Understanding Islam

Abstract

Amidst the current struggle to accurately apprehend and explain Islam, various works have appeared since the 9/11 tragedy. Into this array of publications comes Jerald Dirks, who offers his contribution as an attempt to present an undistorted introduction to Sunni Islam based almost exclusively on the Qur’an and the Sunnah and aimed primarily at the western Christian reader. Dirks is an American Christian convert to Islam who has written on such diverse topics as clinical psychology, Arabian horses, and, recently, inter-religious issues: The Cross and the Crescent: An Interfaith Dialogue between Christianity and Islam (amana publications: 2001) and Abraham: The Friend of God (amana publications: 2002). Divided into ten chapters, Understanding Islam attempts to outline Islam’s beliefs, doctrines, and practices in a manner accessible to the average non-Muslim western reader. One could offer a broader outline, noting that chapters 1 to 3 deal with the basic history of Islam unfolded through prophetic history; chapters 4 to 6 cover the faith’s sources, doctrines, and rituals; and chapters 7 to 9 focus upon the singular issue of jihad, its meaning and applications as “war” within the teachings of Islam and in wider history. The final chapter acts as a simple summary and exhortation to learn more through recommended Qur’an translations and other materials. The introduction discusses Islam’s two primary sources, the Qur’an and the Sunnah, along with the overall purpose and preview of the book’s contents. This is followed, in chapter 2, by a systematic comparative summary of such major pre-Islamic events as creation and God’s revelation through His prophets. Here, the author compares and contrasts Islamic, Christian, and Jewish accounts, including such non-Biblical sources as the pseudepigraphal and the apocryphal writings. The third (and longest) chapter, covering roughly a third of the book, introduces Prophet Muhammad, his life and call to prophecy through to the Makkan and the Madinan periods, and ends with his death. Dirks tries to locate Muhammad’s coming within the Jewish and Christian scriptures and tries to focus on issues that a western reader might be biased against, such as the Prophet’s multiple marriages and the treatment of Madinah’s Jewish tribes. He acknowledges more than once the inadequacy of covering Muhammad’s life in such a brief chapter, and therefore refers interested readers to more complete biographical accounts ...