PRESS ADVISORY
AYN RAND INSTITUTE
May 21, 2008

The "Inner Jihad" and Islamic Totalitarianism

Who: Dr. John Lewis, Senior Research Scholar in History and Classics, Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University. 

What: A talk explaining the real meaning of jihad: a war for the expansion of Islamic rule. A Q & A will follow.

Where: Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel

When: June 2, 2008, from 6 to 8 PM

Admission is FREE. The lecture will be open to the public and the media. 

Description: This talk confronts claims that the real meaning of jihad is a benign "inner struggle," and not war for the expansion of Islamic rule. Such claims are contrary to history; even mystical orthodox philosophers such as Al-Ghazali confirmed the meaning of jihad as war. Claims that jihad is an "inner struggle" are best seen either as the apologetics of those who do not want to face the fact that jihad means war, or who wish to cover up this fact in order to achieve the ends of Islamic rule. What the claimants call an "inner jihad" is a process of internal intellectual evasion, in which facts and conclusions contrary to support for Islam are suppressed. The outward political manifestations of such deception are censorship and propaganda, which are used to further Islamic rule. Islamic totalitarianism remains an active, and dangerous, force in the world, which must be confronted intellectually and defeated militarily.

Bio: Dr. John Lewis is a research scholar in history and classics at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, and a visiting scholar for the year 20072008. He has been an associate professor of history at Ashland University. He holds a PhD in classics from the University of Cambridge, a BA in history from the University of Rhode Island. He has taught at the University of London, and was a visiting scholar at Rice University. 

Dr. Lewis has published in classical journals such as Polis and Dikē. He is consulting editor of The Objective Standard, and writes for Capitalism Magazine. He is the author of Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens and Early Greek Lawgivers. His book on military history, Nothing Less Than Victory: Military Offense and the Lessons of History, is in production with Princeton University Press.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrand.org

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Dr. John Lewis is available for interviews now and after his talk.
Contact: Larry Benson          
E-mail: larryb@aynrand.org          
Phone: 949-222-6550, ext. 213