Book review

Political Islam, World Politics and Europe: Democratic Peace and Euro-Islam versus Global Jihad Bassam Tibi London and New York: Routledge, 2008, xxii+311pp.

Due to his established record of critical scholarship, Bassam Tibi needs no introduction among the contemporary academics of Islamic civilization in the West. He is, arguably, one of the few leading Muslim scholars in Europe who not only have a significant reputation among European policy makers (Germany in particular), but also command a considerable respect among non-Muslim scholars there.

Political Islam, World Politics and Europe, like some of Tibi’s other books, is a carefully written, well-edited, and by all accounts highly ambitious work. But reading it, one is quickly reminded of his confrontational style of presentation: his innumerable harsh words for those he calls “Islamists,” his less than flattering words for some specific scholars (pp.148, 164, 176, 186), criticism of peer-reviewers (pp.xx, 114), and assertion of other scholars not acknowledging him adequately (pp.156, 187). Most importantly, many of the ideas Tibi has ever posited in his other over sixty-nine works reappear in both the text and the notes of the volume. Thus, contrary to the promotional excerpts on the book’s back cover, one is left to wonder how it’s most likely readers, specialists and experts will receive it.

Generally, the author argues that “political Islam,” “Islamism,” and “Islamic fundamentalism” are one and the same thing (p.123): a significant minority (p.117), and a violent and potent manifestation of Islam that is incompatible with European democracy. It is “in a nutshell: a new world order shaped by ‘hakimiyyat Allah/God’s rule’ and not just an expression of anti-globalism” (p.98). Significantly “Euro-Islam” - a concept Tibi asserts to having coined (pp.156, 177, 180, 187, 190) - is presented as the only option (p. 186) for both Muslims in Europe and European democratic institutions to employ, if the “Islamization of Europe” is to be averted.

The book itself is divided into a detailed preface, a lengthy introduction, seven chapters, extensive notes, and a bibliography followed by an index. In Part 1, the author introduces “the basic notion underlying the civilizational conception in world politics: the envisioned Nizam Islami/Islamic order and the vision of democratic peace for a post-bipolar world order” (p.11). While tracing the idea of jihad from its classical conception to modern jihadism (Chapter 1), he undertakes his own search for Islamic democracy, peace, and pluralism and suggests how these can serve as a better alternative political choice (Chapter 2). Part 2 then discusses “global jihadism as an Islamist internationalism”, focusing on its Sunni (Chapter 3) and Shi’i (Chapter 4) manifestations. In Part 3, the author assesses Islamization and Europeanization in regard to “Muslim Europe” (Chapter 5) or “Euro-Islam” (Chapter 6) as the likely outcomes. Finally, Chapter 7 contends that rather than voting procedures, the “political culture of democracy is the solution for Islamic civilization” (pp. 217).

Tackling these topics and doing justice to them is no easy task for anybody. Even Tibi, despite over four decades of research in the field, is by no means an exception to this reality. In truth, this conundrum has more to do with the issues’ complicated nature than with the authors’ qualifications and experiences. There are more points of contention in this information-loaded Political Islam than one can tackle here. However, since the origin of the idea of “Euro-Islam” is not only demonstrably claimed by the author but is also among the top of this book’s main points, it is worth pursuing further.

Tibi rejects “political correctness,” describing it as the “rules of censorship” (p.95), “questionable culture” (p.127), “self-victimizing discourse” (p.157), and “self-censorship” (p. 171), as he makes his case for tough language and straight-forwardness in arguing with

European scholars of cultural relativism or multi-culturalists (pp. 115, 153, 155, 172, 200) and in dealing with Islamists (pp. 157, 171). These and other sentiments may be construed as uncompromising tendencies on the part of the author, which may also expose the author’s own work to harsh criticism. Despite the author’s claim to promoting freedom (p.188), his tough stance against granting minorities (in this case, Muslims and others in Europe) any freedoms simply because that might ignite a backlash among the majority or hinder the minority’s integration portrays conflicting ideological temperaments. He writes: “I have misgivings that any granting of minority privileges and special collective rights to cultural and religious groups would be counter-productive…” (p. 212).

The following is written as a stylistic reciprocity with his rejection of “political correctness” and in acceptance to his call to speak “out candidly” (p. 159). Following suit with his own critique of other scholars in the field, it is understandable to state that the idea of “Euro-Islam” is the most “flawed” (p.164) and most unrealistic proposition in this book. This is how Tibi describes and explains the concept/notion:

In Euro-Islam I address the effort of devising a liberal variety of Islam acceptable both to Muslim migrants and to European societies, thus an Islam that can accommodate the ideas of Europe, ideas including secularism and individual citizenship along the lines of a modern secular democracy … Euro-Islam is the very same religion of Islam as exists anywhere. In the case of Europe, however, it is culturally adjusted to the civic culture of modernity … The major features of the concept of Euro-Islam would include laïcité, cultural modernity, and an understanding of tolerance that goes beyond the Islamic tolerance restricted to Abrahamitic believers (ahl al-kitab) (pp. 206-7).

This proposition, as described above, includes certain universal ideals and aspirations that Muslims can accept without feeling that they will jeopardize their religion, cultures and asabiyya. But in general, the author’s “Euro-Islam” is simply “Europeanization” of Muslims in a form of total assimilation, whether he means it or not. In and of itself, “Europeanization” may not necessarily be a bad idea or be an unrealistic choice for Muslims. It should, however, be presented as such. Some Muslims would be glad to be Europeanized enough and maintain their religion in a comfortable fashion (most are already there, for the most part, due to the idea of Europe). Besides, “Euro-Islam” as presented, would hardly be accepted by all Europeans.

The problem with Tibi’s version of “Euro-Islam,” especially as he equates it to “Afro- Islam” and “Indo-Islam,” lies however in who is to be charged with the process of Europeanzing Islam and how realistic such an undertaking is. In his opinion, this mantle must be assumed by Muslim immigrants (“to be demanded of Muslims living in Europe” [p.207]; “it can only be accomplished if change and religious reforms are admitted by Muslims” [p.189]). Using the “Afro-Islam” example, he could not be more wrong in this expectation. When Islam went to Africa, the local people eventually accepted it individually and collectively, depending on the region, and Africanized it in due course. So “Afro-Islam” was not accomplished by those who introduced it there. In fact, those who introduced it could not stop the process, let alone reverse it. So to demand that Europe’s Muslim immigrants, who remain a diverse, non-integrated, and largely “ghettoized” minority, spearhead the Europeanization of Islam is utterly misplaced.

For “Euro-Islam” to occur the same way as “Afro-Islam” did, the indigenous Europeans, like their African counterparts, would have to accept Islam first and then Europeanize it. Such a scenario, everybody will agree, is almost impossible because Europe’s religious, cultural, and political conditions are unlike those in Africa, both then and now.

Significantly, were things to occur in similar ways, Islamism as it currently manifests itself in Europe would not exist. If it did, it would be easily contained, just as some Wahhabis in Senegal (a country, Tibi writes, that is a prime example of Afro-Islam [pp. 196, 218]), the Sunni counterparts of the Islamists in Europe, were unhappy with the Africanization of Islam and yet could neither prevent nor reverse it, due to the fact that the larger, local majority spearheaded such a process.

To end on a positive note, the best part of Political Islam remains Chapter 6, where the author presents a detailed account of the consequences of the Europeans’ failure to admit Muslim immigrants and the repercussions of the latter’s resistance to full Europeanization. The chapter is relatively free of the harsh words mentioned above and contains less of what many may consider as the author’s self-promoting statements. It is to be hoped that the author, given his intellectual rigor and discipline, will eventually weed out the unnecessary repetitions that abound in his works and also tone down his rhetoric – at least for the sake of keeping the readers honestly engaged.

M. Zakyi Ibrahim California State University, Fullerton, USA