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WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 /Christian Newswire/ -- "The $25 million bounty on Osama bin Laden is not working," says M. Salahuddin Khan, author of Sikander. "What motivates us in an American culture does not motivate the people of Afghanistan or Pakistan," says Khan. "The bounty should be dropped because at least it will signal that the U.S. is taking a different approach perhaps recognizing cultural issues that we do not grasp- even after nine long years," says Khan.
"This lack of understanding about the people of the region impacts our military strategy and in the end costs lives," adds Khan.
The solution: "We need to respect unfamiliar customs like the jirga system of tribal justice, the right to bear arms, and the obligation to defend a protection-seeker whether friend or foe. We need to help the local people re-establish a functioning society which isn't alien to their sensibilities," says Khan.
Khan's Sikander is an historically accurate novel about the struggles of the Pakistanis and Afghans going back to the Soviet era whose by-products were both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Khan believes his book provides in-depth insights into the region's ethnic, cultural and religious makeup that would benefit policymakers and military leaders alike.
Spanning more than 20 years of recent history, Sikander (ISBN 978-0-578-05288-5, 586 pages, www.sikanderbook.com $24.99, Karakoram Press 2010) is the sweeping, tale of the son of a Pakistani middle-class family.
While enjoying the fast-moving and gripping narrative of Sikander readers will also gain insight into the rise of the Taliban, origins of al-Qaeda, a Pakistani / Muslim perspective of 9/11 as it unfolded live on cable TV, the American ouster of the Taliban, the role of Bagram and Guantanamo, and the wider meanings of Jihad.
"If you want to know how America is seen and discussed in much of the Muslim world," says Khan, "you'll get a sense of the often contradictory images of America that are out there in different layers of Muslim society. Through the story of Sikander, the over-simplistic views held by many about this part of the Islamic world can be replaced with better informed and deeper insights into a history, culture and terrain understood by only a very few Americans."
Akbar Ahmed, former ambassador to the UK for Pakistan, now ibn-Khaldun professor of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington D.C. and named by the BBC as the world's foremost expert on modern Islam says, “I strongly recommend SIKANDER."
About the Author
M. Salahuddin Khan of Lake Forest, IL, was Co-Executive Producer of a 12 minute short movie called "The Boundary" starring Alex Siddig of Syriana fame. The movie dealt with the issues of civil liberties at the U.S. border crossing in a post 9/11 world. He was publisher of Islamica Magazine and is a designer, engineer, artist, writer, inventor, and worldwide traveler. Sikander is his first book.
