Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East - Softcover

9780226021256: Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226021254 ISBN 13: 9780226021256

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1996

Behind the bloody acts of terrorism, the mobs chanting with upraised fists, the backroom and front-page politics in the Middle East, stand powerful religious leaders cloaked in mystery and fanaticism. Spokesmen for the Despised lifts the veils, presenting eight vivid portraits of fundamentalist leaders who have turned their charismatic religious authority to powerful political ends.

The deeds of the men profiled in this book make history and headlines, whether through the anti-American rhetoric of the late Iranian revolutionary, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; the violent acts of Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shi'ite movement headed by Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah; or the group of Jewish rabbis who appear to have inspired the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. No one better exemplifies this history-making than Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, who from his Israeli jail cell continues to influence Hamas's efforts to eliminate both Israel and the PLO. Also featured are the spiritual guides of the radical Jewish settler movement Gush Emunim, the Sudanese sponsor of "the Islamic Awakening," the preacher who inflamed Upper Egypt, and the ideological leader of the Zionist International Christian Embassy.

These riveting biographies include interviews with true believers and bitter opponents, and in several cases with the subjects themselves, carefully placing the lives of these charismatic leaders in the contexts of their religious traditions and their varied social, political, and religious settings. Spokesmen for the Despised is an essential volume for anyone wishing to understand the relationship between religion and politics in the Middle East.

Contributors: Ziad Abu Amr, Gideon Aran, Yaakov Ariel, Daniel Brumberg, Patrick D. Gaffney, Samuel Heilman, Martin Kramer, and Judith Miller

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About the Author:

R. Scott Appleby is associate professor of history and director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame.

From Library Journal:

Appleby's (coeditor, Being Right, Indiana Univ., 1995) collection of essays, produced under the sponsorship of the Fundamentalist Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, focuses on religious orthodox movements in the Middle East. Some of the selections from scholars exploring well-known and less-popular Islamic movements include Daniel Brumberg's "Khomeini's Legacy: Islamic Rule and Islamic Social Justice" and Ziad Abu-Amr's "Shaykh Ahmad Yasin and the Origins of Hamas." Gideon Aran's "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Land" covers the Jewish component of Gush Emunim (the Bloc of the Faithful), while Samuel C. Heilman's "Guides of the Faithful" discusses the current extreme right wing and the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. Yaakov Ariel rounds out the Christian element with "A Christian Fundamentalist Vision of the Middle East." A major conclusion is that religious fundamentalism has become an increasingly important geopolitical factor. This is a fine contribution to the comparative study of religion and necessary to understanding the relationship of religion to politics in the region.?Sanford R. Silverburg, Catawba Coll., Salisbury, N.C. Stovall, Tyler. Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light. Houghton. Dec. 1996. c.347p. photogs. bibliog. index. LC 96-24566. ISBN 0-395-68399-8. $24.95. In this significant social and cultural ory, Stovall (The Rise of the Paris Red Belt, Univ. of California, 1990) takes on jazz, literature, and interracial relations in Montmartre and Montparnasse from 1918 to the present. Highlighting a detailed and balanced account of African Americans in Paris are the triumphs and tenacity of Josephine Baker; the careers and failed friendship of Richard Wright and James Baldwin; and the lives of Sidney Bechet and other jazz greats. Such personal accounts stand out from a more general story of how African Americans found respect, affection, and equality accorded to them by French people, who often preferred them to white Americans or African blacks. Stovall explores in this context French tastes for exoticism and interracial relationships. Stovall's work is substantive enough for scholars and vivid enough for the general reader. An essential purchase for libraries.
-?R. James Tobin, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., Milwaukee
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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