islam history

Karen Armstrong, billed on the jacket as “one of the world’s foremost scholars on religious affairs,” comments on everything from the Christian Crusades, the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, the taking of hostages by Ayatollah Khomeini and his issuance of a fatwah on author Salman Rushdie, and Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam to the Taliban in her book Islam: A Short History. It is important to note that the book was published prior to the destruction that occurred in the United States on September 11, 2001. Armstrong’s observations, though often flawed because of her rose-colored view of Islam’s mysticism, accurately reveal the impending nightmare of the Taliban. She harshly condemns the Taliban as fundamentalist and contrary to the Qur’an.http://www.journeytomecca.co.uk/