Excerpt

“The Thin Line between Terrorism and Jihad” is the title of a presentation that I delivered in a workshop in Cairo back in 2005. The workshop itself was far away from the subject of Islamism. It was rather intended to enhance conversation and debating skills. The tutor asked us to select a topic that we found intriguing, and I had my mind set on preparing a paper that debunks the claims made by Islamic extremist groups. Ridiculing the radicals was my personal mission at the time; I had survived attempts at polarization by the Muslim Sisterhood, the female brigade (Ferqa)¹ of the Muslim Brotherhood, only a year earlier. I collected some Quranic verses and prophetic Hadiths promoting peace, piled them up in a few pages to make and rest my case in one blow, and named it “The Thin Line between Terrorism and Jihad.”