Devji was born in Dar es Salaam in 1964 to a family of western Indian origin.

His undergraduate education was at the University of British Columbia, where he received double honors in history and anthropology.

Devji's multidisciplinary work grounds empirical historical issues in philosophical questions.

The book draws a distinction between the majority of Islamic fundamentalist organizations concerned with the establishing of states and al-Qaeda with its decentralized structure and emphasis on moral rather than political action.

His next book was The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics, published by Columbia University Press in October 2008.