Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith [Paperback]

Vartan Gregorian (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 081573283X | ISBN-13: 978-0815732839 | Publication Date: May 28, 2004

In this succinct, powerful survey of Islam, Vartan Gregorian focuses on Muslim diversity and division, portraying the faith and its people as a mosaic, not a monolith.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While many in the Western media have depicted Islam with broad strokes to the point of caricature, Gregorian, the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, reminds readers that it is unfair to generalize so wantonly about a religion that encompasses more than a billion people. This book is brief, but its scope is ambitious: Gregorian surveys 1,400 years of Islamic history, including such key modern events as the 1978 Iranian revolution and the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Naturally, some nuance is lost with this kind of dizzying breadth, but Gregorian competently presses home the point that Islam is a tremendously diverse religion that has changed considerably throughout its history. A final chapter explores the need for knowledge and understanding about Islam, which some have labeled "the green menace" that has replaced "the red menace" of the Cold War.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Gregorian writes with delightful clarity, an effective sense of irony, and a rich knowledge of the subject. He presents it as complex--unapologetically--but then delivers details with brisk simplicity." -- Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press (May 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081573283X
• ISBN-13: 978-0815732839
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #786,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readily accessible to non-specialist general readers, October 12, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith (Hardcover)

Islam: A Mosaic, Not A Monolith by Vartan Gregorian (President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York), is an informed and informative survey of the Islamic faith since its inception some 1,400 years ago. Examining Islam's tenets, institutions, changes, role in history, crucial questions that have caused strife among Muslim states, and a great deal more, Islam: A Mosaic, Not A Monolith is readily accessible to non-specialist general readers, yet thoughtful enough in its study and presentation of complicated issues of faith, politics, and culture to be of considerable value for scholars and dedicated students of Islamic Studies as well. In view of contemporary American efforts to combat the threat of international terrorism arising from fundamentalist Islamic extremists, Islam: A Mosaic, Not A Monolith should be present in the collections of every school and community library system in the country.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book On Islam That Engages Your Intelligence, Rather Than Insulting It, September 3, 2007

By 

Caesar M. Warrington (Lansdowne, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith (Paperback)

"Huntington [Samuel P. Huntington, author of THE CLASH Of CIVILIZATIONS And The REMAKING Of The WORLD ORDER] and others who write about a clash of civilizations do not recognize that class, tribal, family, personal, ethnic, cultural, economic, and national interests have always defied a unity of purpose that transcends all these divisions. As shown above, instances when the Muslim world was a unified monolith have been extremely rare. Throughout Islamic history, the gravitational pull of regional, dynastic, and since the nineteenth century nationalist interests has consistently outweighed the spiritual affiliations of some idealized, transcendent, organic umma. If history is a guide, it shows that in Islam, as in most major religions, there is a broad gulf between the ideal of unity and the realities on the ground." (ISLAM: A MOSAIC, NOT A MONOLITH, pp. 110-111).

The above paragraph provides the gist of Vartan Gregorian's excellent book, dispelling certain myths about both the Islamic world and Islamist extremism which are being promoted by some politicians, journalists, writers and religious leaders in the West.

Gregorian shows that the idea of a totalitarian Pan-Islamic juggernaut determined to engulf the world and submit it to "sharia" law not only is unlikely it has no historical foundation. While the fears of Islamist extremism are naturally not unwarranted and should be taken seriously, Gregorian also wants us to keep in mind the intense struggles between modernity and traditionalism, as well as religion and nationality in the Muslim world. Indeed, except for relatively brief periods in history, the Umma (the Muslim community) has mostly existed in a world fragmented by rival dynasties and states, willing to ally themselves with outsiders against each other. He reminds us that "Sharia" law, dreaded by many as some sort of universal Islamic system of punishment and coercion, is not a unified body of law, but rather exists within four specific schools of thought (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi and Hanbali), each with their own levels of interpretation.

Islamist ideology itself is shown to be quite varied, running through a spectrum that includes the most uncompromisingly fanatical to those more moderate and willing to work within the system and participate in electoral politics. Gregorian goes further to explain Muslim extremism as historically a tool that's been used both by and against western dominance. What started as a reaction to the presence of European colonialism in North Africa and the Near East was also nourished and utilized by Great Britain and the United States against Marxist and other socialist movements in the region during the Cold War.

Despite popular conceptions, fostered by governments and media for their own advantage, Gregorian finds Islamism to be in decline. After the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan the Islamist movement fractured and struggles with competing constituencies and agendas. While acknowledging it as an optimistic view, Gregorian references Gilles Kepel (from his 2002 book, JIHAD: The TRAIL Of POLITICAL ISLAM) on the belief that "the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, represented not a growing threat from Islamist extremism but the reverse: they were a symbol of its `isolation, fragmentation and decline.'"

Vartan Gregorian was born in Tabriz, Iran, but is from an Armenian background. In addition to serving as president of Brown University, founding dean and provost of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, and president of the New York Public Library, Gregorian is presently the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. ISLAM: A MOSAIC, NOT A MONOLITH grew out of a report submitted to Carnegie's trustees in the summer of 2001 on the need to promote public understanding for America's Muslims and also the need to ease their integration into American society. After September 11, 2001, the report took on a global perspective, developing into the more comprehensive survey that is this book. The next time you are in your local bookstore, wandering in either the Middle Eastern History or Religion aisles, ignore the glossed-over apologistic junk of Karen Armstrong on one end and the Islamophobic polemics of Robert Spencer on the other. Instead, choose to give this book a look over. You won't be disappointed.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome voice of reason, January 25, 2008

By 

H. Schneider "Hamlet" (Pandistan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith (Paperback)

The book was addressed to an American audience; its mission was to provide a brief survey of the Muslim world, its religion and ideologies, with the objective to destroy the understanding that Islam is a monolith and that America was at war with 'Islam', rather than with some specific Muslims. Given the small space that it had, the book does a remarkable job. I am sure an updated reprint will take care of the newish fad of 'Islamofascism'.
I must admit that I need the reminder of reason myself once in a while. Off and on I get carried away myself by popular rages. I fully endorsed Fallaci's rage after 9/11. I still will not throw her book away into the trashcan.
Things like the Rushdie Fatwah, the Bahmyan destruction, the various bombs, in first place the Bali ones, make me build up very strong negative emotions. One needs to direct these into the proper channels. One needs to read Gregorian and others once in a while.
My own education about Islam rested on the two pillars of a German writer of trivial adventure stories, which I read as a 12 y old, and then the remarkable Maulana Maudoodi's writings translated into English, when I was a twen. Then I put the subject away, done and settled. I looked at Islam like at Christianity, both somewhat irrational and surprisingly large sects following obscure faiths. Only the masses following them made them less than obscure.
Rage and neglect don't work, only knowledge does. So ok, let's get back to acquiring some.
About Gregorian: the book is not perfect.
I wish he had given a bit more space to the religion and its history. The first chapter is good for 35 pages, but couldn't he have done 50?
After explaining to us that Islam is not just about Arabs, Gregorian spends chapter 2, called Modernists and Traditionalists, almost entirely on Arabs.
There is also some PC attitude: on page 49 he says that 'the record shows that Islam is not adverse to science or technology'. However he proceeds by telling us that no science and technology happens, or very little. Other than arms. Similarly, he mentions that the basic education sector is a possible trouble zone, with teaching being left to unqualified ideologues on a large scale, but he does not elaborate on this 'hot potato'. Out of a sense of tact?
In chapter 3, Challenges of the 20th, he calls the Iran-Iraq war a war of Arab states. That must have been slipped in by an editor, I can't believe Gregorian could have made that mistake himself.
Further down in that chapter, he states that Z.A.Bhutto was Pakistan's President from 71 to 73. That is not wrong, but so misleading that it looks like a mistake. ZAB was Prime Minister until 77, when he was deposed, jailed, and later executed for (alleged) murder.
My point is: if the book makes these trivial mistakes where I catch them, how sure am I of the stuff which I have to take as stated for lack of own prior knowledge?
I will not hold it against the book that it mentions a major European problem only in passing: the integration issue. That is outside its scope.