Commentary on Bin Laden/book review
Khalid Abou El Fadl, a respected scholar from UCLA has a very interesting commentary/book review in the Boston Review of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden edited by Bruce Lawrence and translated by James HowarthVerso, $16.95 (paper).
In the review, El Fadl carefully looks at the positions BinLaden takes and their sources as well as the way Bin Laden cherrypicks suras and hadiths to justify them. El Fadl also points out that no matter what one thinks of Bin Laden, it is instructive (in hindsight, at least), to compare some of his earlier writing on what he hoped to acheive against the West (read the US) and what has happened in response to 9/11.
In the review, El Fadl carefully looks at the positions BinLaden takes and their sources as well as the way Bin Laden cherrypicks suras and hadiths to justify them. El Fadl also points out that no matter what one thinks of Bin Laden, it is instructive (in hindsight, at least), to compare some of his earlier writing on what he hoped to acheive against the West (read the US) and what has happened in response to 9/11.
