Download or read book Oil and Islam written by Øystein Noreng and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1997-08-04 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Middle East and North Africa were perceived as being exceptionally successful, but now the region is viewed as a resounding economic and social failure. Islam is not only a religion, but also a political and social project. A major pretext of this work is to demonstrate how the tensions within Islamic movements feed directly into the economic, social, political, historical and religious arena of the region, and vice versa. An introductory chapter sets the context of the book. The core chapters of the book comprise an in-depth examination of the varied forms of oil revenue abuse. For examples, the past mismanagement of the tremendous wealth provided by oil. Following Islamic beliefs, revenue from oil should not finance wasteful consumption, but used instead for public welfare. Abstaining from interest calculations, there should be a case for keeping more oil in the ground. Indeed, oil has also stifled industrial development, and with declining oil revenues, the conflict between civilian and military priorities intensifies. While western interests have promoted arms spending, high population-growth expenditure reinforces the reality of the count-down to the post-oil era upon the Middle Eastern and North African oil exporters. So far the governments seem unwilling or unable to adapt and react. Furthermore, in the past oil has been used as a substitute for democracy. While the large oil revenues of the 1970s and early 1980s strengthened the position of autocratic rulers and weakened the private sector,repressive regimes have made Islam a source of criticism and opposition for the Western world. Following on from this, the book then looks forward to the problem of uniting the divergent interests in the spheres of oil and Islam into a cohesive whole. The book proposes that ideally Islamic governments would synchronise the depletion of oil reserves with investment in new productive assets. Islamic governments could also find ways to combine private, domestic and foreign interests in the oil industry. The main readership for this book will be policy-makers and professionals involved in development issues for Middle Eastern and North African affairs, and those with an interest in oil politics and Islamic studies.
Download or read book Oil And Water written by Amir Hussain and published by Wood Lake Publishing Inc.. This book was released on with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Listen to any news broadcast today and the message comes through loud and clear: Islam is a religion of violence and behind every Muslim there lurks a potential terrorist. Islam is a threat to values of the Christian West. They are like oil and water. Clearly, they don't mix. Oil & Water: Two Faiths One God confronts these popular perceptions head-on. With keen insight and gentle understanding, it explores the differences between Christianity and Islam, as well as the many things these two enduring faith traditions hold in common - including, first and foremost, their belief in and desire to be faithful to the one, true God; their shared roots and scripture (from the Jewish faith); and the spiritual values of peace and social justice. Written for Christians by Muslim world-religions scholar Amir Hussain, the book is divided into two parts. Part 1 provides an overview of the Islamic faith and of the lives of Muslims in North America today. Chapters focus on the place and identity of Muslims in society, as well as on the importance and role of Muhammad, the Qur'an, and basic beliefs and practices (The Five Pillars of Islam). Having provided a foundation for understanding, the book moves on, in Part 2, to explore key points for dialogue today, including issues of violence and jihad, the roles of women and men, and the mystical tradition within Islam. The final two chapters look at interfaith dialogue and the practical aspects of being good "neighbours." In all of this, the book invites the reader to a place of reconciliation, to a place where the truth and value of each of these great faith traditions can be recognized and honoured by the other. In the end, the metaphor of oil and water is an interesting one for the reality of conflict and the hope for reconciliation between Islam and Christianity today.
Download or read book Islam Oil and Geopolitics written by Elizabeth Van Wie Davis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the tragic events of September 11, Central Asia has been drawn into the intense struggle of the international community against the forces of religious extremism and transnational crime. The great powers were able to put aside their geopolitical differences in order to crush al-Qaeda and the Taliban. With the marginalization of the Taliban and the eviction of al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, however, the tension between the great powers is notably increasing, as is the discomfort of Central Asian states who find themselves, their political development, and their oil reserves in the middle of a renewed Great Game. Islam, Oil, and Geopolitics is a truly international volume, including chapters written by senior scholars, upcoming students in the field, prominent diplomats, and renowned academics from Russia, China, the United States, and the Central Asian republics. They collaborate to focus on three important issues that are usually--and unfortunately--analyzed separately: Islamic political issues, energy security, and geopolitical maneuvering. Once an obscure and little-known region, Central Asia has become an important test of America's ability to consistently promote global liberal change, of Russia's true foreign policy agenda, and of China's readiness to translate economic power into political influence. Terrorism, economics, and politics all converge in this strategic region, with important implications for Asia and the world. This significant and timely volume helps readers understand current events in Central Asia and how those events affect the rest of the world. Contributions by: Kamoludin Abdullaev, Rouben Azizian, Gaye Christoffersen, Elizabeth Van Wie Davis, Feng Shaolei, Pan Guang, Shireen Hunter, Alisher Khamidov, Mikhail A. Konarovsky, Najibullah Lafraie, Murat Laumulin, Sergey I. Lounev, Aleksei V. Malashenko, Orhon Myadar, Manabu Shimizu, Thomas W. Simons Jr., Robert Smith, Sergei Troush, Kang Wu, and Shi Yinhong.
Download or read book The Arab Gulf States written by Sean Foley and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Goes beyond popular stereotypes to reveal the complex--and changing--political, social, and economic dynamics at play in the Arab Gulf states today.
Download or read book Green Petroleum written by M. R. Islam and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can "green petroleum" reverse global warming and bring down high gasoline prices? Written in non-technical language for the layperson, this book investigates and details how the oil and gas industry can "go green" with new processes and technologies, thus bringing the world's most important industry closer to environmental and economic sustainability. This book unravels the mysteries of the current energy crisis and argues that solutions to global warming will come only from the development of new technologies. Discussed here are the reasons why petroleum operations, as they are now, are not sustainable; how each practice treads an inherently implosive path; and how each spells irreversible damage to the planet's ecosystem. Fossil fuel consumption is not the culprit; rather, the practices involved, from exploration to refining and processing, are responsible for the current damage to the environment.
Download or read book Turkey in the Middle East written by Alon Liel and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2001 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the turn of the century, modern Turkey remains torn between the secular heritage of its founder, Kemal Ataturk, and the political and social trends that challenge that legacy. Alon Liel traces the development of Turkey's current political environment, investigating the collapse of the country's economy in the 1970s, its recovery in the 1980s, its relationship with its Middle Eastern neighbors, and the dramatic political events of the 1990s.
Download or read book If Olaya Street Could Talk written by John Paul Jones and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is in parts a travelogue, a sociological examination, a historical documentary, a love story, health care development and political commentary. The author is one of few Americans to have lived in the country during this period of time who had access to Saudis at all levels of society and freely traveled throughout a large portion of the country. No other book, in English or Arabic, covers this period of Saudi Arabia's transformation to a modern nation, the period from 1978 to 2003. The motivation for writing the book was to render a realistic image of the people of Saudi Arabia, as well as to examine some of the basis for the American misperceptions of this country and region, in the hope that it will inspire others to take steps towards ending the current policy of war without end.
Download or read book Islam Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment written by Ahmet T. Kuru and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-08 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes Muslim countries' contemporary problems, particularly violence, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment, comparing their historical levels of development with Western Europe.
Download or read book Blaming Islam written by John R. Bowen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-03-02 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why fears about Muslim integration into Western society—propagated opportunistically by some on the right—misread history and misunderstand multiculturalism. In the United States and in Europe, politicians, activists, and even some scholars argue that Islam is incompatible with Western values and that we put ourselves at risk if we believe that Muslim immigrants can integrate into our society. Norway's Anders Behring Breivik took this argument to its extreme and murderous conclusion in July 2011. Meanwhile in the United States, state legislatures' efforts to ban the practice of Islamic law, or sharia, are gathering steam—despite a notable lack of evidence that sharia poses any real threat. In Blaming Islam, John Bowen uncovers the myths about Islam and Muslim integration into Western society, with a focus on the histories, policy, and rhetoric associated with Muslim immigration in Europe, the British experiment with sharia law for Muslim domestic disputes, and the claims of European and American writers that Islam threatens the West. Most important, he shows how exaggerated fears about Muslims misread history, misunderstand multiculturalism's aims, and reveal the opportunism of right wing parties who draw populist support by blaming Islam.
Download or read book Islamic Imperialism written by Efraim Karsh and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first Arab-Islamic Empire of the mid-seventh century to the Ottomans, the last great Muslim empire, the story of the Middle East has been the story of the rise and fall of universal empires and, no less important, of imperialist dreams. So argues Efraim Karsh in this highly provocative book. Rejecting the conventional Western interpretation of Middle Eastern history as an offshoot of global power politics, Karsh contends that the region's experience is the culmination of long-existing indigenous trends, passions, and patterns of behavior, and that foremost among these is Islam's millenarian imperial tradition. The author explores the history of Islam's imperialism and the persistence of the Ottoman imperialist dream that outlasted World War I to haunt Islamic and Middle Eastern politics to the present day. September 11 can be seen as simply the latest expression of this dream, and such attacks have little to do with U.S. international behavior or policy in the Middle East, says Karsh. The House of Islam's war for world mastery is traditional, indeed venerable, and it is a quest that is far from over.
Download or read book Saudi Arabia in Transition written by Bernard Haykel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-19 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making sense of Saudi Arabia is crucially important today. The kingdom's western province contains the heart of Islam, and it is the United States' closest Arab ally and the largest producer of oil in the world. However, the country is undergoing rapid change: its aged leadership is ceding power to a new generation, and its society, dominated by young people, is restive. Saudi Arabia has long remained closed to foreign scholars, with a select few academics allowed into the kingdom over the past decade. This book presents the fruits of their research as well as those of the most prominent Saudi academics in the field. This volume focuses on different sectors of Saudi society and examines how the changes of the past few decades have affected each. It reflects new insights and provides the most up-to-date research on the country's social, cultural, economic and political dynamics.
Download or read book Apocalypse in Islam written by Jean-Pierre Filiu and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an eye-opening exploration of a troubling phenomenon: the fast-growing belief in Muslim countries that the end of the world is at hand. Jean-Pierre Filiu uncovers the role of apocalypse in Islam over the centuries, and highlights its extraordinary resurgence in recent decades.
Download or read book Rulers Religion and Riches written by Jared Rubin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to explain the political and religious factors leading to the economic reversal of fortunes between Europe and the Middle East.
Download or read book A Battle for the Soul of Islam written by M. Zuhdi Jasser and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the unsettling social shifts in the wake of 9/11 was the global attention paid to Islam. Here in the United States, we became divided, often sadly along partisan lines, between those who believed every Muslim was a potential threat and those who believed no Muslim could do wrong. For conservative Wisconsin native and former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, these radical times meant facing a new reality as a devout Muslim and a patriot—a certain betrayal within his faith, and a need to answer a question that crossed the minds of even the most sensitive and politically correct: “Can a good Muslim be a good American as well?” Jasser founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) to instill in young American Muslims an appreciation for the distinctively positive impact that this nation’s ideals of liberty have had upon the world. As a nationally recognized expert on Muslim radicalization, he offers non-Muslims a definitive comprehension of the difference between Islam and the spiritual cancer known as Islamism, or political Islam, and how violence and extremism run counter to Islam’s true teachings. As he persuasively argues, until we acknowledge the threat of Islamism in all its forms, the majority of Americans will be gulled into recognizing only the most obvious: terrorism. In A Battle for the Soul of Islam, Jasser embraces both his faith and his country while asking hard questions: * Are American Muslim children learning entitlement as victims, or are they being taught individual responsibility and critical thinking? * Are poisonous conspiracy theories dividing their American identity, or are they gaining exposure to reason, nationalism, and patriotism? * Are Muslims publicly critical of the Islamist movements of the Middle East, or do they remain silent on aspects of religious doctrine that conflict with modernity and universal equality? * Is the American press downplaying the seditious threat of homegrown Islamist radicalism and the influence of Islamists’ propaganda arm on our governmental policies? * Is our culture of political correctness a major obstacle toward long-overdue Muslim reform against Islamism? All these years after 9/11, it’s time for us to understand the true threat of Islamism. It is a Muslim problem that needs a Muslim solution, and A Battle for the Soul of Islam builds a solid, balanced, and imperative must-read foundation for the fight.
Download or read book Anointed with Oil written by Darren Dochuk and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking new history of the United States, showing how Christian faith and the pursuit of petroleum fueled America's rise to global power and shaped today's political clashes Anointed with Oil places religion and oil at the center of American history. As prize-winning historian Darren Dochuk reveals, from the earliest discovery of oil in America during the Civil War, citizens saw oil as the nation's special blessing and its peculiar burden, the source of its prophetic mission in the world. Over the century that followed and down to the present day, the oil industry's leaders and its ordinary workers together fundamentally transformed American religion, business, and politics -- boosting America's ascent as the preeminent global power, giving shape to modern evangelical Christianity, fueling the rise of the Republican Right, and setting the terms for today's political and environmental debates. Ranging from the Civil War to the present, from West Texas to Saudi Arabia to the Alberta Tar Sands, and from oil-patch boomtowns to the White House, this is a sweeping, magisterial book that transforms how we understand our nation's history.
Download or read book Green Deen written by Ibrahim Abdul-Matin and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2013-01-21 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Muslim environmentalist explores the fascinating intersection of environmentalism and Islam. Muslims are compelled by their religion to praise the Creator and to care for their community. But what is not widely known is that there are deep and long-standing connections between Islamic teachings and environmentalism. In this groundbreaking book, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin draws on research, scripture, and interviews with Muslim Americans to trace Islam’s preoccupation with humankind’s collective role as stewards of the Earth. Abdul-Matin points out that the Prophet Muhammad declared “the Earth is a mosque.” Using the concept of Deen, which means “path” or “way” in Arabic, Abdul-Matin offers dozens of examples of how Muslims can follow, and already are following, a Green Deen in four areas: “waste, watts (energy), water, and food.”
Download or read book Militant Islam Reaches America written by Daniel Pipes and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2003 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long before September 11, 2001, Daniel Pipes publicly warned Americans that militant Islam had declared war on America--yet sadly, Americans failed to take heed. The publication of Militant Islam Reaches America finally brought Pipes the attention he deserves. Dividing his work into two parts, Pipes first defines militant Islam, stressing the large and crucial difference between Islam, the faith, and the ideology of militant Islam. He then discusses the relatively new subject of Islam in the United States, and how it has developed rapidly in the last decade. In Militant Islam Reaches America, the product of thirty years of extensive research, Pipes provides one of the most incisive examinations of the growing radical Islamic movement ever written.The paperback edition includes a new essay, "Jihad and the Professors."
