Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam," by John Esposito. Oxford University Press. $25 "What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response," by Bernard Lewis. Oxford University Press. $23
NOT SURPRISINGLY, books on Islam and Central Asia have proliferated since the September 11 attacks on the United States. For the discerning reader, picking through the huge choice now available is not easy. But two new short books stand out--not least because they have been written by two of America's best-known specialists on Islam.
John Esposito, one of the leading American academic experts on contemporary Islam and the Middle East and a long-time advocate of greater understanding between Islam and the West, has written a profound book that gives the most comprehensive and rounded view of the origins of "Islamic rage."
Esposito's book is largely written for a Western general audience, but it has enough insight to be immensely valuable to experts. His most important contribution is placing Osama bin Laden in a much wider context than a mere expression of terrorism, jihad or Islamic rage. He explains the developments that have influenced the growth of terrorism, such as the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, the policies pursued by Saudi Arabia, the growth of global jihad ideology, U.S. policies, and the conflicts in the Middle East.
He also delves deeply into the meaning of jihad as it has evolved over the centuries and how it is interpreted across the Islamic world today, giving readers the most comprehensive survey of jihad ideology and practice in print today.
Similarly, Esposito gives us a short history of Islamic fundamentalism, drawing thumbnail sketches of its most important ideologues from the 13th-century Ibn Taymiyya to the 18th-century jihadi movement in Saudi Arabia, to the three most prominent proponents of jihad in the 20th century--Hasan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Maulana Mawdudi, the founder of the Jamiat-e-Islami in India and Pakistan, and Sayyid Qutub, who first theorized about a vanguard group of committed revolutionaries.
Esposito shows how bin Laden incorporated the teachings of all these figures in his creation of the Al Qaeda terror movement while using recent events in Egypt, Afghanistan, Algeria and Palestine to turn theory into practice.
He also draws a useful comparison between the ideological extremists and modern Muslim reformers--in particular Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy premier of Malaysia, Mohammed Khatami, president of Iran, and Abdurrahman Wahid, the former president of Indonesia--showing how their message of trying to create a dialogue between civilizations has been ignored by the extremists and the West.
Esposito does not spare his fellow-Americans for their ignorance about the Islamic world and their lack of exposure to world events and ideas. "Our knowledge of Islam, of the vast majority of Muslims and its connections to the Judeo-Christian tradition remains minimal or non-existent," he writes.
Esposito's final warning is to the Muslim regimes who may try to use the war on terrorism to perpetuate dictatorial rule. "The failure to address the relationship between faith to national identity and to institution-building contributes to instability and risks massive social explosions. Governments that rely on social control rather than consultation, that employ violence and repression, create a climate that contributes to radicalization and violence against the state."
His message is clear: The West has to avoid strengthening repressive Muslim regimes around the world.
While Esposito takes us through the world of contemporary Islam, Princeton professor Bernard Lewis's book takes us on a historical survey, asking the very questions that Muslims spend a lot of time debating: What were the causes of the decline of Islamic civilisation and the rise of the West in recent centuries?
Lewis, who is the foremost American historian on the Muslim world--and whose short, prescient essay is on The New York Times bestseller list--starts by explaining how Islam was for centuries the leading civilisation in the world.
The tension between religious concerns and political needs has always been a major contradiction for Islamic rulers and society because Islam has no formal church, and piety and Islamic law, or sharia, have always clashed with the needs of government.
In Islam, church and state have always been considered one. But, in practice it never has been so except for a brief period in Arabia when the Prophet Muhammad was both the religious and political leader.
That is the reason why so many of today's Islamic extremists are determined to try and recreate that imagined community of believers.
Lewis spends much time explaining the demise of the Ottoman Empire and how difficult it was for its rulers to gain religious permission to allow foreigners to train and modernize the court, the military and the bureaucracy. Even the development of printing and newspapers was delayed until the ulema, or Islamic scholars, approved.
Lewis makes the critical point that the status of women in Islamic society and the West "was the most profound single difference" between them. Lewis demonstrates how Islamic societies have modernized without becoming totally Westernized. The emancipation of women should have been seen as an attempt to modernize rather than Westernize. It's an important distinction in today's Muslim world and something which many rulers have failed to realize.
There are two shortcomings in an otherwise brilliant overview. Lewis fails to mention the influence of Marxism in Islamic societies in the 20th century and how, for a time, Marxism gripped the imagination of many Muslims as an appropriate anti-colonial ideology. And he does not mention how, in the contemporary period, the Islamic world's perceptions have dramatically altered due to America's unequivocal support for Israel. Readers should read both books together in order to understand today's crisis in the Muslim world.
Ahmed Rashid is a senior writer with the REVIEW and the author of Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia