An important, original new examination of Islam for both the novice and the theologically sophisticated.
This scholarly analysis of Islam attempts to rescue it from modern misappropriations.
While this is Zafar’s first book-length effort, his writings about Islam have appeared in numerous places—USA Today, the Huffington Post, theWashington Post, etc. A national spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA, Zafar investigates the central tenets of Islam, the result of his 15 years of reflection. He begins by conceding that the rise of terrorism by fanatical Muslim groups has created a “difficult landscape for the study of this rapidly growing religion.” Aiming to clarify the essential doctrines of a religion clouded by war and ideological disputes, his book acts as a helpful primer on the basics; he lucidly parses terms such as “Islam” and “Muslim,” the nature of fasting and alms giving, and the distinction between various sects such as Sunni and Shia. He also provides an erudite compendium of the differences and similarities between the three Abrahamic religions, demonstrating that the contemporary tensions between them belie their historically shared ground. This section includes fascinating accounts of the standings within Islam of both the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The heart of the analysis, though, is the contention that Islam, while sadly depicted by many as the bearer of antiquated ideals, is largely consistent with liberal values. The author’s argument deftly covers misinterpretations regarding controversial topics such as suicide bombing, Jihad, women’s rights, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. In each case, Zafar argues that Islam is fundamentally a religion of peace and tolerance, not war and oppression. Sometimes, his thesis seems to outstretch the evidence, at least as he presents it. At one point, for instance, he argues that the Quran “lays the foundation for a democratic society by placing the responsibility in the hands of the people to select their leaders.” Overall, however, the book is a welcome correction to the politically tortured conceptions of Islam so prevalent today, as Zafar astutely acknowledges the way even Muslims themselves have contributed to these misunderstandings.
An important, original new examination of Islam for both the novice and the theologically sophisticated.Pub Date: May 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1442223271
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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