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the p
ast, but in the future."  Dr. Abd El Sabour Shahin of Cairo goes a
step further and warns that Western civilization makes a big mistake
when it "thinks it will endlessly remain dominant."78  Even secular
Moslem intellectuals teaching in the top universities of the United
States and Europe have joined the expansionist bandwagon, calling for
a leader who will pull world Islam together into an unstoppable
force.79
"Islam will... take over the world," said an Egyptian in Cairo in
the late '80s to a crew from Britain's Granada TV.  No isolated,
gray-haired zealot, he was one of a new breed of young university
graduates, members of the middle class, and professionals, often
among the highest achievers in their region.  These religious devotees
do not have a happy fate in store for those of us in the west.  Explained
the young Egyptian, "Islam is a tree that feeds on blood and grows on
severed limbs."80
In the early and mid-nineties, a spate of books and articles
appeared proclaiming that, despite such rhetoric, Islam poses no
geopolitical danger.  Abul Aziz Said, of the School of International
Service at American University, said point blank that "Islamic
fundamentalism is not the enemy of the west."  "Islamic
fundamentalism," he declared, "is a defensive social and political
movement, a reaction to westernization and modernization."  It is, he
insisted, "an attempt to restore an old civilization, not create a new
empire."    Yet,  later  in  his  article,  Said  said  that  ancient  imperial
triumphs were at the heart of the "world influence" fundamentalists
were legitimately attempting to "regain."  And the veil slipped a bit
from his true feelings when, zeroing in on his conclusion, he declared
that "imitative responses of Muslims to the challenge of the
West...evince...identification with the 'enemy.'"81
John L. Esposito, former president of the Middle East Studies
Association, criticized "the creation of an imagined monolithic Islam"
and contended that those apprehensive about fundamentalism "fail to
account for the diversity of Muslim practice."82  Palestinian-born
Columbia University scholar Edward Said echoed the assertion that
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