Reviews of Islam Under Siege

Islam Under Siege by Akbar S. Ahmed. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2003.

Reviewed by Karen Armstrong

in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 39/3-2005

Cambridge, UK.

In aftermath of September 11, people have continually asked me: “Where are the moderate Muslims? Why are we not hearing from them?” The question is often put belligerently, in the spirit of the Latin construction that expects the answer “no.” The subtext is that there are no moderate Muslims, because Islam is an essentially fanatical and violent religion.  In fact, there have been numerous condemnations of the September 11 atrocities from high-ranking Muslim scholars, but these are not always accessible to the Western reader. Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Professor at American University in Washington DC, is a moderate Muslim and his balanced and insightful book will be an invaluable introduction to those who sincerely seek to understand what has gone wrong.

            Ahmed denies categorically that Islam encourages violence. The Quran warns that killing a single innocent person is like murdering the whole of humanity; it preaches tolerance and respect for all faiths. Bin Laden and others who imply that God wants Muslims to be in perpetual conflict with Jews and Christians are quoting the Quran selectively and out of context. Far from promoting a clash of civilizations, the Quran celebrates sexual, racial and cultural diversity. This pluralist ethos inspires the work of the most important Muslim poets, scholars and philosophers, and made it possible for Jews, Christians and Muslims to live peacefully together under Islamic rule in Spain. Until the 20th century, Islam had a far better reputation for tolerance than Western Christendom.

            But Ahmed does not deny the extreme anger simmering in the Muslim world today. Since September 11th, thousands of Muslim parents are naming their children Osama. The television images of Muslims being killed with apparent impunity in Palestine, Kashmir or Chechnya have created widespread impotence and outrage. In the United States, where Muslims had frequently felt more at liberty than in such countries as Iraq, they have been increasingly under physical, verbal, judicial and religious attack.

            But Muslims are not alone in feeling surrounded by hostile enemies. After September 1l, the United States broadcast its news under the title “America Under Siege.” Israelis felt besieged by hostile Muslim Arabs, and Hindus by Muslims in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. The United States, Israel and India, stunned by the murderous onslaught of suicide bombers, and have responded to the threat with a violence that can only exacerbate the already perilous situation.

            In one of the most illuminating passages in his book, Ahmed refers to Emil Durkheim’s seminal Suicide: A Study of Sociology, which informs scholarly discussions. The spate of suicide killings is almost without precedent in Islamic history. It is nonsense to imagine that Muslims are simply impelled by a yearning for paradise or by blind, senseless hatred. Durkheim stressed that the traditional explanations ~ mental instability, race or climate ~ could not account for suicide, which was a consequence of a disturbed social order. In times of change and upheaval, old values disappear, no new ones take their place, and the strain leads to suicide and anomie.

            Ahmed explores the current social crisis in the Muslim world, which he sees as the result of globalisation, which, as commentators had noted long before 9/11, has been experienced in Africa, Asia (where the majority of Muslims live) and Latin America as an Armageddon, catestrophically disruptive of jobs, lives and traditions. Basic institutions, such as the tribe, the family or the state have been radically undermined. Displaced and lost, individuals respond to the threat by an excessive emphasis on group loyalty, and experience a corroding humiliation. Throughout the Arab and Muslim world, people say repeatedly that they have lost all honour, and America, the leader of the global village, has become the focus of rage and resentment.

            Perhaps Ahmed could have analysed the dynamics of globalisation a little more stringently and shown why the effects have been so particularly destructive in the Muslim world. He argues that in what he calls “the post-honour world,” there is a widespread retreat from the pluralism of post modernity and governments are retreating to the revenge politics of more tribal societies, not only in the Muslim world but also in India, Israel and the United States. Ahmed might, therefore, have explored the traditional role of the great world religions, every one of which ~ Islam included ~ was originally a conscious attempt to transcend the ethos of revenge and parochial or ethnic loyalties.

            Ahmed is, however, merciless in his analysis of the breakdown of Muslim society in the post-honour world. He castigates the lack of leadership in the so-called Muslim countries, the suppression of intellectuals and women, the corruption in public life, and the narrowly sectarian interpretation of Islam, which is so far removed from its traditional, global outreach. If the West must learn to respect the religion of Islam and redress the injustices that oppress Muslims throughout the world, Muslims must also set their house in order. They must cultivate democracy, encourage their intellectuals, liberate their women, and educate their young more comprehensively. Above all, they must rebuild the idea of Islam, which traditionally has always included justice, integrity, tolerance, and the quest for knowledge. All too often, piety and virtue are judged by political action, which is often equated with violence, rather than to moral integrity or spirituality.

            Ahmed paints a frightening picture of a world reverting to a more primitive state. The more global our world becomes, the more tribal our outlook when we feel threatened. The consequences could be fatal to us all. This is an honest attempt to describe the problems Muslims, without absolving them entirely from blame. Western readers should reciprocate in kind. If we expect Muslims to be self-critical, we too should beware of the knee-jerk tendency to project all culpability onto the Islamic world. Like Ahmed, we too should look dispassionately at our own society, examine our past actions and policies, and see how we may have contributed to the peril that threatens us all ~ Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

A perverted sense of honor threatens world peace: Denied justice, Muslims will abandon their spiritual roots and lash out

By Jane Lampman

Two years after that fateful day that unsettled American lives and radically shifted national priorities, it appears that little has been accomplished in one area crucial to shaping a secure future: Even as the country's resources are focused on the war on terrorism and rebuilding Iraq, 68 percent of Americans say they know little or nothing at all about Islam. Yet rising numbers (44 percent, up from 25 percent in March 2002) say that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its followers, according to a Pew Research Center poll released last week. Americans seem willing to reach conclusions, though admittedly with little knowledge.

In this unhappy milieu, two very different books by Muslim scholars shed welcome light on Islam and issues central to the world's well-being. Both men have worked in Muslim and Western societies and been personally involved in trying to bridge gaps of misunderstanding. They appreciate the necessity for self-examination on both sides, and are voices that need to be heard above the debilitating din of talk radio, TV shouting matches, and calculated religion-bashing.

Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World is the work of Akbar Ahmed, the chair of Islamic studies at American University in Washington. A learned Pakistani social scientist with a wealth of experience - provincial administrator on the border with Afghanistan, ambassador to Britain, promoter of dialogue among religions while under threat by supporters of Osama bin Laden, creator of books and a film promoting democratic values across the Muslim world - Ahmed is regularly called on by local Islamic centers across the US and by American think tanks.

His new book seeks to explain "the world that created bin Laden and the world he has helped to create." Bold and provocative, its penetrating cultural analysis will challenge Muslims and Westerners, demanding a more sophisticated consideration of what is occurring in the world. His thesis cuts through simplistic notions that either religious teachings or an evil mind have produced bin Laden and his many supporters.

Rather, a breakdown in social cohesion has occurred in many Muslim societies, he contends, which has helped produce an extreme sense of group loyalty and a perverted sense of honor.

This breakdown is the effect of colonization on local institutions, the failure of post-independence Muslim leadership, and the profound disruption of traditional cultures by globalization. These societies have lost their moorings and moved away from central features of Islam, including the goal to create a just and compassionate society.

"In the process of dislocation," Ahmed argues, "they develop intolerance and express it through anger.... Even those societies that economists call 'developed' fall back to notions of honor and revenge in times of crisis."

"By dishonoring others, such people think they are maintaining honor," he adds. "Many in our time consider it honorable to indulge in acts of violence." And religious loyalties are used to disguise those acts of violence, though they are contrary to religious teaching.

He points to bin Laden's extensive use of the concept of honor, the depiction of suicide bombing as an honorable act despite the Koran's complete prohibition, and rape being employed to dishonor other groups (by Christian Serbs and Indian Hindus, for example, as well as Muslims in Pakistan.) This is neither Islam nor tribal custom, he says, but moral collapse.

The widespread use in various cultures of a perverted sense of honor suggests we are living in a post-honor world, he argues. In a startling example in the US, Paul Hill, the former Christian minister executed last week for killing an abortion doctor, said in his final interview, "I feel very honored that they are most likely going to kill me for what I did." His followers call him a martyr.

Muslims have long felt humiliated by the failure of the world to take seriously the UN resolutions relating to Palestinians and Kashmiris, and since 9/11, many feel unwelcome in the world community. With Muslim societies in turmoil, the West can help restore a sense of dignity, Ahmed argues, by genuinely listening to Muslims and seeking to understand Islam, rather than clinging to stereotypes and prejudices.

This is the century of Islam, Ahmed says, and the real battle will be between exclusivists and inclusivists - between those who promote a faith-based group loyalty versus those who promote understanding and dialogue. "The world needs to focus on resolving these problems and not on responding to them with increasing force; it has been established in human history that violence simply creates more violence."

Mohammed Abu-Nimer, a specialist in conflict resolution who also teaches at American University, addresses that issue in Nonviolence and Peace Building in Islam. Primarily a work for practitioners in the field of peace-building, the book is illuminating for its discussions of Islamic principles of nonviolence and traditional Arab-Muslim methods of conflict resolution, which include forgiveness and reconciliation.

At this time of despair in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, his in-depth exploration of the extensive, organized nonviolent actions during the first Palestinian intifadah is revelatory.

While identifying historical examples of Muslim nonviolent movements, Abu-Nimer underlines the strong obstacles to peace-building in Arab-Muslim societies today, including officials who discourage criticism of political and social institutions and states that co-opt religious leadership, which has spurred the emergence of radical Islamic leaders.

Both these books make clear the primacy of justice as an Islamic ideal, promoted consistently in the Koran. "The Islamic tradition calls for resistance to injustice through activism," says Abu-Nimer. "Peace is the product of order and justice." Taking seriously a burning sense of injustice explored in these works may be an essential element in restoring a righteous sense of honor in today's dangerous world.

• Jane Lampman writes about religion and ethics for the Monitor.

Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World

By Akbar Ahmed

Polity. 213pp. $19.95

Review by Dr. Douglas M. Johnston

President, International Center for Religion and Diplomacy

For all the scholarship and pseudo-scholarship that has been written about Islam in the two years since September 11th, there are many fundamental questions about the state of the world and the cause for the violence of that day that remain unanswered. Perhaps no question has been more tortured than President Bush’s now famous rhetorical muse: “why do they hate us?” The plethora of answers from all corners has provided little solace, and even less peace.

In the United States, otherwise uninterested citizens turned to cable news and government officials for explanations of the source of this unprovoked violence that emanated from the Middle East. The problem is that the newfound interest in the Middle East by average Americans was fed with stories of genocidal dictators, religious terrorists and humanitarian atrocities. There was little reason to hope for peace when the new enemy seemed to be reared on violence and fanaticism driven by the kind of insurmountable passion that only religion can impart.

But there certainly were reasons to hope, and more often than not, these reasons were due to the hard work of the real experts often missing from discussion panels on Hardball and Crossfire. While “instant experts” gave their apocalyptic analyses, the real scholars and diplomats advocating dialogue and understanding were talking to small audiences in think tanks and at religious services, out of the limelight but clearly onstage.

One such expert is Akbar Ahmed, a name probably unfamiliar to many Americans, but nonetheless a well-recognized advocate of understanding between the West and Islam. A regular on the BBC and C-SPAN, Ahmed is a prolific writer and commentator on Islam, and currently teaches at American University in Washington, DC after having served a stint as Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. His latest book explains the post-September 11th world as he sees it, and there are few experts who can claim to see through the same side of the prism that he does. The unique vision presented in Islam Under Siege could only be the product of years as a diplomat and scholar – as a Westerner and a Muslim.

In the opening pages, the reader is tempted to believe that this is yet another hastily written book about Bush and Bin Laden, filled with ominous quotes but empty of insights. But Professor Ahmed’s ability to relate both personal stories and cultural narrative dispels this rather quickly, and the reader finds himself or herself following Ahmed’s hijra (pilgrimage) to the “Meccas” of America – like Dearborn, Santa Fe and Toledo – with page-turning curiosity. In what looks like a diplomat’s memoir or a current events travelogue, Ahmed’s ideas in Islam Under Siege are as prescriptive as they are descriptive, and the book develops into another well-crafted attempt by Ahmed to bring the West and Islam together.

Though many Americans will find some of his assertions contentious, Ahmed’s place in the debate on “why they hate us” is clear, and it is easy to recognize the importance of his work as a result of his particular experience as both a Muslim and a Westerner. He ably discusses questions about today’s world from a Muslim’s point of view for the West, and a Westerner’s point of view for Muslims. As such, Islam Under Siege is the perfect complement to one of the most popular books written about September 11th, Thomas Friedman’s Longitudes and Attitudes. Both books try to answer the fear and anger that inundated ordinary Americans. But where Friedman writes for a decidedly Western audience, Ahmed tries to address everyone involved from ordinary people in the Midwest to ordinary people in the Middle East – diverse and difficult audiences to say the least. It is telling that he finds himself at odds with prominent Western scholars like Huntington and Fukuyama while simultaneously eliciting the anger of fellow Muslims for not “leaping across [a] studio table and doing Rushdie in.”

Ahmed presents his subjects and ideas with a style that makes them inherently approachable, even to novice Middle East observers – which we have all become of late. He relates his arguments through such familiar American icons as Frasier and The Simpsons on one page and such abstract Islamic ideas as asabiyya (group loyalty) and adl (justice) and ihsan (compassion) on the next. We find ourselves engrossed in the saga of the Babri Mosque in India and in the plight of refugees in Kosovo, both with a new awareness of the kinds of tragedy religious fanaticism can conjure.

Islam Under Siege, then, is not necessarily about casting blame or fueling cultural animosity, but is instead an attempt to explain “the world that created Bin Laden...and the world he has helped to create.” Going further, it is about laying the groundwork for a dialogue among Islam and the West, two civilizations that Ahmed insists are not clashing.

Understanding that can only be achieved through dialogue is Ahmed’s prescription for the post-September 11th world, and he makes no attempt to hide the fact that this book is part of that dialogue. For example, Ahmed honors the namesake of his current position as Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies. Ibn Khaldun is a classic Islamic scholar who many consider to be the “father of modern social science,” not another terrorist or oil sheik as Ahmed wryly comments. The work of Ibn Khaldun has provided scholars in many fields with concepts and analyses of social cohesion that Ahmed says can be used to define the problems of the post-September 11th world and thus lead to workable solutions. Clearly these are beloved notions to Ahmed the anthropologist, especially the concept of asabiyya, which takes center stage in Islam Under Siege. Most closely translated from Arabic as group loyalty or social cohesion, asabiyya is the constructive effect an individual’s sense of belonging can have in a society. From the frequency of its use its clear that Ahmed would have us add this piece of Arabic to our vocabulary to balance the overused jihad.

In and of itself, asabiyya is an admirable quality in society since it embodies compassion and brotherhood. But while asabiyya can strengthen societies through such bonds of solidarity, exaggerated it becomes a pathological obsession with tribal loyalties that trumps justice and balance, an affliction Ahmed terms “hyper-asabiyya”, leading to chaos and oppression. Enter the Taliban. In a thought Americans will find completely alien to logic, Ahmed says that the Taliban did a fantastic job of governance because they combined the needs and beliefs of certain villages in Afghanistan when they first came to power. But upon moving to the larger arena of national power, their strict interpretations of Islamic law and uncompromising rule became oppressive and were seen to be highly exclusive in the face of a diverse community. There was no room for accommodation built into their rule, and as such, they came to blows with the rest of the world over such acts as the destruction of Buddhist statues and, secondarily, the inhumane treatment of the Afghan people. The Taliban became extremely defensive and oppressive as external pressures increased. The mullahs began to look less at policies that would ensure their own survival and more to defending policies defined in terms of honor. Ahmed says that this tribal mentality is what forced the Taliban to continue sheltering Osama Bin Laden in the face of imminent destruction by the United States military. They were not protecting Bin Laden because they were in fact evil, but they could not give him up because their tribal code of honor would not allow it.

This may be tough to swallow to the extent that it defies Western sensibilities. Indeed, Ahmed’s controversial statements offer Americans a bitter pill when he stingingly asserts that the United States has begun to exhibit signs of hyper-asabiyya. With a longing tone, he notes that before the fateful day of September 11th, the United States was the most Muslim-friendly country since Andalusia, the historic Spanish model for inter-religious cooperation and understanding. But the new siege mentality griping the United States since September 11th, exemplified by the restrictions on free-speech and civil liberties that the Bush administration has put into affect, has changed America not just for Muslims, but for all citizens. The implied similarity between Afghanistan and the United States is disconcerting.

Since groups displaying hyper-asabiyya necessarily do not exist in a vacuum, and with the impact of globalization, the possibility that small and determined groups will come to blows with the reigning superpower is increasing. We just have to look at the small group in Iraq called Ansar al-Islam and how much consternation they cause the Pentagon on a daily basis. Hyper-asabiyya is the vehicle that has driven us into what Ahmed terms the “post-honor” world, a world where honor loses its meaning as a humanistic goal and becomes instead “an exaggerated expression of group loyalty defined through violence against the other.” Compassion is lost as the other is portrayed to be cruel, a terrorist and “knowing no honor.” This is the post-September 11th world that no one can escape, from “people living in the supreme hegemon, the United States, to the not-yet-born state of Palestine.”

The post-honor world is a frightening one indeed, filled with Hobbesian anarchy only made slightly comfortably by the knowledge that we are not the cause of the violence “they make us do.” The problem is this works for everyone. The suicide bomber is defending the honor of his people just as logically as the Airforce bomber pilot. In the ensuing apocalypse, only the most violent and hideous acts against the other will be victorious. No longer is honor like a knight rescuing a damsel in distress, but more like a  knight who slays the dragon to show that damsel his devotion.

So where is the hope in this apocalyptic forecast of the post-September 11th world? Besides the stories of the unsung hero and seemingly mundane successes that pass for triumphs of the human spirit, the core of the hope Ahmed offers lies in the final chapter, titled “Toward a Global Paradigm.” Doubtless a call to action affected by his diverse experience, Ahmed indicates that the global order can be changed by inclusive, compassionate and just thinking on the part of world leaders – and this is best achieved through a dialogue among civilizations. He admits that dialogue garners the least attention in the media, and he warns that it can seem extremely futile to speak of the small achievements of dialogue in the face of charismatic spokesmen such as Osama Bin Laden. Nonetheless, helpful activities do exist and are necessary to prevent a bleak human experience filled with violence and hate. He points to people like Dr. George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury; Jose Maria Figures, former president of Costa Rica; and even rock star Bono of the band U2 as playing important roles in bringing the world together. In the post-honor world we are doomed if we let these inspirational humanitarians play second fiddle to fanatics like Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar.

Ambassador Ahmed sees lack of understanding as the biggest hurdle to overcome in bringing the world closer together, but he should be encouraged by the warm reception he has already received for Islam Under Siege – clearly an admirable first step. He does not play nice with serious issues and does not shy away from challenging the status quo in international relations. The subtle irony of this work is that while Ahmed is clearly aware of the ill affects of hyper-asabiyya, he falls victim to its exclusivism and determination in the face of attacks on the credibility of dialogue. Even as the bombs explode, he casts Osama bin Laden and his lot out of Islam. The justice and compassion of his progressive Islam help Ahmed to fulfill his religious duty to serve God in spite of those who would have his ideas destroyed. Islam Under Siege counters the calls for violence by religious zealots in its call for dialogue as the key to bringing peace: “The events of September 11th appeared to push the world toward the idea of the clash of civilizations, but they also conveyed the urgency of the call for dialogue...[it] will be the challenge human civilization faces in the 21st century.”

On a final note, it is important to recognize that dialogue is not a dry term suggesting a sterile exchange of views, but rather a dynamic process that over time can build relationships and, in turn, trust – at which point all things become possible.

By Stanley Wolpert

Prof. Akbar S. Ahmed, Distinguished Professor of Islamic Civilization and Studies, one of our most brilliant scholars of Islamic History and Culture, has just published Islam Under Siege, a book, which deserves to be at the very top of every American's list of vital works to read in order to understand our complex modern world.

Prof. Ahmed's lucid and sensitive work has most brilliantly put an end to any simplistic concepts that have long viewed all Muslims as "terrorists" or Islam as the "enemy of the West."

He teaches all of us to appreciate the "Merciful" (Rahim) and "Beneficent" (Rahman) importance of the great global faith of Islam that has captured the hearts and minds of more than a billion people in some 55 nations, and stresses the virtue of Sufism's mystic strand of Muslim consciousness, with its primary doctrine of "Peace with All" (Sulh-i-kul).

This brief but brilliant book should be required reading for all Members of Congress and our Nation's Cabinet, as well as for most of the Pentagon's top brass. Prof. Ahmed has shed light on a subject too long dealt with in doomsday cliches that he has most wisely dispelled, giving us hope for a brighter future of Peace and civilized reconciliation rather than endless War and violent hatred. He has left all literate people the world over in his debt.

The writer is a distinguished Professor of South Asian History Emeritus at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and author of world famous biographies of Jinnah, Nehru and Gandhi

Review

Akbar S. Ahmed, Islam Under Siege (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003). 172pp. + Notes, References, Index.
Tamara Sonn
The College of William and Mary

President of the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies

Islam Under Siege is a book for our times. As its subtitle indicates – Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World – it is not about a single religious community as distinct from the rest of the world. Islam takes center stage because global developments have converged to place it at the heart of what is perceived as the breakdown of civilization. Nor is this yet another “clash of civilizations” discussion. Written by a renowned anthropologist of the both Islamic and Euro-American societies, Islam Under Siege describes today’s “a changing, complicated, and dangerous world” in terms of social transition. The mayhem that surrounds us -- exemplified by, but certainly not confined to, September 11th -- represents the death throes of a world riven by disparities between the powerful and powerless. The author, also a seasoned diplomat and a man of profound faith, suggests that it represents as well the birth pangs of a global civilization based on universally accepted standards of justice and compassion.

In his 1941 State of the Union Address, Franklin D. Roosevelt articulated the Four Freedoms, rights that should be enjoyed universally: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. At that traumatic time, the U.S. president also called for a “world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – anywhere in the world.” Mr. Roosevelt’s sentiments were shared by many; the United Nations was established just a few years later, expressing international will to achieve similar objectives. Unfortunately, the goals remain elusive. The gap between the rich and the poor and widened; the number of people living without the civil or political rights demanded by people in Euro-America has increased; the development, manufacture, and use of weapons remains a major source of income for the world’s wealthiest economies; and perhaps most perniciously, the assumption that conflicts can be resolved militarily remains largely unchallenged at the policy level. In short, more people live powerless in poverty and fear than ever before. Akbar Ahmed describes the apparent chaos surrounding us as the result. (See chapters 1 and 2, “Islam Under Siege” and “What Is Going Wrong?”)

Recalling the observations of famed 14th-century historiographer Ibn Khaldun, as well as modern sociologist Emile Durkheim, Ahmed bases his analysis on characteristics of tribal behavior. Asabiyya is the Arabic term used by Ibn Khaldun to identify the basis of tribal identity and solidarity. In tribal society, asabiyya accounts for altruism and often focuses on notions of group honor. If the group or any of its members suffer offense, recompense must be made. Vengeance must be taken upon the offender/s to restore tribal honor. Ahmed notes that in religious communities tribal identity is superseded, and solidarity is based on shared commitment to religious ideals. Notions of honor shift accordingly, finding new ground in those ideals. Thus, in the case of the Islamic community, identity and honor were both based on commitment to the ideals of justice and compassion. However, religious communities are also real communities, subject to economic and political developments. In the modern era, economic and political setbacks have seriously challenged Islamic ideals in some quarters. While the Islamic community was powerful and successful in the Middle Ages, enjoying prosperity, security, social cohesion and cultural productivity, European colonialism and post-colonial conditions have reversed its fortunes. Economic deprivation, political impotence, and continuing conflict in areas such as Palestine, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Kashmir, have effectively suspended Islamic ideals among some groups. Islamic solidarity and its core values in such instances have been replaced by a kind of hyper-tribalism. Perceiving no benefit from broader group identities – indeed, subjected to humiliation and outrage -- certain segments of Muslim societies have retreated into smaller units and concocted perverse notions of honor and vengeance bearing no resemblance to mainstream Islamic values.

Ahmed identifies this aberrant behavior as hyper-asabiyya. It characterizes not only self-styled Islamic terrorists, but the behavior of some segments of other religious communities as well. Ahmed mentions those Jews, Christians, and Hindus associated with the suffering of Palestinians, Bosnians, and Gujarati Muslims as examples. In his analysis, these groups likewise exhibit hyper-asabiyya, violating the norms of their respective religious communities and subjecting people to terror of various forms. The systematic rape of Bosnian and Gujarati women is explicated as most grievous examples. Like the acts of so-called Islamic terrorists, these acts conform to no known norms of ethical behavior. They are examples of what Ahmed calls “post-honor”. The fact that they continue, with relatively little public scrutiny in all cases except those identified as Islamic, explains Ahmed’s description of ours as a “post-honor world”. (See Chapter 3, “Ibn Khaldun and Social Cohesion.”)
Ahmed thus distinguishes between two kinds of honor – that based on justice and compassion and that based on vengeance. The former is the ideal, established by religious communities worldwide. The latter is characteristic of aberrant tribalism. (In an interesting aside, Ahmed also observes that the latter is characteristic of “the male interpretation of social action.” [16]) The former is based on recognition of a shared humanity, a global civilization; the latter, on exclusive identities, the kind envisioned by those who speak of “civilization s ” and who divide the world into those who are either “with us” or “against us”. In Ahmed’s analysis, such exclusive identities facilitate hyper-asabiyya. Reducing “the other” to subhuman level, hyper-asabiyya removes “the other” from the purview of the subject group’s ethical system. “The other” shares neither the responsibilities nor rights of the exclusive group. Within the Islamic world, Ahmed characterizes Pakistan’s founding president, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, as a proponent of the inclusivist vision of human dignity, and Osama bin Laden as a spokesperson for the exclusivist, “post-honor” view of humanity.

Among the most important aspects of this work, and one that distinguishes it from the majority of faith-based analyses, is that Ahmed directly confronts aspects of mainstream Islamic thought that may contribute to contemporary aberrations. He notes, for example, that the distinction between dar al-Islam (the abode of Islam) and dar al-harb (the abode of war), used by medieval Muslim scholars to divide the word between “us” and “them”, must be superseded. It is “no longer valid,” he says, and “largely irrelevant” (17) since Islam is now an international religion. Roughly one third of the world’s Muslims live as minorities around the globe and, in fact, frequently find far greater freedom and security outside of the traditional Islamic world. This is a courageous step for a Muslim scholar, as is his acknowledgement that anti-Semitism does in fact exist among Muslims (29, 110) It is true, as most sources point out, that anti-Semitism is essentially a Christian phenomenon, not an Islamic one; the Qur’an acknowledges and accepts diversity in religion as part of the divine plan. History provides no examples of systematic oppression of Jews by Muslims. And it is certainly possible to criticize the policies of the state of Israel without being anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, since the establishment of the state of Israel and the concomitant displacement of Palestinians, anti-Semitism – often in the form of the “eternally popular Jewish conspiracy theory” (69) -- has developed within some sectors of the Muslim community. Ahmed also boldly points out that despite the clearly aberrant nature of “Islamic” terrorism, “Muslim parents in the thousands are naming their sons Osama.” (29; 113) He acknowledges the double standard of the millions of Muslims (and non-Muslims as well) who rejoiced over the September 11th attacks, while at the same time condemning terrorism. Nevertheless, Ahmed maintains that core Islamic values are themselves inclusivist, based on commitment to human equality and dignity. His explication of these values through Qur’anic references (9-11, e.g.) is convincing, as are the numerous instances he gives of those engaged in constructive inter-faith dialogue and cooperation. For example, he describes he success of al-Akhawayn University in Morocco. A modern university, over half of whose students are female, it was established by leaders who are committed to inter-faith solidarity. Ahmed recounts a conversation he had in which the king of Morocco (then crown prince) claimed the strength of his society is based on the equality of all believers. “Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe in the same God, he said, and all are essentially the same.” (103) Still, Ahmed acknowledges that “there are fare too few” examples like this. (See chapters 4-6, “The Failure of Muslim Leadership,” “Searching for a Muslim Ideal: Inclusion,” and “Searching for a Muslim Ideal: Exclusion.”)
At the first meeting of the American Academy of Religion following September 11th, it was suggested that the hackneyed phrase “clash of civilizations” had outlived its usefulness; we must now begin to speak of the “search for civilization”. The suggestion was based on recognition that international terrorism did not develop in a vacuum. It is the result of conditions considered dire enough for increasing numbers of people to choose death over continued life in those conditions. The rational approach to countering this movement, then, is to identify and change those conditions. In his concluding chapter, “Toward a Global Paradigm,” Akbar Ahmed answers the challenge posed at that November 2001 meeting. The danger in our post-honor world (referred to in the book’s title) results from the reciprocal dehumanizing of hyper-asabiyya, the retreat of groups who feel threatened into primitive gang-like behavior. September 11th was neither the first nor the last installment in the cycle of dehumanization, as the Holocaust and the bombing of UN headquarters in Iraq demonstrate. But, in Ahmed’s view, studied in their full historical context the atrocities committed that day reveal the path toward a better future. They reveal the need for construction of a world civilization based on values shared across humanity. “To reverse the movement that has brought us into a post-honor world we need to rediscover the dialogue with and understanding of cultures other than our own. We need to emphasize a morality that emphasizes justice and compassion for all.” (16) He calls for continuation of inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogue that has emerged over the past century and gained momentum at the end of the 20th century. Current militarist approaches to the problem of terrorism only exacerbate the root causes of violence, unbalanced distribution of wealth, and lack of democracy. Proper understanding based on dialogue will lead to policies promoting education and redistribution of wealth, which themselves will result in democratization and improving the status of women. The inclusive global civilization envisioned will not be created at the expense of uniqueness. It must be based instead on appreciation of the differences in local identities and religious traditions. Each has a role to play and each is entitled to share in honor based on human dignity. Akbar Ahmed’s view is, ultimately, an optimistic one. Despite the chaos we have created, human beings – in their shared humanity – possess the ability to construct a better world. In his concluding words, “[T]he committed search for global solutions to the common global problems confronting human society, and the quest for a just, compassionate, and peaceful order will be the challenge human civilization faces in the 21st century. To meet the challenge is to fulfill God’s vision; to embrace all humanity in doing so is to know God’s compassion.” (172) The author has personally committed himself to the effort, and clearly believes the rest of us are up to the challenge (see “Introduction: God’s Gamble”); let us hope he is right.