Field: Travel, Contemporary Issues
Title: In the Land of Ayatollahs Tupac Shakur is King
Author: Shahzad Aziz
Publication: Amal Press 2007
ISBN: 978-0-9552359-2-4
Rating: 3/5
Level: Intermediate
Reviewed by: Safwan

As a British-born Pakistani, the writer, like many others, lived and grew in a society and culture unknown to his forefathers. It didn’t take him long to begin developing a critical and skeptical mind; that there is little that he did not question. It is easy to understand, that in the quest of ‘a reality closer to truth’, Shahzad decided that media alone isn’t enough a source. He set off to visit the controversially-dubbed Middle Eastern countries including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Jerusalem.

His shrewd analysis of almost everything encountered is very much an added-value to his travels. In Iran, the writer described how the supposedly America’s enemy country has failed to prevent the super power’s influence from penetrating deep into the countrymen’s hearts. He met, observed, and talked to many laymen who are proud of the West, and would do much to try to accommodate Western values into their Persian Muslim identity. This happens against the setting of a government who would use force to compel its citizens into abiding its religious rulings.

Throughout his journeys, whether in Iran or elsewhere, Shahzad explored a satisfying amount of history and public opinion. In many occasions, he engaged himself with academics in the universities, trying to explore and if necessary, question their ideas. This might not give an accurate picture of the Iranians, but most of them whom the writer met were not completely happy with their government.

The next country, Syria, is very different from his expectations. Not as many people were seen with their scarves on. He described the dominance of the “flesh-showing, head-turning” culture in Damascus. In fact, Shahzad himself had more than once been offered prostitutes by those who had mistaken him as a potential customer. So that is how Syria becomes ‘modern’.

His encounters with different social, economic, political, and religious environments have unavoidably prompted and challenged his thoughts, alongside his perceptions. All through the work, readers can find his insight, argument, and discussion concerning various issues like terrorism, The Big Oil, revolutionaries, political ideas, ideologies, hijab, moral enforcement, and last but not least, the Palestinian Question. This he dealt with very often during his travels in Jerusalem, a destination he has long dreamt to stop by. His main message in the book is that the East and the West can interpret the same events very differently, with catastrophic results.

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Field: Contemporary issues, Sociology
Title: The Power of Israel in the United States
Author: James Petras
Publication: Clarity Press, Inc. 2006
ISBN: 0-932863-51-5
Rating: 4/5
Level: Intermediate
Reviewed by: Safwan

In almost two hundred pages, James Petras seeks to enlighten readers, especially Americans, on how he believes his country has been nodding to Israel’s orders. In this relatively brief work, the American Professor of Sociology has laid copious evidence and facts, from which he worked his theory out, of which many have found it in better harmony with truth and contemporary reality.

The pre-assessment starts as he reviewed and makes readers ponder the Palestine issue; how Zionists have been intractably belligerent, the many international laws let alone human rights it has ignored, and the astonishingly ‘dynamic’ stand the US held on democracy in Gaza. He did not miss mentioning the fact that 60 and 35 percent of democratic and labour party’s funding comes from affluent Jewish pro-Zionist organizations, rendering any candidate from these parties an incumbent serviceman to Israeli interest.

On the Big Oil theory, Professor Petras have found some major inconsistencies. He discloses about most American companies’ interest in establishing good rapport and business ties with the middle east, and that the last thing they would want is instability in that region. With the Iraq invasion, dubbed by many as the US’ greed for oil, ironically not one US company has benefited from such gruesome act. Instead, facts tell us the opposite: they directly and immediately suffer a great deal of losses- in fact, the whole world was affected.

The writer, all along this work, tries to put forward his evidence-supported theory of Israel’s power in the US. It is Israel who largely benefits from Iraq’s power vacuum, which used to be its real threat only a few years back. The nature of Iraq’s war itself is self-explanatory; universities bombed, libraries raided, hospitals destroyed, citizens massacred, and intellectuals assassinated- to leave Iraq disabled for a ‘safe’ number of years, or even better, never to stand again.

The presence of Zionist Firsters like Wolfowitz, Abrams, and Feith (to name but a few) as top-ranked officials in the Pentagon ensures the perfusion of Israeli interest- on top of the diehard lobby they could and are mustering. Even the CIA is struggling to win the infamous Zionist-oriented OSP (Office of Special Plans) in the race to supply intelligence to the presidency. In the writer’s words, “it’s a war within”.

Professor Petras continued filling the pages with more facts contradicting the Jewish-controlled media propaganda, covering Lebanon War, Iran nuclear threat, terrorism, suicide bombers, Israeli betrayal of America, etc. He ends the book with countering the arguments from a celebrated professor’s theses, whose work denies the existence of Israeli Lobby in the American administration.

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Field: History of Islam, Contemporary Issues
Title: The Myth of Muslim Barbarism and its Aims
Author: S.E. Al-Djazairi
Publication: Bayt al-Hikma Press 2007
ISBN: 095511564-7
Rating: 4/5
Level: Intermediate
Reviewed by: Safwan

“From Pope Urban’s depiction of Turkish horrors to justify the launching of the crusades (1095-1291) or the church ranting about Muslim crimes in Spain to justify their extermination (16th-17th century), or the horrific Western accounts of Mamluk rule of Egypt to justify the invasion of Egypt (1798), or the Turkish and Algerian barbaric despotism and piracy to justify the invasion of Algeria (1830), or the Muslim ruler of India suffocating British subjects to justify the onslaught against him (late 18th century), and multiple other similar instances, Islamic violence and barbarism has always been the justification for attacks on Muslims…”

This book, in brief, incorporates historical reality into today’s practicality. The author dedicates more than three quarter of this work to arranging the facts in excellent order, so as to help readers get the real picture of reality itself, while setting his theories too exact to be refuted. Thus, it was shown how, from the days of the monarch to the rule of democracy, mainstream western treatment (mistreatment) of Muslims have changed but imperceptibly.

Having painted Muslims as cruel oppressors, mistreating captives, indulging in slave trade, and violently racist, the West then proceeds to invade, ravage, and loot their countries. This is not only the artful machination of their kings and imperialists, which can be understandable, but the main contribution comes from their academicians. In fact, as al-Djazairi explicitly shows, righteous voices against their evil will be dampened at any cost- the tragic story of Craig Murray, the then British ambassador in Uzbekistan, being one of the many instances.

Citing some proves, the author suggests that this misrepresentation is deliberately made on Islam and Muslims mainly out of their fear for the religion. Islam has, in the past, awakened an illiterate community to wrestle with the giant Roman Byzantine; it is hence not impossible for it to do the same today. Islam is not only seen as an antagonist to the West, but also as a ponderous rival potential.

In the last chapter, the author reminds us of the trail of atrocities that befell the Muslims. The crusades and Spanish Inquisition as the starting points, it continues until Egypt was invaded in 1798, then Algeria, India, African countries, and more recently Bosnia & Herzegovina, Afghanistan, and Iraq in the 21st century. He maintains that if this isn’t changed for the better, no one can guarantee the world to be free of Muslim massacres in the near future.

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