The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis

by Robert R. Reilly

Overview

Islam's Intellectual Suicide—and the Threat to Us All

People are shocked and frightened by the behavior coming out the Islamic world—not only because it is violent, but also because it is seemingly inexplicable. While there are many answers to the question of “what went wrong” in the Muslim world, no one has decisively answered why it went wrong. Until now.

In this eye-opening new book, foreign policy expert Robert R. Reilly uncovers the root of our contemporary crisis: a pivotal struggle waged within the Muslim world nearly a millennium ago. In a heated battle over the role of reason, the side of irrationality won. The deformed theology that resulted, Reilly reveals, produced the spiritual pathology of Islamism, and a deeply dysfunctional culture.

Terrorism—from 9/11, to London, Madrid, and Mumbai, to the Christmas 2009 attempted airline bombing—is the most obvious manifestation of this crisis. But Reilly shows that the pathology extends much further. The Closing of the Muslim Mind solves such puzzles as:

· why peace is so elusive in the Middle East

· why the Arab world stands near the bottom of every measure of human development

· why scientific inquiry is nearly dead in the Islamic world

· why Spain translates more books in a single year than the entire Arab world has in the past thousand years

· why some people in Saudi Arabia still refuse to believe man has been to the moon

· why Muslim media frequently present natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina as God’s direct retribution

Delving deeper than previous polemics and simplistic analyses, The Closing of the Muslim Mind provides the answers the West has so desperately needed in confronting the Islamist crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610170024
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	04/04/2011
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

Robert R. Reilly is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. He has served in the White House and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Table of Contents

Foreword Roger Scruton ix

Introduction: Intellectual Suicide 1

Chapter 1 The Opening: Islam Discovers Hellenic Thought 11

Chapter 2 The Overthrow of the Mu'tazilites: The Closing Commences 41

Chapter 3 The Metaphysics of the Will 59

Chapter 4 The Triumph of Ash'arism 91

Chapter 5 The Unfortunate Victory of al-Ghazali and the Dehellenization of Islam 119

Chapter 6 Decline and Consequences 127

Chapter 7 The Wreckage: Muslim Testimonials 157

Chapter 8 The Sources of Islamism 173

Chapter 9 The Crisis 197

Notes 207

Further Reading 229

Acknowledgments 233

Index 235