If fanaticism was the sickness in Catholicism, if Nazism was the
sickness in Germany, then surely fundamentalism is the sickness in
Islam." So writes homme de lettres Meddeb (Comparative
Literature/Univ. of Paris X-Nanterre) by way of an opening salvo in
a polemic sure to irk the ayatollahs. Fundamentalism, he argues,
has taken hold of the Islamic world since 1979-the year of
Khomeini's triumphant revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, events more than coincidentally linked-for any number
of reasons, not least of them the decline of secular education and
the proliferation of "semi-literate" followers of "candidates who
claim the authority to touch the letter." Other factors, by
Meddeb's account, are the general withering away of the Islamic
world as an important place vis-a-vis the rest of the globe, a
marginalization that began at least as far back as the 15th century
and the transference of what he calls the "world-capital" "ever
further away from the Islamic space"; the repudiation of
Enlightenment-influenced attitudes on such matters as the
liberation of women and universal suffrage; the failure of the
Islamic world to develop any kind of meaningful, modern democratic
tradition, and the failure of revolutionary leaders such as Ataturk
of Turkey and Bourguiba of Tunisia "to rid themselves of the
despotic tradition they had inherited"; and the rise of a strange
kind of American imperialism that has done too little to remove the
conditions conducive to creating "the man eaten away by resentment,
a candidate for terrorist and insurrectional fundamentalism."
Meddeb's analysis is provocative if touched by flights of
rhetorical confoundedness of the sort beloved only by French
philosophers. The payoff: Meddeb's crystal-clear assurance that "al
Qa'ida is destined to fail just as the Assassins failed . . . just
as every similar movement throughout history has failed." For those
seeking a window onto the Islamic world, though of tertiary
importance at best. (Kirkus Reviews)
In this impassioned, erudite, and deeply moving book, Abdelwahab
Meddeb, born and raised in Tunis and now living in Paris, details
the breadth and scope of the Arab intellectual tradition and
dismantles common preconceptions held by the Islamic and Western
worlds. He describes the growing resentment between the West and
the Islamic world as being due, in large part, to Islam's drift
away from its own pluralist tradition. Tracing the history of the
"conquering" of the Arab world by the West, he provides a detailed
history of the ways in which Islamic fundamentalism has come to
compensate for Western dominance. Directly addressing the terrorist
attacks of September 11, he challenges us to reconsider the
presumption that the gulf between the Islamic world and the West is
too wide to breach.The "malady" of Islam lies in its alienation
from the West and the corrosive influence that fundamentalism has
wrought. This book is a correction of the historical record, a
passionate description of the best of Islamic thought and culture,
and an absolutely necessary read for those seeking a better
understanding not only of Islam but also ourselves.
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