Reviews: Abdel-Wahab El-Affendi: For whom is the Islamic State established?

Summary

El-Affendi says that the British Publisher “Grey Seal Books” asked him to author a short book on a topic related to any contemporary Islamic idea, so he chose to write on the topic of the “Islamic State”. The book was initially published under the title: “Who Needs an Islamic State?” Its first edition came in 1991, in England. The author says that the book targeted the “thinking Muslim readers”.

El-Affendi decided to author this book when he discovered that the arrival of an Islamist movement to power in Sudan was a real disaster because of its submission to authoritarian tendencies and the failure to make democracy a priority. The disaster becomes more tragic – according to El-Affandi – when we discover that the Islamic movement in Sudan was more open to democratic principles and ideas than most Islamic movements in other countries, although those movements were mainly victims of tyranny. The book was translated from English into Arabic, Turkish and Malay. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan commented on the book, when he was governor of Istanbul, that it was the most important book written for Islamic movements.