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

Middle East Policy, Spring 2004 by Sullivan, Antony T

Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-honor World, by Akbar S. Ahmed. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing. 213 pages. $19.95, paperback.

This is a painfully honest and intensely personal book that expresses the anguish Akbar Ahmed and many others who have worked in the arena of Christian-Muslim understanding have felt since 9/11. It captures those dark nights of the soul to which one may be more tempted to capitulate with every passing day. The question, implicit or otherwise, on every page, is this: Have all the efforts on behalf of interfaith understanding, tolerance and forgiveness been for naught? Especially painful for Professor Ahmed to relate must have been the efforts made by some Muslims over more than a decade to frustrate his initiatives on behalf of Abrahamic reconciliation. Ahmed candidly discusses the deterioration in the Islamic world that has contributed to the present crisis, while also pointing out the Western stereotypes concerning Muslims and their culture that have contributed to what he admits is now a clash of civilizations. Despite this mountain of bad news, the author nevertheless expresses hope for a better future. For all is indeed not dark, and Professor Ahmed offers examples of some of the positive signs. Clearly, he intends to continue his efforts to promote reconciliation between Islam and Christianity, and East and West. Can any of those who also work in this field fail to do likewise?

Originally educated at a Roman Catholic boarding school for boys in a remote region of northern Pakistan and professionally trained as an anthropologist, Professor Ahmed today holds the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, DC. Ibn Khaldun, the fourteenth-century North African polymath and spiritual father of many of the contemporary social sciences, is someone with whom Akbar Ahmed himself may legitimately be compared. In addition to Ahmed's authorship of such books as Jinnah, Pakistan, and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin, Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Culture, and Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise, he has served as Pakistani high commissioner in the United Kingdom, produced a variety of documentary films and a novel, and traveled the world lecturing to academic and non-academic groups. Islam Under Siege expands upon many of the arguments that he has made elsewhere and focuses especially on such ancient notions as dignity, honor, revenge, ethnicity and group loyalty, concepts deemed irrelevant by many of those who have expected the post-Cold War world to witness an unimpeded march of Western democracy throughout much of the Third World. Ahmed's analysis and reworking of these ideas, and his demonstration that Muslim societies are in turmoil because of a breakdown in social cohesion, constitute the intellectual heart of this book.

The tragedy of 9/11 weighs heavily upon this volume and upon Muslims worldwide. This is despite the fact that the events ofthat day, as Ahmed points out, had "little to do with Islamic theology" (p. 9). Nevertheless, Osama bin Laden's actions have stained Muslims everywhere, Ahmed notes, and have reversed their participation in the process of globalization. Muslims now face "intractable problems at every border; they [are] checked and rechecked at airports; their business and financial concerns [are] repeatedly scrutinized; their beliefs and customs [are] viewed with suspicion and often ridiculed; and they [are] made to feel unwelcome in the community of world cultures" (p. 55). The result is a mixture of "anger, incomprehension and violent hatred" (p. 46), which Ahmed observes is fanning the flames of a worsening conflict of civilizations. Unless current trends are reversed, he predicts great difficulty for globalization everywhere, and a darkening future for societies throughout the world.

Akbar Ahmed's personal anguish is shared by many who have labored on behalf of tolerance, understanding and cooperation between Muslims and Christians. This anguish results from observing how interfaith relations seem to worsen year after year, despite all efforts to the contrary, and to observe how the United States, as well as important Muslim countries and groups, obdurately pursue policies that almost seem designed to make the situation worse. As Ahmed notes, the philosophy of crusade is now in the saddle and "important voices for interfaith dialogue and understanding [are lost] amid the noise" (p. 30). And he observes: "I have spent my life trying to repair the image of Islam. Has it all been in vain?" (p. 172, f. 6). Many others have asked the same question. Fatigue not only encompasses Professor Ahmed but extends far beyond.

What are the factors, east and west, that have led to the bloody ground upon which we all now stand? Professor Ahmed courageously identifies assorted plagues in the Islamic world that he has personally experienced but whose implications reach far beyond himself. Specifically, he discusses the campaign that was mounted for over a decade against his many ecumenical endeavors, and recounts how a variety of Pakistani and other Muslims indulged in slander or worse to undermine his initiatives. This is important material that eminently deserves to be put on the historical record. Ahmed identifies attitudes or stereotypes in the West that have only provided grist for the mill of Islamic extremism. One may hope that what he reports will be pondered by policy elites everywhere.