What do you think?
Rate this book
Islam and Comunism
110 pages, Paperback
Published April 4, 2024
3 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 3, 2025
Honestly did not learn much from this collection of essays. Mostly the ramblings of a philosopher and a Trotskyite. But I did have a better understanding of one thing.
Because Islam and the majority of Muslims exist primarily in the global south they have experienced the oppression of imperialism almost as an entire collective. Therefore, these Muslim religious groups have often played a quickening force in supporting national liberation movements. This can be seen in the Iranian Revolution where the tight knit Shi’a community was able to organize the people against the Shah.
As we see, religion is a worldview that gives hope to the hopeless, but is not the solution to that hopelessness. Ultimately, like when reading James Cone’s discussion of Christianity, socio-economic oppression will not be eliminated through religion. It’s our tool to wield in conjunction with Marxist thought to defeat our oppressors.
Because Islam and the majority of Muslims exist primarily in the global south they have experienced the oppression of imperialism almost as an entire collective. Therefore, these Muslim religious groups have often played a quickening force in supporting national liberation movements. This can be seen in the Iranian Revolution where the tight knit Shi’a community was able to organize the people against the Shah.
As we see, religion is a worldview that gives hope to the hopeless, but is not the solution to that hopelessness. Ultimately, like when reading James Cone’s discussion of Christianity, socio-economic oppression will not be eliminated through religion. It’s our tool to wield in conjunction with Marxist thought to defeat our oppressors.
June 20, 2025
“For those who claim to be true Muslims and communists… those who call themselves Muslims but disagree with Communism… I’m willing to say they are not true Muslims, or do not fully understand the Islamic position.
This compact collection brings together diverse voices—Iran’s Ali Shariati, Indonesia’s Haji Misbach, and others—on the historical and ideological links between Islam and socialist/communist thought. While it offers a neat survey of familiar intersections—Zakat as redistribution, revolutionary impulses within Islam, critiques of capitalism—it doesn’t break much new ground. If you’re already acquainted with these themes, many insights will feel familiar, and the essays lean more toward introductory overviews than deep analysis.
This compact collection brings together diverse voices—Iran’s Ali Shariati, Indonesia’s Haji Misbach, and others—on the historical and ideological links between Islam and socialist/communist thought. While it offers a neat survey of familiar intersections—Zakat as redistribution, revolutionary impulses within Islam, critiques of capitalism—it doesn’t break much new ground. If you’re already acquainted with these themes, many insights will feel familiar, and the essays lean more toward introductory overviews than deep analysis.
March 2, 2026
In the last couple of years I’ve been curious about how Islam has animated Resistance groups in anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist manners, so my hope reading this was to engage with that concept more.
The essays themselves on the whole weren’t quite as insightful as I was hoping in that regard. As a general concept, engaging with the subject was painting with broad strokes. I think that learning about specific Resistance groups might be a better approach.
That’s not to say that this book is without merit. I found Haji Misbach’s chapter particularly interesting
The essays themselves on the whole weren’t quite as insightful as I was hoping in that regard. As a general concept, engaging with the subject was painting with broad strokes. I think that learning about specific Resistance groups might be a better approach.
That’s not to say that this book is without merit. I found Haji Misbach’s chapter particularly interesting
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews