The Literature of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba Deadly Lines of Control

Since its inception in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), also known as the Jamaat-ul-Dawa (JuD), has arguably been the most threatening and disruptive terrorist organization in South Asia and beyond. While there is considerable scholarship on its history and operations, few scholars have exploited the organization's vast publications. This volume is the first scholarly effort to curate a sample of LeT's Urdu-language publications and then translate them into English for the scholarly community studying this group and related organizations. While the original texts were written and published by Dar al Andalus, which exclusively publishes LeT's books, pamphlets, posters, speeches, and other materials with the explicit intention of diffusing the group's ideology, raising funds, and cultivating volunteers for the organization, the authors hope that by rendering the group's materials more accessible, this book can contribute to the myriad efforts to combat such groups and the violence they perpetrate.

1 - Introduction to this Volume
2 - What is the 'Lashkar-e-Tayyaba'?
3 - Islamic Sources Used in this Volume
4 - 'Why Are We Waging Jihad?' With a Foreword by Abdus Salam bin Muhammad
5 - 'In Defense of Jihad' by Ubaidurrahman Muhammadi
6 - 'The Mujahid's Call' by Naveed Qamar
7 - 'We the Mothers of the Lashkar'
8 - Fighter Biographies
9 - 'Highway to Heaven' by Amir Hamza
10 - 'The Problem with Takfir'
11 - 'Destination Kashmir is Nigh' by Ali Imran Shaheen
12 - 'Noble Warriors and Battlefronts' by Muhammad Tahir Naqqash

C. Christine Fair is Professor, Security Studies Program, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, USA. She previously served as a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation, a political officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and a senior research associate at the United States Institute of Peace. Her most recent book is In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (Hurst/OUP, 2018/2019). She has authored, co-authored, and co-edited several books, including Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War (OUP, 2014), Pakistan's Enduring Challenges (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), Policing Insurgencies: Cops as Counterinsurgents (OUP, 2014), Political Islam and Governance in Bangladesh (Routledge, 2010), and Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces (OUP, 2008), among others. Safina Ustaad is a freelance translator, poet, and conceptual artist based in Providence, Rhode Island, with a Master's in Theater Studies from Brown University. Ustaad has translated for various academics and journalists researching militancy and political violence in Pakistan.