A World Without Islam |
| Written by Graham E. Fuller • Special Features • July 2008 |
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Originally published in Foreign Policy, January/Febuary 2008
But indulge me for a moment. What if there were no such thing as Islam? What if there had never been a Prophet Mohammed, no saga of the spread of Islam across vast parts of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa? Given our intense current focus on terrorism, war, and rampant anti-Americanism—some of the most emotional international issues of the day—it’s vital to understand the true sources of these crises. Is Islam, in fact, the source of the problem, or does it tend to lie with other less obvious and deeper factors? For the sake of argument, in an act of historical imagination, picture a Middle East in which Islam had never appeared. Would we then be spared many of the current challenges before us? Would the Middle East be more peaceful? How different might the character of East-West relations be? Without Islam, surely the international order would present a very different picture than it does today. Or would it?IF NOT ISLAM, THEN WHAT? Graham E. Fuller is a former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA. He is currently professor of history at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and is the author of numerous books about the Middle East, including The Future of Political Islam (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
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