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From the first chapter of "What's So Great About America?"

Undoubtedly the most comprehensive and ferocious attack on America comes from what may be termed the Islamic school. From what Americans hear of this group, with its slogans that we are the Great Satan, land of the infidels, and so on, it does not seem that this is a very sophisticated critique of Western society. On television we see protesters in Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan, and they seem like a bunch of jobless fanatics. But behind these demonstrators who chant and burn American flags in the street, there is a considered argument against America that should not be lightly dismissed. Americans should not assume that because they haven't heard much of this argument, it does not exist or has no intellectual merit.

On the surface it seems that the Islamic critique is mainly focused on American foreign policy. Certainly many Muslims angrily object to the degree of U.S. political and financial support for Israel. "We consider America and Israel to be one country," one Palestinian man told CNN. "When the Israelis burn our homes and kill our children, we know that it is your weapons, your money and your helicopters that are making this happen." Interestingly the Palestinian problem was not initially a big concern for Bin Laden; he seemed more exercised about the effect of American sanctions on the Iraqi people, and about the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the "holy soil of Islam." Another issue for Bin Laden, which resonates especially with Muslim intellectuals, is the proclaimed hypocrisy of America. In this view, the United States piously invokes principles of democracy and human rights while supporting undemocratic regimes, such as that of Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, that do not hesitate to trample on human rights. Probably Bin Laden strikes the biggest chord with the man in the Arab street when he blames the poverty and degradation of the Islamic world on Western and specifically American oppression.

Clearly the foreign policy element is important, but there is much more to the Islamic critique than that. Once we begin to peruse the newspapers and listen to the public discussion in the Muslim world, and once we read the thinkers who are shaping the mind of Islamic fundamentalism, we realize that here is an intelligent and even profound assault on the very basis of America and the West. Indeed the Islamic critique, at its best, shows a deep understanding of America's fundamental principles-which is more than one can say about the American understanding of Islamic principles. This critique deserves careful attention not only because of its intrinsic power but also because it is the guiding force behind the jihad factories-the countless mosques and religious schools throughout the Muslim world that are teaching such violent hatred of America.

Islamic critics recognize that other people around the world are trying to selectively import aspects of America and the West while rejecting other aspects that they do not like. Thus the Chinese, the Indians, the Africans, and the Latin Americans all want some of what the West has to offer-especially technology and prosperity-but they want to keep out other things. "Modernization without Westernization" expresses a widespread desire to preserve the treasured elements of one's own culture and identity in the face of Westernization.

But the Islamic thinkers argue that this is an illusion. In their view modernity is Western, and they regard the notion that one can import what one likes from America while keeping out what one dislikes as a terrible illusion. The Islamic argument is that the West is based on principles that are radically different from those of traditional societies. In this view America is a subversive idea that, if admitted into a society, will produce tremendous and uncontrollable social upheaval. It will eliminate the religious basis for society, it will undermine traditional hierarchies, it will displace cherished values, and it will produce a society unrecognizably different from the one it destroyed. As Bin Laden himself put it, Islam is facing the greatest threat to its survival since the days of the prophet Muhammad.

He's right. And the Islamic thinkers who fear the dissolution of their traditional societies are also correct. America is a subversive idea, indeed it represents a new way to be human, and in this book we will explore what this means and whether this subversive idea is worthy of our love and allegiance.

So what is the Islamic objection to America? In conversations with Muslims from around the world, several common themes emerge. "To you we are a bunch of Ay-rabs, camel jockeys and sand-niggers." "The only thing that we have that you care about is oil." "Americans have two things on their mind: money and sex." "Your women are whores." "In America mothers prefer to work than to take care of their children." "In our culture the parents take care of the children, and later the children take care of the parents. In America the children abandon their parents." "America used to be a Christian country. Now atheism is the official religion of the West." "Your TV shows are disgusting. You are corrupting the morals of our young people." "We don't object to how you Americans live, but now you are spreading your way of life throughout the universe." "American culture is a kind of syphilis or disease that is destroying the Islamic community. We won't let you do to us what you did to the American Indian people."

What stands out about the Islamic critique is its refreshing clarity. The Islamic thinkers cannot be counted in the ranks of the politically correct. Painful though it is to admit, they aren't entirely wrong about America either. They say that many Americans see them as a bunch of uncivilized towel-heads, and this is probably true. They charge that America is a society obsessed with material gain, and who will deny that this is an accurate perception? They condemn the West as an atheist civilization, and while they may be wrong about the extent of religious belief and practice, they are right that in the West religion has little sway over the public arena, and the West seems to have generated more unbelief than any other civilization in world history. They are disgusted by our culture, and we have to acknowledge that there is a good deal in American culture that is disgusting to normal sensibilities. They say our women are whores, and in a sense they are right. Even their epithet for the United States-the Great Satan-is appropriate when we reflect that Satan is not a conqueror; he is a tempter. The Islamic militants fear that the idea of America is taking over their young people, breaking down allegiances to parents and religion and traditional community; this concern on their part is also justified.

The most important and influential of the Islamic critics of the West is the philosopher Sayyid Qutb.xv Born in Egypt in 1906, Qutb became disenchanted with Arab nationalism as a weapon against Western imperialism. He became a leader and theoretician of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization that is also one of the oldest institutions of radical Islam. Qutb argued that the worst form of colonialism-one that outlasted the formal end of European colonialism-was "intellectual and spiritual colonialism." What the Islamic world must do is to destroy the influence of the West within itself, to eradicate its residue "within our feelings."

What, for Qutb, was so evil about the West? Qutb argues that from its earliest days Western civilization separated the realm of God from the realm of society. Long before the American doctrine of separation of church and state, the institutions of religion and those of government operated in separate realms and commanded separate allegiances. Consequently, Qutb argues, the realm of God and the realm of society were bound to come into conflict. And this is precisely what has happened in the West. If Athens can be taken to represent reason and science and culture, and Jerusalem can be taken to represent God and religion, then Athens has been in a constant struggle with Jerusalem. Perhaps at one point the tension could be regarded as fruitful, Qutb writes, but now the war is over and the terrible truth is that Athens has won. Reason and science have annihilated religion. True, many people continue to profess a belief in God and go to church, but religion has ceased to have any shaping influence in society. It does not direct government or law or scientific research or culture. In short, a once-religious civilization has now been reduced to what Qutb terms jahiliyya-the condition of social chaos, moral diversity, sexual promiscuity, polytheism, unbelief, and idolatry that was said to characterize the Arab tribes before the advent of Islam.

Qutb's alternative to this way of life is Islam, which is much more than just a religion. Islam is not merely a set of beliefs; rather, it is a way of life based upon the divine government of the universe. The very term "Islam" means "submission" to the authority of Allah. This worldview requires that religious, economic, political and civil society be based on the Koran, the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, and on the sharia or Islamic law. Islam doesn't just regulate religious belief and practice; it covers such topics as the administration of the state, the conduct of war, the making of treaties, the laws governing divorce and inheritance, as well as property rights and contracts. In short, Islam provides the whole framework for Muslim life, and in this sense it is impossible to "practice" Islam within a secular framework.

This is especially so when, as Qutb insists, the institutions of the West are antithetical to Islam. The West is a society based on freedom whereas Islam is a society based on virtue. Moreover, in Qutb's view Western institutions are fundamentally atheist: they are based on a clear rejection of divine authority. When democrats say that sovereignty and political authority are ultimately derived from the people, this means that the people-not God-are the rulers. So democracy is a form of idol-worship. Similarly capitalism is based on the premise that the market, not God, makes final decisions of worth. Capitalism too is a form of idolatry or market-worship. Qutb contends that since the West and Islam are based on radically different principles, there is no way that Islamic society can compromise or meet the West half way. Either the West will prevail or Islam will prevail. What is needed, Qutb concludes, is for true-believing Muslims to recognize this and stand up for Islam against the Western infidel and those apostate Muslims who have sold out to the West for money and power. And once the critique is accepted by Muslims the solution presents itself almost automatically. Kill the apostates. Kill the infidels.

Some Americans will find these views frightening and abhorrent, and a few people might even object to giving them so much space and taking them seriously. But I think that they must be taken seriously. Certainly they are taken seriously in the Muslim world. Moreover, Qutb is raising issues of the deepest importance: Is reason or revelation a more reliable source of truth? Does legitimate political authority come from God or from man? Which is the highest political value: freedom or virtue? These issues are central to what the West and America are all about. Qutb's critique reveals most lucidly the argument between Islam and the West at its deepest level. For this reason, it should be welcomed by thoughtful people in America and the West.