The Future of Political Islam

by Graham E. Fuller

Book Overview

September 11; vitriolic rhetoric against the United States by prominent Muslims; the war against terrorism shifts from Afghanistan to the Philippines and Indonesia. It is easy to believe Islam and Muslims are enemies of the West; it is also wrong. This sweeping survey of trends in the Muslim world contends that the issue is not whether Islam plays a central role in politics, but what Muslims want. To focus on radicalism and extremism blinds us from...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1403965560
• ISBN13: 9781403965561
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Erudite work. Remarkably simple. Must read.

I grew up in a Muslim country and witnessed the rise of what Graham Fuller calls "Islamism". Fuller's insight into this topic is outstanding. His analysis is remarkably balanced. I, for one, am surprised how intelligently Fuller cuts through the cultural, and religious layers and looks at the substance. It is difficult even for native writers hailing from that part of the world. More often than not, I find him spot on. If you are looking for a serious, and insightful, analysis into this topic; you must read this book.

Essential for policy-makers and scholars alike

I feel genuinely better about the prospects for greater understanding and reduced conflict between the U.S. and the Muslim world because of people like Graham Fuller. Knowing that someone like Fuller worked for the CIA and was in a position to positively influence events should make us all feel better. Fuller has succinctly, but eloquently tackled the subject of political Islam in this book in such a way that it allows his readers to intelligently participate in the current debate over the matter. He looks at political Islam from just about every possible viewpoint and produces a brilliantly written chapter for each. In this work, he provides very clear and easy to understand definitions of basic concepts, such as Islamist and secular, that go a long way in helping readers to fully grasp the content of the book. He also handles the subject in such a way that it reigns in harmful rhetoric coming from the Western point of view. This book would make a wonderful counterpoint to Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and others that have reduced this argument to mere slogans and vague generalizations. It is quite clear that he cares a great deal about the subject; his extensive experience living in many Muslim countries has given him the necessary experience to truly understand how Islam is shaping politics in these countries. He in no way is an apologist for violence of any kind, but he makes the point that not all Islamists are violent, and to ignore these particular Islamists is to beg for continued conflict. I believe Fuller has written an objective book that looks at this issue from all sides. It is clear in its approach and I would venture to say that the more policy-makers read and apply the content of this book, the better off we (the West and the Muslim world) will all be.

Informative and well-written overview of political Islam today

In _The Future of Political Islam_, author Graham E. Fuller sought to answer the fundamental questions of what is the nature and future of political Islam. Does political Islam represent the "last heroic stand" of Muslim culture against (largely American-led) globalization or does it instead represent a dynamic new synthesis of Islam and contemporary Western political thinking? Early on Fuller established that political Islam (or Islamism) is not the same thing as fundamentalism. Political Islam is a very broad term and includes everything from radical to moderate, violent to peaceful, traditionalist to modernist views and policies. In reality, political Islam is not an "exotic and distant phenomenon," but one that is linked to a variety of contemporary social, moral, economic, and political issues of almost universal concern, not limited to issues that are profoundly religious and moral in content. In chapter one, Fuller looked at important issues in Islamic history. A key political reality of the Muslim world today is the "fabled memory" of Islamic glory, one that "mocks" present Muslim impotence, an epic "stunning reversal of fortune." For Islamists key to this tragedy was an internal moral and spiritual decline of Muslim society, though most Islamists recognize that other cultural, intellectual, geopolitical, cyclical, and environmental factors were at work. Political Islam may represent the beginning of an intellectual reformation in Islamic thought, a reversal of marginalization of the Islamic world as it comes to accept the Western vocabulary of politics and its inherent values (democracy, pluralism, etc.) and become a social and political force to be reckoned with. In chapter two, he analyzed the very diverse roles that political Islam plays today. Islamism is filling a vacuum in the Muslim world, one that such forces as communism and socialism failed to fill, one driven by the needs of the people of the Islamic world. Political Islam is here to stay until either those conditions are weakened or have disappeared and/or some other force or ideology has arisen to meet those needs more effectively. A key thesis of the book is that political Islam represents the only viable alternative movement to most of today's authoritarian regimes, dominating the current field by "default." The chapter looked at three main areas political Islam addresses; issues of identity and self-perception (Islamism is strikingly inclusive rather than divisive, though functionally it is broadly similar to a nationalist movement, differing in that it has a strong moral component), internal political roles (key among them, critiquing the authoritarian state and corruption and providing social services), and foreign policy. Fuller concluded that the actions of Islamists may, ironically to many in the West, greatly increase the chances for not only democracy in the Muslim world but for a functionally private and secular society, as Islamists get away from the sta

Excellent Overview, and a "Must" for Beginners

"The Future of Political Islam" is a tightly organized and strongly presented overview of the important role of liberal-minded Muslim intellectuals in the ongoing, often contentious interface of the earliest of globalisms --- Islam --- with its contemporary capitalist, technocratic and secular variant. The strengths of this book are its brevity and a certain hard-nosed objectivity. Fuller avoids resting his arguments on the weak but all-too-common generalization of "many Muslims feel that ..." by richly citing "eye-opening" and often provocative statements by leading liberal Islamists such as Laith Kubba and Muhammed Shahrur, among many others. These well illustrate the broad range and reflectiveness of contemporary liberal Islamist thinking. Fuller, after a professional lifetime spent throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, offers some cogent thoughts of his own on how US policymakers can beneficially respond to this vast ferment of "Islamized" social and political agenda-making. In Fuller's view, the struggle -- for this what it is -- between radicals and liberals, conservatives and modernists, to define the role of Islam in modernizing societies has an essential life of its own quite apart from Western policymaking. Nonetheless, the West's ability to understand and empathize with the many nuances of "political Islam" will influence the course of this struggle and the future interplay of these two globalisms.

Whither the Muslim World?

Graham Fuller has written an illuminating and important book on the relationship between Islam, a religion, and Islamism, a "religous-cultural-political framework for engagement on issues." Most Americans, it would seem, associate Muslims with fanatic bomb-throwers. Fuller points out the diversity of Islam and its adherents and examines some of the reasons why Muslim states and political movements are so often failures in the modern world -- when 1,000 years ago they were in the vanguard of civilization. Amidst many other ideas, Fuller cites, from a UN study, three crisis areas for the Arab world. Lack of political freedom, low level of education, and the low social status of women. He postulates a choice among Islamists. They can continue to ossify or they can find ways to use Islam constructively to confront these crisis areas. This is the challenge of Islam, and the challenge of the U.S. and the West is to help ensure that the choice is the latter and not the former. In his last chapter, Fuller gives two scenarios for the future. One is dark, foreseeing continued conflict between political Islam and the West; the other is more hopeful. The best parts of the book in my view are Fuller's insights into what the U.S. might do to encourage the more liberal Islamists. These include a just solution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and support for positive movements in the Islamic world. It hardly seems in the U.S. national interest to have the Muslim world as an antagonist and thus this book is worth a careful reading for its insights and its policy suggestions.