A Short History of Islam - Karen Armstrong

Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong http://www.amazon.com/Islam-History-Modern-Library-Chronicles/dp/081296618X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213942857&sr=8-5 Editorial Reviews Amazon.com The picture of Islam as a violent, backward, and insular tradition should be laid to rest, says Karen Armstrong, bestselling author of Muhammad and A History of God. Delving deep into Islamic history, Armstrong sketches the arc of a story that begins with the stirring of revelation in an Arab businessman named Muhammad. His concern with the poor who were being left behind in the blush of his society's new prosperity sets the tone for the tale of a culture that values community as a manifestation of God. Muhammad's ideas catch fire, quickly blossoming into a political empire. As the empire expands and the once fractured Arabs subdue and overtake the vast Persian domain, the story of a community becomes a panoramic drama. With great dexterity, Armstrong narrates the Sunni-Shi'ite schism, the rise of Persian influence, the clashes with Western crusaders and Mongolian conquerors, and the spiritual explorations that traced the route to God. Armstrong brings us through the debacle of European colonialism right up to the present day, putting Islamic fundamentalism into context as part of a worldwide phenomenon. Islam: A Short History, like Bruce Lawrence's Shattering the Myth and Mark Huband's Warriors of the Prophet, introduces us to a faith that beckons like a minaret to those who dare to venture beyond the headlines. --Brian Bruya --This text refers to the Paperback edition. From Publishers Weekly Readers seeking a quick but thoughtful introduction to Islam will want to peruse Armstrong's latest offering. In her hallmark stylish and accessible prose, the author of A History of God takes readers from the sixth-century days of the Prophet Muhammad to the present. Armstrong writes about the revelations Muhammad received, and explains that the Qur'an earned its name (which means recitation) because most of Muhammad's followers were illiterate and learned his teachings not from reading them but hearing them proclaimed aloud. Throughout the book, Armstrong traces what she sees as Islam's emphasis on right living (? la Judaism) over right belief (? la Christianity). Armstrong is at her most passionate when discussing Islam in the modern world. She explains antagonisms between Iraqi Muslims and Syrian Muslims, and discusses the devastating consequences of modernization on the Islamic world. Unlike Europe, which modernized gradually over centuries, the Islamic world had modernity thrust upon it in an exploitative manner. The Islamic countries, Armstrong argues, have been "reduced to a dependent bloc by the European powers." Armstrong also rehearses some basics about Islamic fundamentalism in a section that will be familiar to anyone who has read her recent study, The Battle for God. A useful time line and a guide to the "Key Figures in the History of Islam" complete this strong, brisk survey of 1,500 years of Islamic history. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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hielo999 (2008-06-20)

Islam Go Boom.
How much shorter can you get?

zaron5551 (2008-06-22)

excellent listen and very interesting. thanks

driver76 (2008-07-02)

A truly misguided representation of Islam by a well known propagandist and ultimate apologist for the so called religion of peace.
AND think about one simple fact of Islam. 700 years after Christ a murdering rapist decides HE is the messiah and basically plagiarises the Christian faith and twists it MERELY for power/fame/glory/riches. Well, whats new in the world. That is what so called leaders have always strived for.
But if your 18 and think Al Gore is one helluva guy you will listen to this and think you know Islam. Yeh, sure you will

 rambam1776 (2008-07-03)

Driver76 ?
Yes and no. It isn?t really fair to refer to anybody as a ?well known? Islamic scholar or apologist. In the western world, practically nobody is aware of the leading scholars of this genre. You are correct that Armstrong is a bit of an apologist, or that her work has been much criticized. However, if you treat this book as an introduction or a ?dummy?s guide to? than it serves its purpose. While I do not personally make any pretense of professing or denigrating Islam in this forum, I would argue that for the total novice, this book is a good starting place. I would also argue that anyone expecting an exhaustive scholarly history complete with footnotes in a layman?s popular history entitled the SHORT history of Islam is a foolish person. There are torrents here on TPB to the teaching company?s college level intro classes on aspects of Islam that take dozens of hours to listen to. Start with this book, and then move up to more complex stuff. This is only intended as a brief overview. The editorial reviews I listed made that point very clearly ? did you even red them, or just jump straight to the comment section to be snarky?

FaderAbraham (2008-12-17)

ziphone124: Maybe if you didn't write all in CAPS and divided your text into paragraphs properly, someone might actually read what you have to say.

Mistigush (2008-12-22)

Ziphone ... pal ... they are called tranquilizers ... take one now. I got news for you pal, your not really helping anyone ... period. The Caps ... not helping ... just annoying, but if you wanted to annoy and completely tune out everyone and not make one point regardless of just how much you wrote and then you succeeded ... venting is nice sometimes ... I hope it worked.
But if you were making some points, lets start at the beginning.
1. Christians killed everybody, but there was a lot of that happening before written word wasn`t there? Ask any conquered people, Egytians, Hittites, Assyrians, Celts, Macedonians, Carthaginians, Trojans, basically any people that lost a war were conquered and those that did it were usually very good at it ... Like the Romans, the Europeans of today ... and I am sure they killed millions too.

For anyone to have a superstate, they usually have to take someone else`s albeit smaller superstate first.
As for the carving up the country ... what country ... try not to be too obtuse if you can help it ... the caps don`t help much.
Actually ... the Muslim countries went and colonized just about every country there was at one time ... hence them being thrown out of Spain, your next point.
One point in fact ... no one ... NO ONE (in your own words) lives harmoniously amongst anyone, period and no, I never thought of where Alumni came from, I just figured it was Latin.
That I am pretty sure was more or less politics, much in the same way the Templars were destroyed as an order, an order of convenience ... only it was carried out by Christians.
People have been dividing the world up for quite some time now, as for instance, in 1494, When Portugal(John) and Spain(Ferdinand + Isabella) signed Treaty of Tordesillas, they did it because one was Portuguese and the other was Spanish and at the time the Pope was Spanish and so they could get the better of it ... that`s all there was to that, and yet again ... it was Politics posing, pure and simple politics.
I was reading about the sanctions imposed between August 1990 and May 2003 by the UN Security Council and the aftermath of those sanctions were tragic. Is it right to target all Christians for that, it does appear to be what you are doing.
Placed the Dictator ... the Loans ... Why don`t you just come out and say the USA already instead of taking the long way round the bush. Your talking about the USA and their old habits of using the CIA to place key people favorable to US interests and by that I mean US Business interests into power. Give a poor country a loan, make them use it for really expensive infrastructure that doesn`t do squat for them but for you ... great, build a shipyard and start importing in cheap goods putting poor indigenous farmers out of business and without a farm. Then you take the farm and build a factory and pollute all you want because no one cares because you own the government.
And as for that fornicating ... I heard that when a Muslim guy dies and goes to paradise he gets saddled with 72 virgins, I mean, it`s not actually mentioned ... the number of virgins that is, but it`s 72, or so Tirmidh? in his work Sunan al-Tirmidhi would have you believe. Nice guy Tirmidhi, read too much, finally went blind from it, but really nice guy.
Now that other stuff is interesting; everyone has had a history of slavery, even the Muslim people, so please don`t bring up the slavery card here. As for civil rights, there are Muslim countries where the civil rights of Christian countries are like a heaven, they may not be perfect but in comparison, I would chose them any day. Also, as for Dogmatic, I submit that neither Muslim nor Christian is free simply because you have given up your free will and thought, when one has done that ... they quit thinking, when you quit thinking you merely act, action without thought leads to barbarism. Perhaps this is why both sides recruits so many young people into their armies, because young people have not learned to think independently and are easily manipulated by slogans, patrioti

 rambam1776 (2009-01-04)

"Typical Jewish slender and insults.They do it to all Prophets that's why they're cursed in all sacred books.The uploader is a synagogue-of satan servant that has no morality nor taste.He's just a vulgar vomitting stinky jew whose mark is the smell God has condemned them to bear in order to be noticed and recognized!"
Isn't anti-Semitism fun?

dabigc95 (2009-07-10)

"Islam Go Boom.
How much shorter can you get?"
No...the reason they blow themselves up is because they believe they are martyrs. In our religion those who die in the name of Allah fighting for an Islamic cause will go to heaven. Only Allah can decide if those in Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestine are martyrs of if they are confused and unguided.

 IndianChristian (2009-11-02)

Karen Armstrong is former catholic nun who was probably cheated by the pedophile catholic priests. So she had decided to take her anger against christianity. no wonder her points are so weak and nonsensical.
And talking about pedophile, how can we forget the father of pedophilery? the great Muhammad, prophet de Islam? This 60 year old man really had a nice time with his nine year old wife. Muhammad's only miracle was not the Quran, it was the fact that he could get his instrument up even at this advanced age all without the aid of Viagra.
Now coming back to the prophet and the book he directed the quran, there is nothing spiritual about the book. It is a book of hate and distorted bible verses all meant to satisfy Muhammad's craving for woman, wealth and wine. I was just now reading a book by famous Indian evangelist rashid alam in his books he proves how muhammad and allah are one and the same person.

And lastly muslims often ask, why do christians insult muhammad, when no muslim insults jesus?
it is because jesus and moses like muhammad did not rape, murder and pillage others. they did not reveal situational verses to satisfy their lusts for woman. Muhammad did all that and claimed it all came from the god of the bible. truth is, it all came from the devil. that is why the bible and the torah contradicts the quran on every page. to cover up his deficiencies, muhammad claimed that the torah and bible have been corrupted by the jews and christians. but then there were problems in his own quran with several contradictions. muhammad also forget several verses he had created earlier. to make up for these 2 issues, muhamamad created the abrogation principle where he would reveal newer verses to cancel out older verses. Since the Bible is the word of god, the cancellation of verses is not found in the Bible.
karen armstrong should have mentioned these facts, instead of providing a doctored book on islam.

reflexes (2011-09-28)

thanku rambam,
and to the rest of the primitive uneducated "haters" who instead of just ignoring what they dont like, wasted their breath and venom in order to show their inferiority complex, well.... i can say or do anything, no matter how i try, to make them look more primitive, uneducated and "haters"..
i am often amazed at people who say they believe in some religion or God and can still hate the greatest creation of God, a human.
self defeating.isnt it.
they think that they are "serving" their God by hating what He created.. hahaha
here they will say that God indeed created the ones they hate and kill and destroy but its because they are against the God.
well, in that case i would love to see the God obliterate the ones against Him himself but why He never does that? is it that the people who follow Him think that He is unable to do what they doing for Him?

trjtjty (2013-03-23)

1-what is the religion of Mohammed ? because he was not following Islam who converted him ??
2-he wasn't Muslim by birth(as follower of islam are called muslim BUT you cant call mohamed muslim because islam wansnt there during his birth ) how his follower called him muslim.