A Fury For God by Malise Ruthven
The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington were carried out by men steeped in a certain Islamic ideology, which has come to be called Islamism. In A Fury for God, Malise Ruthven reconstructs the events of 11 September and the war in Afghanistan and traces the role of the idea of 'jihad' and examines the permissibility of suicide in Islam. He reconstructs the world-view of Islamist intellectuals like Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian thinker who has influenced an entire generation of radicals in the Arab world, notably Osama bin Laden. Ruthven highlights their obsessive attention to sexual matters. He also shows that it would be a mistake to treat these people as medieval fanatics: their attitude to modernity is dangerous and ambivalent. The author also exposes the crucial importance of the Saudi connection, the massive sponsorship of 'fundamentalism' by an authoritarian tribal regime that has been tolerated by the international community for the sake of Western economic stability. Ruthven's identification of the ambiguities in Western policy is powerfully provocative.
Malise Ruthven is the author of Islam: A Short Introduction; Islam in the World; The Divine Supermarket (a study of Christian fundamentalism); and of A Satanic Affair (a book about the Rushdie affair). He is a visiting professor at the University of California at San Diego.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781862075733 |
| ISBN 10 | 1862075735 |
| Title | A Fury For God |
| Author | Malise Ruthven |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Granta Books |
| Year published | 2004-02-19 |
| Number of pages | 346 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |