The Future of Political Islam - Hardcover

'Graham Fuller is supremely qualified to provide rich insight into contemporary Islamic thinking on politics, economics and international relations. Here his sensitivity to differences among Muslims combines with an impressive discussion of contemporary developments, resulting in an important contribution to understanding. Fuller argues persuasively that Islamic political movements are, above all, an engagement with the modern world, not a flight from it, and that it is possible to reason critically with their ideas. Fuller's hope that Islamist movements will engage in participatory politics, and his belief that they should be tested by the experience of government, underpin his cautiously optimistic analysis that the future of political Islam can be peaceful.' - Fred Halliday, London School of Economics and Political Science, author of Nation and Religion in the Middle East '...an illuminating read and a welcome addition to the growing literature on contemporary Islam...' - Publishers Weekly Annex 'After September 11, 2001, the discussion around Islam has often been shrill and usually sterile that is what Graham Fuller's measured, scholarly, and eminently sensible voice needs to be heard. Read Fuller's book The Future of Political Islam to make sense of the dangerous, changing and complex relationship between the West and the world of Islam.' - Akbar S. Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University in Washington D.C. 'This is the most insightful book on developments in political Islam since the Iranian revolution shook the world. Having lived myself many years in the shadow of a mosque, I can say without hesitation that Fuller has captured the core and nature of Islamism. Importantly, he casts the movement as part of the solution to the looming confrontation between the United States and what we call the Islamic world, not just the cause of the confrontation. The Future of Political Islam is a must read, both for those shaping U.S. policy toward one-fifth of mankind and for America's own religious leaders who themselves have a hand on the political tiller.' - Milt Bearden, Former Senior CIA Official 'excellent survey of political Islam' - Max Rodenbeck, in the New York Review of Books 'As a former Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA and Resident Analyst at RAND Corporation, Fuller could hardly be more proximately attuned to the exigencies of US forieng policy in the Muslim world. - Zaheer A. Kazmi, Review of International Studies

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 survey of trends in the Muslim world, from Morocco to the Philippines, contends that while political Islam is the dominant intellectual current, a focus on radicalism and extremism blinds us from another trend: liberal political Islam.