How Different Are Islamic Societies?
By M. Shahid Alam There are two opposite visions that animate American scholarship on Islam and Islamic societies. In the days, months and years ahead, a great deal will hinge on which of these two visions prevails in our foreign policy. One projects Islam as an enemy that must be destroyed, or it will destroy us. This is the camp of warriors, led, among others, by Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer. Their thinking is reductionist and ahistorical: they believe that Islam is fundamentally at odds with the core values of the West. These warriors urge United States to confront this menace now, and contain it militarily before it threatens the West. The second camp takes the view that Islamic societies are diverse, and each contains tendencies-religious, cultural and political-that pull in different directions. They do not think that political Islam rejects modernity: it seeks to indigenize modernity, to give it a local habitation and a name. This is the diplomatic camp, led, am
