Deze auteur onderzoekt de ingewikkelde relatie tussen de islam en de seculiere samenleving, en analyseert hoe moslims hun identiteit in de westerse wereld behouden. Zijn werken bieden diepgaande inzichten in de politieke dynamiek van Azië en de uitdagingen van de geglobaliseerde islam. Voortbouwend op uitgebreide ervaring in internationale advisering en de academische wereld, biedt zijn schrijven een uniek perspectief op cruciale mondiale kwesties. Zijn analyses duiken in de uitdagingen waarmee moslim gemeenschappen binnen seculiere staten worden geconfronteerd, en hoe moslim intellectuelen de integratie van geloof en moderniteit navigeren.
A schism has emerged between mainstream Islamist movements in the Muslim world (e.g. Hamas of Palestine and Hezbullah of Lebanon) and the uprooted militants who strive to establish an imaginary ummah, or Muslim community, not embedded in any particular society or territory. Roy provides a detailed comparison of these transnational movements, whether peaceful, like Tabligh Jamaat and the Islamic brotherhoods, or violent, like Al Qaeda. Neofundamentalism, he argues, is both a product and an agent of globalization.
As Europe wrangles over questions of national identity, nativism and immigration, Olivier Roy interrogates the place of Christianity, foundation of Western identity. Do secularism and Islam really pose threats to the continent's 'Christian values'? What will be the fate of Christianity in Europe?Rather than repeating the familiar narrative of decline, Roy challenges the significance of secularized Western nations' reduction of Christianity to a purely cultural force- relegated to issues such as abortion, euthanasia and equal marriage. He illustrates that, globally, quite the opposite has occurred: Christianity is now universalized, and detached from national identity. Not only has it taken hold in the Global South, generally in a more socially conservative form than in the West, but it has also 'returned' to Europe, following immigration from former colonies. Despite attempts within Europe to nationalize or even racialize it, Christianity's future is global, non-European and immigrant-as the continent's Churches well know.This short but bracing book confirms Roy's reputation as one of the most acute observers of our times. It represents a persuasive and novel vision of religion's place in national life today.
"The denunciation of fundamentalism in France, embodied in the law against the veil and the deportation of imams, has shifted into a systematic attack on all Muslims and Islam. This hostility is rooted in the belief that Islam cannot be integrated into French - and, consequently, secular and liberal - society. However, as Olivier Roy makes clear in this book, Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for Muslims to live concretely in a secularized world while maintaining their identities as "true believers." They have formulated a language that recognizes two spaces: that of religion and that of secular society." "Roy's rare portrait of the realities of immigrant Muslim life offers a necessary alternative to the popular specter of an "Islamic threat." Supporting his arguments with his extensive research on Islamic history, sociology, and politics, Roy demonstrates the limits of our understanding of contemporary Islamic religious practice in the West and the role of Islam as a
Argues that the consequences of the 'war on terror' have conflated conflicts in the Middle East in such a way that they appear to be the expression of a widespread 'Muslim anger' against the West. This book unravels the complexity of these conflicts in order to better understand the political discontent that sustains them.
"Al Qaida was unable to realize its lethal potential until it found sanctuary in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden fled after being expelled from Sudan. But why was the network's sanctuary not attacked before September 2001, especially after the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998? Abou Zahab and Roy argue that the Taliban was part of a much wider radical Islamist network in the region, whose true center was Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Al Qaida, the Taliban, the Pakistani Deobandis - all of these groups are based in Pakistan, which continues to serve as the regional hub for Islamist movements and their terrorist offshoots." "This book investigates and explains the almost twenty-five-year gestation of these interlinked radical Islamist networks of Pakistan, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, out of which Al Qaida emerged. Taking into account the networks' divergent histories and doctrinal rifts, the authors lay bare the political contingencies that enabled these disparate Islamist movements to coordinate with the aim of attacking what became their common adversary: the United States."--BOOK JACKET
Olivier Roy finds in the modern disconnection between faith communities and sociocultural identities a fertile space for fundamentalism to grow. Instead of freeing the world from religion, secularization has encouraged a kind of holy ignorance to take root, an anti-intellectualism that promises immediate access to the sacred and positions itself in direct opposition to contemporary pagan culture. The secularization of society was supposed to free people from religion, yet individuals are converting en masse to such fundamentalist faiths as Protestant evangelicalism, Islamic Salafism, and Haredi Judaism. These religions either reconnect adherents to their culture through casual referents, like halal fast food, or "deculturate" through "purification" rituals, such as speaking in tongues, which allows believers to utter a language entirely their own. Instead of a return to traditional religious worship, Roy argues we are witnessing the individualization of faith and the disassociation of faith communities from ethnic and national identities. This has placed culturally integrated religions, such as Catholicism and eastern orthodox Christianity, on the defensive, and presents new challenges to state and society. Roy explores the options available to powers that hope to integrate or control these groups, and he considers whether marginalization or homogenization will further divide believers from their culture
"Antoine Sfeir's Columbia World Dictionary of Islamismis a major resource. Translated for the first time from the original French, this volume features more than two thousand entries on the history of Islamism and Islamic countries. It provides a balanced account of events and organizations, as well as philosophers, activists, militants, and other prominent figures, and offers a window into a movement that has irrevocably changed both Muslim and Western societies.The dictionary includes entries on the roots of Islamism and jihad in Africa, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, the Balkans, and the United States, among many other countries and locations." -- Book jacket.
For every pithy conceptualization of complex events, there are additional lenses through which to examine them. One of the several virtues of this book is precisely that it brings different perspectives to bear on the complexity, diversity, and uncertainty of recent and current events in the Arab world. The thirteen authors concentrate on the critical social forces shaping the region—demography, religion, gender, telecommunication connectivity, and economic structures—and they are painstakingly analyzed and evaluated.—from the foreword by Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution The Arab Spring will be remembered as a period of great change for the Arab states of North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. Facing fundamental transitions in governance, these countries are also undergoing profound social, cultural, and religious changes. The European Union and the United States, caught unprepared by the uprisings, now must address the inescapable challenges of those changes. How will the West respond to these new realities, particularly in light of international economic uncertainty, EU ambivalence toward a "cohesive foreign policy," and declining U.S. influence abroad? Arab Society in Revolt explains and interprets the societal transformations occurring in the Arab Muslim world, their ramifications for the West, and possible policy options for dealing with this new world. Arab Society in Revolt examines areas of change particularly relevant in the southern Mediterranean: demography and migration, Islamic revival and democracy, rapidly changing roles of women in Arab society, the Internet in Arab societies, commercial and social entrepreneurship as change factors, and the economics of Arab transitions. The book then looks at those cultural and religious as well as political and economic factors that have influenced the Western response, or lack of it, to the Arab Spring as well as the policy options that remain open.
Der Tod ist das Ziel: Über den Nihilismus islamistischer Terroristen Der globalisierte Terrorismus ist kein neues Phänomen. Neu ist, dass Terrorismus und Dschihadismus sich mit dem Todeswunsch des Attentäters verbinden. Olivier Roy, einer der weltweit führenden Islamismus-Experten, warnt davor, die Ursachen des Dschihadismus vor allem in einer Radikalisierung des Islam zu sehen. Nicht die Religion ist es, die die meist jungen Männer anfeuert – ihre Hinwendung zum Terrorismus ist vor allem Ausdruck eines besonders heftig ausgetragenen Generationenkonflikts und einer ausgeprägten Todessehnsucht.
