On November 5, 1914, at the dawn of World War I, Sultan Mehmed V incites the faithful, soldiers, and subjects to jihad, a Holy War against the Christian enemies. On October 7, 2001, Osama bin Laden declares: “I thank Allah that the symbols of America were destroyed and that fear has seized all Americans and the entire United States of America”.

These two dates are separated by about a century, during which two different political directions have emerged in the Arab and Islamic world. The first is that of jihad; the second, constitutionalism, attempts the democratic transformation of the Islamic conception of the state. The strategy of jihad has prevailed and continues to prevail in all significant choices of Middle Eastern politics.

A million Arabs have killed Arabs in the last forty years, and -according to some sources- terrorism in Iraq kills 9 Muslims for every Christian. In the face of the brutality of this internal conflict, how can one claim that Islamic terrorism is solely an act of resistance against the imperialist policies of the West?

This is the question posed by Carlo Panella's analysis, whose detailed historical tracing begins with the fall of the caliphate after the victory of the Allies. It narrates the alliance of the Arab world with the Nazis and then with the Soviet regime, the Iranian Revolution and its implications for national constitutions, the intifada, and the Gulf Wars, up to the current crises involving hostages.

From the historical journey of the great conflict between constitutionalism and jihad emerge the reasons for the dramatic relevance of this question, in a world where Iran is determined to arm jihad with the atomic bomb, and where in Palestine Mahmoud Abbas has been defeated by Hamas, likely leading to civil conflict.