Americans' awareness of Islam and Muslims rose to seemingly unprecedented heights in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, but this is not the first time they have dominated American public life. Once before, during the period of the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981, Americans found themselves targeted as a consequence of a militant interpretation of Islam. Daniel Pipes wrote In the Path of God in response to those events, and the heightened interest in Islam they generated. His objective was to present an overview of the connection between in Islam and political power through history in a way that would explain the origins of hostility to Americans and the West. Its relevance to our understanding of contemporary events is self evident.
Muslim antagonism toward the West is deeply rooted in historical experience. In premodern times, the Islamic world enjoyed great success, being on the whole more powerful and wealthier than their neighbors. About two hundred years ago, a crisis developed, as Muslims became aware of the West's overwhelming force and economic might. While they might have found these elements attractive, Muslims found European culture largely alien and distasteful. The resulting resistance to Westerniation by Muslims has deep roots, has been more persistent than that of other peoples, and goes far to explain the deep Muslim reluctance to accept modern ways. In short, Muslims saw what the West had and wanted it too, but they rejected the methods necessary to achieve this. This, the Muslim trauma, has only worsened over the years.
"Scholarly, far-ranging, and thoughtful... the debate is interesting, and Pipes has made a stimulating contribution to it."-The New Republic
"Brilliant, authoritative... demonstrates encyclopedic knowledge of Muslim intellectual history... Few other writers have explained so lucidly such complex developments in Muslim history."-The Washington Post
"He has resisted a widespread tendency to translate Muslim self-expression into social science jargon as unintelligible as any mosque harangue. His unadorned interpretation strikes a judicious balance between faithfulness to sources and clarity of presentation."-The American Spectator
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and a columnist for the New York Post and the Jerusalem Post. Among his books are The Long Shadow: Culture and Politics in the Middle East (published by Transaction), Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition, Friendly Tyrants: An American Dilemma, and The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Aftermath and the West.
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Daniel Pipes is the president of the Middle East Forum and the author of numerous books, including In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power; The Long Shadow: Culture and Politics in the Middle East; andThe Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West. A former official in the departments of State and Defense, Pipes has taught at the University of Chicago, Harvard University, and the US Naval War College. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
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43 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Islam's political repercussions,
This review is from: In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power (Paperback)
Few writers, Thomas W. Lippman wrote in the Washington Post, have explained so lucidly the complex developments of Muslim history. It is difficult to address the questions of Islam, the Arabs and their relations with Israel and remain nonpartisan. But Business Week's Ronald Taggiasco called Pipes' scholarly explanation of events and faith in that little-known, volatile, and important part of the world well worth reading. Pipes' reasoned, literate explanation of what generated the Islamic resurgence goes a long way to explaining recent events. Written in 1983, this book provided the first comprehensive political study of Islam's extraordinary role in modern world. We are fortunate indeed that Transaction has rescued the political and global implications of the Islamic revival, revealed here, from the out-of-print category, complete with a new preface for 2002. The book is divided into three sections. The first covers the premodern legacy of Islam's sacred laws and its failure to implement the public ideal represented by those laws--as existed in the single state for Muslims (Dar al-Islam) from 622 to 753 A.D. According to Pipes, for most of Muslim history, traditional Muslims were willing to accept the gap between the ideal and the actual, to live with a less-than-complete implementation of Shari'a, although the Muslim approach to politics derived from the "invariant premises of the religion" established more than 1,500 years ago. The second section covers Islam's encounters with the West, beginning with the matched powers of Crusaders against the Ayyubids, and proceeding quickly to Napoleon's 1789 invasion of Egypt. (This prompted the Ottoman Sultan Selim III to declare Jihad against the French and join the infidel British and Russian empires to keep his own in tact). Muslims had ruled millions of Christians in Europe for 450 years before being displaced by Turkey. Then the western cultural onslaught began in the first half of the 18th century, and ran from Umma's eastern end (China and Indonesia) to its west (Crimea). By the end of 1919, only Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Arabia and Yemen retained political independence, the first three by balancing the claims of Britain against those of Russia and the latter two simply by being remote and completely barren. Meanwhile, the Muslim Empire had also lost battles of scientific, technical, mechanical, geographic and historical knowledge. Even daily Western life differed markedly from that of the Islamic east. Thus fundamentalists began lobbying for strict Shari'a everywhere in the Umma. In contrast, reformist Muslims argue that traditional Shari'a is hopelessly illiberal and conflicts with the true Qur'anic values. They reject Shari'a traditions emanating from Hadith, consensus of the 'ulama and reasoning by analogy as inauthentic and outdated, respectively. Similarly, they approve of parliamentary systems of government, but view hold their record in Islamic society in contempt. On some fronts, liberal views conflict with themselves. While they admire pan-Islamic solidarity they are not committed to it; and they recognize national interests but disapprove of Muslim states fighting one another. And as for non-Muslims, according to Pipes, reformists are caught by ambiguity, between their desire for equal status for all and the wish for Dhimmi laws that traditional Islamic states use to bestow a special place on Muslims, while relegating all non-Muslims to inferior, even slavish conditions. The fact that Westernization did not markedly improve the Muslim world in the 1970s led to increasing fundamentalism. Pipes devotes the third section to Islam in current affairs, detailing the effects of the fundamentalist surge on 22 Muslim-dominated nations from Indonesia, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Central Asia and Asia to Algeria, Morocco and Egypt in Africa and Syria, Iran and Iraq, in the Middle East. In at least 8 other nations, from Malaysia to Nigeria, Muslims vie with non-Muslims for power. In one of these--the Sudan--the conflict has grown bloody since this book was written, forcing millions into subjugation and slavery. Pipes also reviews 20 areas, including the former Soviet Union, where Muslims account for less than a quarter of the population but are asserting themselves. Pipes includes an extensive 50-plus page look at the means that the oil boom provided to promote Islam. Oil is behind the political importance of Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian Revolution, for example. But Pipes also concludes that an Islamic revival dependant on oil constitutes a mirage, for the cash that oil provides cannot last forever. This, Pipes predicts, will leave the Islamic world with a choice that has become increasingly urgent--to adapt and come to terms with global Westernization, or to accept apologetics, introversion and poverty. This broad treatment remains as helpful in understanding current events as when it was written nearly 20 years ago. Alyssa A. Lappen
26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a wonderful book, better then the newer one,
By
This review is from: In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power (Paperback)
Mr. Pipes, eminent scholear and great inflamicist of Islam most recently completed his book 'militant Islam reaches America' but this book is by far more scholaraly and gives a more complete picture of the Islamic world. This read has several shortcomings. Mr. Pipes attempts to survey many Islamic countries where Islam is the vast majority or the near majority. In these short paragraph length studies he does not touch on one subject that needs to be touched on, namely the fate of minorites in Muslim societies. He does not explain the ethnic cleansing carried out in many Muslim countries that helped create a homogeneity within nations like Turkey. Nevertheless he provides a wonderful appendix that includes a list of Muslim populations of countries throughout the world. What one will realize when reading this list is that the number of minority populations in a Muslim country is directly proportional to the time the country has been Muslim. I recommend this book wholeheartedly in light of our need to understand and critique the Islamic world. A good companion to 'The Rage and the Pride'.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
oil is correlated with the recent growth of islam,
By jeremiah aram (new york) - See all my reviews
This review is from: In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power (Paperback)
a tour de force. this title is one of Pipes' early works when he was preaching about the "comimg storm" but no one in DC would listen.
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