Customer Reviews

Children of Abraham : An Introduction to Islam for Jews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

One doesn't envy Islamic scholar Khalid Duran the task of trying to describe his religion to any audience, let alone a Jewish one, but must admire his courage for making the attempt.

As he states in the preface to this five-chapter volume (a companion to The Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims by Reuven Firestone): "The important thing is to delineate both the ideal and the reality honestly, rather than project unsavory practices at the expense of lofty ideals or present ethereal ideals as if problematic actualities did not exist... sometimes there is more beauty and sometimes more ugliness, sometimes the ideal is stronger and sometimes the reality bleaker. Sometimes it is not so clear what really is the ideal, and even the reality cannot always be easily gauged."

With a whole chapter dedicated to "Present-Day Threats" - in which he decries the "hijacking" of key concepts such as shari'a (Islamic law) and jihad by the "Islamists" and "jihadists" - Duran takes great care to distance what he calls the essentially pacifist, pluralistic faith taught by Muhammad (who said "Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you" and "An Arab is not superior to a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab superior to an Arab") from the twisted travesty with which the world has become all too familiar since September 11.

What Muhammad intended, says Duran, was not to create a third religion after Judaism and Christianity, but "to bring them all together on a common platform: the reconstituted Abrahamic original."

But rather than unifying Judaism and Christianity, multiple assassinations in the wake of Muhammad's death in 632 meant that within a century Islam itself was split between the Shi'is, who felt that only members of Muhammad's family could succeed him, and the "orthodox" Sunnis who, following Muhammad's example, bestow leadership of their churchless community, where every believer is his own priest, on the most worthy.

"In the course of time," relates Duran, "each of these early factions developed a separate theology, drifting apart in matters of ritual and law as well as communal structure. What at one time were political parties turned into religious sects."

The Shi'is thus created the imamate, while the Sunnis instituted the caliphate, a religious-political-economic empire which eventually came to dominate a large part of the world.

The immense wealth and concomitant "boisterous materialism" of the caliphate eventually became an affront to many pious dissenters, who reacted by embracing an ascetic, fatalistic lifestyle and wearing garments of coarse wool (suf). Thus arose a branch of modern Islam known as Sufism, often described as Islamic mysticism.

HOW THE originally simple, but today almost anarchic religion known as Islam has interacted with the world's Jews over the past 1,400 years is the subject of Duran's third chapter, "Jews and Muslims." This chapter begins with a section titled "A Difficult Start," goes on to describe the Muslim version of plurality (dhimmitude) - in glorious theory and often-less-than-glorious practice - and concludes in the modern era ("Fresh Wounds and Dim Hopes: The Twentieth Century" and "A New Page for Other Priorities: the Twenty-First Century").

The fourth chapter is titled "Religious Life and Society," and outlines the origin and nature of the Koran, providing some details about the religion as practiced today.

But Duran leaves out much. For example, the explosive and, to Jews, incredible claim that God's Chosen People have corrupted the Torah (according to Muslims, it was Ishmael and not Isaac who was almost sacrificed by Abraham) is mentioned only in passing.

In his final chapter, "Women: The Most Vexing Question," Duran laments what he seems to feel is Islam's greatest shortcoming: its attitude toward and treatment of females.

The book then concludes with a chronology and a much-appreciated glossary of terms.

To sum up, Children of Abraham is a courageous and much-needed attempt to explain one side of an age-old conflict to the other, but doesn't provide the greater understanding of Islam or explain its antipathy toward Judaism that this reader was hoping for.

Khalid Duran is a wonderful guide, able to speak of his religion in a relaxed, honest, informed and non-defensive way. Here he writes a companion volume to Jewish scholar Reuven Firestone's "Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims", and the two books form a genuinely civilized exchange. Duran shows no fear of discussing awkward truths from the past or the present. It seems he has only interest in what can be gained by openness. For example,

"... women who join Islam often do so for diametrically opposed reasons. Some believe that Islam, rightly understood, elevates women more than any other religion. Others convert because they prefer confinement in the home and a position of childlike dependence; they wish to opt out of the rat race of modern life ... Many of these are well educated, professional women; their catchword is `shelter' and their arguments constitute a counterrevolution to feminism. It is difficult to imagine viewpoints more divergent than the two extremes found among female converts to Islam. Each camp, of course, claims to have the right understanding." (pp. 217-218)

Duran's descriptions of different tendencies in Islam can be humorous, and they easily relate to similar tensions in Jewish tradition:

"The alim/faqih [or legalist] tends to be a communalist, a separatist. He is fond of erecting barriers between groups, such as followers of different religions, people of different generations, men and women - so that everything is in its right and proper order. The sufi/wali [or mystic] loves to break down barriers and bring all creatures together: animal and human, old and young, men and women, Moses and Muhammad, making them exchange seats." (p.202)

This romp through Islamic history and culture is good enough to have earned Duran at least one death threat, from a fanatical jihadist who evidently believed it God's will that the various children of Abraham must fight to the end.

-author of Correcting Jesus

It is not surprising that Duran has got into trouble with the so-called Muslim fundamentalists, who are here generally called Islamicists. Although he sets out their views without distortions, as well as those of their opponents, he not only is intensely critical of them, but makes it clear that the great majority of Muslims do not agree with them,which I think is such an important thing for the West to take on board. His account of all the varieties and issues within Islam in a relatively short space is clear and exemplary. Curiously enough, the weakest section of a book with this particular title is, in my opinion, that which deal with the history of the relationship between Islam and Judaism, which I found a trifle perfunctory and no more than adequate, with some important material omitted.

In this book Khalid Duran reveals many fascinating aspects of Islam including how the female head scarf, the hijab, which is meant to prevent marital infidelity, actually promotes it, and what the true meaning of female circumcision really is. Although Khalid made took great pains not to offend Islamic sensibilities when he wrote this book, on June 6, the Jordanian Arab language weekly newspaper Al-Shahed called for Duran's "blood to be shed". Duran is in hiding because as he told the Jewish week "I am certainly not taking this lightly--I have had so many friends and associates assassinated". The only problem with this book is that Duran does not tell enough because of his fruitless efforts to avoid offending Muslims. This brave man may pay with his life for telling the truth, it is the least we can do, to buy his book and read it.

After reading and re-reading this book, it appears to me that Duran must have thought that Islam-bashing and smearing of Islamic cultures was what the American Jewish Committee wanted when they commissioned him to write a book that might help Jews understand Islam and Muslims. Thus, instead of helping Jews learn the truth about Islam and secondarily, the current politics in the Muslim-majority world, Duran went on an Islam-bashing spree "irregardless" of facts. In my opinion, the author failed his journalistic responsibilities, his responsibilities as a Muslim AND his responsibilities to his AJC underwriters, to present a truthful and accurate image of Islam.

The sad fact is that when I found some gross misrepresentations and omissions in the book, it lost credibility with me. The best service the AJC could have performed to further understanding of Muslims and Islam, would have been to pay him to foreswear writing about these subjects!

The first red flag for me was when I glanced at the list of "recommended readings" in the back of the book.
Anybody who believes that authors like Daniel Pipes, Martin Kramer or Bernard Lewis can provide either an accurate or a positive point of view about Muslims, Arabs or Islam, is obviously (in my opinion) not looking for accuracy but bias. The credibility of this book was seriously undermined when the author selected these well-known but biased and bigoted personalities for the list of "recommended" writers.

The book is packed with loaded terms like "Muslim apologists"; it skims over the life of the Prophet Mohammed very quickly thus failed to help the readers get the full depth of what Islam is all about.

The Author tried very hard to get into the political arena of nations with Muslim majorities and not at all hard enough to give readers a better understanding of Islam. Even in the political discourses, he appeared to be more concerned about promoting bias than discussing real issues or facts of history. Duran even took the view of tying the Oklahoma bombing to Osama Ben Laden, a myth that has following among the ignorant haters of Islam and Muslims but no known bases in fact.
Even his translation of Arabic "Al-Qaeda" was a lesser-used version ("The base") when the better translation of "the Path" or "the Way" would have been an improvement.

In trying to lay the blame for the demise of Buddhism at the door of Muslims, the author took the word "boott" (rhymes with "took") which in Persian and Urdu, means 'statue', made it into "Budd" (rhymes with "took") which is derived from "Buddha". There is no connection between the two words. Buddhism was forced into decline between 300 BCE and 100 BCE because of the invasion of the White Huns into Present India; Buddhist centers of learning and worship were destroyed in that period and by the time Muslims came to the scene (about 750 CE), Buddhism was only a shadow of itself in India and its cities had become buried archeological sites, awaiting excavation by the British around the 18th Century.

In discussing the tragic genocide of Muslims in Bosnia, the authors leave the impression that Jews were far more helpful to the Bosnians than Muslims, even in works within the US. Having participated in efforts to support Bosnian survival and efforts to help the refugees, I know for a fact that while there were many Jews who helped, but Muslims too were very involved in trying to send aid to Bosnia. This is true for Muslims from all over the world who were clamoring to help stop the Genocide of Muslims in Bosnia

I checked some of the items in the Glossary of terms. It was generally good-to-acceptable but I found an error that, to my mind, can only result from careless or thoughtless journalism if not from a disregard for truth.

The author provided a definition for 'Ayatollah' in which he dismisses this title as something peculiar to Iran only and was created "to raise money". Actually, the title is used among the Shia Muslims; the process of earning this title is akin to someone getting a PhD in a specific subject - a person goes through the religious education system, acquires knowledge that meets certain very difficult criteria and then has to do a dissertation to show his/her expertise in a subject. In the various Hawzas (religious institutions in places like Qum-Iran and Najaf-Iraq), there are curricula which start with the basics (undergraduate) and go into details of language, logic, history, sciences, hadeeth etc. An Ayatollah reaches the highest level of academic achievement in this system and publishes their risala (in fiqh or jurisprudence). There is considerable peer-review of their works and dissertation just like in other educational institutions. No wonder that "Ayatollahs" are so highly respected.

In chapter 15 ("Gender or Sex?") regarding women, Duran takes off on the usual blaming of Islam for the misdeeds of some men. In trying to illustrate how nasty people get in their attempts to "achieving Islamist supremacy", he portrays a rape of a young girl with her mother at an Cairo bus stand (unhindered and in full public view), as symbolic of the oppression of women in Muslim environments; my mind immediately went to an incident I recall, where a woman was gang-raped in a US bar with no opposition from the public but in that case, neither Christianity nor Western "civilization" were put on trial...nor should they have been.
Duran also notes that no woman would "venture out at all" in streets of Karachi or Lahore in Pakistan, without a heavy guard. It does not appear that he ever tried to check out his fantasies against reality; at least not in this area. Having lived in Pakistan and having visited it often enough, I can tell him that in the streets of those cities, I have see thousands of unaccompanied women, walking about their daily pursuits without ever a concern for safety...except from the erratic traffic!

On Page 290 ("Chronology") the author managed to completely twist the war of Liberation of Bangladesh as a war between Islamists fanatics and secularists...people from Bangladesh and Pakistan would be astonished and angered. East Pakistan decided to seek independence AFTER Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and other politicians from West Pakistan, along with the Army, overturned the results of the 1971 elections in which the East Pakistani leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won an overwhelming victory. The ensuing civil war cost over 300,000 East Pakistani lives of which a large number (but not majority) were Hindus. West Pakistani Militias were used by the Pakistan Army to help quell the rebellion but the result was more genocide of the Bengalis regardless of their faith.
Bhutto never won a "landslide victory", he simply won the majority of votes in West Pakistan but lost by a landslide overall, to the Bengali Mujibur Rahman.
It is a fact (not noted by the authors) that Bhutto started the slide towards extremist Muslim ideology in order to bolster his position after taking power in the remainder of Pakistan (sans the East).

Duran similarly glosses over Afghanistan, leaving the impression that "Islamist" extremism was the growth-industry in that region. He appears to give credit for the rise of the Taliban and the fanatics in Afghanistan, to Pakistan. In so doing, he completely glosses over the fact that the CIA was the agency responsible for the setting up of the Maddressas in Pakistan for the Afghan children, where they were taught to hate the "un-Godly" and to kill them. These same children were then sent to Mujahideen training camps (also set up by the CIA) from where they were sent to fight the Russians ("America is determined to fight the Soviets to the last Afghan" was the wry joke in Pakistan those days).
When the Soviets finally vacated Afghanistan, the US lost no in performing their own disappearing act instead of helping to rebuild Afghanistan. THESE events are what led to the rise of the Taliban and extremists like Osama Ben Laden who was the CIA's fair-haired poster child during the anti-Soviet war.

On Page 294, the author loses little time in blaming the Muslim GIA for the slaughters in Algeria. To be sure, this is partially correct but the fact is that the elections were overruled by a coup by the Algerian Army, supported by the French and Britain and the US and the slaughters are shared pretty much equally between the Army and the Muslim Extremists. The bloodbath in that region has more to do with political power grab than it has to do with faith.

On page 297, the author tries to illustrate how terrible Iran is and that "...symptomatic of the increased persecution of ethnic and religious minorities under Khatami, nine Jews are sentenced for allegedly having spied for Israel". The author's ardor for indicting Islam and things Muslim such as Iran was obviously so great that he failed to note that there were also thirteen Muslims included in the same trial and all Muslims received far harsher sentences than did the Jews. Duran also fails to note that Iran is the only Muslim country that has Jews in the Parliament...in spite of the so-called religious-extremist views of that country.

The book was disappointing in that I had hoped it would be at least somewhat helpful in promoting a better and more truthful understanding of Islam and Muslims among non-Muslims, especially among Jews.
It failed miserably.

I think it's great that Khalid Duran made the attempt to reach out to Jews. However most of the book doesn't really deal with Jewish/Muslim relationship.(there's a chapter about that.) He also skips around alot. One minute he's discussing something that happened in the year 700 and the next he'll be mentioning Ayatollah Khomeini. I was thinking that he would write about similiarities in the Torah/Quran, go in depth about Jewish/Muslim relations in the medieval ages, etc. Most of the
book is a general history of Islam.(the Muslim empires, etc.)There's also some chapters that discuss what Islam is all about, etc.

The pathetic attempts to even suggest that he showed any balance in his views are nothing to note here. This extremely bias book goes against all principles of scholarship, as it contains very baseless theories. This man has an agenda and his work is in no way to be read to gather information, it is rather for those who wish to affirm their own misconceptions and weak conclusions. There is nothing stable about promoting absurd methodologies.