Customer Reviews

Islam: A Concise Introduction

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

 

 

As an American Christian who diligently studied Islam, lived with Muslims abroad, and then became Muslim himself, I found this book a positive introduction to Islam for the modern, Western mind.

Huston Smith has described Islam in a respectful and fair manner in a way that is difficult to find among nonMuslim authors. In my study of Islam I found that even many life long Muslim writers from outside the Western cultures are not able to describe Islam with such effectiveness.

Islam is often viewed only in negative ways, or in detail of its physical forms alone. Huston Smith is able to see beyond the ignorant sterotypes and begin to express the emotional depth and value of Islam's spiritual wisdom.

The book is intended as an introduction, and is exactly that. It only takes about ninety minutes to read, but sheds much light on a complex subject. Hopefully it is enough to inspire readers to learn more about Islam through even more effective and thorough channels, such as speaking with Muslims at a local mosque. The best source is always the direct source.

So I thank Huston Smith, and recommend this book to all those interested in beginning to understand the true nature of Islam.

Huston Smith provides exactly what the title suggests: a concise introduction to Islam. What I did not realise when ordering the book is that the text is lifted word-for-word from Smith's THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS. I have no complaints about the material or the presentation; in fact, TWR has been a standard text for years at the university where I teach part-time. I just did not need another copy of that one particular chapter. (I'll probably give it away.)

This book, although short in terms of number of pages, is nevertheless extremely rich and amazingly eloquent in its presentation and explanations of Islam, from the life of Muhammad, to the Quran, to Islamic teachings and philosophy, and ending with a brief introduction to Sufism (Mysticism).

This book highly builds on the chapter that was dedicated to Islam in Huston Smith's The World's Religions. But Mr. Smith, after extracting that chapter and making a separate book out of it, adds to its contents discussions that relate to current world events such as the New York and Washington events in September 2001. He also adds many useful discussions regarding misconceptions about Islamic teachings like the issue of Women, Jihad, Polygamy, and many other issues that should highly interest any reader who seeks basic - but strong - foundations in Islamic Theology and Philosophy.

The bibliography and the "suggestions for further reading" part at the end of book is extremely helpful for anyone who persues an academic background in Islamic Studies.

This book will no doubt start to appear in college courses that cover the issue of Islam as a required reading assignment.

All in all, an excellent and a highly recommended book that is considered a masterpiece in the field of Comparative Religion Scholarship.

I got Huston Smith's "Islam" for a church study group. The book had been recommended by one of the study group pariticpants and by a professor acquaintance who uses Smith's book in a survey of world religions. Both gave it very good reviews. And so do I. The Introduction is especially key to understanding why all who are unfamiliar with Islam--or those who know only what they've gleaned from the media since 9/11 should learn about it. Smith's Prologue explains why Islam is so important an element of the Judeo-Christian traditions in the West. Smith uses cogent citations from a variety of sources to underscore his commentary and understanding of Islam. The subtitle, "A concise Introduction" is to be taken seriously; every word in this book counts. A beauty of this book is that Smith presents a faith that we in the West consider exotic and foreign, yet is born of Abraham as are Judaism and Christianity. Something I learned that made this short book so useful for me is that he explains clearly why the Koran is so often misunderstood and why translations seem to be a clutter of chopped up sentences that seem not to hold together. It almost makes one want to learn Arabic so as to fully appreciate Islam as a faith and way of life. No, no, I have no intention of converting, but Smith's book has helped me understand my own Christian faith far more clearly.

"Islam: A Concise Introduction" is useful in that it fulfills the title of the book adequately, if uncritically.

It presents Islam not so much as it is, but rather as Muslims would like it to be seen. To that extent it provides a lot of good information on the religion itself, and their internal perspective.

However, the book works so hard to present its subject in the most positive light, that it whitewashes some subjects, and altogether deceives in other areas.

For example on the issue of racism Huston states, "The advances that Islam continues to make in Africa are not unrelated to this religion's principled record on this issue."

That may come as a shock to blacks in the Sudan who've been murdered and raped by Muslim's for some years now because of their race.

On the use of force Huston notes, "As an oustanding general, Muhammad left many traditions regarding the decent conduct of war."

Well, its nice to have good rules when you're killing people, but there's no discussion of the fact that Islam endorses warfare. It concludes by saying that, "Islam has been spread mostly "by pursuasion and example".

Mostly?

I could find nothing in the book about Islam's endorsement of slavery. The Hadith deals with slavery at length, but I guess Mr. Smith didn't think it important.

Bottom line. The book will teach you well enough about Islam and paint a rosey picture too, but some things are to be found between the lines, and some of it simply isn't there.

"...There's such a fine line between stupid and clever."

This book is a maddeningly inconsistent little work that still manages to deliver on the promise of its subtitle: "A Consise Introduction". As such, it is best read and then forgotten.

Throughout the text, Smith delivers splendid insights, written in a beautiful prose, but every once in a while he topples over into sheer stupidity. Sometimes he does both on the same page. Let's turn to pages 38-39 for an example where Smith explicates the Koranic concepts of Creation and Gratitude:

"It [the cosmos] was created by a deliberate act of Allah's will: 'He has created the heavens and the earth' (16:3). This fact carries two important consequences. First, the world of matter is both real and important. Herein lies one of the sources of Islamic science, which during Europe's Dark Ages flourished as nowhere else on earth."

As a matter of fact, this account explains nothing, because Christianity teaches precisely the same thing concerning creation. Therefore, Islamic science must have flourished during the Dark Ages for reasons other than Koranic doctrine. Furthermore, Islamic contributions to science have been lacking over the past several centuries--does this then mean that the Koran's message has somehow been corrupted or that Muslims are now less devout than during the Dark Ages? Clearly, the implication is absurd. Whatever success "Islamic science" has achieved is not due solely to the Koran.

Smith immediately follows this howler with a finely-wrought interpretation of the term "infidel" (page 39):

"With life acknowledged as a gift from its Creator, we can turn to its obligations, which are two. The first of these is gratitude for the life that has been received. The Arabic word 'infidel' is actually shaded more toward 'one who lacks thankfulness' than one who disbelieves. The more gratitude that one feels, the more natural it feels to let the bounty that has entered flow through one's life and on to others, for to hoard it would be as unnatural as trying to dam a waterfall. The ingrate, the Koran tells us, 'covers' or 'hides' God's blessings and thereby fails to enjoy the link with the Creator that every moment provides."

Noble and poetic words, beautifully put. I hope that is indeed what the Koran teaches.

Back to the other side of the fine line. In discussing the status of women within Islam, Smith states:

"To the adherents of a religion in which the punishment for adultery is death by stoning and social dancing is proscribed, Western indictments of Islam as a lascivious religion sound ill-directed." (page 63)

I see: Islam can't be lascivious because it's barbaric. Probably not the best defense, counsel.

My overall problem with this book is that Smith confuses an empathetic understanding of Islam with cultural pandering. He tries too hard to make Islam safe for his intended audience, to explain away teachings that might seem unpalatable to a liberal western reader. This sort of lazy, implicit condescension does no favor to the truth or to its seekers. As a result, there is an almost complete absence of critical analysis in this book.

And yet, his powers of description (not analysis) do enable him to convey something valuable in a short amount of time and space. Hence a three star rating.

1- The assertion that the apparent incoherence of the Koran is due to the assumption that the pouring of the heavenly Koran (The uncreated Koran) into the earthly Koran represented by the Arabic language was like pushing a thousand Truths into dozens of alphabets and had to result in such incoherence and anachronism, is not only laughable to the secular mind but also offensive to the orthodox scholar Muslims. Hey perhaps the immense Energy-Momentum Tensor associated with the huge satellite transmition resulted in Riemann-Christoffle tensor that caused such space time warp
2-The saying that Islam resulted in science movement is rather a historical mistake. At the time of Caliph Ummar when Egypt was conquered, he ordered his appointed governor to burn the Library of Alexandria on the ground that it was either contradicting the book of Allah { Koran ) or superflous to it. And As the historian Well noted (in his book short history of the world), it was only until the notion of the self-sufficiency in the Koran was set aside that Science started to flourish in the Arab empire. Indeed it was the caliph Maamoon who adopte the view that the Koran is just words any Arab can write the like thereof. Maamoon put obnoxious fundamenal shieks - insisting that Koran un created - in jails. Mammon enocurage Sience gave the jewish translators gold in weigh of what they translated from Greek to Arabic. Al-Khwarizmi,who gave Algebra its name, was a close friend to Maamon.
3- About the right of Women in Islam, that is also another misleading in the book. Of all the enemy and critic of Islam write, there is an incident no one - up to my kwoledge - has yet written about. Here is it: If man accuse another man or a woman of adultery and cannot bring another three acceptable 3 men witnesses , he must be lashed 80 times. However a husband can accuse his wife of adultery even if he cannot produce another three acceptable men witnesses. He just has to swear five times that she commited the act. Now she either addmit and face punishments or deny and swear five times that she didn't and he is lying :
"And for those who launch a charge against their wives, and have (in support) no evidence but their own,- let one of them testify four times by Allah that he is of those who speak the truth; "And the fifth (oath) (should be) that he solemnly invoke the curse of Allah on himself if he tell a lie. But it would avert the punishment from the wife, if she bears witness four times (with an oath) By Allah, that (her husband) is telling a lie. And the fifth (oath) should be that she solemnly invokes the wrath of Allah on herself if (her accuser) is telling the truth." 24:6-9 Koran Yousef Ali translation. The drama does not end here. after the divorce the man can go and get marriage. The woman NOT. According to the Islamic legislation, she must wait until Alah shows a sigen that her huband was lying. The sigen could be as a disease that hits him...etc. Of course that doesn't happen in islamic society today.
4- The author also try to accomodate that the Koran and the Bible are both right. If two things are contradicting, only two conclusion are possible: 1-) One is false 2-) Both are false. An Arab poet, Al-Maary, who was 300 years after Muhammad, once said:
Corruption is people's first nature
And in hallucination all religions are equal