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Arts & Books Magazine Islam Muslim

Last gasp for global Islam

Islam’s global revival is a hollow shell—and the Muslim world must heed Ali Allawi’s devastating account of how its leaders are failing their people

By Robin Yassin-Kassab  
September 4, 2009
September 2009

Islamic modernity: a mass of ugly self-contradictions

Above: the heart of Mecca—history and tradition despoiled by Wahhabi vandalism

The Crisis of Islamic Civilization By Ali A Allawi (Yale, £18.99)

The contemporary religious revival is a complex business. In the same period that Muslim societies, in their weakness, seem to have re-embraced Islam, America, in its strength, has re-embraced Christianity. Western Europe remains avowedly secular.

Despite the contradictions within the west, mainstream Orientalism holds that all cultures are developing towards the universal—or, more specifically, globalised—model of secular modernity and the market. According to this view, the Muslim world experiences backwardness to the extent that it resists secularisation. The…

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Robin Yassin-Kassab

Robin Yassin-Kassab is the co-author of “Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War” (Pluto Press)

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