Islamic Government Books - Page 12

Islamic Struggle in Syria

Umar F. Abd-Allah, Hamid Algar

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Editorial Review:

Syria has always played a pivotal role in Middle Eastern affairs, but most Westerners have never had a very clear understanding of the prevailing conditions there. The Islamic Struggle in Syria is a pioneering work that seeks to illuminate some important aspects on contemporary Syrian reality. It focuses on the bitter struggle between the Syrian Islamic Front and the repressive Ba'thist regime of Late Hafiz Asad. Dr. Abd-Allah provides valuable information on the leaders, ideology, and program of the Syrian Islamic Front as well as a history of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and sketches of some its leaders, including Mustafa as-Sibai, Isam al-Attar, and Marwan Hadid. At the same time, he touches on a number of important topics: the continuing nature of superpower intrigue and intervention in the Middle East, the importance of the sectarian factor in Syrina politics, the origins and antecedents of the Ba'thist regime, the ambiguous role played by Hafiz Asad vis-a-vis Israel and the Palestinian cause, the role Syrian has played in Lebanese affairs, and Syria's relations with other countries in the region.

Islam, Kurds and the Turkish Nation State (New Technologies/New Cultures)

Christopher Houston

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Can Islamism, as is often claimed, truly unite Muslim Turks and Kurds in a discourse that supersedes ethnicity? This is a volatile and exciting time for a country whose long history has been characterized by dramatic power play. Evolving out of two years of fieldwork in Istanbul, this book examines the fragmenting Islamist political movement in Turkey. As Turkey emerges from a repressive modernizing project, various political identities are emerging and competing for influence. The Islamist movement celebrates the failure of Western liberalism in Turkey and the return of politics based on Muslim ideals. However, this vision is threatened by Kurdish nationalism and the country's troubled past.

Is Islamist multiculturalism even possible? The ethnic tensions surfacing in Turkey beg the question whether the Muslim Turks and Kurds can find common ground in religion. Houston argues that such unification depends fundamentally upon the flexibility of the rationale behind the Islamist movement's struggle.

A New Muslim Order: The Shia and the Middle East Sectarian Crisis

Nicolas Pelham

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Editorial Review:

Nicolas Pelham explores how America’s overthrow of the Baath party in Iraq, and the failures of Washington’s post-invasion regime spawned a Shiite revolution in the heartland of the Arab world. Through first-hand accounts beginning with Saddam’s rule to the post-Bremer period, he traces the turning of the tables from a Sunni to Shia-led state. Pelham recounts how Shia clerics led the largest protest the region had seen since the Iranian Revolution to topple Paul Bremer, America’s head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. As Washington struggled to control the situation, Pelham reveals how the Ayatollahs' drive for elections won power for their acolytes to draft the constitution for a utopian Shia state.
 

Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad (Indiana Series in Arab and Islamic Studies)

Ziad Abu-Amr

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 1.0 of 5

what the hell is islamism? 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 13 people found this review helpful.

who made that up? i am a muslim so i guess that makes me an islamist. its just like people who follow marx are called marxists, so people who follow islam are islamists right? how retarded, i dont waste my time with any book that uses mindless vocabulary like "islamism"

Editorial Review:

As the Palestinian Liberation Organization engages in negotiations with Israel toward an interim period of limited Palestinian self-rule, this timely book provides an insider's view of how the growing hold of Islamic fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza challenges the peace process. Working from interviews with leaders of the movement and from primary documents, Ziad Abu-Amr traces the origin and evolution of the fundamentalist organizations Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas) and Islamic Jihad; and analyzes their ideologies, their political programs, their sources of support, and their impact on Palestinian society. With a solid grasp of the dynamics of these movements, Abu-Amr charts the struggle between the fundamentalists and the PLO to define the identity of Palestinian society, its direction, and its leadership.

The Islamic Polity and Political Leadership: Fundamentalism Sectarianism, and Pragmatism (Westview Special Studies on the Middle East)

Mehran Tamadonfar

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The Taliban: Ascent to Power

M. J. Gohari

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Review 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Gohari, M.J., The Taliban Ascent to Power, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999 & 2000). Pp. viii+149. 1 photograph. Further reading. Index. ISBN: 0-19-579560-1.

This work can be considered more of an encyclopedia, with detailed definitions of various issues related to the Taliban, intertwined with numerous excerpts illustrating Gohari's stance on those issues. It explores the Taliban from many angles, including the historical, political, and social perspectives. Moreover, it delves into an often-overlooked topic, outlining the battle between the Mujahideen and the Taliban. Gohari also touches upon the role of the UN in Afghani politics, and Islamic fundamentalism globally. From the plague of imperialism upon the country to the birth of the Taliban in Pakistan to international players, Gohari gives a comprehensive look into the many, many facets of the Taliban's existence in the contemporary era.
Remarkably, Gohari succeeds in maintaining a neutral stance regarding the Taliban, something extremely difficult in the post-9/11 era, when hostility and negative accounts of the Taliban are in abundance. Sometimes, this neutrality may be perceived as favor towards the Taliban on Gohari's side, but for the most part the book is free of bias. And, the structure of the book gives the reader a clear distinction between the author's opinions and the factual elements of the chronicle of the Taliban movement.
I would not strongly recommend this book to the average reader. While it is an easy read, the encyclopedia-style narrative does require some diligence on the part of the reader. The book is more suited to those looking for an abundance of information, regarding all aspects of the Taliban, in one place. It seems more of a piece that would serve a student in need of a glance into the Taliban as a starting point for further research. Gohari also provides those interested in the Taliban with an outlet to find more specific areas of interest, in essence giving foundation from which to further explore the Taliban to one that has no previous background in the subject (aside from the attacks of 9/11, of course).

Editorial Review:

For many Westerners, Islam appears to contradict democratic values, yet these perceptions result from the characterization of certain Islamic movements as "radical" or "fundamentalist." This book describes one such movement that has been condemned in the West: the Taliban in Afghanistan. Shedding light on their doctrine, it analyzes the rise of the Taliban and their effect on Afghan society, their impact on Afghanistan's neighbors, and their troubled relationship with the United Nations. It concludes with a short chapter on the life and views of Bin Laden, an elusive radical who has famously and brutally translated his beliefs into action.

In the Shadow of Islam: The Women's Movement in Iran (Women in the Third World)

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The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Muhsin S. Mahdi (Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs)

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Editorial Review:

This volume consists of nine essays on the political teaching of such Muslim philosophers as al-Kindi and al-Razi, as well as the more familiar al-Fârâbî, Avicenna, lbn Bâjjah, lbn Tufayl, and Averroes. It makes an important contribution to the study of Islamic philosophy, which has thus far emphasized the metaphysical and illuminationist doctrines of Islamic, and especially Iranian, philosophy, Muhsin Mahdi's exploration of how political questions are addressed by the philosophical tradition is perhaps his most important contribution to medieval Islamic studies. It is thus fitting that this book, intended to honor him on his sixty-fifth birthday, focuses exclusively on his specialty, and that these original essays are written by scholars who completed their post-graduate training under his supervision.

This book brings to light the political teaching of philosophers, who are usually considered totally apolitical. Responding to a long-recognized need, and charting a revolutionary course for future scholarship, it will appeal to students and scholars as well as to general readers seeking clarity about what lies behind current Islamic politics. Above all, this volume will be welcomed for its presentation of previously ignored material about particular thinkers and its rigorous analyses of key texts in Islamic philosophy.

In the Shadow of the Prophet: The Struggle for the Soul of Islam

Milton Viorst

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Editorial Review:

In his new book, In the Shadow of the Prophet, journalist and Middle East commentator Viorst tackles head-on the struggle throughout the Middle East to reconcile Islamic law and beliefs with political power in the modern world.

As the world has now seen in Iran, Sudan, in Algeria and increasingly in Egypt, among other countries, there has been a rising tide of fundamentalism intent on overturning moderate or secular government to create in its place an Islamic state based on the laws of the shari'a-the ancient moral, legal, and religious code of Muhammad's time. Conservative traditionalist governments such as Saudi Arabia insist the Islamic principles guide the actions and thought of all citizens, banning government criticism, religious tolerance, most freedoms of expression, and any comments deemed critical of Islam. But many others feel Islam must find a way to accept and integrate science, technology, and the principles of toleration, if not democracy, into Islamic life. It pains Muslims enormously that the Middle East has lagged far behind the West, and even the emerging third world nations, in terms of its technology, military power, economic might, and general standards of living.

In its examination of the struggle for the direction of Islam in many Muslim nations, In the Shadow of the Prophet reveals the intellectual and theological straightjacket by which traditional Islam has constrained the Middle East, and what that means to the future of the region-and to us in the West.

Jihad: From Qu'ran to Bin Laden

Richard Bonney

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Reading Bonney's Jihad was a struggle(jihad) 2 out of 5 stars.
6 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Reading Bonney's book on the history of Jihad for the past few weeks has made me come to the conclusion that his objective to cover the whole history of the idea and practice of Jihad was too ambitious given the means that are available to him. Some of these limitations include but are not limited to his inability to go to primary sources because of language restrictions and his limited understanding of the subject (Islamic studies) because it is not his area of specialty. Given these limitations, what he ends doing in his book is streamlining the political history of Islam through secondary sources for the most part and provides an overly generalized and non-coherent reading on Jihad that ends up reinforcing the polemical and simplistic narrative of Jihad that already exists in the West without adding nuance to the discussion.
Often, he has summarized discussion of Muslim political history, case in point is his discussion of Colonial Africa Jihad movements (Somali and Ethiopian Muslim takeover of Christian Ethiopia, Shaikh Uthman's movement, Shaikh Umar's Movement, Shaikh Abdul Ghadir's struggle, etc), without providing historical contexts for the conflicts or maps of places mentioned which leaves one rather bewildered and then follow this up with a discussion on doctrines of Jihad that were proposed by certain Muslim thinkers assuming that the juxtaposed assortment of information somehow makes a coherent narrative about Jihad. Instead, the uninitiated reader feels a sense of confusion of how this political history and history of ideas about Jihad all fits together.
On a whole, the work seems unoriginal and not well thought out. His cut and paste approach to creating a continuous narrative on Jihad (this can be easily assessed by looking at his footnotes and seeing how he used singular secondary sources to create this history) only seems to add more blur to the topic. Reading this book is certainly a Jihad.

Editorial Review:

Jihad, ranging in concept from personal inner struggle to outright holy war, dates to the earliest manifestations of Islam. This book locates the origin of jihad, traces its evolution as an idea, and provides an intellectual history of the concept of jihad in Islam as well as how it has been misapplied by modern Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers. The book provides unique and balanced coverage of the historical evolution of the concept of jihad, and mainstream moderate Islamic views of the concept from the Qu'ran to the twenty-first century.
Bonney covers topics such as interpretations of the Qu'ran, historical reactionaries, Sufi alternatives to political Islam, colonialism, twentieth century Jihadists, the Shia depiction of jihad and martyrdom, the jihadi ideology of the 1980s and 1990s, the Palestine Intifada, Osama Bin Laden, and more.