Reviews

An Introduction to Islam for Jews by Reuven Firestone

mburnamfink's review against another edition

3.0

Firestone's book is balanced, empathic and meticulously researched, so why the three stars? While I appreciate the deep historical grounding, and he examination of various hadithic traditions, the book fails to give a sense of what it is like to be a member of this dynamic, complex, conflicted religion. Modern Islam faces grand challenges in reconciling divinely inspired scripture with a pluralistic world, or integrating jihad (literally "the struggle", and not necessarily a military one) into ordinary life, and this book doesn't shed much light on those major problems. Even if such a task is beyond the scope of this book, I don't have a sense of what is essential about Islam. 90% of Judaism can be summed up in the story of Abraham and Isaac and the Exodus. I don't know what narratives are similarly grounding for Muslims.

Firestone is assiduously neutral, and obviously cares deeply about religion, but sometimes failing to express an opinion can be as bad as expressing the wrong one.