Revisiting a book review on 5th anniversary of 9/11
Reader comment on item: The Failure of Political Islam

Submitted by Serge Pontejos (United States), Sep 11, 2006 at 17:08

I was listening to NPR this morning and heard Steve Inskeep reporting on a weeklong series "Muslims in America". In the first article you hear Sheik Hamza Yusef speaking to a convention organized by the Islamic Society of North America. Interesting quote:

"...And our religious leadership is in crisis because our religious leaders have failed to bring people back to the metaphysics of religion. They use anger, they use revenge, and they use hatred, and we have to drive that discourse out of our mosques wherever they are. It is time we stop demonizing the Jews."

From The Audio Article on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6041929

On NPR's website there was an excerpt of Mr. Yusef's analysis of Bush referring to Islamic Extremism as "Islamo-Fascism". And he referred to the Olivier Roy's book "The Failure of Political Islam".

It is completely fascinating although not utterly surprising how fairly on-point Daniel Pipes' comments were in this article, written with a pre-9/11 lens, and where we stand, in this current geopolitical environment.

I wonder if Mr. Pipes would be able to comment on this review in the post-9/11, post Hamas-power-sharing government, and the recently captured capital of Mogadishu...

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Daniel Pipes replies:

My key phrase was this: "the stunningly wrong-headed notion in Roy's book is his thesis about the failure of fundamentalist Islam. He seems to assume that because fundamentalists have not swept the Muslim world, they cannot do so in the future."

The errors are a bit different now, but the denial continues.