We have just published a Fulcrum book review of Patrick Sookhdeo's 'Global Jihad: the Future in the Face of Militant Islam' (Isaac Publishing, 2007), by Ben White, a freelance journalist and writer. Ben White's articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Middle East, and Christian-Muslim relations have appeared in a wide variety of publications. Visit his website at www.benwhite.org.uk or email him at ben@benwhite.org.uk  

Looking forward to your comments.

Thank you Graham for that link.  Ben White's review of Patrick Sookhdeo's latest book, though lengthy, is well worth reading.  He offers a withering critique of a stance that seems to me highly subversive in terms of historical and political realities.  White points out innumerable flaws in the book's arguments concerning the decontextualisation of such struggles as those of the Palestinians and of the conflicts in and around Afghanistan, together with inaccuracies with regard to Islamic theology and sweeping generalisations about a West/Muslim split.  It seems to me that Sookhdeo's book is an eminently avoidable and distorting piece of polemic.

How fantastic to read Ben White's article on Fulcrum, it's good to read such informed and thoughtful writing.

Thank you to Ben White!  I share the concern of others about what I would see as a gradual radicalisation of Sookhdeo and the Barnabas Fund.  Yes, there is persecution and marginalisation in some places (I lived for 10 years in an Islamic Republic), but persecution at least is not as endemic as many are led to believe, and what society is there that does not marginalise segments of its people?  A far greater care and respect is needed in examining the issues he treats than it seems he is now able to give.  If research is to be worthy of the name, it cannot be done in a way that ignores large tranches of facts or opinions.

Er David H - why not read the first book before reviewing it?

David H my point is that you are responding to a review of a book by PS which you admit to not having read yet, by offer your positive opinion of PS based on other things he said or written. No offence but you are really in a position to comment are you however much you like him and would lke to believe this book will be good.

A debate can't really proceed on this basis ...

Firstly, I’d like to say thanks to those who have posted comments here. It is sentiments like those, expressed by various individuals to me personally, that encouraged me to pursue such a review in the first place. It’s interesting that both ‘pete hobson’ and ‘Mary P’ refer to an observable change when it comes to Patrick Sookhdeo’s output (and the BF’s emphasis), a shift that has alarmed and concerned.

Secondly, to ‘David H’’s remarks in his two posts to date. In the first post, David H mentions having seen Patrick speak live, and also refers to recordings or video clips of Sookhdeo. I can assure him that I have also seen him speak, and have listened to many other recordings of his talks and interviews; that extra material, I believe, only strengthens the criticisms I voice in my book review (and indeed, adds to them, but that is for another time).

Now, David H’s second post is much longer, and deserves close attention, since it criticises or seeks to counter some specific points made in my book review. I will thus try and respond. Note that David H’s ten points are all intended to justify his central claim that the review is “biased and ill informed”.

1. Ben makes much of Patrick not giving us a history of Iran but as he says these facts are well known and given the nature of the book he is entitled to assume his readers are already aware of this. As Tom Wright has remarked you cannot say everything even in a long and perhaps already overlong book.

The facts of the US/UK sponsored coup in Iran in 1953 may be “well known” as I said, but that is no excuse for entirely excluding any reference to it, in a section called ‘Resentment towards the United States’. If Sookhdeo specifically quotes Ayatollah Khamenei as accusing the USA of “plotting coups d’etat” against Iran, then surely one should point out that this is exactly what the US had done? Indeed, the 1953 coup was one of the most important factors – if not the most important – in shaping the nature of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. As David H points out, the book is long and maybe even “overlong”; if that is the case, it is even more instructive what has been included, and what has been excluded.

2. When we look at Afghanistan and Palestine the remarkable thing is that opposition has lasted for so long, on such a scale against such overwhelming odds. The original complaint may be political but this can only be explained by their religious mindset.

This is not a very precisely made point, but the essence seems to be that Afghan and Palestinian “opposition” can only have lasted as long as it has because of the populations’ “religious mindset”. Apart from the rather condescending tone, this point is problematic not least since in the case of Palestine, secular Muslims, Christians and Leftists have also consistently formed part of this opposition.

3. Ben writes as a journalist and as such has a very limited memory. The intellectual roots of Islamofascism lie in the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East between the wars.

One starts to suspect the integrity of David H’s critique at this point, when he writes that since I’m a “journalist” I must have a “very limited memory”. ‘Islamofascism’, as he calls it, may indeed have some of its “intellectual roots” in the early parts of the twentieth century (though this is by no means the whole story). The point about the Afghan jihad, however, (which I presume is the point in my review he is addressing), is that it helps answer the question (in the words of Mamdani), “How did right-wing Islamism, an ideological tendency with small and scattered numbers before the Afghan War, come to occupy the global centre stage after 9/11?”

4. Ben ignores the fact that the 1948 war was not started by Israel but by an alliance of Arab states determined to drive the Jews into the sea. An alliance motivated by a religious territorial imperative.

This is not really worth replying in detail to, since it is simply a long-discredited mythological formulation about the origins of Israel, with no serious basis in scholarship or indeed reality (though if you wanted to read about it, you could try Simha Flapan, Avi Shlaim, Meron Benvenisti, Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Nur Masalha, Rashid Khalidi, Tom Segev, and others).

5. Palestine Media Watch and MEMRI provide a translation and reporting service. They are selective in their material as is Fulcrum. Their political bias is well known and evident from a cursory inspection of their websites or see Wikipedia. There is no reason to suppose that Patrick is not fully aware of this and capable of using these sources in a critical fashion.

I’m sure that Sookhdeo is indeed aware of the political bias of MEMRI and PMW, which makes it even more problematic he chooses to cite them. David H may suggest that Sookhdeo can use these sources in a “critical fashion”, but there is no evidence for that in the book; the reader is not told of the political bias of these two groups, or the serious allegations levelled against the likes of MEMRI not just of bias, but of shoddy translation.

6. Ben introduces information to smear the "Pentagon Study" which has no bearing on its accuracy.

Surely it is relevant to know that this was not simply a “Pentagon” study, but a report compiled by a highly secretive agency eventually shut down after severe criticism for its domestic spying activities. The report’s conclusion cited by Sookhdeo stands in stark contrast to the analysis of many others (military officials, political scientists, former spies, diplomats, intelligence agencies etc.) about the motivations for Muslim suicide bombers.

7. The "occupation" of Jerusalem is surely such a motivating issue to Muslims because Mohammad dreamed of visiting heaven from their. Noe this religious and hence political claim is based on a dream. He never visited Jerusalem.

David H’s point here is uncertain. That Muslims are not really bothered about Jerusalem, but it’s simply a trick to spite the Jews? That Muslims should probably just calm down, because it was only a dream?

8. His figure of 1 billion for the number of Muslims in the world is very conservative . The current figure is nearer 1.6 billion see http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_isl_num_of_mus-religion-islam-number-of-muslim

Well, I certainly accept that there are differing figures for the global Muslim population. Though a higher number like 1.6 billion merely strengthens the point I was making when I cited the statistic: that “with all their national, social, ethnic, political, theological, economic, and individual diversity, such sweeping remarks [of Sookhdeo’s] seem far-fetched or even ludicrous”.

9. The spread of Islam by violence is a recurring historic feature e.g. Tours, Constantinople, Vienna, the Ottoman empire, The "conversion" of Pakistan.

Presumably, David H refers to my criticism of Sookhdeo’s claim that “the war on Islamic terrorism is just one aspect of a ‘long war’ which has lasted 1400 years already” (Global Jihad, 12). If that is the case, then I simply repeat my original criticism: “Substantial disregard for centuries of local, regional and international historical, political and religious interplay is required in order to draw an unbroken line from seventh century Arabia to say Madrid in 2004, as all part of the same ‘long war’.”

10. Ben relies on guilt by association in his attack on Randell Price and those who have been favorably impressed by the book. I hope that the Fulcrum leadership can persuade Patrick to reply on the more technical issues of abrogation and taqiyya.

There is no ‘guilt by association’ here. The point about Randall Price is to show exactly what kind of source Sookhdeo uses. In terms of the book’s US endorsements, that is not ‘guilt by association’; it is simply showing in which quarters this kind of analysis of jihad is welcomed.

Ben,

Your review does not give a clear summary of Patricks conclusion's, although your review together with his interviews on the book give me a fair idea of what he is saying.

Now Patrick has sought to give an analysis of the common ideology of the various terrorist groups. This is a legitimate objective. If you were to write on the inspiration of terrorism in Europe in the last quarter of the last century you would be likely to focus on ETA, the Red Brigade, the Red Army Faction and Ireland in all it's complexity. Now your approach would give a whole litany of complaints including the sins of Oliver Cromwell and the potato famine. It is at least as legitimate to analyse their interpretation of Marxist-Lenninism and compare this with the official teaching from Moscow and the works of Marx, Lennin and Trotsky. On this basis the analysis which Patrick is doing is the most useful to understand the sort of ideology which is being peddled in Britain and leading to the radicalisation of a small but dangerous section of disaffected youth.

The question for me is why out of the millions in the the Middle East who hate the USA have a siezeable minority decided to do something about it. Why do people strap explosives to themselves, get on a bus and blow themselves and their fellow travellers up? What inspires a group of men to fix the date of their death perhaps two years in advance, undergo extensive training, travel to a foreign land and kill themselves along with 3,000 others who have done them no harm. The will of Allah and the promise of paradise go a long way in explaining this.

The questions that the book seems to raise are, moving outwards: has Patrick given a fair account of the religious ideology or the terrorist groups? How many Muslims share this view or are sympathetic to it? How do Muslim scholars and community leaders react to this ideology? Is this ideology consistent with the Qu'ran and generally accepted Hadith? Is the interpretation consistent with a Muslim account of the life of Mohammed? It is this last question that troubles me inview of the slaughter of the Jews in Mecca and the attack on a trading caravan which is glorified as the battle of Badir.

You refer to my view of history as a long-discredited mythological formulation. As a conservative Christian I am used to such comments. In your reply you list the New Historians and regard their views as fact when they are highly controversial and have been criticised for example by Anita Shapiro. Without extensive research it is impossible to say if these deniers of the Jewish story are any more reliable than David Irving.

On point 2 I aologise if I come across as condescending. I would say that my position is rather one admiration of their guts and determination coupled with a sadness at the poor leadership they have had. There have been about half a dozen potential settlements since 1937 which have been reject by the Palestinian people and these offers have become progessively less beneficial to them as they or their allies have resorted to unsucessful violence.

In my view tha biggest obstace to peace is the weakness of the Palestinian leadership. They are not only unwilling but unable to guarantee a cessation of violence. In this context a terratorial concession by Israel allows the rocket launchers to be moved nearer to their homes.

David

David H

Firstly, I have to echo 'David's comments that it is difficult for a debate specifically on 'Global Jihad', and my review of it, to proceed if you haven't read the book. It also risks, as can be seen in your last comment, broadening the discussion in an unhelpful and unwieldy fashion.

Secondly, I'd just like to comment that it is interesting how you devote a considerable part of your comment (and your original 10 point critique) to the question of Palestine/Israel. Interesting, because while these kinds of discussions are not ostensibly about Palestine/Israel, the degrees of separation are often very few.

Honestly, I have to say that it is ridiculous to compare the list of historians I offered with David Irving, a discredited, far-right, Holocaust-denier. Anyone wondering about your views on the Middle East should look up any - or all - of the historians I listed, and see if they deserve to even be mentioned in the same sentence as Irving.