The Future of Political Islam

by Graham E. Fuller

Graham E. Fuller brings a lifetime of experience in the Muslim world to shed light on how common, even universal, political behavior takes on a distinctively Islamic guise in the Muslim world. By examining the social, economic and political context, he explains that the struggle between the fundamentalists and liberals will determine the future of political Islam. This sweeping survey of trends in the Muslim world, from Morocco to the Philippines, explores the diversity of Islamic political activity and makes clear that Islamic political movements represent a broad spectrum of outlook and behavior. Whether traditional or liberal, these movements have become an important vehicle for the concerns, aspirations and grievances of vast numbers of Muslims worldwide and are a natural outgrowth of Muslim history. Fuller contends that while political Islam is the dominant intellectual current, a focus on radicalism and extremism blinds us from another trend: liberal political Islam. The issues are not what is Islam, but what Muslims want, and not whether Islam will play a central role in politics, but which Islam. As Islam has become the vocabulary for political and social expression, it has come to serve various agendas.

Genres: Politics, Islam, Religion, Middle East, History, Nonfiction

246 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 2003

About the author

Graham Fuller is an author and a political analyst. He has worked for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the National Intelligence Council, and Rand Corporation.

Reviews

[أميرة · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh the books written by "former" CIA staff (SIGH)!! OK, I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I appreciate the simplicity and the clarity of the writing style, but on the other, I'm disappointed with the conclusions that Fuller arrives at. Sometimes he'll say something spot on:

A core problem is the reality that many U.S. policies are highly unpopular in the Muslim World, and governments that would fully reflect public opinion are likely to adopt a harsher stance toward the United States than current authoritarian regimes that look to American support to stay in power. This is the dilemma of democratization in the Muslim World: the more representative governments become, the more likely they are to collide with US interests.(101)

Others, he'll say something flat out wrong:

Few Islamists would claim that political Islam is the same thing as Islam (199)

I'm guessing he didn't get the memo about the US interests in the oil-endowed Iraq:

Most Muslims are well aware that Saddam has violated nearly all Islamic precepts of just rule and has harshly oppressed and killed Islamists and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Yet when Saddam is confronted by Western armies, large numbers of Islamists- indeed most Muslims- perceive the Western military intervention as an even greater threat.(197)

All in all, I think this is a good book to may be understand how the CIA viewed the Islamists more than a decade ago, and while Fuller claims to be heading for "seeing Islamists through their own eyes", that's not what I got from this book. I would recommend Ayoob's The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World (I only read a few chapters, but from what I read so far, I'd say it gives you a gist of the Islmaists' perspective on things)
I'm also surprised that Fuller didn't mention AKP in the cases of Islamists in power! And if Iran is a case of Islamists coming to power through "a non-democratic process" (97), then I don't know what social revolutions are for, given the fact that Islamists are generally not allowed to play politics, so there's that :/

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uninspiring, but interesting. The argument, that the West should try to engage with political Islam instead of rejecting it, seems pretty straightforward in 2012, but perhaps it was novel in 2003.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 1 out of 5]

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