Islam: Opposing Viewpoints

Opposing Viewpoints Series

by Jennifer A. Hurley (Editor)

- Current book and periodical bibliographies
- Lists of organizations to contact
- Critical thinking activities and discussion questions
- Illustrations, inserts, and cartoons
- Titles continually revised and updated
- Biographical sketch of authors
- Paper and durable library bindings

Genres: Nonfiction

170 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2000

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Makes you think of the arguments on both sides.

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a collection of articles and journals arguing both sides of hot topics in the Islam vs the West argument. I was looking more for a book just explaining the basic beliefs and teachings of the Muslim people. Even though this book turned out to be not at all what I was looking for I thought the book was interesting enough to read anyhow.

Really the articles weren't that informing. The authors were all clearly biased toward their thinking and none of them presented a balanced view. Each chapter had three categories of articles. First, Muslims are all terrorists. Second, Muslims and Americans can get along. Third, Americans are all godless barbarians. None of the articles even addressed the real problem. They all either used past offenses as arguments (we're talking Inquisition time frame) or quotes from the Qur'an or Bible. None of them addressed the actual cultural attitude of the Islamic or American people.

In my opinion the Qur'an guides Muslims about as much as the Bible guides Catholic (which for the record isn't a whole lot). Of course there are people in both groups that actually know the teachings of their religion and follow them, and I completely agree that those people can get along famously. The true conflict here is American culture vs Islamic culture. Leave the non-practiced religion out of it and get to the real reason for conflict.

[Intikhab · Rating 3 out of 5]

Islam (Opposing Viewpoint Series) provides a rare mix of edited versions of writer ups, research papers, and articles by scholars, journalists, and experts offering divergent perceptions about the persistent tension between the USA and the Islamic world. It helps understand not only the arguments forwarded by the two sides, the book also enables to know the deep-rooted misunderstandings and mis-perceptions that have been at the bottom of the unbridgeable gap between USA and the Muslim world. Islam is a good quality book that has left me with greater urge to read more about this subject.