Hizbullah: Politics and Religion by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb. Pub: Pluto Books, London, UK, 2002. Pp: 254. Pbk: £14.99.
China's Muslim Hui Community: Migration, Settlement and Sects by Michael Dillon. Pub: Curzon Press, Richmond, UK, 1999. Pp: 208. Hbk: UK40.00.
Revolution and World Politics: the rise and fall of the sixth great power by Fred Halliday. MacMillan Press, Basingstoke, UK, 1999. Pp: 402. Pbk: £15.99.
Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules by Philippe Sands. Pub: Allen Lane Ltd., London, UK, 2005. Pp. 200. £12.99. By Leila Juma Among the many interesting points in this book is the difference between the covers of the British and American editions. It is not unusual for books to have different covers for different markets, but in this case the contrast is unusually obvious. The original British edition, published by Allen Lane Ltd. in February, is bright orange and shows a picture of a bound and masked man, wearing an orange jumpsuit, a clear reference to the political prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It also promises “new revelations” about “Bush and Blair’s illegal war”. The US edition, published by Viking last month, is far lower key, a mottled gray colour with a stylised crown incorporating the stars-and-stripes, a subtle reference to American imperialism.
Code Name: Deciphering US Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World by William M. Arkin. Pub: Steerforth Press,Hanover, NH, 2005. Pp: 608. Hbk: $27.95. By Leila Juma For all the US’s claims to champion universal ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights, its global power is in truth built on much more mundane and less idealistic bases: the power of its military and the reach and influence of its intelligence services.
Dual Citizenship: British, Islamic or Both? Obligation, Recognition, Respect and Belonging by Saied R. Ameli and Arzu Merali. Pub: The Islamic Human Rights Commission, London, November 2004. Pp: 84. £7.00. Social Discrimination: Across the Muslim Divide by Saied R. Ameli, Manzur Elahi and Arzu Merali. Pub: The Islamic Human Rights Commission, London, December 2004. Pp: 78. £7.00. By Laila Juma
The Infidel Within: Muslims in Britain since 1800 by Humayun Ansari. Pub: Hurst & Co. Ltd., London, 2004. Pages: 438. Pbk: £16.95.
Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky. Pub: Metropolitan Books, New York, 2003. Pp: 278. Hbk: $22.00
British Muslims: Loyalty and Belonging edited by Mohammad Siddique Seddon, Dilwar Hussain and Nadeem Malik. Pub: The Islamic Foundation, Markfield, UK, and the Citizen Organization Foundation, London, UK, 2003. Pp: 116. Pbk: £4.95.
Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in Europe and the Middle East by John L. Esposito and Francios Burgat (editor). Pub: Hurst & Co., London, 2003. Pp: 278. Pbk: £16.50 / US$24.00.
It is perhaps not surprising that of all the incidents of violence in Palestine over the last month, the one that attracted the most headlines worldwide was the roadside bomb that killed three US ‘security guards’ (CIA agents, according to some reports) on October 15.
Those Muslims and Islamic movement activists who support ‘democracy’ or ‘democratic’ understandings of Islam often get a bad press within the movement. This is understandable, for many are nothing more than apologists for the wholesale importation of Western political thought into the Muslim world, and with it – whether they realize it or not – Western political hegemony into the Muslim world.
Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity by Timothy Mitchell. Pub: University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2002. Pp: 413. Hbk: $49.50 / Pbk: $19.95.
Book reviews are usually written about new publications. But it is surprising how often important works by major writers are forgotten simply because they are perceived to belong to an earlier generation...
Washington increased pressure on Syria last month, immediately after the fall of the Ba’athist regime in Baghdad. Although White House sources privately denied that there were any plans for further military action against other regimes in the region
Interpreting Islam edited by Hastings Donnan. Pub: Sage Publications, London, 2002. Pp: 196. Pbk: £18.95.
A Grand Delusion: Democracy and Economic Reform in Egypt by Eberhard Kienle. Pub: I B Taurus, London & New York, 2001. Pp: 274. Hbk: $24.50.
"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power. Pub: Basic Books, New York, 2002. Pp: 640. Hbk: $30.00.
A few weeks ago this author reviewed two very different books, both aiming to reintroduce basic historic facts to the current debate on the US’s planned war on Iraq (Crescent International, November 1-15, 2002). The two took very different approaches, but complimented each other well.
War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know by William Rivers Pitt with Scott Ritter. Pub: Profile Books Ltd., London, UK, 2002. Pp: 78. Pbk: $8.95 / £4.99.
In the Guise of Democracy: Governance in Contemporary Egypt by May Kassem. Pub: Ithaca Press, Reading, UK, 1999. Pp: 210. Hbk: £35.00.
The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone by Joseph S. Nye Jr. Pub: Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 2002. Pp: 222. Hbk: $26.00
After the strident and aggressive tone of much Western writing about Islam in the last few months, it is almost a pleasure to read this much more moderated, thoughtful and sympathetic study of Muslim politics. This is only partly because it was published in 2000, long before the events of last September...
Interpreting Islam edited by Hastings Donnan. Pub: Sage Publications, London, 2002. Pp: 196. Pbk: £18.95.
Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return edited by Naseer Aruri. Pub: Pluto Press, London, UK and Sterling, VA, USA, 2001. Pp: 294. Pbk: £15.99 / $22.95.
A History of Iraq by Charles Tripp. Pub: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2000. Pp: 311. Pbk: £13.95.
No Logo: Taking Aim at Brand Bullies by Naomi Klein. Pub: Picador, USA, and Flamingo, UK, 2001. Pp: 528. Pbk: $15.00 / UK8.99.
The five Central Asian Muslim countries — Kazakhstan, Turk-menistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirghizstan — dropped out of the Soviet belly almost by accident after Gorbachev’s reform of the old Soviet Union. At the time, a few naive, over-optimistic Muslims saw their ‘liberation’ as another sign of the rise of Islamic civilization after the lean years of the twentieth century
The Management of Islamic Activism: Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood and State Power in Jordan by Quintan Wiktorowicz. Pub: State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2001. Pp: 205. Pbk: $18.95.
Arab nationalism is a political creed that has played a crucial role in Arab affairs throughout the last hundred years, without ever achieving anything of note. It has been associated at different times with three major political objectives, and failed to achieve its stated objectives in any of them.
THE GLOBAL GAMBLE: WASHINGTON’S FAUSTIAN BID FOR WORLD DOMINANCE by Peter Gowan. Pub: Verso Books, London/New York, 1999. Pbk: 320. £13.00 / $ 20.00
The USA is often described by its critics as a global empire. Those who are less critical of its role in the world sometimes prefer to describe it as the world’s sole superpower.
EMPIRE by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Pub: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, and London, UK, 2000. Pp: 478. Pbk: $18.95 / £12.95.
THE TRIAL OF HENRY KISSINGER by Christopher Hitchens. Pub: Verso, New York, USA, 2001. Pp. 159. Hbk. US$22.00.
A Hamas mujahid was martyred in an operation against an Israeli target in the Ghazzah area of occupied Palestine on July 9. He was Nafez Ayesh al-Nadher, aged 26. He was driving near the Kissufim crossing-point between Ghazzah and 1948 Palestine and detonated his vehicle as a military vehicle passed. Israeli sources denied that any of its soldiers had been involved.
History, it is often said, is written by the victors. In these terms, the Ottoman sultanate has been doubly damned, its history having been variously written by the West that dismantled it and Turkey’s nationalist-secularists, who have been determined to accept the West’s contempt for it.
Iran’s presidential elections, due to be held on June 8, were all but decided on May 4, when president Muhammad Khatami confirmed that he would stand for re-election.
Just weeks after the Arab governments humiliated themselves with their utter failure to support the Palestinian intifada at their Arab League meeting in Amman on March 28, Islamic Iran showed the way forward with the unqualified support offered to the Palestinians at the opening of its International Conference on the intifada and the zionist problem in Tehran on April 24.
Reading this book, one is reminded of a particular kind of intelligent non-Muslim friend: open-minded, curious, sympathetic, good company, better conversation, ever-ready to engage with and learn about a culture and a world-view so totally different to his own.
Pablo Picasso’s famous picture Guernica, featured on the cover of this book, is an icon of the human rights and international law movements, a symbol of the cruelty of war.
The Crusades are traditionally defined as the series of western expeditions against the Muslim lands of Palestine and the Levant which begun with Pope Urban’s call to arms at Clermont in 1095AD, and all but ended with the Muslim liberation of Acre in 1291.
Liberalism and human rights are two of the major ideological sticks the west uses to beat Islam. They represent, we are constantly told, universal values based on humanity’s collective experiences and mature rationality.
One of the most remarkable facts about the massive pro-Israel bias at every level in the western media and establishment is that there is so much evidence to contradict the Zionists’ lies and propaganda easily available even from the west’s own reporters and other sources.
After months of kite-flying, the world’s wealthiest countries announced a debt-relief plan on June 19 which, they said, was designed to reduce the debt-burden of the world’s 33 poorest countries by up to $70bn from its present level of $127bn.
The Kalim Siddiqui Memorial Seminar which took place in London on April 11 focused on his understanding of the global Islamic movement, and on issues facing the movement at this time.
