Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power

I ordered this book for a college course, and it was great front to back! Two chapters went more into detail than neccessary considering the "Golden Age" yet the book accurately describes the history of the Islamic World from the prophet Muhammed and before up to present day. A definate buy for those who want to know more about the history of the middle east concerning Islam.

This book is the companion to the PBS movie, Islam: Empire of Faith. I began reading this book, full of stereotypes against Islam. This book really opened my eyes. The whole History of Islam has been filled with misunderstanding. I would recommend this book to any person. It is extremely well written, and it would help anyone to better understand Islam!

This is a wonderful introduction to the Islamic Empire and (to some extent) Islam itself. It's meant to be a companion to the PBS video "Islam: Empire of Faith." It covers the same time period (the first 1000 years of Islam), but doesn't have the same exact content as the video. There is some overlap, but not enough to make either the book or the video redundant. This book is written by a husband-and-wife team of professors (historians) at Boston College. This is not dry history, by any means, but a vivid description of Islam and its origins, practices, and political rule. It's not sensationalist and/or imbued with the "Islam as Enemy Number One" mentality that pervades so many modern books about Islam (many of which are written by journalists or other people not qualified to be writing about Islam, Muslims (American or not) and the Muslim world in the first place). It's just fascinating reading about the second largest religion in the world and how it built the most glittering civilization the world had ever seen. The authors themselves say that to understand Islam today, we must focus not on the misdeeds committed by a few in its name, but "appreciate its glorious history and achievements." It doesn't have much on Islamic beliefs and practices or Islam and politics: it really is mostly history. But it's history that puts Islam (modern and past) into perspective and that will (hopefully) help us Westerners put some of myths about Islam finally to rest.

This book is suitable for readers who wish to get a good introduction to the history of Islam. A good point to note is that it does not incorporate the cliche biasness that the west perceives of the religion and its followers. If you wish to find stories about terrorism, PLO and Osama bin Laden then this is not the book for you, the closest you can get to that is the ancient assassin sect. From the book, one can appreciate how much Islam has enriched civilization! Also, I found it exceptionally interesting to discover so many English words that originated from Arabic which the author has included. However, at times, i do find the book a little fragmented and also there are times where I felt that the author just had not included enough information to satisfy. Nonetheless, a good read. Enjoy!

Islam provides a powerful blend of religious insight and history, covering a thousand years of Islamic faith and power and exploring the first millennium of Islam culture from ancient to modern times. The world which gave birth to Islam is considered and the changes of Islamic tradition are followed in context with world changes and experiences through the centuries.