Background on Islam & The Middle East

Jim Spickard's University of Redlands Website

On Islam, Arabs, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Etc.

background on Afghanistan, the Middle East, etc.

On Islam, Arabs, etc.:

WEBSITES

	Muslims Against Terrorism
	A web site on Islam
	Information about Moslem names along with general information on Islamic dates and on the Koran
	"100 Questions and Answers about Arab Americans" (Detroit Free Press)
	"Politics in the Name of the Prophet" from Le Monde Diplomatique

BOOKS ON ISLAM & MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORY

	The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World
	The Oxford History of Islam
	Bernard Lewis: Islam and the West
	Bernard Lewis: The Shaping of the Modern Middle East
	Malise Ruthven: Islam: A Very Short Introduction
	Malise Ruthven: Islam in the World
	Michael Cook: The Koran: A Very Short Introduction
	Amina Wadud: Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective
	Reuven Firestone: Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam
	Geneive Abdo: No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam

Background about Afghanistan, the Middle East, etc.:

ARTICLES & REPORTS

From the New York Review of Books, 11/15/01:

Tony Judt: "America and the War"

Pankaj Mishra: "The Making of Afghanistan"

Tim Judah: "With the Northern Alliance"

Orhan Pamuk: "The Anger of the Damned"

Commentary and Background on U.S. Policy by Noam Chomsky (Z Magazine)

Looking the World in the Eye by Robert Kaplan (Atlantic Monthly)

	About the Taliban (Christian Science Monitor)
	A letter from someone who knows Afghanistan well
	A Letter from an Afghani
	"Bush's Faustian Deal with the Taliban" by Robert Scheer
	Amos Elon: "The Deadlocked City" (on the history of Israeli/Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem)

	Rand Corporation -- policy analyses available as PDF files
	CountryWatch -- in-depth information about all countries in the region

The Los Angeles Times has archived the following stories from September 23rd ,
so they are no longer free on the Web. They are still worth finding and reading.

"Sand Trap: ... Bombing ... Play into Bin Laden's Hands" by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (Los Angeles Times)

"Future Shock: Why History Refuses to Give America a Reprieve from the Reality it Helped Cause" by Steve Wasserman (Los Angeles Times)

"The Wounds that Refuse to Heal" by Todd Gitlin (Los Angeles Times)

BOOKS ON RADICAL ISLAM, TERRORISM, THE TALIBAN, ETC.

From the Ashes: A Spiritual Response to the Attacks on America (Rodale Press)

	Mark Juergensmeyer: Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
	Walter Laquer: The New Terrorism: Ranaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction
	Benjamin Barber: Jihad vs McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World

	Ahmen Rashid: Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
	M.J. Gohari: Taliban: Ascent to Power
	Kamal Matinuddin: The Taliban Phenomenon
	Michael Griffin: Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan
	Amanda Roraback: Afghanistan in a Nutshell
	Tom Carew: Jihad! The Secret War in Afghanistan
	Yossef Bodansky: Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America
	Yonah Alexander & Michael S. Swetnam: Usama bin Laden's Al-Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network
	John Cooley: Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America, and International Terrorism

	Chalmers Johnson: Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
	Jacques Attali: Millennium: Winners and Losers in the Coming World Order
	Amin Maalouf: In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong
	Laurie Mylroie: Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America
	Thomas L. Friedman: From Beirut to Jerusalem

On Islam, Arabs, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Etc.

On Islam, Arabs, etc.:

Background about Afghanistan, the Middle East, etc.:

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