JOURNEY INTO ISLAM: THE CRISIS OF GLOBALIZATIONBy Akbar Ahmed, Penguin, Rs 525
This work by Akbar Ahmed, a distinguished Islamic scholar and anthropologist, is a post-9/11 book about Muslims. After this momentous event that altered world politics, enormous changes have transformed life in the United States of America as well as in the Muslim world. The tragedy left a scar on the American psyche. Because of some misguided youths, Muslims all over the world were suddenly looked upon as suspects in the “war on terror”. Consequently, many Muslims have moved away from American globalization, and some have even taken up the course of terrorism in retaliation.

Never before in the history of humanity have the two great civilizations viewed each other with more distrust than they do now. Just as there is growing Islamophobia, the Muslim world, too, is seething with anger and discontent with the way it is viewed and treated by the West. These are ominous signs, and a way needs to be found to resolve this predicament which has become the greatest challenge of our times. Ahmed has made an attempt in this book to find a way out of the dilemma. Along with a team of American assistants, he undertook a unique journey across the Muslim world, from Syria to Malaysia, Egypt to India, in order to try and find out from first-hand sources the feelings of Muslims worldwide vis-à-vis America. The team included Hadia Mubarak, an Arab-American Muslim, Hailey Woldt, Frankie Martin, Jonathan Hayden and Tridivesh Singh Maini. It visited universities, madrassahs, synagogues, churches, mosques and even temples, and interviewed ordinary people as well as presidents and princes to answer a most perplexing question.

Akbar divides the book into six chapters and begins with a survey of the Muslim psyche as it exists today. He divides the Muslims into three categories: as belonging to the Deobandi, Ajmeri and the Aligarh schools of thoughts. These schools advocate, respectively, the basics, mysticism and tolerance, and a modern outlook on the religion. In his journey across the Muslim world, Ahmed notes hate and anger prevalent against the West. Though Westernization is opposed by most Muslims, Ahmed finds the Deobandis not averse to the use of technology. The lower, uneducated classes have little love for the policies of the West, but the insensitive attacks on Islam have also turned many moderate Muslims against it.

The book ends with speeches by a Jewish rabbi, a Christian bishop and the Islamic scholar at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. in an inter-faith dialogue. The only hope for the human race is to engage in dialogue, so as to know each other better and dispel mutual distrust and ignorance. The enormous material collected in this journey is presented in a simple language by Ahmed.

Journey into Islam is an important guide to the mind of one of the most misunderstood communities of our times. It is also a reminder to the world’s superpower that the only weapon effective in today’s world is dialogue. Only dialogue can resolve future disputes effectively.