The Malady of Islam

Military Review, May-June, 2004 by Douglas McCready

THE MALADY OF ISLAM, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Pierre Joris and Ann Reid, eds., Basic Books, New York, 2003, 241 pages, $24.00.

The Malady of Islam, which offers insight into the condition of modern Islam, is written more for someone familiar with Islam than for the neophyte. The book's strength is also its weakness: it is written by a Muslim scholar deeply involved in the debate about Islam's direction in the modern world. So, it is the product of one conversant in Islamic history and thought but it is also the work of a Muslim whose thought fits better in Paris (where he lives and teaches) than in the cities and villages of the Middle East.

The book's choppiness and loosely organized arguments suggest that Abdelwahap Meddeb wrote the book in urgency following the 11 September 2001 attacks. The U.S. edition, which was written in March and April 2003, clearly states Meddeb's conclusion and offers a proposal to implement it. He says that instead of the United States being the answer to the sickness of Islam and the ills of the Middle East, it is instead part of the problem, most evident in the United States' current involvement in Iraq. European nations should assert themselves as political, military, and moral counterbalances to the United States and rectify what ails the Middle East.

What is important here is not the quality of Meddeb's argument, but the depth of his cynicism about America's intentions, evenhandedness, and sense of justice. He charges that the U.S.-Middle East policy is controlled by pro-Israeli neoconservatives and that the invasion of Iraq was not about freedom or weapons of mass destruction, but about regional hegemony and Israeli security. He accuses President George W. Bush of having a fascination with extreme religion, which precludes criticism of Wahhabism even after the 11 September attacks. When liberal, educated Muslims think this way, then America has a serious problem.

The majority of the book traces the roots of Islamic fundamentalism as put forward by the Hanbalite scholar Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328 A.D.). Meddeb describes fundamentalism as defective and unrepresentative of the history of Islam and seeks to return to a mythical original Islam, which in reality, never existed.

Islam in its modern form, represented by al-Qaeda and similar groups, is a symptom, not a cause, of what Meddeb describes as the sickness of Islam. In such times of sickness, the violent, literal reading of the Qur'an that exalts Jihad is chosen by some over the gentle, tolerant interpretation Meddeb considers more representative of Islam. He says nothing in Islam predisposes it to terrorism.

Meddeb sees modern fundamentalism as a response to what is seen as the marginalization of religion and the replacement of the divine by human authority resulting from the spread of Western secularism. It is this enlightenment model with which Meddeb identifies.

Meddeb is correct that something happened to the Islamic society more than half a millennium ago; it dropped from the forefront of science, culture, and trade, and its decline led to the European colonization of much of the Muslim world in the 19th century. Many Muslims look past this period to Islam's early days of glory and resent their experience of military, economic, and political inferiority. Their sense of victimization only plays into the hands of extremists.

Meddeb argues that Islamic fundamentalism must be understood as much in terms of the "Americanization" of the world as in terms of Islamic sectarianism. Americanization seems to mean an appreciation of technology apart from any system of values and the acceptance of a wide range of private religious beliefs within an overarching secular culture.

Authors John Esposito and Bernard Lewis offer better introductions to Islam and clearer explanations of how Islam and Islamic nations have gotten into the condition they are in, but for those with a deeper interest in Islam, Meddeb provides a liberal Muslim perspective on the state of Islam and the role of the United States in world affairs. While his views on Islam differ significantly from those of traditional Muslims living in the Middle East, his opinion of the United States does not. This should be cause for concern for U.S. policymakers and those representing the United States in Muslim countries.

CH (COL) Douglas McCready, ARNG, Dexheim, Germany