Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World

283 Pages·2016·2.5 MB·English

by  Shadi Hamid

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Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have been living with this book for longer than I know. It is, in some ways, a
very personal book. I have been changed by the events that I try my best to
document in these pages.
I was moved. I was sad. I was hopeful. Sometimes, I read the newspaper (or
my Twitter feed) and wanted to disappear, away from all of it. I joked with
friends that I now had a darker view of human nature. Except it probably wasn’t
a joke. The Middle East has a way of changing you.
That’s part of what makes my work both so exciting and so disorienting. One
of the most thrilling things as a researcher is to start a project not knowing where
it will end and to be changed in the process. In this respect, writing this book
was a fascinating experience of absorbing and learning and opening myself up to
the possibilities of seeing things—whether Islam, Islamic law, democracy, or the
“state”—in new ways. Many of those who call the Middle East home are
“rethinking” their assumptions, so it’s only natural that we—as outside
researchers trying to make sense of a complex region—question our own
assumptions as well, and God knows that we come with quite a few.
It is bittersweet to be writing this now, just a few months before publication.
I’m almost afraid of letting it go. I am also deeply grateful. So many people
believed in this project, however provocative and unwieldy it may have first
seemed. The Brookings Institution provided the ideal environment to read,
research, to question myself, and to think about what I really wanted to do with
this book. I have never been a part of an institution like Brookings that puts such
a premium on ideas and letting them guide us, rather than the other way around.
I was fortunate enough to have the constant support and encouragement of my
colleagues. Many thanks are owed to Martin Indyk, Bruce Jones, and Tamara
Wittes for nurturing such a supportive environment for the kind of serious, in-
depth research that requires disappearing (or traveling in the Middle East) for
significant stretches of time.
Michael O’Hanlon, Andrew Exum, Will McCants, Chris Meserole, Jennifer
Williams, and Ken Pollack generously reviewed the full manuscript and offered
extremely helpful suggestions, challenging me to further refine my ideas. Entire
sections were rethought and rewritten due to Ken’s characteristically wise,
thoughtful, and sharp comments. I thank Ken for pushing and challenging me
during every step of the process, but most of all for believing in me.
In addition, Mara Revkin, who has quickly become one of the leading experts
on ISIS governance; the young, rising Christian theologian Joshua Ralston; the
great Princeton historian Michael Cook; and my friend and colleague Will
McCants were all major influences. I can’t thank them enough, even if they
didn’t realize what an important part of this book they ended up becoming. I am
grateful to Norm Eisen for reviewing sections of the manuscript and being a
ready and enthusiastic sparring partner on questions of religion and the power it
holds over adherents in various faith traditions. Natan Sachs was kind enough to
read the second chapter and helped guide me through questions of
“fundamentalism”—or the lack thereof—within both Jewish religious practice
and modern Israeli politics. I also thank my colleagues Suzanne Maloney, Natan
Sachs, Khaled Elgindy, Kemal Kirisci, Dan Byman, and Rob Keane for offering
their thoughtful comments and suggestions at various stages of the project.
I hope my research assistants didn’t get sick of me, because they certainly put
up with a lot. I wish I had more space to thank them not once, but many, many
times. The idea for this book existed in my head, as early as the summer of 2013,
long before I started writing. I thank Andrew Leber and Meredith Wheeler, who
helped me refine the original book proposal when I was still at the Brookings
Doha Center. Their enthusiasm played no small part in encouraging me to move
ahead with the project. Here in Washington, D.C., Sarah Collins helped
tremendously with the book’s first chapter and conclusion, tracking down piles
of books and becoming, in short order, an expert on consociational democracy
and power-sharing arrangements. Meanwhile, Kristine Anderson worked
tirelessly to read early drafts of the first several chapters. She immersed herself
in the intricacies of Islamist movements and, perhaps most important, told me
when she thought I was wrong. Elizabeth Parker-Magyar provided additional
research assistance in those scary, last few months before I submitted the first
draft of the manuscript. I’m happy to have had the opportunity to work with her.
Sloane Speakman read and reviewed the entire manuscript probably several
times (I’m not sure I want to know exactly how many times). I remember telling
her just a few days before a major deadline that I wouldn’t have been able to do
this without her. And I wouldn’t have. Lastly, I thank Rashid Dar for taking a
final look at the manuscript and helping me have everything in order for
submission.
There are so many people in Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey who were generous
with their time and attention that I cannot begin to list them all. Without them, I
probably would have been quite lost. Special thanks are owed to Mustafa Akyol,
Abdelrahman Ayyash, Sayida Ounissi, Kadir Ustun, Joost Lagendijk, Mehmet
Bayraktar, Sarah Feuer, Jihed Mabrouk, and Monica Marks. I would also like to
thank the friends, scholars, and teachers who have, in so many different ways,
influenced my research and writing, including Michael Willis, Laurence
Whitehead, Michael McFaul, Stephen McInerney, Avi Spiegel, Steven Brooke,
Stephane Lacroix, Courtney Freer, Charles Lister, Jacob Olidort, Peter
Mandaville, Andrew March, Emad Shahin, John Voll, Mohamed Okda, Khalil
al-Anani, Omar Ashour, Seth Anziska, Marc Grinberg, Thomas Carothers, and
Eugene Rogan.
And, now, words are never enough for this part of it, but I will try. My
parents found it somewhat confusing that I was working on another book. They
would have preferred I take a break, because, well, writing can be stressful. I
suppose it’s a bit of a cliché, but it really does make a difference when your
parents have your back. They’ve believed in me from the very first moment
when it seemed like I might not become an engineer or a doctor and instead
devote my life to studying, of all things, Islamist movements. I love them dearly
and I really hope they like the book, after everything. My brother, Sherif, has
been one of my biggest supporters, especially now that we’re back to living not
too far apart from each other. He seemingly reads everything I write and has
probably attended more of my talks than anyone else in the world. More
important, he’s always there for me, and I know I can give him a call whenever I
want to get his thoughts on anything, whether it’s about the Middle East or not.
Portions of Chapter 7 draw on materials previously published as
“Radicalization after the Arab Spring: Lessons from Tunisia and Egypt,” in
Blind Spot: America’s Response to Radicalism in the Middle East, edited by
Nicholas Burns and Jonathon Price. I thank them, as well as Brent Scrowcroft
and Joseph Nye, for the opportunity to present my ideas in early form at the
Aspen Strategy Group.
This book would never have happened without my wonderful agent, Bridget
Matzie, who was a font of guidance and good advice from the very beginning.
George Witte, my editor at St. Martin’s Press, was incredibly patient and
supportive every step of the way. I thank him for believing in this project.
Thanks are also due to Sara Thwaite and the rest of the team at St. Martin’s
Press who helped move the book through production. They, and so many others,
made this process as painless as I possibly could have hoped.
(1)
TO TAKE JOY IN A
MASSACRE
Something went wrong, but what was it? I was standing in Tahrir Square on
February 11, 2011. Around me, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians filled the
streets of downtown Cairo. On this, the eighteenth night of the revolution, the
crowd buzzed with the news that President Hosni Mubarak was stepping down
after nearly thirty years of autocratic rule. The murmurs erupted into deafening
cheers. This, whatever this was, was what they were waiting for. One of the
revolution’s young activists, a Muslim Brotherhood blogger named
Abdelrahman Ayyash, sent me a simple text message: “We did it.” But the
euphoria was short-lived; the intervening four years featured a military coup, a
succession of mass killings, and the return of dictatorship. Today, Abdelrahman,
like so many others, bides his time in exile, longing for an Egypt that may never
come back.
If this new phase of the “Arab Spring” was really about anything, it was about
a collective loss of faith in politics. I remember how, before the uprisings began
in 2011, Egyptians would take pride in the fact that they, unlike some of their
neighbors, had little history of political violence. The July 3, 2013 military coup
that ousted the country’s first democratically elected president would irrevocably
change that. The most populous Arab country, long a bellwether for the region,
had willfully aborted its democratic process, however flawed it may have been.
A military coup, though, is one thing; a massacre is another.
In the weeks that followed the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi, a