Islamic fundamentalists murdered nuns in Algeria, Menachem Goldstein opened fire on praying Muslims at the Tomb of the Patriarch, physicians and patients were gunned down at family planning clinics for performing legal abortions. The list of terror acts in the name of God is growing. What is the origin of this violence, and is there a common denominator between these different religious fundamentalists? Dr. Kepel describes in this very well written book how the three major Abrahamitic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam - four, if you like Dr. Kepel in this study, separate Protestantism and Catholicism) have gone through a notable transformation since the seventies, from adapting their doctrines to the surrounding secular world, to demanding that the secular world adapt to their doctrines. He shows how, as a consequence of this shift, the tolerance towards other religions as well as to secular society has been dramatically reduced. In turn, this has caused an increased willingness amongst religious extremists to use violence to ensure that the surrounding world follows and obeys the demands and customs of the religious communities. One of the central theses, and maybe the most interesting, in Kepel's book is how these tendencies are common to all four religions and how their origins also are similar. Partly because of his viewpoint - Kepel is a islamist at the French research agency CNRS - the book very effectively shows how also modern Christianity and Judaism show tendencies that many probably associate with only militant Islam. Kepel shows how for all three religions the transformation is a more or less explicit rebellion against the enlightenment and rationalism, mostly founded in a desperation about the social end economic conditions in the wake of the recession of the 70:ties. In all cases the "grass roots" movement that arouse around that time has since risen to power and it's in its fringes that the violence flourishes. There is a tendency to accept a certain amount of extremism in the name of cultural and religious freedom, but the question arises: how much do we accept that the freedom of expression and choice is limited in order to meet religious standards and norms? "The Revenge of God" won't answer these questions, but it's an excellent introduction to the background and the context in which they must be answered.

Kepel is an ideal guide to Islamism as an international movment. Though somehwat controversial, Kepel has produced quality scholarship with an eye for detail for a long time and is well-known and widely recognized scholar in the field. Islamism has become over time a politically moribund ideology driven more by desperation and disillusionment than by anything resembling political success or ascendency. He covers all the major topics and personalities--not nearly enough for indepth study but that's not the purpose of his book--and has a talent for connecting the dots of the international scene, thereby demonstrating the geopolitical nature of the movement despite its diversty and diffuse organization. While some may be taken aback by his assertion of the 'failture' of Islamism in light of the extreme actions committed, he nonetheless makes a good case for argument not equivocating politcal failure with political impotence. Likely the best introduction to the topic available.

Having spend several years living and traveling in the Gulf during the 1970's I felt this book was extremely informative and thorough in its review and discussion of political islam. For anyone who really, really wants to know what is going on in that part of the world - this is the book to get.

Kepel's 'Jihad' is an excellent introduction to modern Islamism. This is a great book if you want to know more about various Islamist movements such as: bin Laden's al-Qaeda, the civil war in Algeria, the Shi'ite revolution in Iran, the Taliban in Afganistan, and the various Islamist movements from Egypt to Malaysia.

Kepel comes to an interesting and controversial conclusion. At a time when the US administration is making vast increases to the budget to fight the war on terror (against Muslim terrorists), Kepel writes that Islamism has seen its peak as a political movement and has been on the decline since the mid 1990's. He wrote in his conclusion:

"In spite of what many hasty commentators contended in its (September 11th) immediate aftermath, the attack on the United States was a desperate symbol of isolation, fragmentation, and decline of the Islamist movement, not a sign of its strength and irrepressible might."

My reaction to this conclusion (I read the conclusion before reading the entire book) was similar to what Walter Laqueur wrote in his article 'A Failure of Intelligence', published in The Atlantic Monthly - March 2002:

"However, the same conditions that gave birth to Islamism thirty years ago persist: economic stagnation or even negative growth, the unemployment of the young. So do resentment and free-floating rage. If Islamism is bankrupt, where is the ideology to replace it?"

These are good observations, but they miss the point of Kepel's book. Kepel does not cover what he thinks will replace Islamism. Laqueur's arguments make me wonder if he even read the entire book. (Laqueur also finishes with some ridiculous statements about a lack of Middle Eastern self-criticism, which makes it sound like Laqueur has digested the ideas of the famous orientalist Bernard Lewis more than anything Kepel wrote.) Kepel is not making a sweeping statement about Islam and the West - that the tension is over and everyone will live happily ever after. Kepel realizes there will be violence in the name of Jihad. For example, his conclusion also stated:

"This does not mean that we shall not see other outbursts of terrorism that claim the mantle of jihad. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular will be ripe for more violence."

Kepel's book is more informed and specific than Laqueur acknowledges. It is about specific movements within the Islamic world, started by theorists such as Mawdudi from Pakistan or Qutb from Egypt. These movements seemed to be ready to take over the Middle East as recent as five years ago. Islamist movements succeeded in Iran and Afganistan, and in various other places in the Middle East. But since then the theories behind Islamism have not been as accepted. This is due to complex reasons, such as the increased power of the middle class in the various countries, which Kepel covers in detail.

If there is a fault in Kepel's 'Jihad', it is that the text takes a while to get used to, since it was originally written in French. I found myself reading some paragraphs two or three times over - especially in the first half. I'm not sure if I got used to the text in the second half, or the writing improved. Also, he could have spent some pages on a definition of Islamism - what theorists such as Mawdudi and Qutb wanted. You would have to get that research from another book, such as Qutb's 'Milestones'.

This is the work that made the now imminent French scholar of Islamism famous. Kepel was more or less the first scholar to frame "Muslim Extremism" as 1) an extremist phenomenon and 2) a real political threat to the region in such an explicit fashion. As such, this work has been much debated and criticized; however, it still remains a classic in the field.

Ideally, Kepel's work should be read in tandem with Mitchell's work on the Muslim Brothers as Kepel himself seemed to see this work as the follow-up to Mitchell's groundbreaking work. Mitchell's work stopped at the incarceration of the Brotherhood after the Free Officers now longer found their support politically desirable or expedient, and basically, Kepel's picks up at that point-the inhumanity of the prisons, the gallows, and the torture rooms.

Unlike Mitchell's work, however, Kepel's study is not confined to a study of the Muslim Brotherhood but is a study of the radicalization of the Islamic trend in Egypt which splinter into many factional, competing parts-at times as a result of state initiatives as under Sadat. The differing policies of the Nasser and Sadat regime are compared, the influence of Sayyid Qutb emphasized, the moderation and political compromise of the Muslim Brotherhood emphasized, and the desperation and impoverishment of the violent groups such as al-Jama'at al-Islamiyyah and Takfir wa-l-Hijrah are cited as their sources. These all became classic themes in the field. Kepel's work demonstrates that the sources of political Islam are as varied as its social manifestations.

This is one of the most comprehensive and well-documented study and analyses of the islamic fundamentalist groups in modern Egypt that has seen the light up to the present. I read it from start-to-end in a run, so involving is the matter it researches as the way in which it is written. An authoritative essay and a source of information on one of the most shocking issues of the last (and present) century, focused on one of the less known areas about religious terrorism. The translation from the French edition is accurate and confiable. A title you can not miss if you are engaged in studying the subject or merely in knowing more about it. Highly recommended!

I picked up this book as title looked very interesting. I read a good part of the book in travel. The book does a fairly in-depth objective analysis of a few specific case studies (eg Rushdie affair in UK, Hijab issue in France and Nation of Islam/Louis Frakhan coverage). However, these are but random samplings of events which got a lot of media coverage but do a poor job of reflecting the overall Muslim presence in the West. Not an easy read and not as objective as I hoped.

I would really like to know why the author chose 'Allah in the West' as the title(perhaps for sales). His book has nothing to say about the concept of Allah at all. The subtitle is accurate, it should have been the title. Its tone is that of a university study. Provides a lot of history about Muslim organizations in Britain and France.Totally ignores Muslims in general in the US but focuses on the Black Muslim movement instead. To me the Black Muslim movement in the US is a very different type of organization so putting it in the same book as studies of the Muslim organizations in Britain and France does not strike the right chord.