Militant Islam Reaches America / Edition 1

by Daniel Pipes

Overview

One of the most far-reaching examinations of militant Islam written to date.

Long before September 11, 2001, Daniel Pipes publicly warned Americans that militant Islam had declared war on America—yet sadly, Americans failed to take heed. The publication of Militant Islam Reaches America finally brought Pipes the attention he deserves. Dividing his work into two parts, Pipes first defines militant Islam, stressing the large and crucial difference between Islam, the faith, and the ideology of militant Islam. He then discusses the relatively new subject of Islam in the United States, and how it has developed rapidly in the last decade. In Militant Islam Reaches America, the product of thirty years of extensive research, Pipes provides one of the most incisive examinations of the growing radical Islamic movement ever written.

The paperback edition includes a new essay, "Jihad and the Professors."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393325317
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/17/2003
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	348
Sales rank:	350,811
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Daniel Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum and a columnist for the New York Post and the Jerusalem Post. He has served in the departments of State and Defense and has taught at the University of Chicago and at Harvard University. He lives in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	xi
Part I	Militant Islam
1.	Is Islam a Threat?	3
2.	The Imaginary Green Peril	15
3.	Battling for the Soul of Islam	27
4.	Do Moderate Islamists Exist?	38
5.	Does Poverty Cause Militant Islam?	52
6.	The Glory of Islamic Economics	64
7.	The Western Mind of Militant Islam	70
8.	Echoes of the Cold War Debate	86
9.	The U.S. Government, Patron of Islam? (with Mimi Stillman)	92
10.	A Monument of Apologetics	104
Part II	Islam Reaches America
11.	"We Are Going to Conquer America"	111
12.	Conversion and Anti-Americanism	126
13.	Fighting Militant Islam, Without Bias	133
14.	Catching Some Sleepers	145
15.	Are American Muslims the Victims of Bias?	156
16.	"How Dare You Defame Islam"	171
17.	Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad's Diplomacy	181
18.	Charlotte's Web: Hizbullah's Career in the Deep South	193
19.	America's Muslims vs. America's Jews	201
20.	Muslim Slaves in American History	214
21.	The Rise of Elijah Muhammad	219
22.	The Curious Case of Jamil Al-Amin	233
23.	Who Is the Enemy?	242
24.	Jihad and the Professors	258
	Postscript: World War IV?	269
	Notes	273
	Acknowledgments	311
	Index	313

Editorial Reviews

"An extraordinarily useful compendium of basic information and analysis...easily readable by the nonspecialist, yet engaging for scholars as well."

National Review

"A singular and alarming insight into ideological Islam and the nurturing—at home—of the extremist and terrorist threat."

National Post

"Unlike other Middle East experts, Daniel Pipes did not need to reinvent himself or revise his opinions after September 11th."

Robert Kaplan

"[Pipes is] an authoritative commentator on the Middle East."

Wall Street Journal

"Blunt and passionate."

New York Times - Judith Miller

"Brilliantly demonstrates how Pipes knows his subject."

Steven Emerson

[Pipes is] an authoritative commentator on the Middle East.

Wall Street Journal

The director of the Middle East Forum on the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A cri de guerre in which the noted scholar (Conspiracy, 1997, etc.) again urges that militant Islam is an enemy and must be treated as such. The fundamentalist, ahistorical (but not anachronistic), and uncompromising face of Islam does not have much to do with the faith of Muhammad, writes Pipes. By far the great majority of Muslims reject the "Islamicist" program, which resembles fascism and communism more than any flavor of religion, and which, though cloaked in populist garb, is the ideological offspring of "money, education, and privilege"; though it rejects westernizing cultural tendencies, what Pipes brands "Islamicism" in fact is oddly reliant on the West, if only because the West provides a convenient bogeyman. Islamicist regimes, Pipes writes, are far more dangerous than are the "odd shipwrecks" of leftist regimes in the Arab world and, for this reason, must be combated at every turn. Pipes urges that the overarching goal of US foreign policy in the Islamic world be to prevent Islamicist parties such as Hezbollah and, for that matter, the Taliban from coming to power. Echoing Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Pipes also urges that the West simply refuse to engage in dialogue, private or public, with any militant Islamic group, and that it shun any action that might be construed as giving in to or appeasing any Islamicist power or party. Although not all Muslims hate the West, Pipes allows, and although militant Muslims constitute perhaps only 10% of the Muslim population worldwide, he suggests that the US government keep a watchful eye on immigrant Muslims—for, though "American politicians from George W. Bush on down have tripped over themselves to affirm that the vast majorityof Muslims living in the United States are just ordinary folks," that population still harbors a significant body of people who despise America and intend it harm. Highly controversial, at times inflammatory—but worthy of attention and debate in a time of crisis.

Kirkus Reviews