books000001

　　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 offers a vital corrective to this narrow view. The distillation of years of thinking and writing about Islam, it demonstrates that the world’s fastest-growing faith is a much richer and more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest.

　　Islam: A Short History begins with the flight of Muhammad and his family from Medina in the seventh century and the subsequent founding of the first mosques. It recounts 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 into the world’s greatest and most sophisticated power; and the origins and impact of revolutionary Islam. It concludes with an assessment of Islam today and its challenges.

　　With this brilliant book, Karen Armstrong issues a forceful challenge to those who hold the view that the West and Islam are civilizations set on a collision course. It is also a model of authority, elegance, and economy.






Islam: A Short History | The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life | The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life | Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light : The Private Writings of the ”Saint Of Calcutta” | Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light : The Private Writings of the ”Saint Of Calcutta” | The God Delusion | The God Delusion | The Student Bible Dictionary: A Complete Learning System to Help You Understand Words, People, Places, and Events of the Bible | The Student Bible Dictionary: A Complete Learning System to Help You Understand Words, People, Places, and Events of the Bible | Mere Christianity: A Revised and Amplified Edition, With a New Introduction, of the Three Books, Broadcast Talks, Christian Beha | Mere Christianity: A Revised and Amplified Edition, With a New Introduction, of the Three Books, Broadcast Talks, Christian Beha | My First Read And Learn Bible | My First Read And Learn Bible | Letters from a Skeptic | Letters from a Skeptic | Daily Readings From Your Best Life Now: 90 Devotions For Living at Your Full Potential | Daily Readings From Your Best Life Now: 90 Devotions For Living at Your Full Potential | Don’t Know Much About Mythology: Everything You Need to Know About the Greatest Stories in Human History but Never Learned | Don’t Know Much About Mythology: Everything You Need to Know About the Greatest Stories in Human History but Never Learned | Koine Greek Reader: Selections from the New Testament, Septuagint, and Early Christian Writers | Koine Greek Reader: Selections from the New Testament, Septuagint, and Early Christian Writers |