• Home
• Articles
• Essays
• Add site

Islam: A Short History Book Report

Islam: A Short History Book Report


Since September 11, 2001, the world's interest has focused on the Muslims and their religious and cultural traditions. Many versions of the same subject are readily found in journals and books. For example, women's rights in Muslim countries is written about and discussed from many points of view. It is ironic, therefore, that Karen Armstrong wrote her book Islam: A Short History in 2000 (A Modern Library Chronicles Book), prior to the Twin Towers terrorism and the increasing attention it gendered. Her book dispels many of the misunderstandings about the original tenets of Islam, because of the changes that occurred over time with the fundamentalists. The treatment and instructions for women in the original Koran versus the way they are interpreted now exemplify these transitions.
Armstrong is a former nun in the order of The Society of the Holy Child Jesus. The common trait of her books is an attempt to understand religions beyond cultural constraints and stereotypes. Islam, A Short History is her condensed and very informative account of Muslim history beginning with Muhammad's revelation in 610 AD and ending in the present day. In her historic analysis, Armstrong shows the distinction of what Islam was like initially compared to the fundamentalist approach of today.

According to Armstrong, fundamentalism is "a global fact that has surfaced in every major faith in response to the problems of our modernity." This fundamentalism has altered the original teachings of Muhammad, including the respect for women. Today, most of the fundamentalist regimes in power, due to the changing economic and modernization of social conditions worldwide, exist "in a symbiotic relationship with a
coercive secularism. Fundamentalists nearly always feel assaulted by the liberal or modernizing establishment, and their views and behavior become more extreme as a result" (166).


KORAN AS IT SUPPORTS WOMEN VS FUNDAMENTALISM

According to Armstrong, women supported Muhammad from the very beginning of his revelations. Many of the earliest converts were women from the poorer clans or unhappy about the inequity in Mecca that "was alien to the Arab spirit" (4). His new sect was called Islam or "surrender," and a "muslim," was a man or woman who submitted their whole being to Allah and "his demand that human beings behave to one another with justice, equity and compassion" (5)

The concept of polygamy and Muhammad is also a misunderstanding. For a considerable time, Muhammad was married only to one woman, Khadijia, who bore at least six children. However, to show his status of chief, he was supposed to have a large harem. He did so due to the political expectations. He "was eager to forge marriage ties with some of his closest companions, to bind them closer together." (16). In fact, much to the dismay of many his male friends, Muhammad was very unconventional and in more in par with what is expected by today's standards for men—providing help with the chores, mending his own clothes, seeking out the companionship of his wives and taking their advice seriously; and taking trips with his wives. "The emancipation of women was a project dear to the Prophet's heart."
Armstrong stresses that the prejudice about Islam’s enslavement and oppression of women is not noted in the original Koran. Muhammad passed laws to prevent the aggressive treatment of women as early as the seventh century. The Koran turned out to be more "enlightened" than Christianity, granting women the right to divorce and the opportunity to inherit much earlier than the Christian world did. There is nothing in the Koran about obligatory veiling for all women or their seclusion in harems. The veiling of every woman came into Islam about three generations after the Prophet's death, under the influence of the Greeks of Christian Byzantium, who had long veiled and secluded their women in this way.

The Koran also came to permit polygamy, but this was at a time when Muslims were being killed in the wars and women did not have protectorates. Men were allowed to have up to four wives, but they had to treat them all with absolute equality and never favor one over the other (16). The women were very much involved with public life and many fought alongside the men in battle.

Fundamentalism, however, distorted the religious tradition and accentuated its more aggressive aspects at the expense of those that preach toleration and reconciliation. The fundamentalist groups want women veiled and not permitted to take part in professional life. The Taliban's discrimination against women "is completely opposed to the practice of the Prophet and the conduct of the first ummah" (170).
To dispel another misunderstanding, Armstrong states that many of the women feel that veiling is a "symbolic return to the pre-colonial period, before their society was disrupted and deflected from its true course…surveys show that a large proportion of veiled women hold progressive views on such matters as gender" (172). For some women who are coming from a rural environment to the universities in the urban areas, the
Islamic dress provides continuity and their liberalization as women less traumatic.
Veiling also "defies the strange Western compulsion to 'reveal all' in sexual matters."


CLASS READINGS

What we have read in class closely connects to Armstrong's dichotomy of the past versus the present. In the Koran, we were able to see the original thoughts of Muhammad and the book Islam: The Straight Path, includes an epilogue by John Esposito who addresses the impact 9/11 and its aftermath on both the Muslim and non-Muslim world, covering Islam's relationship to democracy and modernity and focusing on the origins and growth of extremism and terrorism in the name of Islam.


PERSONAL VIEWS

I would like to have seen Armstrong's reaction to 9/11, since she so adequately foresaw this event happening when she said that some fundamentalists will turn to terrorism. Unfortunately, she was correct. Her description of what happens when any religion, be it Islam, Judaism or Christianity, breaks away from the original tenets and alters it to suit the present political norm is of great interest. Also interesting is how Armstrong shows how the Western point of view, although to be democratic in approach, may have partly led to the rise of the fundamentalists. Her ending provides hope that such extreme beliefs that exist todaywill be counteracted by social justice, equality and tolerance, not only for women, but all people.




References Cited

Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library Chronicles, 2000.
Esposito, John. Islam: The Straight Path. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Posted by: Natalie Saturday

Best Custom Writing Sites

Sites that provide custom writing services are better alternative to downloading pre-written paper samples, especially if you temporarily can't handle writing your own paper for some reason, and can not afford risking your course and reputation for plagiarism detection failure. The prices for custom written essays are affordable, but if you need 15-pages long master level report overnight, you better prepare to spend a noticeable sum.