Customer Reviews

Islam: An Introduction

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

 

 

I am a Muslim and consider myself reasonably educated about Islam, but I hadnt realized the true diversity in Islam until I read this book. Truly magnificent snapshot of Islam, its Founder the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), its beliefs and practices and the history of Islam, its various movements, its flavors....

The book is very easy reading, and in my oppinion, to a westerner, this book is perhaps as good an introduction to Islam as can be.

Professor Schimmel is most well versed and experienced in the topic that she address in this book. Her credentials regarding the subject are very high indeed.

This is a simple, highly readable and quick introduction on Islam: a multi-dimensional and dynamic religion that is growing very rapidly in all parts of the world. Professor Schimmel has done an excellent job of introducing this great religion as it has been practiced since centuries. I highly recommend this book to journalists and people who are related to media to get a clearer and true understanding of this religion. This book does its part of justice to clarify some of the misconceptions about Islam in media. I also recommend this book to readers who already have an understanding of this religion; Professor Schimmel besides introducing Islam (both its form and essence) also provide her views from the understanding of vast body of Islamic literature, history and culture. I would like to specially point to the last section of this book in which Professor Schimmel discusses the future of Islam in today's currents of modernism. She has provided some of her most summed up thoughts about this topic, which I am sure, will make sense to most of young Muslim readers like me. I also highly recommend her book on the topic of the "Mystical Dimensions of Islam."

Annemarie Schimmel's "Islam: An Introduction" is definitely not the best introductory work on Islam out there. There is a sense of dilettantism in this work that is particularly disconcerting.

Not to say that Schimmel is not a scholar of high talent, she just does not show it here. As a prime example, there are no footnotes anywhere in her work, which makes tracing some of her quotations a little harder, to say nothing of seeing where her arguments are drawn from.

This book does everything which an introductory book on Islam should do - cover the history of the faith to some degree and introduce the central tenets - but it does so in a way not designed to really sink these facts in for the reader. The language used, a rather self-consciously archaic series of constructions ("It is this rejection of, nay, cursing of..." being a prime example of her normal turn of phrase) is partly responsible for this.

At the same time, there is a general impression of the faith being compartmentalised. The reader could well be excused for thinking that Islam is no longer a major force in world politics, where of course current events prove that hypothesis well and truly incorrect. (...) Schimmel's prose distances the reader from the subject.

A book of this length could sometimes be seen as having that as an advantage over longer works on the same subject - as it won't deal with minute details of the subject. Unfortunately, Schimmel's reluctance to deal with complexity must be contrasted with her insistence on the full array of diacritics on any Arabic word. I am firmly of the belief that the more diacritics the casual reader - to say nothing of the undergraduate student using this as a resource - is presented with, the less engaged with the subject he or she is.

I really cannot recommend Schimmel's work for anyone for whom such luminaries as Esposito are available. In lieu of them (and they are easily orderable from this website), then Schimmel might be a very poor alternative.

Well, I thought I would get a good introduction here.. Yes there are flooding details, names, dates, etc... Without any knowledge of islam or world religions in general, you will be VERY lost with this book. I am a master's student, and have studied arabic as well... this book just was all over the place. I did get some good facts and knowledge out of it, but it seems just very distant. I hope there are some clearer and less assuming books out there. This one just spills facts and assumes a lot from readers. It's hard to read and understand if you're not taking a class with it!

Ms. Schimmel's Islam: An Intoduction, is an excellent concise introduction to the Islamic faith. The book is used as a textbook in my Intro to Islam class.

Good overview of Islam. A segment on Islam in the Sub Continent- the author is a respected authority in this area. Included are details that would be of interest to readers of many faiths eg what can I expect to see in a mosque? Offers a select bibliography.

Schimmel is a trustworthy guide for those unfamiliar with Islam. She has devoted a life-time of study to it and condenses her considerable learning into this short and clear book. She is a refreshingly sober starting point given these overheated times. For those thirsting for a bit more in the way of an extended introductory survey of Islam, I would recommend 'Visions of Islam' by Chittick & Murata.

In a field where textbooks are often beyond the comprehension of the general reading public, where the by-word of academic rigor often results in books that even undergraduates cannot fathom, often the only alternative is the "pulp journalism" characteristic of "international" correspondents who base their credibility on a few trips to the Near and Middle East. They generally do not know the languages of the areas in question, and come to conclusions that tell us more about their ignorance than they do about the religion and society they are supposedly so well informed about. Schimmel, however, is not characterized by any of these shortcomings. She is an established academic, the doyenne of Islamic studies (especially Islamic mysticism); yet she writes with a clarity and purposefulness which virtually anyone can understand. She brings a sympathetic and yet not uncritical eye to her subject matter. The only seeming difficulty she displays is the understandable desire to include as much as possible in her "Introduction". This gives her work something of the feel of a "Review" as well as being introductory. No matter; this can only serve to enhance the ultimate value of the book.

This is an excellent book for people interested in the basics
of Islam, along with a brief history of Islam.

Ms. Schimmel writes with a clarity and unbiasedness not common
amongst many Western writers. She objectively analyses Islam
and "Islamic culture" from a fair point-of-view.

Even Muslims who know about Islam can learn some things from
this book.

This book is not well written and the author needs to read the Quran and verify her facts. For example, she writes that a Muslim man can marry people of the book. This is correct but she includes Hindus and Zoroastrians in the list. This is far from the truth. Only Jews and Christians are the people of the book, no other. I do not recommend this book.