Jihad and Dawah Evolving Narratives of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamat ud Dawah
By Samina Yasmeen

This book provides a detailed account of the
emergence and metamorphoses of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its political
arm, Jamat ud Dawah, since the early 1990s. Linking the group's
narratives to the process of Islamisation in Pakistan and divergent
views on the country's Islamic identity, it is the first systematic
analysis of how the organisation, globally reviled as the perpetrator of
the 2008 Mumbai Bombings, has developed its conception of da'wah
(proselytising) and jihad in response to regional and global
developments. Samina Yasmeen makes extensive use of Urdu materials
(pamphlets, books, ephemera) by Markaz Da'wah wal Irshad, the parent
organisation of LeT, to examine the 'insider's vision' of the dominant
threats to Pakistan and the Muslim ummah, as well as strategies for
countering these threats. She argues that while adopting an oppositional
narrative vis-à-vis India and the West, LeT has increasingly turned its
attention to da'wah narratives within Pakistan engaging with broader
spectrums of society. Women have increasingly been assigned significant
agency in this narrative, and JuD's activism in education and social
welfare has helped it acquire social capital. This, in turn, prompts a
re-imagining of the movement's relationship with the Pakistani military.