YUSUF AL-KHABBAZ argues that the impact of modern technological society on the lives of individual human beings has been such as to create a “crisis of humanity” in modern societies, and discusses ways it can be countered by Muslims.
The Rough Guide History of Islam by Justin Wintle. Pub: Rough Guides Ltd, London (www.roughguides.com), May 2003. Pp: 544. Pbk: US$12.95,/ UK£7.99.
The relationship between Islam and ‘democracy’ dominates much of contemporary Islamic political thought, particularly among western-educated and ‘modernist’ Muslim intellectuals.
The most important work that our exalted Imam did in the world of Islam was that he revived the political and social dimensions of Islam. He held up the banner of the justice-seeking aspect of Islam. The Imam rediscovered Islam’s hatred of discrimination, class differences and arrogance.
Islam and the Problem of Israel by Ismail Raji al-Faruqi. New edition; published by The Other Press, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2003. Pp: 114. US$6.00. (available from www.ibtbooks.com)
A Japanese foreign office committee, called the Committee for Islamic Studies (CFIS), has issued its first report. It accuses Japan of failure to study and relate to a faith “embraced by a fifth of the world’s population”.
Steven Barboza’s book, American Jihad, is an inversion of the message of Emerson’s ‘Jihad in America’. Barboza uses the idea of jihad and the life of Malcolm X - a combination guaranteed to get most Americans’ attention - as starting-points for a discussion of the different ways American Muslims practise jihad.
President Nelson Mandela has hailed the prominent role played by Islam in the liberation and construction of Africa describing the world’s most frequently demonised faith as the continent’s principal religion and as an agent of tolerance and goodwill.
