Radical Revolution of Values: Reclaiming Our Spiritual Heritage, Preserving Our Freedoms, and Countering Terrorism

by Azam Saeed

Overview

"Even in the midst of today' s global concerns, this book provides a sense of hope and future. A must-read for business executives who desire to be responsible citizens and leaders." — Idris T Vasi, Head of Nokia CNS – Asia-Pacific

"Finding sacredness in the other does not just create societal harmony, it may also be an essential milestone in the path to a more meaningful self-discovery... " — Radical Revolution of Values

In this thoroughly researched and hopeful examination inspired by Rev. Martin Luther King' s call for "a radical revolution of values," the author guides readers through a worldly and spiritual voyage, taking a deep dive into the holy scriptures of various religions and their guiding light to move toward justice, peace, and global harmony.

Grounded in the principle that our religions can be a source of solutions towards the world' s disputes, Azam delves into the emotionally charged and polarized identities that are too often used as tools of exploitation and control instead of empowerment and freedom.

This book inspires readers to ask intricate questions about the world around them by unraveling the complex web of geopolitics, politico-economic systems, and religion in international conflicts.

What People are Saying:

"Radical Revolution of Values is a scholarly book but its message of love, compassion, justice, and inclusion, which is much-needed today, is for all people." — Dr. Riffat Hassan, Professor Emerita, Islamic Theology, University of Louisville

"Azam Saeed has tackled big topics we all confront today in our divided culture: religious exploitation, tribalism, threats to our freedom, domestic terrorism. He skillfully dissects these and provides solutions in clear, easy-to-understand language." — Cynthia Parzych. Author and Book Publisher, Cynthia Parzych Publishing, Inc.

“ An excellent resource for helping us understand the backstory to the major socio-political and religious issues of today.” — Miriam Therese Winter, PhD, Medical Mission Sister, Professor Emerita, Hartford International University for Religion and Peace

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611534832
Publisher:	Top Reads Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	10/25/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	430
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Azam Saeed trained as a pilot at the air force academy in Pakistan. He received his MBA from the University of Michigan, where he was elected president of the student government and graduated with distinction. He has served in management positions in large corporations and as an entrepreneur.Saeed' s extensive and decades-long study in politics, philosophy, and comparative religion honed a unique insight and perspective on global societal concerns and their potential solutions.

Editorial Reviews

12/19/2022

Inspired by the call of Martin Luther King to build a better world through a radical revolution of one’s values, Saeed’s sweeping, encouraging book offers a vision of how to counter overwhelming geopolitical crises, challenges to societal and institutional structures, and a generalized feeling of doomed decline. He finds an avenue to facing those problems in what many might consider one of their sources: religious belief. Saeed urges readers to open themselves to understanding other faiths and their traditions, especially areas of overlap, such as most faiths’ centering of the heart as the source of self-knowledge, and to heed King’s imperative to challenge our own thinking, systems, and values, with an eye toward “racism, militarism, and extreme materialism.” He strives to separate personal belief rooted in respect for other faiths and perspectives with the religious institutions and teachers that have, over millennia, “abuse” religion by turning believers against “others” and “manipulat the basic human needs to belong and to believe in something greater than our own selves.”

To demonstrate that religion might “still be the most reliable vehicle available to the human race in addressing some of the most difficult issues,” Saeed illuminates connections between the teaching of varied religious traditions, presenting faith as something that binds humanity beyond material concerns and encourages, across traditions and continents, “connectedness of mutual respect, of commonality.” Anecdotes of people of faith moving mountains in the collective interest are affecting and persuasive, as is Saeed’s drawing of a sharp distinction between personal religious belief and religious institutions, which, like all human institutions, are corruptible.

The range of faiths and thinkers Saeed draws upon is broad—the Upanishads, Hobbes, Bertrand Russell, Zen masters, neuropsychologists, apocryphal scriptures. His prose, though, is as direct and inviting as his conclusions, which prize humanity’s capacity for “extraordinarily positive decisions and actions” over our capacity for selfish divisiveness. Heartening but clear-eyed about the state of the world, Radical Revolution of Values calls for the best kind of revolution.

Takeaway: This sweeping survey of religions finds promise for humanity in understanding faith and each other.

Great for fans of: Will Deming’s Rethinking Religion: A Concise Introduction, Karen Armstrong’s The Great Transformation.

Production grades Cover: B Design and typography: A- Illustrations: N/A Editing: A- Marketing copy: A

BookLife Reviews

Radical Revolution of Values is a scholarly book but its message of love, compassion, justice, and inclusion, which is much-needed today, is for all people. -Dr. Riffat Hassan, Professor Emerita, Islamic Theology, University of Louisville

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Azam Saeed has tackled big topics we all confront today in our divided culture: religious exploitation, tribalism, threats to our freedom, domestic terrorism. He skillfully dissects these and provides solutions in clear, easy-to-understand language. He reveals himself to be a man with an open mind and heart whose cultural insight is impressive...

Cynthia Parzych. Author and Book Publisher, Cynthia Parzych Publishing, Inc.

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"An excellent resource for helping us understand the backstory to the major socio-political and religious issues of today."

Miriam Therese Winter, PhD / Medical Mission Sister

Professor Emerita, Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.

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Few writers can marshal the impressive command of history, psychology, religion and spirituality that Azam Saeed tackles in his masterful analysis of (nothing less than) the state of international and interpersonal conflict. Mr. Saeed invites us to apply the same wide-angle lens on our inner evolution. He brings a beautiful interplay of spiritual voices, images and practices. The whole of the book is infused with an integrative worldview-interweaving informed practical action in the world alongside the necessary growth of self-awareness. Inspiring and informed.

Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener, Temple Israel, Greenfield MA.

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This book is a remarkable undertaking! Though unlikely in its wide ambition, it actually succeeds in seamlessly linking the wisdom (and also corruption) of the world's many seemingly unrelated systems of religion, philosophy, politics, education, psychology--and especially the world's most profound poetry-within a deeply thoughtful and respectful work of both scholarly and personal reflection. Grounded in spirituality as well as in solid research, RADICAL REVOLUTION OF VALUES is a hopeful book, compelling readers to rethink and challenge some surprisingly basic assumptions.

Elizabeth Aaronsohn, EdD, Associate Professor Emerita, Teacher Education Department, Central Connecticut State University.

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"A highly informative and absorbing read. With the help of extensive research, this book brings to the fore a completely new perspective on global problems and their solutions. A monumental work by a real polymath."

Ibrahim B Syed, ScD, PhD, DSc, FACR, FInstP, FAIC, FRSH. Clinical Professor of Medicine and Director of Nuclear Medicine Sciences, University of Louisville.

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We humans face the challenge today of living with freedom without compromising on the spiritual values of our predecessors. To realize this ideal, the message of the great world religions has to be made socially and intellectually relevant to our times. The biggest threat in the way of achieving this goal is posed by the terrorism that seeks its justification from the religious text. Azam Saeed's "Radical Revolution of Values" is a well-researched, skillfully-written, and thought-provoking book that is an important attempt at refuting the disturbing claim that religion promotes terrorism. He deserves the gratitude of all people who are seriously concerned about the claim that seeks to relate terrorism with religion. The book rebuts the claim thoroughly and convincingly.

Khalid Zaheer, PhD, University of Wales (1994): "A Critique on Islamic Banking."

From the Publisher

2022-11-17
A debut nonfiction book surveys the paradoxical role of religion in both fostering and hampering global peace.

Trained as a pilot at Pakistan’s air force academy, Saeed dedicates this work to two secondary teachers “who helped me understand the spirit of my religion” and to a flight instructor who taught him that aviation checklists were “not meant to be followed blindly, but rather with conscious discernment and thoughtful judgment.” Reflecting on a lifetime of experience from his South Asian upbringing, his education at the University of Michigan (where he was elected president of the student government), and his multidecade career as a global businessman, the author is more than aware that religion often exacerbates the “unprecedented existential challenges” humanity confronts today. Nearly half of all Americans, for example, view Islamic extremists and White supremacist Christian nationalists as threats. Alternately, the book suggests, religion’s “innate power to heal” means that it is vital to long-term solutions. Drawing on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for a “radical revolution of values,” the volume echoes the Christian leader’s warning against “the evil triplets” of racism, militarism, and extreme materialism. Central to the author’s thesis is that from the global to the individual level, religions and their institutions are intertwined with war, terrorism, and systemic corruption. With a firm command of global religions—from the three major Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism, and Buddhism to Indigenous African and Native American traditions—Saeed breaks down theological barriers by emphasizing common elements that lie at the core of human spiritual expression. Impressively researched with 80 pages of bibliographic entries and endnotes, the book employs an interdisciplinary approach that includes a sophisticated analysis of geopolitics and philosophy, in particular the ways in which Thomas Hobbes’ theory of “war of everyone against everyone” drives today’s societal structures. At 407 pages, the volume, with its detailed analysis of myriad issues from multiple religious, geopolitical, and philosophical perspectives, makes for a sometimes dense read. This meticulousness is balanced by an accessible text that deftly incorporates sacred verses from world religions and is accompanied by a multipage glossary of key terms.

A well-researched and engrossing analysis of 21st-century human crises.

Kirkus Reviews