After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book! Very Insightful and Promising
Review: "The ideas of democracy and Islam may seem far apart, then, but perhaps they are not as far apart as we might think...We must not perversely oppose democracy in the Muslim world just because Islamic democracy is fraught with difficulties and perils." - Page 78

This book is the # 2 in the Top Ten Books of 2003 of the Globalist.

It's been praised internationally and you can also purchase a DVD with Dr. Feldman and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf entitled "Islam & Democracy: Is a Clash of Civilizations Inevitable?"

Rating:
Summary: A hopefull book...
Review: An optimistic book that provides some hope for an Islamic democracy that aside am not suprised that it's been lambasted by the belligeratti...

(Are they deluded enough in believing that Christianity spread non-violently?, or that christian socities are somehow deviod of violence and oppresion?, to them I say: Take alook a the book of Joshua, a textbok on ethnic cleansing which puts the Quran into shade in terms of violence and bloodshed)

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Summary: Blueprint for U.S. Policy
Review: I think that this book represent one of the most important books that explain the answer for alot of questions for what happen in the few last years&that there is a way to start all again together to build a new safe democracy world for all of us.

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Summary: Islamic democracy is the only solution to Islamist violence
Review: If Feldman's arguements had any validity, there would be Christian churches in Saudi Arabia, and thousands of "unbelievers" would still be alive in the Islamic countries where the Koran was used as the basis for their being stoned to death because they used their free will to disagree with the "Prophet's" revelations. I read this and could only conclude that this is a man who would do well working at the New York Times editorial page, lecturing all of us about their view of what civilazation should be, and then jumping into his limousine to go home because they are too afraid to walk home.
It is nonsensical thinking like this that has produced a State Department which is inept and counter productive to dealing with the fact that Islamists are the enemy of freedom, including enemies of even apologists like Feldman.
This book proves that intellectuals can get so caught up in their smartness that they can see the sun while crawling in the muck of one of Osama's caves. I'd love to see how he would think if he were thrown into one of the "enlightened" areas controlled by the Taliban without a lifeline.

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Summary: Disappointing
Review: Noah Feldman's book amounts to a restatement of arguments made in the '90s by one of his apparent mentors, John Esposito, who argues thatIslamists should be allowed to win elections. The trouble is, most Muslims in the Arab Middle East disagree with them, particularly women, who stand to suffer the most under the rule of clerics. Although I disagree with Feldman's argument, my main gripe with the book is its striking lack of originality. One might as well go to the source and read books by Esposito and Akbar Ahmed.

Rating:
Summary: Islamic democracy is the only solution to Islamist violence
Review: The negative reviewers here have not read this book. In response to some of their claims: Other than Saudi Arabia, all Muslim nations allow churches/synagogues/temples for their minority faiths. Don't judge all Muslim nations by the behavior of the Saudi Wahabis. In Bangladesh, which is a Muslim democracy, Christmas is a public holiday, even though Christians make up less than 1 percent of the population. In the United Arab Emirates many malls display Christmas decorations and play Christmas carols. Christians also conquered, massacred and oppressed other peoples. Look at the treatment of natives in US, Canadian, South American and Australian history.

But now to the book. Feldman says that the West should not fear democracy in Muslim nations because even if Islamic parties come to power (they usually don't) the people will soon get tired of them because they won't deliver on basics, such as education, infrastructure and jobs. Islamic parties tend to promise Utopia if they get elected but will always fail to deliver on their promises. There is a lot of evidence to support Feldman's argument. You only have to look at Iran to see how quickly most people tired of Islamic rule. Muslims in Northern Nigeria are already starting to grumble about Islamic rule. In Pakistan, an Islamic party recently won power in one state (only because of outrage over the then impending US invasion of Iraq). Many now say that they regret their vote for this party and feel that crackdowns on freedoms and women's (already limited) rights have gone too far. In Malaysia Islamists recently lost control of one state they controlled.

Feldman also claims that Islamic Law can exist alongside democracy. Islamic Law is not actually Islamic. It did not exist in Muhammad's lifetime and was first implemented in the Ottoman Empire about 1000 years after the founding of Islam. Islamic Law only became widespread in the last 50 or so years. However, most Muslims do not know this, they falsely believe that Islamic Law is divine, and will therefore insist on some form of Islamic Law. In many Muslim nations Islamic Law exists alongside secular law. For example, family law tends to come from Islamic Law but criminal or business law is secular. I agree with Feldman that Islamic and secular law can coexist in a democratic society (it already does), and I also agree with Feldman when he says that this will make women and non-Muslims second-class citizens. But Feldman also believes, and I agree, that these societies will evolve and that women and minorities will fight for equal rights as has happened in the West. Keep in mind that in America Christianity was used to justify slavery and women's inequality. And keep in mind, that in America, women and minorities have had to struggle for the rights they have today. It's unreasonable to expect Islamic nations to become bastions of equality and justice overnight. This will be a long slow process.

Feldman is right that we in the West should not fear democracy in Islamic nations. About 40 percent of Muslims currently live in democratic countries, such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, France and the US, so Islam and democracy are obviously compatible. For too long the West supported and propped up dictators in Muslim nations and look what happened. America was hit on 9 11 and we and the Europeans will be fighting extremist Islamists for years to come. Giving Muslims the freedom to control their own destinies is the only answer to this problem.

Rating:
Summary: not bad, but not exceptional either
Review: There is little exceptional in this book that distinguishes it from others written by similar authors. In many ways it is yet another clone of the sympathetic approach towards both nascent and moribund Islamist movements. Those who are well read in the field may find yet another standard attempt to answer the old question, "Is Islam/ism compatible with democracy?" tedious.

As a legal scholar at New York University, Noah Feldman is not by any means a mediocre scholar; however, his position does little to distinguish itself from the likes of Graham Fuller and John Esposito with the exception of a few personal features giving his position some idiosyncratic flair. One, Feldman is an orthodox Jew who is pushing forward arguments always associated with a position (wrongly) stigmatized as anti-Israel and pro-Arab. Secondly, he's incredibly politically active-having worked for Al Gore during the Florida vote recount and having been recently chosen [undoubtedly for his well-known expertise both in Islamic and American Constitutional Law] by G W Bush to help draft a new Iraqi constitution.

If you are familiar with the often-repeated argument that the US is stuck between choosing whether or not to support the definitely-evil autocracies or the not-as-evil-as-is-often-portrayed Islamists, wherein the bloody fanaticism is depicted only as a passing tendency and not essential to the movements, then you can predict the outcome of Feldman's argument. In other words, US foreign policy should be sympathetic to Islamists movements as social reformers. Feldman is quite bold in claiming that we should encourage the emergence of `Islamic' democracies, which will not be secular, while simultaneously endorsing active US interventionism in the region into seeing it happen.

One cannot help but wonder if he is try to fashion this old position in scholarship, sympathetic to many [though not all] of the Islamists' aims, as an alternative to the political ideology of the neo-conservatives. [likely intended to be brandished by the democrats?]

Rating:
Summary: Delusions of Islamic Democracy
Review: Young Professor Noah Feldman is the latest high profile academic evangelist for "Islamic Democracy". I believe his apologetics regarding the application of the Shari'a (Islamic Holy Law), past, present, and potentially in the future, are delusional and corrosive.

My major concerns are the following:

(I) A completely uncritical acceptance of the most sanitized, sacralized version of "classical" Islamic history, from Muhammad's consolidation of control over Arabia, through the extensive jihad conquests of Asia, Africa, and Europe

Feldman's writings are disturbingly reminiscent of Professor John Esposito's presentations, which suffer from these inappropriate biases, as lucidly described by the scholar Bat Ye'or: 1) historical negationism, consisting of suppressing or sketching in a page or a paragraph, one thousand years of jihad which is presented as a peaceful conquest, generally "welcomed" by the vanquished populations; 2) the omission of Christian and, in particular, Muslim sources describing the actual methods of these conquests, and the rule of the conquered peoples, as sanctioned by the classical jihad ideology written by numerous Muslim jurists since the 7th century: pillage, enslavement, deportation, massacres, and the imposition of dhimmitude ; 3) the mythical historical conversion of "centuries" of "peaceful coexistence", masking the processes which transformed majorities (i.e., vast Christian populations, in particular) into minorities, constantly at risk of extinction

(II) Moral equivalences that range from the deliberately disingenuous, to the frankly absurd; just a few examples:

· The contemporary Anglican Church is deemed comparable to those Shi'ite clerics (including, one must assume Khomeini disciples) calling for the creation of an Islamic state in Iraq

· The application of Halachic law in Israel is highlighted trying (most unpersuasively) to argue that the imposition of Shari'a would be no worse- an utterly absurd comparison given the truly circumscribed application of Halachic Law in Israel, relative to the far reaching repression of basic rights for all women and all non-Muslims under Shari'a law, or Shari'a-inspired law in Muslim countries, or even Muslim-dominated provinces (eg., in Northern Nigeria) that apply the Shari'a

· Apologism for barbaric huddud punishments (stoning to death for adultery; mutilation for theft) under the Shari'a

· Non-sequitur discussion of the "limitations" of the U.S. Bill of Rights without any serious discussion of the fact that true freedom of conscience, including full protection according to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, simply does not exist in any of the 55 countries of the Organization of Islamic States, while many are in egregious violation of its provisions

This warped historiography and unacceptable moral equivalence are melded in a clumsy, callow manner yielding roseate, if not downright reckless predictions about the presumed actions of so-called "Islamist-democrats". Indeed, the bizarre concept of "Islamist-democrats" epitomizes the profoundly flawed premises of Feldman's analyses. He specifically cites SheikhYusuf Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the influential Muslim Brotherhood as an example of such an "Islamist-democrat", calling him "complex". Again, this is eerily reminiscent of John Esposito's utterly discredited reasoning. During a January, 1998 interview - Sheikh Qaradawi stated his beliefs, using unfettered Medieval terminology, that Islamic law divided the People of the Book - Jews and Christians - into three categories: 1) non-Muslims in the lands of war; 2) non-Muslims in lands of temporary truce; 3) non-Muslims protected by Islamic law, that is to say, the dhimmis. Sheikh al-Qaradawi, made it clear that Islamic law had established different rules for each of these categories. The good Sheikh had thus summarized concisely the theory of jihad war (unfortunately ignored by Feldman, Esposito, and their ilk) which regulates the relations of Muslims with non-Muslims.

Feldman also appears to have great faith in disgruntled "former" Islamists who now profess to be "liberal Muslims"- at least in their writings. One such example is the Iranian writer Abdolkarim Soroush who previously participated in the forced Islamization of Iranian universities under Ayatollah Khomeini. But, perhaps most telling, is that Feldman provides no analysis of the human rights tragedy engendered by the failed Iranian theocracy, and its experimentation with Shari'a-inspired, "culturally authentic" Islamic democracy. We must hope that the scholarly insights of Professor Reza Afshari, an Iranian secularist,will penetrate Feldman's hubris. At any rate, this excerpt from the Preface, p. xvi, to Afshari's "Human Rights in Iran-The Abuse of Cultural Relativism", should be required reading for Feldman:

"...Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran has presented an almost perfect case. Who is more culturally and religiously authentic than the Ayatollah's? Who is more credible to say what relevance Shiite culture has or does not have for the major issues of our time? The issue is not Islam as a private faith of individuals. It is about what state officials claiming Islamic authority might have to say about the state's treatment of citizens. Islamic cultural relativism in human rights discourse addresses Islamic cultural preferences for the articulation of public policies within the contemporary state. In Iran, liberal Muslims or any other new interpreters of Islam did not come to power. When and if they do, we will have their record to examine. What we have from liberal Muslims today are only ideological claims punctuated by expressed good intentions. A sector of the traditional custodians of religion, the ulema, politicizing Islam did come to power; therefore it is logical to assume what we faced in the 1980s and 1990s was the result of Shiite Islam (at least an authentic version of it) injecting itself into the politics of a contemporary state. They created a record of what the "culturally authentic" rulers did. The Western cultural relativists deserve to know the details of that record...."