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Introduction to "Nothing Abides"


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pipes-nothing-abidesMiddle East Forum:

Perspectives on the Middle East and Islam

Daniel Pipes

July 28, 2015

 

The English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) fortuitously captured two themes in his phrase that serves as my epigraph, "Nor peace within nor calm around." To be sure, Shelley wrote of his inner turmoil in this poem, "Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples," and not his reflections on the Middle East and Islam; but he also succinctly made the two key points, about internal and external unrest, that recur throughout the following study and so might serve as this book's catchphrase.

 

My title, "nothing abides" derives from a lecture on the philosophy of history by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). He said of Muslim polities: "In its spread, Mohammedanism founded many kingdoms and dynasties. On this boundless sea there is a continual onward movement; nothing abides firm (nichts ist fest)." Almost two centuries later, instability, volatility, and perpetual motion continue to characterize Muslim communities.

 

Samuel Huntington (1927–2008), the eminent political analyst, coined a phrase in 1996, "Islam's bloody borders," that captures the external dimension of this phenomenon, namely the ceaseless wars waged by Muslims against non-Muslims, from the Christians of Iberia to the Hindus of Bali. Together, these three phrases convey the topic of the following chapters published over the quarter century between 1989 and 2014.

 

My inquiry during this period has concentrated on the Middle East as understood from a historical point of view and on the role of Islam in politics. The book contains five sections.

 

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Nothing Abides: Perspectives on the Middle East and Islam


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