9/11 organizer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed exploited his trial to remind the court of its own human rights obligations, while Osama bin Laden’s video statements include appeals to religious pluralism. Al-Qaeda’s use of liberal categories is central to its rhetoric on war and justice, writes Faisal Devji.
Faisal Devji
is Reader in Modern South Asian History at St Antony’s College, Oxford University. His books include Muslim Zion: Jinnah and the Making of Pakistan (2010); The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics (2009); and Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity (2005).
