'We fail to understand Islam,' writes Roger Hardy in the introduction to this book, 'and we are paying a high price for our failure.' The Muslim Revolt explains, in layman s language, a phenomenon that still seems to madden and perplex both the public and the policy-makers. In setting out to demystify Islamism and the forces that drive it, Hardy suggests that for the last two hundred years Muslims hav been in revolt against Western domination, and against the failures and disappointments of modernisation. The book takes the form of a journey. Drawing on his travels and encounters as a journalist over the last thirty years, the author explains the political role of Islam in particular countries and regions Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, south-east Asia, Europe--while at the same time telling the story of Islamism from its origins in the era of European colonialism to the emergence of Al-Qaeda and the global jihadists of today. In a challenging conclusion, Hardy warns that without a subtler grasp of Islamism and its discontents, the West will lose its much-vaunted battle for Muslim 'hearts and minds'.
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'Roger Hardy is a BBC Overseas Service journalist who has worked on the Islamic world for more than 30 years. This familiarity seems to have affected his judgement or sense of proportion scarcely at all. He ranges from Egypt to Indonesia and from the founders of Islam to its interpreters today. Everywhere he finds the right man or woman to interview, follows up with a crystal-clear summary of the relevant background and rounds off with a shrewd conclusion. The result is scholarly, but scholarship without obfuscation. The Muslim Revolt is a valuable handbook for anyone who seeks to understand the Islamic world.' --The Times (London)
'Offers a good 'beginners guide' to the complex issues, most suited to the general reader. --International Affairs
'Especially compelling is his separate chapter on Muslims in Europe. Succinct and readable, this account demonstrates the regional and ideological diversity of political Islam even while explaining Muslims' malaise vis-à-vis the West.' --Foreign Affairs
'Offers a good 'beginners guide' to the complex issues, most suited to the general reader. --International Affairs
'Especially compelling is his separate chapter on Muslims in Europe. Succinct and readable, this account demonstrates the regional and ideological diversity of political Islam even while explaining Muslims' malaise vis-à-vis the West.' --Foreign Affairs
About the Author
Roger Hardy has been a Middle East and Islamic affairs analyst with the BBC World Service for over twenty years. He has made a series of radio programmes about Muslims in the Middle East, Europe and south Asia, and is a regular contributor to the Economist, International Affairs and the New Statesman.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Looking for the secular Muslim
2 Jan 2011
By William Garrison Jr.
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
"The Muslim Revolt: A Journey Through Political Islam" by Roger Hardy, (2010), small hardback, 230 pages. The author `worked as a Middle East and Islamic affairs analyst for the BBC World Service for over twenty years.' The author noted that Egypt seems to be a `malaise' today because "IN a much-debated phrase, Al-Ghazali and the religious scholars of his day [1400s] `closed the gates' of ijtihad" [reasoning] (p. 18) - essentially, Muslims stopped progressive/ scientific/ secular thinking. The author BRIEFLY reviews `modern' Islamists (Qutb, Banna) who argued against the secular/ liberal `westernization' of the Middle East. The author desires the `liberation', if not the `liberalization' of Islam - just enough to curtail the power of the stifling anti-secularists imams. The author interviews several Middle East scholars who want to liberalize the region by reducing the sharia-Islamist laws. The author reviews the Shia-Shia split since the Battle of Karbala, and the Shia overthrow of the Iranian shah in 1979. The author tries to explain how the conservative/ fundamentalist Islamists regained power over the reform-minded Khatami administration [it was Pres. George Bush's `fault' - because his `Axis of Evil' speech offended the conservative Shia!] (p. 53). The author reviews how "Pakistan is the only country created in the name of Islam" (59) with Jinnah (& Maududi), and how Gen. Zia ul-Haq Islamlicated it even more - shortly after Khomeini seduced Iran. The author reviews how the U.S. funded Pakistan to oppose the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan - and how the bin Laden versus Azzam split and assassination came to be. The author BRIEFLY reviews the origins of Wahhabism and the coup of Ibn Saud. While the book recounts some of the experiences of the author, it seems to be more of a pasting together of snippets of common-information from Wikipedia - I'm really trying to find the new originality of `substance' that the author has to provide. The author gives a BRIEF review as to how Ataturk ended the Ottoman empire and tried to de-Islamize Turkey, but now today the secularists are being pushed back by the Erbakan Islamists. The author briefly reviews the rise of Islamism in Indonesia-Malaysia during the 1990s. The author reviews the `Rushdie Affair' , the Danish Moontoons, and the growth of Londonistan. The author seems to be confused WHY Muslims living throughout Europe are not `integrating' or accepting the secular beliefs (i.e. becoming Westoxificated) of liberal Europe - he apparently doesn't see that the newly arrived Muslims want Europe to de-secularize by becoming Islamificated (180-184). For some unexplained reason the author maintains: "The mainstream [Muslim] wants to see the umma grow stronger vis-a-vis the West, but does not share the radical jihadi view of history as an unending conflict between believers and infidels" (200). This journalist-author SEES what is going on, but doesn't seem to realize how the Islamists' actions are tied in with the Islamic religion itself {for this understanding see Robert Spencer "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam"}. Just too 'generic'.
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