ABSTRACT
This chapter examines past waves of violent Islamism in Africa in terms of their implications for space and networks. It shows that both prior to and coterminous with (early) colonialization, several movements in Muslim Africa that today we would characterize as “extremist” and “transnational” organized and acted to destroy established political systems and remodel them according to Islam. The author argues that what Africa is now experiencing is a resurgence of earlier jihadism, explicitly invoked by contemporary jihadists but usually ignored by counter-terrorism analysts. Analytical tools for forecasting jihadist attacks should be complemented by geo-historical contextualization of their origins.
