Islam : a short history / Karen Armstrong.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Armstrong, Karen, 1944-

Series:

Modern Library chronicles

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Islam--History.

Islam.

History.

Islamic Empire--History.

Islamic Empire.

Physical Description:

xxxiv, 222 pages : maps ; 20 cm.

Edition:

Modern Library edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Modern Library, 2000.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

1 Beginnings

The Prophet (570-632) 3

The Rashidun (632-661) 23

The First Fitnah 33

2 Development

The Umayyads and the Second Fitnah 41

The Religious Movement 45

The Last Years of the Umayyads (705-750) 50

The Abbasids: The High Caliphal Period (750-935) 53

The Esoteric Movements 65

3 Culmination

A New Order (935-1258) 81

The Crusades 93

Expansion 95

The Mongols (1220-1500) 96

4 Islam Triumphant

Imperial Islam (1500-1700) 115

The Safavid Empire 117

The Moghul Empire 124

The Ottoman Empire 130

5 Islam Agonistes

The Arrival of the West (1750-2000) 141

What is a Modern Muslim State? 156

Fundamentalism 164

Muslims in a Minority 176

The Way Forward 178

Key Figures in the History of Islam 189.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [205]-211) and index.

ISBN:

0679640401

OCLC:

43552741