Author: Akbar Ahmed
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 251
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8174362762
Description
Islam is often caricatured as aggressive and fanatical. This readable and wide ranging account balances that image, uncovers the roots of Islamic discontent and celebrates the sources of its strength.
Now reissued with a new foreword, Discovering Islam is a classic account of how the history of Islam and its relations with the West have shaped Islamic society today. . From the four ideal Caliphs who succeeded the Prophet to the refugee camps of Peshawar, an objective picture emerges of the main features of Muslim history and the compulsions of Muslim society.
PRAISE FOR THE REVISED EDITION
At a time of great international unrest in which the issue of faith has risen up the agenda for all of us, Professor Akbar Ahmed’s book Discovering Islam is essential reading for thinking people who wish to understand this great world religion. This is an incisive, intelligent book and I am delighted to commend it.
-The Right Hon. George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury
It is refreshing, if not unique, to find a thoughtful adherent taking seriously the hard questions posed by those outside Islam, dealing with them honestly and in the process making the spiritual truths of Islam so accessible.
-Benjamin Ladner, President, American University
There has never been a greater need for understanding Islam, and no better source than Discovering Islam. Ahmed is truly the ambassador of Islam.
-Professor Tamara Sonn, President, the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies
There is no one better qualified by scholarship or academic experience than Akbar Ahmed to explain to the western world the teaching of Islam.
-Lord Bernard Weatherill, former Speaker of the House of Commons, UK
Contents
Preface to the Revise Edition
Foreword by Lawrence Rosen
Preface
INTRODUCTION: DISCOVERING ISLAM
PART ONE: THE PATTERN OF ISLAMIC HISTORY
MUSLIM IDEAL: HOLY BOOK AND PROPHET
A THEORY OF ISLAMIC HISTORY
Ideal caliphs
Arab dynasties: Umayyads and Abbasids
The flowering of Islamic civilization
Decline and fall
Shias: revolution in the revolution
Mahdism and millenarian movements
THE GREAT MUSLIM EMPIRES: OTTOMANS, SAFFAVIDS AND MUGHALS
Ottomans: facing Europe
Saffavids: Shia state
Mughals: encounter with Hinduism
Obsession and synthesis
SUFIS AND SCHOLARS
Sufis, saints and mystics
Two scholars of Islam: Al Beruni and Ibn Khaldun
ISLAM OF THE PERIPHERY
On the periphery
The Muslim minority in China
Muslims in the USSR
UNDER EUROPEAN RULE: THE COLONIAL IMPACT ON MUSLIM SOCIETY
The disintegration of society
The myth of the noble savage: Muslim tribesman
PART TWO-CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM SOCIETY
PRINCES AND PAUPERS: MUSLIM SOCIETIES IN SAUDI ARABIA AND SOUTH INDIA
Saudi Arabia: the reawakening of the peninsula
The Andalus syndrome in south India: a la recherché du temps perdu
MUSLIM SOCIETY TURNED INSIDE OUT: ETHNICITY, WOMEN AND REFUGEES
Dubai chalo: ethnic encounters between Middle Eastern and South Asian Muslim societies
Muslim women
Afghan refuges: displacement and despair
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF MUSLIM THOUGHT
Contemporary Muslim scholarship
Creating Islamic social sciences
ONLY CONNECT
American society: Great Satan or paradise on earth?
Connecting
Conclusion: the discovery of Islam
Appendix: Muslim chronology
Glossary of Islamic terminology
Bibliography: suggested readings
Index