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Islam

a Short History
Mar 22, 2015
Now having read a couple of Armstrong's books on islam, there is a definite pattern. She obviously relies on the reader not having read the Quran or Hadith and then conjures up a religion of peace and tolerance based on a few snippets of the Quran that, when read in their context, mean something quite different. She clearly writes from the perspective of a fan of islam and loses credibility as an academic. For instance, she briefly dismisses the Crusades of Christiandom as a terrible and misguided blot on Western history, yet repeatedly excuses or praises the centuries of Muslim conquest as necessary, brilliant or good. She makes several references to the beautiful poetic style that the Quran is written in while arguing that it is beyond the reach of most people to truly understand its deep meanings. Clearly, though, she claims to understand where others, she accuses, fail. However, the Quran itself states that it is plainly written to be easily understood. A plain reading of an English translation reveals something quite different from what she describes. She, near the end, concludes that, with the rise of Al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood types, that for the first time, Jihad has been elevated to religious war of great importance. That is flatly untrue. One only needs to read the book on Jihad in the Sahih Bukhari Hadith to see that Jihad has always meant religious war where all manner of cruelty is justified to advance Islam and that it has always been a primary duty of Muslims. She paints a picture, overall, of Muslims as perpetual, innocent victims of larger forces that would rather be left alone, but are instead forced to act out violently. She even casts blame on the West for much of sickness that is coming from the Islamic world, as though Islam has little to do with it. In short, a more openly Muslim apologist could not have written a more deceptive propaganda piece for Islam.