This article was first published in the International Journal of Middle East Studies 28 (1996), 217-229. A. Nizar Hamzeh and R. Hrair Dekmejian A SUFI RESPONSE TO POLITICAL ISLAMISM: AL-AHBASH OF LEBANON The rise and spread of Islamist political movements have been topics of focal concern for scholars and analysts in recent decades. Since Richard Mitchell's seminal work on the Muslim ...

Qatar University Dean Against Fanatic Islamists 05 December 2001 Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari, the Dean of the Faculty of Islamic Law at the University of Qatar, recently addressed the homicidally absolutist attitudes of the Islamist factions in the Arab world. Writing in the London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat, al-Ansari prefaced his analysis by finding a parallel in Moslem history and went on to ...