Ben Jelloun has chosen an Islam of harmony, tolerance, humility, and love of knowledge. Others have chosen a different...
“My Islam Explained” might be a more apt title for these gleanings from Islam that have inspired Ben Jelloun (The Blinding Absence of Light, 2002, etc.).
The author’s ambitions here are unpretentious, hoping that his meditation “recalls historical facts, rectifies a few errors, explains a few rituals, defines essential words and concepts, and quashes any excuses for prejudice.” He also expects to “extract the essentials,” which, of course, gets him into more complexity. He purports to be fielding questions from a child, unveiling Islam’s past the better to appreciate its contemporary, and contentious, place on the world stage. He explains Islam’s origin; its precepts of humility, generosity, and dignity; and, most importantly for Ben Jelloun, its hunger for and openness to knowledge. Give him the Golden Age, when Haroun al-Rashid was in his Baghdad palace, Avicenna was recording the progress of medicine, and houses of wisdom were built and filled with translations and original works in Arabic. He acknowledges but downplays the violence inherent in proselytism—“no religion is totally pacifist or totally bent on war”—a ploy that only reveals a thicket of contradictions. If “God promises the martyr paradise” and a martyr is one who dies “to liberate his country from foreign occupation,” that goes a long way toward instigating war-like acts. Ben Jelloun, however, considers al-Qaeda to be “barbarics who have used a religion of peace to make war.” Something doesn’t mesh, but all may depend on the angle of approach. Ben Jelloun prefers to emphasize Islam’s moment as the center of the learned world, when it did its best to spread enlightenment, even if he rather feebly suggest that its decline was the result of madness for power, ignoring the power that made the Golden Age possible.
Ben Jelloun has chosen an Islam of harmony, tolerance, humility, and love of knowledge. Others have chosen a different interpretation. Ben Jelloun’s seems a good one to teach your children.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2002
ISBN: 1-56584-781-4
Page Count: 128
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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