Since September 11 2001 not a day passes without stories about Islam - the religion of about one-fifth of humanity - appearing in the media.
The terrorists who hijacked four American airliners not only unleashed a 'War on Terrorism' by the United States and its allies, leading to the removal of two governments in Afghanistan and Iraq, they also raised the profile of Islam throughout the world as a subject for analysis and discussion. Those debates have been heated and passionate. Questions that were previously discussed in the rarefied atmosphere of academia have entered the mainstream. What is the law of jihad? How is it that a religion of peace subscribed to by millions of ordinary, decent believers can become an ideology of hatred for an angry minority? Why has Islam after the fall of communism become so freighted with passionate intensity? This book offers answers to these and many related questions, looking in turn at the exemplary life of the Prophet, the Quranic world-view, the evolution of the Sharia, and the emergence of sects and encounters with the west. A new final chapter looks at the post-9/11 world order.
