Islamism Vs The West

"The aim of this book is to encourage mutual understanding between the Islamic and Western worlds. The majority of Muslims are peaceable, law-abiding citizens. However, Muslim fundamentalists, described here as ""Islamists"", presents a challenge to the valu"

In the spring of 2003, Jacques Derrida sat down for a public debate in Paris with Algerian intellectual Mustapha Chérif. The eminent philosopher arrived at the event directly from the hospital where he had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the illness that would take his life just over a year later. That he still participated in the exchange testifies to the magnitude of the subject at hand: the increasingly distressed relationship between Islam and the West, and the questions of freedom, justice, and democracy that surround it. As Chérif relates in this account of their dialogue, the topic of Islam held special resonance for Derrida—perhaps it is to be expected that near the end of his life his thoughts would return to Algeria, the country where he was born in 1930. Indeed, these roots served as the impetus for their conversation, which first centers on the ways in which Derrida’s Algerian-Jewish identity has shaped his thinking. From there, the two men move to broader questions of secularism and democracy; to politics and religion and how the former manipulates the latter; and to the parallels between xenophobia in the West and fanaticism among Islamists. Ultimately, the discussion is an attempt to tear down the notion that Islam and the West are two civilizations locked in a bitter struggle for supremacy and to reconsider them as the two shores of the Mediterranean—two halves of the same geographical, religious, and cultural sphere. Islam and the West is a crucial opportunity to further our understanding of Derrida’s views on the key political and religious divisions of our time and an often moving testament to the power of friendship and solidarity to surmount them.

A senior scholar of Islamic politics, providing a corrective to a dangerous gap in understanding, explores the true nature of contemporary Islamism and the essential ways in which it differs from the religious faith of Islam.

What changes have the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 and the subsequent attacks in Europe brought to Western societies? In what ways have these events and their aftermath impacted on the relationships between Muslim communities and Western societies? This book explores the remaking of the relationship between Islam and Islamism, on the one hand, and security and securitization, on the other hand, by arguing that 9/11 and its aftermath have led to the opening of a new phase in Western and European history and have remade the relationship between Islam and governmental and societal approaches to security. The authors utilize case studies across the Western world to understand this relationship.

ÿSince its origins in the deserts of Arabia fourteen centuries ago, Islam has grown until today it has one and a half billion followers, nearly a quarter of mankind. Today Islam is feared and distrusted by much of the Western world for its association with religious extremism and terrorism, although the vast majority of Muslims believe only in peace, love and service to Allah and assert that extremism has no place in their faith.

A leading analyst of the Middle East takes on key issues, such as the Islamic surge, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and conspiracy theories. The war on terror, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab-Israeli conflict—again and again in the twenty-first century, crises coming out of the Middle East confront and puzzle Americans. Daniel Pipes has, to much acclaim, been explaining the region since the 1960s. The Wall Street Journal considers him “an authoritative commentator on the Middle East” and the Washington Post deems him “perhaps the most prominent U.S. scholar on radical Islam.” The New York Times calls him “smart and well-informed.” In this volume, Daniel Pipes tackles many questions: Are Muslims truly fatalistic, as their reputation holds? Is radical Islam still on the rise or is it declining? Why are substantial numbers of Iranian-Muslims converting to Christianity? Which American city has emerged as a global center of criminality with female coverings as accessories? Why does tension exist between the Jews of Europe and Israel? How did it happen that Israel is the only country in the world that did not come into existence through conquest? Why are Muslim countries the hold-outs in eradicating polio? In the skilled hands of a leading Middle East authority, these topics come to life as Daniel Pipes explains much about the world’s most volatile region.

The events of September 11, 2001, forever changed the world as we knew it. In their wake, the quest for international order has prompted a reshuffling of global aims and priorities. In a fresh approach, Gilles Kepel focuses on the Middle East as a nexus of international disorder and decodes the complex language of war, propaganda, and terrorism that holds the region in its thrall. The breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 2000 was the first turn in a downward spiral of violence and retribution. Meanwhile, a neo-conservative revolution in Washington unsettled U.S. Mideast policy, which traditionally rested on the twin pillars of Israeli security and access to Gulf oil. In Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, a transformation of the radical Islamist doctrine of Bin Laden and Zawahiri relocated the arena of terrorist action from Muslim lands to the West; Islamist radicals proclaimed jihad against their enemies worldwide. Kepel examines the impact of global terrorism and the ensuing military operations to stem its tide. He questions the United States' ability to address the Middle East challenge with Cold War rhetoric, while revealing the fault lines in terrorist ideology and tactics. Finally, he proposes the way out of the Middle East quagmire that triangulates the interests of Islamists, the West, and the Arab and Muslim ruling elites. Kepel delineates the conditions for the acceptance of Israel, for the democratization of Islamist and Arab societies, and for winning the minds and hearts of Muslims in the West.

One of a number of "9/11" volumes that appeared last year, Rollin Armour's book has been nearly a decade in the making. He takes the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and its final destruction in 2001 as historical "bookends" for the material covered. His stated goal is to contribute to better mutual under standing between the West and the Islamic world.