This thesis examines the impact of changing views of legitimate Islamic authority on conceptions of jihad. Spearheaded by militant Sunni movements, jihad in the modern era has taken on new purposes and practices that more closely resemble general understandings of terrorism than the regulated forms of warfare cemented during the classical period of Islam. Contrasting the historical authority of the caliph or political leader and the ulama over the concept of jihad with the modern state and ulama's lack of control over the concept offers a partial explanation of the divergence of contemporary jihad from the classical or traditional views. This thesis uses the concept of individual jihad as communicated through the jihadist magazine Inspire, to counter the dismissal of radical articulations of jihad as un-Islamic and therefore illegitimate, and to demonstrate how such forms instead reflect the opportunistic replacement of traditional political and religious authority by the jihadist as the true defender of Islam and consequently the rightful interpreter of Islamic law. / Master of Arts

This dissertation examines two recent programs for post-secondary Islamic theological training in Europe that aim to produce a new class of professional Islamic scholars for emerging roles within European society. Graduates can use their training and new qualifications to secure advanced professional roles and leadership positions within the Muslim community and the broader society and state. In the process, these graduates develop and define an emergent institutional role for Islamic knowledge and authority in Europe. This study is based in seven months of fieldwork research in 2017 at two centers for higher Islamic education, including participant observation within classrooms and interviews with students, faculty and alumni. Founded in 2009, the Cambridge Muslim College in Cambridge, England is a small private school that provides professional training for about a dozen graduates of the many Islamic seminaries in the UK. Founded in 2012 with support from the German state, the Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Tübingen provides Islamic theological training to hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students each year, many of whom have received no prior formal Islamic education. In addition to the institutional differences between the schools, their graduates enter into different job markets. Where the British graduates must develop new entrepreneurial roles for Islamic leaders in the UK, the German graduates become the skilled workforce to meet existing demand for public school Islam teachers, academic theologians and professional chaplains. Comparing these two educational programs—one private, the other public—this dissertation explores how the position of each school vis-á-vis the Muslim community and the state shapes the construction of scholarly authority and the professional outcomes of the graduates. It finds that students at each school leverage their new authority to formulate creative programs of Islamic reform that justify and promote new roles for professional Islamic scholars within both the Muslim community and the larger society. Drawing upon current scholarship about Muslim identity, Islamic authority and secularism in Europe, this study considers how prevailing national discourses that marginalize Muslims in Europe shape students’ creative programs of reform and so also the future institution of Islamic knowledge in Europe. / 2022-09-30T00:00:00Z