -- 'The standards question': how to investigate civilian casualties? -- Translating investigation obligations to IOAC situations -- Challenges in classifying and identifying the applicable normative framework(s) -- Investigation models and constraints in domestic military justice systems -- Military in-house investigations and some mitigating arrangements -- Civilian oversight of military investigations -- A proposal for a permanent expert commission -- The duty to investigate and shaping the normative discourse