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. The author'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...

Examines the influence of Islamic culture on our music, books, language, clothes, science, and more.

Using the new C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards, books in this series explore the six most popular world religions through the lenses of History, Geography, Civics, and Economics. In Islam, the text and photos look at the history, basic philosophies, and geography of this religion, as well as how it relates to society today. As they read, students will develop questions about the text, and use evidence from a variety of sources in order to...

"...Senior fellow at the Cato Institute and opinion writer for The New York Times, both diagnoses "the crisis of Islam" in the modern world, and offers a way forward. Diving deeply into Islamic theology, and also sharing lessons from his own life story, he reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great civilization in their earlier centuries. He especially demonstrates how values often associated with Western Enlightenment - freedom,...

Learn all about Islam, the world's fastest growing religion. From Ramadan and the Qur'an, to the traditional dress, feasts, and rich design - all this and more are explained in this unique guide. Filled with colourful photographs and vibrant history, delve into Islam's culture and communities, and find out the answers to questions such as why Muslims fast, what are the five pillars of Islam, and what happens during the pilgrimage to Mecca? Stunning...

"Opening with a lucid overview of the rise and spread of Islam, from the seventh to the twenty-first century, this Very Short Introduction introduces the story of Islamic history, charting the evolution of what was originally a small, localized community of believers into an international religion with over a billion adherents. The book examines how Islam rose from the obscurity of seventh-century Arabia to the forefront of modern global concerns,...

Muhammad: a frank look at his influential (and violent) life and teachings
In The Truth about Muhammad, New York Times bestselling author and Islam expert Robert Spencer offers an honest and telling portrait of the founder of Islam-perhaps the first such portrait in half a century-unbounded by fear and political correctness, unflinching, and willing to face the hard facts about Muhammad's life that continue to affect our world today.
From Muhammad's...

One of the world's leading Islamicists offers a concise introduction to the history, beliefs, and practice of his faith.

This book will reshape the way we think about Islam's relationship with the West. What if Islam never existed? To some, it's a comforting thought: no clash of civilizations, no holy wars, no terrorists. Here, political scientist and expert on the Muslim world Graham E. Fuller guides us through history, geopolitics, and religion to investigate whether or not Islam is indeed the cause of some of today's most emotional and important international crises....

"John L. Esposito, editor of the four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, has gathered together sixteen leading scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to examine the origins and historical development of Islam - its faith, community, institutions, sciences, and arts." "Written for the general reader but also appealing to specialists, The Oxford History of Islam offers the best of that recent scholarship, presented in a readable...