Talking to the Enemy

Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists

By: Scott Atran

Terrorists don't kill and die just for a cause.

They kill and die for each other.

In this rigorous and challenging work that combines the penetrating insight of The Looming Tower and the historical sweep and scope of Guns, Germs, and Steel, renowned social scientist Scott Atran traces terrorism's root causes in human evolution and history, touching on the nature of faith, the origins of society, the limits of reason, and the power of moral values.

Atran interviews and investigates Al Qaeda associates and acolytes, including Jemaah Islamiyah, Lashkar-e-Tayibah, and the Madrid train bombers, as well as other non-Qaeda groups, such as Hamas and the Taliban, and their sponsoring communities, from the jungles of Southeast Asia and the political wastelands of the Middle East to New York, London, and Madrid. His conclusions are startling, important, and sure to be controversial.

Terrorists, he reminds us, are social beings, influenced by social connections and values familiar to us all, as members of school clubs, sports teams, or community organizations. When notions of the homeland, a family of friends, and a band of brothers are combined with the zeal of belief, amazing things—both good and bad—are possible: the passage of civil rights legislation, the U. S. Olympic hockey team's victory in 1980, the destruction of 9/11 and the attacks on the London Underground in July 2005.

Atran corrects misconceptions about suicide bombers and radical Islam, explaining how our tolerance for faith enables extremists to flourish, and shows why atheism and science education have little effect. Going beyond analysis, he offers practical solutions that can help us identify terrorists today, prevent the creation of future terrorists, and ultimately make the world a safer place for everyone.

The Arab Center

The Promise of Moderation

By: Marwan Muasher

Marwan Muasher, a prominent Jordanian diplomat, has been instrumental in shaping Middle East peace efforts for nearly twenty years. He served as Jordan’s first ambassador to Israel and was also ambassador to the United States, spokesperson at peace talks in Madrid and Washington, minister of foreign affairs, and deputy prime minister in charge of reform. Here he recounts the behind-the-scenes details of diplomatic ventures over the past two decades, including such recent undertakings as the Arab Peace Initiative and the Middle East Road Map.

The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf

By: Mohja Kahf

Syrian immigrant Khadra Shamy is growing up in a devout, tightly knit Muslim family in 1970s Indiana, at the crossroads of bad polyester and Islamic dress codes. Along with her brother Eyad and her African-American friends, Hakim and Hanifa, she bikes the Indianapolis streets exploring the fault-lines between “Muslim” and “American.”

When her picture-perfect marriage goes sour, Khadra flees to Syria and learns how to pray again. On returning to America she works in an eastern state — taking care to stay away from Indiana, where the murder of her friend Tayiba’s sister by Klan violence years before still haunts her. But when her job sends her to cover a national Islamic conference in Indianapolis, she’s back on familiar ground: Attending a concert by her brother’s interfaith band The Clash of Civilizations, dodging questions from the “aunties” and “uncles,” and running into the recently divorced Hakim everywhere.

Beautifully written and featuring an exuberant cast of characters, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf charts the spiritual and social landscape of Muslims in middle America, from five daily prayers to the Indy 500 car race. It is a riveting debut from an important new voice.

Guests of the Sheikh

An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village

By: Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

There are 800 million Muslims in the world today, yet Islam is one of the world's least understood and appreciated religions. The culture of Islamic women and the mystery of a veiled society have endured any number of uninformed or hostile interpretations. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea spent the first two years of her marriage in the 1950s living in El Nahra, a small village in Southern Iraq, and her book is a personal narrative about life behind a veil in a community unaccustomed to Western women. She arrived speaking only a few words of Arabic and feeling dubious about her husband's expectation that she adapt completely to the segregated society in order to accommodate his anthropological study. When she left two years later she was an accepted and loved member of the village, inspired for a lifetime of work in Middle Eastern studies. 

The story of her life among the Iraqis is eye-opening, written with intellectual honesty as well as love and respect for a seemingly impenetrable society. Although the book was originally published in 1965, it surfaced again during the Gulf War in 1991 when many small villages were destroyed in Southern Iraq. This book gives readers a fuller sense of those communities and brings home the cost of war waged against civilians.

Strategic Peacebuilding

A Vision and Framework for Peace with Justice

By: Lisa Schirch

So we'd all like a more peaceful world -- no wars, no poverty, no more racism, no community disputes, no office tensions, no marital skirmishes.

Lisa Schirch in her timely book sets forth paths to such realities. In fact, she points a way to more than the absence of conflict. She foresees justpeace -- a sustainable state of affairs because it is a peace which insists on justice.

How to arrive there is the subject of this book. Peacebuilding recognizes the complexity and the effort this elusive ideal requires. Schirch singles out four critical actions that must be undertaken if peace is to take root at any level) -- 1.) waging conflict nonviolently; 2.) reducing direct violence; 3.) transforming relationships; and 4.) building capacity.

She never imagines this to be a quick -- or an individual -- task. Her clear and incisive strategy encourages enabling many approaches to peace, honestly assessing who holds power, and persuading and coercing, but always with keen judgment and precise timing.

From Schirch's 15 years of experience as a peacebuilding consultant in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Arab Voices

What They Are Saying to Us, and Why It Matters

By: James Zogby

The Arab World is a region that has been vastly misunderstood in the West. Arab Voices asks the questions, collects the answers, and shares the results that will help us see Arabs clearly. The book will bring into stark relief the myths, assumptions, and biases that hold us back from understanding this important people. Here, James Zogby debuts a brand new, comprehensive poll, bringing numbers to life so that we can base policy and perception on the real world, rather than on a conjured reality.

Based on a new poll run by Zogby International exclusively for this book, some of the surprising results revealed include:

* Despite the frustration with the peace process and the number of wars of the past few years, 74% of Arabs still support a two state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And over one-third of Lebanese, Saudis, and Jordanians think that their governments should do more to advance peace.

* Despite wars in and around their region and the worldwide economic crisis, when asked "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" 42% of those polled say they are better off, 19% worse off.

* Arabs like American people (59% favorable rating), values (52%) and products (69%), giving them all high ratings. And Canada gets high favorability ratings everywhere (an overall rating of 55% favorable and 32% unfavorable).

* However, Arabs overwhelmingly rate American society  "more violent and war-like" (77%) or "less respectful of the rights ofothers" (78%) than their own society. Why? Because of the Iraq war and continuing fallout from Abu Ghraib,Guantanamo, and the treatment of Arab and Muslim immigrants and visitors to the United States.

* What type of TV show do Saudis and Egyptians prefer to watch? The answer is, "Movies", which draws over 50% of the first and second choice votes. In Morocco, the top rated shows are "soap operas" and music and entertainment programs, drawing almost two-thirds of the first and second choice votes. Religious programs are near the bottom of the list of viewer preferences, garnering less than 10% of votes in all three countries.

On the State of Egypt

What Made the Revolution Inevitable

By: Alaa Al Aswany

From one of Egypt’s most acclaimed novelists, here is a vivid chronicle of Egyptian society, with penetrating analysis of all the most urgent issues—economic stagnation, police brutality, poverty, the harassment of women and of the Christian minority, to name a few—that led to the stunning overthrow of the Mubarak government. 

Al-Aswany addresses himself to all the questions being asked within Egypt and beyond: who will be the next president, and how will he be chosen in a land where heretofore only simpletons, opportunists and stooges involved themselves with elections? What role will the Muslim Brotherhood play? How can democratic reforms be effected among a people used to such contradictions as the religiously observant policeman who commits torture? In a candid and controversial assessment of both the potential and limitations that will determine his country’s future, Al-Aswany reveals why the revolt that surprised the world was destined to happen.

The Taqwacores

A Novel

By: Michael Muhammad Knight

Set in a Muslim punk-house in Buffalo, New York, this novel explores the twin identities of punk and Islam in their many varieties and degrees of orthodoxy. The story here is primarily with the characters — Umar, the straight-edge Sunni; Rabeya, the burqa-clad riot grrl; Jehangir, the dope-smoking mohawked Sufi (who plays rooftop calls-to-prayer on his electric guitar) — and their collective articulation of a heresy-friendly, pluralist Islam. Full of punk references (real and invented) and enough Arabic phrases to fully deck out your skateboard, The Taqwacores is a great introduction to the cracks in the surface of mainstream Islam with a peculiarly American face.

On the Margins

Migration and Living Conditions of Palestinian Camp Refugees in Jordan

By: Marwan Khawaja and Åge A. Tiltnes

“On the Margins” takes a closer look at the living conditions of the Palestinian camp population of Jordan and presents statistics on a number of topics central to their welfare, such as population and migration, housing, education, health, work, and income. The analysis is based on survey data obtained from interviews of about 3,000 refugee families. Moreover, the report is supplemented by insights from focus group meetings in two of the camps.

One of the main findings of the report is that income poverty is more widespread in the refugee camps than outside. Efforts have been made to investigate the causes of this situation. Particular attention is paid to the effect of migration. “On the Margins” also looks at the camp residents’ human resources and labour force participation. It demonstrates that higher education increases workforce participation but that many young, well-educated women are unemployed; that higher education has only a moderate effect on earnings of camp dwellers; that camp refugees overwhelmingly work in the private sector; and that they are quite entrepreneurial.

The overall conclusion is that there is little reason to believe that camp refugees will ever catch up with the average Jordanian because of selective migration processes. Furthermore, the employed segment of the population tends to be involved in low-paid, low-skilled occupations.

Islam

Between Divine Message and History

By: Abdelmajid Sharfi

The bulk of Islamic thought nowadays is either a repetition of and rumination about what the ancients have already said, or the tackling of partial issues that falls short of a comprehensive view and a theoretical framework. All too often ideology replaces real knowledge. 

This work attempts to introduce the characteristics of the Mohammedan Mission, with the aspiration to be faithful to its essential purposes and to historical truth at the same time. The author thus illustrates the different ways in which people have understood the Mission and the reasons that led them to those various interpretations. The book presents several alternative interpretations that actually existed but did not enjoy widespread acceptance and popularity.

Abdelmajid Sharfi is Professor of Islamics and Arab Civilization at the University of Tunis.