Customer Reviews

Islam

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

 

 

This book is a handy book in learning about Islam, its doctrine and history. Rahman's approach is at once senstitive sociologically and also a little apolotgetic at times. This book is written by an intelligent "insider" It does not address questions about terrorism and should not be read as a way of informing a personal hatred against Muslims but should be read and is best read as a book that introduces readers in an understandable fashion to one of the world's "great" religions and agents for cultural expression and change. This book is about a religion- its theology, philosophy, sects, and its history- not radical anti-Western political movements.
My criticisms of this book are light- it is a bit dry and a bit academic at times. Also the typeface is sometimes a bit hard on the eyes but not annoyingly so. But overall it is a great work and a classic on a great religion and I highly recommend it for all those who would like to begin learning about Islam.

This is a great book for someone looking to learn Islamic basics. It is easy to read, yet doesn't compromise on accurate information and detail. A good book for a new convert to Islam, or simply for someone studying comparitive religion. This book is often used in an introduction course on Islam at Georgetown University.

It's written for someone with some knowledge of the basics of Islam. Extremely well-organized, highly analytical and scholarly. It ranks with "Islam and the Destiny of Man" as the best intros.

It's written for someone with some knowledge of the basics of Islam. Extremely well-organized, highly analytical and scholarly. It ranks with "Islam and the Destiny of Man" as the best intros.

Fazlur Rahman Malik (1919-1988) was a well-known scholar of Islam, who has written many other books such as "Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition," "Major Themes of the Qur'an," "Islamic Methodology in History," "Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition," etc. At the time of the First Edition (1966) of this book, he was Director of the Islamic Research Institute in Pakistan and a member of that government's Advisory Council of Islamic Ideology.

He wrote in the Preface to the First Edition, "This book seeks to give the reader the general development of Islam throughout the approximately fourteen centuries of its existence. It is, therefore, primarily informative. But since it aims at presenting, as far as possible, a coherent and meaningful narrative rather than a series of disjointed descriptions of seemingly isolated phenomena or aspects of the development of Islam, the work had to become interpretative in character and could not remain just informative. Indeed ... the book assumes ... that the reader is already acquainted with some of the general literature on Islam that already exists in English."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"That a God to whom it is, in the final analysis, indifferent whether He is effective in history or not is certainly not the God of Muhammad and the Qur'an." (Pg. 13-14)
"While the Qur'an had, since a very early date, accepted Jesus as God's Prophet, it has also rejectd, again fairly early in Mecca, the claim of the divinity of Jesus." (Pg. 20)
"(Orthodoxy) lacked the intellectual capacity to say both that the Qur'an is entirely the Word of God and, in an ordinary sense, also entirely the word of Muhammad. The Qur'an obviously holds both, for if it insists that it has come to the 'heart' of the Prophet, how can it be external to him?" (Pg. 27)
"As an immediate solution, the Qur'an accepts the instituion of slavery ... But at the same time every legal and moral effort was made to free the slaves and to create a milieu where slavery ought to disappear." (Pg. 36)
"At the very root of the Muslim conception of law lies the idea that law is inherently and essentially religious." (Pg. 76)
"Thus, whereas the Mu'tazilla subsumed the idea of God under that of human justice, the orthodox subsumed the idea of justice under that of God." (Pg. 102)
"Thus, philosophy in Islam did not die with the orthodox attack of al-Ghazali as is commonly supposed by modern scholarship... But its character was radically changed through the influence of mysticism." (Pg. 151)
"One fact stands out plainly in the life of the Prophet; that he practiced rigorous realism with (and we believe this was because of) an intense spiritual life." (Pg. 158)
"There are many reasons for the power wielded by fundamentalism... in the present century, when society is threatened by wholesale Westernization, it has become good tradition and its purificationist programme still has appeal." (Pg. 274)
"So far as the person of the Prophet is concerned, the principle of his uniqueness among humanity as the greatest organ of the Divine Will and Command ... (is) a cardinal principle... He claimed nothing else and severely warned against deifying man." (Pg. 307)

This may be a terrific scholarly work, but it is NOT for someone with a limited knowledge of Islam, who wishes to learn more. It is Not easy to read and presupposes a basic understanding of Islam. I bought the book after reading the reviews by others. Just shows that you can't always trust them.

This book was in very good condition. It arrived just in time for my assignment, which was great! Other than some highlighting (which comes in handy, anyway) there were no damages to the book.