The Islamic Threat : Myth or Reality? (Third Edition) by John L. Esposito

The Islamic Threat : Myth or Reality? (Third Edition) Reviews

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  طارق رشدى

  يأخذك الكتاب فى رحلة مشوقة خلال تاريخ الحركات الاسلامية المعاصرة فى القرن العشرين
  و يمتاز الكتاب بالتحليل الواقعى و عدم الانحياز لأحد الأطراف
  و لكن يعاب على الكاتب انحيازه للكيان الصهيونى بطريقة غريبة و تحامله على الحركات الفلسطينية
  و فى نهاية الكتاب لا أظنه قد أجاب على السؤال )الخطر الإسلامى حقيقة أم خرافة؟) لكنه ترك الاجابة لضمير القارئ كى يختار ما تمليه عليه نفسه
• 
  Joseph Stieb

  John Esposito is one of the best scholars of contemporary Islam out there. This book is a little old now, but it is still very relevant for understanding the broad trends behind and varieties of the Islamic revival. He's not a smooth writer, but he makes a solid set of arguments in this book that I mostly agree with.
  
  One major point of this book is that the Islamic threat should better be understood as a challenge in several different senses. Esposito documents the varied forms of Islamic revivalism that have swept the Islamic world, especially in the Middle East, since the failure of various forms of nationalism (Nasserism, for example) in the 60's and 70's, including Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan, the Muslim Brotherhood in places like Egypt, the Iranian Revolution, the FIS in Algeria, AMAL and Hizbollah in Lebanon, the Renaissance Party in Tunisia, and many others. Each of these movements have pointed to Islam as the solution to many problems of modernity and the failures of secular nationalism and corrupt, authoritarian states. Most of them have worked within the political system to gain more representation and leverage. They also form a limited type of civil society in these authoritarian states where other vehicles of protest and organization have been crushed. Repression has tended to make these groups more radical, causing small but violent splinter groups to branch off. Esposito makes the great point that the radical offshoots get a lot more attention in the Western media than the larger, more mainstream groups, a fact which has certainly heightened the sense of a clash of civilizations.
  
  Of course, this Islamic revivalism has posed a challenge to the West. While most of these groups are not anti-modern, they are mostly anti-Western, especially because the secular nationalist or Islamic modernist/fusionist regimes they are challenging have consciously tried to emulate the West. Western dress, gender norms, materialism, values like freedom of speech, etc have come under fire from these groups largely by association, but also because of US support for the very autocracies they are challenging. Esposito validly claims that these Islamist challengers (to the West and their own societies) need not be our enemies even as they represent quite different solutions to the problems of modernity (urbanization, industrialization, loss of traditional social units, new media saturation, feelings of isolation, stark inequality). In fact, Esposito writes, the more we treat these groups as a threat and unwaveringly support nationalist regimes who oppress them, the more we turn them into our enemies (see Iran) and make the clash of civilizations a reality. Thus, the Islamist challenge is also a challenge to the West to live up to its own values and to not merely tolerate oppressive, sometimes secular nationalist regimes because they provide a veneer of security and protect Western interests. I am sympathetic to these arguments, in most cases. The US might have to let Islamism run its course in democratic government in the Islamic world rather than trying to stop it. The forces behind it are just too powerful.
  
  Speaking of Huntington, the Clash of Civilizations thesis is squarely in the sights of Esposito in this book. While he's clear that the Islam-Christianity relationship has had more enmity than cooperation or mutual respect, he rallies many solid points against this concept of a Clash. First, he shows the many different responses to modernity and Western power that have developed in the Islamic world, many of which sought to either isolate Islam from a program of reform or fuse it with Western culture, politics, and technology. Islamic revivalism and the seeming Clash owe a lot to the failures of these rather than something inherent in Islam. The real points here are that the Islamic Revival is actually pretty recent and that it has a history, i.e. it has contexts and contingencies rather than a deterministic logic. In successful cases of modernization, like Turkey, Islamist politics until very recently remained marginalized in regards to a triumphant secular and Western nationalism. Second, he shows that Islamic and Christian history have fed from each other culturally, intellectually, economically and otherwise, making the lines between them a little more blurred than Huntington's fault lines. Lastly, Esposito shows how most of the Clash advocates in the West are actually tremendously ignorant of Islamic history, theology, and practice, making their arguments more a reflection of ignorance and fear rather than reason and evidence. One wonders is Huntington was competent enough in this history to make his Clash argument.
  
  Still, I have two reservations about this book, two problems that I often find in liberal and/or left scholarship (trust me I'm a liberal). One is that Esposito often says that Islamists justify or legitimize their actions through appeals to Islam. The problem here is that secular, liberal scholars often have trouble thinking about or empathizing with sincerely held beliefs, especially religious ones. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood or JI aren't just using the texts to justify actions and policies with ulterior motives. Rather, their readings of the Qur'an and the religion are the motive for those actions and policies. In a sense, their is less strategic than Esposito puts it. Adherence to the faith, or a tradition in the faith, both motivates and restrains what is politically feasible and desirable for these groups.
  
  Second, Esposito kind of dodges the question of Islam and liberalism. It's fascinating how few of the political movements within the Islamic world, secular or religious, have been liberal. Many of the pro-Western ones emulated Western technology or culture but not liberal practices in politics such as freedom of speech and assembly, the loyal opposition, legal rights, the peaceful transfer of power, the separation of powers, etc. The Islamist parties have gone even further in their rejection of liberal politics and culture, including women's liberation and gay rights. Esposito argues that the responses to modernity in these parts of the world have been incredibly varied, but that variety has not included much liberalism. Esposito isn't much help in explaining this phenomenon. For example, in his discussion of the Rushdie affair, he says that there was a variety of responses to the Ayatollah's fatwa but then clearly shows that the dominant response was condemnation and rage. This point, as well as his discussion of popular support for Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, seems to support Huntington and the Clashers. This book left me with the question: Is liberalism a unique product of Western culture, as Huntington argues, that doesn't fit elsewhere?
  
  Esposito's focus on "variety" is a cop-out when it comes to explaining illiberalism in the Islamic world. He would have benefitted from the school of consensus history in the US. Consensus historians argue that American politics for most of our history has taken place "within the 40 yard lines," or within certain agreed upon rules and values that constrain political actors. What, then, are the consensuses of politics in the Islamic world? How did "you can't constrain the speech of your opponents or the media (mostly)" become engrained in Western politics but become so weak in Islamist ones? Is the Qur'an truly as flexible as Esposito suggests, or does the sincerely held belief that the Qur'an should be the basis of law and the legitimating principle of politics make liberalism impossible? In other words, if the centrality and inerrancy of the Qur'an is the consensus of the Islamist revival, can liberal politics and culture ever take root? I'm leaning yes, but I'd certainly like to hear Esposito's responses to these questions. The real point here is that religious texts, if you take them seriously, are not neutral documents from which you can pull whatever values and principles you want. They push you in certain directions, and I rarely think those directions are liberal.
  
  This book is a bit dated now, but it's definitely worth reading for anyone who is interested in question of Islam and the West, Islam and modernity, or just the varieties of political and religious movements in these parts of the world.
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  Mazen Yehia

  الكتاب يتكلم عن نشأة حركات الإسلام السياسي بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية و تفتيت الدول العثمانية، الكتاب موجه للغرب بالأخص و مفيهوش معلومات جديدة لأي شخص مهتم بالشأن السياسي العربي.
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  Hasnan Daud

  buku seterusnya.. buku ini jelas kejujuran kritikan esposito. namun masih ada dalam kalangan kita melihatnya satu bala dan ancaman! esposito malang kerana hidup di barat.. mungkin dsbbkn barat alasan mereka menidak fakta2 esposito.
  
  maka Islamist democrat di label mengelirukan. keliru sebb depa tahu label dan tidak baca,. isu fundamental yang di nyatakan oleh admin sebuah article yg mengatakan melabel golongan2 islamist sebagai fundamental. padahal dalam buku ini jelas esposito menceritakan persepsi fundamental dari sudut barat dan timur!.. ulama pelapis perlu baca semua agar tidak cepat menghukum keluar dari pejuangan Islam pada mereka yang dilabelnya sebgai islamist democrat.
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  Ibrahim

  يستحق أكثر من خمس نجوم! الكتاب لا يجيب عن هذا التساؤل هل التهديد الإسلامي خرافة أم حقيقة، بل يتناول بالغرض عدة تجارب إسلامية ويحللها في ضوء كونها استجابة لفعل الغرب بالعالم الإسلامي من خلال سياساته المباشرة تجاهه أو ما يمليه عليه بشكل غير مباشر.
  الكتاب موضوعي يخاطب المنطق لا العاطفة، لذلك لم ينتهِ بإجابة لسؤاله بل اكتفى بوصف الواقع وترك للقارئ الحكم على هذه الاستجابة حسب تعريفه لمعنى التهديد.
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  Sherif MohyEldeen

  A still relevant and useful book for whoever want start reading about the Political Islam.
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  Tiffany Cusick-Bristol

  This book does not back up its "facts" with the Koran but with one-sided revisionist history. If a person is to read this, I strongly recommend they read the Koran as well so they can make an educated decision about Islam for themselves. Having read both books, I disagree with the author's passive view on Islam. This book was a hard one to read through, it was not a quick, pleasurable read.
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  Minci (Ayurveda) Ahmetovic

  This book opened new horizons for me in terms of learning about Political regimes in Middle Eastern and North African countries as well as becoming better informed on issues such as 'Fundamentalism, radicalism etc.' I was especially interested in part about Iranian revolution and Double standard of the west when it comes to Palestinian question. It took me though more than 1 month to read it
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  Erdoan A.

  Great book if you want to understand the complexity of Islamic and Islamic movements.
  Also very timely to understand what is happening in Turkey under the Erdogan government
  People working on CVE should read this as an introductory book to understand the challenge of not framing every Muslim or Islamic movement as the same
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  Mike Edwards

  An interesting and concise overview of many of the conflicts between Islamic people and organizations and Western states, but I strongly disagree with the weight that Esposito gives to historical events as opposed to modern realities.
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  Van Zetreus

  This is in such serious need of update to be taken seriously today. Esposito produces some really stupid mistakes like equating fatwas with death threats and what not.
• 
  Van

  This is in such serious need of update to be taken seriously today. Esposito produces some really stupid mistakes like equating fatwas with death threats and what not.
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  Mohammed Mirza

  It is an interesting book and summarized the developing of the abstracts and terms into Islamic culture that are related to social policy. In addition, it traced the source of the threat that West has always perceived Islam; recommend everyone to read.