Political Islam, world politics and Europe: Democratic peace and euro‐Islam versus global jihad

Abstract

This is one of these big books that tend to leave an impression long after they have been read and digested. It’s big because it tries to cover a huge topic; the rise of contemporary Islam and how an Islamic conceptual apparatus can be understood in different contexts; historically, culturally and from a theological perspective. However it goes beyond that to provide a vision of the way in which Islam and European democracy can interact and grow together in an essentially positive way. In short it offers a conflict resolution pattern for lslam and liberal democracy in the 21st century. And it’s clearly written from the perspective of a scholar who likes to see peaceful change over conflict at the root of his analysis. The premise is that there is a developing conflict between Islamist movements and the European liberal democracies win which they find themselves. While it’s not unusual for Western Europe to accommodate different, religious, political or social movements the nature of the Islamist movements seems in direct contradiction or is anti-thetical to the existence of liberal democracy which preached tolerance and openness.