Few writers, Thomas W. Lippman wrote in the Washington Post, have explained so lucidly the complex developments of Muslim history.

It is difficult to address the questions of Islam, the Arabs and their relations with Israel and remain nonpartisan. But Business Week's Ronald Taggiasco called Pipes' scholarly explanation of events and faith in that little-known, volatile, and important part of the world well worth reading.

Pipes' reasoned, literate explanation of what generated the Islamic resurgence goes a long way to explaining recent events. Written in 1983, this book provided the first comprehensive political study of Islam's extraordinary role in modern world. We are fortunate indeed that the political and global implications of the Islamic revival, revealed here, are soon to be rescued from the out-of-print category.

The book is divided into three sections. The first covers the premodern legacy of Islam's sacred laws and its failure to implement the public ideal represented by those laws--as existed in the single state for Muslims (Dar al-Islam) from 622 to 753 A.D. According to Pipes, for most of Muslim history, traditional Muslims were willing to accept the gap between the ideal and the actual, to live with a less-than-complete implementation of Shari'a, although the Muslim approach to politics derived from the "invariant premises of the religion" established more than 1,500 years ago.

The second section covers Islam's encounters with the West, beginning with the matched powers of Crusaders against the Ayyubids, and proceeding quickly to Napoleon's 1789 invasion of Egypt. (This prompted the Ottoman Sultan Selim III to declare Jihad against the French and join the infidel British and Russian empires to keep his own in tact).

Muslims had ruled millions of Christians in Europe for 450 years before being displaced by Turkey. Then the western cultural onslaught began in the first half of the 18th century, and ran from Umma's eastern end (China and Indonesia) to its west (Crimea). By the end of 1919, only Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Arabia and Yemen retained political independence, the first three by balancing the claims of Britain against those of Russia and the latter two simply by being remote and completely barren. Meanwhile, the Muslim Empire had also lost battles of scientific, technical, mechanical, geographic and historical knowledge. Even daily Western life differed markedly from that of the Islamic east. Thus fundamentalists began lobbying for strict Shari'a everywhere in the Umma.

In contrast, reformist Muslims argue that traditional Shari'a is hopelessly illiberal and conflicts with the true Qur'anic values. They reject Shari'a traditions emanating from Hadith, consensus of the 'ulama and reasoning by analogy as inauthentic and outdated, respectively. Similarly, they approve of parliamentary systems of government, but view hold their record in Islamic society in contempt. On some fronts, liberal views conflict with themselves. While they admire pan-Islamic solidarity they are not committed to it; and they recognize national interests but disapprove of Muslim states fighting one another. And as for non-Muslims, according to Pipes, reformists are caught by ambiguity, between their desire for equal status for all and the wish for Dhimmi laws that traditional Islamic states use to bestow a special place on Muslims, while relegating all non-Muslims to inferior, even slavish conditions. The fact that Westernization did not markedly improve the Muslim world in the 1970s led to increasing fundamentalism.

Pipes devotes the third section to Islam in current affairs, detailing the effects of the fundamentalist surge on 22 Muslim-dominated nations from Indonesia, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Central Asia and Asia to Algeria, Morocco and Egypt in Africa and Syria, Iran and Iraq, in the Middle East. In at least 8 other nations, from Malaysia to Nigeria, Muslims vie with non-Muslims for power. In one of these--the Sudan--the conflict has grown bloody since this book was written, forcing millions into subjugation and slavery. Pipes also reviews 20 areas, including the former Soviet Union, where Muslims account for less than a quarter of the population but are asserting themselves. Pipes includes an extensive 50-plus page look at the means that the oil boom provided to promote Islam. Oil is behind the political importance of Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian Revolution, for example.

But Pipes also concludes that an Islamic revival dependant on oil constitutes a mirage, for the cash that oil provides cannot last forever. This, Pipes predicts, will leave the Islamic world with a choice that has become increasingly urgent--to adapt and come to terms with global Westernization, or to accept apologetics, introversion and poverty.

This broad treatment remains as helpful in understanding current events as when it was written nearly 20 years ago. Alyssa A. Lappen

Although this excellent book came out in 1989, it remains highly relevant, for it takes an historian's view to place current events in their larger context, to successfully interpret the long shadow of the past--antique cultures steeped in political volatility--and show its effect on the present.

A case in point: In April 1981 a semi-official Egyptian weekly pronounced Ibn Taymiya, the renowned Syrian theologian who lived from 1268 to 1328, the most harmful influence on Egypt's youth. A few months later, Ibn Taymiya became the basis for the actions of 3 of Anwar Sadat's 4 assassins, who had read him extensively.

Pipes divided the book into 5 sections, each including 4 or 5 articles. He groups them somewhat loosely and the articles run the gamut.

Islam and Public Life first discusses fundamentalist views of America and Russia, also touching on how the secular, traditional and reform branches of Islam relate to public life. It next examines religious similarities between Judaism and Islam--both of which stress correct action, compared with Christianity's focus on faith. Pipes shows the far-reaching extent of Muslim anti-Semitism, which stemmed from a patronizing view of other religions that became virulently anti-Jewish in the 20th century--and found welcome among Western Protestants, human rights activists, reporters, academic committees and even liberals seeking a "respectable forum in which to vent their own views about Jews." Pipes also covers the Muslims of Central Asia--which border Taliban Afghanistan's fundamentalist hotbed.

A section on the Persian Gulf attributes the origins of the Iraq-Iran war not to religious differences, but to economic and geographic factors--including the Shatt al-'Arab River and its vast water resources. Pipes also discusses the dangers that oil wealth poses to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Libya. The oil windfall made these desert sheikdoms dependent on a continued oil boom, unless new sources of income could be found. So far, none have emerged. Pipes praised Kuwait in 1986 when its government refused to buckle under US pressure to release imprisoned terrorists, and later toured the oil state as the guest of Minister of Information, Sheik Nasir. He found the Bedouin descendants' grand hospitality and intellect reflective of the Arabian Nights. Next, he considered the Saudi Arabian kingdom formed by Wahhabi leader Abd al-Aziz, dissecting various histories, including Peter Mansfield's The New Arabians, funded by the Bechtel Corporation.

Pipes' prescient take on the Arab-Israeli conflict also still holds value. The conflict is fueled, he believes, not by Israel but by the conflicting claims of Palestinian separatists, Arab nationalists and the Jordanian and Syrian governments, among others, over Palestine and its boundaries. The latters' perpetual incapacity to unify stems from irreconcilable goals. An Arab government's sponsorship of the PLO grows, he wrote, proportionate to its distance from Israel. Pipes considered no Arab nation eager to end the conflict. By implication, he believed that nothing Israel could do unilaterally would improve the conflict's complexion. Were the PLO, fundamentalists or Syria to inherit the Arab claim, he predicted that the conflict would last longer--which is precisely what happened with Arafat's violent rejection of Oslo in 2000. Pan-Arabism spawned the PLO, prompting Saudi Arabia to give Arafat's organization $250 million a year by the late 1970s, and other oil states, smaller sums. But this funding dictated that PLO behavior would reflect weighted-Arab demands for Israel's destruction, more than Palestinian needs. Meanwhile, the PLO dictatorship brutalizes its own people, as evidenced during its reign of terror in Southern Lebanon from 1975 through 1982.

Another real gem is the section on terrorism. Pipes provides background for suicide terrorism, which is not rooted so much in Islam as in state-sponsorship. The first major instance of suicide terror was the 1981 destruction of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, which killed 27 and wounded over 100. The phenomenon picked up political steam with the 1982 murder of Lebanon's Bashir Jumayyil and went international with the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, which killed 63. Later the same year, a truck bomb killed 241 US servicemen, also in Lebanon. State sponsorship, he shows, was behind most suicidal actions. Many suicides were recruited via blackmail or under other duress. The way to combat it, he wrote, is to punish states that sponsor this violence.

And finally, for the finale, we learn pointedly what is wrong with media coverage of the Middle East. "Put simply, American journalists are interested in only two topics in the Middle East: Israel and the United States. Whatever takes place that is related to these countries is amplified...;whatever does not is ignored." From 1972 to 1980, for example, ABC, CBS and NBC devoted an average of 98.4 minutes annually to Israel, only 54.7 minutes to Egypt, 42.4 minutes to the PLO, 25.7 minutes to Syria, 18.4 minutes to Lebanon, 12.7 minutes to Saudi Arabia, 8.5 to Jordan and 7.2 to Iraq. But the US and the Middle East won an average of 153 minutes of coverage annually. "Israel is imagined to be more powerful than it really is because it is watched so closely," Pipes writes. Similarly, attention given to Palestinian refugees far is out of proportion to their suffering, which in any case is caused by their own leaders' refusal to accept peace. During the same era far greater numbers of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Afghan, Somali and other refugees , whose ranks now include some 2 million Sudanese, suffered far worse tribulations, which shamefully got far less press attention. Being overexposed, Pipes rightly concludes, means that Israel is "held to impossible moral standards." Israel is measured "not in relation to [its enemies] or other states, but in relation to abstract ideals."

Pipes offers 10 times the wisdom of many other volumes, despite the book's age. Alyssa A. Lappen

The 18 essays in this superb 392-page volume were all printed as articles in the US foreign policy quarterly, Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs between 1986 and 1991. A few pieces are clearly dated. But for the most part, age has not lessened their value. Overall, they provide understanding of a conflict-filled region that violently surged into view with the Islamic terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

The book is divided into 4 sections. Although scholarly, the articles are easily accessible to lay readers wanting a broad overview of the troubles currently afflicting the entire region.

The first four articles provide a frightening window onto the political realities in Egypt, Algeria, Lebanon and the fundamentalist Sunni states. Emmanuel Sivan considers the shape an Egyptian Islamic republic might take. His sobering sketch is hardly far-fetched: Moderates and secularists like Hussein Ahmad Amin and Faraj Fuda despair that even former moderates like H. Hanafi and A. Abdel Malek now sympathize with fundamentalists. Similarly, Khalid Duran portrays the political dysfunction that overtook Algeria during its 2nd revolution in 1988, when Algerian soldiers killed nearly 500 rioting children and where militant Islam remains a force to reckon with. Hilal Khashan found Shi'i students in Lebanon to espouse surprising political moderation. However, he predicted a Pan-Arab revival north of Arabia, fueled by Sunnis who are apt to support Saddam Hussein and radical anti-Western views. This seems already to have occurred.

Of six articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the first four are most interesting. Michael Mandelbaum considers Israel's security dilemma. Mitchell Bard predicts that, near-term, the "emotional, religious and historical sources of conflict" will not disappear. Aaron David Miller posits that Arab "cost/benefit" analysis has recently moderated their policies, though he considers a return to old animosities possible so long as Arab states maintain a war stance toward Israel. And Robert Satloff warns darkly that Washington risked disaster in attempting to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict without considering the influence of fundamentalists in the West Bank and Gaza.

The book also includes five superb articles on the Persian Gulf. Efriam Karsh's 1989 article warned that the Iran-Iraq war badly eroded international red lines during war, including the use of poison gas, increasing the potential for violent Middle Eastern wars. This was born out with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait a year later, and judging from recent events, we have not seen the last of this. Martin Kramer exposes the clash of Muslims against Muslims in Mecca in 1987. Two articles on Iranian-US relations are somewhat more dated, but still relevant. Eliyahu Kanovsky, whom I once interviewed for Forbes, predicted that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait would precede a decline in oil prices. Kanovsky's ideas were so counter-intuitive that Forbes wouldn't print them. Nevertheless, he was right. We should listen.

The final section features only three articles--on the military benefits of US relations with Israel (Steven Spiegel); the April 1986 US raid on Libya (Frederick Zilian) and how the Iran-Contra story broke (Daniel Pipes). The last one is worth the entire price of admission, especially for journalists curious about the mechanical details of THE story of the 1980s. Alyssa A. Lappen

This is an easy book to read, well paced and organized. It is also a book that easily makes your blood boil. Pipes has been a student of Islam for over 30 years. He has written 10 books and has worked for the Federal government and in academe. He is strongly anti-Islamist and makes a good case as to why the reader should be as well. He sees "militant Islam as a global affliction whose victims count peoples of all religions...Islamism is perhaps the most vibrant and coherent ideological movement in the world today; it threatens us all. Moderate Muslims and non-Muslims must cooperate to battle this scourge" (pg. xiii). Note that he looks as Islamism as an ideology, not just a fundamentalist religious movement, and radical ideology at that (pg 135). Islamism "has three main features: a devotion to the sacred law, a rejection of Western influences, and a turning of faith into ideology" (pg. 7). While it harkens back to its Islamic roots, Islamism "represents a thoroughly modern effort to come to terms with the challenges of modernization" (pg. 11) and "the power that Islamists wield reflects their being a highly dedicated, capable, and well-organized minority...A little like cadres of the Communist Party [that] make up for numbers with activism and purpose" (pg. 13).
Pipes sees the West in conflict with Islamism, but believes that the battle will actually be decided within dar al-Islam (i.e., among Muslims themselves) as the Islamists battle with the more moderate (or less Islamist, if you prefer) Muslims - what I would call Islamic modernists - for the soul and future of Islam. Put another way, he holds that in the post-Cold War world, the central conflict is still ideological (as opposed to cultural, for example, a la Samuel Huntington), and whereas the US will play a crucial role in that conflict, it must be won from within. Personally, I think it's some of both - ideological as well as cultural - but Pipes argues his point well.
In any event, Islamism is not about material standing (i.e., it's not born of poverty and crushed expectations), Pipes argues, but rather about power - Islam's place in the world arena. The implication of this is enormous with respect to the West's counter. It would argue against worrying too much about poverty in Arabia and more on Islamist political (and, thus, military) power.
He points to what he calls "the Great Conundrum." That is, not all Muslims are Islamists (far from it), but all Islamists are Muslims (pg. 139). This pushes our law enforcement establishment towards profiling whether we like it or not. "Muslims who integrate can live simultaneously as patriotic Americans and as committed Muslims. Integrationist Muslims, whether pious believers or not, do not have a problem giving allegiance to a government that is primarily non-Muslim. They teach that what American culture calls for - respect for one's neighbor, hard work, honesty - is compatible with the norms of Islam (pg. 138)...[but t]he inescapable and painful fact is that only Muslims are tempted by militant Islam" (pg. 139).
"At a moment when the European-derived extremes of the Communist left and fascist right are tired and on the whole ineffectual, militant Islam has provided itself to be the only truly vital totalitarian movement in the world today. As one after another of its leaders has made clear, it regards itself as the sole rival, and the inevitable success, to Western civilization" (pg. 246).
So, what does Pipes recommend? Basically it is to continue to successfully defend ourselves (as in our defeat of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein's regime, and then to pursue the War on Terror), but, more importantly, to turn those military victories into political victories by helping "those Muslims with compatible views, especially on such issues as relations with non-Muslims, modernization, and the rights of women and minorities" (pg. 256). This does seem to be the thrust of the Bush Administration, so we'll have to see how faithful we are to it and how successful we are at it.

_Militant Islam Reaches America_ is a collection of essays but manages the cohesive feel of a purpose-written book, largely due to its concentrated theme. "Militant Islam" or "Islamism" is distinguished from Islam generically; Islamism is a totalitarian ideology stitched together out of Marxist doctrines and practices and a naive (outside of tradition, uninformed, unnuanced, ahistorical, "protestant") reading of the Qur'an.

Islamists are not traditional or medieval, they are modern and revolutionary. They are not driven by poverty or desperation. They are not pious muslims by ordinary standards and indeed their principal victims are moderate ("normal") muslims.

Of course, the Islamists' principal enemy is the West.

In this collection of essays, Pipes tackles an assortment of issues, including how to deal with sleeper cells, the U.S. government's relationships with Islamism, Islamist anti-semitism, Islamism's roots (or rather, lack thereof) in poverty, the battle for the soul of Islam between Islamists and traditional muslims, anti-muslim bias in the United States, the Nation of Islam, Islamist antipathy to free speech, and more. Throughout, Pipes remains friendly to and respectful of Islam and muslims generally, while unflinchingly opposed to the radical Islamists.

Some of his conclusions are reassuring (only a small minority of muslims are or support Islamists). Some are deeply disturbing (American muslim communities are disproportionately radicalized; money flows from the US groups to the Middle East rather than the reverse). All of the essays provide great clarity and insight to a topic which is very timely, very urgent and often very difficult to understand.

In this volume Middle East expert Daniel Pipes looks at the changing world since September 11. While some of the essays here were penned before that tragedy, all deal with the rise of Muslim militancy, and how the West should respond.

Pipes begins by arguing that militant Muslims, or Islamists, do not represent all followers of Islam. The good news is they only comprise, at tops, fifteen per cent of the total. The bad news is, with one billion Muslims, 150 million are extremists. It is the Islamists that are the real threat, says Pipes, not traditional Muslims.

Pipes provides the historical backdrop for this new militancy. For their first six centuries, Muslims enjoyed huge success. By the 13th century however decline set in, and for the next six centuries they found themselves heading to the bottom of world affairs, as power and wealth slowly ebbed away. The loss of their golden age, and their sense of alienation and frustration resulted in three recent responses.

Secularism, the first response, is seen in countries such as Turkey. The second option, reformism, meant trying to live with the West. The third option, Islamism, is the focus of this book. Militant Islam seeks to reclaim its golden age, wants the total imposition of Shari'a law, and rejects completely Western influences.

Pipes shows that Islamism is in fact a radical, utopian ideology, of the same mould as Marxism-Leninism or fascism. It is totalitarian in nature, and seeks salvation in political power, not individual religion. Whenever Islamists take power, as in Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan, a bloody tyranny results.

Pipes argues that most traditional Muslims disagree with the premises of the Islamists. This is reflected in part by the fact that often traditional Muslims are the main victims of militant Islam. Algeria is a good case in point, with tens of thousands of Algerians killed (compared to some 80 foreigners).

Since its ascendancy almost three decades ago, Islamism has become they main threat to freedom and democracy. It seeks global hegemony, just as past ideologies did. Fueled by fanaticism and hatred, militant Islam has become the new focus of evil in the world.

There are two main ways in which Islamists can achieve their goal of world dominion: revolution or integration. The latter comes in the form of immigration to the West, high birth rates, and conversion. All three means are resulting in rising Muslim populations in most Western nations.

The other option, bloody struggle, is something the West is becoming all too familiar with. Suicide bombers and terrorist cells are active around the world, and this threat is one all Western governments must come to terms with. Indeed, Pipes shows how militant Islam has been targeting Americans well before September 11.

Pipes sees some hope, however. Muslim unity has often been seen as an oxymoron, with the Iraq-Iran conflict being but one example. Another issue is how moderate Islam deals with the threat. If modernism is embraced and Western values are seen as compatible with Islam, then the fanatical arm may be contained. But it is by no means clear in which direction the majority of Muslims will move in the future. It is Muslims themselves, argues Pipes, not the West, who will determine the outcome of this post-Cold War ideological battle.

Pipes also writes about Muslims living in the US. There may be 2 or 3 million of them there. Pipes argues that on every front, the US is doing all it can to be hospitable to Muslims. There is a de facto affirmative action mentality in place, with schools, governments, the media, even the military, all fearful of showing any disrespect for Muslims.

Tolerance and respect of course are in order, argues Pipes, but in many ways Muslims are being given preferential treatment, so much so that the US government has become "a discreet missionary for the faith. Without anyone quite realizing it, the resources of the federal government have been deployed to help Muslims spread their message." Pipes documents numerous examples of just how this is in fact happening.

Pipes argues that if Islamists get their way in Western nations, freedom of speech concerning Islam and militant Islam would all but cease. It is becoming increasingly difficult to say anything which might be regarded as critical of Islam.

Pipes briefly examines the question of whether Islamism and jihad are an integral part of Islam, or a distortion of it. He recognises that Islam, like all great religions, is made up of different schools and is subject to varieties of interpretation, "from the mystical to the militant, from the quietist to the revolutionary. Its most basic ideas have been susceptible of highly contrasting explications."

Thus Pipes sees a battle for the soul of Islam being waged, with moderates and militants competing for dominance. But he sees terroristic jihad against the West as but "one reading of Islam ... not the eternal essence of Islam".

He argues that if half the population of the Muslim world hates America, the other half does not. It is to these more moderate Muslims that the West must work with, along with its own Muslim populations, to see that the radical Islamists do not prevail. The struggle will be long and difficult, says Pipes, but an Islamist victory is by no means certain.

Written shortly after the major events surrounding the Rushdie Conflict (though not before the murder of the Japanese translator of the Satanic Verses), Daniel Pipes provides major insight and perspective into the root causes of this international conflagration. He provides both a breakdown of Rushdie's work, and an explanation of the translation difficulties that further encouraged misunderstanding about the Book's actual contents. He appears to have a steady grasp of Arabic by the bibliography and transliteration, consonant with a fair amount of expertise in analyzing Islam. He provides the Islamic rationales for trying Salman Rushdie for apostasy, and indicates the questionableness of Khomeini's method (not the penalty itself) even under Islamic standards.(Gotta give 'em a trial, a chance to repent over three days, and then chop-chop- at least for the Sunni variety of Islam, though the various madhdhabs or schools of jurisprudence differ on the exact details of divinely sanctioned murder.) After reading the Satanic Verses, I whole heartedly concur that because of its level of erudition and numerous allusions to less familiar (to Westerners) stories from the salvation history of Islam to South Asian culture, it is no surprise how few people actually read the entire novel. But what is rather disturbing about human nature, is that this didn't stop complete Ignoramuses from opining- Pipes provides a multitude of quotes indicating the level of hearsay fed to the masses. Pipes also emphasizes the unprecedented scale of this eruption of world-wide riots and protests, citing works critical of Islam with far graver blasphemies. One blasphemous volume mentioned by Pipes that I found enjoyable was 23 years- a critical biography of the Prophet Muhammad by Ali Dashti, who although Pipes doesn't make reference to it, "disappeared" in 1980's Iran.

Pipes also mentions some of the effects the conflict had on the front lines of bookselling and publishing, pondering over the possible changes the death threats and bombings inaugrated by religious fervor. A decade later, I don't know how to guage his power of prophecy, but his commentary on the complex intersecting issues remain both incisive and fascinating.

Here is one example: the title of Rushdie's book. Pipes explains that while in English "the Satanic verses" is a plain ordinary phrase that refers to an embaraasing event in Islamic history, this phrase is not used in Arabic. Most Muslims won't recognize the event by that designation; Muslims call it something quite different. But when "verses" is translated into Arabic the word used refers specifically to Quranic verses. So the title is translated roughly as "The Satanic Verses of the Quran" or "The Satanic Quran".

Don't assume from this that Pipes if profferring an apologetic. He is not; this book is critical of "fundamentalist Islam". But Pipes is careful to explain how such Muslims think and react.

Salman Rushdie is brilliant. He knows who to derive from and steal from: James Joyce being one of his main sources. Good for him. If you're going to steal, steal from the best. Joyce's footprints are all over THE SATANIC VERSES. I felt at home. And Rushdie's tough and demanding like Joyce. Even moreso because he's dealing with issues western readers are not familiar with. So you have to go slow and get internet help (plenty available). Slowly, the novel begins to take shape. It's a book of dreams and nightmares bounded by the first and last very moving chapters about Chamcha's domestic crises with his father and ensuing alienation. Chamcha's torn between cultures, a lost searching soul, an alienated man. He's also an intellectual prig who wears many protective masks to conceal his sufferings and with which he explores religious and emotional wanderings. Read the first and last chapters to make contact with the down to earth domestic issues of the novel. Very moving. In between, you have this massive and intensive and witty and funny and dark and brilliant exploration of Muslim religion as seen from a willing/unwilling, searching unbeliever's point of view. He mocks and participates all at the same time. The language is gorgeous because it moves on many levels--from slang to pop to literary to religious, back and forth--and from the point of view of two languages and cultures. At one minute it's blasphemous, at another it's holy...and it's always a rich and makes the reader smile, smile, smile at the author's brilliance and learning. It's linguistic magic. What does it all add up to? You got me. I haven't scratched the surface. It may or may not add up. Talk to me in a year.

I know the Mid-East, having lived & travelled there constantly for more than ten years & having returned very often since my last residence there to travel even more. Like the author, I am Ph.D. holder -- Mid-East history. I find this book very superficial; what else can it be for lack of real substance? Moreover, I randomly checked the index & found that not a single item panned out. Need I say more? I am sorry I bought it; that is more. And still more: with so many notes, a bibliography is a must, if for nothing more than to help the reader evaluate the book based on the sources consulted.

Anyone interested in Middle East policies, politics, and general viewpoints would be wise to read this book. It goes a long way in explaining the backgound positions which pertain to the Palestinian-Isaeli conflict, the events of September 11, the Gulf War, etc. A fascinating and in-depth insight into the attitudes which shape the governments of the region.

This book was read by the undersigned shortly after reading another book on conspiracies,"committe of 300 by coleman. Anyone interested in the truth as to conspiracys which have been perpetrated on, over and around you on a continuous basis for years, should make both the hidden hand and committee of 300 a must. Both books should be kept as reference material which can be utilized on a daily [YES DAILY] basis as to explain why certain things that happen on a daily basis do actually happen and what the truth behind it [whatever] is; especially pertaining to economics, government and foreign policy.

I used this book for an undergraduate seminar on conspiracy. It is most useful for providing backgorund on some major, persistent conspriacy theory, explaining why, for example, Jews and Masons are frequently targeted. But there are some big problems too. For example, how can you review the history of conspiracies and leave out the theme of witch hunts? It does pose a problem for Pipes, who prefers to believe conspiracy theories were more predominant after the French Revolution. Pipes fails to realize how important gender is in conspiracy theory.

Some sweeping generalizations are made. Pipes confounds conspiracy theory with radical critiques of the elitist school of thought. He can be quite inconsistent. Winston Churhill is said not to hve been contaminated by his conspiracy theories, but Jesse Jackson is. Leninism is not merely examined for elements of conspiratorial thinking, it's conspiratorial at its heart.

Not a bad book in many repects, but beware the rightist biases.

Dan Hellinger, Webster University

Mr. Pipes follows the history of conspiracism and determines that it has two separate and distinct main threads: anti Semitism; and secret societies. There is occasional overlap and crossover between the two, but in general they have remained apart. While his research appears sparse at points, that may be due to the huge scope of his view, and to the very real difficulty in researching the essentially unresearchable (for example, how far can one study a "secret society" before losing oneself in the contradictions of myth, fact, and most revealing, myths accepted as facts?). At times the thread pursued by the author seems tenuous, but he does make a telling case in support of his thesis of these two dominant strains of conspiracism. Most chilling of all is his discussions of nations where conspiracism has become official state policy, specifically Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. I would have liked more indepth study of postwar American conspiracy theories, such as UFOs, the UN, and connections, if any, with various New Age beliefs, but that's my own particular interest. Mr. Pipes is mainly concerned with a broader historical picture.

While Mr. Pipes follows these twin paths of conspiracism, he demolishes the most widely accepted belief of the conspiracy theorists, that there are continuous sects and societies behind everything, and that all we see is simply the outward manifestation of their centuries long struggle for dominance. Make no mistake - the postulation of a continuous thread of conspiracism is not the same as accepting the existence of the conspiracies spanning generations and continents. While this book can not claim to be the definitive word on the subject (unless and until the Illuminati, the Elders of Zion, the Trilateral Commission, and the Rosicrucians open their archives), it does provide an interesting overview of conspiracism and demonstrates that the weirder paranoids among us have a long, if not distinguished lineage.

His encouraging conclusion that conspiracism has been increasingly marginalized (at least in the West) since the Second World War is offset somewhat by real world examples of collision between these conspiracists and the rest of society, e.g. Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Oklahoma City. Perhaps the greatest danger of modern day conspiracism is the extent to which preventive or corrective measures may backfire - how many of us are uncomfortable with the government's handling of the three cited cases, and of those, how many will be moved to align themselves with extremist groups?

I found this book to be an excellent survey of the various different strands of conspiracy theories. Pipes goes through the long historical pedigree (if such a word is appropriate) of conspiracy theories, and he sets out a pretty good model for how to tell the difference between a nutty conspiracy theorist and a person with a healthy critical skepticism of the motives and actions of the government and other groups. While he is sometimes a bit too dismissive of those who agree with some conspiracy theories, his book is a useful antidote to the pseudo-intellectual quackery that many conspiracy theorists arm themselves with, and he shows the very real danger that these theories, when unchecked, can cause (e.g.: antisemitic theories and Nazism, antigovernment theories and the Oklahoma City Bombing). He also does a pretty decent job of putting the theories and theorists into a larger cultural and political context. However, for a good primer of conspiracies, real and imagined (I think, largely imagined), I'd also recommend reading "The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time" by Jonathan Vankin and Ed Whalen (I think that is their names). Both of these books will keep you riveted, and introduce you to some fascinating and little-known facts.

What are the credentials of a good political analyst? A sharp intellect, analytical acumen, robust common sense and an uncanny ability to see into the future, seem to be the obvious requirements. Nay, in this trade all these are dispensable commodities. Political pundits, like other hereditary dignitaries, are born into their métier. Right parentage, proper schooling, sycophancy before power and a brazen tongue are far more important in the making of a political guru than all the above disposable traits. In Daniel Pipes' case, it is the latter, gratuitous boons that account for his rise to infamy. Son of a career bureaucrat, Pipes went to Harvard to obtain his Ph.D. on a dubious thesis (Cf. Our review of his: Slave Soldiers and Islam, in MWBR, vol. 2, no. 4 (1982), pp. 47-51) and later joined the State Department as an 'adviser'. His researches into the 'medieval' history of Islamic civilization, it was believed, had qualified him for his impudent vocation as an 'expert' on the contemporary politics of Islam. Here is a link, if ever it was in need of a demonstration, between the academic Orientalism of Harvard and the grisly Realpolitik of the State Department. The only talent that Pipes really possesses is scurrility and the only argument he knows is calumny. As a tireless crusader of the ideology of Western dominance and as an ardent member of the Lodge of US-Israeli freemasonry, Pipes has wielded his stock invective against Islam and Muslims with considerable skill; nonetheless, his scholarly diatribe, the present work clearly shows, is a monumental exercise in frivolity, banality and paranoia.

Unlike its acknowledged predecessors, notably H.A.R. Gibb's Modern Trends in Islam, or W.C. Smith's Islam in Modern History, which analysed Muslim confrontation with modernity in terms of profound, at times even sympathetic, spiritual and religious insights, Pipes' lengthy work is far too preoccupied with the immediate concerns of US policy makers to be intellectually gratifying.

The introductory chapter, cheeky in tone, impudent in style, shallow in insight and replete with inane assertions is enough to put off any conscientious Muslim reader labouring through this tract. After asserting that the mere fact of adherence to Islam has profound political consequences, Pipes presses home his point with such priceless logic: 'Were Iranian Buddhists, a religious leader would not have vanquished the Shah; were Lebanese entirely Christian, the civil war would not have occurred; were Israel Muslim, its neighbours would have accepted its establishment.' One may just as well add: Were Daniel Pipes an ass, he would have grown long ears and would not have written this book; were he a goat, he would have chewed its leaves, and were his father sterile, we would not have heard of him at all!

Pipes' book is quite transparent. He seems to have laboured frantically to: (1) present a comprehensive theory of current Islamic 'resurgence': (2) defend the honour of Western civilization; and (3) dance to the Zionist tune - all at the same time. And he has found handy villains in 'fundamentalist' Islam and OPEC. Islamic revival, so goes his incisive analysis, is the product of the oil boom; its principal architects, the wily states of Saudi Arabia and Libya; its natural allies, the abominable Russians; and its ultimate aim, the destruction of the West! Here's how Pipes' Israeli brand of latter day McCarthyism responds to the Protocol of the Elders of Petroleum: 'Muslims and Marxists led the assault on European power earlier this century; later, the Muslim members of OPEC and Soviet armed forces presented the main threats to the economic and political well-being of the West. No other religion or ideological group challenged Western civilization so intensively, nor any other watch with equal frustration how the West prospers. Muhammad brought a message claiming to supersede Christianity and Marx thought his theories would bury the capitalist economies of Europe, yet the Christian, capitalist civilization continue (sic!) to prosper, to the annoyance of both Muslims and Marxists. This bond will last s long as the West thrives.' (p. 157; emphasis added.) Such is the tenor of this study, 'the first comprehensive look at Islam as a force of public life', in which, as claimed by the books' cover jacket, 'a brilliant young scholar explains the origins and nature of this demanding and all-encompassing religion.' (my italics). Some brilliance! With such experts in the State Department, who needs a Zionist lobby?

Pipes prediction for the future of 'Islamic' fundamentalism reads as grim as his indictment of its self-authentication is fanatical. He says: 'To the extent the Islamic revival is based on the oil boom, is a mirage.... The confidence that played so large a role in leading Muslims to experiment with fundamentalist and autonomous solutions will be destroyed. The power of Saudi Arabia and Libya will fade as their disposable funds diminish and the two countries return to their former inconsequential isolation.... Iran's moral influence is fated to end as surely as the sheikdoms' financial power..... The Islamic alternative, once so full of promise, will lose its appeal and many Muslims will again regard their religion as an obstacle to progress..... In all likelihood, Nasserism will again appeal to Egyptian and Arab youth, Atatürk's legacy will be reinvigorated in Turkey, Pakistan will rediscover its British heritage.... The Arabs will find themselves face-to-face with Israel, without external help, and Israel can be expected to emerge from the crucible of oil boom much strengthened.'

However one may wish to dismiss the prospects of such an ignominious end to such a noble struggle as the product of a sick, Islamophobic fantasy, one would have to be a moron not to pay any heed to the scenario depicted by 'the brilliant young scholar' of the State Department. His projections may, after all, represent duplicates of some blue-prints locked in an American or Israeli filing-cabinet. Against all his intent and purpose, however, Pipes' work will have served some good if it jolts some of us to take the demands of our faith seriously. Only that will count as a firm rebuttal of the kind of psychedelic hallucination pushed by the likes of Daniel Pipes and his mentors in the US-Israeli power complex as reputable scholarship.

Few writers, Thomas W. Lippman wrote in the Washington Post, have explained so lucidly the complex developments of Muslim history.

It is difficult to address the questions of Islam, the Arabs and their relations with Israel and remain nonpartisan. But Business Week's Ronald Taggiasco called Pipes' scholarly explanation of events and faith in that little-known, volatile, and important part of the world well worth reading.

Pipes' reasoned, literate explanation of what generated the Islamic resurgence goes a long way to explaining recent events. Written in 1983, this book provided the first comprehensive political study of Islam's extraordinary role in modern world. We are fortunate indeed that Transaction has rescued the political and global implications of the Islamic revival, revealed here, from the out-of-print category, complete with a new preface for 2002.

The book is divided into three sections. The first covers the premodern legacy of Islam's sacred laws and its failure to implement the public ideal represented by those laws--as existed in the single state for Muslims (Dar al-Islam) from 622 to 753 A.D. According to Pipes, for most of Muslim history, traditional Muslims were willing to accept the gap between the ideal and the actual, to live with a less-than-complete implementation of Shari'a, although the Muslim approach to politics derived from the "invariant premises of the religion" established more than 1,500 years ago.

The second section covers Islam's encounters with the West, beginning with the matched powers of Crusaders against the Ayyubids, and proceeding quickly to Napoleon's 1789 invasion of Egypt. (This prompted the Ottoman Sultan Selim III to declare Jihad against the French and join the infidel British and Russian empires to keep his own in tact).

Muslims had ruled millions of Christians in Europe for 450 years before being displaced by Turkey. Then the western cultural onslaught began in the first half of the 18th century, and ran from Umma's eastern end (China and Indonesia) to its west (Crimea). By the end of 1919, only Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Arabia and Yemen retained political independence, the first three by balancing the claims of Britain against those of Russia and the latter two simply by being remote and completely barren. Meanwhile, the Muslim Empire had also lost battles of scientific, technical, mechanical, geographic and historical knowledge. Even daily Western life differed markedly from that of the Islamic east. Thus fundamentalists began lobbying for strict Shari'a everywhere in the Umma.

In contrast, reformist Muslims argue that traditional Shari'a is hopelessly illiberal and conflicts with the true Qur'anic values. They reject Shari'a traditions emanating from Hadith, consensus of the 'ulama and reasoning by analogy as inauthentic and outdated, respectively. Similarly, they approve of parliamentary systems of government, but view hold their record in Islamic society in contempt. On some fronts, liberal views conflict with themselves. While they admire pan-Islamic solidarity they are not committed to it; and they recognize national interests but disapprove of Muslim states fighting one another. And as for non-Muslims, according to Pipes, reformists are caught by ambiguity, between their desire for equal status for all and the wish for Dhimmi laws that traditional Islamic states use to bestow a special place on Muslims, while relegating all non-Muslims to inferior, even slavish conditions. The fact that Westernization did not markedly improve the Muslim world in the 1970s led to increasing fundamentalism.

Pipes devotes the third section to Islam in current affairs, detailing the effects of the fundamentalist surge on 22 Muslim-dominated nations from Indonesia, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Central Asia and Asia to Algeria, Morocco and Egypt in Africa and Syria, Iran and Iraq, in the Middle East. In at least 8 other nations, from Malaysia to Nigeria, Muslims vie with non-Muslims for power. In one of these--the Sudan--the conflict has grown bloody since this book was written, forcing millions into subjugation and slavery. Pipes also reviews 20 areas, including the former Soviet Union, where Muslims account for less than a quarter of the population but are asserting themselves. Pipes includes an extensive 50-plus page look at the means that the oil boom provided to promote Islam. Oil is behind the political importance of Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian Revolution, for example.

But Pipes also concludes that an Islamic revival dependant on oil constitutes a mirage, for the cash that oil provides cannot last forever. This, Pipes predicts, will leave the Islamic world with a choice that has become increasingly urgent--to adapt and come to terms with global Westernization, or to accept apologetics, introversion and poverty.

This broad treatment remains as helpful in understanding current events as when it was written nearly 20 years ago. Alyssa A. Lappen

This Jewish author knows nothing about Syria's history. In fact after looking into his other works and watching this Jewish propogandist on Televesion, I concluded that you will be better off talking politic with your dog. This way,you will have a more objective assesment of facts.

An utter scholastic failure. Pipes lets his unfettered love for Israel get in the way.

Daniel Pipes claims that pan-Syrianism has not received the scholarly attention it deserves because most Middle East scholars focus on pan-Arabism. Pan-Syrianism is defined as the goal of uniting lesser Syria (current borders), Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan (and sometimes Iraq) into what is called Greater Syria. Approximately half of the book is quotations from politicians, writers, clerics, from Syria, other Arab countries, and Europe. The citations have one goal - to show that pan-Syrianism has been a significant ideology in influencing players in Syria and neighboring countries before and after colonialism. The rest of the book consists of a narrative of the British/French/Arab/Maronite/Alawite participation in creating the borders of Syria, the Baath party and other political groups, relations between the minorities in Syria and the Sunni Muslim majority, relations between Syria and its neighboring countries (especially Lebanon), and the coups in Syria. The sheer number of quotes can get in the way after awhile, but the side benefit is extensive footnotes of primary and secondary sources on the history of modern Syria.
By the way, it did not contain too much about Israel, except the claim that minority status of the ruling 'Alawi minority would probably have been indifferent to Israel except for their desire to avoid the charge from the Sunni Muslim majority of been pro-Zionist; and a few quotes from Israelis about pan-Syrianism. I saw nothing that could be construed as anti-Arab or pro-Israel.
Whether one agrees or not with his thesis about pan-Syrianism's importance in shaping the political history of the region, the book was a good introduction to modern Syria's political history.