Islam is a religion of moderation and of modernity: a manifesto by Benazir Bhutto

The writer has two aims to write this book: first, she wants an understanding of whether the democratic and voluntary institutions can grow in the Muslim world, and whether Islam and democracy are equally sectional or not; second, she wants to analyze the existence of confrontation of ideas and values in variegated groups within Islam.
The book is divided into six chapters. The first chapter, the Path Back, starts with the emotional arrival of Benazir Bhutto at Quaid-I-e-Azam International Airport, Karachi, on October 18, 2007, following the eight years of exile. While putting her foot in the land of pure people-Pakistan-after a long time, tears started pouring from her eyes and she was unable to stop them. By lifting her hands in prayer, she thanked Allah Almighty in reverence. Her treatise is that dictatorship breeds extremism. Bhutto is of the view that war versus international terrorism coincided with the suspension of democracy in Pakistan. She points out that Islamic democracy consists of the notion of consultation. Similarly, in the Western democracy consultation is the main essential in any political system. There is no any kind of negation of democracy in Islam. Thus, Islamic and Western democratic systems are compatible.
In the second chapter, the Battle within Islam: Democracy versus Dictatorship, moderation versus Extremism, Bhutto emphasizes that Islam is a universal religion. According to her, the majority of Muslims in the world embrace a forbearing and loving religion. However, today this religion has been misinterpreted and misrepresented by the extremists. Without that, she throws light on Jihad and its kinds with the help of Quranic injunctions. She tells that Jihad is not among the five pillars of Islam (except in Khariji theory). She quotes, “Jihad is a joint obligation of the whole Muslim polity (fard kifaya).” According to Bhutto, the imposition of the obligation duty on the polity rather than on the individual is very significant and involves at least two important implications. In the first place, it's a way that the duty need not necessarily be fulfilled by all the believers. In the second place, the imposition of the obligation on the polity rather than on the individual made possible the employment of Jihad as a polity and, consequently, a state instrument.
The third chapter, Islam and Democracy: History and Practice, deals with democratic norms and values in an Islamic context. She justifies her stand by quoting the Quranic injunction that suicide bombing is by no way winning in Islam and in the vision of God. Bhutto argues that withal from preaching tolerance of other religions, the Quran moreover acknowledges that salvation can be achieved in all monotheistic religions. Throughout the book, she elucidates things both from Quran and her experiences in Pakistan. The tragedian feels pity that with the passage of time, many Muslim societies have turned intolerant while the Western nations have wilt increasingly willing and tolerant. However, Islam itself is a religion of tolerance and pluralism. She moreover discusses well-nigh sects, women's rights, and dress lawmaking revealed by Islam. She explores that the equality of women does not only wield in terms of political and social rights but moreover in religious terms. She is against the idea that Muslim society should be ruled in the way Medina was governed in the first century of Hijri. Indeed, the tragedian wants to convey that democracy is the heart of Islam and dictatorship is undisciplined to it. Thus, Islam and democracy are not undisciplined to each other. She has proposed a model for the Countries of the Third World.
In the fourth chapter, the specimen of Pakistan, she thinks that the real picture of Islam has been distorted and venal by the extremists. The tragedian traces when the roots of international terrorism, and how America had been supporting Pakistani General Zia-ul-Haq. She remoter points out that Zia-ul-Haq was the man who deteriorated the political system in the country. He washed-up yonder with a self-sustaining judiciary and suspended human rights. It was during this period that Pakistani ISI got involved in supporting Afghan Mujahideen. According to the author, all the Muslims wideness the globe is at the crossroads between past and future, between education and ignorance, between peace and terrorism, and between democracy and dictatorship.
In the fifth chapter, Is the clash of civilizations inevitable? Bhutto takes into worth Samuel P. Huntington and other propagators of the clash of Civilizations for their stance that the confrontation between the West and militant Islam, without the prepossessed war, was inevitable. She criticizes them and argues that this was resolved. However, she wants these clashes and conflicts to be resolved through the Islamic world itself. Moreover, she has spelled out by quoting a few examples that disputes of civilizations do not exist between Islam and the West, rather it is within Islam itself: modernism vs. regression, reformist vs. traditionalist, self-rule, and education vs. oppression and ignorance. Bhutto is a would-be who aspired to resolve the crises within the Muslim world and the problems between the Muslim world and the West. For this, she proposes that the potential solutions to these crises lie in tracing their root causes. The tragedian portrays a reflection of modern Islam that confronts the harmful caricatures often perceived in the West. She has explained how the West had been engaged in the countries of the Middle East. As a result, self-indulgence and dictatorship dominated the whole region.
The last chapter, Reconciliation, deals with the internal clash within Islam. She talks about well-nigh sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shias and the failures of the leaders of the Muslim countries to squatter lanugo the misrepresentation of Osama Bin Laden. Bhutto argues that it is al-Qaeda that has distorted the image of Islam. Moreover, she emphasizes having a reformist, pluralistic and modern Islamic society. Then she presents the viewing of various countries like Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Mali, Kazakhstan, and India. She goes wideness the most contentious and hot debates both within the Muslim world itself and its relationship with the West.
On the whole, I found, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West by Benazir, Bhutto a worthwhile and informative Book. Bhutto is correct in her overall thesis that dictatorship and western interference in Muslim countries have retarded the minutiae of democratic norms and values. This has helped in generating the Islamic extremist threat to Islam itself and the West. Bhutto’s wringer of democratic growth wideness the Muslim world and the history of interference of the West in Muslim wires are very good. She provides firsthand the worth of Pakistan’s democratic political development and the forces that have worked for and versus democracy there. She is moreover well-spoken and well-nigh of the goals of Islamic extremists, militants, and fanatics and their supporters within the Pakistan military intelligence services.
The good thing well-nigh the writer is that she has discussed beautifully how democracy can be created in the Islamic world. According to the author, economic minutiae can be made by investing income in major oil-producing countries. The writer ends with a recommendation for a better-off world as she foresees a Marshall Plan for the Muslim World which could be unromantic to the poor Muslim nations.