Islam : a short history

Armstrong, Karen 1944- (Author).

Summary: No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular imagination as an extreme faith that promotes terrorism, authoritarian government, female oppression, and civil war. In a vital revision of this narrow view of Islam and a distillation of years of thinking and writing about the subject, Karen Armstrong's short history demonstrates that the world's fastest-growing faith is a much more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest.

Record details

ISBN: 9780307431318
ISBN: 0307431312
ISBN: 9780812966183
ISBN: 081296618X
Physical Description: remote
1 online resource (xxxiv, 230 pages) : maps.
Edition: Modern Library pbk. ed.
Publisher: New York : Modern Library, 2002.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Beginnings. The prophet (570-632) ; The rashidun (632-661) ; The first fitnah -- Development. The Umayyads and the second fitnah ; The religious movement ; The last years of the Umayyads (705-750) ; The Abbasids : the high caliphal period (750-935) ; The esoteric movements -- Culmination. A new order (935-1258) ; The crusades ; Expansion ; The Mongols (1220-1500) -- Islam triumphant. Imperial Islam (1500-1700) ; The Safavid empire ; The Moghul empire ; The Ottoman empire -- Islam agonistes. The arrival of the west (1750-2000) ; What is a modern Muslim state? ; Fundamentalism ; Muslims in a minority ; The way forward.
Source of Description Note:	Print version record.