«Islam and Jihad: Prejudice versus reality»
The September 11 attacks focused the world's attention on Islamic fundamentalism. We have been told that we are witnessing a «clash of civilizations» between a modern, secular «West» and a reactionary «Islam.» This short and accessible book achieves two things: It refutes the false beliefs formulated by a large number of European thinkers about Islam over the centuries, which, for non-Muslims, still hinder a true understanding of the nature of Islam and the history of Christian-Muslim interactions. It shows the nature of the modern assertions made by Islamic fundamentalist movements, which are driven by political motives that are the subject of suspicion on the religious level, and contrasts them with the ideas of progressive Muslim thinkers who addressed the unavoidable questions that the modern world poses to believers. A. J. Noorani provides us with some basic concepts necessary to confront the outburst of fanaticism against Islam based on false information, and to deal with any attempt to romanticize the brutal and un-Islamic actions of fundamentalists. He describes those fundamentalists as deceivers who exploit religion as a political weapon.