“Islam – Religion, History, and Civilization” by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003. 198 pages.
Being from Iran, Nasr brings more of a Shi’a perspective than most other books on Islam that generally focus on Sunni Muslims. Also, even though he has been in the U.S. since at least 1984, teaching at George Washington University, he has a much more serious belief than most immigrants, speaking in highly reverent tones about Mohammed. He says that he is a “traditional” Muslim, not “modernized” on the one extreme, or supporting “so-called fundamentalism” on the other. He is honest enough to admit that Islam is a theocratic system which “does not even accept the validity of a domain outside the realm of religion and the sacred…” However, he does try to soften the meaning of jihad, and does not mention or sidesteps Koranic or historical facts that would incline a person to question Islam. A final section of the last chapter (on Islam in the Modern World) deals with “modernist tendencies” in Islam. These have been many and varied in the last 200 years, leading to a complex situation today. Very interesting and important reading to understand tomorrow’s headlines.
