Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Islamic Studies and Chairperson of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the author of The First Muslims: History and Memory (2008) and Excellence and Precedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership (2002).

Asma Afsaruddin's Striving in the Path of God is a major accomplishment in the study of non-legal jihād literature...Afsaruddin is able to write about an astonishing range of material over centuries with subtlety and erudition, taking great care to contextualize historically semantic shifts in the terms she studies...This book's scope makes it an ideal introduction to the literature for graduate students or advanced undergraduates.

• Introduction ; Chapter 1: Striving "for," "in," and "in the path of" God: Qur'anic Imperatives in the Meccan Period ; Chapter 2: Fighting in the Path of God: A Religious and Moral Obligation ; Chapter 3: The Ethics of Fighting, Refraining from Fighting, and Peacemaking ; Chapter 4: Dying in the Path of God: Exegeses of Martyrdom ; Chapter 5: Jihad and Martyrdom Compared in Early and Later Hadith Literature ; Chapter 6: Jihad and Martyrdom in Early and Late Treatises on the Merits of Jihad ; Chapter 7: The Excellences of Patient Forbearance: Counter-Narratives on Striving in the Path of God ; Chapter 8: Modern and Contemporary Debates on Jihad and Martyrdom I: Political and Militant Perspectives ; Chapter 9: Modern and Contemporary Debates on Jihad and Martyrdom II: Privileging History, Context, and Polysemy ; Conclusion: Analysis of Texts: A Summation

Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Islamic Studies and Chairperson of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the author of The First Muslims: History and Memory (2008) and Excellence and Precedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership (2002).

Asma Afsaruddin's Striving in the Path of God is a major accomplishment in the study of non-legal jihād literature...Afsaruddin is able to write about an astonishing range of material over centuries with subtlety and erudition, taking great care to contextualize historically semantic shifts in the terms she studies...This book's scope makes it an ideal introduction to the literature for graduate students or advanced undergraduates.

• Introduction ; Chapter 1: Striving "for," "in," and "in the path of" God: Qur'anic Imperatives in the Meccan Period ; Chapter 2: Fighting in the Path of God: A Religious and Moral Obligation ; Chapter 3: The Ethics of Fighting, Refraining from Fighting, and Peacemaking ; Chapter 4: Dying in the Path of God: Exegeses of Martyrdom ; Chapter 5: Jihad and Martyrdom Compared in Early and Later Hadith Literature ; Chapter 6: Jihad and Martyrdom in Early and Late Treatises on the Merits of Jihad ; Chapter 7: The Excellences of Patient Forbearance: Counter-Narratives on Striving in the Path of God ; Chapter 8: Modern and Contemporary Debates on Jihad and Martyrdom I: Political and Militant Perspectives ; Chapter 9: Modern and Contemporary Debates on Jihad and Martyrdom II: Privileging History, Context, and Polysemy ; Conclusion: Analysis of Texts: A Summation

Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Islamic Studies and Chairperson of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the author of The First Muslims: History and Memory (2008) and Excellence and Precedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership (2002).

Asma Afsaruddin's Striving in the Path of God is a major accomplishment in the study of non-legal jihād literature...Afsaruddin is able to write about an astonishing range of material over centuries with subtlety and erudition, taking great care to contextualize historically semantic shifts in the terms she studies...This book's scope makes it an ideal introduction to the literature for graduate students or advanced undergraduates.

• Introduction ; Chapter 1: Striving "for," "in," and "in the path of" God: Qur'anic Imperatives in the Meccan Period ; Chapter 2: Fighting in the Path of God: A Religious and Moral Obligation ; Chapter 3: The Ethics of Fighting, Refraining from Fighting, and Peacemaking ; Chapter 4: Dying in the Path of God: Exegeses of Martyrdom ; Chapter 5: Jihad and Martyrdom Compared in Early and Later Hadith Literature ; Chapter 6: Jihad and Martyrdom in Early and Late Treatises on the Merits of Jihad ; Chapter 7: The Excellences of Patient Forbearance: Counter-Narratives on Striving in the Path of God ; Chapter 8: Modern and Contemporary Debates on Jihad and Martyrdom I: Political and Militant Perspectives ; Chapter 9: Modern and Contemporary Debates on Jihad and Martyrdom II: Privileging History, Context, and Polysemy ; Conclusion: Analysis of Texts: A Summation