A War on Islam? (Paperback)

The book begins with a foreword by General Hamid Gul, former Chief of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), who also hints at the "intellectual alliance" that pushed the military alliance of the Western power into waging a war on the Muslim world. In his words: "I found this book to be a quick review of the intellectual horrors perpetrated by the media and press in the western world.

It also reviews the major reasons that make the US-led war on terror doubtful and underlines the response needed on the part of the western public as well as the oppressed Muslims both in occupied and so-called independent Muslim states."

Based on the problems with the "war on terrorism," the book is divided into eight major parts and the author has made an excellent effort to explain how yet another catastrophic World War can be avoided simply by understanding the problems prevalent in Muslim societies and the suffering that Muslims are going through due to American and European insistence to maintain the status quo in the arena of their foreign policy.

According to the author, Muslims around the world are uneasy with:

(1) the vague and open-ended nature of the war against terrorism - vagueness;

(2) the thought that the US may be reacting against a religion rather than merely against an organisation - targeting Islam;

(3) the reality that ever fewer corporations, all thinking alike, provide the bulk of Americans' information about the world to ordinary Americans - irresponsible media;

(4) instances when important actions by the US government are based on fear or cowardice;

(5) the extent to which violent attitudes permeate American thinking - culture of violence;

(6) Applying nationally practiced authoritarianism at international level and imposing governments that serve US interests regardless of their being democratic or dictatorships - authoritarianism;

(7) the objective to check the imaginary resistance posed by Muslims to a US-dominated world and the barriers to honesty and sincerity in American government - realpolitik; and

(8) American efforts to separate Muslims from Islam through the process of militant secularisation.
Apart from the introduction and conclusion, eight chapters of the book explain the above-mentioned factors in detail. An interesting aspect of the book is that all these chapters have been develop in interaction with the authors' friends in the US, who discussed and debated each of these points in length. In a way, each chapter includes point of view of the Muslim world as well as answers to the possible concerns or questions that may arise in the western mind after knowing about the genuine grievances of Muslims.

Being a native of a Muslim country, and having experience of living in the Western world and even under the Taliban rule, the author has first hand experience of the different phenomenon that are generally discussed by many without any first hand experience. In the light of his diverse experience the problem of vagueness with the war on terrorism in the context of pre-war propaganda, the Misnomerism that further adds to vagueness and the myths surrounding the war on terror. This section also gives a step by step detail as to how the stage was being prepared for the latest assault on Islam for the last 20 years at least.

Second part of the book deals with the problem of intentionally and unintentionally targeting Islam. It sheds light on how the self-created fear of Islam is leading the world into a disaster without understanding the real roots of Islamic resistance. This part ends with logical argument that Islam is not a threat to the western world as it has been presented over the years.

The third part explains the irresponsibility of the Western media and the way it is spreading the fear of Islam. The author explains how there is no sympathy for the suffering of the Muslims in the new lexicon for sensitized times.

Part four deals with the fear of Islam and the morbid dread of Jihad, which has needlessly led many of the western intellectual into wishing death to Islam.
Part five of the book explains as to who is fighting whom, how is violence associated with Islam. This part also deals with the target of US led war to settle if it sis a war on terrorism or Islam. It also gives the solution to combating anti-Americanism.

Part six of the book really needs someone like the author, some one suffering under western sponsored dictatorships to explain how totalitarian governments have been imposed on the Muslims. It also compares authoritarianism of the Taliban with those in practice in countries like Egypt and Pakistan. The double standards for democracy and the pain of being forced to accept an alien way of life are the crux of this part of the book, all which indirectly proves to be the tactics to undermining Islam.

Part seven, "Realpolitik," explains how Islamophobia is being used as a tool for intervention in the Muslim countries. Part eight deals with different tactics that are being used to promote a "war within Islam." People both in East and West take such issues for granted but the same are becoming the roots of instability and anger. The conclusion focuses on the "unfolding clash and identifies "the real problem" as well as "the only solution." The book ends with prophetic word from the great Islamic scholar, Dr. Israr Ahmad, who sums up the discussion of the nine chapters in an eloquent and scholarly manner.