The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization by Richard W. Bulliet

From the Publisher

Conventional wisdom maintains that the differences between Islam and Christianity are irreconcilable. Pre-eminent Middle East scholar Richard W. Bulliet disagrees, and in this fresh, provocative book he looks beneath the rhetoric of hatred and misunderstanding to challenge prevailing—and misleading—views of Islamic history and a "clash of civilizations." These sibling societies begin at the same time, go through the same developmental stages, and confront the same internal challenges. Yet as Christianity grows rich and powerful and less central to everyday life, Islam finds success around the globe but falls behind in wealth and power.

Modernization in the nineteenth century brings in secular forces that marginalize religion in political and public life. In the Christian world, this simply furthers a process that had already begun. In the Middle East this gives rise to the tyrannical governments that continue to dominate. Bulliet argues that beginning in the 1950s American policymakers misread the Muslim world and, instead of focusing on the growing discontent against the unpopular governments, saw only a forum for liberal, democratic reforms within those governments. By fostering slogans like "clash of civilizations" and "what went wrong," Americans to this day continue to misread the Muslim world and to miss the opportunity to focus on common ground for building lasting peace. This book offers a fresh perspective on U.S.-Muslim relations and provides the intellectual groundwork upon which to help build a peaceful and democratic future in the Muslim world.

Publishers Weekly

Bulliet, a history professor at Columbia University and a former director of the Middle East Institute, offers a short, insightful book about Islam and Muslims that actually provides hope for the future. The book consists of four essays arguing that Islam and Christianity have tremendous common roots and history-as much as, or more than, Christianity and Judaism. Bulliet also contends that Western Christian policymakers and commentators, when encountering Islam, have reacted with knee-jerk Islamophobia and generalizations rather than thoughtfulness. Bulliet envisions a future, 20 years off at least, where Islamic countries will have active democracies. He also debunks the popular view that Islam has an inherent separation of church and state problem; Christians have had similar issues in the past, as he shows with the Church of England and other examples. Bulliet's optimism-which is backed up by solid arguments-is alluring, particularly where his counterparts can offer only gloom-and-doom scenarios. Bulliet's most brilliant insight, which comes in the last chapter, is the recognition that those Islamic movements on the fringe eventually become the center of Islam. The new leaders of Islam-probably those on the edge now, who have shown more diverse, tolerant attitudes-have not yet been heard from, he says. Although portions are written densely, this book is a quick, informative, and encouraging read. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

What if, instead of viewing the Muslim world as a fundamentally different "other," we saw it as sharing a common cultural tradition? What if, instead of asking what went wrong in the Muslim world, we sought to find out what went on? Presenting comparatively major themes of historical development in the Middle East and the West, Bulliet argues that the two are best understood not in terms of a clash of civilizations but in terms of a "twinned relationship ... over some fourteen centuries." He cannot quite break out of the us-and-them dichotomy. In criticizing the "what went wrong" approach, he notes that it depends on one's criteria of success. Islam has, for example, won many more converts than Christianity has in the last 500 years. Furthermore, he argues, those in the West (and especially Americans) have failed to understand the deep-rooted Islamic norms governing the relationship between state and society. This little book offers a rich lode of penetrating insights encased in two quite different arguments, seemingly contradictory but better seen as complementary: Islam and the West have much in common, and each must be appreciated on its own terms.

Library Journal

While the War on Terrorism tempts Americans to perceive the relations between the West and the Islamic world as a clash of us against them, such a perspective is both inaccurate and dangerous, argues Bulliet (history, Columbia Univ.). In this clearly written book, aimed at the general reader, Bulliet subverts the confrontational "clash of civilizations" thesis, urging us to appreciate the mutually intertwined sibling relationship of the Christian and Muslim wings of a single civilization. He contends that in What Went Wrong? Bernard Lewis mistakenly presumes that contemporary Euro-American-style democracies were the goal of colonial development. Ironically, Islamic political theory, ignored by Cold War-obsessed Middle Eastern studies experts, proved prescient of the tyrannical governments common to Islamic countries today. Bulliet believes that the voices that will shape what Islam becomes in the future probably have not yet appeared but will develop from within the growing edges of Islam itself. While his interlocutors will find Bulliet insufficiently alarmed, this sane work requires a place on the library shelf alongside them. Steve Young, McHenry Cty. Coll., Crystal Lake, IL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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Table of Contents