The Crisis of Islamic Civilization

Allawi, who at various times was Iraqi minister of trade, minister of defense, and minister of finance following Saddam Hussein's overthrow, ends his book with a plausible conclusion - that, by nature, Islamic civilization must either subsume or be subsumed - but only after long swathes of tangents, contradictions, and loaded assumptions. Allawi minimizes the Islamic conquests; he trivializes the issue of blasphemy and apostasy charges, blaming the Western media for "sensationalizing" them; he portrays the dhimmi-statas (existence as a subjugated religious minority) as something almost admirable; and there is a curious chapter questioning the West's apparently overdeveloped notions of human rights: "Muslims must themselves decide what human rights mean in Islam."