Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians

Description

The Quran is a sacred book with profound, and familiar, Old and New Testament resonances. And the message it promulgated, Islam, came of age during an extraordinarily rich era of interaction among monotheists. Jews, Christians, and Muslims not only worshipped the same God but shared aspirations, operated in the same social and economic environment, and sometimes lived side by side, indistinguishable by language, dress, or manners. Today, of course, little of this commonality is apparent, and Islam is poorly understood by most non-Muslims. Entering Islam through the same biblical door Muhammad did, this book introduces readers with Christian or Jewish backgrounds to one of the world's largest, most active, and - in the West - least understood religions.

F. E. Peters is Professor of History, Religion, and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University and past chair of those departments. His books include "The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" and the two-volume "The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition" (all Princeton).

"With this Guide, readers ... who have wanted an informed and balanced account of Muslim belief and practice need wait no longer."--C. Clifton Black, Theology Today "Clearly the reading public needs a book describing Islam that avoids trendy multiculturalism as well as Christian rejectionism. That is precisely what F.E. Peters provides in this lucid guide. Peters manifests all the virtues of clarity and fairness that come from a lifetime of study devoted to this complex and multifaceted religion... Here is that most paradoxical of books: one that can change lives (and headlines), not by trying to convert, but simply by trying to describe."--Edward T. Oakes, S.J., First Things