New on the shelf: The Illusion of an Islamic State, A select reading list

• The Illusion of an Islamic State: How an Alliance of Moderates Launched a Successful Jihad Against Radicalization... by Syafii Maarif, Mustofa Bisri, Hodri Ariev and Ratno Lukito (2011)   [English Excerpts from the Book]    

Review extracts @ Amazon:


• There are very few books that can be called "the book". Undoubtedly "The Illusion of an Islamic State" is one of them." --New Europe, Dionyssios Kefalakos

•  "[O]ne of the rare success stories of an initiative in which moderate and liberal Muslims" --Democracy Digest

• ". . . a single book with a powerful message had a huge political impact in the largest Muslim-majority democracy in the world. If it can work in Indonesia, why not in the rest of the world?" --Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin

•  "A path-breaking new report by the LibForAll Foundation" --Wall Street Journal, Sadanand Dhume

• Twenty Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad Ali Dashti
• The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity's Moral Predicament 
  Wael B. Hallaq
• Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism 
  Muhammad Qasim Zaman
• Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic lllusion of an Islamic State Tarek Fatah
• Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 Syed Saleem Shahzad
• A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot's Fight to Save His Faith Ph.D. M. Zuhdi Jasser
• The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State: (New in Paper) by Noah Feldman

  About the book:
  Perhaps no other Western writer has more deeply probed the bitter struggle in the Muslim world between the forces of religion and law and those of violence and lawlessness as Noah Feldman. His scholarship has defined the stakes in the Middle East today. Now, in this incisive book, Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the shari'a--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world.
  Western powers call it a threat to democracy. Islamist movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to justify their crimes. What, then, is the shari'a? Given the severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed--should it? Feldman reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the shari'a, and how this balance of power was finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims, but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power.
  The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State gives us the sweeping history of the traditional Islamic constitution--its noble beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could hold for Muslims and Westerners alike. In a new introduction, Feldman discusses developments in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other Muslim-majority countries since the Arab Spring and describes how Islamists must meet the challenge of balance if the new Islamic states are to succeed.

• Who Needs an Islamic State? We Do!: A Critical Review of the book by Abdelwahab El-Affendi: Who needs an Islamic State? Ian Nisbet
• The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State (Warfare and History)
  Hugh Kennedy
• Mawlana Mawdudi and Political Islam: Authority and the Islamic state Roy Jackson
• Media, Culture and Society in Iran: Living with Globalization and the Islamic State (Iranian Studies)
  Mehdi Semati
• Discourse on Islamic Political Thought Lukman Thaib
• Reversal of Islamization in Pakistan Hussain Khan M. A. Tokyo
• The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani's Siyar Majid Khadduri
• Islamic Theology and Philosophy: Studies in Honor of George F. Hourani Michael E. Marmura
• Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics: From Majlesi to Ahmadinejad (Cambridge Middle East Studies)  Ali Rahnema
• Broken Promises: The Failure of Constitutional Monrachy in Bahrain Omar F. Ahmed
• A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia (Cambridge Middle East Studies) Madawi Al-Rasheed
• Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia Stéphane Lacroix
• The Failure of Political Islam Olivier Roy
• The Limits of Faith: The Failure of Faith-based Religions and the Solution to the Meaning of Life Muata Ashby
• Pakistan's Blasphemy Laws: From Islamic Empires to the Taliban
  Shemeem Burney Abba
• Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes Tamim Ansary
• The Islamic Threat : Myth or Reality? (Third Edition) John L. Esposito
• Great Divide: Failure of Islam and Triumph of the West Alvin J. Schmidt
• The Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia Andrew Hammond
• Islam Without Illusions: Its Past, Its Present, and Its Challenge for the Future (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East) Ed Hotaling
• Fatal Faultlines: Pakistan, Islam and the West Irfan Husain
• Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im