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Revolutionary Gnosticism is a movement common to a great deal of modern and contemporary revolutionary phenomena such as Nazism, Bolshevism and Jacobinism. However no one has studied Salafi- Jihadism yet, the latest existing revolutionary ideology, in gnostic terms. If Salafi-Jihadism were a gnostic phenomenon, it would reveal its Promethean and atheist conception of the world that stands in the forgetfulness of a pure transcendent dimension, notwithstanding the apparently spiritual framework and religious justification that jihadists provide. A similar study, hence, would reveal Salafi-Jihadis’ will of redeeming humankind from Evil (with capital letter) and building the perfect society, leaving God without a clear possibility of intervening in human affairs.
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTE ON CONVENTION
PRAFACE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 —GNOSTICISM AS A PHILOSOPHICAL CATEGORY: A LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Eric Voegelin and the Foundation of a Theoretical
Paradigm
1.3 Augusto Del Noce, or Grace Replaced by Revolution
1.4 Hans Jonas: An Existential Gnosticism
1.5 Vittorio Mathieu and Emanuele Samek Lodovici:
From Revolution to Protest
1.6 Luciano Pellicani’s Sociological Analysis
CHAPTER 2 — WHAT IS REVOLUTIONARY GNOSTICISM?
2.1 The Gnostic Pattern: Six Features of Revolutionary
Gnosticism
2.1.1 Anti-Cosmism
2.1.2 Tripartition of History
2.1.3 Immanentization of the Eschaton
2.1.4 Gnosis
2.1.5 Political-Revolutionary Self-Redemption
2.1.6 Sociological Dualism
2.2 Gnostic Revolutions Throughout History
2.2.1 John of Leiden, the Paraclete of Münster
2.2.2 Puritanism and the Revolution of the Saints
2.2.3 The French Revolution and the True Jacobin Spirit
2.2.4 The Twentieth Century: Bolshevism and Nazism
CHAPTER 3 — RADICAL ISLAM: SALAFISM AND JIHADISM
3.1 Pioneering Studies
3.2 Framing the Study of an Ideology
3.2.1 The First Term: Salafism
3.2.2 The Second Term: Jihadism
CHAPTER 4 — IS SALAFI-JIHADISM AN ADDITIONAL
GNOSTIC CHAPTER?
4.1 What is Salafi-Jihadism?
4.2 Essential Salafi-Jihadi Features
4.3 Salafi-Jihadism In Light of the Gnostic Pattern
4.3.1 The Inescapable Background: The Secularization
4.3.2 The World Is Evil: Anti-Cosmism
4.3.3 The Glorious Past: Tripartition of History
4.3.4 An Islamic Humankind: The Immanentization
of the Eschaton
4.3.5 The Ultimate Knowledge: The Gnosis
4.3.6 Redemption Anyway: Political-Revolutionary
Self-Redemption
4.3.7 The World like a Chessboard: Sociological Dualism
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX — A CONVERSATION WITH LUCIANO PELLICANI
BIBLIOGRAPHY
