Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World

This is a splendid book for anyone who is trying to understand Islam. No other book situates Muslim concerns in global contexts and thoughout history. The author is a master at clear writing. In my experience when I have recommended this book to people, they come back with smiles on their faces and a new view of today's world. It does not get any better than this for students and the open minds outside the academy. Clean your glasses and read it again, fellow reviewers.

"Following Muhammad," the way Ernst sees it, is a book that fills a special niche. Although solid scholarship on Islam is available, it is often rendered inaccessible by impenetrable prose and circulated in very narrow academic circles through specialized journals. On the other hand, commercial publications approach the topic from the sensationalist angles and too often betray ideological attack agendas. What Ernst tries to do in "Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World" is to offer the lay reader a balanced, unimpeachably scholarly but thoroughly accessible, fair-minded but critical introduction to the religion of roughly one fifth of the world's population. By extension, the book sheds light on many of the references, and some of the misperceptions, that have become common currency in the rhetoric of the clash of civilizations. If September 11 influenced the presentation of the book, it is "to highlight how we have constructed the notion of religion in recent history around the ideas of competition and confrontation, since all too often this modern world-imperial concept of religion is allowed to pass unexamined." For too many people, confrontation is the only way they have heard Islam described, he points out, and the culture of mass media today tends to create the notion that the present is the only time worth considering. Ernst therefore devotes the first part of the book to the interplay between religion and history across the ages, and traces the evolution of the long relationship between Islam and the West from the Middle Ages through colonial times to the present. Ernst, who is not Muslim, does not engage in apologetics on behalf of any religion, but rather tries to examine images and their reverse, or negative: each civilization tends to project on the perceived rival its own prejudices and motivations. Another section of the book examines Islam in terms of the modern concept of religion and gives an overview of the fundamental sources for Muslims: the Quran or scripture, and the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. From this Ernst moves on to the concept of Islamic religious ethics deriving not only from these authoritative texts but also from philosophical inquiry, including the Greek tradition. In his exposition Ernst hopes to provide the reader with independent and appropriate tools to understand the contemporary, and often ill-informed and inflammatory, debate about Islam. The book's outstanding readability lies in the choice of the interpretative essay as the basic form for each chapter. Despite, or perhaps because, of his stellar academic credentials, the author deliberately eschews the "blind them with science" approach many academics take to impress their ivory tower peers with the impenetrability of their prose. Footnotes and glossaries are kept to a minimum. Tellingly, one of the goals Ernst sets for this book can seem deceptively modest, by his own admission: to restore full, three-dimensional human complexity to well ove

Carl Ernst is widely considered one of the very leading scholars of Islam in the world today, and the excellent volume Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World is his learned, profound reflection on the situation of the Islam, Muslims, and the world at large today. The book is beautifully illustrated by eight pictures and six luminous calligraphy pieces by the contemporary South Asian calligrapher, Rasheed Butt. This timely volume should be recommended enthusiastically to anyone who wants to gain a nuanced and balanced understanding of the contested position of Islam in the modern world. It fully deserves to be recognized as the single best choice for academic courses dealing with Islam and Middle Eastern studies, in both the undergraduate and graduate levels. While one can not recommend it strongly enough to students and scholars of Islam, here is hoping that political scientists and historians of the Middle East and beyond, not to mention policy makers, will also avail themselves of it. Ernst's volume breaks new theoretical ground while remaining completely accessible to the intelligent lay reader. This is the rare work that only a scholar at the very zenith of his/her field can write, an even more daunting task given all the polemics about Islam today. There is no better, more profound place to begin-or end-a sophisticated discussion about contemporary Islam than Ernst's masterpiece.

It has often been stated that the tragedy of 9/11 has forced Muslims of both scholarly and devotional backgrounds to deal with the profound issues in their communities with an unprecedented openness, courage, and criticism. A not dissimilar challenge has also been presented to more liminal voices, non-Muslim scholars of Islam who have spent their entire career studying Islam and Muslims from a humanistic perspective, scholars whose outlook has often been shaped through extended periods of living in Muslim countries and profound contact, relationships, and friendships with Muslim scholars, artists, and spiritual leaders. Carl Ernst is widely considered one of the leading scholars of Islam. The excellent volume Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World is Ernst's learned, profound reflection on the situation of the Islam, Muslims, and the world at large. Conventional discussions of Islam today begin with two vastly divergent points: There is the mushrooming and uneven body of political writings about Islam that focus on the Middle East, collapsing the 1400 years of Islamic history into the last two generations, particularly since the creation of the state of Israel. The other discourse about Islam is philological in nature, focusing on "classical" (i.e., pre-modern) legal, Qur'anic, and philosophical texts usually in Arabic. Carl Ernst posits a different starting point, one so radically brilliant and simple that one has to ask why more scholars have not adopted this perspective. Ernst starts by examining Islam as a religious tradition, one shaped and understood through the human lens of practitioners of this tradition. As such, he approaches Islam not in a transcendent timeless fashion, or as one fixed eternally in the 7th century, nor yet as a variable only of interest for understanding the post-colonial trauma of the last 40 years. Instead, Ernst moves with ease and grace through the 1400 years of practices, rituals, institutions, and ideas that have been marked as Muslim. He does not focus on the Arab world exclusively, but recognizes that 82% of all Muslims are non-Arab, with the majority being South and South East Asians. He judiciously avoids the many traps and pitfalls that mar conversation about contemporary Islam. He refuses to yield the discussion of Islam to Salafis who insist that all of Islam must be collapsed to Qur'an and hadith. While probing the crucial sources of Islam, Ernst also engages Islamic ethics, spirituality, music, literature, philosophy, and piety. It is this holistic and humanistic approach that few scholars of Islam can undertake with such mastery, and here is where Ernst truly shines. No less than this is expected of Ernst, who most today regard as the leading Western scholar of Sufism, the true heir to the incomparable Annemarie Schimmel, to whom the volume is dedicated. Nor does Ernst restrict his challenge only to Muslim blind spots: He also takes on dominant Western triumphalist notions. H

This is a "must read" for anyone approaching an understanding of Islam as religion, as "enemy", or as a topic in the news. Most journalists and politicians would vastly better understand themselves and Islam as well as have more MATURE thinking about the issues by reading this essay. Those who claim to be "well educated" are so often ignorantly reacting to caricatures (this includes nearly all leaders and 'experts'). This volume is unique, useful, and a compelling readable discussion of how to think about religion, Islam, and the issues in the news. It is easy to read and has much to say rather than being a catalog, description, history, or polemic. READ IT AND THINK!