Book Review: The Politics Of Islamic Resurgence: Through Western Eyes: A Bibliographic Survey/Hani M . Atiyyah Introduction and review

Book Review The Politics of Islamic Resurgence: Through Western Eyes: A Bibliographic Survey By Ahmed Bin Yousef and Ahmad Abullobain. This bibliography covers articles in journals and daily newspapers, books, conference papers, and dissertations published in western languages (mainly English) during 1970-92. However, while the limitation of "Through Western Eyes" is suitable for the three introductory chapters, it is not so for the bibliography, as most of the literature cited is written by non-Muslims. This raises a question about the objective, although the compilers declare that it seeks to "present the Western intelligentsia-scholars, politicians, journalists-with Muslim comment and a bibliographic collection of Western articles that have tackled the issue of Islamic revival" (p. Chapter one, "The Western Pen: A Sword in Disguise"," deals with western media bias and the consequent distortion of Islam through a) reproducing photos that appear as covers of such famous magazines as The Economist and Time and b) using slanted titles (i. The chapter highlights, through quotations from various sources, fabricated stories, subjective opinions, and general unfamiliarity with Islam and tends to condemn western authors and journalists for their role in formulating people's opinions. It would have been better if they were written as an introductory section, as this would have limited the scope and identified the type of publications included. On the other hand, if the compilers did in fact attempt to cover all publications in "western" languages, then the result is very shortsighted. In his research, Kitaji has attempted to compare the modem western and Islamic educational systems.