Islam in the World

by Malise Ruthven

Book Overview

This valuable introductory guide provides a complete and lively summary of Islam, one of the most worldly of the great religions, in which the quest for spiritual fulfillment is inevitably bound up with political aspirations. Malise Ruthven presents a full overview of the religion in its historical, geographic, and social settings.

For this revised and long-awaited second edition, Ruthven divides his original chapters into more accessible...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195138414
• ISBN13: 9780195138412
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 504 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.7" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

A critically important and strongly recommended addition to school and community libraries

The urgent need for Americans to understand the basic beliefs and history of Islam has been self-evident since the beginning of the conflict established by radical Islamists attacking the United States with such devastating consequences on September 11, 2001. Now in an updated and expanded third edition, Islam In The World by Malise Ruthven (a former professor of Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion) provides the reader with a sound and succinct history of Islam, and an overview of such fundamental Islamic practices and issues as the pilgrimage to Mecca, Muhammad the Quran, the development of divine law, mystic Islamic tradition, and the different Islamic sects including the Sunni and the Shia. This new edition includes a new preface and an extended afterword, addresses the new realities of our post 9/11 world, Islam's altered relationship with the global community, the meaning of the American 'war on terror' and the purpose of the war in Iraq. "Islam In the World" is a critically important and strongly recommended addition to school and community libraries -- and should be on the reading list of every American citizen trying to understand current national and international events that seemingly echo a clash of cultures between Islam and the West.

Malise Ruthven's Work is a Superb Resource

It is disappointing to see that Malise Ruthven's "Islam I the World" has had only the small amount of commentary that it has received here. I would hate to see people discouraged from buying this book because of the comments of one reviewer (which, to be fair, were not all negative) four years ago. While I don't disagree terribly with the substance of the comments, I do think the tone might prevent someone from discovering the great treasure of thoughtfulness and, I believe, understanding, the book possesses. I think Ruthven's book has much to offer, even (especially!) to those who know nothing about the Islamic world. So, I want to sing the book's praises for a moment. The first point I want to make is that the depth and complexity of the subject matter - still journalistically treated, though at the level of, say, pieces in the "New York Times Magazine" or the "New Yorker" - are exactly what Americans need when it comes to Islam. I believe more of us must get beyond "The Introduction to ...[this or that]" and get to some substance in our understanding of Islam and Muslims, including those who would take the terrorist route to redressing their grievances. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are showing us that so much is at stake, and that perhaps we have needed to dig deeply into, and do some wrestling with, what some might call "the otherness" of Islam and the Middle East. This book is a superb place to start. If George W. Bush had read this book, he might not have announced - and then had to retract and re-characterize - the "crusade" against terror in the wake of 9-11, that episode itself iconic for the ignorance people in the US evince when it comes to Islam. If body bags containing Americans and the rising toll of Iraqi dead, uncounted and euphemized as "collateral damage," bother you, you won't mind spending a little effort on this book, and may find it, as I did, enormously rewarding. Secondly, there is a nice long chapter, "The Challenge from the West" (pp. 282-350), that shows that long before anyone struck out with terror, at least on the scale of 9-11, thinkers, political leaders, journalists, and others in the Islamic world have been seeking a way to deal with the West. Although the complaints of some Muslims may have suddenly become "news" to Americans on September 11, 2001, the Iranian revolution from 1979 should have screamed at us that we needed to understand "Islam in the World" a lot sooner that many of us started, and certainly a lot sooner that the first time we heard Ayatollah Khomeini lecturing the world about the Great Satan. The stories of Muslims wrestling with the West - and there are certainly many more than are recounted here - are a clue to the depth of their frustration in this unequal confrontation between East and West. We have neglected the Islamic world (at best), even as we have let our leaders (at worst) pursue exploitive policies there. It's not too late to begin un-neglecting the Islamic world, and this book i