Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“First of all this was, in some ways, a very personal book for me. I changed in some ways,” said Shadi Hamid at a book party in his honor at the home of Juleanna Glover & Christoper Reiter to a mostly academic crowd. “I came to some conclusions which I was slightly uncomfortable with but which I think is both healthy and interesting; but worrying in some other ways. I’ve lived six or so years of my life in the Middle East and I came to have a darker view of human nature as a result of my time spent there. To see the rise and fall – that moment of optimism followed by all the things that we saw happening after – that was very hard to see and I changed a little bit because of it. I’ve also come to appreciate more and more the role of religion in public life.”
Shadi Hamid and Juleanna Glover
“I think the question I always get from Americans and others is: ‘What’s the deal with this whole Islam thing? Would you help us understand it.’ I hope this book will do that,” he added. “Basically, I hope you all read it, but one of the main arguments and perhaps the most controversial that I make in the book is that Islam is in fact exceptional in how it relates to politics and that’s right there on the title, Islamic Exceptionalism. Islam is exceptional; sometimes that’s good, sometimes it’s bad – it depends on the context. But regardless, we have to understand how that manifests itself in the everyday politics of the Middle East. That was the idea. Islam, I argue, is in both theory and practice, resistant to secularization and I think that’s a really relevant part of the debate. What I hope that I can do is challenge some of those assumptions where we think that, ‘Oh, Islam just has to follow the trajectory of other religions namely Christianity’ and that there is this particular linear progression that all people’s cultures and societies have to follow: reformation, enlightenment, secularization, modernity, all on the way to the end of history, the end of history of liberal democracy.”
Shadi Hamid
“I think it’s really important to suspend our own personal and ideological preferences. I myself, I’m a pretty bad Muslim myself, am suspicious of religion playing a role in governance. I wouldn’t want that in my own country here in the US, but I also have to respect that my own preference as an American are a product of me being an American. It’s because I’m a product of a secularized society that I’ve come to appreciate certain things; but just because I believe in that doesn’t mean that I should expect hundreds of millions of other people in other parts of the world to agree with me. I have to be faithful to my own conclusions even if they make me somewhat uncomfortable and that’s why I’m trying to do my best to explain what this book is really about and encouraging people not to take the headlines but to do something old-fashioned and actually take the book and read it. Actually, there is a rumor going around that it’s great. It’s not for you to agree with me. It’s not for anyone to agree with me.”
John Tamny and Windsor Mann
“I think that there isn’t a soundbite policy take away, but I think the main thing that I would like policymakers to get out of this is to try to accept that Islam is going to play a prominent role in public life. Again, that doesn’t mean that they have to like it, or agree with it, but what I found to be very counterproductive is when policymakers come in and say, ‘There will be a secularization process. This will happen’ and hoping that liberals win out.”
“Last thing I’ll say is I remember the Muslim Brotherhood official many years ago, we were talking about why people join the organization, and he told me, ‘Shadi, sometimes it’s a lot more simple. It’s not about power or belonging, or even brotherhood. Sometimes people join the Brotherhood for a very simple reason, because they want to get into heaven.’ I thought that really captured it well. That’s why there’s a lot of talk in the book about things that I guess political scientists don’t normally talk about, heaven, divine justice, the odyssey …”
Hollywood on the Potomac sat down with Shadi to further understand the complex subject matter:
