In this magisterial near-1000 page study of the current state of Islam the author surveys today’s situation in the light of the sociology and doctrines that have affected the world Muslim community over the last 150 years. Based on a vast research, a carefully argued case is put which is both a critique and analysis of deviation, and a construct for Islam’s future.
The author delineates the key term of “esotericism” in Part 1 of the book, describing it as that tendency to consider what is inward more important than what is outward, and therefore to transform Islam into an esoteric, or inward, religion of `Islamic principles’, in which outer matters, and ultimately the Shari‘ah, are negotiable, abrogated, to be modernised, contingent, or merely of secondary importance.
Throughout the book he couples this phenomenon with the integration and assimilation of the Muslim Ummah into the new religion of capitalism, unveiling the doctrine of “All religions are equal” as actually meaning “All religions are equally wrong”, and defining the supposedly inclusivistic perennialist movements, as well as modernist movements, all as means of allowing the Muslims to submit to the now dominant capitalist dogma. Now, he states, the religions, and in particular Islam, can be democratically questioned, only capitalism and its laws remain aloof, unquestionable.
The author delineates the key term of “esotericism” in Part 1 of the book, describing it as that tendency to consider what is inward more important than what is outward, and therefore to transform Islam into an esoteric, or inward, religion of `Islamic principles’, in which outer matters, and ultimately the Shari‘ah, are negotiable, abrogated, to be modernised, contingent, or merely of secondary importance.
Throughout the book he couples this phenomenon with the integration and assimilation of the Muslim Ummah into the new religion of capitalism, unveiling the doctrine of “All religions are equal” as actually meaning “All religions are equally wrong”, and defining the supposedly inclusivistic perennialist movements, as well as modernist movements, all as means of allowing the Muslims to submit to the now dominant capitalist dogma. Now, he states, the religions, and in particular Islam, can be democratically questioned, only capitalism and its laws remain aloof, unquestionable.