Passion For Islam [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Murphy works in historical details in a very clear fashion, mixing them with current-day journalism and interviews with people from all levels of the Egyptian social and political scenes. You get to hear from people inside or aligned with various movements, people in the Egyptian government, and most importantly, the ordinary people in the middle whose lives are affected by these forces. She shows in great detail the complexity and diversity of thought and feelings at work, and how what's happening cannot be understood in simple black-or-white interpretations.

I found that my own understanding of the situation was greatly enhanced by reading this book. Murphy's book does not provide solutions as much as a look at what is happening and a warning. These rising movements are not monolithic in their beliefs or in their goals, and should not be treated as such. And they do not occur in a vacuum. Unless the climate in which they have sprung up -- a poor country under a corrupt, inept faux-democratic government that suppresses all discussion and dissent -- is changed, they will only continue to grow as the only alternative available.

Murphy sees four forces contending in Egypt today; pious Islam, political Islam, cultural Islam and thinking Islam. Murphy admits that the intolerant Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is very influential. They want to remove all vestiges of the West and destroy all secular and liberal Moslems. She cites the murder of the writer Farag Foda and the attempted murder of Novelist Naguib Mahfouz as examples along with murders of Coptic Christians and foreign tourists. The "pious" intention is to install an Islamic state and implement shar'ia - the primitive Islamic legal code. Murphy hopes that "thinking Islam" will lead an Islamic reformation. Not a chance. The complexity of the infighting is exceeded only by its irrelevance. The fanatics will win. In Islam they always win.

Murphy observes that the Egyptian population is growing rapidly. One third of the population is under 15 years old. The combination of Western medicine with the Islamic policy of keeping women ignorant and pregnant has resulted in a population explosion. The economy can't keep up and there is increasing poverty which fuels the growth of intolerant Islamic fundamentalism. Anwar Sadat supported radical Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood until they killed him. The Egyptian government is made up of old men holding on to power. They alternately try to placate the terrorists or repress them. These tactics will fail. Osama Bin Laden's chief deputy is Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahari. Egypt, like the rest of the Moslem world, is headed back to the good old days of the Mamelukes.