Shia

The ancient Romans’ name for Yemen was “Arabia Felix,” Lucky Arabia. Located at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, its former fabulous wealth gathered from taxes on frankincense caravans built the Great Dam of Marib in the eighth century B.C. More than a thousand years later, in the mid-sixth century A.D., the dam burst, causing such devastation that Muhammad spoke of it in the Qur’an (Sura 34:16) as an example of divine retribution on unthankful greed.

Modern Yemen is the poorest country on the peninsula in spite of its strategic location, which, since the time of Muhammad, has been coveted successively by the Ottoman Turks, the British Empire, Nasser’s Egypt, Marxist Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Currently, its wild, mountainous terrain has become the home of AQAP, “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" and a fertile ground for terrorist training due to high unemployment and low literacy rates.

Yemen is the homeland of Osama bin Laden’s ancestors; the port of Aden was the scene of the attack on the USS Cole; many of the 9/11 hijackers as well as more than 90 of the Guantanamo detainees are Yemeni, as is the “underwear bomber” who threatened NWA flight 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

The thinking of Yemeni people challenges western logic. Any control of Yemen is complicated by a strong, moderate Sufi tradition in the east-central region, die-hard Shia followers in the north, and a tribalism in the highlands that cares little for religion and everything for money and land.

Iran and its Islamic society are entities we will encounter more and more in the coming years. "To understand Iran," the author states, "we need to understand Iranians." With this book he lifts the veil.

• What is the formal and informal system of government in the Islamic Republic of Iran?
• How do humility and pride characterize Shia Muslims in the land that once was Persia?
• Why does Iranian President Amadinejad obsess about the holocaust and nuclear power?
• How does Shia Islam differ from Sunni Islam?
• In what ways is Iran a progressive Muslim country?

"If we cannot understand the depth of feeling in the Muslim world toward Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islam as a political force, then we will be doomed to failure in every encounter we have with that world."