The Losing Battle With Islam

Book Summary

In this comprehensive study of the Islamic revival from 1947 to the present, historian David Selbourne traces in detail the causes motivating the rise of Muslim fundamentalism in many countries and the West's largely uncomprehending response to it. He frankly describes the hostilities, cruelties, and errors of judgment on both sides. Writing neither from the 'left' nor the 'right', Selbourne pieces together up-to-date information from more numerous sources than in any other work on the subject. He highlights the grotesque role that some sections of the Western media have played and seeks to do justice to the Islamist cause, demonstrating how many of the real issues of the Islamic revival have been evaded. Selbourne argues that whether the 'reawakening' of the Islamic and Arab worlds has taken the political form of Arab nationalism, as under the leadership of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser in the 1950s, or the economic form of the OPEC oil embargo in 1973 and 1974, or the religious form of the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the present al-Qaeda suicide squads, in all its guises it is motivated by a sense of entitlement in Muslims to determine their own destiny free of Western subordination. The book contains separate chapters on: the immense scale of the Islamic resurgence and the upheavals and bloodshed it has caused, including between Muslim and Muslim; the concentration of the media on the violence and atrocities committed in the course of it; the deepening conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims in countries where Muslims have settled; and the types of lies, half-truths, deceptions and near-insane rhetoric which have been used both by Muslims and their antagonists in the struggles between them. The book then looks at the role played by Israel and Jews both in provoking hostility and as a source of obsession on the part of others; examines impartially and in detail the positions taken, and the moral trickery used on all sides, in such disputes as the Rushdie case; analyses the role of civil libertarians and human rights activists in promoting the Islamist cause, and in permitting liberties to be taken with, and from, Western democratic societies; and in its eighth chapter looks at the various methods and alibis employed in order to shift responsibility for violence away from the perpetrators. In the penultimate chapter, the author pays tribute to the great moral energy of the Islamic resurgence, showing that it has the beating of the frail ideologies of the West. He argues that this is particularly so at a time when much of Christianity, and especially the Catholic Church, have a diminishing moral status. And in the last chapter, he rejects as an illusion the prospect of a significant 'democratization' of Muslim and Arab nations, and shows how a combination of demography, Islam's ethical power, and the West's dependency on oil have the non-Muslim world on the run. Selbourne concludes with a warning against the illusions of the West about its superiority and ability to contain a force that is confident of its own moral superiority and certain of its ultimate triumph. Addressed both to general readers and to policy makers, academics, and journalists, The Losing Battle with Islam will stand for some time as one of the most impartial and authoritative accounts of a half century of Western conflict with Islam.

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