(via ProQuest and the NMH Virtual Desktop) — The Economist, “Islam’s Many Hats,” May 8, 2010, p. 85

The books:

Vali Nasr, Meccanomics: The March of the New Muslim Middle Class. Oneworld

Isobel Coleman, Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East. Random House

Excerpts from the review:

“Islam looms large, sometimes terrifyingly so, in the West’s vision of the Middle East. Westerners are apprehensive as they see secular-minded democrats losing ground to Islamic fundamentalists. This anxiety, greatly sharpened by the attacks on America in 2001, the “war on terror” and all its consequences, has led to many seeing any public expression of Islam as a threat. Two new books by Vali Nasr, an Iranian-American academic, and Isobel Coleman, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, offer a welcome challenge to such fears. Neither author disregards the danger posed by extremists (underlined this week by the attempted car-bombing in New York). But they insist on a careful distinction between piety and fundamentalism, and present a nuanced view of Islam’s role in public life that is cautiously hopeful.

The battle against religious extremism, writes Mr Nasr, will be won by the rising Muslim middle class. Change will come about through free trade and integration into the global economy, not by sanctions or military action. The region will not turn away from Islam but remain piously conservative, probably misogynistic too. Secularism’s appeal has been tarnished by the region’s many autocratic regimes–and Middle Easterners have countless reasons to resent the West and its attempts to impose its own style of political reform…

Ms Coleman makes the case for Islamic feminism. Far from oppressing women, Islam endows them with plenty of rights; the problem lies in implementing those rights. Riffat Hassan, a Pakistani-American, argues that though the Koran treats women with respect, centuries of patriarchy have turned them into chattels. She and other Islamic feminists believe that by fighting for women’s rights within Islam, using the very same texts and doctrines that have proved so oppressive, women may be able to push through reform without being told that they have been indoctrinated by Western infidels.”