Above you will see price and availability details for Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists by Abou El Khaled Fadl from the leading UK book stores.
To allow you to quickly compare prices, the stores are arranged in order of delivered price, cheapest first. Click on a store name to buy this book or to view further details.
Books Related to The Great Theft Abou El Khaled Fadl - ISBN: 0061189030
Mandatory reading - Rated
If I were to recommend one book to the complete novice that deals with issues as broad as the very basics of the Islamic faith, its scholarly and interpretive traditions, its being pushed into the position of global Evil, and the political import of not allowing it to remain in that position, this would be it. It is lucid and engaging throughout, and touches upon classical and medieval history and contemporary post-colonial politics without ever losing sight of the fact that it is a book about Islam first and foremost. I consider myself fairly learned on this subject, but I still learnt a great deal from it.
Most importantly though it recognises what many books fail to address: that 'Islam' can be both violent and intolerant, or helpful and moral. The question is: which is the true form? Abou El Fadl shows comprehensively that, if one engages with the religion with a keen intellect and no prejudice, it is far nearer to the latter than the former. Moreover, because the author knows that fighting for this truth is of the highest importance he never allows the book to descend into wishy-washy moralism.
Certainly, the binary division between 'moderate' and 'puritan' that the book uses is just a little simplistic (although not so simplistic as to be useless). Similarly, it doesn't delve too deeply into the thorniest issues, such as the appropriate reaction of a Muslim living in Kashmir, Chechnya or Palestine. But it is overall a conciliatory book so one is tempted to be forgiving, particularly when it manages to show how the terroristic excesses of the 'puritans' are at odds with the main body of the Islamic tradition with such aplomb. I'm particularly tempted to be forgiving given the general dross that passes for criticism and scholarship at present: a brief look at the 'listmania' lists that no doubt accompany this very page should illustrate that much.
