The Two Faces of Islam (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Stephen Schwartz
- First Published: 2002
- Type of Work: History and religion
- Time of Work: 570-2002
- Setting: Saudi Arabia and the Islamic world
- Principal Characters: Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, Husayn bin Mansur al Hallaj, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad ibn Sa’ud, Muhammad Ali Pasha, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdur-Rahman ibn Muhammad Al Sa’ud, Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
- Genres: Nonfiction, History, Religion and spirituality
- Subjects: Islam, Twenty-first century, Violence, Muslims, Terrorism or terrorists, Middle East, Oil wells or oil-well drilling, Toleration, Fundamentalism, Iron Age
- Locales: Saudi Arabia
Stephen Schwartz offers a history of Islam that delineates the divergence of fundamentalist Wahhabism from the religion’s mainstream tradition of tolerance and pluralism. He defines the two faces of modern Islam this way: “On one side [in Kosovo], there was the bright aspect of Sufi traditionalism . . . always committed to the defense of human dignity. On the other was the ugly visage of Wahhabi fundamentalism, narrow, rigid, tyrannical, separatist, supremacist, and violent.”
Muhammad (“the glorified”) ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Muttalib was born in 570 in Mecca. The...
[The entire page is 2027 words long]
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