Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East

Behind the bloody acts of terrorism, the mobs chanting with upraised
fists, the backroom and front-page politics in the Middle East, stand
powerful religious leaders cloaked in mystery and fanaticism.
Spokesmen for the Despised lifts the veils, presenting eight
vivid portraits of fundamentalist leaders who have turned their
charismatic religious authority to powerful political ends.

The deeds of the men profiled in this book make history and headlines,
whether through the anti-American rhetoric of the late Iranian
revolutionary, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; the violent acts of
Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shi'ite movement headed by Sayyid Muhammad
Husayn Fadlallah; or the group of Jewish rabbis who appear to have
inspired the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. No
one better exemplifies this history-making than Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, the
spiritual leader of Hamas, who from his Israeli jail cell continues to
influence Hamas's efforts to eliminate both Israel and the PLO. Also
featured are the spiritual guides of the radical Jewish settler movement
Gush Emunim, the Sudanese sponsor of "the Islamic Awakening," the
preacher who inflamed Upper Egypt, and the ideological leader of the
Zionist International Christian Embassy.

These riveting biographies include interviews with true believers and
bitter opponents, and in several cases with the subjects themselves,
carefully placing the lives of these charismatic leaders in the contexts
of their religious traditions and their varied social, political, and
religious settings. Spokesmen for the Despised is an essential
volume for anyone wishing to understand the relationship between
religion and politics in the Middle East.

Contributors: Ziad Abu Amr, Gideon Aran, Yaakov Ariel, Daniel
Brumberg, Patrick D. Gaffney, Samuel Heilman, Martin Kramer, and Judith
Miller