A Fury for God - Malise Ruthven

Advantages: an indepth analysis of east west relationships
Disadvantages: lots of information to take in

...anyone was going to write a book exploring the development of the Islamic worlds volatile relationship with the West, then Malise Ruthven, author of numerous books on fundamentalism and religion in general and the Arab peoples and Islam in particular, was a good candidate. It is a book that was written in the “heat of the moment” as the author himself states, following the attacks on the Twin Towers and although the book is even subtitled, ...
...opinion is happy to tar a whole religious philosophy with the same brush and at the other political commentators have gone out of their way to exculpate the “moderate majority” of Muslims from any sympathetic attachment to the Twin Towers attacks, the answer is less clear cut. He sees the Muslim tradition as being a system that is not entirely blameless. In justification of that point he is also at pains to balance the argument with the ... Read review