Rethinking Islam & the West: A New Narrative for the Age of Crises

Ahmed Paul Keeler grew up in England being trained to manage the British empire, but as he gained an understanding of the Islamic world, he eventually embraced Islam. He has an understanding of both the East and the West. Having a foot in both worlds gives him an understanding of how and why the West is failing, and what it needs to learn from the East, if we are to survive or avoid our imminent collapse. Keeler writes with both insight and clarity. Reading this book will make you want to read his autobiography to learn more about how he gained such vision.

This books is a breath of fresh air and a beacon of hope in dark times. The author takes us on a tour de force of our shared history showing us how we got to this point of crisis and what we can do to move beyond it and begin healing ourselves and the world around us. The book shifts perspective in every chapter between Islam and the modern West (not the traditional cultures of the West) or alternatively between ‘the perspective of balance and harmony’ and ‘the promethean perspective of revolt’ that bequeathed the Age of Crises. With every shift in perspective the author demonstrates how in traditional societies (Islam is his focus) people lived in greater harmony with themselves, with each other, with the natural world, and with the realm of Divinity and shows how the West shifted away from ‘balance and harmony,’ inverted these traditional values and disturbed the natural order of things. Every chapter makes you question your assumptions on what it means to live a balanced life, individually and as a society. Written in a lucid style and composed of short thematic chapters, the book is an easy read. I cannot recommend it enough!Dr. Samir Mahmoud (PhD, University of Cambridge)

Incredible book. A concise, clear, and abreast comparative analysis of Islamic and Western ideology across history. A must read!

This is a wonderful read. Muslims like me will, on one level, love it. I would love to believe Mr Keeler's message but it seems I have to take his word for everything he says because there are no citations or references to support what he is saying. It is a short book and there is no room for any kind of academic apparatus that might have given his arguments more weight. He paints an ideal picture of Islam with no mention of the some of the negative developments in Islam before the encounter with the West: bloody wars between factions of the umma not that long after the death of the Prophet that led to the long lasting Sunni-Shi'i split, the corruption of the early Muslim caliphates (after the first 4 caliphs), especially the Umayyad caliphate, and the corruption of Sufism despite the existence of some individual luminaries. There are a lot of really interesting ideas but my reading of the Qur'an suggests Muslims like all humans have the potential to lose their way simply because they are forgetful and heedless (for an interesting commentary on how Islam lost its way from within see Muhammad Asad's "This Law of Ours"). Of course colonization was devastating for all traditional societies but they were already weakened before their encounter with the West and that trajectory could surely have continued. Mr Keeler doesn't offer a programme of reform or action of any sort, just a vague feeling that somehow if Muslims revert to traditional Islam all might be well again.It's a great read but not really substantial enough to act as a guidebook or a stimulus for change.

In Rethinking Islam and the West, Ahmed Paul Keeler describes the spiritual and philosophical values that drive his Muslim faith in these perilous times. Raised in a postwar and very English family, Keeler explores the Islamic concept of mizan, or “balance” to elucidate what Islam’s deep moral and cultural foundations mean to him. He calls upon us to reconsider the Islamic teachings that he argues have universal validity in our crisis-ridden and starkly imbalanced post-modern world.

This book hits the nail on the head in so many beautiful and unexpected ways, explaining our current situation clearly and succinctly while offering a beautiful description of how Islam was lived and experienced at its height and how, Inshallah, it can be lived again…………..it’s a real gem, full of understanding and compassion.Thank you Ahmed Paul Keeler for sharing your deep insights and wisdom…….Assalaamu aleikum wa Rahmatullah wa Barakata Hu……..

Judging from the dithyrambic reviews, i was expecting sth good here. Alas, i was disappointed. Too many things are depicted here, but nothing really insightful is said. Huge surface, shallow depths.

Ahmed Paul Keeler's book, ‘Rethinking Islam and the West: A New Narrative for the Age of Crises’, has been long-awaited and eagerly anticipated by those familiar with his profound and original lectures. Keeler is almost alone today amongst contemporary thinkers, in actively providing a new historical and philosophical narrative that can genuinely make sense of the many madnesses of our 21st century world, harried as it is by the breakdown of modernist and postmodern thought, the scapegoating and persecution of Islam, and environmental and many other crises. Keeler’s thesis is basically this: The doctrine of progress defined the 19th century. Now that the Enlightenment had freed man from authority and tradition, and he had been empowered by modern science, it was thought that the unstoppable and unlimited ascent of humanity would be guaranteed by the mere passage of time. All other civilisations and cultures, including the universal civilisation of Islam, were to be judged by the criterion of ‘progress’, justifying the West’s political and cultural hegemony. However, two world wars and the horrors of the 20th century severely weakened the credibility of the narrative of progress. Nonetheless, although the belief in moral progress and the basic goodness of mankind was irretrievably damaged, the spell was not broken, and the narrative lingered on as modernism died, to be reborn as postmodernism.Keeler’s book tells of how in the 21st century, we face multiple and escalating social, political, environmental and spiritual crises of unprecedented scale. The narrative of postmodernity is dying, and the last surviving traditional civilisation, that of Islam, has been scapegoated to explain this final failure of the West. It is at this point that Keeler lays the foundations for the new narrative so sorely needed in order to make sense of our situation. Overthrowing the malignant doctrine of progress, Keeler suggests that the true criterion for the success of human civilisation, the happiness of mankind and compassionate custodianship of nature, is that of mīzān or ‘harmonious balance’. He provides numerous principles and historical examples to establish the superiority of this criterion, and the extraordinary thing about the book is that his account is not only thoroughly convincing, but moreover entirely turns the tables on the pretensions to superiority of modern Western civilisation, and indeed making it look like an overall failure, that is dragging the world down to the brink of destruction. What is more, Keeler demonstrates the uncomfortable truth that the principle of balance, though universal to pre-modern civilisations, was perhaps most fully manifest in the civilisation of the West’s old antagonist, Islam. Although it is an easy and quite concise read, ‘Rethinking Islam and the West’ has the potential to completely change the way that you look at the world. It is the first book I have read that really makes sense of the bewildering times that we are living in. A future classic in the waiting!

I really appreciated this small reader friendly book. My Keeler’s knowledge of both Islam and European philosophy and culture shone through.He put into coherent concepts feelings I have had about the ‘West’ and it contemporary problems. I work in mental health and see first hand the damage done to the human heart of much of contemporary society’s fixation with material progress, and a shift away from a more ‘soul’ based way of living centred around balance.Many people seem so lost as to not even recognise there is a problem with the way things are progressing. Me Keeler’s use of the Quranic notion of the mizan or balance as a way of reflecting on these problems is simple yet revolutionary, a fresh and sense making way of framing the human problems.I found it simultaneously inspiring, heart breaking, and a bit frightening!

The recipient of this gift seems very happy with it. Many thanks for the speedy delivery.