Catch Hold Of Encounters With Islam: On Religion, Politics And Modernity Created By Malise Ruthven Distributed As Print

many years Malise Ruthven has been at the forefront of discerning commentary on the Islamic world and its relations with the predominantly secularized and Christian societies of the West.
Well known for his bold interventions on such issues as the Rushdie affair and publication of The Satanic Verses the many unresolved questions relating to the Lockerbie bombing and the globechanging terrorist attack of/, Ruthven's perceptive writings, particularly those that have appeared in the New York Books, reliably reframe difficult issues and problems so that his readers are prompted to look at the challenges afresh.
Ruthven is here at his most compelling: he offers astute and topical insights across the whole spectrum of Middle East and Islamic studies.
Whether questioning the involvement of Libyan agents in the downing of Pan Am Flightexploring the contested place of women in Islam or discussing the disputed term "Islamofascism" his own, the author's probing, searchlight intelligence aims always to get at the truth of things, regardless of attendant controversy.
Representing the "best of Ruthven," these lucid essays will be widely appreciated by students, specialists and general readers.
They transform our understandings of contemporary society, Perhaps my expectations were in the wrong arena, but this departed no insight into Islam to me whatsoever.
It reads like a critique of other author's works and, at the same time, offers nothing of value itself at least as far as understanding or "encountering" Islam goes.


The book was quite a disappointment for me, so much so I couldn't finish it.
Great reviews of insightful material, Main takeaways: "Riesebrodt sees the obsessive concern with sexuality common to the American and Iranian movements as a reaction to broader anxieties resulting from rural displacement and economic change.
" "Riesebrodt sees Manicheism, xenophobia, religious nativism, a conspiracy mentality and a specific view of female sexuality as being characteristic of fundamentalist ideology.
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"American fundamentalists saw themselves as beset by Satanic forces, most of them imported: liberal theology, atheistic philosophy, war, as well as beer and evolutionary theory from Germany rum from the Catholics, bolshevism from Russia.
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A interesting series of essays on why Islam can not be a coherent ideology and about perspectives on what is happening in the Middle East and its relation to Islam.
I want you to beg borrow or steal in order to buy this book, if you are a Muslim.
The book is a literary review, an overarching discussion of all books about Islam in today's world.
I have begun to understand the great fear of the new Europeans when confronted by the Muslim culture.
It's a case of identity crises, At a time when Europe is trying to come up with a distinctive new identity, the last thing it needs is to try and absorb a very different and distant Muslim identity.
How does an Europe deal with the guilt of colonialism and the Holocaust, not to forget the hundreds of years of crusades The Jews are not so numerous and have already cashed in by claiming Israel for themselves, but what about the millions of colonists Interestingly it is exactly this payback mentality shared by a number of Pakistani immigrants in UK.
'Time to get our share back for what they have taken away from us,' is how they justify their continued existence in UK over and over again.

This book presents both sides of the arguments categorising various authors and presenting the gestalt of their discourse on a platter.
It is difficult not to admire this format as a Muslim for the shear number of explanations included between it's covers.
Malise Ruthven is the author of Islam in the World, The Divine Supermarket: Shopping for God in America, A Satanic Affair: Salman Rushdie and the Wrath of Islam and several other books.
His Islam: A Very Short Introduction has been published

in several languages, including Chinese, Korean, Romanian, Polish, Italian and German.
A former scriptwriter with the BBC Arabic and World Services, Dr Ruthven holds an MA in English Literature and a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University.
He has taught Islamic studies, cultural history and comparative religion at the University of Aberdeen, the University of California, San Diego, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire and Colorado College.
Now a full time writer, he is currently work Malise Ruthven is the author of Islam in the World, The Divine Supermarket: Shopping for God in America, A Satanic Affair: Salman Rushdie and the Wrath of Islam and several other books.
His Islam: A Very Short Introduction has been published in several languages, including Chinese, Korean, Romanian, Polish, Italian and German.
A former scriptwriter with the BBC Arabic and World Services, Dr Ruthven holds an MA in English Literature and a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University.
He has taught Islamic studies, cultural history and comparative religion at the University of Aberdeen, the University of California, San Diego, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire and Colorado College.
Now a full time writer, he is currently working on Fundamentalism: A Very Short Introduction and Arabesque and Crucifix, a study in comparative religious iconography.
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