Book Review: The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

On September 11, Mahatma Gandhi asked around 3,000 Indian expatriates gathered in the Empire Theatre building in Johannesburg, South Africa, to take an oath to resist their white colonial masters without striking a single blow. Many years later, an Afghan war veteran named Osama bin Laden, addressing the evening worshippers in the bin Laden family mosque in Jeddah, invoked Gandhi. He described Mahatma as a man who brought down British Empire 'by boycotting its products and wearing non-western clothes'. In a sleepy monotone, Mr bin Laden gently exhorted his listeners to convey to Americans, wherever encountered, the essence of their complaints and even suggested writing letters to the American embassies.

However, exactly 95 years after Gandhi's call for a 'without a single blow' attack, the death commandoes of bin Laden's army, the Al Qaeda, stuck such a violent blow to America's ego, self-esteem, prestige, and mainland innocence that it is yet to recover. 9/11 changed America and consequently the entire world.

How did 9/11 happen? How did Osama bin Laden manage to convince hundreds of fellow Muslims to give up their lives in the battle against America? What convinced Mr bin Laden to launch and lead such a battle? When did he start hating America? What were his origins? What was his upbringing like that made him such a fearful and hated man? Who are his wives? What kind of a father is he to his children? What stuff was his father made of? Was he "normal" at some point in his life? What is the story of the bin Laden legend? How Osama became an Osama?

All these mysteries are explored in The Looming Tower - Al Qaeda And The Road To 9/11, a fantastic book by New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright. The book is ostensibly concerned with the events leading to that clear, blue, fateful Manhattan morning in September, but it is actually a most gripping account of the life and times of Mr bin Laden. The rest is merely about filling in the blanks.

It would be unreasonable to expect that a more enchanting and gripping personal portrait of Osama could be written. Mr Wright's narration will likely remain the standard reference unless Mr bin Laden himself decides to write a memoir.

While tracing the trajectory of Osama's life, Mr Wright had to jettison his reporter tag and agree to take the job of 'mentoring' a couple of young Saudi journalists so that he could get a Saudi visa and a chance to live in Jeddah, Osama's home town - all in order to have a first-person experience of a closet society that gave the world its most notorious terrorist.

Mr Wright interviewed 550 people—jehadis, politicians, secret service agents, journalists, professors—and researched numerous books, pamphlets, testimonies and mujahideen magazines in writing this book. Fortunately, one never gets bogged down in the minutiae. The Looming Tower is so thrillingly written, with such a pulsating pace, with anecdotes dotting every page, and so fascinating that the reader is left hooked, breathless, and panting for more.

Article Author: Mayank Austen Soofi

Mayank Austen Soofi owns a private library and four blogs: The Delhi Walla, Pakistan Paindabad, Ruined By Reading, and Mayank Austen Soofi Photos. Contact: mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com

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