A THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO OUR TIMES

The book under review offers an enlightening albeit sobering look at the state of the contemporary Muslim world, a prediction of its future in the coming decades and prescribes a means to rectify the numerous crises that have beset Muslims today.

In broad strokes, the first part of the book sets to identify the roots of the Islamic civilization’s decline over the past two hundred years. While Islam has experienced considerable challenges in its history, the author argues that the current crisis is by far the most significant. This is because the problems have affected Islam both outwardly and inwardly causing change in the very fabric of Muslim societies. Adversaries of the past shared a broadly similar worldview, in that they believed in a creator, moral objectivity and a higher spiritual dimension to human existence. Thus, their effect was outwardly focused and did not pose a threat to the integrity of Islamic society. Indeed, Muslims were able to counter invasions through integrating the invaders into the ummah (e.g. the Mongols) or by expelling them (e.g. the crusaders).