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A World Without Islam, by Graham E. Fuller
Ebook Free A World Without Islam, by Graham E. Fuller
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This extremely provocative and illuminating "what if" journey through history, geopolitics, and religion investigates whether there is something unique in Islam and its followers that breeds violence and conflict. Spanning the rise of Muhammad to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire to the present day, the book examines and analyzes the roots of terrorism, the conflicts in Israel and Chechnya, and the role of Islam in supporting and energizing the anti-imperial struggle.
Fuller's startling conclusion? Contrary to the claims of many of today's most respected politicians, thinkers, theologians, and soldiers, East-West relations in a world without Islam might not look vastly different from what we see today. And, thankfully, such recognition provides a map to a more peaceful future, making A WORLD WITHOUT ISLAM both a brilliant examination of the past and a visionary look forward.
- Sales Rank: #193481 in Books
- Published on: 2011-07-14
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x .88" w x 5.25" l, .65 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 336 pages
From Publishers Weekly
In this wide-ranging historical text, Fuller, former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, suggests that many of the current tensions that exist between the East and the West have geopolitical rather than religious origins and that these tensions would have arisen in a "world without Islam." The author opens the book with a theological analysis that emphasizes the continuities among the three Abrahamic faiths. He then pivots to an extended history of the Christian world that focuses on the conflict between Latin and Byzantine Europe, pointing out that the schism between them largely motivated the Crusades. The book then covers the relationship of Islam to Russia, India, and China before turning to the Muslim world specifically, surveying its centuries-long decline from a position of cultural, political, and economic dominance. Fuller covers an extraordinary number of subjects lucidly, and whether readers are persuaded by his valorization of geopolitics above religion, he cogently lays out the complex causes of contemporary conflicts and makes bold policy recommendations that move conversations about East-West relations beyond religious and ideological divides.
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Challenging commentators who regard Islam as the seedbed of anti-Western terrorism, Fuller argues that the perilous tensions between the West and the Middle East spring from nonreligious sources, not Islamic theology. Fuller defends his provocative thesis by showing that long before Muhammad, the peoples of the Middle East viewed the Western powers as interlopers. Readers explore, in particular, the ways the eleventh- and twelfth-century Christian crusaders against Islam were replaying scripts written by Roman Catholic authorities, who suppressed heresies in the Levant and then waged doctrinal war against the patriarchs of Eastern Orthodoxy. The persistence of pre-Islamic resentments surfaces most tellingly in the willingness of Catholic crusaders to ignore the Muslims long enough to sack the Christian (but Eastern Orthodox) city of Constantinople for political and economic reasons. These reasons for regional conflict continued, as Fuller illustrates, after the Protestants’ revolt and Russia’s emergence as a new Byzantium. Fuller thus dares to suggest that overcoming the twenty-first-century anti-Western animosities of Middle Eastern Muslims requires an honest and historically informed assessment of economic and political inequities that moves us beyond a fixation on religious issues. This exceptional inquiry finally sustains a quite specific—and controversial—set of recommendations for reframing American foreign policy. --Bryce Christensen
Review
"Fuller dares to suggest that overcoming the twenty-first-century anti-Western animosities of Middle Eastern Muslims requires an honest and historically informed assessment of economic and political inequities that moves us beyond a fixation on religious issues. This exceptional inquiry finally sustains a quite specific-and controversial-set of recommendations for reframing American foreign policy."―Booklist
"Well-reasoned...Fuller's book is indeed a useful corrective."―Ishaan Tharoor, Time
"Another must-read by one of the most thought-provoking writers on Islam and the Middle East."―Reza Aslan, author of No god but God and Beyond Fundamentalism
Most helpful customer reviews
50 of 55 people found the following review helpful.
The premise is that A World Without Islam...would not be much different than today (a history teacher's review)
By DWD's Reviews
Graham Fuller has a long history in the intelligence communities (27 years) and may be most famous for being the man behind the idea that led to the whole "Iran-Contra" affair (and an ironic mis-quote in Chapter 12 when he quotes Reagan as calling the Afghan mujahideen the "moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers" when he said that of the Nicaraguan Contras). This book is a response to The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington. Fuller makes repeated references to Huntington's most famous line from the book: "The bloody borders of Islam." Fuller contends that it is not Islam vs. the World but rather East vs. West.
I cannot disagree with Fuller's ultimate thesis - the East and the West are two civilizations (cultures, if you prefer) that are in tension with one another. That tension has been there since before Christ. The Roman Era exacerbated the problem by having two capitols - Rome and Constantinople. The church divided along that axis and the Roman Catholic (Latin) Church and the Greek Orthodox churches fought, or at least bickered, as often as not. The rise of Islam rose in the Orthodox sphere and largely assumed their anti-Western stance.
Fuller presents a compelling case and I cannot help but agree with almost everything he says, but I will point out a few troubling issues:
-In Chapter Three he notes that the beginning of East/West struggles begin with Alexander the Great's invasion of Persia in 334 B.C. Funny, I would have thought that he would have chosen events such as the Persian domination of Greek city states in modern Turkey and the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 B.C. (146 years earlier) made famous in the popular mind by the recent movie 300. Or perhaps the Persian involvement in the last stages of the Peloponessian War (413-404 B.C.) where they interfered in the war, paid for a Spartan navy that defeated the Athenian navy and tried to make Sparta a client state.
But, there is a reason that he has chosen Alexander's invasion to start his history and not given the reader the entire story - his other thesis, and perhaps most important one is that the West is the reason for the West's troubles with the East, better known as Russia and Islam in the modern world. The West is always the aggressor. The East is always more inclusive and the victim of the West's aggression.
The Crusades? Only a precursor to Western Imperialism and definitely not a reaction to Islam's spread to Spain, its slow-motion engulfing of the Byzantine Empire and its abuse of Christian holy sites and pilgrims.
How should the West have behaved? We are given the example of Russia - which Fuller claims as a model of ethnic and religious integration - for all religions , including Judaism. This is the same Russia that gave English the word "pogrom" to describe state sponsored violence against Jewish communities. Fuller refers to popular theater to support his thesis over and over again. He should have noted Fiddler on the Roof and An American Tail before making too much of Russia's successes. On a similar note, he promotes the fact that Russian integrations worked so well that a million Muslims fought for Russia against the Ottomans in World War I but, on the next page, he also notes there was a violent uprising against "new Tsarist poliices that tried to force Muslims into military service." Well, which is it?
I think it is both, but Fuller tries too hard throughout the book to make certain facts conform to his thesis. These are not square pegs being forced into round holes. More like oval pegs being forced into round holes. They are sort of right, and, with a little careful trimming here and there they fit. There's a pattern: ignore Persia's pre-Alexander invasions of Greece, overlook legitimate Christian concerns about the spread of Islam at the expense of the Christian Byzantine Empire and the treatment of Christian holy sites and pilgrims, overstate Russia's success at becoming a multi-ethnic, multi-religion state. Why? If the truth is shaved a bit here and there, and with a little pounding, the pegs do fit in those holes - sort of, if you don't look too close.
Fuller does not mention, at all, the well-documented ethnic/religious strugges in Indonesia or Darfur. In fact, with the exception of Egypt, the entire continent of Africa is barely mentioned at all, despite its being one of the more fluid and contentious areas of religious turmoil in the world.
What does Fuller get right?
A lot.
Alexander did spread a thin veneer of Western values over the Middle and Near East and it was resented - just look, for example, at Judea's continued reaction to Hellenistic rule, from the time of the Maccabees through the multiple rebellions against the Romans. Were the Crusades all about religious fervor? Clearly not. Lots of money was made (by such groups as the Knights Templar), reputations were made (Richard Lionheart) and landless knights were able to carve out kingdoms in the Middle East (at least for a while). Was Russia better at integration than such multi-religion states as Spain? Clearly so- Spain expelled all of the Jews and Muslims. But, let's not pretend Russia had it all figured out, either.
His history and comparisons of Christianity, Islam and Judaism are well-written, despite the biases noted above. Read carefully and you will learn a lot.
Much to his credit, Fuller does not only offer criticism. He also offers thoughtful advice on how to proceed in the future. It makes sense and has given me lots to think about. I also appreciated the last paragraph in which he notes that secular violence has been much worse in our recent history. World War I, World War II, the Nazis and the Communists were all secular and were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. "We in the West will be on a sounder path if we can de-Islamize our perceptions of regional issues and view them simply as universal human social and political problems for which we, too, share some responsibility."
I give it three stars - this would be a 5 star book but I have to take away one star for the "shaving" of facts I mentioned above and I have to take away another for not mentioning much of anything at all about Africa or Indonesia and Bangladesh - these areas alone account for more than a third of all Muslims, have been the source of a lot of violence and tension and should have been considered when having any sort of discussion about "A World Without Islam."
[...]
51 of 60 people found the following review helpful.
More Than I Ever Expected to Learn
By Louis N. Gruber
What if Islam had never arisen? Would we still have East-West tensions? Terrorism? Would "they" still hate America? Would a 9-11 have been possible? The answer, according to author Graham Fuller is, most probably yes. He doesn't arrive at this conclusion lightly, but after an amazing, broad and enlightening study of history. After tracing the origins and relationships of the three Abrahamic religions, he studies the Roman Empire, its breakup into Eastern and Western Empires, and the subsequent splitting of the church into Eastern and Western churches.
There's a long history of mutual suspicion and hatred between East and West; throw in religion and the mix becomes incendiary, especially when religion is joined to the state, any state, and becomes a vehicle for state control. A painful look at the Crusades and their still powerful reverberations follows. The author then takes a hard look at the world of Islamic culture, once pre-eminent, then in a steep decline, now trying to revive its former glory. There's a lot more in the book as well.
Finally, after this exhaustive survey, Fuller takes a look at current American policies in the Islamic world and sees much to be questioned. This may be the hardest part of the book for some readers, for he finds much of American policy counter-productive, pouring kerosene on the flames of local and regional grievances.
Author Graham Fuller is a good writer, who makes his vast scholarship easily accessible. It's not light reading but it's tremendously enlightening. You may not agree with everything he says, but you will learn more than you ever expected to know. I recommend this one highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.
23 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
The Cross, the Star, and the Crescent
By sneaky-sneaky
Mr. Fuller explores much of Islamic history and describes many of the geohistorical undercurrents tugging at the events of today in his book 'A World Without Islam.' Mr. Fuller is a former CIA analyst, and he does a pretty good job of organizing his material and introducing other opinions, such as quotes from Robert Kaplan, a talented and well traveled journalist. The overall premise is how similar the world would be today with or without Islam, tensions between the Middle East and the West, or mistrust between Russia and the West would still exist, and obviously history itself would be very different, the zero being a rather useful digit.
'A World Without Islam' is a timely work, as the amount of Islamophobia in the media has ratcheted up significantly since 9/11. The author frequently cites the events of 2001 and points out that they may have occurred anyway due to U.S. policies that have always been self-serving, be it propping up despotic regimes in order to continue pumping oil, deposing democratically elected leaders (Iran 1953), stationing troops on sacred ground such as Saudi Arabia, or invading Muslim countries.
Mr. Fuller explains that tensions between the U.S. and Russia arise primarily from Eastern Orthodoxy versus Catholicism, the former having more in common with Islam, hence Russia's recent realignment with states like Iran since the demise of the atheistic Communist state. The mosque onion dome was borrowed from Eastern Orthodox architecture, and China contains some twenty million Muslims, a large portion of whom are currently being persecuted, resettled, and diluted by bringing in millions of Han Chinese to displace them.
Mr Fuller lambastes the Bush administration for its unilateralism, and perceives the Obama administration as an improvement, but is realistic in his assessment of State politics; Mr. Obama inherited two wars and over 700 foreign bases, he cannot just wind down an empire in four years. The author draws many of the same conclusions as other Middle Eastern scholars; withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia, resolve the Palestinian issue, and treat terrorism as a law enforcement/policing problem, and not something to throw B-52 bombers and hundreds of thousands of troops at. 'A World Without Islam' is an important contribution to a debate that includes Christian fundamentalists who would take the title's proposition seriously.
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