A Sceptical Islamist

Book Review: The Islamic projects of Muhammad Asad and Alija Izetbegovic

"Discussing these early analytical works by Asad and Izetbegovic, Sherif points out that, without any influence from political Islamic movements in the Middle East, both men conclude from their reflections on Islam that it contains public and political elements as much as personal, spiritual ones, and that it is impossible to be a Muslim individually without striving also to build a community based on Islamic values...

"Fortunately for Sherif’s argument, and unlike so many Islamic activists whose lives have been cut short in one way or another, Asad and Izetbegovic both lived beyond their periods of activism to be able to look back and reflect on their lives and experiences in maturity. And in doing so, Sherif emphasises, both re-affirmed their commitment to the ideals they had expressed in their youths, despite the hardships and difficulties they had faced."

My introduction to a book on Imam Khomeini (June 2009)

In June this year, to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Imam Khomeini, Crescent International and the Islamic Books Trust, Kuala Lumpur, published Imam Khomeini: Life, Thought and Legacy, a book of essays on his life and thought. I contributed the introduction to this volume. This is an abridged version of that introduction, as published in the June issue of Crescent International.

Two booklets on al-Quds and Hamas

This is a follow-up to my post on the current situation in Palestine, which included a copy of the obituary I wrote after Yasser Arafat's death in November 2004 (see here). 

Palestine is a subject that I have written on a fair bit over the years; I am currently working on a small book on Palestinian resistance which will expand on two booklets on the current situation in Palestine that I wrote for Crescent International (South Africa) in 2005 and earlier this year.  At the moment I am reading up on the struggle of Shaikh Izz al-din al-Qassam, who was killed by the British in 1935, and the Palestinian uprising of 1936-39.  (Shaikh al-Qassam is the leader after whom the Hamas military brigades are named.)  Fascinating stuff indeed.  So much history that deserves to be remembered but is largely forgotten...

Anyway -- those two booklets are available for downloading in pdf format from the website of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), if anyone is interested:

The Jewel of Medina and the achievement of the Rushdie protests

[An earlier version of this article was published as my 'Perspectives' column in Crescent International, November 2008.]
 
The last few weeks have seen the stirrings of what may become the basis for another world-wide Muslim protest movement like those about the Rushdie fitna and the Danish cartoons insulting the Prophet (saw). Beaufort House, a minor publisher in the US, published a sleazy work of fiction called The Jewel of Medina, by an America author, Sherry Jones, which has been described as a work of "soft porn" set in the time of the Prophet and taking a bowdlerised version of the life of Hadhrat A'isha (r.a.) as its theme.* Mainstream publishers Random House had earlier decided against publishing the book, after taking advice from consulants who told them that it would cause immense offence to Muslims.

Book Review: Norman Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry

A Jewish critique of the excesses and manipulations of the zionist propaganda industry

THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY - REFLECTIONS ON THE EXPLOITATION OF JEWISH SUFFERING by Norman G. Finkelstein. Pub: Verso Press, London and New York, 2000. Pp: 150. Hbk: £16/$23.

By Iqbal Siddiqui
[Crescent International, August 16-31, 2000.]

Muslims have often said that the greatest promoters of 'Holocaust denial' in the world are the zionists, because of their exploitation of the 'holocaust' for their political goals. Establishing historical truths, through the dislocations of time, and out of the partial memories and records of contemporary actors, is always difficult; in the case of the Nazi persecution of the Jews, the sheer volume of misinformation and disinformation generated by all sides of the debate have made any impartial and informed discussion of the issue virtually impossible.

Book review: How Islam influenced Britain 400 years ago

Browsing through Amazon.co.uk recently, I discovered that a book that I read and reviewed nearly 10 years ago has been re-issued in paperback: Nabil Matar's "Islam in Britain 1558-1685" (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

This is an academic study of a rarely considered topic, but remarkably readable and quite fascinating. It may interest people to read my review, published in  in March 1999. And if anyone is interested enough to read the book itself, you are unlikely to be disappointed.

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How Islam influenced British culture and civilisation 400 years ago

ISLAM IN BRITAIN: 1558-1685 by Nabil Matar. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1998. pp: 226 (inc. notes, bibliography and index). Hbk: UK£37.50.

By Iqbal Siddiqui
(Book Review, Crescent International, March 1-15, 1999)

The golden age of Islamic civilization, the thousand years from about 700 to 1700CE during which Muslims ruled from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and were the driving and leading force in human history, laying the foundations of much of what is now considered 'modern', have been carefully airbrushed out of modern western history books. History, the west teaches us, can be traced from the Greek and Roman 'ancients', through 'the Dark Ages', to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the sudden emergence of modernity in/from Europe in the last 300 years or so.