I just finished reading Montasser al-Zayyat's The Road to Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man.
Part biographical, part autobiographical, it's an account of Ayman al-Zawahiri's early years in the Egyptian Islamist movement as told through one of its leaders, Montasser al-Zayyat. After years in prison following the assassination of Anwar Sadat, Al-Zayyat chose a different path than Zawahiri by accepting the methodical, "quietist" approach to Islamist reform. This earned him a few choice words from Zawahiri in his 2001 memoir, Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet (available in partial, serialized translation through Dialog -- WNC, File 985). Road to Al-Qaeda is in part a response to Zawahiri's criticism.
It's a slight book (137 pages including prelims and appendices), but it offers a fascinating window into contemporary Islamist thinking. Al-Zayyat shows all the insightful, articulate self-awareness common among Islamist leaders when they're talking about themselves and other things close to their hearts. He is no intellectual slouch, proving once again, that the Islamist movement has nothing to do with academic Marxist fantasies of the poor and down trodden "rising up" in the great Revolution.
You have to be prepared, however, to see the ugly side of Islamist thinking pop up here and there like an evil Jack-in-the-Box. There's the seething anti-Israel hatred, and the paranoia of particulars you come to expect from Islamists (many of whom have lived and continue to live under scrutiny of various intel and security agencies -- not without cause I might add). For example, Al-Zayyat portrays President Bush's now-infamous "crusade" line as a sign of "deeper intentions."
However, with all the rational reasoning of a man who has seen and suffered much, and has truly learned from his experiences in the "movement," al-Zayyat opens a door into the the Islamists world which is surprisingly broader and deeper than the caves along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
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