Islam Beyond the Violent Jihadis
Ziauddin Sardar

Islam is in trouble. Islamic orthodoxy has been infiltrated by a totalitarian ­ideology and captured by fundamentalists sporting well-crafted facial furniture. It has declined from once great heights, and ­morphed into an unreflective dogma followed blindly by automata.

 This, at least, is the grim picture of the state of Islam painted by Ziauddin Sardar in his new book, a short polemic published as part of a new series of shortish books, suitably entitled “Provocations”. Divided into three parts, this trenchant critique of Islam by the editor of the quarterly magazine Critical Muslim is well argued, deeply engaging and, at times, uncomfortable reading.

The first part is an overview of the current state of the faith. Sardar pulls no punches. “Islamic orthodoxy”, he writes, “has in fact infused itself with Wahhabism.” This is strong stuff. Wahhabism – an eighteenth-century theological reform movement – advocates a return to what it characterises as “pure Islam” and is militantly opposed to “innovation”.