Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East

by Gilles Kepel

Since 2001, two dominant worldviews have clashed in the global a neoconservative nightmare of an insidious Islamic terrorist threat to civilized life, and a jihadist myth of martyrdom through the slaughter of infidels. Across the airwaves and on the ground, an ill-defined and uncontrollable war has raged between these two opposing scenarios. Deadly images and threats—from the televised beheading of Western hostages to graphic pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib, from the destruction wrought by suicide bombers in London and Madrid to civilian deaths at the hands of American occupation forces in Iraq—have polarized populations on both sides of this divide. Yet, as the noted Middle East scholar and commentator Gilles Kepel demonstrates, President Bush’s War on Terror masks a complex political agenda in the Middle East—enforcing democracy, accessing Iraqi oil, securing Israel, and seeking regime change in Iran. Osama bin Laden’s call for martyrs to rise up against the apostate and hasten the dawn of a universal Islamic state papers over a fractured, fragmented Islamic world that is waging war against itself. Beyond Terror and Martyrdom sounds the alarm to the West and to Islam that both of these exhausted narratives are bankrupt—neither productive of democratic change in the Middle East nor of unity in Islam. Kepel urges us to escape the ideological quagmire of terrorism and martyrdom and explore the terms of a new and constructive dialogue between Islam and the West, one for which Europe, with its expanding and restless Muslim populations, may be the proving ground.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published November 20, 2008

About the author

A French scholar and analyst of the Islamic and the Arab world. He has written works on Radical Islam including Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. He was the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs for 2009-10 at LSE IDEAS (Centre for Diplomacy & Strategy, at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Professor Kepel has previously been a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York. He speaks Arabic, French, English and Italian.

Kepel's work has stirred intense debates in the French academia. His analyses of political Islam have notably been criticized by Olivier Roy, François Burgat and Alain Roussillon. These 3 authors however are also quite controversial, with secularists like Caroline Fourest or Mohamed Sifaoui being particularly critical of Roy and Burgat's sympathy towards islamists.

Reviews

[Colm Gillis · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read which explored the political struggles occurring in the Middle East and beyond, including debates in Europe concerning immigration, between the West and modern jihadists and Islamists. Kepel demonstrates an encyclopaedic knowledge of many of the issues and figures who are relevant to a debate which is still raging (the book was written shortly before Bush left office). The writing style is easy on the eye and that makes the book enjoyable. There were a number of downsides. He tended to leave his objective stance at times and clearly distort the nature of the disputes that were taking place in the early part of the century. For example, while he often mentioned controversies over cartoons and the like, he had a tendency to downplay or sometimes not even mention the role the invasion of Iraq or US support for Israel played. The theory he was proposing of a neo-conservative vs. jihadist struggle was a bit simplistic at times. The psychology or demographic background of jihadists wasn't explored (this is important in terms of understanding their motivations) and he leant on the crutch of economic prosperity as an antidote to the crisis, which again comes across as reductionist. Generally though, it is a book that is highly recommended for understanding the War on Terror.

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beyond Terror and Martyrdom offers an intelligent, compact analysis of the debacle in the Middle East. If you have a hard time keeping track of the differences between Shia and Sunni or Zarqawi and Zawahiri (who doesn't?), Kepel proves an excellent guide to the confusing landscape of Islamic and Western ideologies and their associated developments. His concise overview alone is worth the price of the book.

In addition, Kepel demonstrates that the grand narratives of Bush's "war on terror" and bin Laden's jihad against the West have both collapsed – the reality of the situation, from Israel to Pakistan, or from Washington to Europe, is far more complex. He also provides the best overview of the checkered fate of "multiculturalism" in the West – developing the main insight from Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam: specifically (my simplification) that assimilation and inclusion offers the best hope for everyone – both within a specific society, as well as at the level of the global economy.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explores about the current affairs in the Middle East and explains why both Bush and Bin Laden regimes have concluded that force or violence to be a required step to create change in the Middle East.

This book examines the propagation behind the war on terror and the reasons why it eventually led to the fiasco in Iraq. Kepel provides thorough historical and cultural context of the internal regional politics and conflicts between various national and sectarian Muslim groups and that have resulted derailing from the U.S policy. This book then analyzes how the war on terror brought different national policies of integration and multiculturalism between France and England. While it gives an interesting perspective from a European point of view, it lacks any real world suggestions for moving beyond the status quo, and the supposed integration and multiculturalism of West and East he touts so highly seems not to be as realistic a picture as he would have us believe.

[Roy Klein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finishing the book, I feel I better understand the different facets and motivations of the various types of Islamist ideologies. However, for the amount of text I read, I feel like I should've learned much more. The information is a total mess, as if no one bothered to arrange it at all. It's more of a stream of thought rather than information digested to be understood.

The book ends with the author's opinion of how to move forward, with ideas that through the lens of the EU financial crisis simply seem ridiculous, and even without that are extremely unlikely to ever happen. It's hard to accept the author's authority on the subject when his proposed solutions seem delusional.

Overall I wouldn't recommend this book. I am sure there are others on the subject that are better edited, more current and less opinionated.

[Therese · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend this book. I read the first few chapters which gave me an excellent overview of the history of terrorism in the Middle East. I didn't finish because I wasn't interested in the details.