I am Joe's Six-Pack

Bruce Lawrence and R. Scott Appleby, writing in September of 2002, present us with two different treatments of Islam. Appleby's article is more positive, inasmuch as it attempts to explain Islamic fundamentalism. Radical Islam, via figures such as Maududi, Hasan al-Banna, and Sayyid Qutb, attempts to de-secularize the Muslim world through "divinely guided political leadership" and strict adherence to shari'a.[*] According to Appleby, this ideology is much akin to Jewish and Christian fundamentalism: "Their different settings, beliefs, and goals notwithstanding, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic fundamentalists interpret the history of the modern period, especially the twentieth century, in remarkably similar ways."[1] Through themes of "humiliation, persecution, and exile of the true believers," Appleby clearly illustrates what he believes to be commonalities in "a tortured vision of the past" that exist within the fundamentalist circles of Abrahamic religions.[2]

Lawrence's article, in contrast, comes as a response to an inquiry from "your average work-hard, play-hard American." I fear, however, that Lawrence is much more explicit in his critique of writers such as Friedman, Lewis, and Fukuyama than he is in his explanation of "why they hate us so much."[4] Lawrence's efforts are much more centralized around debunking the myths fabricated by "so-called Middle East experts," who are notably ill-versed in Arabian and Middle-Eastern culture, than they are to an explanation of the tensions between America and the Arab world.[5] 

What sort of solutions are out there? Lawrence concludes that we need "to go beyond Manichean thinking, to drop moralizing from foreign policy rhetoric and to focus instead on the tough pragmatic choices that a post-Cold War and postcolonial world pose for the rich and the poor alike."[6] That sounds great, but is that possible? Have we witnessed any objective, amoral politics in our study of America's religions and wars?

[*] R. Scott Appleby, History in the Fundamentalist Imagination, 505.

[1] Ibid., 503.

[2] Ibid., 498.

[3] Bruce Lawrence, Conjuring with Islam, II, 485.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 487.

[6] Ibid., 497.