September 29, 2002

9/11 is supposed to have changed the world. Whilst only history will ascertain the validity of that statement some, including this reviewer, subscribe to the view that it merely shone a harsh and unremitting light onto a morally, logically and religiously bankrupt movement — and its equally bankrupt instigators and colluders. There can be no doubt that both the Muslim world and the American government were equally culpable in the creation and sustenance of Islamist movements around the world — movements which culminated in a loose, incoherent hatred of the West and in particular America.

Although labelling such a broad, encompassing sense of feeling, a movement maybe stretching a point, Jihad: the trail of political Islam purports to be one of the many torches currently available on the Internet, in bookstalls, in the form of numerous documentaries that sheds light on this quasi- movement.

Gilles Kepel, the author, is an accomplished writer and keen student of the history of political Islam, acknowledged as a European authority on the subject. The misleading title aside — the word “Jihad” is little more than an eye-catching sales aid — the book was written and published before the events of last year but now includes a preface and extended conclusion in the light of the attacks.

Political Islam really became a force, Kepel asserts, with the death of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and the decline and failure of secular nationalism as a form of leadership. Revolving around the ideas of Sayyid Qutb (whom Nasser had had executed in 1966) and scholars such as the Pakistani Maulana Maudoodi, this new form of politics — whereby Islam and its many interpretations became the overriding principle of running a country — steadily expanded throughout the Middle East and the subcontinent.

The book is an exhaustive journey through the countries that saw the rise to prominence of such forces — Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran and Afghanistan. We are taken through the heyday of the movement, the strict Shia rule in Iran, the obscurantism of Wahabi rule in Saudi Arabia, Turabi’s despotic control of much of Sudan as well as the militant uprisings of Egypt and Algeria. The majority of these cases, not all, saw a militant uprising from religious leaders mobilizing the angst felt by the “young urban poor” and various other social groupings — the “devout middle class”, the military, the ruling elite — and transforming it into a political system.

This era peaked with the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 and again in the late eighties and early nineties with the success of the Afghan Jihad and the Taliban. It is at this point that the second half — looking at the decline — begins through the Bosnian war, the Turkish experience, the second intifada and the current bete noir of the West — Osama bin Laden.

Concentrating on the emergence of terrorism and the attempt to internationalize the Afghan jihad in countries such as Egypt and Algeria, this section outlines the in-fighting, fractious nature of these movements. Kepel looks at the wildly differing interpretations of Islam that were put forward throughout this time and judges that to be one of the major factors in its decline. The sheer number of different political parties that emerged from the carcass of one Islamist body in a country like Algeria or even Egypt signifies the very weakness in the whole movement.

Instead of Islam being the sole cause, and only their own version of it, power and the acquisition of it seemed to drive most of these factions. The failure to apply any democratic procedures in most of these countries also contributed significantly, being seen as a failure by most people to reconcile Islam as a religion with the modern world and imbue into it a sense of modernity. The condensed details Kepel provides is commendable and so is the sardonic, subtle yet incisive appraisal of the many flaws inherent in movements such as those in Sudan and Saudi Arabia.

Laudable as this is, it is precisely within this detail that the central flaw lies. Any research on political Islam and its subsequent descent into terrorism must examine the role America has played, covertly and overtly in the process. The part they played in particular in the Afghan war against the Soviets and the conflict in Palestine and the Iran-Iraq war was instrumental, to say the least, in the future of the region and the movement as a whole. Why then is this role not examined with as much depth as previously exhibited for the Islamists? It is this lack thereof that leaves one, not only with a perceptible after taste of partiality, but also the distinct feeling that the full story is not being told.

Kepel’s treatment of the Palestine intifada in particular leaves one feeling that the Palestinians barely have a legitimate cause to fight for. You would be forgiven for assuming from this book that the second intifada saw more Israeli lives taken than Palestinian — when in fact the situation is much the opposite. It is a shame then that this book will be seen in the aftermath of 9/11 as projecting that autumn day as epitomizing the hatred many within this political movement felt for America.

That hatred was in part borne out by the involvement of the US in supporting militant Islam and as such the failure by Kepel to highlight this pivotal support is telling. This book, if followed to its logical conclusion given the prominence of the US throughout, should’ve predicted a 9/11. It instead acts as a premature obituary for militant Islam. Nevertheless, if you possess a coffee table or bedside table, place this on it for you can still dip in and out of it without losing interest. And if anything, as I found, the book is a perfect topic for heated discussion with friends and relatives.

Jihad: the trail of political Islam
By Gilles Kepel
I.B.Tauris. Distributed in Pakistan by Vanguard Books, 45 The Mall, Lahore. Tel: 042-7243783
Email: vbl@brain.net.pk
ISBN 1-86064-685-9
454pp. Rs1495

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)