On the Question of Moderate Islam

Abstract

In her book The Perils of Nonviolent Islamism,1 the Yemeni-Swiss political scientist Elham Manea, an associate professor at the University of Zurich, takes us back to her childhood, where she talks with nostalgia and sorrow about the popular, peaceful Islam that prevailed at that time in many Muslim countries. She writes about the colorful women’s clothing in Sana‘a, the unveiled women in Rabat, and how these colors and this freedom were replaced, covered by the black veil. She speaks with sadness about the loss of tolerance that was compounded by brutality and war, and she asks: What happened? These changes are a consequence of the project of political Islam: the Islamization of society.