50books_poc | 38: The No-Nonsense Guide to Islam

38: The No-Nonsense Guide to Islam by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn-Davies

A recent mention of this book by blogger and all-round fascinating person Yakoub Islam of Steampunk Shariah reminded me that I've had it on the shelf for ages and I really should actually read it, because it's not like the information is going to leach into my brain by sheer proximity. It's a short guide to Islam and the Islamic world -- principles, concepts, origin, history, and present condition -- written by two Muslims who are friends and frequent collaborators; Sardar is a well-known writer and broadcaster and a bit of a name in cultural criticism, while Wyn-Davies has an anthropological background.

It's probably impossible to talk about a subject as huge and contentious as Islam from a neutral perspective, and Sardar and Davies don't try. The way they make their beliefs and point of view so clear makes the book a great deal more valuable for me -- if they had made a claim of objectivity, I would have found myself trying to read between the lines all the time. As it is, I know perfectly well that they have an agenda in writing this book, and I can make up my own mind whether they've made their case. For my money, they have. This book is designed not to convert unbelievers to Islam, but to convey basic information and uncover myths and misconceptions about Islam that are widely held in the West and that have caused untold damage throughout the world, poisoning relations between Muslim and Christian cultures and fueling war and oppression. Their primary concern is to refute the Orientalist preconception of Islamic cultures as inferior and Islam as inherently inimical to the West; but at the same time, Sardar and Davies are critical of reactionary movements within Islam which threaten to ossify the religion and suppress some of its finest qualities -- in particular, the love of reason, justice, and knowledge of all kinds.

Needless to say, you can't go into much depth in less than 150 pages, and this is definitely a starting-point rather than a definitive exploration; in trying to cover 1300+ years of history as well as the basic theology and current situation of Islam, the book ends up being very dense, and a few of the historical sections dragged for me (I'm more interested in social/economic/cultural history than political history, so the bits that were mostly about one dynasty succeeding another made my eyes glaze over). There's a bibliography at the end which offers a few pointers for the reader who wants to look a little deeper -- one of the books included is another one I've had on the shelf for a while, Farid Esack's On Being a Muslim.

(tags: a: sardar ziauddin, w-a: wyn-davies merryl, pakistani-british, islam)

(Edited because I spelled Ziauddin Sardar's name wrong in the tags. Oops.)