Posted: February 9th, 2015

A World Without ISLAM

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A World Without ISLAM
Graham E Fuller
Foreign Policy; Jan/Feb 2008; 164; ABI/INFORM Global
pg. 46
COVER STORY
What Islam had never existed? To some, it’s a comforting thought: N o clash
of civilizations, no holy wars, no terrorists. Would Christianipi have taken
over the world? Wbuld the Middle East be a peacefiil beacon ofdemocrag
I’Vould 9/11 have happened? In fact, remove Islam from the path ofhistopl,
and the world ends up exactbz where it is today. l By Graham E. Fuller
magine, if you will, a world without Islam- most emotional international issues of the day-it’s
admittedly an almost inconceivable state of vital to understand the true sources of these crises.
affairs given its charged centrality in our Is Islam, in fact, the source of the problem, or does
daily news headlines. Islam seems to lie it tend to lie with other less obvious and deeper fac-
behind a broad range of international disorders: sui- tors? For the sake of argument, in an act of his-
cide attacks, car bombings, military occupations, torical imagination, picture a Middle East in which
resistance struggles, riots, fatwas, jihads, guerrilla Islam had never appeared. Would we then be
warfare, threatening videos, and 9/11 itself. Why are spared many of the current challenges before us?
these things taking place? “Islam” seems to offer an Would the Middle East be more peaceful? How dif-
instant and uncomplicated analytical touchstone, ferent might the character of East-West relations
enabling us to make sense of today’s convulsive world. be? Without Islam, surely the international order
Indeed, for some neoconservatives, “Islamofascism” would present a very different picture than it does
is now our sworn foe in a looming “World War 111.” today. Or would it?
But indulge me for a moment. What if there
were no such thing as Islam? What if there had
never been a Prophet Mohammed, no saga of the IF NO T ISLAM ‘ THEN WHAT?
spread of Islam across vast parts of the Middle East, From the earliest days of a broader Middle EaSt,
Asia, and Africa? Islam has seemingly shaped the cultural norms and
Given our intense current focus on terrorism, even political preferences of its followers. How can
war, and rampant anti-Americanism-some of the we then separate Islam from the Middle East? As it
turns out, it’s not so hard to imagine. E
Graham E. Fuller is a former vice chairman of the National Let’s start with ethnicity. Without Islam, the face i
Intelligence Council at the CIA in charge of long-range strate- of the region still remains complex and conflicted. g
gic forecasting. He is currently adjunct professor of history at The dominant ethnic groups of the Middle East- 2
Simon Fraser University in Vancouver He is the author of Arabs, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Jews, even Berbers g
numerous books about the Middle East, including The Future and Pashtuns-would still dominate politics. Take E
of Political Islam (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). the Persians: Long before Islam, successive great 3
46 FOREIGN POLICY
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