The Stone Woman is the third book of writer and filmmaker Tariq Ali's "Islam Quintet". Emotional, lyrical prose is the hallmark of this superbly crafted novel, which presents daily life under Islam as well as conflict and challenges. Also highly recommended are Tariq Ali's previous books in the "Islam Quintet", Shadows Of The Pomegranate Tree (0860916766, ...) and The Book Of Saladin (1859842313, ...).

A friend recommended this book, and i am so pleased that she did. What a novel i am absolutely swayed by it. Stone Woman my first of Tariq Ali, but certainly not the last. I read with initial resistance, but was lured to it from the first page. Mystically he draws the attention with the words which encapsulates the reader as a silent observer witnessing the developments in the palace of Pasha. One is drawn away from present times and transcends to the era of Ottomon empire's decadence.

I found the characters in this narration to have immense depth, which is delieved in part by confessions. Confessions are made to a small rock resembling a pagan goddess. Secrets are divulged to the goddess which sheds a light on the mental and emotional state of the character. Another luring aspect of this novel are the discussions by the characters. Rational, religion, philosophy and the creation of the future republic to be carved from Ottomon Empire are debated.

The narration has an expanse of seduction, rebellion, confessions, betrayal, rational, arguments, religion, treachery and conspiracy. It is to these reasons i find the text rich in prose.

The Stone Woman is an exquisite microcosm of life in a decayed empire. Tariq Ali's most recent segment of his Islamic Quartet is the best so far. The novel reads like an epic poem, but with all the drama and intrigue you would expect from a Latin American soap opera. The rich tapestry of one wealthy Ottoman family's story unravels through the clandestine reports made to a pagan statue near the summer residence of an exiled forbearer. The interconnecting details are told through a headstrong daughter who has returned home after a long absence. Ali's gifts are especially evident as he slowly unpeels the layers of this family's compelling and often-cursed history. Meanwhile, Ali wraps in the politics surrounding the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the so-called "Sick Man of Europe," on the eve of the Great War. The sometimes tedious subplot about the proto-revolutionary movement in the Empire is the novel's only weak point. As a student of Ottoman history, I found it interesting, but it takes away from the true brilliance of the novel. For fans of Ali's other two works on the often violent but always spellbinding confrontation between Christianity and Islam, this book will be a godsend. It is quite similar to Ali's first book in the series, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, in that it focuses on the life and times of patrician family. But this work deepens the focus on family and creates a vast array of memorable and believable characters where Pomegranate had only a few broadly drawn archetypes.

...this is an excellent book. It is a must read for all those people who care about what actually goes on in the world. Although some articles are quite long, they are interesting and are great at showing how we have been misled by the media. How many people who have not read this book honestly knew that the "dictator" Milosevic doesn't even have a majority in parliament? Also great at showing how we don't think about things, such as how will bombing people help them? Or did the U.S. really intervene for humanitarian reasons, and if so why haven't we invaded Turkey?

Involved in children humanitarian help during the Bosnian War and despite knowing the Western media bias, reading this book was an eye-opener. It showed all the interests of major powers in the region and explained the rational beyond the wars (Bosnia, Kosovo). Combined with Brzezinsky's 'The Great Game' title of the books could read: Realpolitik, theory and practice. A must read for anyone wanting to understand South-Eastern Europe and Middle East politics today.

The authors say their book is simply a chronicle of 1968. But chronicles are rarely written with such deft dramatic irony, nor are they usually so ebullient or scattered with jokes. Tariq Ali and Susan Watkins have done something which is a challenge to any historian: they have made utopian rebellion intelligible. The international span makes this book a unique record: Mexico, Brazil, Pakistan, Palestine, Poland as well as women's liberation and Paris, Prague and Vietnam. The utopian ideas of 1968---that knowledge should be accessible, work democratised and time claimed for living and loving, not just for making money--are even more relevant 30 years on.

Tariq Ali's finest work as well as the best book written on Pakistani politics..Ali doesnt attempt to sugarcoat anything..he tells things the way they are. Ali also discloses information and makes comparisons that are very unique.

While ordering other books in the Icon/Totem "Introducing" Series, I became interested in Trotsky upon reading the book's description. Actually, my interest in Trotsky does predate this; I'd read George Orwell's "Animal Farm," wherein one leader of the animals (the pigs) was driven out by the pig who became dictator. Critics have suggested the pig who got driven out was Trotsky and the pig who became dictator of the farm yard was Stalin.

I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to the subject of Leon Trotsky. This is a marvellous book which outlines Trotsky's history, gives personal/biographical information, and touches adequately on salient points relative to. I probably would have had to have read 2 or 3 books to get the working knowledge of Trotsky (and his times, causes, etc.) that I got from reading just this one book: Introducing Trotsky.

I hope you enjoy it and get as much benefit from it as I have.

An excellent introduction to some very complex and confusing history. This biography of Leon Trotsky, also explores some very complex marxist theory. Historically, it covers not only Trotsky's life and idea's, but the Russian Revolution, the Russian civil war, and the usurpation of power of the fledgling workers democracy by Joseph Stalin and his co-conspiritors from the democratically elected politburo. This book is much more entertaining then the new "For Begginers" series, as it has much more artistic diversity, then the mostly cartoon, drawing style of the new books. It contains colages, and many photos of historical figures and events. Overall a great introduction to history, that is not taught in school.

My favorite page of this book is page 84, which has some small print at the bottom of the page, "Lenin sees Trotsky's position as attractive but too risky." The illustration shows a three-way argument among the leaders of the Bolshevik Central Committee on how to get an immediate armistice with Germany in World War One, for which Trotsky had been sent to Brest-Litovsk to negotiate peace at the end of November 1917. Somehow, page 82 reported, "The Allied Powers are desperately against Russia signing a separate peace with Germany." Trotsky's position in the argument on page 84 nicely avoided the possibility of conflict with the Allied Powers, "Prolong the negotiations. No war - No Peace - till the German workers revolt!" According to page 83, "The peace delegation at Brest-Litovsk distributed pamphlets to the German soldiers." The cartoon shows a soldier looking at a page and exclaiming, "It says - shoot your officers!!" The Germans might not have been used to reading that kind of thing, but there is a historical Who's Who on pages 168 to 173 which shows how much support there was for this when someone's idea of justice supported it. The Who's Who contains anarchist activists like Vera Zasulich, a Narodnik militant who "Shot and wounded the Governor of St. Petersburg, General Tepov" [which might not be spelled correctly] because a Narodnik student "was flogged for failing to remove his hat in Trepov's presence. Her trial and acquittal by the jury caused a sensation and was popularly supported." (p. 173). Back on page 76, following a cartoon that looks a lot like some famous painting of the last supper, there is even a picture of Joseph Stalin, who praised Trotsky in Pravda for the "practical organisation of the insurrection" (The October Revolution) only 84 years ago in November 1917, but the picture is saying, "I said that? No - you must be thinking of some other Stalin!" The humor of history is perfect for a cartoon book like this, which is history at a level which everybody ought to be able to understand. Unfortunately for the Soviets, they were probably not aware of the work of the young Karl Kraus in Vienna during this period, who observed, "Satires which the censor understands are rightly prohibited." This book is too true to be considered satire in a thoroughly comic society like our own.

Lev Davydovich Bronstein A.K.A. Leon Trotsky was certainly a very complicated figure as this book shows. Early on he opposed Lenin's conception of the hierarchal, tightly centralized working class party and was very active in the Petersburg Soviet of 1905. Lenin accepted Trotsky's view of "permenant revolution" after the February 1917 revolution and Trotsky joined forces with him to oppose the liberals and leftists in the workers and soldiers soviet who supported handing over power to the liberal bourgeoisie, in the case of the leftists apparently because they thought the bourgeoisie should have their revolution first. The Bolsheviks won overwhelming majorities in the soviets accros the nation. They seized power from the liberals and then proceeded to liquidate their opposition which seemed to be excused by Trotsky on the ground of centralising power in order to fight the Whites and the imperialist invaders and the especially brutal "war communism" was instituted. Trotsky directed the violent repression of the workers and sailors at Kronstadt in 1921. He pretty much played the good solider, occasionally making noises about the suppression of democratic debate and the growing power of the bueracracy until Stalin consolidated his power after Lenin's death in 1924. He unwaveringly opposed Stalin who finally expelled him from the country in 1929. He was murdered under Stalin's orders in Mexico in 1940.

Trotsky once in exile gave full flower to his best thinking. The bueracracy in the Soviet Union owned everything (the means of production,etc.) and would not give up power but perpetuate itself as dictatorships tend to do. Trotsky advocated destroying the bueracracy, reinstitue free debate and, according to Mr. Ali, wanted to "restore the Soviets." What this last means, I don't quite know. Does it mean he wanted to restore to them the power they held in 1917-18, as they were conceived to function during the revolution of 1905, perhaps even as the narodniks conceived them? Very interesting. Ali also points out that Trotsky saw clearly the menace of Hitlerism before just about everybody else did and advocated that the communists and social democrats join forces in a "united front" to try to stop Hitler which earned him even more violent abuse from Moscow and their sattelites in Germany. He vigorously attacked the "United Front" concept adopted at the seventh congress of the communist international in 1935 which called for Communists accross the world to join forces with social democrats and liberals in "popular fronts," effectively maintainging the status quo, which had such disasterous results in Spain during the civil war.

I thought Phil Evans's illustrations were entertaining.

Tariq Ali's "The Book of Saladin" is a rich and teeming chronicle set in the twelfth-century Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem. The Book of Saladin is a fictional memoir of Saladin, the Kurdish liberator he Muslim leader during the Crusades, was one of the best known figures of the Middle Ages. The West accepted him as a worthy opponent; Islam was indebted to him for the recovery of Jerusalem. Ali brilliantly weaves a fiction tale around the historical figure Saladin.

Saladin grants permission to Ibn Yakub, his jewish scribe to walk to his wife and retainers so that he may portray a complete picture of his memories. A series of interconnected stories follow, tale brimming over with warmth, earthly humour and passions in which ideals clash with realities and dreams are confounded by desires. At the heart of the novel is an affecting love affair between the Sultans favorite wife, Jamila and the beautiful Halima.

The novel charts the course of Saladin as Sultan of Egypt and Syria and follows him as he prepares in alliance with his Jewish and Christian subjects to take Jerusalem back from the Crusaders.

This is a satisfying novel, told, despite its exotic settings, in sparse prose carrying a ring of authenticity reminiscent at times of Naguib Mahfouz. The book deals in complex and subtle people who question the nature of the relationship between body and soul and ponder the purposes of war, not in easy steretypes or generalisations, even in an area which has been traditionally replete with them. It is illuminationg to have the Saladin story told by a writer who has immersed himself in the 'other side'. Tariq Ali's novel creates an authentic-seeming court, full of intrigue, dominated by a man who is charismatic yet not a hero of romance, a rather hesitant, limping figure, a Sultan whose preferred diet is soup and beans. In Saladin's entourage are strong and intelligent women, the Sultana Jamila and her female lover, and their story is interwoven with that of the Sultan's public life. It may be controversial to assign such dominance to the women in a harem, but these are characters in a convincing story with a reality beyond that of historical cliche.

Two thumbs up, Tariq Ali ! This is a story , wonderfully told,of Salah al Din's maturation, comming to power , becoming acharismatic leader and finally , conquering Al Kadisiya (Jerusalem) from the hands of Crusades in 1187. Among other colourful characters is the Sultana Jamila, extremely educated, intelligent and enlightened, unlike all the rest of the women in the harem. Respected and admired for her virtues, Jamila questions the surpressed position of women in the world of Islam. The story is told by an outsider - a Jew in the service of the Sultan. A typical sympathetic scribe, he observes and listens attentively , and talks little. In the heart of the novel is the sad tragedy of muslims being so quarelsome among themselves, and being unable to unite against the enemy when the need arises....Salah Al Din is up to this day an awe-inspiring and much admired for his military and princely virtues character in the Muslim world...HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS NOVEL TO ALL ,ESPECIALLY THOSE INTERESTED IN THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE EAST.!

This is the first time I have been unable to finish a book. Tariq Ali is not a bad writer but the rhythm of his prose is constantly drowned out by the relentless grinding of his axe. Every time one is beginning to settle into the story, a group of the Muslim characters, who are otherwise well drawn, are made to engage in some wooden dialogue about the wicked uncultured Christians in a wholly unnatural way.

Tariq Ali has found a very interesting subject for a novel but he is unable to let the story speak for itself. He just can't stop himself from ramming his opinions down the reader's throat. It reads like a novel punctuated by political speeches from his student days. If the subject matter were any different it would be laughable; as it is, it seems that it is just too PC to point out the very obvious shortcomings in this book.

Ali's "Shadow of the Pomegranate Tree" provides not only a great reading, but an extremely useful corrective to the general western misconception about Muslim society. His work while a fiction, has clearly been thoroughly researched. The openness, tolerance and cosmopolitanism of Islamic society during the Moorish period is clearly presented with accents and touches that ring true. While westerners are inclined to view Islam as a monolithic entity, Ali brings out the division and tension that existed within the societies of each period.

"Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree" is set in Spain after the fall of Granada. The story of the Banu Hudayl, a landed aristocratic family, the book explores the fateful decision that the Muslims of Spain had to make in the aftermath of the Reconquista. Shadows opens with the Muslim community having been recently shaken by the burning of their books on the order of Ximenes de Cisneros, Isabella's confessor. Sent to Granada to debate theology, Cisneros was verbally bested by the Muslim scholars. Defeated, he ordered all Muslim books to be destroyed two million manuscripts burned. "They set our culture on fire...The record of eight centuries was annihilated in one day", Umar the head of the Hudayl, laments. The only books to be saved from this wanton destruction were 300 medical and scientific works, spared by the petitions of Christian scholars who realized their superiority, and those books that the soldiers carrying them to the square discarded, judging the books' importance by their weight.

Cisneros, a man of the church is hell bent on destroying all vestiges of the Muslim society and culture in Granada. He sees force as the only way to win the conversion of the Muslims to Christianity, unlike his predecessor, who had given orders for the priests to learn Arabic and have Christian works translated. Yet his actions also have a personal element, as others whisper about his apparent Jewish features. Cisneros cruelty is interestingly contrasted to the outlook of Don Ignio, the civilian governor of the Granada region, and a life long friend of Umar's. Don's entrouge consisted of Jewish and Moors, and he tells Umar "For me a Granada without them is like a desert without Oasis. But I am on my own" When Umar comments that the current situation would never have arisen had the Moors used the same tactics that the Christian were now employing, Dons's response is: "Instead you attempted to bring civilization to the whole peninsula regardless of faith or creed. It was noble of you now you must pay the price."

The reason I find this an excellent read is because Ali treats western history with the same thoroughness and brutal honesty, he demolishes the myth that the episode was a victory of one sort or the other of western society, simply by incorporating facts into the narrative. The triumphalism and sheer blood thirstiness of the Christian west is underscored most clearly in "Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree".

A poignant account of an aristocratic muslim family in Moorish Spain, Tariq Ali spins a brilliant tale of empires lost and heroism re-discovered. One of my personal heroes from his days as a student leader in the 60's, Ali is as always brilliant in his penmanship. I was introduced to his writings by my father, a close personal friend of the author and Iv been hooked ever since. One of the very best accounts you could find of Moorish Spain and the end of an empire that gave the world such architectural masterpieces like the Al-Hambra.

This book has alot of false info in it. In the book itself, Zia is described as "Uriah Heepish", while Bhutto is martyred in a great political saga. It isn't so.
Through Bhutto West Pakistan lost its Eastern counter-part. Bhutto was corrupt, and though no one can degrade his vision or speeches, it really isn't that simple.

i am a german student. i read the thrilling first hand account of raja anwar. he has given gripping details of a terrorist set up. he has very successfully portrayed that how the monster of terrorism eats up its own childern. this is perhaps first book on a terrorist organisation written by an insider....i recommend it to every one. i wish it was translated into german language----------anita

MURTAZA EMERGES FROM THIS HORRIFYING NARRATIVE AS A MINDLESS ,CRUEL ,WRECKLESS AND DISHONEST BRAT WHO NEVER GREW UP. ALL THE BHUTTOS SHOWED ASTONISHING HEARTLESSNESS IN THERE TREATMENT OF THE FAMILIES OF THOSEWHO DIED UNDER TORTURE OR IN GALLOWS TO RESTORE THEIR PARTY AND THEM TO POWER . THE STORY HAS AN ABSORBING THEME AND A STUUNNING TABLU OF MACABRE DETAILS. IT IS THE RAW MATERIAL OF HISTORY AND ONE SHOULD NOT LET IT GO UNREAD.

I originally picked up this book to gain more insight into Islamic fundamentalism. Mr. Ali cetainly provides that. I believe that the biggest challenge to some U.S. readers will be wading through the somewhat dry chapters that go into the origins of Islam, the Ottoman Empire periods, history of Wahhabism, etc. And, as the Amazon.com reviewer pointed out, Mr. Ali does stray into a few, very-left, American imperialsim theories for which he provides no evidence (for example, that FDR drew the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941).

However, the majority of Ali's advice and perspective are right on the mark however. He clearly understands the history and politics of the Muslim countries and South Asia very well. Most Americans would be well served to understand Ali's viewpoints and challenge the policies of the U.S. government.

Tariq Ali's book, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, is necessary reading for everyone. For radicals it provides an excellent history of U.S. imperial exploits and of ideological and political conflict in the Middle East and Central and South Asia. For those of other political stripes, centrists and rightists, it provides a refreshing and unrestrained response to the predominating views about the meaning and response to the events of September 11, 2001.

Ali notes how Francis Fukuyama's thesis on the "End of History," while claiming the moral and economic superiority of liberal capitalism and its triumph over bureaucratic "socialism," didn't provide much in the way of direction for U.S. hegemony following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations filled that gap. Huntington's book, partly a response to Fukuyama, argued not for a golden age ahead, but continuing conflict derived from apparently irreducible cultural differences. Thus Western, and particularly U.S., intervention would still be very much needed to defend American values such as "individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets" (quoted in Ali, p. 273). Huntington's book therefore provided a rationalization for a continued and predominant role of the U.S. in world affairs. September 11 was "proof" for that thesis.

Ali's book subjects this thesis to a withering critique, and this is the main reason for his choice of title, something that others seem not to have grasped. Ali carries out his critique by making two points while presenting a broad political and religious history of the Middle East and Central and South Asia. First, he shows us that Islam and the cultures with which is Islam is associated are anything but monolithic or homogeneous. Islam has had its Luthers as well as its Savonarolas. It has not always been hostile to Western (Aristotle) or even rational and scientific thinking. Its politics have been more varied than most Anglo-American countries, comprising the most radical communists as well as producing leftist and far-rightist nationalisms.

Second, Ali shows that, tragically, and in far too many cases, U.S. foreign intervention in these regions has abetted and financed the rise of the most reactionary elements "against communism or progressive/secular nationalism. Often these were hardline religious fundamentalists: the Muslim Brotherhood against Nasser in Egypt; the Sarekat-i-Islam against Sukarno in Indonesia, the Jamat-e-Islam against Bhutto in Pakistan and, later, Osama bin Laden and friends against the secular communist Najibullah [in Afghanistan]" (p. 275). With the exception of Indonesia, Ali's book is, among other things, a historical presentation of these interventions. Thus, U.S. imperialism, far form necessarily defending itself from an alien and hostile Islamic culture, is at the very least partly responsible for the ascendancy of fundamentalist Islam. Moreover, not only has the U.S. failed to promote democracy, liberty, equality, etc. in these regions, it has actually stifled it.

There are many, including at least one reviewer below, who will disagree with Ali's conclusions, particularly his charges of U.S. imperialism. What these persons want to believe is that U.S. foreign policy really is about those lofty principles that Huntington lists. Ali provides his own response to these critics: "The historic compromise with integrity that this form of Americophilia entails transmutes the friendly critic into a slave of power, always wanting to please. S/he becomes an apologist, expecting the Empire to actually deliver on its rhetoric. Alas, the Empire, whose fundamental motivation today is economic self-interest, may sometimes disappoint the most recent converts to its cause. They feel betrayed, refusing to accept that what has been betrayed is their illusions. What they dislike most is to be reminded of the sour smell of history" (p. 257). Hence, the furious and often ad hominem attacks volleyed against Ali.

What is the meaning of September 11? It is, in the prescient words of Chalmers Johnson, "blowback." "'Blowback' is shorthand for saying that a nation reaps what it sows, even if it does not fully know or understand what it has sown. Given its wealth and power, the United States will be a prime recipient in the foreseeable future of all of the more expectable forms of blowback, particularly terrorit attacks against Americans in and out of the armed forces anywhere on earth, including within the United States" (quoted in Ali, p. 292). Read this book for a case study of this phenomenon.

Tariq Ali puts forth a history of Islamic fundamentalism, from Muhammad onward, through the emergence of Wahhabism (Saudi Arabia's state religion, once Afghanistan's) from its inspirer Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab in the 18th century under Ottoman rule, through the present. In between, Ali sandwiches a discussion of Islamic heresy, including the Islamic world's most prominent medieval intellectuals. What's more, he also takes on American imperialism as another form of religious fundamentalism, with its history of domination, manipulation, and extermination, and uses the resulting paradigm of a "clash of fundamentalisms" to explain the current situation in the Middle East and in South Asia. Ali takes on a discussion of the Iranian Revolution, of the Iran-Iraq war, of the history of Pakistan, and of Palestine, amongst other things. The result is detailed, informative, stimulating, and honest. Ali ends with a "Letter to a Young Muslim," where he confronts the viewpoints of desperate Muslims living under US proxy regimes throughout the world.

I can hardly wait to read the next hundred denunciations of this book, for all that it is chock-full of blood-boiling heresies from beginning to end. A must-read.