Passion for Islam

Shaping the Modern Middle East: The Egyptian Experience

By: Caryle Murphy

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Paperback | 1 July 2007

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Paperback
368 Pages

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22.86 x 15.24 x 2.34

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"Islam's revival is reshaping Egypt and other Arab countries in ways beyond violent politics. The yearning for personal solace, a just political system, indigenous lifestyles, and relevant theology all await satisfaction....Just as the Nile runs through Egypt for almost eight hundred miles, giving it life, so also the Straight Way, the way of Allah, runs through it, beckoning its people. The search by Egypt's Muslims for a modern understanding of the Straight Way is the essence of today's passion for Islam." -- from Chapter 1, "First Verses"

Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, this authoritative and enthralling primer on the modern face of Islam provides one of the most comprehensive accountings for the roots of religious terrorism and Middle Eastern strife.

Over decades, a myriad of social, political, and religious factors has made today's Middle East a combustible region and has contributed to Islam's new power and turmoil. Passion for Islam uses one particular country, Egypt, as a lens through which to show how these forces play out across the area, allowing terrorism to gain a foothold.

Through the personal experiences and observations of individual Egyptians encountered during her five years as the Washington Post's Cairo bureau chief, veteran journalist Caryle Murphy explores how Islam's contemporary revival is unfolding on four different levels: "Pious Islam" highlights the groundswell of grassroots piety that has created more Islamic societies; "Political Islam" examines how Islamists, using both violent and peaceful means, are reshaping the region's authoritarian secular political order and redefining Islam's role in the public arena; "Cultural Islam" looks at Egyptian efforts to resist a ubiquitous Western culture by asserting an Islamic identity; "Thinking Islam" reveals how intellectuals are reexamining their theological heritage with the aim of modernizing Islam.

Representing years of exhaustive research, Passion for Islam also looks at how the tortured Israeli-Palestinian conflict has contributed to the region's religious ferment and political tumult. By revealing the day-to-day ramifications of all these issues through the eyes of Egyptian intellectuals, holy men, revolutionaries, and ordinary citizens, Passion for Islam brings an unparalleled vitality and depth to Western perceptions of Middle Eastern conflict.

Industry Reviews

Judy Woodruff

CNN

Caryle Murphy takes us by the hand and introduces us to the people who are helping determine the future course of Islam. With her own passion for reporting and storytelling, she pulls us inside a world strange and forbidding to many Americans, but nevertheless vital for us to understand. She shows brilliantly how we have as much reason to hope for enlightenment and peace from the many corners of Islam as we do to fear more September 11ths.

Lee H. Hamilton

director, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and former chairman, House Committee on International Relations

Drawing on her vast experience living and reporting in Egypt, Caryle Murphy provides a sweeping account of Islam's powerful and complicated role in the Middle East. "Passion for Islam" illuminates the forces that have led to religious terrorism, and in doing so offers a vision for how these forces could be harnessed for peace and progress.

Leslie H. Gelb

president, Council on Foreign Relations

In fine journalistic brushstrokes, Caryle Murphy lets you see how the Islamists would like to see themselves -- in all their subtle varieties and degrees of piety and lethality. While I assign more to the Islamists than the author for creating their own ills and ours, Murphy brings us much closer to Muslim minds, otherwise often caricatured in the West.

Raghida Dergham

columnist for "Al-Hayat"

Rarely does a book on religion and politics combine such journalistic excellence, impeccable research, and compelling stories. Each paragraph is a frame of history told meticulously with courage, fairness, and innovation.

Richard W. Murphy

senior fellow, Middle East Council on Foreign Relations

This is a timely, solid, and highly readable account by Caryle Murphy of conflicts within Islamic intellectual and religious circles as their leaders seek to relate their faith to today's changing political and economic conditions. Their attempts to create a modern Islamic society have led to tensions with the Egyptian government. In relating Egyptian developments to those in the broader Arab world, she persuasively demolishes the conventional wisdom that Egypt is unique and that Islam is monolithic. This book provides altogether a valuable set of insights for readers interested in getting beyond the stereotypical descriptions of Islamic thought advanced by both friends and critics of Islam in recent years.

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