September 11, 2001: As we confront the consequences, how clearly do we understand the causes? Tariq Ali, a leading figure in the European New Left and author of The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2003), and Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq (2003), dissects both Islamic and Western fundamentalism and explains why many believe “the U.S. empire and its economic–military policies are the mother of all fundamentalisms,” spawning the groups they now fight.

Tariq Ali is a writer, broadcaster, filmmaker, and editor of New Left Review. He has written over a dozen books on world history and politics. Three novels of the "Islamic Quintet" have been published by Verso: Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, The Book of Saladin, and The Stone Woman. They portray Islamic civilization in a way that he says "runs counter to the standard views."

Ali's creative output extends to scripts for stage and screen. A short play of his on Iraq was recently performed at Cooper Union in New York, and he is working on an opera on Ayatollah Khomeini.