Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think
Barnes & Noble link: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Who-Speaks-for-Islam/John-L-Esposito/e/9781595620170/?itm=1
Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think (Hardcover)
by John L. Esposito (Author), Dalia Mogahed (Author)
Book Description
In a post-9/11 world, many Americans conflate the mainstream Muslim majority with the beliefs and actions of an extremist minority. But what do the world’s Muslims think about the West, or about democracy, or about extremism itself? Who Speaks for Islam? spotlights this silenced majority. The book is the product of a mammoth six-year study in which the Gallup Organization conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations — urban and rural, young and old, men and women, educated and illiterate. It asks the questions everyone is curious about: Why is the Muslim world so anti-American? Who are the extremists? Is democracy something Muslims really want? What do Muslim women want? The answers to these and other pertinent, provocative questions are provided not by experts, extremists, or talking heads, but by empirical evidence — the voices of a billion Muslims.
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Where is the beef?
This is just spam
I saw the co-author
appear on C-SPAN, and I just assumed that she worked for the CIA or one of the many umbrella organizations around Washington DC that does its bidding. It looked like she got her head scarf from Central Casting. Of course I could not bear to listen to more than a few lines of what she was saying. Does C-SPAN vet these people?
I don't get it:
Are you two saying that this book perpetuates the myth that Islam hates the U.S. for it's freedom and democracy? Even though I haven't read it, I was thinking the exact opposite. Please clarify.
Five years to answer some stupid questions
Thanks for asking.
Frankly, your post just seemed like an advertisement (spam) with nothing about results or conclusions (the beef).
I don't mean to pontificate, but please tell us why we should read this book? Why bring it to our attention? You could have quoted some of the book's findings.
For example:
"As we have seen in the [Gallup] data, resentment against the West comes from what Muslims perceive as the West's hatred and denigration of Islam; the Western belief that Arabs and Muslim are inferior; and their [Muslims'] fear of Western intervention, domination, or occupation" (141).
"As our [Gallup's] data has demonstrated, the primary cause of broad-based anger and anti-Americanism is not a clash of civilizations but the perceived effect of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world" (156).
"[The Gallup data shows that] contrary to what the 'They Hate Our Freedom' thesis might predict, Muslims do not recommend or insist upon changes to Western culture or social norms as the path to better [Western-Muslim] relations. … Rather they call on the West to show greater respect for Islam, and they emphasize policy-related issues [U.S. interventionism; unqualified support for Israel; and protection for authoritarian Arab regimes]" (159).
Here is Michael Scheuer opinion: A Book Americans Must Read Before Time Runs Out.
He says:
"Unfortunately, then, it seems unlikely that the fine book Who Speaks for Islam? will attract the attention, let alone change the mind, of any senior U.S. political leader. Under either party, Washington will maintain its now 40-year-old foreign policy status quo; it will keep intervening in the Muslim world; and it will continue telling Americans they are hated for who they are, not for what their government does."
"Ultimately, our bipartisan political elite will turn the United States into one enormous Israel, lethally deaf to the realities of our struggle with Islamists; arrogantly confidant of its pure intent and sure knowledge of God's will; and utterly dependent on inadequate military and intelligence options to fight a rising tide of hatred among 1.3 billion Muslims."
"Over and over again, Esposito and Mogahed show the nearly complete absence among Muslims of a desire to destroy America's equality of opportunity, liberties, or democracy."
What else would you expect?
Judging from the Michael Scheuer review (I havent read the book either), this book seems to tell me more about the authors and how brain washed Americans seem to be. The authors apparently did not even ask about 911, or what moslems think of USA secret prisons to torture kidnapped moslems. Instead, they took five years to answer some stupid questions. The authors of this massive study for U.S. national security forgot, somehow, that their mainstream media is totally controled, that they are living under a broke and defeated American Faschist regime, that their liberties and democrasy has crumbled under their feet, that more and more Americans cannot afford a tank of gass, that Americans are spied on, lied to, placed on no-fly lists, and tazered and arrested for asking questions about 911.