Book Review: A world without Islam

Meeting with a book has sometimes to do with luck. Sometimes it is because you are at the airport with some foreign currency which you couldn’t spend even after you visited the restaurant, the café and the duty-free shops. And then you spot a book with a catchy title and the right price to empty your wallet. So you buy it and read it during the 12 hours-long flight. Then you decide to write a review because you have nothing more interesting to write about.
This is what happened to me and this book.

Well, not exactly. I decided to write this post because the book’s topic is essential in our present days where so many wars are said to be launched against Islam-ist groups and threat.

In “A world without Islam“, Graham Fueller tries to picture a world where Islam wouldn’t have existed and considers the current trends to find out whether they would have been different or not. Would there still be a war on terror, a clash of civilisations, hatred towards the US, etc.

An Algerian in Iran

Algerianna‘s recent posts on the upcoming elections in Algeria coincide with elections in two other countries which, I think, have the closest political landscapes to ours. Russia’s Putin is celebratinghis victory, and his “I am officially the Prime Minister but I am the real President” trick he played in the past four years could have been adopted by Bouteflika in 2009 had he not had that too big ego of his. And Iranian Ahmadinejad and his friends are apparently losing the legislative elections to a more conservative group. The fact all those conservative/less conservative/reformist wings belong to the same system under Khamenei‘s control remind me of Algeria and how the next elections might change the parliament political distribution but not the system.
So I am taking this opportunity to write about my visits to Iran. I’ve been to Tehran a few times and my last visit was over a year ago. It coincided with Ouyahia’s visit and also with the assassination of some Iranian scientists. It might be safe here to tell that I am not connected in any way to either events.

The return of the Sultan?

The recent and tragic freedom flotilla massacre has been viewed by many analysts as a turning point both in Israeli-Turkish relations and Turkish-Arab ties. Although it cannot be denied that the Turks are furious at how Israel has treated their countrymen, talks of severing ties with Israel seem premature. The Arabs as usual have gone euphoric, chanting slogans of the return of former glory at the hands of the returning Ottoman Sultan Erdogan The Great who has now become an Arab hero (this young chap here likens Erdogan to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed Al Fatih), interestingly. This is an all-telling quote from the same article:

The Turkish President or the “Ottoman Sultan” Recep Tayyip Erdogan is like the famous Turkish sweet, Turkish Delight. For the first time, the nations of the Islamic world tasted the special and unique taste of the Turkish confectionery and wished these kinds of sweets would spread all over the Islamic and Arab world.

So the Arab streets are