Islam

The world's leading Islamicist offers a concise introduction to this rich and diverse tradition of 1.2 billion adherents. In this informative and clear introduction to the world of Islam, Seyyed Hossein Nasr explores the following topics in depth: What Is Islam? The Doctrines and Beliefs of Islam Islamic Practices and Institutions The History of Islam Schools of Islamic Thought Islam in the Contemporary World Islam and Other Religions The Spiritual and Religions Significance of Islam

No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular imagination as an extreme faith that promotes terrorism, authoritarian government, female oppression, and civil war. In a vital revision of this narrow view of Islam and a distillation of years of thinking and writing about the subject, Karen Armstrong's short history demonstrates that the world's fastest-growing faith is a much more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest.