… and Reza Aslan is the Author. Tight composition, fast pacing, authoritative tone: it’s no surprise it was a bestseller. Of politics and history it is a good introduction for the non-muslim. But if the intent was to present a vision of how muslims should understand their faith under the challenge of modernity, it falls way […]
Tag Archives: books
Three Ways to be Alien: Review
By Sanjay Subrahmanyam Three very interesting lives in interesting moments of history. The author assumes a specialist’s level of background knowledge. I would have preferred a lot less academic argument and more storytelling. Goodreads Page
Review: Crusades through Arab Eyes
by Amin Maalouf Not only did our troops not shrink from eating dead Turks and Saracens; they also ate dogs! Documentation of rampant cannibalism among the Franj comes from the Franj themselves, but the historical accounts from Arab witnesses are what makes this book so enjoyable: the cannibalism, the elective surgery by battle-axe, the trials-by-ordeal,all […]
Removal of Confusion: Review
by Ibrahim ibn Abd-Allah Niasse A basic treatise and theological defense of sufism and its practices; fine, but not much different from a lot of similar material available from other tariqats. I would have enjoyed learning more about the history and activities of the Tijaniyya, who are said to be the most active Islamic missionaries […]
The Jungle is Neutral: Review
The Jungle is Neutral, by F. Spencer Chapman The memoir of a British lieutenant in WWII Malaya who conducts guerilla warfare against the Japanese. It’s not a very gripping story. All the successful guerrilla work takes place in the first quarter of the book, and from there on it is one long anticlimax of malaria, […]
Fruits of A Common Word
A number of publications, including one by Habib Ali Al-Jifri, are available for free from the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre’s Common Word intiative which has been hosting a series of ground-breaking Catholic-Muslim forums. [via Seeker’s Guidance]
Read the Books Your Father Read
Ivan Illich was an influential theorist in the decade I was born. I had heard of his most famous work, Deschooling Society, and it had been recommended to me more than once I’m sure, no doubt because I homeschooled in the 6th and 12th grades. But I had only a passing awareness of the man […]
There and Back Again
I’ve returned from my vacation to the US. I couldn’t get any critical distance from which to write or observe while I was there; I was too busy enjoying being back. I did manage to take a lot of pictures though. You can view them in this Flickr set, America 2007. The most pleasurable aspect […]