Passion for Islam: Shaping the Modern Middle East: The Egyptian Experience

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Summary: Where do Islamic Insurgencies come from?
Review: I just caught up to an excellent book by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Caryle Murphy, who spent three years in Cairo as Egypt's bureau chief for the Washington Post. During that time, Murphy covered the first Iraqi war and spent countless hours meeting and interviewing Egyptian citizens, as well as the powerhouses who help shape Middle Eastern policy. We Americans on the home front, traditionally ignorant about other cultures, have much to learn from this informative, easy-to-read book.
In Passion for Islam Murphy produces a consolidated picture of a process that is taking place across the Arab world, and affecting the planet as a whole. Starting with the end of the socialist promise of the Nasser era all the way through the violence that rocked Egypt in the nineties, Murphy carefully follows the development of Islamist insurgency through its various forms. Breaking down each step in the movement's growth to its simplest parts, she is able to differentiate the facets of Islam in Egypt that played into the development of radical Islamist behavior.
Murphy identifies three main parts of the radical Islamist movement, "Pious Islam," "Political Islam," and Cultural Islam." Her thorough discussion of each succeeds in illuminating the various and complex aspects of the web of Egyptian life, through which religion is a common thread. Whether it is the grounding force of a family living in poverty, or a tool by which the unscrupulous seize power, Murphy examines Islam's role in the lives of all Egyptians, and the trends both personal and national that have begun under its shadow of influence.
In this new world after 9/11 many books have appeared that address this issue in one way or another, and do so with various success. Passion for Islam, however, stands apart from this crowd if for no other reason than its sheer readability. Where many illuminating accounts of the Taliban and radical militancy burden the shelves unread with their ominous association to things like textbooks, Passion for Islam jumps out as being equal parts sociology and travelogue. Murphy carefully blends erudite reporting and commentary with descriptive scenery and personal account, relaxing the tone of the book to comfortable page turning; and throughout the commentary, she demonstrates that her understanding of the situation comes from having actually been there, as much as having studied it. With an easy tone and thoughtful manner Murphy gives an exciting and critical account of the years she spent in Egypt, and at the same time crafts a clear and useful blueprint of a process of extreme historical and political importance.
For the casual reader Passion for Islam provides an interesting look into a far away world that, though weighing on our daily lives, has remained one of murky fog and speculation. For those who know already something about the world of Islam and radical politics the book develops a new and lucid framework for understanding the situation and works extensively, in both a sociological and historical sense, to sort out and clarify the facts of one nation's experience with Islam and the world that surrounds it. It's a good blend of Discovery channel adventure and high-level insight, and goes a long way towards filling in those gaps in our collective understanding of the world around us.


Rating:
Summary: Good Cure for Secret Ignorance
Review: I have long been secrety embarrassed by my lack of knowledge about Egypt beyond the usual touristy stuff -- even though I spent some weeks there once seeing the sights and even though, more recently, I've recognized in sidelong ways that Egypt's modern history and in particular its struggle to cope with repeated waves of Islamicist extremism within its borders offers a lesson very relevant for those of us now trying to understand the Post-9/11 world. Murphy cured me of my ignorance with her compelling descriptions and analyses of the forces -- political, religious, cultural -- that have shaped that land.She does so in part with smart use of colorful characters she got to know during her time covering the region as a Washington Post reporter, and from scads of research... Cleanly organized, thorough, insightful. A very helpful and yet enjoyable read.

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Summary: The Passion of Caryle Murphy
Review: In Passion for Islam Caryle Murphy, the Washington Post's Cairo Bureau Chief from 1989 to 1994, introduces us to an astonishing cast of characters, a diverse people, desperate, determined and united in their mission to find the role that will restore the self-respect and the greatness that were once theirs by right of intellectual, social and cultural brilliance

In Passion for Islam we meet the leaders, the followers and the innocent by-standers of that quest for respect from without and within: terrorists, saints, mystics, idealists, technocrats, torturers, torture victims, tour guides and taxi drivers. We are subjected to an eloquent babel of opinion, opposed in its methodologies but united in its quest for an Islamic future that will be as brilliant as its past.

Delving into the recent past, Caryle Murphy explores the reasons for Islamic decline: the clash of a recently decadent but once great civilization with the irresistible force of an industrial revolution it might once have led, the lack of democracy without which no society can evolve in concert with rapid and unpredictable cultural and technological change, more than a century of meddling by the western powers into the affairs of nations they cannot understand, the failure of quest upon quest for modernity to a point where that quest has been all but abandoned and, most recently, the inability of fundamentalised Islam to accommodate to any but the most destructive elements of the progress that was once one of the most brilliant jewels in its crown.

Fearless (in 1991 she spent 28 days as an undercover reporter in Iraqi-occupied Kuwait) open minded, insatiably curious, indefatigably non-judgemental but never naïve (her family lost two loved ones in the September 11 attacks) Caryle Murphy seeks out the diverse and often contradictory aspirations of the Islamic mind. Guided by her sympathy, her good-humour and, when necessary, her moral outrage we are the privileged witnesses of the benign but penetrating interrogation of a people who must reach a truce in their war with themselves before they can make peace with the rest of the world.

For those who would understand Islam not crush it, for those who would accommodate with rather than fight a vast segment of humanity that was brilliant once and seeks to be brilliant again, for those who would learn about Islam through the voices of its people, for those who would visit the Islamic world as tourists, traders, diplomats, distributors of aid or would be conquerors, Caryle Murphy's Passion for Islam, wittily and beautifully written, is the essential guide to one of humanity's most complex and poorly understood cultures.

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Summary: No hope
Review: Murphy talks about the past glories of Islam. When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798 he found a subsistence society of 2.5 million living in the ruins of past civilizations. He landed on a beach that had once been the city of Alexandria. Napoleon defeated the slave soldiers, the Mamelukes, who had ruled Egypt for over 500 years. The Pharaoh's ruled a splendid civilization with a population of 5 million. The Ptolemaic Greeks added to Egypt's greatness with beautiful cities, libraries, and art. Between the Moslem conquest of Egypt in 641 and Napoleon's invasion Islam contributed 1,157 years of history unencumbered with progress. Worse, they destroyed and defaced the monuments left by superior civilizations. Egyptians were ignorant of their past glories and couldn't read the old hieroglyphics. As V.S. Naipaul says, "Islam seeks as an article of faith to erase the past; the believers in the end honor Arabia alone... Islam requires the convert to accept that his land is of no religious or historical importance; its relics were of no account; only the sands of Arabia are sacred."

Murphy sees four forces contending in Egypt today; pious Islam, political Islam, cultural Islam and thinking Islam. Murphy admits that the intolerant Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is very influential. They want to remove all vestiges of the West and destroy all secular and liberal Moslems. She cites the murder of the writer Farag Foda and the attempted murder of Novelist Naguib Mahfouz as examples along with murders of Coptic Christians and foreign tourists. The "pious" intention is to install an Islamic state and implement shar'ia - the primitive Islamic legal code. Murphy hopes that "thinking Islam" will lead an Islamic reformation. Not a chance. The complexity of the infighting is exceeded only by its irrelevance. The fanatics will win. In Islam they always win.

Murphy observes that the Egyptian population is growing rapidly. One third of the population is under 15 years old. The combination of Western medicine with the Islamic policy of keeping women ignorant and pregnant has resulted in a population explosion. The economy can't keep up and there is increasing poverty which fuels the growth of intolerant Islamic fundamentalism. Anwar Sadat supported radical Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood until they killed him. The Egyptian government is made up of old men holding on to power. They alternately try to placate the terrorists or repress them. These tactics will fail. Osama Bin Laden's chief deputy is Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahari. Egypt, like the rest of the Moslem world, is headed back to the good old days of the Mamelukes.

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Summary: A great focused look by an on-the-scene observer
Review: Passion For Islam is a great book for anyone interested in learning something about the rise of various Islamic movements in Egypt over the years. One of the books strengths is its focus on the specific experience of Egypt, where the author lived and worked as a journalist for several years during the 1990's. Murphy doesn't attempt to assess or explain what's happening in the Islamic world in general, or to draw broad conclusions on matters beyond the specific scope of the book, i.e. the Egyptian experience.

Murphy works in historical details in a very clear fashion, mixing them with current-day journalism and interviews with people from all levels of the Egyptian social and political scenes. You get to hear from people inside or aligned with various movements, people in the Egyptian government, and most importantly, the ordinary people in the middle whose lives are affected by these forces. She shows in great detail the complexity and diversity of thought and feelings at work, and how what's happening cannot be understood in simple black-or-white interpretations.

I found that my own understanding of the situation was greatly enhanced by reading this book. Murphy's book does not provide solutions as much as a look at what is happening and a warning. These rising movements are not monolithic in their beliefs or in their goals, and should not be treated as such. And they do not occur in a vacuum. Unless the climate in which they have sprung up -- a poor country under a corrupt, inept faux-democratic government that suppresses all discussion and dissent -- is changed, they will only continue to grow as the only alternative available.

Rating:
Summary: A great focused look by an on-the-scene observer
Review: Passion For Islam is a great book for anyone interested in learning something about the rise of various Islamic movements in Egypt over the years. One of the books strengths is its focus on the specific experience of Egypt, where the author lived and worked as a journalist for several years during the 1990's. Murphy doesn't attempt to assess or explain what's happening in the Islamic world in general, or to draw broad conclusions on matters beyond the specific scope of the book, i.e. the Egyptian experience.

Murphy works in historical details in a very clear fashion, mixing them with current-day journalism and interviews with people from all levels of the Egyptian social and political scenes. You get to hear from people inside or aligned with various movements, people in the Egyptian government, and most importantly, the ordinary people in the middle whose lives are affected by these forces. She shows in great detail the complexity and diversity of thought and feelings at work, and how what's happening cannot be understood in simple black-or-white interpretations.

I found that my own understanding of the situation was greatly enhanced by reading this book. Murphy's book does not provide solutions as much as a look at what is happening and a warning. These rising movements are not monolithic in their beliefs or in their goals, and should not be treated as such. And they do not occur in a vacuum. Unless the climate in which they have sprung up -- a poor country under a corrupt, inept faux-democratic government that suppresses all discussion and dissent -- is changed, they will only continue to grow as the only alternative available.