Symbols of Islam (Symbols of religion series)

by Malek Chebel

Book Overview

Over 13 centuries, Islam has become a powerful religion whose symbols, whether linked to its doctrine (prayer, the profession of faith, alms giving), or its architecture (the Kaaba, the mosque, the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0760742383
• ISBN13: 9780760742389
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Length: 127 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

glorious eye candy with satisfactorily brief explanations

I own every title in this glorious Editions Assouline series, to which--as you've, no doubt, noticed--nearly every reviewer has seen fit to ascribe four or five stars. The book is a delight to review, brimming from cover to cover with glorious photography that distills--as its author purports, and alone purports--the SYMBOLS of Islam. After reading the book, I found myself enthralled, fascinated, appreciative of the profound beauty of the Muslim artisan, and motivated to learn more of the faith that drove him to create. I neither found nor expected to find a deep theosophical treatise on Koranological foundations or eschatology. Explanations of various Muslim habits abound--though you must pick through mountains of detail to find them--in the appendices of Khalifa's annotated Quran. Ranging from most to least learned, Jordan's "Islam: An Illustrated History," Nomachi's "Mecca the Beautiful, Medina the Radiant," and Michaud's "The Orient in a Mirror" span the gamut of excellent Muslim-explanative (though markedly not Muslim-apologetic or Muslim-eschatologic) reading, and all offer breathtaking photographs and--at times--impart a distinct "you are there" feeling to the armchair traveler. Now, I grant William his right to stingily reserve but a single star for this book, but I must disagree as strongly as possible with him. He is clearly in the minority here. I have no handy titles on the jurisprudential aspects of fiqh to which to refer him--nor, indeed, am I oriented thither. (Of course, insofar as he dares to mention the holiness of Islam and the cancerous, muddled, rumor-mongering of Hadith in the same sentence, I could wonder about the purity of this aspiring softa in the first place, but I digress: let him devote his jihad to the appreciation of what the book has to offer, not to what it neither advertises to offer nor remotely could within such a short expanse.)