Chapter 1
1. For earlier treatments of some of the themes that drew on this chapter, see “The Paradox of Islam’s Future,” ed. Daniel Byman and Marlena Mantas, Religion, Democracy, and Politics in the Middle East (New York: The Academy of Political Science, 2012), 197–239.
2. Tareq al Bishri, The General Features of Contemporary Islamic Political Thought (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1996), 11, 60, and 61. (Arabic)
3. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner, 1958), 47.
4. Ahmed Fuad Negm endlessly affirmed his love of colloquial Arabic and pronounced it the finest expression of the spirit of the Egyptian people and one of their greatest cultural achievements.
5. Alija Ali Izetbegovic, Islam between East and West (Indianapolis, IN: American Trust Publications, 1993). See especially Chapter 11, 271–286. Fahmi Huwaidi frequently drew attention to Izetbegovic’s work; see, for example, al Ahram, February 7, 1995, and al Ahram, September 17, 1996.
6. Chapter 5 of this book provides a study of Ibn Battuta’s revealing travels through Islamic networks in the fourteenth century.
7. “Love and Insight.” [Online]. Available: https://notes.utk.edu/Bio/greenberg.nsf/f5b2cbf2a827c0198525624b00057d30/4a623ac9eba9e88685257aa90083ce10?OpenDocument. [September 12, 2014].
8. Fahmi Huwaidi has done the most to familiarize his readers with the parallels between midstream Islam and philosophical American pragmatism. See al Ahram, September 17, 1996, for an illustrative example.
9. Qur’an 49:13, 2:3.
10. See Ali Shariati, Religion vs. Religion, trans. Laleh Bakhtiar (Chicago: ABC International Group, 2000).
11. The most detailed treatment can be found in Chapter 8.
12. Mark Taylor, The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
13. Angel Rabasa et al., Building Moderate Muslim Networks (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2007).
14. Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 33.
15. The Tahrir Revolution is treated in Chapter 10.
16. Muhammad al Ghazzali, Women’s Issues between Rigid and Alien Traditions (Cairo: Dar al Shuruq, 1994). (Arabic)
Chapter 2
1. Muhammad al Ghazzali, The Bombshell of the Truth (Damascus: Dar al Dustur, 2002), 9. (Arabic)
2. Imam Muslim, Sahih Muslim, The Book of Faith, trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui. [Online]. Available: http://theonlyquran.com/hadith/Sahih-Muslim/?volume=1&chapter=66 [September 26, 2014].
3. The phrase “Islam itself” is used frequently by Muhammad al Ghazzali in various Arabic formulations. See, for example, Renew Your Life, ninth edition (Cairo: Nahdit Masr, 2005), 8, 10. (Arabic)
4. For a literary exploration of the Western culture of violence and its impact on the Arab world, see Tayeb Saleh, Season of Migration to the North (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997), 3.
5. See Peter Nichols, “The Struggle to Ban Chemical Weaponry: Lessons from World War I to the Present.” [Online]. Available: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHU407A.html [September 11, 2014].
6. Famous Quotes. [Online]. Available: http://www.famousquotes.com/author/winston-churchill/5 [September 11, 2014].
7. See Nichols, “The Struggle.”
8. Cited by Eqbal Ahmad, The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 54.
9. Historical background from E. San Juan, US Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines (New York: Palgrave, 2007); see also quotation from Nima Shirazi, “Bleak News, but Vital for Us to Understand: American Morlocks: Another Civilian Massacre and the Savagery of Our Soldiers” [Online]. Available: http://fabiusmaximus.com/2012/03/17/36583// [September 26, 2014].
10. “The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation.” [Online]. Available: http://www.historywiz.com/primarysources/benevolentassimilation [July 3, 2013].
11. General James Rusling, “Interview with President William McKinley,” The Christian Advocate, January 22, 1903.
12. Cited in John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, “Review: Kipling, the “White Man’s Burden,” and U.S. Imperialism.” Rev. November 2003. [Online]. Available: http://monthlyreview.org/2003/11/01/kipling-the-white-mans-burden-and-u-s-imperialism/ [October 17, 2014].
13. Norman Soloman, “Mark Twain Speaks to Us: ‘I Am an Anti-Imperialist,’” Common Dreams, April 15, 2003. [Online]. Available: http://www.iefd.org/manifestos/anti_imperialist_twain.php [September 26, 2014].
14. See the succinct treatment, with quotation, in David Waines, An Introduction to Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 214.
15. See Theodore H. Von Laue, The World Revolution of Westernization: The Twentieth Century in Global Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 160–164.
16. Ghazzali, Bombshell, 6. (Arabic)
17. See Tareq al Bishri, The General Features of Contemporary Islamic Political Thought (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1996), 52–58. (Arabic)
18. For a discussion of these groups as a reaction to the traumatic abolition of the caliphate, see Muhammad al Ghazzali, The Bitter Truth (Cairo: Ahram, 1993), 63. (Arabic)
19. Richard Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 8.
20. Cited in Mitchell, The Society, 1.
21. Cited in Mitchell, The Society, 6.
22. Cited in Mitchell, The Society, 30.
23. Cited in Roger Hardy, “Islamism: Why the West Gets It Wrong,” The Guardian. Rev. March 20, 2010. Online: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/16/islamism-west-muslim-brotherhood [October 16, 2014].
24. Muhammad al Ghazzali, Culture among the Muslims (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 2010), 223. (Arabic)
25. See, for example, Hassan al Banna, “Tract of the Fifth Conference,” Collected Tracts of the Imam Martyr Hasan al-Banna (Cairo: Dar al-Shihab, n.d.), 169; cited by Roel Meijer, “The Muslim Brotherhood and the Political: An Exercise in Ambiguity.” [Online]. Rev. January 7.
26. Cited in Ammar Ali Hassan, “Rising to the Occasion,” Al-Ahram Weekly, December 19, 2012.
27. Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (Damascus: Dar al Ilm, n.d.).
28. Tareq al Bishri provided a nuanced view of Qutb as a serious Islamic intellectual who made important contributions. At the same time, he contrasted Qutb’s attitude of withdrawing from, condemning, and attacking society unfavorably to Banna’s work to connect with and strengthen society. See Bishri, General Features, 31–33 and 40–41.
29. An appreciation for the necessity of force and “physical power” to build the Islamic society runs through Qutb’s later work. See especially Milestones, 55, 63, 96, and 80.
30. A General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood is given as the author of a book intended to discredit the thinking of Sayyid Qutb, although the book is clearly a collective effort. See Hassan al Hudeibi, Callers Not Judges (Cairo: Dar al tauzir wa al Nashr al Islammiyya, 1977). (Arabic)
31. Qutb, Milestones, 11–12.
32. On opposition to theocracy, see Qutb, Milestones, 58, 85; on servitude to manmade systems, 45.
33. Cited in Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003), 75.
34. Sayyid Qutb, In the Shade of the Qur’an (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1992), vol. 3, p. 282.
35. Sayyid Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, trans. B. Hardie and Hami Algar (New York: Islamic Publications International, 2000), 83.
36. The fullest discussion of Qutb’s mentorship of the military figures who spearheaded the 1952 coup comes in an al Jazeera documentary of Qutb’s life. [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwcJ_noF7uE [October 2, 2014].
37. Qutb, In the Shade of the Qur’an.
38. See John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); James Toth, Sayyid Qutb: The Life and Legacy of a Radical Islamic Intellectual (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
39. Sayyid Qutb, Artistic Representation in the Qur’an (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1949).
40. Over the years, I have been struck by the number of postings of Qutb’s In the Shade of the Qur’an by ordinary citizens during the month of Ramadan on a Facebook “What are you reading?” page.
41. Cited in History Controversy in the News, 2009. “Syed Qutb—Muslim Brotherhood Origins.” Rev. October 11, 2009. Online. Available: http://historycontroversy.blogspot.com/2009/10/syed-qutb-muslim-brotherhood-origins.html. [February 9, 2015].
42. See Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, “Nursi, Discourse, and Narrative.” [Online]. Available: http://www.bediuzzamansaidnursi.org/en/icerik/nursi-discourse-and-narrative [October 16, 2014].
43. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Syqal al-Islam (Istanbul: Sozler Publication, 1998), 22. His students wrote him a letter expressing the same notion: “Our revered Master, who through the effulgence of the Qurán and truths of the Risale-I Nur and aspirations of his loyal students, weeps tears of blood for the well-being of the Islamic world in this world and the next.” Said Nursi, The Rays Collection (Istanbul: Sozler Publications, 1998), 293.
44. Nursi, The Rays, 167.
45. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Al-Mathnawai al Nuri: Seedbed of the Light, trans. Huseyin Akarsu (New Jersey: Nur, n.d.), 297.
46. This story circulates widely among Nursi followers. A typical account can be found at Questions on Islam, “Who is Bediuzzaman Said Nursi?” Online. Available: http://www.questionsonislam.com/article/who-bediuzzaman-said-nursi. [February 9, 2015].
Chapter 3
1. Cited in “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (b. 1749 - d. 1832).” [Online]. Available: http://www.whale.to/a/goethe_q.html. [October 15, 2014].
2. John Esposito has made notable contributions to correcting Western misunderstandings about Islam. From his voluminous writings, see John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think (New York: Gallup Press, 2007). Edward Said’s Orientalism revolutionized Middle East studies in the West, although his contributions remain controversial to this day. See Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 1979).
3. Qur’an 2:143.
4. See Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996).
5. Mark Taylor, The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 47–72.
6. Taylor, Moment, 36.
7. Taylor, Moment, 65. Taylor shows how “important work now being done in complexity studies suggests that such systems and structures are not merely theoretically conceivable but are actually at work in natural, social and cultural networks.”
8. For a fuller treatment of complexity theory and midstream Islamic thinking, see Raymond William Baker, “‘Building the World’ in a Global Age,” ed. Armando Salvatore and Mark Levine, Religion, Social Practice, and Contested Hegemonies: Reconstructing the Public Sphere in Muslim Majority Societies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 109–132.
9. This account draws from Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, Iraq in Turmoil: Historical Perspectives of Dr. Ali Wardi (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002), 27.
10. The idea of complex semantic connections comes naturally to the speaker of Arabic. Arabic vocabulary is built from three-syllable verbs in the past tense, like ka-ta-ba or katab, “he wrote.” From this root comes a plethora of semantically linked words, easily recognized as such by native speakers. They include kitab (book), maktab (desk), maktaba (library), or katib (author). In English, these derivatives appear as quite separate and unconnected words. In Arabic, their semantic connection to the root “katab” remains apparent to the Arabic speaker, although they are lost in translation. Arabic spontaneously creates these complex, interactive semantic webs.
11. Yusuf al Qaradawi emphasizes a broad reform platform in all his voluminous writings; for a representative work, see Yusuf al Qaradawi, Our Islamic Community between Two Centuries (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 2002). (Arabic)
12. Fahmi Huwaidi writes perceptively of the Western opposition to the civilizational project itself, as the heart of Western enmity. In his view, it goes much deeper than the parallel anti-Western feelings in the Islamic world. “The Western position surpasses the rejection of Islam as a belief and ideology to the rejection of the Islamic civilizational project. Therefore, the call of civilizational and cultural independence by Islamists or non-Islamists is perceived in the West as an enmity discourse.” See Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, July 17, 1990.
13. Fahmi Huwaidi frequently invokes Abduh to make this point. See, for example, al Ahram, October 17, 1989, and al Ahram, July 28, 1992.
14. Kamal Abul Magd, A Contemporary Islamic Vision: Statement of Principles (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1991), 8. (Arabic)
15. To this day, Abduh’s remark is frequently quoted, as in this recent article by Essam Dessouqi, “Islam without Muslims, Muslims without Islam,” The Seventh Day, August 23, 2010. [Online.] Available: http://www1.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=764,105. [August 9, 2014].
16. Selim al Awa, al Ahrar, March 23, 1992.
17. Muhammad al Ghazzali, The Bitter Truth (Cairo: al Ahram, 1993), 18. (Arabic)
18. Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity: The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, Volume II (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2010).
19. Muhammad al Ghazzali, Toward a Substantive Interpretation of the Surahs of the Holy Qur’an (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1955), 5. (Arabic)
20. As Fahmi Huwaidi expressed it, “each book for Ghazzali was a battle … and he never dismounted from his horse.” Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, March 26, 1996.
21. Muhammad al Ghazzali, The Bombshell of the Truth (Damascus: Dar al Dustur, 2002), 5. (Arabic)
22. Qur’an 13:11.
23. This account and the citations that follow draw from the report on the site by Fahmi Huwaidi in al Ahram, October 28, 1996.
24. For an extended discussion of Egyptian New Islamic scholarship in education, culture, social life, and politics, see Raymond William Baker, Islam without Fear: Egypt and the New Islamists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).
25. Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, March 24, 1992.
26. Fahmi Huwaidi, Iran from Within (Cairo: Markaz al Ahram lil Targama wa Nashr, 1987), 12. (Arabic)
27. Kamal Abul Magd, A Contemporary Islamic Vision: Declaration of Principles (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1991). (Arabic)
28. All of the major thinkers of the New Islamic school contributed to the elaboration of the centrist vision for broad cooperation across political trends. For a detailed study of this new thinking, see Baker, Islam without Fear, especially 27, 42, 69, 76, 109, 124, 126, 131.
29. For this conception of the Wassatteyya, see Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Islamic Awakening: The Concerns of the Arab and Islamic Homeland (Cairo: Dar al Sahwa, 1988), 13.
30. Taylor, Moment, 11–12.
31. Qaradawi, Islamic Awakening, 13.
32. Tareq al Bishri, The General Features of Contemporary Islamic Political Thought (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1996), 17.
33. Bishri, General Features, 17.
34. For a comprehensive review of that role, including the New Islamic view of ijtihad, see Baker, Islam without Fear, 83–126.
35. Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, New York Times, October 17, 2001.
36. Thomas L. Friedman made this point repeatedly in his influential New York Times columns in the wake of September 11.
37. See Tareq al Bishri, Arabs in the Face of Aggression (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 2002).
38. This theme runs through Bishri’s Arabs in the Face of Aggression; see especially his assessment of the popular reaction to the official “peace” agreements with Israel, pp. 66–67.
39. See Seymour Hersh, “The Missiles of August,” The New Yorker, October 12, 1998.
40. For an informative and fair evaluation of this Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist’s reporting, see Thomas E. Ricks, “Shameful Side of the War on Terror,” New York Times, October 12, 2014. [Online]. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/arts/in-pay-any-price-james-risen-examines-the-war-on-terror.html?_r=0. [October 18, 2014.]
41. See the discussion by Chris Hedges, a former New York Times journalist, also a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter, in a debate between Hedges and University of Chicago law professor Geoffry Stone. [Online]. Rev. June 12, 2013. Available: http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_on_edward_snowden_hero_or_traitor_20130612. [October 7, 2014.]
42. Yusuf al Qaradawi, Nurturance of the Environment in Islamic Shari’a (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 2001), 258.
43. See, for example, Tareq al Bishri’s assessment of the impact of the events of September 11 on American official thinking. Bishri, Arabs in the Face of Aggression, 55–57.
44. Tareq al Bishri, Islam Online, February 5, 2003.
45. Taylor, Moment, 273.
46. Cited by Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, October 10, 1995.
47. Qur’an 30:11, 39:21, 11:120. In such verses the Message is presented as a message of remembrance of truths already known.
Chapter 4
1. The phrase is from Muhammad Abduh and serves as the epigraph for this book. Muhammad Abduh, The Theology of Unity (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966), 148. (Translation modified, based on the Arabic original)
2. Alija Izetbegovic, Notes from Prison, 1983–1988. [Online]. Available: http://www.muslimtorrents.net/ [April 8, 2013].
3. The ayatollah recites his poem in Arabic with English subtitles in this YouTube video. [Online.] Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKgDr01kIfk [September 12, 2014]. (Arabic with English subtitles)
4. Omayma Abdel-Latif, “Death of a Legend.” [Online]. Available: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/1006/re06.htm [September 27, 2013].
5. Fadlallah provided the most cogent justification for armed resistance for the Lebanese, combined with genuine attention to a range of social issues. For a useful discussion of Fadlallah’s important Islam and the Logic of Force, see Shimon Shapira, “Lebanon: Ayatollah Fadlallah’s Death and the Expansion of Iranian Hegemony.” [Online]. Rev. July 20, 2010. Available: http://jcpa.org/article/lebanon-ayatollah-fadlallahs-death-and-the-expansion-of-iranian-hegemony/ [October 27, 2014].
6. Qur’an 22:40–41.
7. Thanassis Cambanis, “Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah, Shiite Cleric, Dies at 75,” New York Times, July 4, 2010.
8. For Fadlallah on “martyrdom operations,” see Shapira, “Lebanon.”
9. Quoted in Graham Fuller, “We Could Provide a Million Suicide Bombers in 24 Hours,” The Telegraph, December 4, 2001. [Online]. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/lebanon/1400406/We-could-provide-a-million-suicide-bombers-in-24-hours.html [October 27, 2014].
10. Zaid Al-Mosawi and Muhammad Habash, Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, A Lifetime in the Call for Unity. [Online]. Rev. April 2011. Available: http://www.taqrib.info/books/Taqrib%20Journal%208.pdf, 125-156 [September 13, 2014].
11. The ayatollah took strong critical positions against a number of Shi’i traditions that he regarded as excessive. Al-Mosawi and Habash, Fadlallah.
12. Al-Mosawi and Habash, Fadlallah.
13. Martin Child, “Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah: Prominent Shiite Cleric Who Survived Several Assassination Attempts,” The Independent, July 9, 2010.
14. See Robert Fisk, “CNN Was Wrong about Ayatollah Fadlallah,” The Independent, July 10, 2010.
15. See the account of this incident in Abbas Milani, Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941–1979 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 350–357.
16. Quotations are from Muhammad Sahimi, “Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri: 1922–2009.” [Online]. Rev. December 21, 2009. Available: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/12/grand-ayatollah-hossein-alimon1922-2009.html [September 28, 2013].
17. See Bager Moin, “Dissident Cleric Becomes a Hero to the Reform Movement,” The Guardian, December 20, 2009.
18. Moin, “Dissident Cleric.”
19. Quoted by Sahimi, “Grand Montazeri.”
20. Cited in Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, “Imagining Shi’ite Iran: Transnationalism and Religious Authenticity in the Muslim World,” Iranian Studies, volume 40, issue 1, 2007, 22.
21. See http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/%202010/07/20107354240249363.html.
22. Cited in Robert Deemer Lee, Overcoming Tradition and Modernity: The Search for Islamic Authenticity (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 127.
23. Ali Shariati, “Where Shall We Begin: Part 1.” [Online]. Available: http://www.shariati.com/english/begin/begin1.html [October 4, 2014].
24. Ali Shariati, “Reflections of a Concerned Muslim on the Plight of Oppressed People.” [Online]. Available: http://www.shariati.com/english/reflect/reflect1.html [October 18, 2014].
25. For an insightful discussion of this point, see Farzin Vahdat, God and the Juggernaut: Iran’s Intellectual Encounter with Modernity (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002), 147.
26. Reza Khojasteh-Rahim, “An Interview with Abdulkarim Soroush: ‘We Should Pursue Shariati’s Path but We Shouldn’t Be Mere Followers.’” [Online]. Rev. June 2008. Available: http://www.drsoroush.com/English/Interviews/E-INT-Shariati_June2008.html [March 31, 2013].
27. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 144–149.
28. Fatma Dislizibak, “Erbakan’s Re-Election,” Today’s Zaman, October 19, 2010.
29. Richard Falk, “Ten Years of AKP Leadership in Turkey,” World Press. [Online]. Rev. August 25, 2012. Available: http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/ten-years-of-akp-leadership-in-turkey [October 4, 2013].
30. Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, December 19, 1995.
31. Alija Izetbegovic, Inescapable Question—Autobiographical Notes (Leicestershire, United Kingdom, 2003), 13.
32. Quoted as an epigraph in Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam (New York: Doubleday, 2001).
33. Alija Izetbegovic, The Islamic Declaration: A Program for the Islamization of Muslims and the Muslim Peoples (Sarajevo: n.p., 1990).
34. Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 51.
35. Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 30.
36. Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 3.
37. Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 36.
38. Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 43.
39. Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 64.
40. Alija Izetbegovic, Notes from Prison (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2001), Chapter 6, “Prison.”
41. Izetbegovic, Notes, 50.
42. Izetbegovic, Notes, 11.
43. Quoted as an epigraph in Schwartz, The Two Faces.
44. Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 6.
45. Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 13.
46. Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 53.
47. Muhammad al Ghazali [sic], “Islam between East and West: The Magnum Opus of Alija Izetbegovic,” Islamic Studies, 36: 2, 3, 1997. Available: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/23076210?uid=3739256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21104744743487 [October 4, 2014].
48. Ghazali, “Islam Between,” 526.
49. Ghazali, “Islam Between,” 529.
50. Ghazali, “Islam Between,” 529.
51. Ghazali, “Islam Between,” 526.
52. Qur’an 28:77.
53. Alija Ali Izetbegovic, Islam between East and West (Indianapolis, IN: American Trust Publications, 1993), 271–279.
54. Ghazali, “Islam Between,” 529.
55. “Erdogan Visits Former Bosnian President Izetbegovic in Hospital,” Hurriyet Daily News, October 20, 2003. [Online]. Available: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=erdogan-visits-former-bosnian-president-izetbegovic-in-hospital-2003-10-20 [October 4, 2014].
56. “And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colours: verily in that are Signs for those who know.” Qur’an 30:22 (emphasis added to translation).
Chapter 5
1. Qur’an 2:213.
2. Qur’an 109:6.
3. Qur’an 33:40.
4. This famous saying is often described as a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad. It is not, but rather simply a kind of folk wisdom that Muslims across Dar al Islam cherish.
5. Qur’an 11:118.
6. Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, April 25, 1989.
7. David Waines, An Introduction to Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 175–176.
8. See Paul Bloom, “What We Miss,” New York Times, June 4, 2010, for a lucid explanation of the theory developed by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us (New York: Random House, 2009). [Online]. Rev. June 4, 2010. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/books/review/Bloom-t.html [September 20, 2014].
9. There is a burgeoning, at times hyperventilating, literature on these networks. A helpful and reliable introduction remains the classic by Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996).
10. Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
11. Qur’an 49:13.
12. Cited in Muhammad Ali Khalidi, Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 157.
13. For a listing of works by al Suyuti, see Talib Ghaffari, “Writing of Jalaluddin al-Suyuti.” [Online]. Rev. January 7, 2011. Available: http://www.maktabah.org/en/item/1839-writings-of-imam-jalaluddin-al-suyuti [October 10, 2014].
14. Sarah Abdul Mohsin, “Belal Fadl Defends the Work of Naguib Mahfuz from the Attack of the Salafis,” Day 7. Rev. December 9, 2011. [Online]. Available: http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=550,898&#.Un5umeJiz59 [September 28, 2014]. (Arabic)
15. [Online]. Available: http://www.sunnipath.com/Library/Articles/AR00000214.aspx [August 15, 2014].
16. Al Suyuti, The Citron Halves: or, the Daintiness of Women (Damascus: Dar al Kitab al Arabi, n.d)., 31. (Arabic)
17. Cited in Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992).
18. Homage to Ibn Battuta now suffuses the field of anthropology with programs and prizes named in his honor. My favorite is the Ibn Battuta prize at Kansas State University that includes a tribute to the great rahal. The prize description can be read at “Ibn Battuta Award.” [Online]. Available: http://www.k-state.edu/sasw/anth/ibn-battuta-award.html [October 10, 2014].
19. Edward C. Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (New York: The Free Press, 1968).
20. After this first superficial encounter, I did grow to appreciate the breadth and complexity of his thought on a stunning range of issues. For a good bibliography in English, see Aziz al-Azmeh, Ibn Khaldun in Modern Scholarship: A Study in Orientalism (London: Third World Centre, 1981).
21. Ibn Battuta, Travels of Ibn Battuta (Beirut: Dar al Nafais, 2004), 36. (Arabic)
22. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 36–37.
23. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 33. This extraordinary phenomenon is mentioned several times in the Qur’an; see Qur’an 55:19–20 and 25:53.
24. Qur’an 25:53.
25. I am grateful to my senior researcher, Mostafa Mohamed, for accompanying me on that voyage through Travels and for the hours of stimulating discussion of what we found along the way.
26. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 610.
27. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 357–358; a second, more complicated story of a missing male servant is at 420.
28. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 572, 677.
29. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 548.
30. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 335.
31. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 329.
32. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 330.
33. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 334–335; translation in Ross Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 168.
34. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 577.
35. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 578.
36. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 574.
37. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 413.
38. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 638.
39. Cited in Dunn, Adventures, 316.
40. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 279.
41. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 592.
42. Ibn Battuta, Travels, 573.
Chapter 6
1. I am grateful to the cultural anthropologist Marcene Marcoux for a critical reading of this chapter and for her many insightful suggestions on substance and style.
2. Ghazzali expresses these fears for Islam in the most extensive way in Muhammad al Ghazzali, Between Reason and the Heart (Cairo: Dar al I’tisam, 1973). (Arabic)
3. Fahmi Huwaidi, Iran from Within (Cairo: Markaz al Ahram lil Targama wa Nashr, 1987). (Arabic)
4. See, for example, Huwaidi, Iran, 11–12. Huwaidi writes forthrightly that “I am present in any place where the banner of Islam is raised and I move with Islam whenever it is on the march.”
5. Huwaidi, Iran, 11–12. Huwaidi explains further that, when it comes to Islamic matters, “I may have criticisms, there may be differences, and even battles but in the end all of that comes from within the Islamic family.”
6. See Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 6.
7. Roy, Globalized Islam, 8.
8. The English speaker can sample that literature in reliable translations in Muhammad Ali Khalidi, Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
9. Khalidi, Medieval Islamic Writings, 81.
10. Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).
11. Paul Rabinow, Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 121.
12. Rabinow, Reflections, 50.
13. Rabinow, Reflections, 91.
14. Rabinow, Reflections, 91.
15. See Gabriele Marranci, The Anthropology of Islam (New York: Routledge, 2013). Also excellent and engaging is Daniel Martin Varisco, Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
16. Michael Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam: Religion and Society in the Modern Middle East (London: I. B. Taurus, 1992).
17. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam, 9.
18. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam, 10.
19. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam, 10.
20. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam, 10–11.
21. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam, 11.
22. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam, 270 (emphasis added).
23. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam, 266.
24. A good place to start in surveying network studies of this kind is Angel Rabasa et al., Building Moderate Muslim Networks (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2007). Critical reactions of Muslim scholars are summarized in “Muslim Scholars Respond to Rand Report.” Rev April 27, 2007. [Online] Available: http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=1735 [October 4, 2014].
25. Collaborative work by three distinguished scholars of Islam, Bruce Lawrence, Miriam Cooke, and Carl W. Ernst, has yielded a treasure trove of work on network analysis from the perspective of Islamic or, more broadly, religious studies. The place to begin exploring this literature is Bruce Lawrence and Carl Ernst, eds., Muslim Networks from Hajj to Hip Hop (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).
26. See Andrew Gardner, City of Strangers: Gulf Migration and the Indian Community in Bahrain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010), ix.
27. Tareq al Bishri, “Introduction,” ed. Seif ‘Abdul Fatah and Nadia Mustafa, My Nation in the World (Cairo: Civilization Center for Political Studies, 1999), 11. (Arabic)
28. Bishri, “Introduction,” 7.
29. The notion of “scorekeeping” is adapted from the social practice theory of the pragmatist Robert Brandom and used here for the work of intercultural understanding. SeeBrandom, Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994); for an elaboration on this methodology, see Raymond Baker and Alexander Henry, “We Can Do Better: Understanding Muslims and Ourselves,” in Tareq Y. Ismael and Andrew Rippin, Islam in Eyes of the West: Images and Realities in an Age of Terror (New York: Routledge, 2010), 177–201.
30. The notion of “primary structuring ideas” is borrowed in modified form from the work of Adda Boseman, Strategic Intelligence and Statecraft (Washington, DC: Brazey’s), 26.
31. See the analysis by Huwaidi in al Ahram, August 28, 2008. Huwaidi traces the influence of the Egyptian geographer Gamal Hamdan in developing the strategic triangle idea; see al Ahram, August 28, 2008. See also the parallel analysis of “the big three” by Hassan Hanafi, in al Arabi, April 8, 2001.
32. See the classic formulation of this insight in Tareq al Bishri, On the Contemporary Islamic Question: The General Features of Contemporary Political Thought (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1996), 40–44. (Arabic)
33. Bahgat’s references to Rumi were always numerous during Ramadan. See, for multiple examples, al Ahram, December 21, 1999, 11, 14, 16, 21.
34. Bahgat, al Ahram, July 26, 2007.
35. Bahgat, al Ahram, July 26, 2007.
36. Huwaidi, Iran.
37. Huwaidi, Iran, 141.
38. Huwaidi, Iran, 111.
39. Huwaidi, Iran, 137–140.
40. Huwaidi, Iran, 114.
41. Huwaidi, Iran, 135.
42. Huwaidi, Iran, 116.
43. Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, December 19, 1995.
44. Huwaidi, Islam in China, 8 (Kuwait: `Alim al Ma’rifa. 1998). (Arabic)
45. Huwaidi, Islam in China, 143.
46. Huwaidi, Iran, 78.
47. Huwaidi, Iran, 204.
48. Huwaidi, Iran, 194.
49. Huwaidi, Iran, 194–204.
50. Qur’an 22:46.
Chapter 7
1. The Qur’an is organized in chapters and verses. The verses, in Arabic, are called ayahs. The word “aya” actually means sign, evidence, or indicator. Thus, the Qur’an itself is understood to provide humanity with “signs” from God.
2. Israel has been labeled an ethnocracy by a substantial number of Israeli scholars over the past decade and a half. See, for an excellent beginning, Oren Yiftachel, Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000).
3. Qur’an 5:89, 24:33.
4. Qur’an 2:229.
5. For a clear and forceful discussion of apostasy, addressing all the interpretive complexities, such as the Islamic notion of discretionary punishment, see Mohamed S. El-Awa, Punishment in Islamic Law (Indianapolis, IN: American Trust Publications, 1982), 49–52, 96–97.
6. Qur’an 2:256.
7. Qur’an 2:256.
8. Qur’an 18:29.
9. Qur’an 88:21–22.
10. Fahmi Huwaidi, The Qur’an and the Sultan (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1999), 20–21. (Arabic)
11. Imam Bukhari, Sahih Bukhari, volume 9, book 89, judgments 255 and 258. See, for example, judgment 255: “Allah’s Apostle said: ‘You should listen to and obey your ruler even if he was an Ethiopian (black) slave whose head looks like a raisin.’” Important for the limits to obedience is judgment 258: “There is no submission in matters involving God’s disobedience or displeasure. Submission is obligatory only in what is good (and reasonable).” [Online]. Available: http://www.ahlalhdeeth.com/vbe/showthread.php?t=3704 [May 20, 2014].
12. Al Shaab, January 24, 1997.
13. These themes are developed throughout Safran’s classic and still-influential Egypt in Search of Political Community: An Analysis of the Intellectual and Political Evolution of Egypt, 1804–1952 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969).
14. See Michelle M. Hu and Radhika Jain, The Harvard Crimson, May 25, 2011.
15. Kamal Abul Magd, A Contemporary Islamic Vision: Declaration of Principles (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq), 31. (Arabic)
16. Kamal Abul Magd, Dialogue Not Confrontation (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1988), 29. (Arabic)
17. Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, October 8, 1985. (Emphasis added)
18. October, July 8, 1990.
19. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 97.
20. Huntington, The Clash, 121.
21. Huntington, The Clash, 217.
22. Theology, as Mark Taylor has observed, is “most often most influential where it is least obvious.” Mark Taylor, The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 180.
23. Qur’an 17:70.
24. Qur’an 4:75.
25. Qur’an 15:19.
26. Muhammad al Ghazzali, al Ahram, March 17, 1991. The discussion here is a close paraphrase of Ghazzali’s address in Cairo to a symposium called to discuss his study of the Islamic intellectual heritage between logic and Shari’ah. The al Aram coverage includes a summary of his findings as well as of the subsequent discussion session that was chaired by Dr. Muhammad Emara.
27. The Qur’anic notion of ma’asum (infallibility) refers to God and by extension to the Message that God sent to the Prophet Muhammad. It does not refer to the other spheres of the Prophet’s time on Earth, as a fully human figure.
28. Qur’an 80:1–12.
29. Imam Muslim, Hadith Sahih Muslim, “Book of Virtues, chapter 2363.” [Online]. Available: http://hadithmuslimonline.blogspot.com/search/label/Index%20Hadith%20Sahih%20Muslim%20Online [May 30, 2014].
30. The discussion that follows relies heavily on the important but neglected article of Tareq al Bishri, where these critical interpretations are elaborated. See Tareq al Bishri, “About Religion and Knowledge,” Weghat Nathar, April 2004.
31. See the discussion of this deep influence that is recognized throughout the best biography of Ghannouchi that we have: Azzam S. Tamimi, Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat within Islamism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
32. The most insightful discussion of those inhibiting structures comes from Muhammad al Ghazzali, The Bitter Truth (Beirut: Dar al Qalam, 2002), 81. (Arabic)
33. See, for example, Yusuf al Qaradawi, Fiqh of Jihad: A Comparative Study of Its Rulings and Philosophy, vol. I (Cairo: Dar al Wahba, 2009), 394–403, 601. (Arabic)
34. Qur’an 20:126.
35. It should be no surprise that the American pragmatists, given the affinities between that American philosophy and Islam, use parallel categories to make sense of reason and culture in human thought and social action. My own familiarity with the works of leading pragmatists helped in understanding the diverse ways that New Islamic thinkers elaborated both concepts. See, for example, Richard Rorty, Truth and Progress (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 176.
36. Qur’an 96:1–5.
37. For a representative discussion and elaboration of his thinking, see Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Fiqh of Jihad: A Comparative Study of Its Rulings and Philosophy in Light of the Quran and Sunnah, vol. II (Cairo: Dar al Wahba, 2009). (Arabic)
38. Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, January 12, 19, 26, 1999; February 2, 1999; August 10, 1999.
39. Qur’an 50:22–23. See also Qaradawi, Fiqh of Jihad, vol. I, 143–173.
40. See the perceptive discussion of creativity in all its dimensions in Kamal Abul Magd in Iza’ a wal Television, March 7, 1992.
41. John Dewey, Democracy and Education (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1915; 2004), 83. (Emphasis added)
42. For an incisive and pointed discussion, see Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008), 18–19.
43. See especially Alija Ali Izetbegovic, Islam between East and West (Indianapolis, IN: American Trust Publications, 1993), 129, 179, and 212.
44. My understanding of the implications of American pragmatism for social research, spelled out in this section, has developed through collaborative research work and conversations over several years with Alex Henry, now of the Yale School of Management.
45. I have taken some of this language from private communications with Alex Henry of the Yale School of Management.
46. Bruce Lawrence, Shattering of the Myth: Islam beyond Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 41.
47. Lawrence, Shattering, 11. (Emphasis added)
48. This striking phrasing, and the conceptualization of pragmatism it captures, took shape in conversations with Alex Henry of the Yale School of Management.
49. See Max Rodenbeck, “The Promised Land.” [Online]. Rev. June 13, 1999. New York Times. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/06/13/reviews/990613.13rodenbt.html [October 10, 2014].
50. Rorty, Truth and Progress, 176.
51. Awa made this observation in a public discussion at the Cairo Center for Human Rights on October 17, 1994. I attended and took notes.
52. Barrington Moore, Jr., The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy; Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966), 144.
53. For a more extensive elaboration of these views, see the discussion in my Islam without Fear, from which this analysis and citations are taken. Islam without Fear: Egypt and the New Islamists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 170–181.
54. Tareq al Bishri gave the clearest explanation of the concept of “communal society” in his paper presented at the Thirteenth Annual Political Science Research Conference at Cairo University, December 4–6, 1999. This summary comes from notes taken at that event.
55. See Baker, Islam without Fear, 106–110. Key works in Arabic by New Islamic trend intellectuals include Yusuf al Qaradawi, Non-Muslims in Islamic Society (Beirut: Muasassat al Risala, 1983); Fahmi Huwaidi, Citizens, Not Zimmis (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1985); and Muhammad Selim al Awa, Copts and Islam (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1987). (All three in Arabic)
56. For the work of the New Islamic trend on democracy in Islam, see Baker, Islam without Fear, 165–211.
Chapter 8
1. I first worked out the concept of the “Imaginary” in Raymond William Baker, “The Islamist Imaginary: Islam, Iraq, and the Projections of Empire,” International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, vol. 1, issue 1, January 2007.
2. The literature on Islamophobia is now extensive. A reliable introduction is still John L. Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin, eds., Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
3. See the assessments along these lines by the military historian Andrew Bacevich and the realist political scientist Stephen Walt. Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008), 176–177; and Stephen M. Walt, “Do No (More) Harm,” Foreign Policy. [Online]. Rev. August 7, 2014. Available: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/07/let_it_bleed_iraq_isis_syria_airstrikes_israel_palestine_gaza_iran’ [September 27, 2014].
4. Fahmi Huwaidi, al Ahram, September 21, 2001.
5. These hostile characterizations are cited by John Alden Williams. See Williams, “Misunderstanding Islam.” [Online]. Available: http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/islamW.htm [September 28, 2014].
6. See Williams, “Misunderstanding Islam.”
7. Qur’an 2:190.
8. Qur’an 22:40.
9. Qur’an 9:12.
10. Qur’an 4:75.
11. Qur’an 22:60.
12. For background, see “Archaeology in Israel: Masada Desert Fortress.” [Online]. Available: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Masada1.html [March 12, 2014].
13. See Nachman Ben-Yehuda, “The Masada Myth.” [Online]. Rev. May 14, 2008. Available: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/esp_biblianazar_55.htm [March 12, 2014].
14. Qur’an 3:142.
15. Qur’an 8:61.
16. Qur’an 8:60.
17. For an insightful fictional depiction of such a dance, informed by complexity theory, see Michael Crichton, Prey (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002).
18. For Muslim believers, of course, there is only one Islam. Its singular Message was given to the Prophet Muhammad by God for all humanity. With his evocative phrase, Said was drawing attention to the multiple human understandings of this message. These interpretations are the products of historical Muslim communities of interpretation. They represent fully human and diverse efforts to understand the universal divine Message. These interpretive efforts are inevitably flawed by the traces of the particular times and places from which they originate. See Edward Said, “There Are Many Islams,” CounterPunch, September 16, 2001.
19. For the full text, see the New York Times, September 20, 2002.
20. The current military rulers of Egypt, in the wake of the July 3, 2013, seizure of power, have gone even further. Al Azhar scholars are reduced to state functionaries with ever more blatantly propagandistic functions of the most vulgar kind. They are regularly called on to rationalize in Islamic terms the regime’s brutal politics of repression. They do so with dismaying subservience.
21. Cheryl Benard, Civil, Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2003), iii. (Emphasis added)
22. Benard, Civil, Democratic Islam, 3.
23. See Edward Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (New York: First Vintage Books, 1997), xi–2.
24. Benard, Civil, Democratic Islam, iii.
25. Benard, Civil, Democratic Islam, x.
26. Benard, Civil, Democratic Islam, x.
27. Benard, Civil, Democratic Islam, 1.
28. Benard, Civil, Democratic Islam, 30 n5.
29. Sayyid Yassine, al Ahram, July 22, 2004.
30. Yassine, al Ahram, July 22, 2004.
31. Benard, Civil, Democratic Islam, 49 n1.
32. Sufi orders often provided the indispensable leadership for battles against colonialism in Algeria, Libya, the Caucasus, and China.
33. Benard, Civil, Democratic Islam, 3.
34. Dilip Hiro, Secrets and Lies: Operation Iraqi Freedom and After (New York: Nation Books, 2004).
35. The phrase is from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who commented that “if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.” Albright was interviewed on The Today Show with Matt Lauer, and the statement was released by the U.S. Department of State. [Online]. Rev. February 19, 1998. Available: http://www.state.gov/1997-2001-NOPDFS/statements/1998/980219a.html [September 27, 2014].
36. Chris Hedges, “The Ghoulish Face of Empire.” [Online] Rev. June 22, 2014. Available: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_ghoulish_face_of_empire_20,140,623 [September 7, 2014].
37. See Murtaza Hussain and Glen Greenwald, “The Fake Terror Threat Used to Justify Bombing Syria.” [Online]. Available: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/28/u-s-officials-invented-terror-group-justify-bombing-syria/ [October 5, 2014].
Chapter 9
1. Qur’an 33:45.
2. Qur’an 96:1.
3. Qur’an 88:21–22.
4. See Qur’an 2:25, 82; 4:57, 122, 124, 5:9; 10:9; and 95:6.
5. See, in particular, John O. Voll, “Foreword,” in J. Spencer Trimingham, Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), vii–xviii.
6. Qur’an 112:1–3. “Say; He is Allah, The One and Only; All, the Eternal, Absolute. He begetteth not. Nor is He begotten.”
7. See Tareq al Bishri, “The Islamic Revival Added Much to Our Lives,” Rev. July 26, 2006. [Online]. Available: http://www.islammemo.cc/Wassatteyya [July 29, 2007]; and Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Islamic Renewal (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1997). (Arabic)
8. For a discussion of the importance of the popular expressions of the Renewal, as well as of the guiding role of the Wassatteyya, see Bishri, “The Islamic Revival.”
9. See the striking, midstream characterization of the role for contemporary thinkers of the “ocean” of fiqh from all schools in Yusuf al Qaradawi, Fiqh of Jihad: A Comparative Study of Its Rulings and Philosophy, vol. 1 (Cairo: Dar al Wahba, 2009), 20–29. (Arabic)
10. The phrase, with the meaning intended here, was coined by Robert M. Sapolsky, an advocate for interdisciplinary learning, in his Great Course Lecture Series, 2nd edition. [Online]. Available: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/biology-and-human-behavior-the-neurological-origins-ofind2nd-edition.html [October 4, 2014].
11. Yusuf al Qaradawi’s statement is available on Charles Kurzman, “Islamic Statements against Terrorism.” [Online]. Rev. September 27, 2001. Available: http://kurzman.unc.edu/islamic-statements-against-terrorism/ [October 5, 2014].
12. See the detailed discussion in Chapter 3.
13. Ibn Battuta, Travels of Ibn Battuta (Beirut: Dar al Nafais, 2004), 572, 677. (Arabic)
14. For a more detailed treatment of President Obama’s Cairo speech and some of the other related themes treated here, see Raymond William Baker, “The Islamic Awakening,” in Interpreting the Middle East, ed. David S. Sorenson, (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2010), 252–258.
15. The biblical phrase is best known to Americans from the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by Julia Ward Howe. The historian Barbara Tuckman borrowed it to characterize the periodic “chastening” of Arab aggressors by Israel. See Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 1979), 286.
16. Michael Scheuer, Statement before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, presented September 18, 2008. [Online]. Rev. September 18, 2008. Available: http://armedservices.house.gov/pdfs/TUTC091808/Scheuer_Testimony091808.pdf [October 15, 2008].
17. For a detailed discussion of the Islamist Imaginary, see Chapter 8.
18. See Ira Chernus, “Palestinian Violence Overstated, Jewish Violence Understated. Time to Change the Story.” [Online]. Rev. June 25, 2009. Available: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175088 [July 30, 2009].
19. For a pointed representative discussion of such purposive violence and the rules that circumscribe its use, see Yusuf al Qaradawi, Islam and Violence (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 2004), 26. (Arabic)
20. An important early contribution along the lines needed is John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think (New York: Gallup Press, 2007). More attention should be given as well to the English-language work of such diverse scholars as FranÇois Burgat, Samer Shehata, Graham Fuller, Emad Chahine, Alastair Crooke, Khalil al Anany, and Michael Vlahos.
21. The ideas presented here were first worked out and presented in greater detail as a critique of the West’s failure to give adequate attention to the Islamic midstream in Raymond William Baker, “Possible Partners, Probable Enemies: Why the US is Losing the Islamic Mainstream,” Special Issue of Arab Studies Quarterly, January 2009, 81–103.
22. Robert L. Heilbroner, The Great Ascent (New York: Harper & Row, 1965).
23. See Rami al Khouri, “The Arab Story: The Big One Waiting to Be Told,” Daily Star, July 21, 2007.
24. On Hizbullah and Hamas human rights violations, there is a fulsome and regularly updated record in the periodic reports of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The same respected international organizations regularly record the human rights violations of the Israeli state.
25. See Andrew J. Bacevich, “9/11 Plus Seven.” [Online]. Rev. September 9, 2008. Available: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174974 [August 16, 2009].
26. See Tareq al Bishri, The General Features of Contemporary Islamic Political Thought (Cairo: Dar al Sharuq, 1996), 58–59. (Arabic)
27. This broad generalization that sums up the midstream Islamic explanation is, ironically, argued by Michael Scheuer, the former CIA official charged with tracking Osama bin Laden. See Scheuer, Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2004).
28. For an extensive treatment of the “search for the moderates” and the question of democracy, see Raymond William Baker, “Degrading Democracy: American Empire, Islam, and Struggles for Freedom in the Arab Islamic World,” in Islamist Politics in the Middle East, ed. Samer S. Shehata (New York: Routledge, 2012).
29. Some of the most prominent Islamic centrist intellectuals, with standing throughout the Islamic world, have done precisely that. See, for just two examples, Tareq al Bishri, Islam Online, February 5, 2003, and Qaradawi, Fiqh of Jihad, 717.
30. For an elaboration on the intersection of scholarship and policy, see Raymond William Baker, “Getting It Wrong, Yet Again,” and Raymond Baker and Alex Henry, “We Can Do Better: Understanding Muslims and Ourselves,” both in Islam in the Eyes of the West: Images and Realities in an Age of Terror, ed. Tareq Y. Ismael and Andrew Rippin (New York: Routledge, 2010).
31. Qaradawi, Fiqh of Jihad, 717.
32. Qur’an 1:1. The first verse opens with God; Qur’an 114:1–6. Surah 114 is titled “al Nas.”
33. Qur’an 2:177.
Chapter 10
1. Muhammad Abduh, The Theology of Unity (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966), 148.
2. Philip Jenkins, “The World’s Fastest Growing Religion,” Real Clear Religion. [Online] Rev. November 13, 2013. Available: http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2012/11/13/the_worlds_fastest_growing_religion.html [August 11, 2014].
3. See Rashid Ghannouchi, “How Credible Is the Claim of the Failure of Political Islam?” [Online]. Rev. October 31, 2013. Available: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/africa/8087-how-credible-is-the-claim-of-the-failure-of-political-islam#top [February 26, 2014].
4. For a discussion of the January 25 revolutionary uprising and an earlier treatment of some of the themes developed here, against the backdrop of a review of nine recent books on Egypt, see Raymond William Baker, “Understanding Egypt’s Worldly Miracles,” The Middle East Journal, vol. 66, no 1, winter 2012.
5. Slavoj Žižek, “For Egypt This Is the Miracle of Tahrir Square,” The Guardian. [Online]. Rev. February 10, 2011. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/global/2011/feb/10/egypt-miracle-tahrir-square [September 28, 2014].
6. See Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); see especially the introduction, 1–11. [Online]. Rev. May 19, 2005. Available: http://iranian.com/Books/2005/May/Foucault/index.html [September 27, 2014].
7. Žižek, “For Egypt This Is the Miracle.”
8. Fahmi Huwaidi, al Sharuq, February 15, 2011.
9. Cited in Mona El-Ghobashy, “Egypt Looks Ahead to a Portentous Year,” Middle East Report, February 2, 2005.
10. For the most part social scientists have not taken note of the meaning of spirituality in the revolutionary uprising. Foucault did, although his assessment has been received critically. See Michael Hoffman and Amaney Jamal, Religion in the Arab Spring: Between Two Competing Narratives. [Online]. Rev. March 20, 2013. Available: http://aalims.org/uploads/Hoffman_and_Jamal_AALIMS.pdf [September 27, 2014].
11. For a particularly evocative discussion of the influence of the New Islamic thinkers, especially Muhammad al Ghazzali, see Belal Fadl, al Sharuq, April 14, 2013.
12. Rashid Ghannouchi makes this broad argument to great effect. See Ghannouchi, “How Credible.”
13. Jimmy Carter, “Egyptian Elections Have Been Fair and There Is an International Consensus on Recognizing Their Results,” Middle East Monitor. [Online]. Rev. January 13, 2012. Available: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/3273-jimmy-carter-egyptian-elections-have-been-fair-and-there-is-an-international-consensus-on-recognizing-their-results [October 23, 2014].
14. The “Endist” literature that predicts the end of Islamism and/or Islam itself is now almost three decades old, yet Islam still flourishes alongside the luxuriant commentary that predicts its end. Olivier Roy has been the most celebrated promoter, establishing his position with The End of Political Islam (New York: I. B. Taurus, 1994), which declared the end of political Islam in the 1990s. Roy has periodically renewed his position with predictions of endings after 9/11 and most recently in the wake of the Arab uprising in the spring of 2011. The works in the same vein are too numerous to mention and do not add much to Roy. A variant has appeared with the “post-Islamist” school, most persistently advanced by Asef Bayat in works such as Post-Islamism: The Changing Faces of Islamism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). A conceptual problem plagues this offshoot of the “endist” discourse since many Islamic scholars would be hard pressed to see any break or any need for a hyphen in an approach that appears to fuse formal religiousness with societal rights, faith with freedom, Islam with liberty, and seeks to focus on the rights of believers rather than obligations alone, pluralism rather than unitary authoritarianism, interpretation of texts rather than a literalist approach to fixed texts, and the future rather than the past. Major intellectuals of the Islamic midstream, such as Shaikh Muhammad al Ghazzali, Tareq al Bishri, and many others too numerous to name have made such interpretations a part of their scholarly work for some five decades.
15. See Graham Fuller’s provocatively titled A World without Islam (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2010). Fuller argues that if the death wish for the “end of Islam” were granted, little of substance to Western policy dilemmas would change and that the most intractable roblems are mostly of the West’s own creation.
16. See Note 1 of this chapter.
17. Khalil al Anani, “El-Sisi and Egypt’s Bankrupt Civil Elite,” AhramonLine [Online]. Rev. October 19, 2014. Available: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/4/0/84231/Opinion/ElSisi-and-Egypts-bankrupt-civil-elite.aspx [July 15, 2014].
18. For the Rice quotation, see Patrick L. Smith, “New York Times: Complicit in the Destruction of Egyptian Democracy.” [Online]. Rev. August 18, 2013. Available: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/18/new_york_times_complicit_in_the_destruction_of_egyptian_democracy/ [October 6, 2014].
19. Ghannouchi, “How Credible.”
20. For an ongoing critique from a leading Islamic intellectual of the Brothers in power and their subsequent removal by the military, see the weekly Fahmi Huwaidi columns in al Sharuq. Rashid Ghannouchi has also offered a valuable critical commentary from an Islamic perspective, most notably in Ghannouchi, “How Credible.”
21. Tareq al Bishri argued forthrightly that the decree exceeded the president’s legitimate authority. Bishri, al Sharuq, November 24, 2012.
22. See the January 28, 2013, press release from Amnesty International. [Online]. Rev. January 28, 2013. Available: http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/egypt-uprising-commemoration-unleashes-death-anddes2013-01-28 [August 1, 2014].
23. That telling moment was captured on video. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPva9Lv9PFU [October 12, 2014].
24. The movement was financed and supported by wealthy business figures, such as Naguib Sawiris, as well as the elements in the military that overthrew the regime. Details are hard to pin down, but the general outlines of the manipulated demonstrations and inflation of the number of participants have become clear. For a start, see Max Blumenthal, “People Power or Propaganda: Unraveling the Egyptian Opposition.” [Online]. Rev. July 19, 2013. Available: http://m.aljazeera.com/story/2013717115756410917 [October 12, 2014].
25. Human Rights Watch, “Egypt: Security Forces Used Excessive Lethal Force.” [Online]. Rev. August 19, 2013. Available: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/19/egypt-security-forces-used-excessive-lethal-force [July 11, 2014].
26. See, among others, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 247–288; and Abdullah al-Arian, Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 215–240.
27. See John L. Esposito, “Egyptian Reform: A Coup and Presidential Election to Restore Authoritarianism?” [Online]. Rev. June, 23, 2014. Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-l-esposito/egyptian-reform-a-coup-pr_b_5518364.html [July 4, 2014].
28. Fahmi Huwaidi, March 31, 2012.
29. Qur’an 4:122.
30. Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by President Barack Obama, Address to the United Nations General Assembly. [Online]. Rev. September 24, 2014. Available: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/24/remarks-prepared-delivery-president-barack-obama-address-united-nations- [October 29, 2014].
31. Rashid Ghannouchi, “There Is No Contradiction between Democracy and Islam,” Washington Post, October 24, 2014.
32. For a brilliant exposition of these broad themes of “absorption and adaptation,” see David Waines, An Introduction to Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 59.
33. “Art Quotes.” [Online]. Available: http://artquotes.robertgenn.com/auth_search.php?authid=9 [March 20, 2014].
34. The myth is recounted with innumerable variations. See the useful survey of interpretation at “Greek Myths and Greek Mythology: The Myth of Narcissus.” [Online]. Available: http://www.greekmyths-greekmythology.com/narcissus-myth-echo/ [October 2, 2014].
35. Cited and translated by François Burgat, “Islam and Islamist Politics in the Arab World: Old Theories and New Facts.” In Islamist Politics in the Middle East, ed. Samer S. Shehata (London: Routledge, 2012), 23.
36. See Tareq al Bishri, “About Religion and Knowledge,” Weghat Nathar, April 2004.
37. Abduh, The Theology of Unity, 148.