Book Description
The terrorists who brought death to thousands said they did it in God's name. Thousands of Christians around the world gathered in churches to pray for peace, while others blamed the very idea of God for the tragedy. Ravi Zacharias deals with five of the major questions on people's minds after September 11: - Is this true Islam or a fanatical counterfeit? - In what ways does the relation of church and state change a nation's view of religion and affect its culture? - Is this Islam or a pollution of it? Is religion dangerous to a culture? - Was there a prophecy that this would happen? - Where does this leave the future?"If we find those answers," writes Zacharias, "they will spell life, steadying the soul even though the heart still aches."
Customer Reviews:
Not what I expected..........2006-05-14
I thought this was going to take more of a stand against Muslims and Islam. But what I found is really a fight against evil and really against what the "extremists" believe in Islam. If I hadn't read or listened more of Ravi than just this book I would think he was partial to the "peaceful" Muslims. He did talk about the Islamic countries in bits and about their oppression but never really came down on the crux of this religion that, based on their own Koran, they are told to be "killing machines" to all those who are not Muslim, to wait in the bushes to ambush the infidels. So what happened on 9/11 shouldn't have been a shock to those educated on what Islam stands for.
The book was good in parts but left me wanting more arguments for why Christianity is based on love and Islam is based on a vengeful and hateful allah to even his own people. Instead all you get is more generalities and universal arguments from a worldview standpoint instead of a point by point argument or discussion on basically "Why Christianity and Why not Islam"
Because truly Christ is the only Light in any shadow.
I was left wanting, and there was no message at the end that pointed people to Christ, just very vague.
I did like the read and found some interesting points on topics and discussions I wasn't expecting so for that I give it 3 stars.
Not clear.......2006-05-04
I had to read this book for a critical review in a religion class that I took. I thought this book was awful. The author is never really clear on what points he is trying to make throughout the book. He jumps from one subject to another and never gives a good transistion from one subject to another. It appears to me that this author was just saying that God existed and Islam is abusing their religion against us because they dislike the Americans moral system. No, maybe it was that he was glad to be an American, because he ends his book with a story of somebody recognizing that his home was in the United States. I'm not exactly sure is the point I am trying to make. I wouldn't recommend anybody to read this book. I only gave this book two stars because the author gave a good description of how the Islamic people believe.
Man made disaster, God, and You........2006-03-05
Page 10
Is this Islam or is it its abuse?
Is this inevitable result of religion?
These are two questions Ravi Zacharias gives in the introduction of the book about the event that happened in New York City on 9/11.
John Lennon wrote the song Imagine. The ethic in this in this song is that religion is the root of all evil. That man could live peaceably with each other if he just give up on the concept of God and all the hangups that result from God base philosophy. Similar thought pattern is used by those who argue all religion and world perspectives are relative to the usefulness to the individual who holds them. It does not matter what is the truth as long as you do not argue about it. You may believe what you believe as long as one does not insult, discourage or try to convert someone who does not agree with you.
Ravi Zacharias does not use the word tolerance, he does make the argument for free religious discussion. Expression of religious Faith is what makes this country strong. He does speak specifically about Christian Heritage in this country and does discuss that Christians have to put up with others poking fun at Jesus and other truths presented in the Bible. Tolerance of expression about God and Faith is what made this country great. The theme of this book is about the United States after 9/11. This book does not go deep into theology: very little quoting from the bible, Koran, of other religious resources. He tries to express how three different type of people perceive the world. These are Christians in the United States, Moslem's in the Middle East, and Moslem's now residing in the United States. That people need to be more open to explain their religious perspective among those of the same Faith and outside the Faith. Why the concept of religious relativeness and its definition of tolerance builds walls instead of being an aid to coexistence. It actually not tolerant of diverse faith.
Illuminating and comforting.......2006-02-20
This engaging book looks at 9/11 from a Christian perspective, seeking to make sense of the tragedy while placing world events in historical context. In chapter one: Hand From The Rubble, the author lays out the questions relating to 9/11 by analogy with Genelle Guzman who was the last person rescued from the rubble of Ground Zero. He discusses religion in public life, the categories of good and evil, mentions author Peggy Noonan and comes to the conclusion that America's moral strength and spiritual commitment will determine the future of the nation in the war on terror and the unfolding of history.
Chapter 2: The Struggle Between Good & Evil investigates relativism with reference to Alan Dershowitz amongst others. The author looks at the arguments of atheists like Richard Dawkins, Bertrand Russell and Kai Nielsen and shows from their own words that reason alone cannot lead to morality. America functions within the moral framework of Judeo-Christian assumptions: Life is intrinsically sacred because God created and sustains it. He discusses George Washington's farewell address and two major points in it: morality cannot be maintained without religion and if religion is excluded, reason and experience forbid us to expect morality to prevail.
In Chapter 3: The Struggle Between Truth & Falsehood, he looks at the history of Islam including the Sunni/Shia split, the sources of authority in Islam like the Qur'an, the Hadith, Sira and Tafsir, the doctrine of abrogation and the persecution of Islamic scholars questioning the primary sources. Recent history of the religion is explored with reference to Hasan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Farag and his book The Missing Religious Precept, and intolerance in Muslim countries.
Chapter 4 deals with prophecy as the author recounts the story of Daniel and in particular the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. He contrasts the goals of Islam and Christianity: the one aims at world domination through geographical extension and the other seeks to bring the rule of God into the human heart. He then points to the root of the conflict in the story of Abraham and the contest between Isaac and Ishmael. Events in the Middle East are being played out on an ancient historical template centred on the city of Jerusalem. The prophecies about the nation of Israel are being fulfilled with the establishment of independent Israel in 1948 representing the dawning of the world's salvation.
The problem of the "hiddenness of God" or divine hiding is discussed in chapter 5. There is a purpose behind God's visibility or invisibility, based on the fact that mankind is not only mind/intellect but spiritual essence too. Here the author refers to Blaise Pascal, Anthony Bloom and CS Lewis in identifying the importance of communion with God. The only real safety is found in the presence of God.
Chapter 6 includes discussions of God and culture, culture and country, and country and history. He dissects and criticises the author Andrew Sullivan's failure of logic and equivocating statements expressed in the article This Is A Religious War in the New York Times Magazine of October 7th, 2001 where Moslem extremists and Christian fundamentalists are indiscriminately lobbed together. This is the Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle. It explains that just because 2 things have one thing in common, it doesn't mean that they have everything in common. This chapter closes with a discussion of God's hand in history and some comforting words from Isaiah.
In the Appendix the author recounts his personal experiences upon getting the news of 9/11 and how the supportive words and actions of various individuals meant so much to him in that dark hour. He observes here that democracy and Christianity share a fundamental tenet: that of self-determination. The beautiful Psalm 74 is reproduced here and this section concludes with a moving poem based upon the comforting words of Isaiah 4:10.
Life In The Shadow Of Jihad is a beautifully written, informative and measured look at the issues confronting us at the start of the 21st century. For further reading, I recommend The West And The Rest by Roger Scruton, The Dream Palace Of The Arabs by Fouad Ajami and Oriana Fallaci's furious screed The Rage And The Pride. These three books explore the same issues from different angles and complement this inspiring and informative work by Ravi Zacharias.
A short thought provoking read.......2003-10-01
This is a good short book that highlights some of the fundamental strengths of Christianity as they relate to September 11th. It provide a good philosophical view of how we as Christians can help bridge the gap. Warning, Mr. Zacharias is an intellectual and you'll need to bring your A game to truly absorb the philosophy behind his thoughts.
Book Description
Tariq Ali tells us the story of the aftermath of the fall of Granada by narrating a family sage of those who tried to survive after the collapse of their world. Particularly deft at evoking what life must have been like for those doomed inhabitants, besieged on all sides by intolerant Christendom. "This is a novel that have something to say, and says it well."—Guardian
Customer Reviews:
An Islamic family must make tough choices in 15th century Spain.......2007-10-08
This novel is the tale of a Muslim family living in Spain at the end of the 15th century. The military victory of the Catholic kings over Islam was confirmed centuries ago, now the Church hierarchy wants to eliminate the last vestiges of Islam on the Iberian peninsula. As a tale of a family living in turbulent times, this novel is outstanding. The characters are well developed and their interactions complex and believable. The story revolves around a well-to-do family living in SE Spain in the midst of growing pressure of the Catholic church. There are several threads to the story which are well woven together. We learn a great deal about the history of the family, the hopes and dreams of the youth, the mistakes and regrets of the older members. Hanging over everything is the threat of the Catholic Church. The head of the family, Umar, weighs the best course of action for him and his family. Should they convert to Catholicism, should they leave Spain and everything they've known and built, or should they fight a battle which they have no hope of winning?
There are several strengths to this book. First, I thought that an English language story in which Muslims are portrayed in a favorable light was a great idea. This book was published well before 9/11 and the GWOT, but it is even more relevant today as we are constantly bombarded by images of Muslims as fanatic terrorists in the US media. The impact of this tale would have been much higher, however, had Ali not used this story as a vehicle to make an anti-Catholic, anti-West rant. Had Ali been able to get past his own narrowminded prejudices, this could have been an alltime great novel. The Muslim-Catholic tension in the story is simply black and white - Muslims are proud, peaceloving, thoughtful heros, the Christians are all racist, murderous, religious bigots (sort of the inverse of Fox News). A more nuanced, morally balanced plot line would have, in my opinion, served much better. Second, the real strength of this story is in the character development. All of the characters were complex and realistically portrayed. The interplay between the characters was well done. The pacing of the story itself is a bit slow and the first half of the book is more about character development than plot. One serious weakness of this novel is that it is not historical fiction in the best sense of the term. That is, it really isn't much of a history lesson about the era or the people. You really aren't going to learn much about the era (although that was not, in my view, Ali's goal in any case).
The bottom line is that this is a good, if imperfect, historical novel about life in 15th century Spain from an Islamic perspective. Ali is clearly writing about the 20th-21st century in this book through the lens of the turbulent 15th century and trying to put a favorable image onto the Islamic culture for Western readers. Definitely worth a look if not uniquely outstanding.
Key word here being "fiction".......2007-05-09
I have to say that I admire Ali's intellectual vigor and his propensity to instictively take the weaker position on any issue , which makes him a formidable debater and iconiclastic speaker. And in that light, "Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree (Islam Quartet 1)", is an interesting exercise in championing history's perrenial under-dog, Islamic culture. No doubt also that Ali's strong anti-Western bias plays a rather strong, albeit silent role in this work.
A rather more interesting book might cover the rapid Muslim conquest in the 8th century of Syria, Palestine, and the North African coast from Egypt to Morocco, followed by a permenant imposition by force of Islamic culture on what had previously been a largely non-Arab, Christian base. From this staging area, Iberia fell quickly and the subsequent Umayyad invasion into Gaul (France) was halted by the Frankish army under the military commander, Charles Martel in Tours (NW France) in 732 a.d.
Had this invasion suceeded and conquered the Frankish army, Europe would have had very little defense against the invaders and Western history would have been quite different indeed.
From my vantage point, the great debater and rationalist Tariq Ali comes off as intellectually disingenuous at the very least in this work, for forcing such a hamfisted position. He exploits the West's ability to only half-remember it's own history. And he typifies the Islamic position of only remembering the glories of it's own history.
So let's recap:
West = Crusades = Inquisition = Bad.
Muslim Culture = Peaceful = Enlightened = Good.
Shame on the West. Shame on the bloodthirsty, barbarian Christians for treating the peaceful, culturally superior Muslims so badly.
A must-read for all Muslim apologist/revisionists and all self-flagellating Westerners.
Those poor innocent little muslims, Oh the inhumanity!.......2007-05-06
If this is a novel, then how come all those Koolade-drinking reviewers are treating it as factual history?
We are expexted to actually believe that those poor little muslims were so innocent, while the bad, bad Christians tried to stop them from instituting their great sharia law, as they are trying ever so slowly now in Europe and here in the US of A?
If you love islam so much, try to live in saudi arabia for six months! Really live there, not just as a tourist in a hotel!! Then come back and review a book like this!!
A pleasure.......2007-01-27
Not historical fiction with a message but a story of the times with the truth: Moorish Spain at one point was the height of knowledge, culture, art, architecture and most important of all, religious tolerance and understanding. The Muslims ruled fairly in contrast to Isabel and Ferdinand, so loved for their gift of ships to Columbus, who when they finally defeated the Moors at Granada promised the Moorish people that they could retain their religion and lifestyle and culture. But the greedy and dark forces of the (at that time) troubled Catholic Church convinced the royalty to go back on their promises. The twisted and sadistic bishops started to destroy the culture of the Moors by burning their books (the same approach used with the Mayans in the New World) and reducing their promised freedoms. And so the story begins.
The members of a Moorish family who has lived outside Granada for many generations faces the new day with all the possible options; fight, flight, death, assimilation. The story is very well written, the characters real, the sense of time and place well set. The story is not slanted towards Moors=good, Christians=bad, although a quick look at those times in Spain one could easily make that argument. Instead the author pursues not religious credos but the challenges of individuals balancing the conflicts between their beliefs, their hearts, their ethics, orders from their superiors; the easy, the hard and the difference between right and wrong and the void between.
It is a great book, I liked it on several levels, it was the first Tariq Ali I read; I went right and got another.
Beautiful trip through history.......2006-08-18
I thought this book was a beautiful trip through history. It is well written and takes you on a journey through a man's life and gives you a great picture of what his life was like under the pomegranate tree...
Amazon.com
For most non-Muslims, Islam is an indistinct religion of white tunics, much kneeling, and fanatic violence. Long-time New Yorker writer Milton Viorst begins refining this image for us by traveling throughout the Arab world and taking us back into the early days of Muhammad's empire. In Egypt, he meets with scholars from Islam's most influential university to understand opinions surrounding the murder of one liberalizer of Islam and the state-dissolved marriage of another. In Syria, he speaks with King Hussein about his family's history, which reaches back to Muhammad's brother-in-law, and Hussein's efforts to bring modernity to Islam. In Algeria, he examines how such a promising young Islamic democracy could dissolve into civil war. And throughout, Viorst is looking for the answer to what prevents Islam from accepting modernity along with the rest of the world. Through Viorst's forays deep into Islamic history and through the voices of thinkers throughout the Arab world, we gradually appreciate the dilemmas that plague Islamic society and the sincerity with which many men and women are taking to the task of creating a society that allows for the prosperity of Muslims while not forsaking the wisdom that Islam accords to all aspects of life. --Brian Bruya
Book Description
Based on in-depth interviews with scores of key Islamic leaders and thinkers, journalist Milton Viorst explores the economic and intellectual straitjacket in which traditional Islam has placed the Middle East.
The Middle East has long been a volatile yet vital region in world politics. In his captivating new book, In the Shadow of the Prophet, journalist Milton Viorst illuminates the complex struggle to reconcile the Muslim community's fierce determination to live by traditional Islamic law and beliefs with the desire for economic and political power in today's world.
Throughout the Middle East, a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism has attempted to overturn moderate or secular government, creating in its place an Islamic state based on the ancient moral code of Muhammad's time. Conservative and fundamentalist sects are violently at odds with those Muslims who feel Islam must find a way to integrate science and democracy into Islamic life. Without an opening up of Islam, the Middle East will continue to lag far behind the West and even emerging Third World nations in terms of its military power, economic might, and general standards of living.
Customer Reviews:
Readable and Insightful.......2005-10-15
In an engaging prose Milton Viorst manages to introduce the reader to the different and in many cases diametrically opposed world of Middle Eastern Islam. There is a chapter on many of the main nation states with chapters on the birth of Islam and the development of Shari'a law interspersing them. In making the concept of the Islamic government accessible to the western mind Viorst has made a remarkable achievement. The book highlights, although never explicitly, the problems of judging Islamic society on the basis of the liberal, western and democratic ethical paradigm within which we all operate. A very important point within the current problems of international politics in the light of increased globalisation.
For anyone wanting an introduction to this important region and its faith this book is a must read merging a critical insight with a profound respect for the history and culture of the Middle East.
A sobering account of the role of Islam in the Arab world.......2003-04-24
In this book Viorst examines the role of Islam in shaping the political puzzle of the Arab world. This book is not about religion, nor is it a book about the Middle East. It is about the "political" Islam as an ideology and a force that shapes developments in the Middle East. Islam is only one of the many pieces of the Middle East puzzle (repressive regimes, regional ambitions, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and of course oil, are the others) but it's one that envelopes all else. And while Islam is not the only religion in history to force a political agenda, its influence in the Arab world today is powerful, steering islamic societies away -if not against- the western world. The question Viorst sets out to answer is this: is Islam responsible for the economic and social stagnation of the Arab world? In search for the answer he examines the historical roots of Islam, the development of Shari'a, and recent and past developments in a number of islamic countries.
Viorst describes the current ideological state of Islam as a battle between orthodoxy, fundamentalism, and modernism. Orthodoxy represents the religious status quo; it is rooted in the tradition of Islamic law but coexists comfortably with secular authority. Fundamentalism represents a rebellious and militant sect that feels betrayed by orthodoxy and seeks the submission of all things secular under religious law. Modernism represents the hope for an Islamic reformation that will lead to enlightenment and renaissance. It becomes apparent, however, that modernism currently lacks the strength to be relevant in the ideological debate. The true battle is between orthodoxy and fundamentalism and the distinction between the two is one of degree more than one of ideology.
As we follow Viorst on a tour of islamic countries (Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan and Iran) we soon realize that religious influence cannot be easily divorced from the political situation in which it is born, in particular the lack of free political expression that is the common denominator throughout the Middle East. In such a repressed climate, the loose hierarchy of Islam turns the local mosque into a political nucleus, its imam into a cell leader, the Friday prayer into a rally -the only form of self organization that is tolerated. Why has this failed to produce a liberal theology and a force for social justice? It is, Viorst explains, because Islam's orthodoxy is introverted, transfixed by a strict code whose moral, social and intellectual norms are thirteen centuries old. By western standards, the golden age of Islam was the mid-8th century, when an Arab empire stretched from Persia to Spain and Baghdad was the cultural center of the world, eagerly absorbing the Greeks and prolific in producing mathematics, medicine and astronomy. But for Islamic orthodoxy this is a period of worldly living, moral decay and heretic experimentation with western values. The true golden age, we learn, is the rashidun, a 30-year period in the mid 600's, during the infancy of the new religion in the deserts of the Arabic peninsula.
The book was written before 9/11 and some passing references to the now extinct Taliban will sound dated. But in the aftermath of the war in Iraq, the subject remains both relevant and timely, as we witness the re-emergence of islamic politics following the collapse of a brutal but secular regime.
A great Analysis of Arab's Mentality.......2003-01-05
It is obvious from this book that the Author is in toutch with Arab predicaments and delimmas. The Arab would choose to stay behind and welter in poverty and humilation rather than to become a prosperours intellectual secular nation. But what realy got my attention in this book is something interesting about the former Afghany islamic fundamentalist regime, the Taliban. Regarding the punishment of homosexual sinners, the author mention that the Taliban couldnot find a decisive islamic punishment, so they mad up their own - until Muslim Ulma agree on some punishment.- Actually The Koran itself discuss this matter. Let's first look at these Koranic verse :"15. If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, take the evidence of four (reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way. 16. If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, leave them alone; for Allah is Oft-returning, Most Merciful." 4:15-16 Yousif Aly Translations. Acctually Mr. Aly translations in verse 16 - "punish them both. " is untrue and does not represent the original Arabic which could be better represented by the English "rebuke them both", which means the punishment can be even as mild as just verbally in case of male homosexual. The case of Lesbian is far severer - death - and also ambiguous - Allah ordain for them some (other) way. - Therefore it seems that the Taliban - and also, strang enough but True , most islamic fundamentalist Orthodox - would choose to violate the Koran than to present it as weak on its punishment of homosexuals.
There are some errors in the book, which realy do not affect the book's subject, but the critics of the author may hold it to attack the book. For example as the author mentions: the custodian of Muhammed after his mother's death was Muhammed maternal grand father. Acctually it was his paternal grand father. But as I mentioned that has no count regarding the theme of the book and its bright presentation
Excellent Book; Necessary Reading.......2002-09-12
In this book, the astute Mr. Viorst has given us a key to understanding what is going on in the Islamic world today. With events in the Middle East taking up so much of our attention in the wake of September 11, 2001, it would be well worth anyone's time and effort to come to grips with the issues he explores in this book. Although Mr. Viorst is Jewish, he is a judicious and fair commentator on Islamic matters. As far as the unjust criticism leveled at him by a previous reviewer, I will point out that every other reviewer gave this book either 4 or 5 stars. Please read this book and Thomas Friedman's - they will increase your understanding, challenge you intellectually, and are fun to read.
journalist not a scholar.......2002-08-13
Milton Viorst is a veteran journalist, who has written about the Middle East for twenty-five years, mostly for the New Yorker magazine. Over the years, he says that he has acquired `a fondness for the Arabs and esteem for their civilization'. He is troubled by the Arabs' failure in politics and economics and in his book, In the Shadow of the Prophet: The Struggle for the Soul of Islam, he aspires to `strip off the exterior layers to get to the heart of Arab culture, the body of conventional Islamic belief'. In his quest, Viorst visited seven countries in the Middle East, observing and interviewing leaders and other notables from various sections of society. The result is this book, which was first published in 1998 and has been recently republished by the Westview Press.
In the first chapter, titled `Through the Damascus Gate', Viorst encounters the differences between two world views. Strolling down the streets near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, he observes the difference between the products sold by Jewish and Muslim vendors. Most of the Arab stores sold identical wooden camels whereas the Jewish shops pedaled `dazzling jewelry, freshly designed, obviously fabricated in state-of-the-art workshops'. The two products, Viorst writes, summarized to him in tangible terms the cultural differences between the Middle East and the West. The camels symbolized the Arab resistance to change whereas the silver necklaces pointed to the innovativeness of the Jews who had brought it with them from the West.
Despite the economic backwardness and all other problems, Viorst argues that the Arab world is not what the Western media often portrays it to be. He writes that the argument that terrorism is `the region's chief product' is shortsighted and flawed. `Western streets are far more dangerous than the Middle East; and crime, heavily related to the drug trade, takes more victims than all [the] Middle East's terrorists combined', he contends.
Swiftly moving between past and present, Viorst identifies three basic tendencies among Muslims; namely the orthodox, the modernist and the fundamentalist. He writes that there is a struggle for the soul of Islam between these rival viewpoints. He designates Orthodoxy as the mainstream with `modernism' on the left and `fundamentalism' on the right. Despite their differing visions of Islam, Viorst writes that all three hold in common certain basic values. `All three accept the priority of preserving the faith from the godless', says Viorst. `Their common adversary is secularism, a body of thought and practice which they associate with the West'.
This kind of classification is however highly subjective and complicated. How, for example does one describe the views of Rachid Ghannouchi, the exiled leader of Tunisian Islamic movement? The dynamic personality of Ghannouchi incorporates elements from all three trends, but Viorst inaccurately labels him as a `modernist'. While not being explicit, Viorst makes subtle criticisms of the orthodoxy and fundamentalists while admiring the modernists.
Logically speaking a discussion on the life of Prophet Muhammad (sws) and the Shari`ah (Islamic Law) should have been covered in the very first chapter of the book. But in In the Shadow of the Prophet, it appears in the third and fifth chapter. In these chapters, Viorst unnecessarily brings in the academic debate over the origins of Islam, a topic that is beyond the scope of this book. He is a journalist not a scholar of Islamic studies and therefore is not qualified to write on this highly specialized subject. But he broaches it anyway and recycles many of the classic orientalist assumptions that have been already refuted by other scholars.
The Qur'anic prohibition on alcohol is well known not only to Muslims but also to non-Muslims. But Viorst claims that the Qur'anic verses prohibiting alcohol are a `dilemma' for Muslims. He writes: `The Qur'an reveals some equivocation about how to deal with the drinking problem. These verses create a dilemma for Muslims, who deny Muhammad's hand in the text, yet dislike attributing uncertainty to God. Whoever was in charge, however, obviously engaged in considerable reflection before reaching a decision...Some secular scholars speculate that Muhammad, after trying to moderate drinking, ultimately recognized his failure'.
Viorst fails to understand that the gradual prohibition was all part of God's plan to uproot the evil of drinking while recognizing the weakness of humans and giving them time to overcome such disastrous habits. These verses pose no dilemma to any straight thinking person.
The late King Hussein of Jordan was a controversial personality in the Muslim world. His views had little following outside of Jordan but Viorst has nothing but praise for him and thinks of him as a great exemplar. He writes that the King represented a moderate vision of Islam, which is separate from the above-mentioned three classifications. He calls it `The Hashemite Option', which he says represents `freedom, tolerance and equal rights'. Viorst dedicates the whole last chapter to `The Hashemite Option' and claims that it holds much promise in reconciling Islam with the modern world.
Viorst had intended to `strip off the exterior layers to get to the heart of Arab culture', but he only manages to scratch the surface. What emerges is a book lacking authority and order but nonetheless containing some valuable observations and interesting information.
Book Description
The author was right there when many of the events in the book happened so he delivers first-hand knowledge. He corrects common misperceptions and sets the record straight on some of the most basic facts concerning Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and terrorism in general. Jason Burke is the prize-winning Chief Reporter for The Observer, London. He has covered the Middle East and Southwest Asia for a decade, and saw many of the key events described in this book at first hand.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent insight into global jihad philosophy.......2007-04-23
This book helped me make the philosophical transition from wanting to help my country by fighting in a Global War on Terrorism to accepting the reality that non-military actions will get better results for both the West and Islamic nations in the long run. The caveat is that the US and Western powers need to read, understand and apply the level of knowledge of global jihad that Burke presents.
Know Your Enemy.......2006-08-26
Jason Burke's book is extremely well researched. His knowledge of various elements within Radical Islam is quite frankly scary. He's met the men responsible for germanating Qtub's ugly apyocalyptic interpretation of Jihad into a full fledged attack against the West. Until the early nineteen nineties Jihad was merely a continental struggle pitting dissaffected military messianic groups against alleged puppet governments. Al Queda changed the course of radical Islam and Burke was within a whiff of Osama for years prior to 9/11. While his time in Afghanistan certainly seems to have created a sense of diluted empathy for militant Sunni groups, Burke's ultimate thesis is a towering reminder that winning the military war against radicals will not be enough to redeem the enlightened path of histroy. The West and particularly America must strive to win the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims. The road to success in any conflict is understanding. In this conflict, like any other, we must know our enemy and Burke's book is a good addition to the said realm of understanding.
Dont Judge it by its Cover.......2006-08-24
This book is a compilation of really good research (all footnoted), personal interviews, and eyewitness accounts of events that have occurred from 1990 forward. Mr. Burke's analysis is top notch, and accurate for the most part.
That's all jim-dandy, but what sets this book apart from the rest, is Mr.Burke's understanding of the religion of Islam, Muslims, and the extremist mindset. Generally, most authors lack knowledge of Islam, and thus draw incorrect conclusions.
The book is objectively written, with minimal personal opinions or diatribes. (That's a positive). I recommend this book as the definitive guide on Terrorism in the 21st century.
Having said that, the Conclusion chapter is bad, and seems to be written by a PR person. Conclusions that do not line up with what Mr.Burke said in the book...But aside from this, a good read.
Fantastic overview of the structure, history, goals of al-Qaeda .......2005-10-26
_Al-Qaeda_ by Jason Burke is an excellent and well-researched book on the structure, history, philosophy, goals, and future of not only of al-Qaeda itself but of other militant movements within the Islamic world.
Most fascinating to me was that the book was as much as about what al-Qaeda wasn't as about what it was (and is). Al-Qaeda is one of the most misused, overused, and misunderstood words in the media today, one that has artificially been imposed upon a rather large and diverse group of Islamist groups beginning in the early 1990s.
In Arabic, al-Qaeda is basically an abstract noun, one meaning "base," as in a camp or a home, or "foundation," as is what is under a house. It can also mean "pedestal," such that what supports a column, and also can mean "rule," "formula," "method," and "pattern." It has been in use since at least the mid-1980s among the Islamic radicals fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, though Burke wrote that this should not be surprising, as it is a common Arabic word. Generally the term since then has not been used to describe an extant organization, but actually a purpose and a function. One of the first times the term was encountered was from the name of a terrorist manual, entitled _Al-Qaeda_, obtained from Ahmed Ajaj, detained months before the 1993 World Trade Center attack and later convicted for his role in that assault. The title was translated at the time as meaning "the basic rules" and Burke felt that was the correct translation; that it is not the name of a group being used but rather it is being used in its sense of a "maxim" or the "fundamentals."
Many in the media, in positions of leadership, and even professional analysts often make the mistake of thinking of al-Qaeda as some sort of united organization, run by one man, maybe envisioning a James Bond type villain presiding over a vast international organization from some secret lair in the desert. The closest thing according to Burke that ever really could have been called "al-Qaeda" was a rather small and short-lived organization, one active between 1996 and 2001 and largely based in Afghanistan, destroyed and dispersed as such by the fighting at Tora Bora.
If anything, he wrote, there were three al-Qaedas. One is what he called "the al-Qaeda hardcore," based in Afghanistan, comprised of men such as bin Laden, Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubaydah, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and others, a small group of militants, generally Afghan war veterans. Then there "the associate members of al-Qaeda," long-term associates of bin Laden and the hardcore, not usually based in Afghanistan, who accepted missions from them, acted as intermediaries and recruiters for not only the hardcore but for others, and also undertook projects of their own. The third group is vast, amorphous, and hard to define, basically the movement of modern radical Islam itself, with its myriad cells, domestic groups, and individuals. This Burke called the "network of networks;" other groups, originally often with only very local concerns (Burke detailed at length militant movements in Kurdish Iraq, Pakistan, Algeria, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere), that would from time to time come to be to varying degrees under bin Laden's umbrella, sometimes for specific missions (approaching bin Laden or his associate members for money, weapons, fatwas, or training), other times for more long term associations. An important aspect of the network of networks is that many groups were often very independent in action and only worked with bin Laden as they saw fit; there was no compelling these groups and individuals to act.
In reality, there is a rather broad movement of Islamic militancy active in the world today, of which al-Qaeda is only a part of. Burke viewed Osama bin Laden as actually a rather peripheral figure, mainly existing in a charismatic, inspirational function or as a facilitator for the activities of other militant organizations and individuals. Burke provided several models to view al-Qaeda. One is to see al-Qaeda as some sort of wealthy university distributing research grants and providing classes to allow the ambitions of its pupils to be fulfilled, a sort of Holy War Foundation. Another analogy is viewing it as a model of venture capitalism; individuals or small group approached the chief executive and the board (bin Laden, etc.) with ideas that they believed were worthy of support. This board would evaluate hundreds of proposals and decided which to back, which missions would turn a profit so to speak.
The last section of the book detailed the results to date of the war on terror. Though there have been successes - many members of the al-Qaeda hardcore have been killed or captured, Afghanistan has a real chance at democracy, and there has been extensive physical damage to the hardcore with the loss of its training camps and its refuge in Afghanistan - Burke felt that the group is winning. Those hardcore members that were not killed or captured have dispersed and continued to aid and fund operations worldwide. Many of these militants, after dispersal from Afghanistan following the American attack, caused radicalization wherever they ended up, notably in Pakistan, Kashmir, Algeria, Yemen, Chechnya, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan. Though bin Laden's ability to personally influence events has greatly decreased since he went into hiding after Tora Bora, the network of networks is hardly touched, as most groups are firmly rooted in "local contingencies and causes," having little if anything to do directly with al-Qaeda, and didn't necessarily need al-Qaeda to begin with. From Burke's perspective bin Laden is doing very well, as he achieved his goals of radicalizing movements in many countries, leading them to plan their own terrorist activities, using people often with no previous experience with terrorism and unknown to security services (the October 12, 2002 Bali bombing had nothing to do with al-Qaeda) and to unite and work with other groups outside their own narrow local goals, with militants from diverse places cooperating like never before.
required reading.......2005-08-28
I just got dug in and after 25 pages already feel like I know
more about the terrorist network commonly known as Al Qaeda
than George Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice. That, my friend is sad.
Fairly easy to read instantly interesting.
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MUST READ!.......2007-09-17
This book is a must read for women and very insightful. Realizing that Biblical Christianity can touch a life by every single interaction we have, and also that many Christians don't really know how they would approach or broach the subject of religion with a Muslim woman, this book is an excellent resource! Christianity and the Muslim faith are opposing beliefs. They do not believe in the same God, the same Jesus and the same Holy Spirit. To love a Muslim enough to tell them about the God of the Bible will open doors to allowing them to hear the truth. God's Spirit will work from there :)
Well worth the read, and Unveiling Islam is the next book on this same subject that EVERY CHRISTIAN, male or female, should read.
Crescent Shadows.......2007-06-17
Great book. Provides insight into the lives of Muslim women. Their thinking, their mindset, unspoken issues. You judge if you think these women have a voice. What is the outworking of fear in their lives?
forgetting ontology of sexes.......2006-07-07
This book is inviting Muslim women who presently believe;
God transcends sexes(ontologically different cathegories); sexes are for the created
Man and woman are created from the same selves (ontological equality)
A woman can stand up in a mosque and remind the caliph his duties (and the caliph says "she is right and I am wrong")
To another faith which believes;
God is male (a father) that gives birth to a God-son (another male).However the worldly birth is by a human-woman.
Man is the primary creation and the woman secondary
A woman cannot talk in a church but can ask her husband later
With an art finding its roots in sophists who openly said: "our art is one of showing the small big and the big small"
As a proverb in my country says "a mighty arguing thief can overcome the houseowner". Something like that.
Do not forget many ex-christian western people came to the realization that the basis of all inequality is due to a MALE God. The troubles about women's issues are ontological in Christianity and the accusations -which I disagree with most but agree with some- on Islam are in level of law or tradition. Former unsolvable, latter something can be done about if people intend to.
Indeed Muslim scholars are very expertly critical of their hadith collections from the earliest days of their existence. This criticism finds its roots inside Islam:Quran is divinely preserved, Allah said so but Allah did not say such a thing about the sayings of the prophet so noone can say hadith collections are perfect.How much ever you try you may not be able to escape human errors in them. This is most beautifully and very briefly summarized in Murad W. Hofmann's Islam in 3rd Millenium in a constructive way.
Also one wonders if crescent is a shadow and Christ is light are they not equally shadow and equally light for Muslim men? Is this a trick of (conceptually) "divide and destroy"? As we well know Evangelists care less whether we Muslims become Christians or not but basically want to diminish the resistance of Islam to Anglo Saxon/Jewish hegemony which we Muslims mostly find unjust.
The impressionn that the authors have been brought by a muslim cleric father is misleading. Their mother was not Muslim- she was Swedish though I donno if she truly practised Christianity. Due to difficulties in family at an early age they have been taken by Evangelic Christians and they have learnt Islam Evangelic Christian way.By people who HAVE TO look all other religions as founded by Devil in order to exist. And have to interpret everything according to this basis.If you want to know how the basis you accept changes interpretation than a cow is a god in India, something you fight with in Spain, beef steak in North America etc.I have seen books Christians try to show Buddha's light is from Devil or Hinduism's mystical experience is so too. Wheras Islam sees other religions as teachings of prophets corrupted by time and people and yet still carries something precious in them. Quran says Allah gave compassion to Christians' hearts.I believe this was what Caner brothers faced when they met Evangelists.
a women who is walking backwards.......2006-06-09
First of all, I think we need to clear up that Islam is not far off from other religions such as Christianity anyway. You do not need to go into the light , you are already in it. Islam is the true religion and has been the same message that was given to Adam, Moses, Abraham and Jesus. Sadly, after each prophet passed away, their messages were changed by the people and now the religions are very different. People who still follow the old religions of Christianity and Judaism are very close to being Muslim and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem is when Prophet Muhammed (Peace be upon him) recieved the Quran, it included more of God's message, so it completes it. That's why after that, no prophet has been sent to Mankind. The Quran is all you need. This sister unfortunately has changed her religion for reasons that do not make sense, from a religion that has been clearly explained to a religion that has so many loopholes and things that don't work.
If you read this book , you should know there are many books about people who converted from Christianity to Islam. If Christianity is right, what could possibly make them leave then. If Islam is such a bad religion, then hy is it the fastest growing religion in the WORLD? The message has stayed the same . It's people who have changed. one person leaves, another comes. that's how life goes.
it is a good book to see how they felt but it should not be seen as a true representation of what being a muslim women is like because it's very different.
Authors.......2005-09-10
Dr. Caner is a Turkish, Persian immigrant, and a former Muslim. His father was a muezzine in the mosque. I'll take my chances with his knowledge and experiences, versus that of the people whom you "know" and/or "heard the facts" from.
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- Lucien Gubbay masterfully presents the larger historical context
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Sunlight and Shadow: The Jewish Experience of Islam
Lucien Gubbay
Manufacturer: I. B. Tauris
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This book traces the condition of Jews living in the world of Islam, through good times and bad times, from the age of Muhammad to the present struggles between Arabs and Israelis. Muslims and Jews have lived together and reacted to each other for the past 1,400 years but few Jews today have much idea of how their brethren once fared under Islam. Muslims too know little of the history of what was to them an insignificant minority. Despite their subordinate status in Muslim society, Jews participated in the flowering of the brilliant international civilization made possible by the almost world-wide conquests of the Arabs and bound together by the Arabic language; and it was under Muslim rule that the early Judaism developed into the religion we know today. Later Jews enjoyed another golden age in the heyday of the Ottoman Empire. Sunlight and Shadow details this turbulent history.
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Lucien Gubbay masterfully presents the larger historical context.......2006-03-15
Lucien Gubbay, Sunlight and Shadow: The Jewish Experience of Islam (Other Books, 2001)
The largest dilemma currently facing Sephardim is the problem of self-knowledge. Our children who attend American Jewish day schools are faced exclusively with Ashkenazi oriented curricula and administrators and teachers who, even if they are Sephardi in ethnic origin, have been trained in the methods of the ubiquitous Board of Jewish Education and the general detritus of the larger Orthodox Torah Umesorah system which has controlled the Jewish day school system since the 1950's. This control has created a pedagogical status quo that produces a student with very definable characteristics not traditionally Sephardi in orientation.
In the course of the past 50 years, Sephardim have seen their cultural and religious traditions fade into oblivion. Self-representation in the public arena is now nearly non-existent. With the recent political struggles in Israel over Palestinian rights, the Israeli government, with the help of academics and the benighted Sephardim themselves, has been able to manipulate the complex history of the Jews of the Middle East (even the nomenclature is not without its own internal lack of polemic: Are we Sephardim? Mizrahim? Arab Jews? Jews of Arab Lands? Eastern Jews?) in order to create a quid pro quo between the Jewish refugees of Arab countries and the Palestinians.
The issue of the quid pro quo unfortunately further exacerbates the tensions between Sephardim and their Muslim compatriots. Having lived since 1948 as second class citizens in the Jewish state, Sephardim have continually sought to displace their rage at the Arabs and are presented, or rather have been manipulated into "Arab haters." As Lucien Gubbay masterfully presents the larger historical context in his Sunlight and Shadow: The Jewish Experience of Islam, the truth is far more complicated than merely seeing Muslims as the eternal enemy of the Jews.
The story told by Gubbay is refreshingly balanced in perspective. We learn about the great historical evolution of Middle Eastern civilization after the Islamic revolts. Rather than merely presenting the Islamic conquest of the Middle East as retrogressive, as is so often done in books of this type, Gubbay continually places the role of Islam within the larger context of Roman and Byzantine civilization. Against the dominant Christian model, as Gubbay states, "It should not be forgotten that the Arabs exploded into a world exhausted by twenty-six years of constant warfare, a world whose inhabitants longed for peace and stability and had come to believe that great changes were inevitable. Christian heretics and Jews in the Byzantine Empire, to whom almost any change must have seemed for the better, welcomed the Arabs with open arms."
It is balance that enriches Gubbay's argument. Rather than enlist the lachrymose approach to Jewish history that has generally governed the limited works on the subject of Jews in the Islamic civilization, Gubbay attempts, without "cant and rancour" as noted by Dr. Zaki Badawi in his introduction to the book, to lay out the truths of the Jewish experience under Islamic stewardship. Jews produced a unified and internally coherent version of Judaism that accepted the autonomy provided by Islam and thrived under it. While not glossing over the complex internal relations between the triumphant and triumphalist Muslims and their minorities, Gubbay seems hell-bent on setting the record straight on the historical primacy of Sephardic Jews within the overall historical trajectory of Judaism as opposed to merely fitting Sephardic Judaism into contemporary Jewish history.
And it is this point that is made crystal clear in this splendid work: The organic development of Judaism, in its Talmudic/Rabbinical variant, has been historically anchored in the East. The various post-Islamic outgrowths of Judaism are all manifestations of the source in Baghdad and its Talmudic academies.
Gubbay spends a good deal of time illuminating the historical context of the society in which the Talmud was created, the land of Iraq which was at the center of the burgeoning Islamic empire being created in the East. While there is scant historical evidence for the original Persian context that led to the transition between Palestinian and Babylonian Jewries, we know a good deal more about the academies and the culture they produced in the so-called Geonic Age, a period of Jewish history overlapping with the rise of Islam that should theoretically help us to understand the development of Talmudic Judaism.
The unfortunate emphasis on ahistorical study of Jewish sources has obscured the achievement of the post-Talmudic Geonim. At the head of this school was the Egyptian native Se'adya Ga'on who was perhaps the single most influential rabbi of the post-70 era. While the rabbis of the Talmud preserved Pharisaic Judaism by synthesizing its manifold traditions, the Geonim sought to reframe the conceptual identity of Judaism by integrating their study into the new program of the humanities and sciences that was being developed in Islamic civilization.
It was this new curriculum that led to the study of philosophy, linguistics, rhetoric, theology, mathematics and the various sciences, including, most prominently, medicine, within Geonic rabbinical culture. The most famous exemplar of this culture is the legendary Moses Maimonides, but, as Gubbay shows us, the framework of Maimonides was enabled by the Islamic revolution in letters and its first Jewish heirs.
This revolution was given great impetus by the energies of non-Arab minorities in the Islamic world, Jews, Persians and Christians, who did a good deal of translating and transmitting of ancient knowledge during the first Islamic centuries. The minorities assiduously toiled to raise their lot and contribute to a society that gave them numerous opportunities to do so. It was because of the massive efforts of Muslims, Jews and Christians working in complementary fashion that the Islamic civilization took on a particularly brilliant luster.
The issue of the legal status of the minorities under Islam, a vexatious issue that has led to all sorts of polemics within the current political climate, is presented in clear and straightforward fashion in the book. Islam had a dual approach to its minorities: On the one hand it sought to place them in a clearly inferior position to the dominant Muslim class by means of repressive and discriminatory legislation, yet the overall ethos of Islam was to provide social acceptance and a general egalitarianism to the minorities.
This seeming paradox was borne out within the historical evolution of Islamic society: In times of economic prosperity and social cohesion, the lot of the Sephardim thrived, in times of instability and social breakdown, Jews, along with their Christian compatriots, suffered a bit more than the native Muslims. But Jewish suffering is consistently seen within the context of the overall difficulties that were felt by all members of society.
Gubbay is careful to consistently present the case in a non-discriminatory manner; Jews lived in a society where they were able to prosper and thrive materially and spiritually under a set of limitations. Those limitations were built into the Islamic system and could be enacted at any point. But because of the inherent ambivalence attached to the Muslim approach to minorities, there was nothing of what we could call racism or personal antipathy to Jews as a people, as could quite easily be found in European Christendom.
Jewish creativity is given pride of place rather than the mere presentation of a mass litany of persecutions. The rocky early years of the Andalusian experience are contrasted with the glory years of the Nagid, ibn Gabirol, Halevi and ibn Ezra. There is a sympathetic and objective understanding that attempts to paint a picture of Sephardic Jewry as an immensely talented culture working within variable circumstances.
By and large the circumstances permitted the Sephardim to moderate their relationship to the world and not develop an overwhelming insularity. This cosmopolitanism is closely linked to the communal autonomy that the Jews were able to establish, an internal cohesion and well being that led to a sense of permanence and security in the Islamic universe.
It is this openness to the world that finally emerges from Gubbay's historical analysis. Through the ups and downs, the Sephardim were able to remain open and contribute to the development of a global civilization. It was only after the fall of the Ottoman Empire that the integrity of the Sephardic communities was breached. And while I wish that Gubbay had gone into more detail regarding the dissolution of the Arab Jewish communities and their fractious and embittered relationship to Zionism and the modern state of Israel (being played out by the Shas party and various Sephardi renewal organizations), the manner in which the Sephardic story is told retains its essential dignity and coherence.
At a time when our own children know close to nothing about who they are, such a book is an essential addition to our libraries. The few books on the subject have not been very useful in comparison. Historians such as Bernard Lewis and his school, as alluded to earlier, have preferred to tell a story that functions within the limitations inherent in the rabidly paranoid anti-Muslim perspective afforded by Zionism. Lucien Gubbay's brilliant achievement has been to present for the general reader a comprehensively researched and lucidly written history of the Sephardim which attempts to do justice to its subject without the prejudice that animates the current political climate.
Such a book, elementary in many ways, is significant because it affords the general reader a fresh look at this history. Because of the dearth of Sephardi self-articulation there are many Sephardim today who have despaired of their place in the Jewish world and the world in general. We are caught between increasingly zealous and rigid Jewish factions that demand us to ignore vital parts of our historical identity. Hence, the availability of a clearly articulated Sephardic history is just the thing that we need at the current time.
One small criticism: While Mr. Gubbay's use of his scholarly sources is accessible and laudable, it might have been more useful if he provided the reader with a more up-to-date and comprehensive bibliography from the small library of Sephardica that has appeared in the past 10 years or so. There have been a few Sephardic writers who have added to our self-knowledge, writers such as Ammiel Alcalay, Victor Perera, Ella Shohat and others whose precious books are a crucial aspect in the road to Sephardic self-recovery. As a pedagogical tool, such a summation and a "further reading" list would have made what is already a wonderful book even more useful to the general reader.
But in its current form Sunlight and Shadow still affords a novel look at Sephardic history. And while historical study cannot provide any immediate solutions to the difficult and seemingly intractable problems of today's Middle East, it does afford its readers an alternative way of looking at the problem. And if all concerned, Jews, Sephardim as well as Ashkenazim, Muslims and Westerners (particularly policy-makers and politicians), read this book they will find new directions in which to analyze and assess the political calculus of what seems to be an irreconcilable dispute.
This book thus serves a number of audiences, who are in vital need of its information. This is a book that we can draw from and pass along to our family and friends in order to display the rich complexity of our Sephardic past, a complexity that, it seems to me, is so sorely needed at a time of great tension and acrimony. The Sephardic tradition, as we have been saying all along, can provide Western culture with a pluralistic vision for a world that is increasingly fragmented and at odds with itself. It is thus up to the Sephardim as a collective to articulate their historic experiences in the current dialogue.
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- A COUNTERINTUITIVE VIEW OF THE FUTURE OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM
- Offering penetrating views of how they've failed
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The Receding Shadow of the Prophet: The Rise and Fall of Radical Political Islam
Ray Takeyh , and
Nikolas K. Gvosdev
Manufacturer: Praeger Paperback
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Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic
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The Future of Political Islam
ASIN: 0275976297 |
Book Description
The September 11th tragedies in the United States renewed fears of an Islamist wave destabilizing the countries of the Muslim world. Yet the alarm raised over a previous wave of Islamism in the early 1990s, which threatened to overwhelm Egypt and Algeria and spill into the Balkans and Central Asia, proved to be unfounded. Takeyh and Gvosdev assert that while Islamism has been successful as an oppositional ideology of wrath, it has failed to provide Islamic societies with any feasible alternative to undertaking fundamental political and economic reforms. By detailing the defeat of Islamist movements in the Middle East, the Balkans, and Central Asia over the last decade, this book encourages us not to overestimate the "Islamist threat" in the current climate and the years to come. Radical Islamists have been successful in mobilizing opposition to corrupt regimes, yet they have failed to translate their utopian vision into reality. Furthermore, their emphasis on violence alienates and frightens the middle class and other potential allies. Iran's revolution failed to create a model Islamic republic, and its government is increasingly losing legitimacy to demands for genuine democracy. Islamist governments in Afghanistan and Sudan relied upon violence to remain in power and ultimately collapsed. Islamist movements proved unable to dislodge the existing regimes in Egypt and Algeria. In the Balkans and Central Asia, Islamism has had little attraction for Western-oriented populations. Indeed, throughout the entire Islamic world, former radicals are seeking a new accommodation between Islamic values and liberal democracy. Takeyh and Gvosdev succinctly and accessibly explore the rise of radical Islam, as well as its ultimate demise in various nations.
Customer Reviews:
A COUNTERINTUITIVE VIEW OF THE FUTURE OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM.......2006-01-01
The premise of this book is both controversial and - in light of 9/11 and the present extremist violence in Iraq and elsewhere - counterintuitive: that Militant Islam, although making quite a display at present, is bound to fail and indeed is already doing so. The authors, however, make their point well. They cogently appeal to historical examples and make a plausible case for what would seem to be an unlikely thesis.
Basic to their thesis is the claim that Militant Islam, as a system, is more adept at breaking things, than creating them. This is especially true when it comes to the politics. The authors take the view that political Islam has yet to govern successfully. They state it succinctly thus: "Islamism was a hollow ideology that was certainly capable of fomenting rebellion and channeling unrest and popular wrath, but it was fundamentally flawed in terms of providing a workable template for governance"
Theirs is an interesting proposition and certainly one way to view the evidence. They are not alone in this view. Gilles Keppel has recently written a work which arrives at a similar conclusion.
Confronted by the implacable furor of militant Islam, first with the events of 911, and continuing thereafter, and in light of their stated goal of a world dominated by Islam, one may feel a certain angst as to the future. Although personally, I am not convinced of the authors thesis, one can only hope they are correct.
Offering penetrating views of how they've failed.......2005-03-07
September 11th increased fears of a powerful Islamic tide rising to destabilize Muslim countries; yet past experience proved such concerns unfounded, and while Islam has become an ideology of wrath, it's failed to unique Islamic nations with any major reforms or campaigns. The Receding Shadow Of The Prophet: The Rise And Fall Of Radical Political Islam surveys radical political Islam's successes and failures in the modern world, offering penetrating views of how they've failed, and how their emphasis on violence frightens potential allies. Ray Takeyh is a professor, Gvosdev and editor: their book provides penetrating examples.
Book Description
Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a "Christian-Muslim divide"--and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities--a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world's Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule. Just who were the Christians in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Mohammed and the Qur'an?
The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque is the first book-length discussion in English of the cultural and intellectual life of such Christians indigenous to the Islamic world. Sidney Griffith offers an engaging overview of their initial reactions to the religious challenges they faced, the development of a new mode of presenting Christian doctrine as liturgical texts in their own languages gave way to Arabic, the Christian role in the philosophical life of early Baghdad, and the maturing of distinctive Oriental Christian denominations in this context.
Offering a fuller understanding of the rise of Islam in its early years from the perspective of contemporary non-Muslims, this book reminds us that there is much to learn from the works of people who seriously engaged Muslims in their own world so long ago.
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