Volume 54, Number 17 · November 8, 2007
How to Understand Islam
By Malise Ruthven
Arguing the Just War in Islam
by John Kelsay
Harvard University Press, 263 pp., $24.95
Islam: Past, Present and Future
by Hans Küng, translated from the German by John Bowden
Oxford: Oneworld, 767 pp., $39.95
Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice
by Michael Bonner
Princeton University Press, 197 pp., $22.95
Infidel
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Free Press, 353 pp., $26.00
Secularism Confronts Islam
by Olivier Roy, translated from the French by George Holoch
Columbia University Press, 128 pp., $24.50
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center in Washington, where he told his audience, 'These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith.... The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.' In Britain his sentiments were echoed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who told the Arabic newspaper al-Hayat: 'There is nothing in Islam which excuses such an all-encompassing massacre of innocent people, nor is there anything in the teachings of Islam that allows the killing of civilians, of women and children, of those who are not engaged in war or fighting.'
Review, 5248 words
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