The Failure of Political Islam

by Olivier Roy

Book Overview

Olivier Roy demonstrates that the Islamic Fundamentalism of today is still the Third Worldism of the 1960s: populist politics and mixed economies of laissez-faire for the rich and subsidies for the poor. In Roy's striking formulation, those marching today beneath Islam's green banners are the same as the "reds" of yesterday, with similarly dim prospects of success. Richly informed, powerfully argued, and clearly written, this is a book that no one...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674291417
• ISBN13: 9780674291416
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Resisting the idea of the clash of civilizations

This is an easy to read book that contains interesting ideas about the role of political islamic movements. However it puts advances different notions than most books on the subject that ahve been published in the aftermath (and before, if we think of Huntington). This book suggests that Islam is not necessarily heading for a major confrontation or clash with the West. Some have suggested and criticized that the WTC attack proves otherwise; however, the the full story on that event and its aftermath have yet to be written and despite its horror, the evnt has worked far more in favoring an attack from the West to Islam than the other way around. Olivier Roy, in the tendency of another French scholar Gilles Kepel, challenges the clash of civilizations concept and suggests that Political islam has failed because it has proven itself incapable of bringing about desirable changes in the poltical and socio-economic spheres in the Islamic world. Indeed, the very fact it has to resort to violent means (after the many years that muslim politics have existed in one form or another) is a sign of its failure to make attract sufficient followers. More significantly, Roy points out the various divisions theological and sectarian (eg. Shi'a vs. Sunni)national that have impeded the succesful formation of a universal and monolythic Islam capable of challenging the supposed antagonistic civilization of the West. he provides examples from all over the Islamic World including Algeria, Afghanistan and Iran. Some of the comments made by the more critical reviewers here are also worth noting, notwithstanding the fact this booo remians an importnat book, perhaps more so today than at the time it was written.

Don't misunderstand the book's title

[many people] seem to have latched on to the book's title and misinterpreted his thesis. They have declared Roy completely wrong because political Islam is still with us and often manifests itself violently. (By the way, "Fundamentalist" Islam is a misnomer. Roy explains why. "Islamism" or "political Islam" is more accurate to say.) Roy is not saying political Islam is "dead;" he is saying it has "failed." Failed to deliver on its promise of a just government. Failed to provide a prosperous society. Failed to foster a flourishing culture. In this sense, it has failed. Not in the sense that those who believed in it have abandoned it. On the contrary, of course. (There are remarkable parallels to Communism's failure here. I wonder if anyone has written a good comparison...)In the wake of a failed ideology, we are left with murderous extremists who will not be convinced the failure was internal, despite Roy's excellent piece of scholarship... Every killing in the name of Allah and Sharia is further proof Roy was right.

A Necessary European & Francophone perspective

Contrary to several previous "reviewers" Oliver Roy's conclusions strike home quite convincingly....While also a Muslim, more importantly for this review, I am also a social scientist. Too much about "political Islam" has been written in English by Anglo-American scholars and journalists, who represent that particular cultural perspective, irrespective of differing approaches. French scholarship differs greatly as the Franco-Muslim world relationship runs much deeper and has more complexity than that of the Americans, who generally present a rather stereotyped view...more out of a naive and ideological narrowness than any "hidden agenda". Here, I would add a note from Amin Malouf's brilliant study of the Crusades from an Arab historical view...one can see the failure of Turko-Arab political rule from the 10th century on in its inability to change and adapt to a process of less totalitarian and oppressive form of domination over their own --remembering that Turks ruled most of the Arab world for the past 1000 years. Thus, as Roy finds, the "reds" of the 1970's have become the "greens (Islamists) of the 1990's, which corroborates Abdullah Laroui's premise in the "Crisis of the Arab Intellectual" -- that there is a totalizing cultural predeliction to blindly follow A or B shifting this way and that without critical, analytic, and compartive thought.. So too, most critical thinking Muslim social scientists, like Mohammed Arkoun, are emigres & refugees in Europe, France in particular, as they have had to face oppression & death in their own countries.Thus one must read Roy in the light of a tradition of Franco-Arab scholarship that differs epistemologically from that of the Anglo-American world, thereby referring to and a host of French Islamists, including Jaque Berque, Braudel, Rodinson, and Francophone Muslim scholars, who continue to be at the cutting edge of analytical interpretation.

Thoughtful, knowledgeable and realistic

I read this book a few years ago and was moved to add my review here after reading the other critiques. What I liked most about the book was its realism. The author does not buy into the anti-Muslim paranoia but is also very clear-headed about what political groups claiming to operate in the name of religion can achieve. Read this book if you are worried about rising religious zealotry all over the world, but are also unhappy with the popular but unfounded analyses of "civilizations in conflict" and "the next enemy".