No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular Western imagination as an extreme faith that promotes authoritarian government, female oppression, civil war and terrorism. Karen Armstrong's short history is a vital corrective to this stereotype. Her book demonstrates clearly how ideas of social justice and compassion are, and have always been, central to the Islamic worldview.
'Islam' begins with the flight of Muhammad and his family from Medina in the seventh century and the subsequent founding of the first mosques. The book explains the central events in the history of this religion, including the origins of the split between Shii' and Sunni Muslims, and the emergence of Sufi mysticism; the spread of Islam throughout north Africa, the Levant and Asia; the shattering effect on the Muslim world of the Crusades; the flowering of imperial Islam in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (when the world saw three huge Muslim empires); and the origins and impact of revolutionary Islam. It concludes with an assessment of the challenges facing the religion today.
