Foreword by: John L. Esposito
Introduction by: Khaled Abou El Fadl
Edited by: Aftab Ahmad Malik
this book will almost certainly become required reading for students and scholars alike
Professor Jess Ghannam (University of California)

In “the war against terrorism,” everyone believes that they have God on their side. Osama bin Laden regularly invokes God as does President George Bush. Whereas Bush views the world in terms of “good” and “evil” and regularly expresses foreign policy in theological terms, Bin Laden believes he is fighting a global jihad against the crusader enemies of Islam.

When religion is used to construct a black and white worldview, such an oversimplification can spawn radical ideologies, as the extremist evangelical fringes of Christianity and Islam have proven. Mainstream Muslims and Christians have expressed great alarm at the President’s closeness to the Christian Right—who voted in their millions for President Bush’s re-election—and particularly at evangelical leaders such as Reverend Franklin Graham, who sees Islam and Christianity destined “to fight each other until the second coming of Christ.”

With God on Our Side provides a critique of the neo-conservative movement and explores the nature of their unholy alliance with the evangelical Christian Right. It examines the political consequences of this renewed evangelism in relation to Israel and the impact for peace in the Middle-East. It also attempts to understand the current manifestations of Muslim extremism in the world.