We are fortunate in this respect to have available a new book that provides, in my view, one of the most comprehensive, accurate and useful analyses of the core philosophy and motivating political principles of political Islamism that is available to English-speaking readers. The book is titled "Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution", by Alastair Crooke. It cuts through much of the ideological venom, post-9/11 vengefulness, neo-Orientalist stereotyping, or mere nonsense that characterizes much of what is said and written about Islamist movements in much of the Western world and Islamic societies alike.
Crooke, who is based in Beirut, knows the Islamist movements intimately. He has worked or interacted with them in various capacities in the Middle East and Afghanistan-Pakistan for the past three decades, whether in his long service with the British government or the European Union, or more recently as founder and co-director of the Conflicts Forum, an NGO that focuses on meetings and exchanges between Islamist movements and interested parties in the Western world.
The book's strength, aptly captured in its title, is that it distills into 10 chapters the most important core motivating forces of Islamism as it has developed in our generation, especially since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Though Crooke traces Islamism's historical roots to the early 20th century and beyond, he concentrates on systematically analyzing its philosophical, ethical, cultural, religious, economic, psychological, national and political values that are important in two respects: First, they explain why and how Islamism, through the lens of "resistance," has mobilized hundreds of millions of individuals seeking to change the way their societies, politics, and economies operate; and second, they clarify the essential differences, even the confrontations, between Islamic values and the drivers of "Western" values deriving largely from the Euro-centric nation-state anchored in its brand of democracy, secularism, individualism and materialism.
http://newageislam.com/-resistance--is-the-essence-of-islamism--/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1347
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